White House tries to pass laws to protect soldiers accused of detainee abuses.

An obscure law approved by a Republican-controlled Congress a decade ago has made the Bush administration nervous that officials and troops involved in handling detainee matters might be accused of committing war crimes, and prosecuted at some point in U.S. courts.

Senior officials have responded by drafting legislation that would grant U.S. personnel involved in the terrorism fight new protections against prosecution for past violations of the War Crimes Act of 1996. That law criminalizes violations of the Geneva Conventions governing conduct in war and threatens the death penalty if U.S.-held detainees die in custody from abusive treatment.

In light of a recent Supreme Court ruling that the international Conventions apply to the treatment of detainees in the terrorism fight, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has spoken privately with Republican lawmakers about the need for such "protections," according to someone who heard his remarks last week.

Gonzales told the lawmakers that a shield is needed for actions taken by U.S. personnel under a 2002 presidential order, which the Supreme Court declared illegal, and under Justice Department legal opinions that have been withdrawn under fire, the source said. A spokeswoman for Gonzales, Tasia Scolinos, declined to comment on Gonzales's remarks.

So here is my question, if the President ordered the soldiers to ignore the Geneva conventions which allowed the abuses to occur, then who is guilty here?

Could the people that Gonzales is trying to protect not be the soldiers who committed the atrocities, but rather the administration officials and the President who permitted them to take place?

And if that is true then may we someday see President Bush on trial for war crimes? I have to tell you, if that happened that might be the fastest way to get back the trust that we have lost around the world. If we hold President Bush personally responsible for all of the mistakes and crimes of his two terms we might placate the people who hate us right now.

It seems fair to me. Throw his ass to the wolves!