Vanity of Vanities

Vanity Fair has a great article by Phillip Sands on the role of lawyers in the Bush Administration's insistence on setting aside international and federal law to use controversial interrogation techniques in Guantánamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Since the advent of the faulty legal reasoning, which came crashing down around the Administration, the U.S. Supreme Court held in 2006 that the Geneva Convention and other international and federal laws did apply to Guantánamo detainees.

The administration did secure immunity for those military and other government personnel who advocated and implemented the now illegal techniques from 2001 to 2005 in the Military Commissions Act of 2006. That act makes prosecution of war crimes impossible inside the US, unless the courts find it was somehow unconstitutional.

The article concludes that the attorneys, as well as those who implemented the torture policies could be held accountable for war crimes if they set foot outside the U.S, much in the way Chile's Pinochet was tried by Spain for his human rights abuses. In fact. the passage of the Military Commissions Act might make it easier as it shows that they are unlikely to be brought to justice in the United States.

The Administration's belief that it is above the law may come back to haunt those who supported the Administration's policy after the President leaves office. PBS had a show some time ago talking about the Vice President's role in the torture debate and his manipulation of how the Administration came to define it. Glenn Greenwald writes again about it here for Salon.

Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. It seems appropriate to describe Bush's historical legacy as nothing but vanity. So cocksure and ignoring all counsel to the contrary, we can only hope that he and his cronies find justice abroad, if not here at home. How ironic that they themselves might find themselves in prison one day for setting aside their humanity in their treatment of others.

And if not, it pleases one no end that Dick Cheney might have to sit inside the U.S. the rest of his life not daring to leave the country for fear of a tap on his shoulder.