September 18, 2006

The Torturer Tries to Save His Own Hide

by Paul Craig Roberts

President George Bush, betrayed by the neoconservatives whom he elevated to power and by his attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, who gave him wrong legal advice, is locked in a desperate struggle with the Republican Congress to save himself from war crimes charges at the expense of America's reputation and our soldiers' fate.

Beguiled by neoconservatives, who told him that the virtuous goals of the American empire justified any means, and misled by an incompetent attorney general, who told him that the president of the U.S. is above the law, Bush was deceived into committing war crimes under Article 3 of the Geneva Convention and the U.S. War Crimes Act of 1996. Bush is now desperately trying to save himself by having the U.S. Congress retroactively repeal both Article 3 and U.S. law.

Under the U.S. Constitution, retroactive law is without force, but desperate men will try anything.

President Bush has given no thought to the impact on America's reputation of his strident campaign to write torture into U.S. law. He has given no thought to what saving himself means for captured U.S. troops if the U.S. government guts Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.

How could he care? This is the same president who prevented the world from intervening to stop Israel's slaughter of Lebanese civilians. This is the same president who describes tens of thousands of slaughtered Iraqi and Afghan civilians as "collateral damage." What sort of war is it when civilian casualties far outnumber casualties among combatants?

http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=9710