The use of torture: Will the tables be turned on President Bush?

In light of the recent Justice Dept. memos that have been leaked to the NY Times regarding fostering the use of torture by this Administration, we have indeed reached a new low for this already low Bush Administration. I reference here today's post for some background at Kikos House in a Blog post titled, "Sic Semper Tyrannis: The Blackest of the Bush Administration's Black Marks"

Just a little more than a year ago I wrote a Blog post titled, "United States Coup d'etat", as I was then outraged at the lack of courage of some principled Republican U.S. Senators who should have known better that this President and this Vice President were never to be trusted to keep their word about the use of torture, and therefore, the Senators should have pursued the legislation they had offered to ban torture.

I have copied my original post below, as it is relevant today, though written on Sept. 22, 2006 There are additional comments to read below it, which brings the issue, and the irony of the moment regarding Presidential hopefull, Hillary Clinton, front and center:

United States Coup d'etat

In the cover of daylight, the United States democracy was overthrown today by a Coup d'etat during the fog of politics and presented to the masses in the language of obfuscation and using the images of compromise. Major news networks reported not a single casualty. Some news networks such as NBC Nightly News didn't even cover the Coup, opting for a story on Phone Books of the past in London.

There was not a single protest in the streets, as the limited reporting of the event coincided with the usual Friday night homecoming of working Americans, and the distraction of relaxing with a glass of wine after a hard week.

The only sounds heard were the whimpers and sobbing of generations past, from our Founding Fathers, Veterans of all wars, and those who have died defending our democracy and preserving our freedoms. It was a bloodless Coup as life carried on with hardly a notice or care.

Whether we have violated or are violating the Geneva Convention will now be determined not by Law, but by the personal decision of President Bush, thanks to Senators McCain (a real disappointment), Warner and Graham and a silent neutered Democratic Party.

Sept. 22, 2006 Will you remember where you were this day 10 years from now? I will."

That was the day they pulled their legislation Banning the Use of Torture because they believed the President, when he assured the Senators that there was a ban on the use of torture in keeping with U.S. Laws and the Treaties we had signed, i.e. The Geneva Convention. Now we learn it depends on how they defined the word "torture". It sounds so Clintonesq! We should turn over Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Gonzales to the World Court for trail of War Crimes. But we don't have the integrity as a nation to do so. Not yet.

President Bush in May 2002 , said "we reserve the right to ignore decisions and orders issued by the International Criminal Court" when President Clinton in 1998 signed the treaty creating the Court Tribunal responsible for prosecuting war crimes and "crimes against humanity" when national criminal justice systems are unwilling or unable to act, as is the case here in the United States, and yet we use the Court to judge others when it suits our fancy, like Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia and Augusto Pinochet of Chile. It was a premediative move by President Bush, as it was done 6 months after the invasion of Afghanistan in Oct. 2001 and prior to the runup to the Iraq invasion of March 2003. As former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said on 60 Minutes in 2004, that 8 months before Sept. 11th 2001 Bush was obsessed with a war with Iraq. And so one could reasonably conclude Bush's move to recind the decision by President Bill Clinton to sign the treaty, was an action item to check off in preparation for a war in which we were going to get the bad guys.

Won't it be ironic when Hillary Clinton becomes President and rescinds President Bush's letter to the UN so that it is possible to send to trial George W. Bush and his crowd to that Court. That indeed will be a good day for America. Maybe that's why Bush sent that letter to the UN in the first place. It could effectively be argued, by a Constitutional Lawyer, that continued abuse and disregard of our Constitution and the expansion of an Executive Presidency by this President and Vice President, reaches the standard of Treason. But that’s another dream I’ll expand upon another day.

You can act now by asking Hillary if she will rescind the letter that President Bush sent to the UN and reinstating her husbands signature and add her own as President, to that treaty. Contact Hillary Clinton or your local newspaper and ask her if she will act to restore America's standing in the world by rescinding Bush's UN letter.