Payback time looms for George Bush and his gang

The former president and his henchmen Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld could soon find themselves in the dock

LAST UPDATED 2:37 PM, FEBRUARY 27, 2009

From dismissal only a few months ago by leading Democrats in Washington as unthinkable, it now seems possible that senior officials in the Bush administration - maybe even at least one of the top two - will be the target of public war crime hearings and even criminal prosecutions, here in the United States.

Overseas is already dangerous terrain. George W Bush's first defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, fled Paris a couple of years ago to avoid honouring a subpoena from French investigators, replicating a similarly hasty exit from the French jurisdiction by former secretary of state Henry Kissinger.

For almost the entire four years of Bush's second term, one of the main campaigns of the left was to pressure the Democratic leadership to support impeachment proceedings against the Republican president and vice-president.

Officials of an outlaw regime would be in the dock for trashing the US constitution Top Democrats such as House majority leader Nancy Pelosi nixed the idea. But following regime change in Washington in January, prosecution of officials such as Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, and attorney general Alberto Gonzales, for instituting, supervising or condoning specific war crimes, is now far more plausible with them out of power.

Last Wednesday, February 25, Pelosi was asked by MSNBC's Rachel Maddow what her reaction would be to any charges levelled at the Republicans who've now retreated to private life and are writing their memoirs.

Maddow: "If the US Justice Department's inspector general report that comes out this summer suggests that there has been criminal activity at the official level on issues like torture, or wireless wiretapping, or rendition, or any of these other issues..."

Pelosi: "No one is above the law. I think I have said that."

In active English, Pelosi's pious phraseology about no one being "above the law" translates into something like: "These guys are out of power and their popularity ratings are in the toilet so it's safe to turn the dogs on them."

A handwritten note from Rumsfeld (centre), instructing troops to use stress techniques was discovered at Abu Ghraib

And since Pelosi controls the assignment of hearings to relevant committees in the House, this means that she could give the green light to House Justice Committee chairman John Conyers to organise hearings. Equipped with a fierce director and subpoena power - that is, the ability to compel testimony and documents under the threat of criminal sanction - such hearings could form the first of what the left regards as necessary show trials.

Officials of an outlaw regime would be in the dock for trashing the US constitution and international law regarding treatment of 'enemy combatants' and torture of captives either directly by US personnel or indirectly by kidnapping those suspected of terrorism and handing them over to allies to be tortured in prisons in Egypt or Thailand or eastern Europe.

There is already a significant trail of evidence that links torture

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If it happens. This wasn't a departure for the US, just an extension of what had gone before; Vietnam was stuffed full of war crimes sactioned by the administration, Central American death squads have been funded and armed by the US for decades. When you are that self righteous and with 'god on your side' the normal codes of behaviour don't apply. Obama won't be much different, he is an American after all, and that comes before right and wrong, left and right, and the Geneva Convention, which only applies to other states without US muscle. Pardon my cynicism, but America coming clean and prosecuting nazis like Rumsfeld-Strangelove just ain't going to happen.

Posted by foolonthehill at 12:19pm on February 27, 2009

I am in full agreement with Peter Simmons, only with one exception: The Geneva convention also does not apply to Israel, America's cub. Bob Visser

Posted by Bob Visser at 1:58pm on February 27, 2009

OLD SAYING: "Show me a man who tries to please everyone and I will show you a failure." I think President Obama will turn out to be such a man. Change? What`s changed? It will take more guts and gumption to turn America around,rhetoric alone doesn`t last. The feeling of Injustice and Oppression does. What he needs to do is to right the wrongs done to the country and the rest of the world these last eight years and also realize that criticisms can come from well meaning friends of America, not just enemies.

Posted by yeti@gofree.indigo.ie at 4:41pm on February 27, 2009

Fat Chance Alexander...remember the Boston Tea Party...where we threw your collars into the harbor? Same with the ObamaNations...He is rushing to push his corruptions through because America is ready to make his party the true Castrati that they are. July 4th, Independence Day is ON! you chuckhole!!

Posted by father moray at 9:12pm on February 27, 2009

This is not going to happen, into Bush's second term I sent an E-mail to Diane Feinstein asking that they recall Bush, only to be told "this was not the time", I was wondering if they were all waiting for his term to end, I think all Democrats were afraid to do anything (even to say NO) to the Republican Bush. Lots of the Americans just could not stand what the man was doing to America, he certainly made it a third world country.

Posted by Elizabeth at 10:04pm on February 27, 2009

Subject: Definition of Torture.... Texas Style T. B. Bechtel, a part-time City Councilman from Midland, TX was asked on a local live radio talk show, just what he thought of the allegations of torture of Iraqi war prisoners. His reply prompted his ejection from the studio, but to a thunderous applause from the audience. HIS STATEMENT: 'If hooking up an Iraqi prisoner's nuts to a car's battery cables will save just one Texan's life, then I have just three things to say:' 'Red is positive, Black is negative, and Make sure his nuts are wet.'

Posted by ROBERT MARTIN at 3:09am on February 28, 2009

Oh come on! We all know that hell will freeze over before any of these thugs is brought to justice. They always get away with it, after all they're politicians and we all know that laws and morality don't apply to them. There's an old saying which runs something to the effect that if a man murders someone he will be sentenced to life imprisonment. If a man murders fifteen people he will be locked up for life in a mental asylum. If a man murders a million people he will be invited to a peace conference. And if he behaves himself for a few years he will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He's obviously a politician.

Posted by John Millar at 9:29am on February 28, 2009

There is nothing to prevent the world's civilised countries trying these crooks in absentia. It's then just a waiting game for the day that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld etc pop up in a jurisdiction in which they can be arrested. After all, it was scum like Rumsfeld who pioneered "rendering", so he can't complain when it's done to him in person. And if the US Authorities refuse to permit the rendition, the US Ambassador is kicked-out along with all his staff. The world is tired of these Nazis, and they're going to find evading justice gets harder with every passing day.

Posted by neil mcgowan at 5:20am on March 1, 2009

"Posted by jan taki at 4:41pm on February 27, 2009 Fat Chance Alexander...remember the Boston Tea Party...where we threw your collars into the harbor? Same with the ObamaNations...He is rushing to push his corruptions through because America is ready to make his party the true Castrati that they are. July 4th, Independence Day is ON! you chuckhole!!" Of course, we linguists immediately recognize the conservative outpourings of a narrow mind. This man is clearly a Republican who voted for Bush. Note his use of genital imagery!

Posted by Faith Blackwood at 1:08am on March 4, 2009