They can run...

by Turkana

More fun, from the Guardian:

The environmental campaigner George Monbiot last night tried and failed to make a citizen's arrest of the former Bush administration official John Bolton over alleged "war crimes" committed during the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

As Bolton, a former US ambassador to the UN, ended an hour-long discussion at the Hay festival, Monbiot, who had earlier challenged him for alleged breaches of the postwar Nuremberg Principles, defining war crimes, moved towards the stage waving a charge sheet. But security staff intervened and bundled Monbiot out of the tent as 20 supporters chanted "war criminal" and waved placards. The comedian Marcus Brigstocke, who tried to pursue Bolton as he left the other side of the tent, was also blocked by security staff.

It's been a habit of the Democrats to let Republicans get away with their crimes. New administration, new Congress, move on, let bygones be bygones. It is imperative that the next Democratic president and the next Democratic Congress establish the principle that no one is above the law. Here's part of the reason why:

Earlier, Bolton had defended the US's right to launch pre-emptive nuclear attacks and to promote regime change or, if necessary, a military attack on Iran to prevent it acquiring nuclear weapons.

If people like Bolton aren't held accountable, not only will the U.S. continue to cede any moral authority on any human rights issues anywhere, but these same people will continue to turn up in other Republican administrations, ready and enabled to cause more crimes, more destruction, and more death.

As a lawyer, he said, he was not prepared to offer a view either on rendition or torture of suspects, because he had not studied the issues - a claim that provoked dismay.

This guy served a year as our U.N. Ambassador. Either we are a nation of laws or we aren't. Assuming the election goes the way we all want it to, we may find out, next year.