We Must Push For Prosecution of Bush and Cheney → Washingtons Blog
We Must Push For Prosecution of Bush and Cheney - Washingtons Blog

Sunday, November 9, 2008

We Must Push For Prosecution of Bush and Cheney


I've previously argued that - now that Obama has been elected - there is no excuse not to try Bush, Cheney and the gang for war crimes committed in Iraq, war crimes committed with torture, and crimes involving spying on Americans and 9/11.

Now, even gatekeeper Daily Kos is making a similar argument. In a recommended diary, popular Daily Kos blogger buhdydharma writes:

All of the "politically pragmatic" excuses for NOT Impeaching George and the boys are now....off the table! There is now no excuse for excusing their crimes.

But...

As always when there has been some sort of trauma...and we have had eight years of so much trauma that we are all suffering a sort of PTSD, I think, there is the urge, the instinct to ...move on, to not dwell on the trauma. To put it behind us as fast as possible. But if we are to get over the PTSD, well...

Meteor Blades put it far more eloquently than I can:

.....that healing cannot occur, not wholly, unless the crimes that have brought our nation to such a ruinous condition - morally, economically and politically - are investigated thoroughly and a proper penalty imposed. Most importantly, the bent machinery that allowed, nay encouraged, those crimes must be rebuilt with safeguards so that they never occur again. That's not vengeance. It's justice. And true healing and progress cannot come about without it.

***

Healing, Justice, Repairing the past before and as we move into the future. It is not vengeance, though if anyone ever deserved retribution it is they and I am not without that impulse by a long shot, it is about doing the right thing. It is about being a people and a nation and a world that does the right thing. Retribution and revenge are not the important things here, reclamation, reparation and the Rule of Law are.

There is no doubt that they are guilty, none.

Of all of the laws, treaties, conventions and just plain moral codes they have violated, and they have violated nearly all of them, the one thing that stands out and the one thing that there is a smoking gun on is...torture.

***

Guilty. Guilty of the most heinous of crimes. Beyond doubt, beyond question. The only question that does remain is...are they beyond justice? Can WE allow them to be beyond justice?

No one else is going to do this, it is up to us, up to the bloggers to push for justice, to push against pardons, and to push for prosecution.

To do so we need to make our case. We need to make a list of their crimes, and we need to present it solidly, lucidly and undeniably, free of too much rhetoric and backed up with facts and links.

While the Daily Kos blog starts out using the word "impeachment", the author is - appropriately - pushing criminal prosecutions.

3 comments:

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  2. After the last eight years, I would love nothing more than to see Bush, Cheney and the neocons get their comeuppance. But I'm genuinely not sure it's going to happen. Their crimes are so serious, that I'm at a loss to understand why they're not already banged up. I've just posted why I think Obama might give them a free pass. But my guess is that Bush will probably join Tony Blair on the lecture circuit (who has already made £12m, which is more than six times his previous lifetime income) so that they can continue to profit from their crimes. If only Bush had gotten a blow job in the Oval Office. Now that really IS impeachable!

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