Are War Crimes Grounds For Impeachment?

Commenting on my earlier post, Thomas asks:

"High crimes and misdemeanors" = "morally unconscionable"?

Why wait for the proof in this case? I mean, can't we impeach for a "morally unconsionable" decision to go to war in Iraq?

How about the "morally unconscionable" tax cuts?

Shouldn't we expect a showing of treason or abuse of office, and shouldn't we insist that mere policy disagreements aren't sufficient to demonstrate those?

All good questions.

One should wait for proof because that should be required for impeachment.

Ordinarily the fact that Congress thinks the President has acted immorally should not, without more, be grounds for impeachment. But the allegations in this case concern much more than that. The charges, if true, suggest a real abuse of power (and abuse of office) and violations of both domestic and international law.

I noted earlier that the Administration's torture memo tried to offer a very narrow standard of torture, and so his lawyers might claim that what was ordered was not technically "torture" under the (unreasonable) interpretation that the OLC torture memo gives to that word. Nevertheless, if the allegations are correct, it would very possibly make the President guilty of war crimes. And it would almost certainly be in violation of the Geneva Conventions. Not all violations of international law should be impeachable offenses, but surely ordering the abuse and torture of prisoners should be.

I hardly think that ordering tax cuts and ordering torture deserve equal degrees of moral opprobrium. Nor do I think that criticizing a presidential decision to order torture evidences a mere "policy disagreement." If we have become so jaundiced as to reach that conclusion, we have surely lost our way as a nation.