Can you believe it? I have several registered followers from Poland. So I’m dedicating this post to them, in hopes that they respond – even if in Polish, since it would be interesting to try to translate what they write. That is, if they are in fact readers and not just ordinary spammers, trying to sell me some Polish vodka.

But ever the optimist, I’ll assume they enjoy my snappy repartee, and talk about Poland.

According to a piece from the BBC, there are no less than 13 major daily or weekly newspapers in Poland. I did a quick scan of them, and each had a picture and article about the bomb explosions in Boston. One English language business journal was quick to point out that there were 30 Poles racing in the marathon, but that none of them were injured. Let’s hear it for the home team. Nonetheless, they were all still concerned enough to inform their readers of this incident.

So to some factoids: Poland is a member of the EU, but one that didn’t get caught up in the debt crisis. They are doing just fine, thank you, and expect to continue that way. Further, Poland has contributed troops to both the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. That fact alone is probably making Uncle Joe Stalin roll in his tomb. The very notion of one of the Soviet Social Republics aiding and abetting America in pursuing armed conflict would be enough to make his moustache madly twitch.

Speaking of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, that brings me to another topic of interest. A report in today’s New York Times headline reads:

“U.S. Practiced Torture After 9/11, Nonpartisan Review Concludes”

One’s first instinct is to say, Duh! But the authors don’t reach their conclusions with any degree of equivocation. Check this out:

““it is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture” and that the nation’s highest officials bore ultimate responsibility for it.”

That seems pretty clear, does it not? So the usual suspects,

are the ones caught in the crosshairs now. An official document like this one – authored by The Constitution Project, a legal research and advocacy group, is step one in a multistep process that inevitably leads to prosecution. Prosecution? Yes, prosecution for war crimes. Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld and yes, even little Condi Rice are all war criminals.

Exaggeration? Hmm..let’s go back to the basics. Definition of a war criminal from Dictionary.com:

“war criminal – an offender who violates international law during times of war”

There’s another definition, this one more generic:

“offender, wrongdoer – a person who transgresses moral or civil law”

Moral or civil law. Wrongdoer – remember GWB’s infamous use of the made up word, ‘evildoer’? Things like this often come back to bite..

So is the U.S. Government going to be the one to bring charges? Heck no, because to do so would also point the finger at the current administration for its acts using drone warfare. No, the flying fickle finger of fate (4F’s) will come from an organization such as Amnesty International. Remember Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean dictator, responsible for thousands of deaths after the junta he led disposed of Salvador Allende? Charges against him were brought decades after he committed them by a Spanish court. The rationale? The principle of universal jurisdiction — that certain crimes are so egregious that they constitute crimes against humanity and can therefore be prosecuted in any court in the world. See where am I going with this?

What would be the effect of such a prosecution, say in the International Criminal Court in the Hague? The same court that prosecuted Liberian strongman Charles Taylor, as well as Slobodan Milosavich of Serbia. Taylor was convicted and sentenced to fifty years in prison for merely aiding and abetting the civil war in Sierra Leone. His crime? Trading arms for ‘blood diamonds’. That pales in comparison with the Cheney/Bush/Rumsfeld/Rice crimes, dontcha know. And Slobo? He died of a heart attack before he was convicted, thus ending the trial.

I have always believed that the Cheney Administration should be prosecuted for war crimes. To do so would not only punish wrong doing, but also send a message to the rest of the world that America can be held accountable for its acts. Right now there is no other nation strong enough to compete with the United States. We have a schizophrenic notion of ourselves as world protectors/aggressors. At some point, we will pay for our sins and crimes in far off lands. But in the short term, if I were Dick, George, Donnie or Condi, I’d be real hesitant to travel outside the 4 corners of the good old U.S. of A. You never know who might be waiting with a warrant and 4 sets of handcuffs.