Opening Argument – Our Leaders Are Not War Criminals
by Stuart Taylor, Jr
Almost 60 House liberals, along with prominent lawyers, journalists, and retired officials and military officers, are lobbing an inflammatory charge–"war crimes"–toward a large number of the Bush administration’s most senior current and former officials and lawyers. These critics accuse them of approving torture and other illegal interrogation methods.
We are likely to hear a growing clamor for appointment of a special prosecutor, presumably by the next administration. And human-rights activists are already suggesting that their friends abroad should snatch and prosecute any former members of what they call the Bush "torture team" who dare visit Europe.
These critics are right to denounce waterboarding and some other interrogation methods that were approved at the administration’s highest levels as abusive, deeply damaging to the nation’s traditions and international standing, arguably torture, and profoundly unwise. Critics also make a strong case that under the Supreme Court’s broad interpretation of the Geneva Conventions two years ago in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the harsher methods violated international law.
But the critics are deeply misguided to call for criminal investigations of people who did their best to protect the country in dire times. The process would ruin lives and tear the country apart. And there is no evidence that any high-level official or lawyer acted with criminal intent.