No justice for war criminals. No justice for Lieberman. No justice for corporate greed.
Are Obama’s critics right? Does he just talk a good game?
Indeed, how does Obama plan to regain America’s moral stature in the world if he allows the immoral to get off scott free in a world which begs for real justice after years of America’s egregious aggression and spitting in the face of international law?
Bush once famously said, “One by one the terrorists are learning the meaning of American justice.”
It doesn’t take a genius to figure what American justice means: rape, torture, imprisonment and disintegration of innocent people.
American justice, according to the Bush Doctrine, means shoot first ask questions later.
It means morality doesn’t matter.
How does President Obama regain America’s moral stature in the world if he turns his back on the blatant criminality of the Bush Administration?
Morality means choosing good over evil in behavior and attitude. Doing what is right. Bush chose to fight evil with evil. This is immoral hence America’s lost moral stature in the world.
America chose torture as a policy. Those soldiers at Abu Ghraib weren’t rogue joy-riding teens out to have a blast on Saturday night to relieve the boredom of small town provincialism; they were following orders
Bush and Cheney chose a deliberate policy to lie to the American people in order to sell a war the American people would not have chosen given the truth. They fixed the intelligence. They cooked the books. They put on fright wigs and demonic masks of fear to scare the American people into war.
Bush and Cheney deliberately misrepresented the facts – a policy of deceit and obfuscation which resulted in an illegal war of aggression killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people, let alone thousands of American troops following the orders of war criminals.
Bush and Cheney should be roasting, like chestnuts, over an open fire for their sins.
But already we are hearing the familiar refrain to put the past behind us and move forward. Sure, Obama will close Guantanamo and stop torture as policy. That’s good. But it is the least he can do.
Did we elect Barack Obama to do the least he can do? I think not.
How can America regain its moral stature in the world without justice? How do we assure history doesn’t repeat itself if we sweep history under the rug?
If we reverse policy and course because said policy and course is wrong, then why is it wrong to examine the people who made these wrong-headed policies and indeed determine if these immoral policies broke the rule of law and to bring these people to justice?
Because it’s political? And Obama is a reconciliationist? Because we want to make nice with Republicans?
Truth, justice and morality are beyond politics. It’s America’s moral stature in the world we’re talking about. Didn’t Obama say we’ve got to look past the red and the blue and toward the United?
How can America look its own mug in the mirror, let alone the face of others, if we cannot handle the truth of our own history? If we can’t right the wrongs of our leaders guilty of high crimes against our Constitution, not to mention crimes against humanity?
It is not enough Bush is pilloried in history books read by our grandchildren. It’s not enough everyone knows the truth with a wink and a nod.
Bush and Cheney took this country down the dark path through the looking glass to hell.
Reversing executive orders and promising never to do it again is the least we can do.
But what we should do, if we are serious about regaining America’s moral stature in the world, is to bring those responsible for our loss of face, prestige and respect to justice for their very real and very true and very horrific crimes.
As the saying goes, Though the heavens may fall, let justice be done.