Bush is a war criminal

Friday's Los Angeles Times carried an op-ed by Rosa Brooks asking Did Bush commit war crimes? The short answer is "yes". The Supreme Court's finding that the Geneva Conventions' Common Article 3 (forbidding, among other things, cruel treatment and torture, humiliating and degrading treatment, and the trying of prisoners in kangaroo courts) applies to Al Qaeda means that the government is suddenly on the hook for treatment which has violated that provision (such as, say, waterboarding, strapado, and the whole process of "military commissions" at Guantanamo). Better than that, they're on the hook under US law. The Federal War Crimes Act (18 USC 118 s2441) criminalises the commission of war crimes by US nationals - and specifically includes in its definition of a war crime

any conduct... which constitutes a violation of common Article 3 of the international conventions signed at Geneva, 12 August 1949

So, those who established the US's policy of torture and mistreatment of detainees, and those who actually carried it out, are prima facie guilty of war crimes, and could face a fine or imprisonment "for life or any term of years". This may include US Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales, who in February 2002 recommended that President Bush exclude Al Qaeda prisoners from the protection of the Geneva Conventions [PDF] precisely beacuse this "substantially reduces the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act".

Unfortunately, as Brooks points out, Federal prosecutors are hardly likely to begin an investigation of their own boss for egregious violations of US law. But we can always dream.