Cheney Dares Obama to Prosecute Him for War Crimes

Last week the Senate Armed Services Committee issued a report, a bi-partisan report signed by Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), finding Donald Rumsfeld and other Bush officials responsible for implementing procedures in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib that permitted torture and humiliating treatment of prisoners.

It wasn't just a few rotten apples. It was a rotten administration.

Now Dick Cheney has publicly confessed on ABC News to having participated in the decision to violate domestic and international law; essentially he has admitted to war crimes.

Asked about waterboarding in an ABC News interview, Cheney replied, "I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared." He further emphasized his point by saying he still believes waterboarding was an appropriate method to use on terrorism suspects.

CIA Director Michael Hayden confirmed that the agency waterboarded three al-Qaeda suspects in 2002 and 2003.

Finally the New York Times in a December 17th editorial calls for prosecution of those Bush officials responsible for authorizing and justifying the use of torture.

"A prosecutor should be appointed to consider criminal charges against top officials at the Pentagon and others involved in planning the abuse," the Times advocated.

The credibility of the United States is at stake here. Cheney might have been so arrogant in his interview, believing that he would be preemptively pardoned by Bush on the evening of January 19th. Read Marjorie Cohn, a Constitutional Law professor, expert in international human rights, and current President of the National Lawyers Guild, in a new piece posted on truthout.org today:

"First, a president cannot immunize himself or his subordinates for committing crimes that he himself authorized. On February 7, 2002, Bush signed a memo erroneously stating that the Geneva Conventions, which require humane treatment, did not apply to al-Qaeda and the Taliban. But the Supreme Court made clear that Geneva protects all prisoners. Bush also admitted that he approved of high-level meetings where waterboarding was authorized by Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, John Ashcroft, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld and George Tenet."

Ms. Cohn goes on to remind Obama that he is about to take an oath to faithfully execute the laws of the country, and guess what, getting government lawyers to create a rationalization for the use of torture, authorizing torture, and then implementing it is violative of Geneva Conventions as well as domestic law. The US Supreme Court has already rebuked the president's disregard for the constitution and international treaties in every case about the "war on terror" that has come before it.

We can't use the excuse that this will demoralize the men and women selflessly serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. The only people who have been punished so far are the foot soldiers, certainly the least culpable. Won't it be more important to the morale of American troops to know that their asses are covered?

Now, Mr. Obama, it's time to reconstitute the country's reputation and show the world what it means to abide by the rule of law.