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Former President George Bush’s confirmation that he authorized the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” against detainees held in secret US custody serves to highlight the absence of accountability for the crimes under international law of torture and enforced disappearance committed by the US during the "war on terror."

In his memoirs and in an interview on NBC News broadcast on 8 November 2010, the former President confirmed his personal involvement in the interrogation techniques used in the CIA program when he said that he had authorized the use of “waterboarding” and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” against so-called “high-value detainees”.

Waterboarding, in which the perception of drowning is induced in the detainee, is torture – as both the current President and the US Attorney General have acknowledged. Torture is a crime under international law. Under international law, anyone involved in torture must be brought to justice. This obligation does not end with a change in government.

Under international law, the former President’s admission to having authorized acts that amount to torture are enough to trigger US obligations to investigate his admissions and if substantiated, to prosecute him. Failure to investigate and prosecute in circumstances where the requisite criteria are met is itself a violation of international law.

Dick Cheney's aide, Scooter Libby, was tried and convicted of obstruction of justice and perjury, sentenced to prison, and his sentence quickly commuted by President Bush. In the film, we see that Valerie Plame, under a variety of aliases, ran secret networks of informants in Baghdad and other Middle Eastern cities. When the administration blew her cover, several of her informants were killed; some reports say 70. Then the Bush spin doctors leaked the story that she was only a CIA "secretary."

Canadian indigenous activist Dacajaweiah (John Boncore), seized by security forces last year when he attempted to make a citizen's arrest of George W Bush, was in court on 8 March 2010. Professor Anthony J Hall says the case highlights the need for new principles, the Calgary Principles, to amend the victor's justice of the Nuremberg principles in light of the new impunities for high level crimes against humanity and the need to protect and honor civil resistance to those high crimes.

Prior to Bush's visit, the Canadian group Lawyers Against the War asked Canadian officials to bar entry or try Bush for his suspected crimes since Canadian Law prohibits people suspected of any involvement in torture or other war crimes and crimes against humanity from entering Canada for any period and for any purpose. The most effective way to deny safe haven to people involved or complicit in war crimes or crimes against humanity is to prevent them from coming to Canada.

Lawyers Against the War and protestors implored the government to do their duty and arrest Bush. "Dac" was carrying papers detailing the evidence against George W Bush, which he had planned to serve him with on behalf of the victims, and he raised his hands to show that he was non-violent. Dac was then thrown down, stomped on, kicked, handcuffed, and led off to be brutalized in a Calgary jail.

Dacajaweiah's action in Calgary highlights the abject failure of law enforcement agencies to do their job. It highlights the unwillingness of police and those who direct them to apply the law equitably and independently. As the Nuremberg principles make clear, the implicated law enforcement officers cannot claim in their defense that they were merely following orders in deciding to arrest Dacajaweiah rather than George W Bush.

The trial presents a platform for new rules and protocols to be known as the Calgary Principles. It has been six decades since the UN General Assembly agreed to a refinement of the principles that emerged from the trial of top Nazis, as well as their juridical, medical, and industrialist accomplices. During those decades, there has been an intensification of the impunity that immunizes those at the top of the hierarchy of wealth and power from any legal accountability for their crimes.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=18005

Vermont author and activist Charlotte Dennett is part of the Robert Jackson Steering Committee, which is pushing the notion that some former Bush administration officials should be tried for war crimes. The so-called "accountability movement" is named in honor of US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, who was the top US prosecutor of Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg. Dennett documents the accountability movement in her new book The People v. Bush, published last month by Vermont-based Chelsea Green.

http://7d.blogs.com/blurt/2010/02/leahy-to-hold-hearing-on-bushera-torture-memos.html

Through the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, we will work to provide immediate relief and long-term support to earthquake survivors. We will channel the collective goodwill around the globe to help the people of Haiti rebuild their cities, their neighborhoods, and their families. We ask each of you to give what you can to help ensure the people of Haiti can build back stronger and better than ever.

Both of us have personally witnessed the tremendous generosity and goodwill of the American people and of our friends around the world to help in times of great need. There is no greater rallying cry for our common humanity than witnessing our neighbors in distress. And, like any good neighbor, we have an obligation and desire to come to their aid. The people of Haiti now need us more than ever.

~ President William J. Clinton & President George W. Bush

http://clintonbushhaitifund.org/

Some in the United States and abroad say the legitimization of torture, the trampling of civil liberties, the violation of international law, and a dubious declaration of war that claimed more than 4,000 American and 100,000 Iraqi lives are not just miscalculations but crimes. War crimes, in fact. "The administration did more than commit crimes," argues Scott Horton, an expert on international law and contributing editor of Harper's magazine. "It waged war against the law itself."

Can a country that has allowed the rule of law to be flouted continue as a credible democracy, setting an example to ordinary citizens and claiming the moral high ground in the international community? Says British international lawyer Philippe Sands: "At some point the dam will break, the wall of impunity will be breached, and someone will be investigated. Whether it's the lawyers or the ultimate decision-makers I don't know. But history teaches that these things don't go away."

George W. Bush, 43rd president of the United States of America, passed away painlessly in his sleep Monday night, White House sources confirmed. The 62-year-old Bush was reportedly discovered lying unresponsive in his bed by first lady Laura Bush, a gentle smile still on his lips. "It was as though he knew it was his time to go," said longtime family physician Dr. Harold Ditmas, who pronounced the president dead of natural causes at 7:24 a.m. Plans for Bush's funeral have been postponed indefinitely following an unexpected incident in which the president's corpse was sucked through an Air Force One jet engine.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/bush_dies_peacefully_in_his