U.S. Crimes Against Humanity: Don't Ask, Don't Tell

The Justice Department has just concluded, the White House lawyers that wrote the legal justification for the Bush Administration to conduct widespread torture in its self-declared "War on Terror," were guilty of only "professional misconduct." This is torture so horrific, President Obama refuses to show most of the pictures of it.

That what Mr. Bush's lawyers justified violated the U.S. Constitution, the Geneva Convention and the United Nations Charter is apparently beside the point. This vast evil can now be nicely tucked away and forgotten. No-one is to be held accountable.

But as my son Kyle pointed out, if such legal opinions forgive the perpetrators, it is unfortunate for all those convicted of war crimes during the Nuremberg Trials for not producing such letters. They too would not then have been held accountable.

In the U.S. it is consistent. No-one has been held accountable for the wars, the lies, the torture - nothing. Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and other senior officials have never faced so much as a national hearing, let alone criminal indictments or impeachment.

Major U.S. banks commit massive financial fraud that nearly collapsed the U.S. and global economies, and may yet do so. Not only has no-one been held accountable but nearly every one of these institutions got bailed out at taxpayer expense. They are back to business as usual - big bonuses, secretive deals, credit card rip-offs and more.

If all this isn't enough, the U.S. Supreme Court just justified giant corporations and their lobbyists contributing as much money as they want to political campaigns. These lobbyists already own both major political parties and this should finish the job of locking out the common U.S. citizen from his government.

When the common citizen has no voice and no representation, the substance of his democracy is gone and his government can conduct whatever crimes and abuses it chooses. The wars, the tortures, the bailouts are prime examples.

It is time for we Americans to confront what in theory is still our government and assert our control. We must raise our voices and take to the streets, as was done consistently during the Civil Rights era and during the Vietnam War.

You and I can make a difference if we care enough to take action to regain control of our nation and re-establish it on solid moral and financial footing. Our prosperity, and given the size and ferocity of our war machine, the well-being of the world depends on it.

Dick