The embedded video below captures George Bush recounting what he knew and when he knew it regarding the attack on the Twin Trade Towers on September 11, 2001.
Bush states, while appearing in public at a speaking event almost three months after the attack, that he saw an attack on the World Trade Center on television while standing outside of the elementary school he was appearing at. Yes, Virginia there just happened to be a television close at hand at that very moment for our former "Dear Leader" to witness the momentous event in New York City.
The only problem with this scenario is that the official White House version has it that Bush was unaware of any such attacks on the World Trade Towers until he was told of the "2nd" attack while sitting down in one of the school's classrooms. In addition, no one saw the "1st" attack on television on September 11, 2001. The videotape of that "1st" attack was not available for viewing until the next day.
So how in the hell did George Bush know that there was an attack - BEFORE he was even told about ANY such attacks?
Huh!!!!
We're just starting out on the long road that lies ahead to bring Bush - as happened with Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet - to ultimate justice and a date with a tribunal for crimes against humanity.
If we just stick with War Crimes that would be enough to bring George W. Bush to the Bar of International Justice. We're way beyond Impeachment, folks!
Launching an illegal war against Iraq (he did not go back and get the consent of the United Nation's Security Council as required in the October 2002 Authorization for the Use of Force) under false pretenses (the White House lied outright about the certitude of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq) and then wreaking torture and havoc on any and all detainees/enemy combatants (Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, Black Sites around the globe) and awarding billions of dollars in no-bid contracts to U.S. contractors to squeeze out every single dollar of profit on the backs of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi citizens alike.
We have only scratched the surface here and perhaps the best place to start would be with former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who personally gave the order to authorize torture at Guantanmo Bay, no doubt basing his directive on John Yoo's infamous 2003 memo on torture which legally sanctioned such practice by using twisted or "tortured" logic.
Apparently John Yoo wrote the March 14, 2003 memo wherein he stated that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to al-Qaeda and the Taliban. He went on to say that the 5th and 8th amendments do not apply to alien enemy combatants held abroad. Going still further the memo states that federal criminal statutes covering bodily and physical assaults against detainees do not apply to authorized military interrogations overseas and that statutes that do apply to such conduct impose only a limited obligation on interrogators to not use bodily harm.
I stand corrected, before we deal with Rumsfeld perhaps we should instead haul John Yoo before an International Tribunal. Currently he is a professor at the University of California at Berkeley. Yoo wrote the key torture memo for William Haynes who was himself the Pentagon's general counsel at the time. Haynes, himself, said that there could be no acquittals in the military commission trials. It was Mr. Haynes who in turn brought the memo to Rumsfeld's attention.
To summarize - Bush "misdirected" completely on September 11, 2001. He saw the plane crash into the World Trade Center as it happened. Or, if not, he fully expected such an occurrence to happen and allowed it to happen.
John Yoo paved the way for torture and the degradation of our foreign policy and standing in the world with his infamous torture memo.
William Haynes - as general counsel of the Pentagon and acting directly underneath Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld - gave Rumsfeld exactly what he needed, the green light for torture on detainees.
Finally, we return to Rumsfeld himself. He gave the actual order to authorize torture. A case in point involves Mohammed al-Qahtani (Kahtani), the so-called 20th hijacker. According to a sworn statement by Lt. Gen. Randall M. Schmidt, Secretary Rumsfeld was "personally involved" in the interrogation of al-Qahtani (Kahtani) who was forced to endure privations such as 48 days of severe sleep deprivation, 20-hour interrogations, forced nudity, sexual humiliation, threats with military dogs and prolonged stress positions.
Gitanjali S. Gutierrez of the Center for Constitutional Rights, the organization defending al-Kahtani (Qahtani) said in a sworn statement that his client was subject to months of torture authorized directly from Rumsfeld either through verbal or written communication.
Last but not least, we now know that Bush himself recently admitted that he did in fact support torture and gave his full support to its implementation. In a January 11, 2009 interview with Brit Hume of Fox (Faux) News Bush stated that he personally sanctioned the torture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and sought authorization for the use of water boarding on Mr. Mohammed.
Mr. Bush you have been misunderestimated for the last time, you will no longer misinform, misdirect or misinterpret. Your water boarding days are over. To quote from Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech - "... we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream."
That would be the ultimate water boarding - true justice meted out to the most heinous president in the history of this republic from an international court of law that would seal his fate in the eyes of history for all eternity.
Mr. Bush, you will ultimately be held accountable. You can run, but you can't hide.
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