A Different Perspective

As Will Samson put it, it is time for George Bush to apologize. The administration, if not Bush himself, misled the American people about Iraq. But the greater question for me, did Bush know about the torture at gitmo and elsewhere?

If he did, I will be satisfied with nothing less than impeachment. That sounds strong, but what this military has done (whether the president knew or not) is to put Americans, both civilian and military, in extreme danger. We’re using the same logic Vietnam did for not applying the rules of the Geneva convention. If our soldiers were treated the way individuals (not all from countries we have declared war against) have been treated (read tortured, now admitted by the US since the U.N. was bound to find out the truth soon), we would be outraged and pressing for war against the offending country.

These atrocities have belittled a nation which came to the rescue of the world in two world wars. The land of the free is now the land of the powerful. The most powerful nation of the world has been corrupted by that power. When finally attacked on our own soil (an atrocious act against us, I know), we respond by abusing the powerful position we have even more. While I would never condone the actions of 9/11, they were taken out in part because the U.S. has abused its powerful standing in the world. We finally wake up to the fact that many in the world now hate us, and the wake up call has led us down a path where they hate us more.

If Bush knew about the torture as well as misled us right into Iraq, an apology is definitely deserved. But this goes way beyond lying about an intern. If he knew, this is an offense which should not only lead to impeachment, the vote for impeachment should end in removal from office.

If you really think this is too harsh, you need a personal check of your values. Remember my “if” is if he knew about torture, and if he knowingly misled the citizens leading us to war. If those two, or perhaps either of those two are true, he is guilty of much greater crimes than his predecessor.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 29th, 2005 at 10:12 am and is filed under Life, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.