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MC: Right.
VB: No one seems to be interested in that. It's all torture, torture, torture, torture, so apparently torturing 24 or 200 Iraqi citizens or Iraqi insurgents or what have you is more important than bringing about justice, let's say, for 4,200 American soldiers who died in Bush's war. So you can see where I am offended about that.
I'm not saying that Bush should not be prosecuted for torture.
Let's talk about why it's even more offensive to me than I've already told you. I've given you the main reason why I'm offended by it, that that's all they talk about, as opposed to saying let's go after him for taking this nation to war under false pretenses, and then let's also add a count to the indictment for torture. Do you follow?
MC: Yes I do. Where does torture fit into the larger picture?
VB: I'm not saying he shouldn't be prosecuted if he's guilty of torture. I just don't think it should be all that people are talking about. But let's take it to another level. Who are these people who were tortured? Well, I guess virtually all of them were insurgents. There never should have been a war in Iraq. Iraq -- there were no terrorists in Iraq, and when you go to war, a war against terror, you go against the terrorists, and there were no terrorists in Iraq, but we're acting on a set stage here, so in Bush's -- in the Bush administration's mind, once they were in custody there, they viewed -- the Bush administration viewed these insurgents as enemies. So that's their state of mind. If these insurgents are enemies, why would the Bush administration be authorizing torture? Well, to coerce from them intelligence information that would be helpful to America?
MC: Right.
VB: Which does not eliminate the legal liability but diminishes the moral culpability.
But there was no justification whatsoever under the moon that was helpful to America in invading Iraq, nothing, zero, cipher. Hussein had nothing at all to do with 9/11. He was not an imminent threat to the security of this country. Bush and his people lied to convince the American people on both of those things, that he was an imminent threat and that he had been involved in 9/11. So that diminishes the torture thing even further.
The main guy we've got to go after, and there would be many named in the indictment, of course, many others, at least Rice and Cheney, of course, but I believe Rove; the main guy is George Bush. Why is he the main guy? Because he's the one that authorized it. If he didn't authorize it, none of these things would ever have happened. I don't care who influenced him, if anyone at all. He said, yes, let's do it.
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MC: Since we last spoke, there've been more revelations on the outrages of the Iraq War, all a direct result of the lies Bush and Cheney used to sell the war.. How do those revelations build your case?
VB: While all of these revelations are very good, you have to know, Michael, they don't mean anything at all unless we do something about it. The revelations by themselves, by definition, don't go anywhere. And that's why when people hear these revelations, you know, they're prompted to ask, "What now? Where do we go from here?"
MC: Right.
VB: And, again, not boasting, it's just a fact that The Prosecution of George Bush for Murder is the what now, where do we go from here book, the only book, out of the probably over 100 out there attacking Bush, that provides a legal blueprint for bringing George Bush to justice
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