65 Comments on “War Crimes”   rss feed

1. Jason Dick on Jun 26th, 2008 at 7:45 pm

   No matter the political fallout, prosecuting the crimes of the current administration really needs to happen. If it does not, then it will send a message to future presidents that they can get away with it. This old adage, I think, applies all too well here: “Power corrupts; Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Allowing the current administration to get away with its flagrant violations of the law will only pave the way for future presidents to do the same, or even take it a step further.

2. Counterfly on Jun 26th, 2008 at 8:20 pm

   Anyone thinking that there will be war crimes prosecution is living in a fantasyland, as were those who thought that impeachment was a possibility.

   It’s just not how politics works in this country. The Democratic Party doesn’t have the stomach for it, and the people in general don’t care. The Shire won’t be scoured: it’ll have some nice paint put on, and maybe some aluminum siding.

3. David T. on Jun 26th, 2008 at 9:27 pm

   When the change of administration happens, I call for the immediate apprehension and incarceration of the top acting members of the Bush administration, inclusive of Bush and Cheney. I call for their immediate prosecution under charge of war crimes, sedition, and treason. I will remind you that treason is a capital crime.

4. Ras on Jun 26th, 2008 at 10:13 pm

   If you want an object lesson on how “minor” infractions of the rule of law can escalate, I only point to Iran-Contra. Where the then administration committed perjury and outright defiance of a legal prohibition enacted by Congress and nothing happened. I won’t pretend that it was as bad as the current behavior, but it was an object lesson.

5. frodo on Jun 26th, 2008 at 10:25 pm

   Of course there won’t be any prosecutions. One or two European countries might press symbolic charges, but that will only be done so as to have them recorded in judicial history. (Nobody will ever bring Bush to trial, or Blair, or any number of European leaders who supported the Iraq war. (Or Putin for that matter, who probably deserves a long prison sentence even more than our own Dear Leaders.))

   (Awful English, I know.)

6. Brian Mingus on Jun 26th, 2008 at 10:53 pm

   While I agree with the sentiment, I think its unfair to pin the rapes on the administration. Shit just doesn’t roll that far uphill.

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   [...] a hero … [Cosmic Variance] Filed under: politics — jbardhan @ 4:20 am From this article at Cosmic Variance: Q: What do the following Army service decorations have in [...]

8. jick on Jun 27th, 2008 at 1:27 am

   I have no doubt that many people, inside and outside America, would argue that the possibility of American citizens raising voices about perceived war crimes of their own leaders shows how much democratic and civilized America actually is, compared with most of the rest of the world.

   The sad thing is that it is in fact true. (At least it seems so to me.)

   Sometimes I think there’s something fundamentally wrong with this world.

   (And then some people in some small East Asian country or another would begin to argue how beneficial the US has actually been to their own nation, despite its perceived faults and crimes, and how their nation should try its best to lick Americans’ collective ass… but I digress.)

9. LHC Master on Jun 27th, 2008 at 3:44 am

   Jick,

   I would agree with the first paragraph you wrote. While many members of the present US administration surely deserve to be tried for war crimes and while the US is resented in many parts of the world today, I find it very admirable that the first people to find faults with America are Americans themselves, usually led by the universities.
   My country, India, which seems to be so loved by western press in recent times, has a long record of war crimes and human-rights violations, in Kashmir, in Gujarat and in some of the eastern states, where the “Naxalites” and “Maoists” are deemed terrorists. But what really shocks me is that most Indians are completely unconcerned and get very offended when these are brought up. Atleast, I don’t see that in the US or maybe I haven’t been around much.

10. anon on Jun 27th, 2008 at 7:00 am

    Jick,
    I don’t understand your first paragraph.
    People all over the world accuse their leaders
    of war crimes. In Zimbabwe, this is happening now.
    A ‘democratic and civilized’ country shouldn’t ever
    get to such a situation.

    That show how undemocratic and uncivilized we (the US)
    is.

11. fh on Jun 27th, 2008 at 7:08 am

    jick, and the fact that it got to that point at that nothing happened in the end shows how far the US still has to go.

    I do not need to tell you how the opinion of the US has suffered. Western European allies are well aware of a lack of accountability (most of Bushs colleagues would have been forced to step down long ago had they done what he did), the dramatic weakening of seperation of powers and checks and balances and the rule of law, etc.

    That said the US always has the capacity to surprise.

12. Kai on Jun 27th, 2008 at 7:41 am

    That administration has undermined the judicial system to the point where they are virtually above the law. Also, most countries seem to have unwritten laws that prohibit charges against former presidents - see frodo’s post. It would take lasting public outrage to move something. There is little hope for that as long as it is out of fashion, especially for the media, to afford a spine or a paired organ a few inches below. Also, I feel that most people are sick & tired of the Dark Ages (unlike most cosmologists), and want to look forward to better times rather than back.

    At least, there is hope for change this November. Got to support the not-so-old candidate.

13. Albatross on Jun 27th, 2008 at 9:31 am

    Just keep in mind that the question of whether or not Bush Administration officials will be held accountable is not one of Democrat versus Republican. The question is one of the citizenry versus the corporations. Part of the reason that we as voters are so frustrated with what seems to be a spineless Democratically-controlled Congress is due to a failure to recognize that our government, Democrats AND Republicans, have been taken over by the corporations.

    That’s why Dems won’t work against the Republicans - because doing so would be working against corporate interests, and corporate interests fund the Democrats.

    There’s no better indication of this than the FISA battle: despite being blatantly unconstitutional AND injust, FISA passed the Senate 80-15 because it includes retroactive telecomm immunity. This immunity saves the telecoms tens of millions of dollars, while also preventing the process of judicial inquiry from proceeding beyond the telecoms to the White House.

    If “the opposition,” the Democrats, can’t be impelled to support the rule of law in order to investigate the Republicans on illegal telecom wiretaps (presumably against Democrats as well as everyone else), why should anyone expect anyone to investigate the even more serious issue of torture?

    Following the Bush Administration, what we need is a full-fledged South Africa style Truth and Reconciliation Commission. We’re not going to get one.

    The only thing that can save American democracy is Campaign Finance Reform, in order to (re-)remove the corrosive influence of corporate money on Congress. The only way to pass CFR is a long-term grassroots effort to elect Democratic and Republican candidates committed to passing CFR. We must supersaturate Congress with CFR supporters if we want CFR to pass.

    Without CFR, we will remain a fascist state in the trappings of a democratic republic.

14. Count Iblis on Jun 27th, 2008 at 11:27 am

    No American will ever end up in the Hague, see here why:

    U.S. President George Bush today signed into law the American Servicemembers Protection Act of 2002, which is intended to intimidate countries that ratify the treaty for the International Criminal Court (ICC). The new law authorizes the use of military force to liberate any American or citizen of a U.S.-allied country being held by the court, which is located in The Hague. This provision, dubbed the “Hague invasion clause,” has caused a strong reaction from U.S. allies around the world, particularly in the Netherlands.

15. Moshe on Jun 27th, 2008 at 1:06 pm

    War crimes is such a complicated and emotional issue. How about good old conventional crimes? embezzlement, nepotism, perjury, etc. etc….lots to choose from. A strong independent justice department has the mandate to prosecute those crimes, whether or not it is politically advantageous for the next administration. Not holding my breath though…

16. George on Jun 27th, 2008 at 2:05 pm

    When a new administration enters, they need to open the kimono (so to speak) for international review. It is important to let others decide this matter. We are all biased and complicit. We can only have integrity when we subject our actions to open criticism. If Bush and others are war criminals, then that will be judged in the Hague. If I were Bush, I would not like my chances.

17. chancho on Jun 27th, 2008 at 3:04 pm

    “That’s why Dems won’t work against the Republicans - because doing so would be working against corporate interests, and corporate interests fund the Democrats.”

    Very well stated by Albatross - and completely consistent with observations.

    “…holding senior officials in the U.S. government responsible for war crimes”. I sincerely hope it happens, but I will not hold my breath for it. See above.

18. Albatross on Jun 27th, 2008 at 3:47 pm

    Thanks Chancho. I fully expect Obama to win and after inauguration declare that it’s time to put the past behind us and move forward. He might even issue a blanket pardon to Bush and Cheney. He’s a centrist Democrat and very much part of the Beltway political machine; it’s not a machine that’s designed to self-diagnose and repair. I’d be delighted to see a Bush/Cheney perp walk, but I expect instead that everything will be swept under the rug.

19. Joshua on Jun 27th, 2008 at 4:02 pm

    The democrats in congress have had since 2006 to do something about Bush’s crimes, but they’ve done nothing. They won’t cut the funding of the Iraq war because they’re too worried about re-election. Both parties have failed us, it’s about time we had some new parties in power.

20. wolfgang on Jun 27th, 2008 at 4:36 pm

    Impeachment proceedings are reserved for BJs and similar high crimes…

21. Jim_Harrison on Jun 27th, 2008 at 6:52 pm

    A new administration might be able to prosecute some members of the old administration for corruption, but war crimes are another matter altogether because a large part of the public has no problem with preventative war, torture, and other illegalities so long as they appear to work.

    On the one hand, I agree with those who argue that only a severe accounting will prevent the repetition and expansion of the abuses characteristic of the Bush administration. On the other, I don’t see how it would be politically possible to bring the malefactors to justice even though many of them violated black letter law and did so in broad daylight. From this contradiction I draw the sad conclusion that the days of constitutional government are pretty much over in this country and that future administrations are likely to be more rather than less inhibited until the consequences of lawlessness result in some terrible disaster comparable to what happened to the South after the civil war or Germany after 1945.

22. Elliot on Jun 27th, 2008 at 9:09 pm

    I would hope the failure of any efforts to bring these criminals to justice yet is a calculated effort to avoid the presidential pardon that Bush might use in his final days to annul any such efforts.

    Hopefully the Obama administration will turn these people over to an international tribunal without hesitation to pay for their crimes.

    I would love to see Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Yoo, Gonzales, Rove etc. be held accountable for the atrocities that have occurred.

    And Scalia can watch from the sidelines.

    e.

23. jick on Jun 27th, 2008 at 11:15 pm

    (Warning: this comment is a huge chunk of non sequitar. So please don’t ask me “interesting, but what’s that got to do with Sean’s post?” Sorry and thanks in advance!)

    Re: 9 (LHC Master),

    Speaking generally, nationalism sucks. I guess some Indians would get upset when confronted with their human rights issues, because, well, after all, they think it’s their problem and foreigners (like me) have no right to tell them what to do. Just the same here in South Korea.

    Perhaps I’m a pessimist, but it gets really complicated, because sometimes the argument actually applies. Consider Iraq. Millions of honest (if ill-informed) Americans supported invading Iraq because Hussein was such a terrible tyrant. After all, should the world tolerate the existence of such a despot? And then it turns out that perhaps we could have allowed him to live on and prosper, which would have been in fact more beneficial to most Iraqis… however cruel it sounds.

    North Korea offers a similar dilemma. Some people think a dictator like Kim Jong Il should be disposed of by any means possible. Now, apart from the inconvenient fact that any such means would entail economic meltdown of South Korea and near-certain deaths of me and my family, it simply wouldn’t work. (If you doubt, see Iraq.) So Seoul actually helps him, giving his regime money, oil, and food, allowing him to survive and make more weapons that aim Seoul, and so on… There is no magic solution, practially or morally.

    The ideal solution would be for every person to get rid of their own nation’s war criminals. Americans should take down Bush, North Koreans revolt in Pyongyang, and so on…… “Take care of your own trash,” I call it.

    But the real world is far from ideal, so we should keep good faith and keep fighting, I guess. The fact that America is among the most democratic countries in the world shouldn’t stop Americans from demanding better justice. And the fact that powerful nations like America, Russia, and China are all sending troops to abuse human rights shouldn’t stop people of whatever poverty-stricken small country from crying out against their own nation’s crimes.

    Re: 10 (anon)

    I don’t know much about Zimbabwe, but I know South Korea. Until the late 80’s, people could be imprisoned, fired from job, and otherwise abused, if found just “reading” something claiming anything bad about our presidents. A university professor accusing the president of war crime (like what’s happening here)? With pseudonym, that would have been incredibly bold. Without, that would have been suicidal.

    Sometime I think the Americans could have fought harder. How many Americans lost their job fighting against Bush?

24. anon on Jun 28th, 2008 at 8:46 am

    well, i count at least 8 US attorney’s that have lost their jobs.

25. The Almighty Bob on Jun 28th, 2008 at 12:23 pm

    Not having a dog in the hunt (yay for foreigners butting in, eh?) I think the ‘Truth Commision’ suggestion might be a good idea. A tribunal with two powers: to subpoena, and to pardon, and with a mandate to find truth, rather than impose justice.
    In both sides.
    Can you imagine the worms that would be found under the logs such an organisation would turn over? No-one could easily stay silent, as anyone who testifies is likely to get pardoned - if you don’t testify, there’s no chance of a pardon, and the DOJ has access to the transcripts of what everyone else said you did…
    One gets the impression that if all the skulduggery inside the Beltway in the last eight years was exposed in this way, the Augean Stables would be thought to have gotten off easily. Nobody would be convicted of anything, but what went on would be down in sworn testimony. The grass-roots lobby for ethics legislation would be murderous.

26. nc on Jun 28th, 2008 at 1:49 pm

    War is a messy business, so the people needed to fight effective soldiers can sometimes be ruthless. It’s quite understandable if the stress of comrades being killed in battle causes an impairment of judgement. You can’t have vicars or human rights lawyers in the battle, authorizing soldiers everytime they want to pull the trigger. Nor can military commanders remain in total control of actions of all soldiers in practice. There are arguments about how to morally treat suspected terrorists when trying to get vital life-saving information from them about their organization, and arguments about what kinds of weapons are the most humane. E.g., on the one hand the nuclear bomb is terrible if detonated, but that is exactly why it deterred WWIII from breaking out during the Cold War.

27. Pieter Kok on Jun 28th, 2008 at 2:55 pm

    I was wondering when the first apologist would show up. It is one thing when soldiers commit crimes; it is quite another when political and military leaders encourage them.

28. Elliot on Jun 28th, 2008 at 2:55 pm

    nc wrote: “war is a messy business”

    Which is exactly why it should be the remedy of last resort. The fundamental crime of the Bush/Cheney regime was invading a sovereign country who had not attacked the United States, had no role in 9/11, and presented no imminent threat to our safety or security. And they did it by lying to America about the reasons for the war.

    as I have written here more than once “violence is the last refuge of the incompetent”.

    e.

29. JimV on Jun 28th, 2008 at 4:06 pm

    Dr. Carroll, thank you for raising this issue. It is a stand which I think every good citizen should take, but most citizens will not.

    As someone who has never been able to vote for a Republican for national office (starting with Nixon), I ask myself whether I am biased, and whether impeachment and war-crimes prosecutions might do more harm than good. I will never be sure, but one good result might be to expose the Republican party base to the evidence for corruption and malfeasance which they have managed to ignore or rationalize. Perhaps this in turn might mean than someday I could vote Republican.

30. Lawrence B. Crowell on Jun 28th, 2008 at 5:09 pm

    Bush and Cheney will not face either impeachment or indictments on war crimes. In part this comes from a range of executive priviledges, and international declarations such as the American Servicemembers Protection Act. Yet they could still face the US Justice system, and Bush and Cheney must be crapping out bricks sideways at the prospect of an Obama victory. So in keeping with criminals in general, the problems created by prior crimes are “solved” by committing further crimes. This could involve a range of actions from starting a war with Iran to election fraud and rigging. A war with Iran, with associated emergency internal security activities, might be the perfect way to turn the election to McCain. This would turn the nation’s focus to a war and the political need for an experienced military man in the Whitehouse. Heap some funny computer patch codes in those Diebold machines and voila, the GOP is in the whitehouse and has enough in the Senate and House to beat down any special investigation of the Bush administration.

    Mind you, I think Bush and Cheney belong in San Quentin, but I’d be surprised if they get within a grand jury indictment of the place. I also have some concern that if these two really begin to feel threatened by these actions they might unleash all sorts of horrors to cover their tails. Clearly that is not the way our government is supposed to work, but then again we have drifted pretty far from what might be called rule of law, and even further away from democracy.

    Lawrence B. Crowell

31. George on Jun 28th, 2008 at 8:55 pm

    Integrity comes from complete disclosure. The international community will be the judge. It is not so much a matter whether Bush serves time so to speak. It is a matter, if the USA’s actions are deemed war crimes, we, the country, need to make amends and take measures that prevent such actions in the future.

    I could give a crap if Bush lives out his days as a judged war criminal on a Texas ranch or not.

    We, our country, must be accountable for what we let happen. Then we must take actions that are a responsible reaction to those events so we protect against recurence. Then we can again start to hold our heads up as a nation.

32. John R Ramsden on Jun 29th, 2008 at 4:50 am

    Elliot (#28) wrote:

    The fundamental crime of the Bush/Cheney regime was invading a sovereign country who had not attacked the United States, had no role in 9/11, and presented no imminent threat to our safety or security

    But Iraq *did* attack the US indirectly - by switching its oil currency trade from dollars to euros back in around 2000. 9/11 and the search for chemical weapons were simply handy pretexts, and even then it took a couple of years of tiresome jumping through diplomatic hoops before they could settle accounts with Saddam Hussein.

    See the book “Petrodollar Warfare Oil, Iraq and the Future of the Dollar” by William R Clark, reviewed at http://www.world-wire.com/news/1215050002.html

    Iran has also switched their oil trading to euros, and for that would already have been clobbered by the US the same way as Iraq if it weren’t for public opinion and Iran’s closer alliance with Russia. Perhaps, despite these, its nuclear ambitions will prove to be its undoing, just as dabbling with chemical weapons (and above all trying to mess with the dollar hegemony) was Saddam Hussein’s.

    I think the US was justified in invading Iraq, for the reasons summarized above, although predictably they made a hash of it at first. Didn’t they learn anything from Vietnam? When occupying a large country, one must go in mob-handed and not rely on a few shiny new toys! (The Brits, who successfully invaded Iraq in the 1920s were helped by half a million troops from the Indian army, and even then it took a couple of years to subdue and settle the country.)

33. The Almighty Bob on Jun 29th, 2008 at 10:04 am

    31, George, and 29, JimV: much the same as my “Truth Commision” point. Knowing what happened (and how) is more important than punishing those that did it. If only because it’s more likely to lead trto measures to prevent such things happening again.

    32: the British also have (and had) hundreds of years of experience of overseas warfare and hostile occupation, and of creating useful territories out of such places. They have also gained serious experience in the last hundred years of the myriad ways there are to “de-occupy” a country. They’re not brilliant at it - but I can’t think of any better off the top of my head.
    The British supposedly tried to give the US troops and political heads a few clues for Iraq, only to be told to shove it.

34. Pieter Kok on Jun 29th, 2008 at 10:14 am

    John R Ramsden, are you really saying that Saddam changing the currency of oil trading justifies all horrors of “precision” bombardments and the like, which were unleeshed on the Iraqi population by the US? If so, your moral compass is off by more than just a few degrees.

35. John Baez on Jun 29th, 2008 at 10:41 am

    If we are unable to bring Bush and his cronies to justice for their crimes, at least we can try to make their crimes generally known - a poor substitute, but better than nothing, and difficult in its own right. Good work, Sean!

36. John R Ramsden on Jun 29th, 2008 at 11:58 am

    Pieter (#34), could I remind you that Saddam tortured and killed Iraqi citizens by the bushel, including I think somewhere around a million in the Iran-Iraq war which he started, and hundreds of thousands since the first Gulf War.

    Using precision bombing, the US is at pains to avoid unnecessary casualties and collateral damage, and practically all of both these since the US-led occupation has been caused by Iraqi factions.

    There are always innocent casualties, and that’s regrettable; but to mind, anything or anyone that prevents the EU getting too big for its boots can only be applauded and encouraged, or else one day, mark my words, things will be a hundred times worse than they are now!

37. anon on Jun 29th, 2008 at 2:23 pm

    the valuing of oil in dollars or euros is irrelevant.
    http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/beat_the_press_archive?month=06&year=2008&base_name=how_does_a_falling_dollar_rais

38. John R Ramsden on Jun 29th, 2008 at 2:46 pm

    anon (#37), that article was absurdly oversimplified. But one of the replies cited a very interesting, and slightly alarming, article at http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/02/26/stories/2008022650070900.htm which confirms exactly my point. Here’s a quote:

    It is obviously possible for such oil-exporting countries to consider seriously the option of shifting towards denominating oil trade in euros.

    It is also easy to see why the US would resist such attempts with all the strategic and military means it can command. It would force the US to generate a trade surplus to pay for its oil imports, involving a huge and painful shift from trade deficit to surplus. And this would be required at a time when the US economy is already imploding because of the continuing fallout of the sub-prime mortgage-induced financial crisis.

    It is worth noting that the only OPEC country that had dared to make the switch to using the euro in oil transactions in the early part of the decade was Iraq, which formally made the change in November 2000 but paid the price of the US invasion in 2003

39. Kai Noeske on Jun 29th, 2008 at 4:35 pm

    John R. Ramsden, I can only hope that you meant the last paragraph of your posting #36 with a ton of irony?

40. Pieter Kok on Jun 29th, 2008 at 6:09 pm

    John R Ramsden, Saddams crimes were atrocious, but your point in #32 was that his currency policy alone was sufficient justification for war. That’s just crazy.

    As for “precision” bombing: I don’t know if you saw the fire balls over Bagdad during the first week of the war, but I do not buy that only the bad guys were hurt, and that all innocent Iraqis just walked away. Sure, they show the missile going through the kitchen window of the palace, but they don’t show the size of the crater afterwards. It is rather distasteful to call the casualties “regrettable” when speaking from the comfort of your own –safe– home.

    And you don’t have to worry about the EU; they will keep themselves small by consistently voting against a constitution in ill-advised referenda.

41. Mike on Jun 29th, 2008 at 7:14 pm

    Members of this administration won’t be prosecuted for war crimes for the simple reason that they committed none. Sorry to break into your echo chamber with a dissenting view, but if invading Iraq constitutes a “war crime”, then you’ll need to round up the following Democratic Senators who voted for the 10/11/02 resolution authorizing the use of military force against Iraq: Baucus, Bayh, Biden, Breaux, Cantwell, Carnahan, Carper, Cleland, Clinton, Daschle, Dodd, Dorgan, Edwards, Feinstein, Harkin, Hollings, Johnson, Kerry, Kohl, Landrieu, Lieberman, Lincoln, Miller, Nelson, Nelson, Reid, Rockefeller, Schumer, and Torricelli. That’s 29 Democratic Senators voting in favor if you’re counting at home, vs. 22 voting against, so the resolution would have won only among Democrats.

    Like that distinguished list of Democratic Senators, I believed that invading Iraq was the best among a range of difficult choices. I still believe that. I didn’t vote for Bush in 2000 or 2004 (I have voted Libertarian in the last few elections but find Bob Barr to be pretty distasteful) and I have no financial interest in the war through working for a defense contractor or the like. I am neither stupid (you’d have to take my word for it that I am better informed re: world affairs than 90% or more of you), greedy, nor evil. I just disagree with you, and I think the growing tendency to criminalize disagreement is not favorable for the US or the world.

    So let the insults fly, or engage in reasoned debate, as people in this country used to be able to do. Or ignore my intrusion into the echo chamber entirely.

42. Sean on Jun 29th, 2008 at 7:31 pm

    Nothing in the post, or in any of the links, or in Gen. Taguba’s preface, or in the Physicians for Human Rights report, claimed that invading Iraq was a war crime. Maybe the noise in the echo chamber made it difficult to read?

43. Loki on Jun 30th, 2008 at 6:37 am

    Most nations have laws that protect former presidents for good reason - to persecute former leader is little more than scapegoating 1 person for crimes of the whole nation. What was the approval rating of Iraq war among americans when it all started? 60-70%? So how come Bush is personally accountable for what majority of population happily approved of?

    Every nation has the leader it deserves.

44. Loki on Jun 30th, 2008 at 6:47 am

    Same goes re torture - i don’t doubt that majority (=more than 50%) of americans (or any other nation) will answer positively to something stated like

    “- Is it ok to use physical and pscycological pressure to obtain info that will possibly help to save life of your child?”

    - “Yes, sure, let somebody do dirty work to keep us safe .. just don’t tell us about details”

    This is an inevitable flaw of democracy - average personis neither very intillegent nor particularly nice … Other systems have other flaws, needless to say )

45. Pingback from Politics and Religion on Jun 30th, 2008 at 9:02 am

    [...] make a difference, or does it just feel that way? I find it hard to imagine anyone is going to read this recent Cosmic Variance post and change their minds about war crimes charges for the Bush administration. A [...]

46. Elliot on Jun 30th, 2008 at 9:57 am

    Loki,

    I couldn’t disagree more. The approval rating was based on a calculated propaganda campaign pushed by the Bush/Cheney regime. Plans to attack Iraq were in the works before 9/11. It was this event that gave them the opening to move ahead despite no evidence of WMD, threat against us, or involvement in 9/11.

    I think if Bush had gone on television and said: “We don’t think Iraq was involved in 9/11 but we want to invade because Saddam is just not a nice guy and we think that our private subcontractors will make a lot of money and a neo-con think tank is telling us we need to establish an American empire in the middle east”, I suspect the approval ratings would not have been that high.

    Treason is not too strong a word, in my opinion for their actions.

    e.

47. Slide2112 on Jun 30th, 2008 at 2:12 pm

    Comments such as Elliot’s have no basis in reality. The Democratic leadership saw the same intelligence and voted for the war for the same reasons. Let’s not forget about UK, Spain, Italy, Netherlands and blaa blaa blaa.

    The difference is the Democrats don’t have the integrity to see it through. Instead they see victory in defeat. Proud Democrats all…It is a depressing thing to witness.

    It is another sad day for science here at Cosmic Variance when distortion is promoted by Sean and allowed to run free in the comments.

    Those who disliked the US before the war with Iraq still do. Not surprising that the election of pro-US governments in Germany and France of all places goes unnoticed here.

48. abelian on Jun 30th, 2008 at 3:39 pm

    Our ears have been bombarded with this phrase until it has lost its sting… nowadays war criminals, fascists, bigots are the people you do not agree with

49. Elliot on Jun 30th, 2008 at 3:49 pm

    Slide2112,

    My comment was in reference to approval ratings by the public not the state of (dis)information provided to Congress.

    Are you suggesting that the story told to the American people about the rationale for going to war was truthful?

    And how many non-American troops are still part of the “coalition of the willing”. (please provide the actual numbers) I wonder what backroom strong arm tactics were used to encourage many of them to join.

    It is disgusting and I am not giving Democrats a pass. Some stood up. Durbin, Wellstone etc.

    And nobody “dislikes” the U. S. I love this country and that’s why it is critical that we hold accountable those who have contributed to our decline in eyes of the rest of the world. So we can regain a place of repect in the world community

    e.

50. spyder on Jun 30th, 2008 at 5:24 pm

    As the Count points out (#14), the US now has a law that authorizes the military to “rescue” a US citizen from any form of detention, including international law. That law was signed a few months after Bush/Cheney (at the behest of Addington, Rove, and Gonzales) unsigned the International War Crimes Treaty. I wonder just which members of the administration these actions were designed to protect????

    http://www.alternet.org/story/13055/
    http://hrw.org/english/docs/2002/05/06/usint3903.htm

51. John Knight on Jun 30th, 2008 at 6:42 pm

    Gee, imprison the President because we believe bad things about him, mostly because we want to believe bad things about him? Criminalize political differences? Good, then maybe we can execute Barak Obama after he leaves office. Appointing the Constitution-hating judges he has promised to appoint really should be a capital offense.

    The nutjobs are run amok.

52. Mark on Jun 30th, 2008 at 6:51 pm

    That’s some of the finest trolling I’ve seen in a while.

53. John Knight on Jun 30th, 2008 at 8:39 pm

    …Which your way of sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling “Nyah nyah nyah” to make it go away…

    If you don’t think I have a serious point, then you’re rather parochial. If you do think I have a serious point but just want me to go away, then you’re the one doing the trolling.

    Sorry, but they are plenty of bright people in the world who are not moonbats.

54. Mark on Jun 30th, 2008 at 9:41 pm

    It is by no means parochial to think you don’t have a serious point. And indeed there are plenty of bright people in the world who are not moonbats. And you may be one of them. But your comment number 51 doesn’t bolster your case.

55. Loki on Jul 1st, 2008 at 3:12 am

    Elliot,

    What you say re manipulation of popular opinion in case of Iraq is true. But this happens on any serious issue nowadays, so no surprise. I still stick to my point that it is perfectly fine to persecute an authoritarian dictator. Or a leader of another country for crimes against your people (if you can afford this). But it is way less fine to go after a president of a truly democratic country!

    You need really really strong arguments to do the latter. The guy was just expressing the will of you and your compatriots. That an average man is gullible and unthinking is a pathetic excuse. Besides, the anger at Bush is somewhat post factum - i don’t see anybody scolding Clinton for ousting Slobodan Miloshevich (same evil dictator as Saddam) and eventually creating the state ruled by a pack of narcobarons in the centre of Europe. Why? Because gazoline was not that high afterwards, i guess

56. abelian on Jul 1st, 2008 at 5:35 am

    Loki,

    You are absolutely right selective and sanctimonius rage is a characteristic of ideologues of any kind (both left and right)… I amazed at the level of anti-Bush hysteria… blaming all of the world evils on one man is nonsensical and short-sighted. Wars and crimes and murder existed before Bush came along and will continue to be with us long after Bush is gone..

57. Otis on Jul 1st, 2008 at 10:45 am

    So there were some aggressive interrogation techniques applied to a few people who wished to kill us all. Perhaps some of the methods were too aggressive and got out of hand. But allegations of premeditated torture and war crimes perpetrated by our President and his top officials? Try explaining that to those who survived Auschwitz and the unbelievable horrors of Nazi Germany, or to the victims of Pol Pot.

    Sean’s allegation trivializes the entire concept of war crimes.

    Let’s take a look at the big picture. We recently mourned the passing of a great intellect, physicist John A. Wheeler. The following is an excerpt for his Wikipedia entry:

    “Together with many other leading physicists, during World War II, Wheeler interrupted his academic career to participate in the development of the U.S. atomic bomb under the Manhattan Project at the Hanford site, where reactors were constructed to produce the chemical element plutonium for atomic bombs.”

    John Wheeler was instrumental in building the bomb that instantly vaporized tens of thousands of people and horribly burned hundreds of thousands. These were non-combatant women and children living in the heart of cities far away from the conflict. Albert Einstein went to President Roosevelt to ask for the development of the Bomb. John Wheeler and his colleagues knew exactly what their efforts would result in. Are these people war criminals? The alleged torture inflicted under the Bush administration pales in comparison. Yet there has been effusive (and well deserved) praise for John Wheeler from the same people who want to convict Bush administration officials.

    Even today, there are hundreds of physicists working on nuclear weapons at the Department of Energy Labs (Lawrence Livermore, Lawrence Berkeley, Sandia, Los Alamos). Does anyone question these physicists about what they are doing?

    Sean and the rest of the herd have gone off the deep end. If their sentiments are typical of the nonsense that comes out of the academy, God help us all.

58. Pieter Kok on Jul 1st, 2008 at 1:07 pm

    Otis, just because bigger crimes have been committed in the past by other people does not mean we should stop prosecuting the crimes of the Bush administration.

59. abelian on Jul 1st, 2008 at 3:13 pm

    Otis,

    Well said

60. Elliot on Jul 1st, 2008 at 8:33 pm

    Why is the response from the Bush apologists always like a multiple choice question.

    If you want to hold him accountable you must be:

    1) someone who hates America
    2) hysterical and focused on this for political reasons only
    3) making it up with no evidence to support it
    4) not concerned about the threat of terrorists
    5) too concerned about civil liberties
    6) all of the above

    How about let’s have an inquiry, based on ample evidence of wrongdoing, and see where it leads?

    Bill Clinton got impeached for lying. Why can’t the standard be the same for Bush administration officials? And the consequences of Bushes actions are far more significant.

    I don’t think Sean was announcing a verdict. I think he is asking that the evidence be weighed in an appropriate domestic or international forum.

    Or did I not read his post correctly.

    e.

61. Otis on Jul 1st, 2008 at 10:41 pm

    Elliot,

    Apparently you did not read Sean’s post correctly. He wrote:

    “It it literally sickening that we’ve come to this. But nobody can be surprised. The Bush Administration has been perfectly consistent in its behavior for the last eight years. It’s going to take some time to deal with the consequences, and it won’t be pleasant for anyone.”

    That sounds like a verdict to me and its over the top.

62. Elliot on Jul 1st, 2008 at 11:50 pm

    Otis

    Gotta love your selective editing. We all can read the post in its entirety and context above. I will leave it to the learned readers here to decide if Sean is advocating accountability or has designated himself judge and jury and already handed down a guilty verdict.

    e.

63. Neil B. on Jul 2nd, 2008 at 12:08 pm

    I appreciate the degree and depth of serious concern over “war crimes” that may have been committed by the Bush Administration (and some allies?) I believe it is sincere and not just a way to take a crack at someone you dislike for other reasons. Mistakes were certainly made, and some things are just beyond the pale (use of torture to get confessions, even if e.g. we grant that just maybe it’s OK to prevent a “ticking bomb” from going off, however hoary a cliché some claim that is.) To put in some perspective, I however consider the nature of the threat the West has been under or perceived itself under is at least an “extenuating circumstance” for how we should judge a lot of what was done.

    That doesn’t keep e.g. John Yoo from being an overreach-enabling crank, Rumsfeld and others from having great culpability, Bush from not providing proper leadership. However, IMHO it isn’t the same as something just done under normal circumstances simply for gain. We need a big national debate over just what is right and wrong and in these times, and to get this clear so we either: fully uphold our classic values (preferable, but carrying some risk perhaps of vulnerability), or to decide that our survival requires cutting some corners. If the latter, it should be admitted to and justified as a last resort. It should not be lied about or flim-flammed as if still part of our prior attitudes and practices.

64. Jim_Harrison on Jul 3rd, 2008 at 12:10 am

    From a constitutional point of view, an administration has the right to be idiots or even monsters–there is not , so far as I know, any provision against war crimes in the document.* What a president doesn’t have the right to do is to violate due process, habeas corpus, and the separation of powers. And that’s what this issue comes down to. The Americans either enforce system of government by punishing those who violate the letter as well as the spirit of the law or they can say goodbye to their traditional form of government. When Franklin was asked what the Constitutional Convention had kind of government had been decided upon, he famously answered “a republic if you can keep it.” The point is, it appears we aren’t interested in keeping it.

    I’d be curious to know if Neil B. really thinks that 9/11 was in any way, shape, or form a real national emergency compared to Pearl Harbor or the outbreak of the Civil War or if he just taking for granted that the American public, in its current condition, is guaranteed to react to any threat with hysterical over-reaction and immediately jettison their principles when they feel something warm running down their leg . If the former, I disagree. He may well be right on the second interpretation, however.

    *As I understand the Consitution, ratified treaties do have the same standing as any statute passed by Congress and signed by the President. If that assumption is valid, breaking the United Nation’s Charter and the Geneva Conventions do constitute crimes under American law.

65. Neil B. on Jul 3rd, 2008 at 9:57 am

    Jim_Harrison,

    The single attack of 9/11 was not by itself grounds for reexamining and altering our basic principles, but the long-term nature of the terrorist/radical Islamist (and other problems) at least *might* be. Above all, I want an open national debate about that and the knowing consent of “the people” whatever we do, rather than things done in our name that are hidden, misrepresented, etc. Even then such corner-cutting requires constant oversight to avoid being abused (even more than its very existence may or may not be to start with.)

    Note I didn’t say such a threat definitely was grounds for making a fundamental adjustment. I said just that it might be, and that the pressure the threat put leaders under was an extenuating circumstance for judging their responses (not the same issue as what the response should be.)

    You made a good asterisked correction to your original rumination about whether Congress/Administration can Constitutionally practice war crimes. If we signed a treaty, the USC says we are supposed to uphold our word on that.

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