Only John R. Bolton – whose disdain for the entire concept of the United Nations got him appointed as our Ambassador to the body – could write almost eleven paragraphs in the Washington Post deriding Obama’s “prosecutions by proxy” and what he terms the “threatened foreign prosecution of Bush administration officials” without a single mention of the fact that by initiating the investigation Spanish authorities are honoring Spain’s obligations under the Convention Against Torture Treaty.

This act of concealment allows Mr. Bolton to fraudulently paint Magistrate Garzón as a modern day Don Quixote, tilting at windmills. He deliberately and conveniently omits the fact that the only reason that Spain can initiate an investigation and prosecution is because the United States has failed to live up to its own obligations under the Convention to prosecute these war crimes itself. As Glen Greenwald at Salon has repeatedly pointed out, the Convention Against Torture requires the Department of Justice to submit any act of torture to competent authorities for prosecution, and it is this failure that allows Spain – an any signatory to the Treaty – to initiate prosecutions.

So the solution to Mr. Bolton’s perceived affront to our sovereignty is very simple: we do it ourselves. Even Spanish officials concede that the very second the United States does the right thing and prosecutes its war criminals, Spain’s investigation is immediately snuffed out.

Out of curiosity, where were Mr. Bolton’s cries of protest when we prosecuted Charles Taylor of Liberia for the torture he committed there?

The remainder of Mr. Bolton’s piece is a dizzying mish-mash of empty threats and ominous warnings, all emanating from his wrapped in the flag fear that some of his buddies might actually face consequences for the war crimes they committed. For example, Mr. Bolton warns Obama that if he permits the foreign prosecution of U.S. war criminals that it could “come back to bite future Obama administration alumni, including the president, for their current policies in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.” Two ways to avoid that Mr. Bolton – don’t commit war crimes, and if you do, investigate them here. Problem solved.

Then there is Mr. Bolton’s rank hypocrisy. If Mr. Bolton’s entire career could be summed up in one principle, it is the singular notion that the United States should never have its own options limited by foreign entanglements and should retain as much autonomy and sovereignty as possible. For Mr. Bolton, however, this is apparently a one way street, as he chides Obama for failing to meddle in Spain’s affairs and end Spain’s investigation, noting with exasperation that “the State Department has said only that it is a matter for the Spanish judicial system.” Again, what would Mr. Bolton have said if Liberia had tried to stop us from prosecuting Charles Taylor? Or even worse – one of our tortured detainees?

The inconvenient fact is that for a period of time, as a matter of policy, the United States was torturing prisoners. This is no longer a matter of belief or supposition. Rather than address this fact, Mr. Bolton marches out the standard platitudes that those involved in this national tragedy were just providing legal advice, and all those that want to prosecute torture are simply criminalizing policy disagreements. Characterizing the authorization of a war crime as "legal advice" or "a policy disagreement" does not change the fact that it was torture and it is against the law.

Mr. Bolton further writes:

This issue is not abstract. For the six lawyers, it has immediate effects on their lives, careers and families.

Of course, Mr. Bolton. The six lawyers who signed their names to documents that purported to authorize and permit acts of torture are the victims here. Never mind about those who were tortured and killed on our watch and in our custody, on the purported authority of the memos they wrote. Those positions on the faculty at a law school and seat on the Ninth Circuit bench are punishment enough, and in fact, must be torture, indeed.

The central problem with Mr. Bolton’s article remains the fact that he refused to even acknowledge the existence of the treaty that requires Spain to undertake the prosecutions he thinks Obama should stop. Until he acknowledges that treaty, and that the United States is itself obligated to prosecute its war criminals, his article is nothing more than misleading and deceptive slop intended to belittle and demean Spain’s efforts to honor its treaty obligations when we will not.