Article By: Matt McQuaid

They burned the homes of civilians. They executed children. They assassinated healthcare workers. They raped women, mothers, daughters, sisters. And they would not have been able to do it without the consent and financial support of a man who now hosts a television program nauseatingly titled War Stories on the Fox News Channel.

Oliver North, who last month claimed that repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” will lead to the admission of pedophiles into the military, is that man. During the tenure of the Reagan Administration, North oversaw the establishment of a covert network that funded the Contras, a right-wing paramilitary group in Nicaragua that committed the atrocities during the nation’s ten-year civil war. Funding for the Contras came from weapons sales to Iran, and was also allegedly tied to narcotics trafficking, although North was never formally charged. North was, however, indicted on sixteen felony counts related to what came to be known as the Iran-Contra Affair and was later convicted of three.

But hey, if you’re attending college in 2010 you might not have even been alive during the Iran-Contra Affair, let alone remember it. But you probably remember an ominous, shadowy figure who secretly ran the federal government’s foreign policy from the depths of a cave from 2000-2008: Dick Cheney, the Sith Lord, the Vito Corleonne of the Executive Branch.

Think of all the men, women, and children who have died in Iraq, the homes destroyed by bombs, the daily carnage of one
country in the last decade. Think of all the American troops who were killed by IEDs and insurgents.

For what? Because the government acted on faulty intelligence; they acted on faulty intelligence because the office of the Vice President was pressuring George Tenet and the CIA to produce the intelligence they needed to make the case for war. The malfeasance of the Vice President’s office during Bush’s  tenure is unfathomable. Even just last year, CIA Director Leon E. Panetta told congress that under orders from Cheney, the CIA withheld information regarding a secret counter-terrorism program.

Saddam Hussein was executed while the world watched. Slobodan Milosevic died in prison during his trial. Thomas Lubanga, Germain Katanga, and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui await trial at the International Criminal Court for their unspeakable acts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Yet criminals such as Dick Cheney and Oliver North sit comfortably in mansions while children in Nicaragua and Iraq grow up without parents because of their actions; families are homeless because of their actions. Every day, mothers and fathers have to get up, look at themselves and the mirror, and tell themselves “my son is dead,” “my daughter is dead” because of their actions.

President Obama should demand that Dick Cheney, Oliver North, and all of the other monsters, murderers and war criminals in the GOP stand trial for their crimes in Hague. The political fallout from this action should not be underestimated. GOP rank-and-file will inevitably claim the federal government is taking part in a partisan persecution in the worst way, the same way the Dems did during the Lewinsky trial. Evil men should be brought to justice. The American media couldn’t get Dick Cheney to apologize for anything, but an indictment might. If Ollie North has war stories, he should tell them to a judge.