George W. Bush better stay at home.<\/p>\n
The confessed waterboarder is a marked man. If he travels abroad, other countries can\u2014and should\u2014nab him and try him for the crime of torture.<\/p>\n
In his memoir and in last week\u2019s NBC interview, Bush acknowledged ordering waterboarding.<\/p>\n
He says the lawyers told him it wasn\u2019t torture. But he got bad legal advice.<\/p>\n
Attorney General Eric Holder has recognized waterboarding as torture. So has the State Department, as the great civil liberties Bill Quigley points out<\/a> at the Center for Constitutional Rights.<\/p>\n Given that, Holder has an obligation to press charges against the former president. But neither Holder nor his boss has the guts to do that. And what a shame that is!<\/p>\n Prosecutors in other countries, however, may not be so spineless. \u201cUnder international law, anyone involved in torture must be brought to justice, and that does not exclude former President George W. Bush,\u201d said Claudio Cordone<\/a>, senior director of Amnesty International.<\/p>\n \u201cIf his admission is substantiated, the USA has the obligation to prosecute him,\u201d Cordone said, adding ominously: \u201cIn the absence of a U.S. investigation, other states must step in and carry out such an investigation themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n Under the Geneva Conventions and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, countries that have ratified the accords have a binding obligation to exercise jurisdiction over those accused of grave breaches. (See \u201cStripping Rumsfeld and Bush of Impunity<\/a>,\u201d)<\/p>\n So if I were Bush (and what a horrifying thought that is!), I\u2019d cancel those plans to visit Spain or Germany or any other country where some prosecutor, somewhere, respects international law.<\/p>\n