By James Donahue

In our previous investigation, we offered strong evidence that the United States government has been under the control of organized crime, and that criminals have been blatantly siphoning money from the national treasury ever since President George W. Bush moved in.

Not only were they helping themselves to tax dollars, but big-time schemers like Bernard L. Madoff were ripping off private investors who believed such investment and securities services were operating legally and under the watchful eye of the Federal Commerce Commission. It turns out the commission was either negligent, lacked the staff and funding to do its job, or was in on the scam.

To add to this gross insult, both Bush, in a press conference, and outgoing Vice-President Dick Cheney, in an interview on ABC news, both boasted that they ordered CIA operatives to use various torture techniques, including water boarding, to force information from suspected Islamic terrorists. They said what they did was vital to protecting the nation from further attacks after 9-11.

MSNBC Television personality Rachel Maddow this week talked to Jonathan Turley, an expert in constitutional law, about this strange dilemma now dropping on the shoulders of President-elect Barack Obama and his staff even before they move into their jobs.

When asked about prosecuting Bush and his staff for war crimes, Obama has recently been quoted as saying he agrees that his staff should investigate, but does not feel that Bush has done anything illegal. Both Obama and incoming Vice-President-elect Joe Biden have expressed more of an interest in “moving forward” and solving the stack of international and national issues Bush is leaving in his wake.

It is Turley’s opinion, however, that “we’re all complicit in Bush’s war crimes if we ignore them.” He says the moral burden of torture, for example, is on all Americans until “these people are brought to justice. And it will be profoundly immoral to let them go.

“I don’t believe that anyone seriously believes in the administration that what they did was legal. This is not a close legal question. Water boarding is torture. It has been defined as a war crime by U.S. Courts and foreign courts. There’s no ambiguity in it,” Turley said.

“This has always been a crime. It’s always been a war crime. It’s always been immoral. The question is not whether the act is immoral, but whether moral people will stand forward and say, ‘We’re not going to act like politicians for once. We’re going to act like statesmen and we’re going to say, Yes, let’s investigate. And if there are crimes here, let’s prosecute.”

That Obama and Biden appear so indifferent to this issue, only days before they take office, is disconcerting. But then, we understand the complexities of maneuvering through a shift change of such high magnitude and it may be that there is no room for political sword rattling in the midst of transition. We can only hope there is an unseen reason for this behavior.

Because of the blatant and lawless way Bush and Cheney, many members of their cabinet and even high ranking members of both House and Senate behaved, carelessly sucking billions of tax dollars into personal pockets and the pockets of big business interests like there was no tomorrow, we believe there is a high probability that organized criminals have had free reign of the treasury for a very long time.

If these and the war crimes are simply swept under the rug by the incoming Obama Administration, the implications are frightening. If we are right, then it means that the new Democratic party of change is non-existent. The best we can expect will be more of the same, perhaps under a new form of camouflage.