Once again America’s most infamous war criminal, Dick Cheney shot his mouth off stating that President Obama’s investigation into CIA practices against terrorism suspects “calls into doubt the Obama administration’s ability to handle national security” begs the question: When will Dick Cheney shut up?

With all the advance intelligence warnings of an attack by al Qaeda this five time draft dodging war criminal couldn’t protect the United States on 9/11 but he now questions President Obama’s creditentials on national security.

Perhaps Pogo was right when the cartoon character said “We have met the enemy and the enemy is us” because unless and until Dick Cheney is prosecuted for war crimes and justice served by his incarceration for violating international law and the Constitution of the United States politics as usual will continue much to our detriment as a nation of laws.

The pundits pretend outrage but when Dennis Kucinich offered up articles of impeachment against Cheney in 2007 he was ignored. Even the patron saint of journalists and worshipped by those he left behind at MSNBC, Tim Russert, ridiculed Kucinich during a Democratic debate by asking him if he believed in UFOs instead of asking him “If elected, would he investigate and prosecute those in the Bush Administration for committing war crimes?”

We’ve known for far too long that the previous administration subverted the rule of law and no one was held accountable. The current investigation appears headed in the same direction wherein a few bad apples at the bottom of the barrel might be charged with crimes but the authors of those crimes will be free to spread the lie that terrorism works thus reducing the Republic to the role of a rogue state where our “terrorism” is acceptable while the “terrorism” of other nations is not.

It is time for the Obama Administration to change the “politics as usual” that he claimed during the primaries and the 2008 election by recognizing that if we truly are a nation of laws any investigation include the people at the top, especially war criminals like Dick Cheney are prosecuted to the fullest for their role in the crimes against humanity that occured under the Cheney Administration.

It is time for the press to remind the public, especially the ignorant among us, that we are a nation of laws and it is time for President Obama to get a backbone and understand that we cannot move forward unless and until we address our recent past, so that we will not repeat a history that will ultimately destroy the Republic.

It is time for America to realize that “the enemy is us” and our war criminals should spend the rest of their lives behind bars, with their fellow terrorists, without the press providing a platform for their message of fear and ignorance.

While Michelle Obama may finally be proud to be an American, given our current state of failure to admit we committed war crimes, and our continued failure to hold anyone accountable for those crimes, I must remain disappointed, ashamed and embarrassed. Only the Obama Adminstration can shut up Dick Cheney by charging him as an American terrorist and proving to the rest of the civilized world that we are indeed a nation of laws.