Not Holding Our Leaders Accountable Makes Us A Society Without Moral Conviction

In war, it is often said you must know your enemy to defeat him. In politics it is much the same. That is why people spend so much time going through reams of articles and papers published by their opposition. A lot of it is propaganda, and we know it. The trick is not to get caught up in it and to swallow the bait they throw in the articles and get drawn away from the true weakness hidden within each argument.

Here is a good article written by the right-wing that is meant to hurt Hillary Clinton and make people even more suspicious of her chances at the Presidency should she get the nomination. Sure, it brings up some very good points. Of course, it thinks she broke the rules, which means the law, about her emails and should suffer major consequences but isn’t because of her station in society. There is a huge double standard in this country for the peons as compared to the wealthy and influential. There always has been, but we had the illusion that everyone could be brought low by lady justice.

The last paragraph is where the article tries to make its strongest case, but where the flaw appears. Hillary as a leader should be held to a higher standard. Yes, I agree. Oh, I agree so damn much. If we don’t hold our leaders to a higher standard then we fail to uphold a moral standard for our people. By that I do not mean a religious standard. You do not need religion to be moral, despite what many conservatives think.

Now, with that in mind, I would like to draw your attention to some of our leaders who have gotten away with many crimes that the world would like to see punished, but we have refused to do anything about. Mostly because we don’t want to do anything about it, and we believe we know better than they do. Our bellicosity disregards our Constitution and the reasons why we got involved with the League of Nations and then the United Nations.

In 2012, George W. Bush and seven members of his cabinet were convicted of war crimes in Malaysia. That may not seem like a big deal, but it actually is. It is the first time it was ever done, and they are not the only country that wants our former President to stand trial for it. In fact, in 2014, there was a concern that the UN would conduct war crimes trails against Bush and Cheney. They didn’t, despite a demand from many Eastern European and African nations for it.

The big issue is waterboarding, which Trump has said he wants to bring back and worse. Waterboarding is torture. We signed treaties swearing we wouldn’t do it, executed soldiers who’ve done it, and imprisoned world leaders who authorized its use. So, when Bush and Cheney broke the treaties by authorizing it, the world wants us to be treated the same way. However, since the UN is a foreign court of law you know they are never going to get their hands on our former President.

The issue does come down to morals though. Bush and his staff authorized the use of torture, breaking our treaties, our laws, and our trust to other soldiers. He lied us into war which caused the UN vote that backed him in the invasion. It is clear that he and members of his administration are war criminals, and should be held accountable by any person with morals.

This does not exonerate Hillary Clinton on the earlier charge levied at her from the article, it somewhat reinforces it in my eyes. It also implicates Donald Trump, though, since he calls for reinstating torture and worse. It seems we are becoming a nation devoid of moral conviction. We are unable to recognize when we have former leaders who have broken laws and need to be punished, and now have limited ourselves to a choice between two liars and likely future criminals. It is no wonder that many countries see America as the largest threat to world peace.

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