Bush has gone but has left many questions about 'Western democracy.' Has George W exposed weakness and inconsistencies in our political system? In a democracy is it OK to torture a person provided the executive re-defines torture? Can a democracy decide it is OK to kidnap a person and transport them to another country where it is known they will be tortured? Is there a limit to what can be done in the 'National interest'?
To me these are questions that transcend political opinion. It is not a question of what team you are on but of what the rules are going to be. Can we leave the 'rules' the same so that another Bush can come along some time in the future?
Do we need a war crimes tribunal to deal with the Bush administration? It is probably legally impossible sanction anyone, but do we need it to understand what happened and ask if we want a re-run some time in the future? Has Bush serve to point out changes that need to be made?

Davey1 “Do we need a war crimes tribunal to deal with the Bush administration?”

No more than we need a tribunal to deal with Kissinger and the bombing of Laos or

Kennedys Bay of Pigs debacle or

Truman’s decision to allow the dropping of nuclear bombs on Japan.

OR whatever shortocmings are eventually found in reflection on Obamas reign.

I would further note, as an alternative to some "war crimes tribunal", the US constitution empowers the joint houses of senate and congress wiht a right of impeachment which could have been exercised

as was exercised in the case of Nixon and almost exercised in the case of Clinton but which it never considered in the case of Bush.

As to the "Is there a limit to what can be done in the 'National interest", I recall it was Gerald Ford, the unelected President who was never ever on the voting ticket, who did instrumental work on defining the limits of CIA and other covert actions (no assassinations of prominent foreign enemies), practices which were common during the Kennedy years, when Castro was a prominent target for US assassins.

Col
I believe the impeachment process with G W Bush was discontinued because it was worked out that by the time he was impeached he would be out of office. I agree with your over examples, but is there a point where we can say enough is enough and pick one person as an example even if he is not the only offender? Has enough trauma caused by G W to say it needs to be dealt with? I don't know the answer to that but is something I would like considered.

Dear Daviy,

Big fish are not called to account in the
large political ocean. They usually escape
retribution, dying, as did Stalin and Hitler,
the evil architects themselves - without having
been brought to justice.

While the Nazis, have been pursued all
over the world for their crimes, the other half,
the communist criminals, were allowed
to go free. They were, in effect, given tacit permission
to continue the operation of their concentration camps,
to expand their draconian systems to include psychiatric
wards, thereby raising torture, suppression, and murder to
a science. The fact that the process persisted was vividly
disclosed to the free world by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

In the case of George W. Bush - the US Congress gave full
authorisation to the actions of his administration. History
will be the judge of their legacy.

However the following book may be of interest:

"George W. Bush, War Criminal?
The Bush Administration's Liability for
269 War Crimes." by Michael Haas.
(I believe it was published last year).

Daviy..while ur on the issue.. don't forget to take white Australians to task for 'war crimes' against Australian aborigines.....

OH.. and by the way.. don't look in a mirror.. it might break.

BOAZ_David,
I totally agree. I think the main thrust of what I am writing is that G W Bush gives us a focus to take a good hard look at Western society. We are certainly not all clean and sparkly.
I would include the settlement of Australia, The cynical removing of legal rights from refugees and so on. I would certainly hope that the role of John Howard would be examined along with G W.