War Crimes Buzz Against the Bush Regime: The Noise That Must Be Amplified

by Malcolm Shore

“Perhaps the most amazing thing
to me about the belief of many that George Bush lied to the American
public in starting this war with Iraq is that the liberal columnists
who have accused him of doing this merely make this point, and then
go on to the next paragraphs in their columns. Only very rarely does
a columnist add that because of it, he should be impeached. If the charges
are true, of course, Bush should have been impeached, convicted, and
removed from office. That’s almost too self-evident to state.”

In reading the above quote, you perhaps assumed that its author was
your “run-of-the-mill radical.”   Certainly, at least, these words
were coming from a bona fide progressive. Some readers might have found
themselves thinking: “Well that’s old news. I’ve heard it all
before.”   

 
Nope.  
 
These words were, in actuality, recently expressed by a career prosecutor
who is most famous for locking Charles Manson behind bars. But now,
Vincent Bugliosi has turned his attention to a far more dangerous serial
killer, whose crimes dwarf Manson’s many times over: President George
W. Bush. And in his book that was released last month, Bugliosi-the
same person who supported John McCain’s 2000 campaign for president-minces
no words, starting with the crystal clear title: “The Prosecution
of George Bush for Murder.”  In fact, as Bugliosi quickly makes plain,
he is calling for a lot more than just impeachment.  The book does exactly
what you might suspect from the title; it outlines a case why the 43rd
President of the United States deserves to be tried for murder in an
American courtroom. The charges are based on Bush’s proven lies, told
in service of a war that has killed millions of Iraqis and thousands
of American troops.  The book is currently #17 on the New York Times
bestseller list.  
 
While Bugliosi’s uncompromising condemnation of Bush’s crimes deserves
praise, congratulating him is not the main point here.  What is most
important is that-while Bugliosi argues for trying Bush for murder
in an American court,-  his work is nonetheless part of what can accurately
be termed a national “war crimes buzz” that has grown louder over
the course of 2008.  
 
Hardly the “Usual Suspects”  
 
Indeed, this buzz has been emerging from some pretty unanticipated quarters
lately. The shock of a former prosecutor accusing the U.S. president
of war crimes perhaps pales in comparison to a retired U.S. General
doing so. An excerpt from a new report by Physicians for Human Rights-
which features accounts by former detainees about the torture they endured
and the trauma they have suffered in the aftermath- reads: “After
years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and
reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt
as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes”
The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered
the use of torture will be held to account.”  
 
The source of that statement?  Retired Major Gen. Antonio Taguba; the
man who led the Abu Ghraib investigation.  
 
Meanwhile, the FBI and the Justice Department, while certainly not willing
contributors to the chorus of voices charging the Bush Regime with war
crimes, have amplified the din nonetheless. Last month, after a Freedom
of Information Act (FOIA) request by the ACLU, the Justice Department
released its Office of the Inspector General (OIG) report on the role
of FBI agents in interrogating detainees in Afghanistan, Guantanamo
Bay, and Iraq.   According to the report, more than 200 FBI agents told
the Justice Department they had witnessed or heard about forms of torture
including sleep deprivation; extreme temperatures; prolonged short-shackling
of detainees; use of military dogs; and the twisting back of a detainee’s
thumbs.  While shocking to the conscience, this revelation was not surprising. 
What was quite surprising, however, was the news that some FBI agents
had begun compiling “war crimes files” based on the treatment of
detainees.  The report revealed that the agents were eventually instructed
to stop building these documents.  
 
The OIG report also states that, as far back as 2002, then-National-Security
Council Advisor Condoleeza Rice knew that the U.S. military was torturing
detainees.  
 
The report has made unmistakable waves since its release, in both familiar
and unexpected waters.  On June 12, the ACLU filed another Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit seeking documents mentioned in the OIG
report. Specifically, the lawsuit demands access to the war crimes files
the FBI began building, as well as documents showing the National Security
Council’s awareness and approval of interrogation techniques.  
 
“It’s time to find out what the White House knew about torture,
and what top officials did about it,” said Caroline Frederickson,
the director of the ACLU’s Washington D.C. legislative office. 
 
Major national media, too, took note of the OIG report. “Many of the
abuses the report describes have been previously disclosed,” acknowledged
New York Times reporters Eric Litchblau and Scott Shane in a May 21
article, “but it was not known that FBI agents had gone so far as
to document accusations of abuse in a “war crimes file’ at Guantanamo”
the “war crimes label’ showed just how seriously FBI agents took
the accusations.”    
 
Well, on that last point -the notion that FBI agents took allegations
of abuse against detainees “seriously”-we could say “no and
yes.” No, because clearly the FBI agents overwhelmingly did not have
moral objections to the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo, or else
they never would have allowed the torture to proceed in the first place. 
But “yes,” in the sense that the FBI clearly viewed the torture
carried out by U.S. military personnel, on orders from the highest levels
of government, as a dangerous and illegal action that could come back
to haunt its perpetrators.    
 
In an editorial the following day, the Times declared definitively that
torture carried out by the U.S. military is the institutionalized top-down
rule, not the isolated bottom-level exception. “These were not random
acts,” the editorial states. “It is clear from the Inspector General’s
report that this organized behavior by both civilian and military interrogators
followed the specific orders of top officials. The report shows what
happens when an American president, his secretary of defense, and other
top officials corrupt the American law to rationalize and authorize
the abuse, humiliation, and torture of prisoners.”    
 
The Times editorial ended by suggesting the OIG report is a prelude
to more thorough exposure in the near future of the Bush Regime’s
policies of systematic torture. “This is just the first step towards
uncovering the extent of President Bush’s disregard for the law and
Geneva Conventions,” the editorial states. 
  
While the New York Times was the most prominent newspaper to write about
the FBI’s war crimes files, it was not the only publication to do
so. For instance, in an interview with U.S. Senate candidate Rick Noriega
that appeared in the June 8 edition of the Houston Chronicle, reporter
R.G. Ratcliffe mentioned the OIG report before asking: “Would you
favor a U.S. war crimes tribunal that would investigate allegations
of torture, and prosecute violators?”   Noriega answered, “no,”
asserting that the responsibility of prosecuting military members who
commit illegal acts falls on the Department of Defense and the Justice
Department. However, what is most striking here is not Noriega’s answer,
but that Ratcliffe asked the question to begin with: this is a testament
to the fact that the notion of “war crimes” is increasingly entering
into mainstream media discussion of Bush administration policies.  .  
 
That fact was also evident a few days earlier on CNN. On May 30, Wolf
Blitzer conducted a live interview with former Bush press secretary
Scott McClellan, the author of a recent memoir charging that Bush employed
a “political propaganda campaign’ and manipulated the media in order
to rally support for attacking Iraq.  The first question addressed to
McClellan came by way of a video submission from a viewer in Arizona.
The viewer noted that, had McClellan spoken out earlier, a great many
lives could have been saved, and he wanted to know if McClellan would
be willing to testify at a war crimes tribunal. ” I don’t know if
that’s something being contemplated,” McClellan said at first, before
adding, “I understand the person’s point of view.”    
 
But that wasn’t the end of the discussion.  Blitzer persisted, asking
McClellan if he believed-knowing what he does now-that crimes were
in fact committed.  McClellan, much like the Senatorial candidate Noriega,
answered “no.”  And it probably isn’t hard to guess at least one
reason why; McClellan was undoubtedly afraid that, if he answered “yes,”
he would himself be implicated.  But, again like the Chronicle interview
with Noriega, what is more significant than McClellan’s answer is
the fact that Blitzer actually asked him that question.   
 
Whether We Already Knew is Not the Only Issue 
 
Given that major U.S. media like CNN and the New York Times have been
instrumental in disseminating Bush’s propaganda about (first) Iraq
and (now) Iran-and given how frequently they have gone mute in the
face of atrocities committed by our government-it would be easy to
greet their recent discussion of war crimes with dismissive sarcasm.
But that would be missing the point. Yes, mountains of evidence of the
Bush Regime’s criminality have been visible for the past several years,
and the major media have largely ignored them. And yes, this renders
the media’s sudden “discovery” that the administration “might”
have committed crimes as equal parts absurd and appalling.  But this
raises the question: Why, indeed, are some within the mainstream media
now talking about the Bush Regime’s policies in these terms?   What
has changed? 
 
Does this development not point to emerging and potentially-widening
cracks in the pillars of the Bush Regime’s program?   Does it not suggest
that the actions and rhetoric of those who have resisted Bush’s war
crimes for the past several years are increasingly reverberating from
the margins to the mainstream?  

On June 6, this reverberation echoed even from the halls of Congress. 
Sixty Democratic Representatives-including John Conyers, the chair
of the House Judiciary Committee, and Jerrold Nadler, chair of that
committee’s Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties subcommittee-wrote
a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey calling for a special counsel
to investigate whether the Bush administration’s torture policies
violated federal laws.  The letter made specific references to explosive
revelations of recent weeks.  
 
“Within the last month, additional information has surfaced that suggests
the fact that not only did top officials meet in the White House and
approve the use of enhanced techniques, including waterboarding of detainees,
but that President Bush was aware of, and approved the meetings taking
place,” the letter reads. “This information indicates that the Bush
administration may have significantly implemented, from the top down,
detainee interrogation policies that constitute torture or otherwise
violate the law. We believe that these serious and significant revelations
warrant an immediate investigation to determine whether actions taken
by the president, his cabinet, and other administration officials, are
in violation of the War Crimes Act, the Anti-Torture Act, and other
U.S. and international laws.”  [emphasis added] 
 
Again, statements that Bush “may have” implemented torture or that
we still need “to determine” if he and his administration committed
crimes are comically- outrageous understatements. But this does not
make it any less astonishing that 60 members of Congress are calling
for an investigation into whether their President is a war criminal. 
 
On June 9, one of those 60 Congress members-one of the very, very
few who has distinguished himself more for boldness than betrayal-stepped
forward to do what his Democratic colleagues have time and again refused
to do:  introduce articles of impeachment against George W. Bush.   That
Congress member was Dennis Kucinich, the same man who last year stepped
out alone to introduce impeachment articles against Dick Cheney.  While
many years overdue, Kucinich’s 35 articles of impeachment are quite
impressive in their comprehensiveness, addressing (among other things)
the Bush Regime’s launching of an illegal war against Iraq; its use
of propaganda to justify said war; its systematic implementation of
torture; its spying on American citizens; its “failure to plan for
the predicted disaster of Hurricane Katrina”; and its lies to the
public about Iran. 
 
And, included in these 35 articles-which were read on the floor of
the House of Representatives -were two instances in which Kucinich
accuses the president of war crimes.  
 
The first of these accusations is based on Bush’s initial launching
of an illegal war against Iraq: “The consequence of the instant and
direction of President George W. Bush in ordering an attack upon Iraq,
a sovereign nation, is in direct violation of United States Code, Title
18, Part 1, Chapter 118, Section 2441, governing the offense of war
crimes.”  
 
The second of these accusations, which condemns the U.S. military’s
deliberate targeting of Iraqi civilians, is even more strongly worded.
“This offense, together with the principle of command responsibility,”
the articles read, “places President George Bush’s conduct under
the reach of the same law and principles described as the basis for
war crimes prosecution at Nuremberg. 
 
It’s worth reading that last sentence again, and then thinking back
to the days immediately following 9/11.  What would you have said then
if somebody had told you that, seven years later, these sorts of accusations
would be leveled against the United States Commander-in-Chief, and entered-in
the process-into the permanent historical record?   
 
A Time of Unprecedented Opportunity, Necessity 
 
 So, to review: References to the war crimes of the Bush Regime have
recently surfaced in the writings of a former prosecutor; the words
of a retired U.S. General;  the pages of the New York Times and other
newspapers; the newsrooms of CNN; the files of the FBI; a report of
the Justice Department; and the halls of Congress. This scenario is
without precedent historically. While Richard Nixon and many within
his administration were obviously accused of or charged with crimes
in relation to Watergate, there was never this level of mainstream discussion
of war crimes that we see today in relation to Bush.   
 
So what is the implication here?  Should people of conscience breathe
a deep sigh of relief that powerful and influential voices in the government
and media are now (finally) raising the issue of Bush’s criminality? 
Is this a signal that our work here is done, or at least that it has
“paid off”? Quite the opposite, for at least three reasons:   
 
First, a closer listen to many of the same voices raising the issue
of Bush’s criminality indicates the inherent danger in relying on
these voices to drive the Bush Regime from office and reverse its program. 
For instance, two of the most prominent members of Congress to call
for an investigation into the Bush Regime’s torture policies-John
Conyers and Jerrold Nadler-voted three days later, along with the
majority of Democrats, to send Kucinich’s impeachment articles to
the Judiciary Committee.  This decision might sound like an advance towards
impeachment, but major media analysis has suggested the intent was just
the opposite; to block the further advance of the articles.  In fact,
sending the impeachment articles to the committee rather than debating
them on the House floor is exactly what Congress voted to do last year
when Kucinich introduced impeachment articles against Cheney; to this
day, the committee has ignored these articles.  
 
As an item on CNN.com noted, sending Kucinich’s impeachment articles
to committee “allows the Democratic leadership to freeze the measure
indefinitely.”  
 
Even worse, however, is the fact that Kucinich himself voted to send
the resolution to committee.  
 
As for the major media outlets, it certainly is a very positive and
welcome development that some are finally catching up to reality, raising
the question of the Bush Regime’s war criminality.  However, the operative
phrase “raising the question” in that last sentence is one indication
that the media will not do the job of driving out the Bush Regime for
us: by now, there is astonishingly ample evidence to state that our
president is a war criminal, not merely ask it.  Furthermore, those who
regularly watch CNN or read the New York Times know all too well that-as
it stands now- for every news item raising the question of Bush’s
crimes, these news outlets will perhaps disseminate twenty that beat
the drums for war with Iran.   
  
Secondly, the louder the war crimes buzz against Bush becomes, the greater
the likelihood that the president will try to drown out the noise by
putting forth his agenda even more loudly and forcefully. Remember what
Bill Clinton did when faced with impeachment over charges much less
serious than the crimes of the Bush Regime?  He bombed Iraq in an effort
to rally a Republican Congress around the Commander-in-Chief.  It would
seem reasonable to expect that, as war crimes accusations (or charges)
start piling up against the Bush Regime, the administration would attempt
drastic measures aimed at chilling dissent, whether an attack on Iran,
an escalation of police state tactics, or some other action. In this
scenario, whether or not the administration succeeded-either at initiating
such drastic measures, or at muting the opposition-would depend largely
on the social and political landscape in which these goals were pursued.
In short, it would depend on the level of resistance- or complicity-
in American society. 
 
I have heard some World Can’t Wait activists make the apt analogy
that the Bush Regime is like a wild animal; when cornered, it only becomes
more dangerous. From everything we have seen from this administration
in the past 8 years, the last thing we should expect Bush, Cheney, et
al to do in the face of mounting war crimes accusations is to retreat
from their agenda. And from everything we have seen from Congress and
the major media during that same time period, retreat is exactly what
we can expect from them, in the absence of a mass public demand to do
otherwise.  
 
On this point, it is very much worth considering words spoken by Elizabeth
Holtzman, who-as a member of the House Judiciary Committee in 1974-helped
draft articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon. “Watergate didn’t
start because the Congress wanted impeachment,” Holtzman said in a
2006 interview. “Left to its own devices, Congress never would have
done anything on impeachment. Left to its own devices, the press never
would have investigated, except for Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.
The rest of the press was completely unconcerned on the subject.” 
 
In a separate interview that same year, Holtzman pointed to the people
of the United States as the driving force behind the impeachment of
Nixon. “During the Nixon impeachment proceedings,” Holtzman noted,
“it was the American people who demanded Congress act. If the American
people don’t support it, it can’t happen. But if people demand it,
it can happen, it will happen, and it should happen.”  
 
What Holtzman said about impeachment is true more broadly in regards
to driving the Bush Regime from office and reversing its program.  And
this brings us to the third and final reason why the growing war crimes
buzz against the Bush Regime is not a prescription to relax: because
this would amount to relenting at a time of great opportunity.   
 
To be sure, the vibrations from this buzz have spawned fissures in the
regime’s political power. However, if the sound quiets-or remains
at the same volume it is at now-these cracks will likely be repaired
before any significant political damage is done.  If, on the other hand,
the chorus grows steadily louder, reaching deafening levels, the openings
could widen, until the Bush Regime’s reign-and its agenda-crumble
to the ground.  
 
Malcolm Shore can be reached at mshore_35@yahoo.com