Dave Lindorff: For His Treatment of Children in the 'War on Terror,' Bush is a War Criminal

[babylonsister]

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/14779

For His Treatment of Children in the 'War on Terror,' Bush is a War Criminal
by Dave Lindorff | May 22, 2008


Surely nothing that President Bush has done in his two wretched terms of office--not the invasion and destruction of Iraq, not the overturning of the five-centuries-old tradition of habeas corpus, not his authorization and encouragement of torture, not his campaign of domestic spying--nothing, can compare in its ugliness as his approval, as commander in chief, of the imprisoning of over 2500 children.

According to the US government's own figures, that is how many kids 17 years and younger have been held since 2001 as "enemy combatants"--often for over a year, and sometimes for over five years. At least eight of those children, some reportedly as young as 10, were held at Guantanamo. They even had a special camp for them there: Camp Iguana. One of those kids committed suicide at the age of 21, after spending five years in confinement at Guantanamo. (Ironically and tragically, that particular victim of the president's criminal policy, had been determined by the Pentagon to have been innocent only two weeks before he took his own life, but nobody bothered to tell him he was slated for release and a return home to Afghanistan.)

I say Bush's behavior is criminal because since 1949, under the Geneva Conventions signed and adopted by the US, and incorporated into US law under the Constitution's supremacy clause, children under the age of 15 are classed as "protected persons," and even if captured while fighting against US forces are to be considered victims, not POWs. In 2002, the Bush administration signed an updated version of that treaty, raising the "protected person" age to all those "under 18."

Treaties don't mean much to this president, to the vice president, or to the rest of the administration, but they should mean something to the rest of us.

snip//

For these crimes, the president should today be impeached by the Congress and then tried as a war criminal.

After watching this Congress cower from its responsibility to defend the Constitution, I have little hope of that happening. But I do harbor the hope that once Bush has left office, some prosecutor in another country--perhaps Spain, or Canada or Germany--will use the doctrine of universal jurisdiction to indict him for war crimes, and, should he leave the country for some lucrative speaking engagement, arrest him, the way former dictator Augusto Pinochet was arrested by a Spanish prosecutor on a visit to the UK.

For his abuse, imprisonment and killing of children, this president should stand trial for war crimes.

[Senator]

1. Failure To Impeach For These Crimes Is "Electing" McCain (bushcheneyism)

Impeachment is the only thing that sufficiently taps into the historic Anti-Bushcheney sentiment of the public. It's the only thing that provides the "optics" of the Dems as a clear alternative -- as capable of acting, instead of dithering.

And sorry "race fans," if Hillabama were going to make it "unstealable" in November, we'd be seeing it already in polls. It's not there and it's not coming.

Without impeachment, McCain's euphemedia free-ride and even a minimal level election theft will continue the bushcheney regime.

Yes, I said continue. Make no mistake, any and all Reps remain under the thumb of cheney(ism/ists) -- he don't need no stinking "I'm The Veep" badge -- his power is very real, in the real world, among the Republican locksteppers.

Only impeachment has the potential to end this nightmare and reunite our once-great nation.

The sooner the better. Get on with it.

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