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So, let me see if I have this straight…. A former President admits authorizing waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (despite declaring on numerous occasions that “AMERICA DOE NOT TORTURE!”). To make matters worse, he expresses no remorse for breaking the law. In fact, he clearly states that he would do it again…to save lives. This despite the reality and the fact that waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times has not been documented as saving a single American life. Compounding Alice-in-Wonderland quality inherent in this scenario, Mohammed stated that he deliberately and knowingly gave the CIA false information (Hey, wouldn’t you if you knew it would make the torture stop?).
As if coming to grips with the truth that Mohammed provided bad information wasn’t horrible enough, there’s also the reality that waterboarding may have actually COST American lives. This is, of course, difficult- if not next to impossible- to document authoritatively, but one Special Forces interrogator estimates that the number of Americans lives sacrificed because of the torture policy of the Bush Administration may be “close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001.”
Though I believe that Americans did (and continue to) die because of illegal torture, I’m not going to allow my argument to get bogged down in numbers. Those numbers can be debated and the truth ultimately and endlessly fogged. No, what I’m furious about is that The Worst President EVER © can blithely admit violating the law without any fear of being called to account. We now know- because the former President admitted it- that Americans used illegal torture methods because those methods were authorized by the President. A confession of that sort could reasonably be expected to cost a person an indictment and a long prison term once convicted- if not a cigarette and a blindfold…unless your name is George W. Bush. Being a neoConservative war criminal means never having to say you’re sorry.
“Yeah, we waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,” the former president told a business audience in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “I’d do it again to save lives.”
Captain Codpiece ©, without provocation, publicly confessed to a war crime. This, and other war crimes, led directly to the deaths of untold numbers of Americans. If it sounds as if I’m advocating for the trial, conviction, and execution of a former President…well, draw your own conclusions. It’s not as if there isn’t precedent for executing war criminals (Nuremberg, anyone??). If there was anything resembling justice in this world, George W. Bush would at the very least be called to account for the crime he just publicly confessed to. In this world, in which The Big Lie is treated as little more than hyperbole, accountability in a legal sense is something that no President has to worry about. If the President does it, it by definition is not illegal, right?
In reality, Bush has nothing to worry about. He knows full well that no one in the Obama Administration, from Barack Obama and Eric Holder on down, possesses the moral courage to do the right thing and put him on trial for war crimes. George Bush will live out his life as a free man…though as a committed Christian, one can only hope that there will be a reserved parking space in Hell with his name on it.
A very wise man once told me that, if you’re going to commit a crime, go big or go home. He knew that those who steal thousands go to jail once they’re caught, while those who steal billions? Well, they get book deals and a summer place in the Hamptons. In the case of George W. Bush, he gets a Facebook page and a library at Southern Methodist University with his name on it.
Congratulations, America; if you voted for George W. Bush, you have buckets of blood on your hands. While you were slapping magnetic ribbons on your SUV, your President was lying, cheating, and breaking the law (and setting the stage for the largest ecological disaster in this country’s history). As if that isn’t bad enough, his lawless, self-righteous behavior is directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans and untold numbers of innocent Iraqis…and you voted him into office- twice. Nice going, eh? You got exactly the quality of leadership you deserved. I can only hope that you didn’t have to bury a loved one because of it.
