Should former president Bush be tried of international war crimes?

[Schadenfroh]

He should be put on trial for leading us to war on false pretenses, if they prove that he knew that there were no WMDs in Iraq (or similar justifications for the war), then he should be punished.

That being said, I am not sure how Obama can commit acts of war against a sovereign nation, Libya, without congressional approval.

If we open up that can of warms, be prepared to deal with it. If we do decide to put them on trial, it should be in an American court, not some international tribunal.

When El Baradei also starts suggesting that leaders from Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and a few other locales in the ME also be brought to tribunals for crimes he might be viewed as soemone non-biased in his request. Until then he is pissing into his own mighty wind.

QFT

 

[Herr Kutz]

Never! He alone had the foresight to confront radical Islam and their hate for humanity in general, and the West in particular, despite objections by even those who Muslims would have dead. What, with holding the world's food prices hostage by their greedy oil cartels, their hatred of progress, and their obvious disdain for human life, it is the followers of Islam that should be put on trial and the entire cult disbanded. Instead we should erect statues the world over in Bush's honor and praise his noble intentions. I propose that March 20th should become known as "George W. Bush Day".

 

[werepossum]

When El Baradei also starts suggesting that leaders from Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and a few other locales in the ME also be brought to tribunals for crimes he might be viewed as soemone non-biased in his request. Until then he is pissing into his own mighty wind.

This. The man is dedicated to furthering worldwide Islam and his own fortunes, not necessarily in that order, and anything he says is in furtherance of those goals.

 

[fskimospy]

Depends on what you mean by 'should'. (ha!) If you're asking if Bush has taken actions that have been prosecuted as war crimes in the past, the answer is most likely yes. From a world standpoint, you could say he 'should' be prosecuted.

If you're talking from a US standpoint, absolutely not. We would be insane to allow a former chief executive of ours to be taken and imprisoned. Not only would it seriously undermine current and future executives ability to make decisions, but it would undermine us before the world. We should be the only ones to prosecute our leaders, and we should do it when WE think its right, not when someone else does.

 

[between]

...

 

[fskimospy]

exactly the kind of arrogance that got America in the fvcked up position it currently occupies. it's almost as if you think you are above international law, above international standards. Horrifying.

Every country thinks it is above international law and international standards. Every. Last. One. The only thing that keeps them following it in the rare circumstances that they do is when they find it in their best interests to do so, not out of some respect for it as a higher authority. That's because in the world today there IS no higher authority. In any state there is the government, the group with a monopoly on violence that can compel anyone in the state to follow the law. In the international arena there is no such authority, hence no such binding law.

Can you provide me with an example of a time where a country has turned over its leadership to be tried by the international community due to its desire to adhere to international law? Of course not. When things like that happen its due to coercion by an external power, or the fact that the people running the country wanted to see the guy fried.

I have no idea what country you are from, but if it has occupied a position of significant power currently or in the past, you will find that it has a remarkable disregard for international law when it affects its interests.

 

[EagleKeeper]

You might as well take every head of state that has sent troops into GWII.

And considering that the Libyian situation has been a false front; go after all the leaders that presently are supporting actions there.
Did Clinton have the authority to attack a soveriegn nation - No - add him to the list.

 

[wuliheron]

You might as well take every head of state that has sent troops into GWII.

And considering that the Libyian situation has been a false front; go after all the leaders that presently are supporting actions there.
Did Clinton have the authority to attack a soveriegn nation - No - add him to the list.

Why stop there. The French had the right idea. Sometimes you just need to wipe the slate clean and cut off the heads of all the top people. It not only gets the point across, but it provides lots of room for everyone to get promoted.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Damn...just how many times are you going to let Harvey vote!?!?

 

[wuliheron]

Damn...just how many times are you going to let Harvey vote!?!?

You try and stop him.

 

[Lemon law]

First all its time to note, the very Al Baradi now calling for prosecution, fell over and pander to world powers, and was asleep at the switch when it came time for him to debunk the lies GWB&co told.

The second thing to note is that I really wonder about GWB himself, a man not smart enough or a critical thinker able to distinguish that difference between a dubious contention and pure lies in terms of 100% pure false propaganda. I would tend to favor prosecuting the men and women who clearly knew, people like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, and Hadley, who went on public record telling lies they knew were 100% untrue.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

No because it's a dumb ass idea.

This should be looked into domestically, but good luck on getting either party to act on it.

Don't like Bush? How about giving your representative hell instead of passing the buck.

 

[boomerang]

..

 

[Matt1970]

Screw that administration and the ground that they walk on. When Clinton was in office, although by human nature, was not perfect, we had a balanced budget for the last 7 out of 8 years he was there. He mandated it.

There were also plenty of jobs for everyone. If you didn't like where you worked, you could tell them to kiss your ass & leave, and have another within a week, that is, if one really wanted to work. There was a labor shortage.

Even as late as early 2000, gas could still be bought (around here) for less than $1. Funny thing, as soon as Bush got in, things reversed fast. The economy fell, and of course he allowed the blame to fall on 9/11 for it. Problem was, things were headed south PRIOR to 9/11. Bush & Cheney's real money came from oil, why would they want cheap gas for everyone.

And the war. Congress was lied to in order to push it through, there were no WMD's, in fact, much of what Hussein did have was provided by Reagan during their war with Iran. That war was personal, Bush wanted him, and done whatever to do it. Really, how would the US act, if a president from another country ordered OUR president to leave the country within 48 hours, or else? How would we feel if another bully demanded to inspect OUR facilities at will.

Prior to Bush/Cheney, this country was on a roll. We had jobs, easy credit, cheap energy (necessary for a healthy economy). They fucked it up, and didn't waste time in doing so. They even blamed the housing collapse on Clinton, problem is, that didn't happen until 2006, well into Bush/Cheney's 2nd term. So WTF did they do to prevent it? It happened under their watch.

If nothing else, they should be tried for the destruction of our country as we once knew it.

Cat

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. Let’s start with Clinton. The budget wasn't balanced till 1998. Clinton took office in 93. That was the internet boom. Revenue tanked in March 2003 with the .com bubble burst and didn't rebound till the 2003 Bush Tax Cuts.

Gas hasn't been below $1 a gallon since the 80's. I remember in 1991 calling some friends telling them about a gas war going on between 2 stations that dropped their price from $1.20 a gallon to 99 cents. You really should stop the Gas argument with Bush. Gas was $1.87 a gallon when Bush left office.

WMD's: Don't be fooled. He had them. Ask the Kurds and Iran that he used them on. Where did they go? Saddam kept very close tabs on what he had and they just magically disappeared off their records. Every politician of any consequence is on the record saying he had them from intelligence THEY gathered and looked at and also said he needed to be removed from power.

Stop getting facts from Maddow and MSNBC.

 

[OutHouse]

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. Let’s start with Clinton. The budget wasn't balanced till 1998. Clinton took office in 93. That was the internet boom. Revenue tanked in March 2003 with the .com bubble burst and didn't rebound till the 2003 Bush Tax Cuts.

Gas hasn't been below $1 a gallon since the 80's. I remember in 1991 calling some friends telling them about a gas war going on between 2 stations that dropped their price from $1.20 a gallon to 99 cents. You really should stop the Gas argument with Bush. Gas was $1.87 a gallon when Bush left office.

WMD's: Don't be fooled. He had them. Ask the Kurds and Iran that he used them on. Where did they go? Saddam kept very close tabs on what he had and they just magically disappeared off their records. Every politician of any consequence is on the record saying he had them from intelligence THEY gathered and looked at and also said he needed to be removed from power.

Stop getting facts from Maddow and MSNBC.

Actually in 98 gas around denver was 97-99 cents. I had a pickup then and it cost me 20 bucks to fill. I remember it well.

 

[CallMeJoe]

If you're talking from a US standpoint, absolutely not. We would be insane to allow a former chief executive of ours to be taken and imprisoned. Not only would it seriously undermine current and future executives ability to make decisions, but it would undermine us before the world. We should be the only ones to prosecute our leaders, and we should do it when WE think its right, not when someone else does.

President George H. W. Bush set an interesting precedent with Manuel Noriega.

 

[bfdd]

I would have no issue coughing over our former leaders if we can do the same with the other countries in the UN, but you know that isn't the case. I mean wouldn't the USA love to pull up Imadeinnerjacket on similar charges of crimes against humanity, but the UN and Iran would just laugh in our faces. We should take a similar stance as far as I'm concerned.

 

[CallMeJoe]

WMD's: Don't be fooled. He had them. Ask the Kurds and Iran that he used them on. Where did they go? Saddam kept very close tabs on what he had and they just magically disappeared off their records. Every politician of any consequence is on the record saying he had them from intelligence THEY gathered and looked at and also said he needed to be removed from power.
Stop getting facts from Maddow and MSNBC.

Iraq indeed had WMDs. They just didn't have any usable stocks in the 21st century. For all the certainty with which Cheney, Rumsfeld & Company announced the existence and location of chemical and biological agents, and for all the effort that the coalition put into locating those agents, all that were ever found were highly degraded traces in munitions dating from the early '90s. There were not even records of more recent manufacture.

Stop getting "facts" from Hannity and Fox News.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I would have no issue coughing over our former leaders if we can do the same with the other countries in the UN, but you know that isn't the case. I mean wouldn't the USA love to pull up Imadeinnerjacket on similar charges of crimes against humanity, but the UN and Iran would just laugh in our faces. We should take a similar stance as far as I'm concerned.

I would. It's a matter of precedent. If we choose to use an extranational means to settle something which we ought to be looking into, then what's the limit? Presidents and Congress being subjected to whatever someone else wants? I think those responsible for any impropriety should be keel hauled if that's what facts from a proper investigation warrant, but we should have control of the rope.

 

[bfdd]

I would. It's a matter of precedent. If we choose to use an extranational means to settle something which we ought to be looking into, then what's the limit? Presidents and Congress being subjected to whatever someone else wants? I think those responsible for any impropriety should be keel hauled if that's what facts from a proper investigation warrant, but we should have control of the rope.

Hey man, I'm just saying if we're going to give up our sovereignty everyone else has to too. They won't, so fuck them.

 

[Craig234]

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. Let’s start with Clinton. The budget wasn't balanced till 1998. Clinton took office in 93. That was the internet boom. Revenue tanked in March 2003 with the .com bubble burst and didn't rebound till the 2003 Bush Tax Cuts.

Gas hasn't been below $1 a gallon since the 80's. I remember in 1991 calling some friends telling them about a gas war going on between 2 stations that dropped their price from $1.20 a gallon to 99 cents. You really should stop the Gas argument with Bush. Gas was $1.87 a gallon when Bush left office.

WMD's: Don't be fooled. He had them. Ask the Kurds and Iran that he used them on. Where did they go? Saddam kept very close tabs on what he had and they just magically disappeared off their records. Every politician of any consequence is on the record saying he had them from intelligence THEY gathered and looked at and also said he needed to be removed from power.

Stop getting facts from Maddow and MSNBC.

Partly RIGHT, RIGHT, WRONG, WRONG.

Clinton: he reduced the deficit every year IIRC, though that didn't take if from the high deficit to balanced until his last couple years. The recession start earlier, the crash was earlier than you say, but the Bush borrowed tax cuts weren't what helped, and they were just big deficit increasers that are a disaster still.

Gas: ya. I don't blame Bush for the gas prices except for his being like others in supporting financial deregulation that let speculation bubble gas prices.

The same thing that's happening now, that Obama is now paying lip service to but hasn't done much to fix.

WMD's: he *did not have them*. He'd had some many years earlier, which were used on Kurds, which were used in the war he started against Iran, in the 80's.

The time period when the Reagan administration was making relations closer, when the US military intervened to save Saddam from Iran winning the war Saddam started.

(Shooting down an Iranian civilian passenger jet mistakenly killing hundreds in the process).

The US was not only RECKLESS in its assessments on Iraq WMD, it had an agenda to find one answer, it forced the conclusion, and it prevented independent inspections.

Maddow is an excellent source of information - you're wrong. The parts that were wrong above didn't come from Maddow and MSNBC, showing you don't know what the hell you're talking about in your attack on her. So it's you we should not get an information from, not her.

 

[KK]

Alot of morons here. One says gas hasn't been $1 since 80's. Another moron says we are governed by international laws, not to mention the other 38 idiots.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Hey man, I'm just saying if we're going to give up our sovereignty everyone else has to too. They won't, so fuck them.

Never place a bet with crazy people

 

[Craig234]

Yes, he should.

I've had some sympathy for the side that correctly says, we didn't have a good answer to Saddam - peace left his brutal regime in power.

But the larger issue here is aggressive war.

We have a UN charter to prevent it for good reason, and we signed it as we should.

Ignore the benefits and harms of the specific war, and recognize that either you have international law to prevent war, or you don't have it.

The police don't go to a domestic call, find out the guy was a wife beater but there's no usable evidence, and decide to shoot him. There are laws for a reason.

Setting a precedent of 'gosh, we went to war and made an oopsie, but take no responsibility' undermines international law and makes it hard to prevent another.

The administration's case was based almost entirely on the lies of one man, an Iraqi exile, who was trying to get 1 of the spots for amnesty in Germany available to only one in 25 Iraqi refugees, knowing this information would get him a spot; the Germans found him unreliable and warned the US, and the US never knew his name or talked to him before the war - all of this was greatly misrepresented as a far more solid basis for war than it was, intentionally, not mistakenly.

The problem is those Americans for whom the facts and law are unimportant, who care only for 'we do what we want, because that feels nice'.

Who not only don't care about using international law to prevent the next war by someone, but prefer we use our own military to get involved if we don't like it and to allow it if we do, in a 'might makes right' approach. People for whom the international court of justice is only tolerable if used on our enemies, and who would rather get rid of it altogether for merely implying the US might have to follow laws.

In the interest of supporting peace, the UN charter, international law, and preventing more aggressive wars, despite the positive parts of removing a dictator here, Bush deserves to be pursued for war crimes, for violating the UN charter, lest it be corrupted into something meaningless as 'does not apply to the US and allies'.

Those who oppose this strictly on the basis of not wanting Bush prosecuted no matter how guilty of crimes simply on the basis of 'we do what we want' are a menace to peace unfit to be citizens, irresponsible and immoral, the very sorts who should not have a say on power, which they abuse.

 

[ThatsABigOne]

I voted no because he was not a dictator.