I'm going to keep this succinct and to the point, because it's not complicated at all. But the necessity of the Obama administration understanding this reality is essential to the future standing of the U.S. in the world.
Members of the Bush administration will be prosecuted for war crimes. The only question is if this will happen in the United States, in another country, or as part of an international inquiry.
That's the conclusion of both John Dean and Jonathan Turley, in separate appearance tonight on MSNBC. And their declaration is a shot across the bow of an Obama administration that has shown dangerous signs of waffling on this extraordinarily crucial issue.
John Dean, tonight on Countdown:
You have 155 countries, of which the United States is one, that are party to the Convention against Torture. There's a moral obligation on all those countries to investigate torture when it occurs. This is universal jurisdiction. Torture is considered right up there with genocide. And so if the United States passes on their moral obligation to investigate this, other countries are likely to step in and this will be a huge embarrassment for the Obama administration.
[...]
This is a terrible international incident waiting to happen. There are a number of prosecutors who have already made hints in foreign countries that they're not going to let this drop. So if the United States does drop it, we're going to be confronted with a real incident.
Next up was constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley on the the Rachel Maddow Show:
[The Obama administration] is insane to try to dodge this issue. Because if we don't investigate this administration for war crimes and criminality, particularly war crimes, someone else might. The fact is the rest of the world sees these as war crimes. How are these people going to travel? What happens when all these Bush officials go off to Paris with their spouses? A lot of the world views them not as tourists, but as war criminals. It would be much better for us to handle this issue than suffer the indignity of having other nations hold accountable are own leaders.
While I feel a little more hopeful tonight that members of the Bush Administration will finally be held accountable for their war crimes, I'm still fearful that Barack Obama will allow himself (and our entire nation) to be permanently stained by an unwillingness to act and act soon.
And what will happen to members of the Democratic congressional leadership who were complicit in the crimes of Bushco? I don't know. But if you have any doubt that Democratic leaders are implicated (or even if you don't) this Glenn Greenwald post is an absolutely, positively, must read.