Reply #43: If Bush gets away with just shoes being thrown at him, then justice has been subverted.

[caseymoz]

Prosecution of Bush et. al. is necessary to even partially repair the damage they have done to our society. If justice is avoided, then surely our government has put itself above the Constitution, and all its obligations therein.

According to the Convention Against Torture Treaty, signed by the Reagan Administration and ratified by Congress Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and many others must be tried. There is no discretion about it. No matter what Obama says, or whether his administration drags its feet and procrastinates, it has to go forward. Even if he pardons them (and if he does this he's a traitor), the US still has an obligation to refer the case to international courts.

Here are the pertinent Articles from the Convention Against Torture Treaty:

Article 2

1. Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.

2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.

3. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture. . . .

Article 4

1. Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law. The same shall apply to an attempt to commit torture and to an act by any person which constitutes complicity or participation in torture.

Article 7

1. The State Party in territory under whose jurisdiction a person alleged to have committed any offence referred to in article 4 is found, shall in the cases contemplated in article 5, if it does not extradite him, submit the case to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution.

Article 15

Each State Party shall ensure that any statement which is established to have been made as a result of torture shall not be invoked as evidence in any proceedings, except against a person accused of torture as evidence that the statement was made.

The Right Wing bloggers and even Robert Mulcasy himself have tried to deflect arguments that the Geneva Convention only applies to signatories. This has nothing to do with the Geneva Convention.

And, of course, this is only one of the many violations this administration has against it.

I don't think the Obama administration will move forward on it until its 3-4th year, and I think his administration will be spending time till then attacking the legacy of the Bush administration along with exorcising Bush appointments from the DOJ. Those are necessary preparations, but no matter what he says now, his DOJ will move forward on it.

I don't think he likes the position he has been put in. Prosecuting the faction that's out of power is onerous, and if I were him, I would want to avoid the appearance of a 3rd world regime where the faction out of power is imprisoned and tried; I mean as the first minority in the White House, it has to be on his mind, but this is a far bigger issue than the mere appearance.

And you know that the Right Wing pundits will raise as much hell as they can as it happens. I'm hoping that they will be so discredited by then that it won't matter.

I advocated before that we should mail Bush shoes. It will express outrage that should continue for the rest of Bush's life, but it won't redress the horror, the injustice nor the damage he has done.

(Thanks to http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/">Glenn Greenwald for his excellent blog as the source.)