Bush, Cheney must be held accountable for torture crimes

Of all the acts of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, none have bred such revulsion as theWhite House decision to blow off Geneva Conventions on humane treatment and approve torture of suspected terrorists as an acceptable American ethic.

Despite incoming President Barack Obama's inclination to "move on," tacit approval of torture as a war crime cannot be dismissed. Waiving off this horror and arguing against punishment would reduce U.S. moral standards to those of a barbaric Third World nation whose culture accepts government brutality as ho-hum practice.

It also would certify the delusional maxim of disgraced President Richard Nixon, who airily rationalized his crimes thus: "When the President does it, that means it is not illegal."

Since 9/11, journalists have documented U.S. mistreatment that emulated KGB Stalinist techniques—kidnapping, imprisonment in faraway jails, torture.

Now, a bipartisan U.S. Senate report pins torture squarely on the Bush-Cheney administration, saying torture "strengthened the hand of our enemies and compromised our moral authority."

The International Red Cross has declared that U.S. waterboarding is torture and could make Bush administration officials guilty of war crimes. The Red Cross said one U.S. prisoner was waterboarded as many as three times one day.

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