And now Bush gets to play the kindly elder stateman, to the sycophantic praise of not only NeverTrumper Republicans but also by Democrats who are afraid or unwilling to fight for their own side.
A Message from President George W. Bush@TheCalltoUnite pic.twitter.com/FIn9wuOPTF— George W. Bush Presidential Center (@TheBushCenter) May 2, 2020
Rodayah Chamseddine's Rehabilitating a Monster: George W. Bush and the Bankruptcy of Civility Politics In These Times 09/6/2018 maintains its relevance.
... a former president, who oversaw an apocalyptic shock and awe campaign, was rehabilitated as a homely and wholesome painter. George W. Bush, whose administration wantonly poisoned Iraq with nearly 10,000 rounds of depleted uranium, and gave license to torture and indefinite incarceration without due process in offshore detention sites like the notorious Guantánamo Bay, was invited last year to sit across from Ellen DeGeneres and share self-deprecating barbs with Jimmy Kimmel to the benefit of his promotional book tour. Missing were the images of children suffering the aftermath of U.S.-made radioactive weaponry and the haunting photographs of Iraqi men languishing in Abu Ghraib. There was no meaningful discussion of the global surveillance apparatus that targeted and racialized Muslims. The body politic has not even come to terms with the full extent of this bloodbath. One would think that history would have long destroyed any semblance of nostalgia for George W. Bush, but the political fanfiction abounds—in spite of it. [my emphasis]Another former President, Jimmy Carter, is someone whose post-Presidential contributions to American public life and to the cause of international peace I regard as more constructive and important than those of his Presidency. Carter talked about the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld torture program in his book Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis (2005):
Physicians for Human Rights reported in April 2005 that "at least since 2 002, the United States has been engaged in systematic psychological torture" of Guantanamo detainees that has "led to devastating health consequences for the individuals subjected to" it. The prisoners' outlook on life was not improved when the Secretary of Defense declared that most of them would not be released even if they were someday tried and found to be innocent. ...That was 2005. After two full Bush-Cheney Administrations, two full Obama-Biden Administration, and over three years of the Trump Administration, the disgrace that is the prison in Guantanamo is still in operation. And the legal cases against the prisoners that have been there since the Bush Administration are still not all resolved.
The terrible pictures from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq have brought discredit on our country. This is especially disturbing, since U.S. intelligence officers estimated to the Red Cross that 70 to 90 percent of the detainees at this prison were held by mistake. Military officials reported that at least 108 prisoners have died in American custody in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other secret locations just since 2002, with homicide acknowledged as the cause of death in at least 28 cases. The fact that only one of these was in Abu Ghraib prison indicates the widespread pattern of prisoner abuse, certainly not limited to the actions or decisions of just a few rogue enlisted persons.
Iraqi major general Abed Hamed Mowhoush reported voluntarily to American officials in Baghdad in an attempt to locate his sons, and was detained, tortured, and stuffed inside a green sleeping bag, where he died from trauma and suffocation on November 26, 2003.
The superficial investigations under the auspices of the Department of Defense have made it obvious that no high-level military officers or government officials will be held accountable, but there is no doubt that their public statements and private directives cast doubt and sometimes ridicule on the applicability of international standards of human rights and the treatment of prisoners. [my emphasis]
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