This Just In from the Senate: President Bush is a War Criminal

One might have thought that the Senate Armed Services Committee's Report on Detainee Abuse, signed by Chairman Carl Levin and Ranking Member John S. McCain, might have gotten a little more play in the national media than was actually the case.Naturally, if one might have thought this, it is because one has not been paying attention to the puerile and cowardly approach of Big Media to Our Own Private Nuremberg. The Report, which included the results of examining hundreds of thousands of documents, including autopsy reports on numerous detainee deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan which were "suspicious," to say the least (such as routine findings that healthy young men died repeatedly of "heart attacks" while in custody), was more or less ignored in favor of the riveting details of the antics and hijinks of Rod Blagoevich, the clownish governor of Illinois who tried to sell Barack Obama's Senate seat.  The Senate Report rejected, once and for all, the ridiculous notion that a systematic program of torture and mistreatment, all in violation of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, was the work of a "few bad apples" operating roguishly and independently at Abu Ghraib.

From the Report:  

Presidential Order Opens the Door to Considering Aggressive Techniques (U)

(U) On February 7, 2002, President Bush signed a memorandum stating that the Third Geneva Convention did not apply to the conflict with al Qaeda and concluding that Taliban detainees were not entitled to prisoner of war status or the legal protections afforded by the Third Geneva Convention. The President’s order closed off application of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which would have afforded minimum standards for humane treatment, to al Qaeda or Taliban detainees. While the President’s order stated that, as “a matter of policy, the United States Armed Forces shall continue to treat detainees humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of the Geneva Conventions,” the decision to replace well established military doctrine, i.e., legal compliance with the Geneva Conventions, with a policy subject to interpretation, impacted the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. 

Demonstrating that if not great minds, then at least cynical minds think alike, I note that Paul Abrams, writing today on the Huffington Post, opines that President Bush will resign on January 19, 2009, in favor of Dick Cheney, who will then pardon Bush and everyone else he can think of so they can guaran-damn-tee that the retroactive immunities laced throughout the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 and the Military Commissions Act of 2006 will not be their only line of defense against a hyper-zealous Democratic Administration & Congress.  Not that there is much chance of that.  Congress has so many other pinatas to swing at: the aformentioned tousle-haired governor, the Big 3 auto execs and their private jets - hell, who knows, maybe they can summon another panel of disgraced baseball players caught using human growth hormone.  Who's got time for war crimes?

So take it easy, W.  You won't have to dodge any shoes back home.  What's a little torture among friends?  Sure, technically a conspiracy to commit torture in violation of Common Article 3 which causes death is a capital offense, and every last element of a prima facie case has now been established by the Senate Report. But first someone would have to read it, report on it, and mention it in the news.  And that isn't going to happen, not here. W can go back to his Dallas mansion unworried and undistressed, a pleasure denied Hitler, who probably dreamed of those golden days atop Berchtesgaden in the dark days of the bunker.  But we "won" in Iraq, and to the victor go the spoils.