So you really thought things would change?

These sentiments were echoed by former State Department official Philip Zelikow, who described the Bush dictatorship’s use of torture as a “collective failure.”

Even more recent revelations have disclosed that the Bush-era torture policies were not even used to “keep America safe” from future terrorist attacks, as Cheney alleges, but instead to force torture victims to falsely admit there was a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.

It seems strange that Broder is so concerned about the prospect of politically powerful people being prosecuted. After all, such a “concern” certainly doesn’t dissuade America from demanding such prosecutions in other countries. Didn’t the Bush dictatorship cite the crimes of Saddam Hussein as justification for the Iraqi invasion after no “weapons of mass destruction” were found? Weren’t the Nuremburg Trials after World War II designed to bring Nazi war criminals to justice, regardless of their rank or governmental positions? Didn’t Bush’s own father invade Panama on the pretext of arresting that nation’s military dictator Manuel Noriega, even though his true motive was to divert attention away from the criminals that caused the “Savings and Loan” scandal in the United States?

Today it seems that even countries with human rights records more abysmal than America’s are willing to punish, or at the very least admit, their past crimes. As I noted in my Pravda.Ru article What’s Good for Jon Burge is Good for the CIA, the nation of Peru recently tried and convicted its former president Alberto Fujimori for human rights abuses.

But America refuses to prosecute its own Alberto, or any other Bush-era torturers.

Perhaps Broder’s most absurd argument is that the Bush-era torture policies are somehow excusable because they were “well debated.” In other words, all criminals have to do to purge themselves of guilt is to have a discussion first. If that’s the case, then nobody in a position of political power could ever be prosecuted for anything.

Can one imagine the justifiable outrage if Adolph Hitler had been captured, but never punished, or even prosecuted, simply because his policies were “well-debated?” Broder’s argument could also be used to excuse Joseph Stalin’s murderous purges in the former Soviet Union, Pol Pot’s killing fields in Cambodia, or Kim Jong-il’s nuclear ambitions in North Korea. After all, even tyrants can allege that they, at the very least, engaged in internal debates before creating policy.

For a short while it appeared that America was going to atone for its Bush-era crimes, especially after the Obama administration released the Justice Department memos the Bush dictatorship used to speciously rationalize its lust for torture. Although there was some opposition to this release, it came primarily from “the usual suspects”—deceitful, warmongering, hypocritical and cowardly politicians, pundits and pseudo-journalists who zealously hawked the Iraqi war, yet who also took extraordinary measures to avoid military service themselves.

But the hope that the administration of Barack Obama would be synonymous with justice was short-lived. To be fair, the crimes of the Bush dictatorship placed Obama in a difficult position. Had he not released the Justice Department torture memos, many people, both in America and around the world, would have asserted that the United States government was once again covering up its crimes.

But releasing the memos prompted demands for justice, thus compelling Obama to make his first major decision. So the question became, “Would he act as a leader or as a politician?”

Sadly he chose the latter.

In fact, since the release of those memos, Obama has reinstated the use of military tribunals to prosecute suspected terrorists. He has also backtracked on his promise to release photographs showing members of America’s military abusing detainees, and in doing so he cited the same arguments once proffered by the Bush dictatorship. Apparently the “audacity of hope” has transformed into “Bush-lite.”

But apparently Obama’s metamorphosis wasn’t enough for the United States Congress. In a vote that will eventually be condemned by history, these hypocritical demagogues once again shredded the constitution by denying Obama the funds he requested so he could fulfill his pledge to close the Guantanamo Bay internment camp. Thus the Bush-era legacy of detention without trial and denial of due process lives on.

In addition, allegations have surfaced that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi had actually been briefed on, and acquiesced to, the torture policies of the Bush dictatorship. Perhaps this is why she so adamantly refused to institute impeachment proceedings against Bush or his minions.