George W. Bush Has a Rich History of Symbolic Gestures

I can't think of a better metaphor (for their unwavering feeling of self-satisfaction despite 8 years of disaster capitalism that Cheney, Inc., unleashed on America) than George W Bush, along with thousands of his fellow Texans, setting the world record for most people wearing sunglasses at night.

Every senior member of the warmongering, economy wrecking, environment poisoning "administration" that ran amok after Cheney's coronation--by the five crooked conservative justices of the Supreme Court--should be arrested and sitting in the Hague for war crimes. That their deranged, vicious mascot can sit in the dark and surround himself with more dark is testament to his will to spend every last day of his life not feeling guilty for this shit.

Anyone who has not yet apologized for their support of George W. Bush should be ashamed of themselves.  I'm sure you'll trip over something (WMD?) in that self-imposed darkness soon enough.

Torture Memos are Evidence of Conspiracy to Commit Torture

The conspiracy to commit torture, which took place at the highest levels of government in the Bush corporo-fascist regime administration, now has enough public evidence, thanks to the recently releases memos, to warrant prosecution.

But before we go down the criminal prosecution road, we should see the immediate impeachment of Judge Jay Bybee. For the legal angles of this travesty of American national security, American reputation, and American authority, I turn to Scott Horton of Harpers who writes today in The Torture Tango:

The memo-writer and the person soliciting the memo both understood perfectly that their role was to get interrogators out in the field to go ahead and use the techniques against which reservations were being expressed. They understood that, if the memos were issued, individuals would in fact be subjected to the torture techniques they were approving. They also fully understood that it was likely that individuals would be killed or would suffer lasting impairment as a result of their decision to give the greenlight. This satisfies the prerequisites for a criminal charge against the memo writer under section 2340A, conspiracy to torture. The preparation and issuance of these memoranda were criminal acts, and the relevant level of mens rea likely emerges from the dialogue surrounding their issuance.

What do you call it when you have evidence of a crime and you don't prosecute? Is that prosecutorial discretion? Or misconduct?

Justice After Bush, Prosecuting an outlaw administration

Scott Horton wrote in the December, 2008 issue of Harper's Magazine:

No prior administration has been so systematically or so brazenly lawless. Yet it is no simple matter to prosecute a former president or his senior officers. There is no precedent for such a prosecution, and even if there was, the very breadth and audacity of the administration’s activities would make the process so complex as to defy systems of justice far less fragmented than our own. But that only means choices must be made. Indeed, in weighing the enormity of the administration’s transgressions against the realistic prospect of justice, it is possible to determine not only the crime that calls most clearly for prosecution but also the crime that is most likely to be successfully prosecuted. In both cases, that crime is torture.

Anyone who thinks I'm some nutcase for wanting to prosecute the entire Bush "administration" for war crimes should read what Scott Horton has to say. I dare any wing nut Republican to argue any of it.

Who is Scott Horton?

A New York attorney known for his work in emerging markets and international law, especially human rights law and the law of armed conflict, Horton lectures at Columbia Law School. A life-long human rights advocate, Scott served as counsel to Andrei Sakharov and Elena Bonner, among other activists in the former Soviet Union. He is a co-founder of the American University in Central Asia, and has been involved in some of the most significant foreign investment projects in the Central Eurasian region. Scott recently led a number of studies of abuse issues associated with the conduct of the war on terror for the New York City Bar Association, where he has chaired several committees, including, most recently, the Committee on International Law. He is also a member of the board of the National Institute of Military Justice, the Andrei Sakharov Foundation, the EurasiaGroup and the American Branch of the International Law Association.

Step on up, wing nuts.