Life After Torture: Righteousness Can Still Overcome Evil to Achieve Justice for Bush Crimes

By Ray McGovern, AlterNet. Posted April 12, 2009.

“Is this a great country, or what?” you may be saying to yourself.  But wait; laws can be amended, changed; new laws can be passed. The stay-out-of-jail pass that was given to the perpetrators of accumulated evil can bear an expiration date.  Despite the best efforts of crafty lawyers and loyal legislators, perpetual immunity is probably not in the cards.

Still Feeling the Heat

On December 11, 2008, after a two-year investigation, Sen. John McCain and Sen. Carl Levin released the summary of a Senate Armed Services Committee report, issued without dissent, demonstrating that Bush’s Executive Order of February 7, 2002 had “opened the way to considering aggressive techniques” that were then ordered implemented by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Coming soon: the full text, which, even with heavy redactions, will provide ample grist for courses in criminal law for years to come.

More damning still is an authoritative report by the International Committee of the Red Cross -- the body legally responsible for monitoring compliance with the Geneva Conventions and supervising the treatment of prisoners of war -- that was given initially to CIA acting general counsel John Rizzo in February 2007 but not published in full until this past Monday. That report describes in gory detail the torture techniques let loose by Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/ and their Mafia-style attorneys for use on so-called “high-value” detainees. Google that report too, if you have the stomach for it and can bear the shame. 

George W. Bush had better have a swimming pool in his new Texas digs, because that report puts the final nail in the coffin, so to speak, of any plans he may have had for foreign travel. If he steps onto an international flight, he is likely to have more to duck than shoes, wherever he lands.

Even if the administration of Barack Obama continues to shirk its duty to appoint a nonpartisan, independent prosecutor to launch an appropriate investigation, the former president and his accomplices cannot risk the possibility of being apprehended abroad, brought to The Hague, and tried for war crimes.

I am not making this up. Remember how former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had to sneak out of France in October 2007, reluctant to wait for a Paris prosecutor to decide how to handle a criminal complaint against him for approving torture?

Hope

Rev. Lowery’s Easter sermon to the gathering alongside Prairie Chapel Road just three years ago rings ever more true:

“Don’t tell me Easter’s not real! Don’t tell me righteousness will not overcome evil! Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. That’s the message of Easter.”

Let the church say Amen.

The original version of this article appeared on Consortiumnews.com.

See more stories tagged with: texas, torture, dick cheney, barack obama, george w. bush, donald rumsfeld, camp david, cindy sheehan, crawford, easter, joseph lowery, geneva convensions

Ray McGovern served as an Army intelligence officer and a CIA analyst for almost 30 years. He believes anthropologist Margaret Meade had it exactly right (and that the Crawford Peace House did well to adopt her dictum): “Never doubt the power of a small group of committed individuals to change the world. It is the only thing that ever has.”

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