Bush the war criminal

Former President George W. Bush and seven of his pals have been found guilty of war crimes. They will go unpunished, however, as the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal that charged Bush has no authority to enact justice.

It’s a bummer that such centers of justice don’t have the power to bring justice to the real terrorists.

Here’s a real story: This past summer I visited Norway. While hitchhiking out of Oslo, I was picked up by a taxi driver.

He said he couldn’t take me far, but I threw my bag in the back and hopped in. He asked where I was from. I told him the United States.

He said if he knew I was American and we were in his country, he would kill me.
I took a moment to process this then asked where he was from. He said Iraq. I asked him why he felt this way. He said I would understand if my country were invaded and innocent women and children were killed.

I agreed. If my country was occupied and women and children were being killed, I would probably feel similarly.

This is the thing that escapes our foreign policy: feelings.

What officials ever ask, “Well, what if it hurts their feelings?” Clearly Bush and his goons never did. Guantanamo Bay is about as mean-spirited as anything ever.

Defend it and torture with pretenses of shortsighted justice and shadows of security if you will, but water-boarding just ain’t neighborly.

Why shouldn’t foreign policy take into consideration the emotions of the people affected? Studies have shown that we all make decisions based on intuition, not rationality. We go by our gut feeling and find ways to justify it.

Is this not why we have been at war in the Middle East for the past decade? The 9/11 attacks brought out a lot of emotion in the American people, and much of that sentiment centered on love for country. We wanted justice but scarcely considered whether such desire was rational.

Our stance became one of “Do what it takes to make them pay and keep us safe.” Now, years later, Bush and his goons have been charged with war crimes, and they definitely deserve it.

­— proren@indiana.edu