Friday, April 24, 2009

The Legacy of George Bush: Invasion, Torture, Occupation

President G. W. Bush invaded a sovereign nation, deposed their leader, occupied the country and set up a puppet government of his choosing. That ought to be grounds for a trail at The Hague. Whether or not his operatives sanctioned torture seems to be a minor point. He ordered U.S. troops to violate international law on a trumped up charge. Every other abuse of power flows from this illegal fount. Every subsequent action was illegal including torture. To investigate and hunt down every decision maker might mean bringing to trial every member of the Bush administration plus half the Congress.

I understand that many people feel duped. We should. We were. And the costs of Bush’s not so merry prank are still mounting. The state of the world is dire. There are pressing issues at hand. President Obama has wisely stopped the violations of the Geneva Convention. In a spirit of transparency the Atty. General declassified files that we might learn from the mistakes of the past. Sometimes that's all we get. History shows that sometimes a president’s reach regrettably exceeds his grasp. Would we file legal action against Lincoln for suspending habeas corpus during the War of Northern Aggression, Andrew Jackson for the Trail of Tears, Kennedy for the Bay of Pigs, or Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson for Vietnam?

The prosecution of any of these previous administrations would be just. But given the current state of the world I doubt it would be an expedient use of the countries time and resources; as much as I hate to admit it.

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