Will they even need passports

... once Bush administration top dogs are out of office? International travel could become risky. And not because of al Qaeda.

Others worried about the legality of our adventures in Mesopotamia prior to the Iraq invasion.

"I spent a good deal of time recently in the Balkans making sure Milosevic was put behind bars," said Sir Mike. "I have no intention of ending up in the next cell to him in the Hague."

From The Guardian that's Gen. Mike Jackson, head of the British army from prior to the invasion. The Guardian also reported in 2005 that "in her letter of resignation in protest against the war, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, deputy legal adviser at the Foreign Office, described the planned invasion of Iraq as a 'crime of aggression'."

The occasion for this retrospective is today's article commenting on the Bush administration's handling of its prisoners.

MIAMI (Reuters) - The U.S. war crimes tribunals at Guantanamo have betrayed the principles of fairness that made the Nazi war crimes trials at Nuremberg a judicial landmark, one of the U.S. Nuremberg prosecutors said on Monday.

"I think Robert Jackson, who's the architect of Nuremberg, would turn over in his grave if he knew what was going on at Guantanamo," Nuremberg prosecutor Henry King Jr. told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"It violates the Nuremberg principles, what they're doing, as well as the spirit of the Geneva Conventions of 1949."

[. . .]

"To torture people and then you can bring evidence you obtained into court? Hearsay evidence is allowed? Some evidence is available to the prosecution and not to the defendants? This is a type of 'justice' that Jackson didn't dream of," King said.

Pre-9/11 thinking, clearly.

Crooks and Liars brings us up to date:

With each passing day, the Bush Administration becomes further isolated from our courts, Constitution, the American people and the world. What’s so sad is that the GOP Presidential candidates appear determined to put party over country and do the exact same thing.

No presidential pardon protects administration officials from international criminal charges, so international travel could become iffy in the future.

Then again, Albania might be accomodating. The president might even be able to get his watch back.