Paul Abrams: No Choice But to Prosecute Cheney, for the Good of the Country

"During the Scooter Libby trial, it became very clear that Dick Cheney was behind the outing of Valerie Plame, who was running an undercover operation. Thus, Cheney had provided aid-and-comfort to enemies of the United States. At that time the only remedy for a sitting vice president was for Congress to impeach, and Congressional Democrats determined that they had a choice, not an obligation to act. I disagreed.

The Democrats' inaction reaped what it sowed. Scooter did not take the stand, did not call Cheney to testify as had been promised, and had his sentence commuted without serving a day in jail. The sand that the special prosecutor said was thrown in his face by Scooter Libby was not wiped clean. And, most importantly, the rule of law upon which this country is based was eviscerated. 

Dick Cheney just admitted on television that he was involved in authorizing waterboarding, an interrogation technique determined to be torture by war crimes trials after World War II, and thus prohibited by Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, a treaty that, however "quaint" as Alberto Gonzales called it, was the law of the land.

I do not know what Cheney had in mind by making that admission. It may be that he already knows he is going to be pardoned. Or, it may be that he has not convinced Bush that he should be pardoned, realizes that once he is out of office it is likely to be revealed anyhow, and so he decided to surface it so that he could convince Bush to pardon him.

After that admission, however, the Obama Justice Department has no choice but to prosecute Cheney for war crimes. If it does not, it will surrender on January 21st its ability to regain America's moral authority in the world. It will, moreover, serve as a recruiting tool for terrorists, as we have now learned occurred with the Abu Ghraib scandals"