Citizen Power

Only one in five Americans say that Dick Cheney is the “worst Vice President” in history. The other Americans either can’t read or have no access whatsoever to any type of media. Or, they didn’t know he was vice president. (See: Poll: 23 percent say Cheney worst vice president ever)

I think it’s amazing that 77% of Americans don’t think he’s the worst VP in history. He’s not been a do-nothing VP. Instead, he’s actively spent the last 8 years damaging this country, maybe even more so than Bush himself. I think his worst crime is not pushing for torture, as terrible as that is, but his relentless pursuit of and protections for fossil fuels and companies like Exxon. This led to an 8-year delay in fighting climate change and these never-ending wars for bogus reasons like “fighting terror”. These were resource wars, and resource access wars (Afghanistan) and Dick Cheney pushed hard for them.

His oil and gas bias has already had a very detrimental effect on the climate, and that will increase in the next 50 years. The fault of the environmental delays at this most crucial time lies with the Bush administration. In large part, Dick Cheney and Bush will be to blame for the deaths and starvation of millions due to climate change (and the resulting resource wars), if even the moderate-case scenarios happen and President Obama isn’t able to turn this around fast.

Cheney has also done serious damage to the U.S. reputation around the world. You know how we used to tell ourselves we were known for democracy, fairness, justice, and human rights? That is no longer how other countries think of us, and with good reason. For the last several years, the U.S. has been torturing prisoners, using waterboarding, which Dick Cheney has admitted. He has also admitted signing off on using waterboarding. This is from The Progress Report:

America’s Torture Disgrace

In a recent interview with ABC News, Vice President Dick Cheney confirmed that, in the period after the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration embraced a policy of torturing suspected al Qaeda detainees. Cheney did not refer to the Bush administration’s practices as “torture.” In fact, he insisted that “we don’t do torture. We never have.” He did admit, however, that he had supported the waterboarding of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Muhammad. Waterboarding — a technique in which water is poured over a prisoner’s face to simulate drowning — is considered torture under international law and has been prosecuted as a war crime by the United States. According to Malcolm Nance, a counterterrorism expert and former instructor and chief of training at the U.S. Navy’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape school, waterboarding “is torture, without doubt.”

So really, America, what does Cheney have to do to really get you to see him for what he is? He’s a flagrant abuser of international law and a war criminal, among other things. If any other vice president in history had “signed off” on torture he would have been impeached, and reviled throughout history.

But not this bunch… they are above the law and always have been.

If we can’t prosecute these people for war crimes we have no human rights foundation left on which to stand.

Last week a new petition was introduced to try and convince our new attorney general to support a special prosecutor, to investigate and prosecute Bush and Cheney for war crimes. This effort has been sponsored by Democrats.com and the Out of Iraq Bloggers Caucus. They have been sending the new attorney general nominee, Eric Holder, petition signatures on a daily basis, to convince him to pursue war crimes action. Here’s the message from Democracy.com:

“Prosecution of those responsible for torture is not optional - it is required by our obligations under the Geneva Conventions.

So we’ve joined forces with buhdydharma and the Docudharma community to petition Obama’s AG nominee, Eric Holder, to appoint a Special Prosecutor.

Holder replied after receiving a few hundred emails: “Enough folks. I hear you.” That’s a start, but we’ve asked for a formal statement. And we’re collecting additional signatures to deliver when Holder goes before the Senate for confirmation hearings in January.”

Please sign and spread the word. Upholding the law is the bedrock of democracy and without justice, there can be no peace. People in the current administration have broken numerous international laws, and that means they need to be held accountable, or the law is meaningless. Click here to sign the petition.

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