Bush in the Dock?

Peter Harvey's  Lavengro blog pointed me to this New York Times spoof. The "original" can be found here.

 One of the articles  is headed " Court Indicts Bush on High Treason Charge.  Clicking on  that headline takes you to a  piece written by Bart Garzon.
 Garzon writes,

“In this case, high treason has been interpreted to include pursuing an illegal and devastating war that has cost hundreds of billions of dollars and the lives of over 4,000 Americans and perhaps a million Iraqis, for essentially insane ends,” said Vincent Bugliosi, a former federal prosecutor....... . “In effect, the Iraq War amounted to a war against America,” added Bugliosi, who is also the author of the book, The Prosecution of George Bush for Murder."

And then

A friend of Mr. Bush, speaking on condition of anonymity, revealed that Mr. Bush would attempt to move the case to the International Criminal Court, which does not have a death penalty, and was quietly pressing Secretary of State Naomi Klein to bring the U.S. under the court’s jurisdiction. In 2002, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld rejected the I.C.C.’s jurisdiction, saying it was “unaccountable to the American people.”

All quite amusing, but Bush and the other war mongers may be facing  more serious charges.

When the case of Hamdan v Rumsfeld eventually found its way to the  US Supreme Court the judgement contained, what may turn out for Bush and his colleagues, a slow burning fuse.

The US Supreme Court Blog, Scotusblog contains this comment  by Marty Lederman.

"Even more importantly for present purposes, the Court held that Common Article 3 of Geneva applies as a matter of treaty obligation to the conflict against Al Qaeda. That is the HUGE part of today’s ruling......... This basically resolves the debate about interrogation techniques, because Common Article 3 provides that detained persons “shall in all circumstances be treated humanely,” and that “[t]o this end,” certain specified acts “are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever”—including “cruel treatment and torture,” and “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.”

And as Lederman concludes.

"This almost certainly means that the CIA’s interrogation regime is unlawful, and indeed, that many techniques the Administration has been using, such as waterboarding and hypothermia (and others) violate the War Crimes Act (because violations of Common Article 3 are deemed war crimes)."

And in more forceful language, Dave Lindorff in Counterpoint.

 "In other words, the whole top administration, from Commander in Chief George W. Bush on down, is guilty of war crimes. The punishment for committing war crimes ranges from a lengthy jail sentence to, in the event the crimes in question caused the death of any prisoners being held, to death. And there have been many deaths among those who have been held and tortured on orders of the administration-most recently the three suicides at Guantanamo, which included on man who had only three days earlier been targeted for release (but who never learned this because government's secrecy and tight security prevented his attorneys at the Center for Constitutional Rights from getting the news to him)."

 Whilst Bush and his cronies still hold the levers of power in Washington, nothing will happen. After January 20th 2009 all bets are off.

Comments

[Peter Harvey]

Tony,

Thanks for the mention.

I believe that waging war against the United States is the only definition of high treason in the American Constitution, which may be why Garzon's article is written the way it is.

Blair should have been impeached, but the Labour Party -- for all its posturing members -- didn't have the guts to act against him.

[Peter Harvey]

Who's that in the picture between Cheney and Rumsfeld?

[Tony]

Peter,
Former US Attorney General, John Ashcroft.
t