(no subject)
This will remain in my profile (User Info) until Former President George W. Bush is indicted and held accountable for the crimes he and his administration have committed. If you don't believe me, here's a quote from Scott Horton in Harper's Magazine which is now receiving a large amount of publicity.
We may not have realized it at the time, but in the period from late 2001-January 19, 2009, this country was a dictatorship. The constitutional rights we learned about in high school civics were suspended. That was thanks to secret memos crafted deep inside the Justice Department that effectively trashed the Constitution. What we know now is likely the least of it.
Here's the original Harper's Magazine Article in which that now-widely circulated quote originally appeared. http://harpers.org/archive/2009/03/hbc-90004488
And a few more links for good measure:
Clip from The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC (I'm sorry, but I've yet to find Keith Olberman's Countdown interview with Scott Horton from yesterday.):
http://vodpod.com/watch/1407906-from-late-2001-january-19-2009-this-country-was-a-dictatorship-
Political blog discussing Bush's Dictatorship:
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2009/03/law-professor-we-may-not-have-realized.html
Finally, consider this: When other dictatorships tortured and waged illegal wars in the past, we prosecuted those involved. After World War II, we executed former Nazi soldiers for waterboarding--the same waterboarding we've used in the war in Iraq. We executed Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity while subsequently committing the same crimes ourselves, and not just against would-be terrorists and ordinary Iraqi citizens, but against our own citizens, at least to the extent that we basically had "laws" in place to allow us to ignore our own constitution.
If the Hitler/World War II analogy is too extreme for you, than consider this one: Richard Nixon operated under the belief that "when the President breaks the law, it's not illegal." Well once the American people found out what Nixon was doing, he resigned in fear of impeachment and imprisonment which would have certainly followed. (In fact, I actually have a political science book that references "Nixon's Impeachment," because it originally went to press before Nixon ever resigned and nobody bothered to correct that mistake.) While we can no longer impeach Bush, we can still indict him, if he fails to show up for court, we can hold him in contempt for the duration of his trial.
Whether or not President Obama wants to investigate the Bush administration, and whether or not President Obama wants to indict Former President George W. Bush, his administration is obligated to do so if the country demands such an investigation, if not legally, then ethically on the grounds of holding the highest office of public trust in the nation.
We need to indict Former President Bush now, we need to do so while the past eight years are still fresh in our minds, and we need to do so if only to symbolically restore the justice that the Bush administration seized from us, along with our freedoms. Read the links I've posted, do your own research, the Bush Administration tortured, lied, and spied, and it needs to be held accountable for those crimes. Even some Republicans are beginning to realize just how corrupt the Bush Administration actually was--this isn't a matter of partisan politics anymore, it's a matter of our freedoms being taken away and our country being run like a totalitarian dictatorship. Anyone with half a brain can see that there is more than enough evidence to convict Former President Bush of crimes against humanity, and it's time that Mr. Bush is made to answer for those crimes in court.