Why does Dick Cheney keep setting up this straw man of “we are at war, not dealing with criminal acts,” when the Obama Administration’s handling of captured alleged terrorists is essentially the same as the Bush Administration’s?

On a personal level, does Cheney fear of being indicted in an international court for war crimes?

No, he knows he’s immune from prosecution by an American court, and that the prospect of international prosecution will gain no traction as long as the Obama Administration protects him. He’s beating the war drums for other reasons.

From the beginning, the Obama Administration has taken the attitude of “we’re not re-litigating the past.” As if there ever was any legal accountability for the perpetrators of the illegal invasion of Iraq, much less the use of torture by the Bush Administration.

Lest the Cheneys of this world have any doubt about what constitutes torture, the subtitle of the UN Convention Against Torture reads: “and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.”

Article 1 makes it very plain: “For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession.”

When Cheney gleefully admits supporting torture, he’s spitting in the face of Americans of conscience, evincing, even as a citizen and no longer a government official, that he’s above the law, and that no one, in America or beyond, can touch him.

Therefore the smugness that reeks from this channeler of evil belies another agenda.

Cheney knows full well that the Obama Administration will not support a real reckoning with the perpetrators of torture, because that would mean national accountability for the perpetration of the US/UK invasion of Iraq.

So why is he baiting the Obama Administration?

On a political level, Cheney and his ilk realize that America’s perpetual war footing with regard to the fight against terrorism is increasingly shaky. They also know full well that the only solid foundation for dealing with terrorists is the rule of law. Not the rule of America’s laws, but the rule of international law.

Then what’s their game? The reaction to the chaos that nationalists like Cheney cause is to invest the State with more authority. That’s what they’re after. All authoritarians are essentially the same; they are driven by ego to amass power.

The solution to this vicious circle is the rule of law. But the rule of law cannot prevail in the global society as long as the identification with particular groups is assumed to be an immutable aspect of human nature. Nationalism makes international law a political football.

The terrorists who committed the vile acts of 9.11 should not be tried as criminals in American courts; they should be tried for crimes against humanity in an international criminal court.

They would thus be put on the same level as the instigators and perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide.

As long as terrorism is treated as an act of war, there cannot and will not be the rule of law internationally. Moreover, the rule of law within nation-states will continue to erode.

Justice and law are two very different things. Even so, the law measures its worth and effectiveness against the much more difficult and intangible concept of justice. And the universal striving for justice is no longer being played out in national contexts, but on a global stage.

As nation-states crumble, and especially as ‘the sole remaining superpower’ crumbles, the need for the rule of law becomes acute.

Obama is failing, not because he reached too high, but because he didn’t dig down deeply enough. Not into the national psyche, or his own.

When small things are no longer achievable, that is not the time to turn to smaller things. It is the moment to reach for greatness.

America cannot recover whatever greatness it formerly had, but we can do what we’ve always done in times of crisis: regenerate and redefine ourselves as a nation—this time in a global context.

The shift in individuals from the ancient pattern of ‘my group first,’ to seeing and feeling humanity as a whole, is happening all over the world. But to effectively end the tyranny of nationalism, a psychological revolution in human consciousness as a whole is required.

That’s what ciphers like Cheney fear the most.

- Martin LeFevre is a contemplative, and non-academic religious and political philosopher. He has been publishing in North America, Latin America, Africa, and Europe (and now New Zealand) for 20 years. Email: martinlefevre@sbcglobal.net. The author welcomes comments.

Weekend Magazine: Werewolf Issue 28

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