“We are all complicit in Bush’s war crimes if we ignore them”- (Jonathan Turley on the Rachel Maddow Show)
Shortly after the 9/11 tragedy, the Bush administration generated a set of classified memos justifying the use of the military to go after suspected terrorists without having to worry about the Fourth Amendment. The Obama Justice Department has released a number of these previously secret memos that support the legal basis for Bush’s unlimited abuse of power to wage war on terrorism, warrantless domestic wire tapping, torture and extraordinary rendition of terrorist suspects.
These are war crimes under U.S. Law as well as the Geneva Convention. The memos originated from the White House Office of Legal Council (OLC) and provided directives for the executive branch, justifying that the President, as Commander in Chief had the right to suspend the Constitution. Realizing their complicity in these war crimes, the Bush- OLC reversed much of the legal justification of those post-9/11 memos a few days before the termination of his administration. The Obama Justice Department intends to release more secret memos and will take possession of boxes containing e-mails pertaining to these matters.
Jonathan Turley, Constitutional Law Professor, while appearing recently on MS-NBC evening shows, essentially said that the Obama administration would “own” any war crimes if it chose to ignore them. Moreover, Professor Turley stated further that if Obama impedes investigation and prosecution related to these war crimes Obama would become an “accessory” to the crimes. In our Democracy, people have the right to know why the OLC under Bush was a “rubber stamp for some of the administration’s worst abuses of power” as Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt) calls it. Similarly, the Congress must initiate an independent investigation of the attacks of 9/11/01 to get to the bottom of what really happened and why, and introduce legislation so that these abuses will never happen again.
Bush and his administration are not above the law; if their members have committed crimes they must be investigated and prosecuted. - Democracy Prevails
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