Imagine a headline, "Former U.S. President to be Tried for Crimes Against Humanity." It's time to take the idea seriously, and try to get the country to expect it.
There's nothing crazy about it. Digby (
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/... ) suggests one good reason for it to happen: the obviously purposeful use of torture under this administration. Plenty of other reasons spring to mind, especially starting a war of aggression against Iraq on false pretenses.
A few years ago Christopher Hitchens wrote "The Trial of Henry Kissinger," detailing reasons Henry K. ought to be on trial in The Hague. To keep the book small, Hitchens stuck to the slam-dunk, obvious-on-the-face-of-it evidence. That may be the best approach, in view of the way Slobodan Milosivec just eluded any final judgement in this life for his war crimes. So far, I'm not aware of a comparable book about George W. Bush. (If somebody knows of one, please recommend it. Otherwise, wouldn't writing one be a better use of time for reporters in the White House press corps? It might even be good revenge for having to spend so much time listening to Scott McClellan and Ari Fliescher.)
General Pinochet, the former dictator of Chile, has spent a good bit of his old age trying to act too old and sick to be tried for war crimes. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Gonzales, and their ilk deserve their day in court while they're still young enough to take it all in.
I don't quite expect anyone to get elected president in 2008 on the platform, "If elected, I will extradite George W. Bush to the International Criminal Court." But I think it would make good political theater in 2008. By 2012 or 2016 maybe this country would seriously consider it a good idea. A lot of the world already thinks that.