By Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith, The Nation. Posted July 19, 2008.

Why we can't let the Bush Administration get away with its
crimes. [excerpt]
1. World peace cannot be achieved without human rights and
accountability.
According to Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, chief American prosecutor
at the Nuremberg Tribunals, "The ultimate step in avoiding periodic wars,
which are inevitable in a system of international lawlessness, is to make
statesmen responsible to law." Moving in that direction will be impossible
unless such responsibility applies to the statesmen of the world's most powerful
countries, and above all the world's sole superpower. U.S. support for the war crimes charges like
those just brought by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court
against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir will represent little more than hypocrisy
if U.S.
Presidents are not held to the same standard.
2. The rule of law is central to our democracy.
Most Americans believe that even the highest officials are bound by law. If
we send mentally-disabled juveniles to prison as adults, but let government
officials who authorize torture and launch illegal wars go scot-free, we
destroy the very basis of the rule of law.
3. We must not allow precedents to be set that promote war crimes.
Executive action unchallenged by Congress changes the way our law is
interpreted. According to Robert
Borosage, writing for Huffington Post, "If Bush's extreme assertions
of power are not challenged by the Congress, they end up not simply creating
new law, they could end up rewriting the Constitution itself."
4. We must restore the principles of democracy to our government.
The claim that the President, as commander-in-chief, can exercise the
unlimited powers of a king or dictator strikes at the very heart of our
democracy. As Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson put it, we, as citizens,
would "submit ourselves to rules only if under rules." Countries like
Chile
can attest that the restoration of democracy and the rule of law requires more
than voting a new party into office -- it requires a rejection of impunity for
the criminal acts of government officials.
5. We must forestall an imperialist resurgence.
When they are out of office, the advocates of imperial expansion and global
domination have proven brilliant at lying in wait to undermine and destroy
their opponents.
They did it to destroy the presidencies of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.
They'll do it again to an Obama Administration unless their machinations are
exposed and discredited first.
6. We must have national consensus on the real reasons for the Bush
Administration's failures.
Republicans are preparing to dominate future decades of American politics by
blaming the failure of the Iraq
war on those who "sent a signal" that the U.S. would not "stay the
course" whatever the cost. Establishing the real reasons for the failure
of the U.S. in Iraq -- the
criminal and anti-democratic character of the war -- is the necessary condition
for defeating that effort.
7. We must restore America's
damaged reputation abroad.
The world has watched as the United
States -- the self-proclaimed steward of
democracy -- has systematically broken the letter and spirit of its
Constitution, violated international treaties, and ignored basic moral tenets
of humanity. As former Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora recently pointed out
to the Senate Armed Services Committee, our nation's "policy of
cruelty" has violated our "overarching foreign policy interests and
our national security." To establish international legitimacy, we must
demonstrate that we are capable of holding our leaders to account.
8. We must lay the basis for major change in U.S. foreign policy.
Real security in the era of global warming and nuclear proliferation must be
based on international cooperation. But genuine cooperation requires that the U.S. entirely
repudiate the course of the past eight years. The American people must
understand why international cooperation rather than pursuit of global
domination is necessary to their own security. And other countries must be
convinced that we really mean it.
9. We must deter future U.S.
war crimes.
The specter of more war crimes haunts our future. Rumors continue to
circulate about an American or American-backed Israeli attack on Iran. A
recently introduced House
resolution promoted by AIPAC "demands" that the President
initiate what is effectively a blockade against Iran -- an act seen by some as
tantamount to a declaration of war. Nothing could provide a greater deterrent
to such future war crimes than establishing accountability for those of the
past.
Holding war criminals accountable will require placing the long-term
well-being of our country and the world ahead of short-term political
advantage. As Rep. Wexler put
it, "We owe it to the American people and history to pursue the
wrongdoing of this Administration whether or not it helps us politically or in
the next election. Our actions will properly define the Bush Administration in
the eyes of history and that is the true test."