Top Priority: Withdraw Troops
George W. Bush will leave the presidency in 2008, but it will take many years for the United States to recover from the disastrous results of his service.
His latest blunder was to sign an executive order to allow military commissions to begin trying suspected terrorists. According to one published report, the commissions “would be permitted to sentence defendants to imprisonment or even death on the basis of hearsay or even coerced testimony.”
That is an example of the perverted sense of justice which has been introduced by President Bush. It follows the disgraceful and unjustifiable policy of “extraordinary rendition”. That policy directs U.S. intelligence agents to enter a foreign country, kidnap suspects and then send them to a foreign country where they can be questioned and tortured.
Italy has already charged 29 U.S. agents with conducting such operations in that country. At first President Bush scoffed at reports of such a policy, but the reports have been verified in a number of cases. One can only imagine how forcefully the U.S. government would have responded if foreign agents had committed the same crimes in this country.
The practice has been justified by the administration on the grounds that kidnapping and torture are acceptable so long as they are carried out in a foreign country. In effect, moral and ethical behavior is determined not on the basis of what is done but where it is done.
The same principle has been used to justify imprisoning and abusing hundreds of defendants at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. They have been held without charges, have been subjected to physical and mental abuse, have not been allowed to have lawyers, and have not even been identified publicly for years. Only a few of the detainees have been charged and many have been freed --- after years of detention --- without being charged with any crime.
The same practices were followed for years at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and only a few low-ranking U.S. troops have ever been subjected to punishment for carrying out those practices.
Of course, the most horrific example of Bush’s dishonesty was to stage a pre-emptive attack on Iraq on the basis of calculated lies about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. The true purpose of the attack was to take control of the world’s second largest oil reserves.
Almost four years later, more than 3,000 U.S. troops have been killed and many thousand have been wounded or maimed for life. Many thousands of Iraqi civilians --- men, women and children --- have also been killed and the U.S. has provoked a civil war and a sectarian conflict that are out of control.
Now, in the words of New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, the question we must face is “whether, once the Bush administration has finally and mercifully run its course, the country goes back to being a reasonably peaceful, lawful, constructive force in the world, or whether we continue down the bullying, warlike, unilateral, irresponsible, unlawful and profoundly ineffective path laid out by Bush, Cheney & Co.”
Certainly there are grounds for impeaching President Bush. President Clinton was subjected to impeachment for personal moral shortcomings that had no major impact on most people in the U.S, or in the world.
By contrast, Bush’s actions have caused the deaths of thousands, have given new incentives to terrorists of all descriptions, have resulted in serious threats from Iran and have inflamed the turbulent Middle East.
Of course, we must remember that successfully impeaching President Bush would be difficult in a time of war. In addition, if Bush were removed, we would have to deal with President Cheney whose intentions are no better and who would pursue them with more intelligence and greater zeal.
Our only hope is that public revulsion at Bush’s policies and the new Democratic strength in Congress can result in a decision to set a date for removing U.S. troops from Iraq.
Polls show that is the policy also favored by the people of Iraq.
