Bush Confesses to Crimes Against Humanity: “I’d Do It Again”
In a recent speech to the Economic Club of Grand Rapids, Michigan, former President George W. Bush confessed to ordering the torture of a suspect in the 9/11 attacks.
“Yeah, we water-boarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,” Bush said of the man to whom The Grand Rapids Press referred as the terrorist who master-minded the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. Bush went on to say that the event shaped his presidency and convinced him that the nation was in a war against terror.
To contradict Mr. Bush, his Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neil said in the book The Price of Loyalty that the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were planned from the first National Security Council meeting after the inauguration, obviously months before 9/11.
Ron Suskind, a Wall Street Journal reporter and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, wrote The Price of Liberty, a book about Mr. O’Neil’s time with the Bush administration.
If Mr. O’Neil is telling the truth, then Mr. Bush committed crimes against humanity by using the 9/11 attacks as a pretext for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
During these invasions and subsequent occupations, millions of people have been killed, wounded and left homeless. The infrastructure of both countries has been destroyed, and they have been contaminated by depleted uranium weapons. Tens of thousand of young Americans have been killed and wounded, both physically and psychologically.
Mr. Bush seems especially proud of his invasion of Iraq, a country that he must have known had nothing to do with 9/11 and had not harmed the United States in any way. Neither country presented even the most remote threat to the United States.
I quote from The Grand Rapids Press: “ ’Getting rid of Saddam Hussein was the right thing to do and the world is a better place without him,’ Bush said.”
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, according to CIA admission, was water-boarded a total of 181 times. That’s 181 individual instances of torture before he supposedly “confessed.” I trust that we all understand that a confession obtained by torture is not a confession but a succumbing to unbearable persecution.
I have to give it to the Sheikh though, he’s pretty tough. I’m not sure I could hold on through 181 water-boarding sessions. I doubt if Mr. Bush could, either. I’ll wager that with a bucket of water and a couple of minutes a professional torturer – excuse me I mean interrogator – could make Mr. Bush confess to the 9/11 attacks.
But the invasions resulted in far more torture than Khalid Mohammed experienced. For example, the prisoners held at Abu Ghraib experienced torture, rape, sodomy, and homicide. These acts were committed by American units and US government agencies. I further point out that many of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib were children, but the rest of that story is so vile, wicked, and disgusting that it is not appropriate for these pages.
So there you have it: A former President of the United States of America is proud of his authorizing torture and of his invasions of sovereign nations resulting in millions of deaths.
What does all this mean for us?
It means that we, the American people, are complicit in this man’s war crimes and crimes against humanity.
It means that the President is now above the law and totally unaccountable for anything.
His right to reign is similar to King John’s claim to rule by divine right. In fact, Mr. Bush clothes his actions in the Christian faith and uses it as absolution for what he did. I quote again from The Grand Rapids Press, “Bush underlined the role religion played in his life in the White House, saying prayer gave him strength to go forward. ‘I prayed a lot. I really did. I prayed before every major speech. I prayed before debates. It was a very important experience.’ “
So God told him to do it. He must know a God quite different from the one I know.
What does it feel like to wait in the night for your torturers to come? I don’t know, but Khalid Sheikh Mohammed does, and so do the children of Abu Ghraib.
– Darrell Castle
