Daviy.. there is a serious problem with what you are saying here.

Not that it is not well intentioned I presume but for the love of God.. how many 'wrongs' do you think can be righted in this world?

Every single society today is based on not a small number of injustices and wrong doings.. can you fix them all ? Will you just choose those which give you the warm fuzzies?

Ultimately.. it boils down to 'winners are grinners'.. sad but true.

Human society is as it is today directly as a result of conflict, expanstion..greed and pride.

Solve the problem of the heart and the rest come natually.

The medicine for the heart is repentance from sin and faith in Christ.

Daviy “a focus to take a good hard look at Western society. We are certainly not all clean and sparkly.”

I recall one old reprobate and object of post WWII scrutiny for his supposed communist sympathies, George Orwell, put is most eloquently

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

The services of those rough men ensure the clean is tarnished and the sparkle slightly less lustrous.

However, we live in a practical world where those who would resist the democratic processes are far grubbier and do not sparkle at all, they are positively grubby and dull.

For a perfect “clean and sparkly” we would need to be lead by the meek and as the old saying goes

The meek will inherit the earth but only when it is OK with everyone else.

Personally, I am quite used to accepting the consequences of political compromise, which is the hallmark of democratic western society, after all, politics is the art of the possible, not the pursuit of the fanciful.

Did any of ou hear Barack Obama say (not quoted exactly) that America will nolonger use Torture to gain Intelligence? There is something very wrong when that has to be said. If we sleep at night while others do our dirty work then it is either 1) The sleep of ignorance, 2) The sleep of hypocrites.
We cannot make ammends for every past agrievence but we can look at what has happened and see what can be done to avoid future grievineces.
Bush took the world to the brink of total calamity. How close was he to dropping nuclear bombs on North Korea and Iran? How close did he come to inciting the whole Islamic world with talk of 'Crusades'?
And if you want to see this as a religious debate and look at the Sermon on the Mount. You are not responsible for anothers actions, but if you go along with them you are as guilty as the doer.
Another old quote 'Bad things happen when good men do nothing.' We may be limited in what we can do, but that does not stop us doing what we can.

Daviy, I believe the quote was from Albert Einstein and stated "the world is not a dangerous place because of those who do evil - it is a dangerous place because of those who stand by and do nothing".

The point has resonance due to Einstein's status as a prominent Jew, given the horrors of the holocaust.

There was another quote: "all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing" though I'm not sure who said it.

I think Bush was the third worst President the US has had (the two that the US had before Lincoln were worse, in the dark days leading up to the civil war, sat on their arses while the country tore itself apart. At least, GW didn't preside over civil war in his backyard. That being said, their incompetence provided the situation for Lincoln, the first and best president of the Republicans, to show backbone and Leadership. Lets hope Obama does the same).

Regardless, I'm not advocating Bush be tried for 'war crimes'. Aside from the fact it's impractical, it comes back to the framework.

Like those quotes above - there will always be incompetent or malignant leaders, but as you say, we need to define the limits of executive power. For example, if Obama suggested suspending voting rights for Americans until he can correct the economic crisis, he'd be stopped. There are limits on executive power.

Bush bent those limits. Whether he broke them is questionable, though I agree, torture ought to be one of them.

It's about examining the system and putting measures in place that can't be overridden.
That in itself is difficult, because who judges what should and shouldn't be inviolable?

When it's a decision that's clearly for personal power (i.e. suspending voting rights) then it's obvious.

When it's about government power, it's harder. I'd argue much of the wiretapping and ridiculousness in the Patriot Act is a violation of the American Constitution and their civil rights. To me, this would be the initial matter for inquiry - not politically charged accusations of war crimes.

The question is not what we do about George Bush but WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT GB.
We can not do anything about GB because USA are out from the International Criminal Court, they ignore it totaly!
I like to see him in prison for crimes against humanity, hundrends of thousands of Iraqis died of cause BUSH, he violated the human rights and international law, in normal conditions he had to be in prison.
FOR US, FOR THE MASS MAJORITY OF PEOPLE WORLDWIDE HE IS A CRIMINAL, FOR AMERICAN PEOPLE HE IS ONE FROM THEIR WORST PRESIDENT.
THE GOOD THING IS THAT OF CAUSE HIS BAD POLICY WE HAVE NOW THE OBAMA AS PRESIDENT.
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

Reading the comments on my original post naturally helps clarify what it was I was writing about in the first place. One of the things that surfaces as cause of my discontent is the phrase 'It is not in America's national interest'. I would like to see the worlds interests override American national interest.
As a beginning if Obama could be made aware that American national interest does not make it right. It has been pointed out correctly that there is probably nothing that can be done about Bush, but we might be able to make it clear that the world is not going to accept another Bush.