President George W. Bush was a god-fearing child given control of our military apparatus…or perhaps he was a child manipulated by a military that found religion a convenient hook. Frank Rich describes the internal propaganda used during the war. What I find shocking is that Bush received regular intelligence briefings with covers that invoked a combination of G.I. Joe war imagery and militaristic bible verses.
Take the one dated April 3, 2003, two weeks into the invasion, just as Shock and Awe hit its first potholes. Two days earlier, on April 1, a panicky Pentagon had begun spreading its hyped, fictional account of the rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch to distract from troubling news of setbacks. On April 2, Gen. Joseph Hoar, the commander in chief of the United States Central Command from 1991-94, had declared on the Times Op-Ed page that Rumsfeld had sent too few troops to Iraq. And so the Worldwide Intelligence Update for April 3 bullied Bush with Joshua 1:9: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” (Including, as it happened, into a quagmire.)
What’s up with that? As Draper writes, Rumsfeld is not known for ostentatious displays of piety. He was cynically playing the religious angle to seduce and manipulate a president who frequently quoted the Bible. But the secretary’s actions were not just oily; he was also taking a risk with national security. If these official daily collages of Crusade-like messaging and war imagery had been leaked, they would have reinforced the Muslim world’s apocalyptic fear that America was waging a religious war. As one alarmed Pentagon hand told Draper, the fallout “would be as bad as Abu Ghraib.”
Well, now they’ve leaked. Here’s an example.
It’s appalling on so many levels: that Rumsfeld thought that polishing up his report with the jingoistic equivalent of a clear plastic binder would win him points; that it apparently worked; that religion was used to promote war in the White House; that it was used despite the fact that it could worsen our chances of success. And we still have Dick Cheney doing a cheerful media tour encouraging us to support torture, which really wasn’t torture, but if it was, it was good for us.
We lived under the rule of monsters for eight years. We can’t just pretend it didn’t happen, we need to fight back in the courts to condemn these people and their actions.
Surely, the beginning of the first sentence should read “Former president George W. Bush.” The fact that he is no longer president is cause for celebration.
And this surprises you for what reason? It is confirmation of what anyone with a whit of sense has realized in the last couple of years – It was all lies, all foolishness, judicial murder of our troops in Iraq and Iraqi civilians. Bush should literally be dropped into a hole to rot and his legacy held up for what it is, rancid meat awash with worms. No, no surprises here.
The sad thing is rumseld(sp) will never be held accountable for genicide
Didn´t they in some sense violate the “states should not promote or hinder any religion”? What amendment was that again?
Sorry hungover totally
Much as I’d like to see this happen, it’s a bad idea. When Clinton was Maximum Leader we watched the Republicans spend six years and $60+ million trying to pin something, anything on a president from the other party. Let’s not make that sort of thing a permanent part of the government.
BushCo lied to have their war. The war was a bad idea.* I still don’t have a good idea as to what the real purpose of invading Iraq was all about.** But the lies used to sell the war to Congress and the people were obviously lies. The conduct of the War on Terror™ was full of illegalities. Despite what Alberto Gonzales and his cronies said, torture is against international and national law.
However, little would be gained by putting Bush, Cheney and their minions on trial. The anti-Bush people would gloat. The pro-Bush people would whine stuff like “it’s just to get revenge for Gore losing the Supreme Court decision in 2000.” Conservatives would be given a rallying point. And there’d just be a bigger rift between liberals and conservatives in this country.
*One of my major objections was running an extremely expensive war on the national credit card. If you don’t think that’s a major cause of the economic problems we’re having now, you haven’t been paying attention.
**I know the hypothesis about controlling Iraqi oil. I have my doubts.
@#1 Scarlet.
The US has a strange tradition of calling all former presidents “President” Ex or former is not used. Georgie boy will always be Mr. President.
I don’t know what’s supposed to constitute “G.I. Joe war imagery,” but I agree that combat-related photographs are silly and fairly inappropriate when presented on the cover of a briefing book.
The unacceptability of the Bible quotes speaks for itself. I cringed when the President started using “crusade language” in the days immediately after 9/11; turns out my fears appear to have been pretty spot on. That Rumsfeld was using the Bible to manipulate the President toward a particular course of action is as unpalatable as it is unsurprising.
: ‘Tis Himself @6:
Saddam Hussein made an assassination attempt at Bush’s father. The war was payback in his feeble mind.
Obama’s announcement that the Gitmo Military Tribunals will be continued in some form suggests that Dubbyah gave us all a royal screwing over. One possibility that comes to mind is that further investigations of statements given under torture have shown that some of the people being detained are in fact a threat. However, it is extremely unlikely to obtain a conviction in the civilian courts because the evidence was all acquired contrary to our own laws as well as international agreements of which we as a nation are not only signatories but which we had written in part and promoted. The facts remain that war crimes were committed to extract information and it is also extremely likely that many of those tortured had little to nothing of relevance to tell their torturers.
So there we go – still stuck with Gitmo and still stuck in Iraq. Unfortunately we’re committed to pulling out early and don’t have an ongoing plan for civilian engagement with Iraq and ongoing development especially of the educational system. Give ’em a few years after we pack up and go and there’ll be a civil war all over again but since the shiite are now funded and otherwise aided by some people in Iran, I’m betting that the shiite take over. Thank you Dubbyah, Cheney, and Rumsfeld. Oh, did I forget to mention we’re having our asses handed to us in Afghanistan? That’s one war that had been getting nowhere fast from the start and now signs are things are going backwards. Afghanistan, unfortunately, is also tied into Pakistan. Oh, I almost forgot: Osama Bin Laden still hasn’t been brought to justice.
6#
‘I know the hypothesis about controlling Iraqi oil. I have my doubts.’
Not sure if it is true but apparently Iraqi oil is not the best crude…very lightweight stuff…
Suppose it is still valuable…but nowhere near the quality of crude from Saudia or Kuwait…go figure!
Methinks this was also a tad of shrub trying to please daddy as a good xian son should…a family affair…how cute!
As for Blair bear…well he was listening to god pep talks as well…so we all know who is really to blame here!
Coach Yahweh ’em all up a dark and smelly alleyway…then dumped ’em…
Aided and abetted by the pentagononal evangelists and manipulation of the cynical hankering to employ the crusade mentality in afflicted clones tis a echo of crusader politics and unremarkable for all that.
Pope kept nicely out of the cross fire I note as did most other of gods deputies…although a few have sensed the ebb and flow of their flocks and decided they were not totally for the war anyway…after the event that is!…a few public hand wringing mumbled sentences at the time for the shape of the thing but no condemnation out right.
Must give heart to the deluded that jeebus is still a great inciter to hatred war and pompous bigotry!
The images on the GQ site are encased in a flash object. Here are direct links to the images so that you don’t have to take screenshots. (Btw, AdBlock users may need to add an exception rule to make the GQ page load properly.)
http://men.style.com/images/flashxml/gq/topsecret/_images/01.jpg
.
.
.
http://men.style.com/images/flashxml/gq/topsecret/_images/11.jpg
(you can fill in the links in the middle)
@NewEnglandBob #9:
Oh, it’s far worse than that. The invasion of Iraq was a delusional crusade of some fundamentalist christian cults. In their rotten brains they have this notion that they are saving Israel and that their actions will bring about conversion of the jews to christianity and the rapture. Really scary shit – and those people were pulling Dubbyah’s strings for 8 years.
Fight back? You voted for Obama in the primaries. Anyone who made an honest review of his record would have known he was spineless. In many areas we’re not any better than the old Theocrat-in-Chief.
We still have religion in government. We still hide torture. We still violate the rights of thousands. We’re still the biggest terrorist nation in the world. We still piss away hundreds of billions on illegal, immoral and unethical wars… And, despite having a President who was a Constitutional lawyer, we’ve got him, red handed, trying to continue to routinely violate the Constitution on many levels…
Fight back? Jesus, vote for someone with a spine next time.
I’m with ‘Tis Himself. Although anonymous tags are stupider than Bush, use your real name.
You’re more likely to NOT get another administration like this if you DON’T prosecute Bush and his cronies. If they’re remembered as dangerous idiots and villains their ilk won’t be elected again as soon; if they’re patriots defending themselves from partisan attacks then you’ll see their close political cousins in the White House again soon.
George W is hardly the first American President to try and fight RL wars just like a comic book and I doubt he was the first to have comic book presentations of the war handed to him by his handlers – sorry, his ‘staff’. For once though we have the visual evidence of it.
The slickness these are produced with though is very disturbing. Dubya thought with his gut and somepeople somewhere were feeding his gut some grade A, sugar coated horseshit.
Rumsfeld was and is part of a web of lies.
Terrorism: Technique used by Governments to manipulate public opinion in order to further an agenda.
This is, to coin a phrase, the smoking gun. This is a single piece of evidence that demonstrates that cynical rightwingers used the Bible on the credulous believers, to goad them into war, against all the evidence of reality.
This is what many of us thought was happening, and this is the proof, plain as day.
what does one expect from an administation that decided that ‘the battle hymn of the republic’ was appropriate in the days following september 11th???
@strangebrew
“light stuff” is good stuff. The lighter the oil (meaning a higher API), the less tars and asphalt are left in a barrel after refining. Light stuff needs less refining.
Waging an aggressive war is a war crime and a violation of the Geneva Conventions.
Torture is a war crime and a violation of the Geneva Conventions.
The Geneva Conventions require that signatory nations hold trials for these violations. Legally, that is, if international law is to mean anything and we are ever again to have cause for complaint regarding any other nation’s crimes against humanity, we do not have an option. We must try them.
And if we do not pursue justice, then other nations are legally required to do so. As torture and aggressive war are crimes against humanity, they have universal jurisdiction and can be tried in any nation.
What will be more likely to make Bush seem a patriot? Being tried in US courts for crimes under United States Code Title 18 Section 2441? Or being tried in a European court for violations of Geneva Homo Frenchie Statute III?
Greg @7
Thank you for the explanation.
So it was even worse than I thought. And that’s really hard to achieve.
I’m with comment 21. It might be worth discussing if the trial should be done during the first or the second Obama administration, but it has to be done.
As has the process for all those electile dysfunctions, though there it’s difficult to find out whom to accuse in the first place…
====================
On the question of the reasons for the war, what about wanting to be a War President™? W wanted a war, and because Saddam was so evil, Iraq looked like an opportunity everyone could get away with.
The Iraq war was and is about oil!
The Democrats and the American people are absolutely complicit with the Rethuglicans, see recent Pelosi fiasco! Adherence to the dogma of economic growth is as irrational as any religion and it will bring us down.
Recommended looking:
http://www.chrisjordan.com/
Recommended Course:
http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse
Recommended Blog and reality check
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5381
Peak Oil, it is here, wake up!
18#
“This is a single piece of evidence that demonstrates that cynical rightwingers used the Bible on the credulous believers, to goad them into war, against all the evidence of reality.”
Every major conflict in the last 2000 years has required a little steering…if not a lot…from a some fictional deity or similar …tis a handy tool to wield!
Ask any church clone…they ‘believe’ their priests and pastors and vicars and ministers…they never lie or manipulate cos that would make the baby jeebus cry…at least that what they get told!
And the priests and pastors and vicars and ministers work to the agenda of their church…which usually works to the sexual inadequateness, bigotry, hatred, fear and preferences rampant in the fundamentally unbalanced and mentally sick minds of the top doggies in that church!
Who in turn incidentally love politicians that appear to spout the same creed from a government composed of morons with the same sexual inadequateness, bigotry, hatred, fear and preference.
Somewhere along the line it all gets twisted and interwoven with national identity…then it gets Palin ugly…but nonetheless usable for the bunnies that be…in fact that is when the national psyche is ripe for the exploitation of a very silly and childish belief in a fairy story…that is why is always the first tool in a politicians little black heart.
Why are there so few openly atheist punters in government?…because it is not helpful to the agenda..simple like so!
This makes me feel sick.
Get a rope!
Prosecuting crimes would:
a) motivate current and future leaders not to break the law
b) allow the US to regain its moral standing in the world
There should clearly be more space between politicians and prosecutors. However, I’m sure there are plenty of culpable Democrats on certain congressional committees to go down with BushCo. too.
Aren’t there opinion polls suggesting a plurality of Americans want prosecutions?
The Rule Of Law is fundamental to democracies, republics, and even constitutional monarchies. Without it, the best you can have is an elective dictatorship.
Polls on prosecution before the release of OLC memos.
20#
“The lighter the oil (meaning a higher API), the less tars and asphalt are left in a barrel after refining”
Which…as far as I know…makes it a less productive crude.
Less by-products are available and less avenues to a market place.
liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), naphtha, kerosene, gasoil and fuel oil, lubricants and asphalt, perfumes insecticides,ethane, ethylene, propylene, butadiene, benzene, ammonia and methanol. The main groups of petrochemical end-products are plastics, synthetic fibres, synthetic rubbers, detergents and chemical fertilisers.
Whereas lighter crude has less possibility for fractionating!
I would assume the lighter crude is less intensive to develop…but it also gives less end profit per barrel.
Although it does yield higher amounts of gasoline!
But in the long run oil is oil…whether it was a main or even a secondary goal in the war I have no real idea!
Basically I think the war was motivated by a Christian sense of destiny…and we all know the ramifications of that little peccadillo!
That oil was there casts suspicion on the enterprise for sure…but just not convinced as to it being prime reason.
I just heard that Obama has appointed a Mormon Republican and former missionary, in other words either an idiot or a liar, as ambassador to China.
It seems safe to predict that there will be no trials for war crimes or torture.
@6 ´Tis Himself
Much as I’d like to see this happen, it’s a bad idea. When Clinton was Maximum Leader we watched the Republicans spend six years and $60+ million trying to pin something, anything on a president from the other party. Let’s not make that sort of thing a permanent part of the government.
And they (Republicans) will do it again anytime. Also, there is a minor difference in lying about cigars and starting a war that has caused the violent death of over half a million Iraqis (according to Lancet survey) and close to 5000 members of the coalition troops. And that is not counting torn limbs and permanent disabilities.
However, little would be gained by putting Bush, Cheney and their minions on trial.
Belief in a working justice system is not a little thing.
Conservatives would be given a rallying point.
Good on them, then they could stop teabagging for a while.
Maybe it’s already been covered somewhere on Phar., but there is a scary cover story in Harper’s Magazine this month about the attempt by evangelical Christians to take over the military.
That’s because there wasn’t anything. The evidence here is rather overwhelming, and it’s quite shocking (in a slow, tortuous kind of way) how thoroughly the Bush cronies have managed to avoid any accountability so far, especially now that they’re no longer in power.
Bush supporters claim that the movement for prosecution is motivated solely by revenge; I don’t know if those folks are making that up because it sounds good, or if they truly lack the basic moral instincts of a 4-year-old.
I had been reading the global edition of the Times this morning. The Templeton Foundation is advertising there! Sad.
strange brew @ 30,
http://www.theoildrum.com/classic/2005/03/secret-plans-for-iraqs-oil-by-bush.html
‘Tis Himself
I’m with strange gods. You can’t prosecute war crimes because people would “whine”? Or something worse? Is the US a failed state?
nils:
It has been argued that the failure to prosecute Nixon enabled the crimes under Reagan and Bush.
Great little piece here PZ. It never occurred to me that Rumsfeld would manipulate Bush in such a simple and obvious way. Disgusting really. It’s sad our president was such a simpleton. It’s sad our troops were being attacked while these idiots prayed on what to do.
If you want to see something really scary Vox Day was asked: If God told you to would you kill every child under the age of 2?.
His reponse:
Remarkably he concludes:
Why was there a war? I mean really?
Ironically enough, the idiotic policies of the past eight years — including two expensive and futile wars and unbridled laissez-faire –– are not going to seriously backfire:
Oups. I guess Gore was the right choice after all. Too bad we gave up on that whole ‘voting’ thing just at the crucial moment.
errr…. typo: I mean “NOW” for “not.”
An article on liberal versus conservative views of authority, and why conservatives assume prosecutions of politicians are partisan.
Guys, stand back for a second. This is it. The beginning of something. You have proof. G.W.Bush and Dick Cheney can be put on trial.
So…why hasn’t it happened? I’ll tell you why. Your government has proven to you more than enough times you can’t get anything done without kicking the people in power in the shins. Repeatedly. And hard. This won’t happen unless you guys actually push your government to convict these animals.
Now this may sound rich coming from me, I’m stuck in the UK so there’s not a lot I can do to help. But here’s my advice. SEND A LINK FOR THIS PAGE TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW. HOWEVER YOU CAN, SEND THE LINK ON. TELL THE PEOPLE YOU SEND IT TO TO DO THE SAME. THEN PRINT THE EVIDENCE OFF. ATTACH IT TO SOME PLACARDS. COME UP WITH SOME SLOGANS.
THEN GATHER EVERYONE WHO’S READ THIS AND IS ANGRY TOGETHER. MARCH TO YOUR NEAREST CONGRESS MEMBER. MARCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE. FORCE THEM TO PUT THESE F**KERS ON TRIAL.
This isn’t gonna happen any other way.
Speaking of trials, oil, accountability…I’ll post this link once again:
http://wiwavshell.org/
Scheduled to start on the 26th.
We lived under the rule of monsters for eight years. We can’t just pretend it didn’t happen, we need to fight back in the courts to condemn these people and their actions.
Personally I would like to forget about it. Just drop it and don’t waste taxpayer money on the past. The Republicans are a dying party, and we now have the best possible president we could ever hope for. I’m very satisfied with that.
Where the hell did that come from, “Nils Ross”?
That was a story made up by the Saudis.
What this suggests most strongly to me is that Bush was, as almost everyone guessed, the tool of the Cheney/Rumsfeld/PNAC/AIPAC axis, a cypher and a sock-puppet. The Cheney cabal chose the Chimp, rather than the other way around.
Although religion and an authoritarian mindset contributed to the failure of the Bush II administration, I think the biggest problem is that G.W.B. is a complete moron. I don’t mean that as an insult; I mean it as an honest assesment of the man’s intellect. I doubt that he’s ever read a book more complicated than “The Pet Goat.” That’s why so many Americans admired him. He didn’t have his mind scrambled by no fancy-pants book learnin’, by golly.
Strangebrew @20: It seems safe to predict that there will be no trials for war crimes or torture.
Safe as houses, brother…
three reasons:
1) Were Obama to prosecute the torturers, their handlers, and enablers, he would be putting a big “INDICT ME!” sign on his own back. That’s the pragmatic reason.
2) Such prosecution would be totally unprecedented. So they’d have to make it up as they went along, which would be really inefficient.
3) No jury in the USofA could be counted upon to CONVICT, or not to practice ‘jury nullification.’ They’d release any Bushevik who pled “good faith” just because you couldn’t empanel a jury without at least one or two wackloons on it, and so the sacrifices would be in vain.
Seconding this link from amk, highly recommended.
@littlejohn: You’re right about the anti-intellectualism. This is the person whose administration used “reality based community” as an insult, after all.
Of course it was about oil – as Greenspan notedhttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article2461214.ece . You only need to look at what has happened to the Iraqi oil industry post-invasion. Consider the “Oil Law” the US has been trying to push through, against opposition headed by the Iraqi Oil Unions:http://www.ameinfo.com/124110.html – note that this site is a “business resource”, not a political site. Even apart from that, the last several years have seen the Iraqi oil industry tied in to the need for US-sourced equipment and training – even if there is a full US military withdrawal, future Iraqi governments will be highly vulnerable to an embargo on replacement equipment. However, I’ll be very surprised if there is full withdrawal, as the other reason for the invasion was to establish military bases in the Gulf region (see PNAC’s “Rebuilding America’s Defences”), and I can’t see the military establishment letting them go. It’ll be disguised as “training” and “landing rights”, as in Saudi Arabia. Obama, as he’s rapidly proving, while a great improvement on GWB due to having a functioning brain, is just as much a representative of the US elite. It’s arguable that from the perspective of that elite, the invasion has been a (much delayed) success if only Iraq is considered – after all, what do a few thousand US troops matter, let along a few hundred thousand Iraqis – but at the cost of a major contribution to causing the crash of 2008, and giving Taleban/Al Qaeda forces plenty of time to dig in and extend their power along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border.
“The law seems intended to transform Iraq’s oil industry from a nationalised model closed to foreign companies except for limited, albeit very lucrative, marketing contracts, into a commercial industry, all but privatised, that is fully open to all international oil companies.”
– from
Clear-plastic binders
Let me guess: The Discovery Institute has lots of them.
Those briefing covers could double as church bulletin covers, which is oddly appropriate.
The right wing will indict Obama for something anyway. They’re already agitating for secession from the Union. When they get over that fantasy, they’ll reach for something more plausible.
Remember, Bill Clinton did absolutely nothing to instigate his impeachment. Yes, he lied under oath, but they were already digging into his sex life for no legitimate reason. He stumbled by lying, but he did not instigate that drama. It was entirely manufactured. They will manufacture something for Obama, and every Democratic president in the next forty years, as long as it remains a useful partisan tactic.
As far as tit for tat, Obama has nothing to lose by prosecuting Bush. They’re going to come after Obama no matter what he does.
Nuremberg, 1945.
Maybe, maybe not. 12 people are not that many, it can be possible to get a jury without any high-RWAs. We can’t know until we try. And if some absolutely will not convict, that doesn’t automatically mean acquittal. It may mean a hung jury, and a retrial. We don’t get only one chance.
This is about the most oblivious dumbassery I can imagine.
It seems to me that most people have some sort of freaky conceptual block that prevents them from thinking clearly about this kind of thing.
Imagine any other crime, done by any other person. Now imagine any other society in which people said “Oh, let him get away with it. It’s too much trouble to prosecute the guy.”
Now imagine that the crime was a murder. And people still said “It’s a bad idea to go after the guy. It would make people unhappy and angry.”
Now imagine that it was a double murder.
Now imagine that three people were killed. Five people. Eighteen.
The guy starts to seem like a serial killer, doesn’t he? And yet people still say “Oh, let’s just look away. Let’s move on. Nobody wants to think about that anymore.”
Imagine that thirty people died. Ninety. Three hundred. Six thousand. One hundred thousand. Five hundred thousand. A million.
I guess the numbers get numbing and people just want to avoid thinking about it. But in the end, I have to ask:
If you lived in a small town, and one guy stabbed another one to death, in full daylight, in the town square, and there were 20 witnesses, and news cameras, and a smear of blood running 15 feet down the sidewalk where the dying guy dragged himself, and when you looked you realized that the guy dragging himself and bleeding to death was your own neighbor’s son, a boy who was on your son’s softball team …
And the city fathers and everybody around you said “It’s no use trying to prosecute the guy. He’s our mayor, fer chrissake. It’s a waste of money and it would just piss people off. Besides, who knows if stabbing a guy is illegal, if the mayor does it? Just let it go.”
… would you want to go on living in that small town?
We should just let this go? We should just move on? It’s a bad idea to investigate and prosecute?
Let’s get a grip, people. This isn’t a five-year-old boy stealing the little red-haired girl’s crayons in day care. It’s murder and mass murder, and they used YOU to do it.
THEY KILLED YOUR NEIGHBOR’S KIDS.
Do you want to live in a nation, in a world, where we have a PRECEDENT for that? Where it can NEVER be stopped? Where little people like you who question it are considered to be crazy and evil?
Are you fucking insane??
As they are now for Nancy Pelosi.
‘Tis, I’d be interested in hearing what you’re skeptical about. Given that Iraq has oil, the US consumes oil, and Bush-Cheney connected companies received no-bid contracts to that oil, it strains credulity to think that oil did not play some significant part in their motivation. Building military bases near Iran was surely important too, I don’t mean to say oil was the whole of it. And I’m not savvy enough to guess whether the goal was to put more Iraqi oil into the market or to keep it out. But please share your thoughts.
For anyone who enjoys a good show, here’s comedian Robert Newman’s A History of Oil: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5267640865741878159
Does this apply only to the rich and powerful, or are you saying that we should close down the criminal courts at all levels?
bobxxxx @ 45,
Hmm, right, the guy who did nothing to stop the bank, Wall Street and auto industry bailouts and then back pedaled on releasing pictures that would show the world that USA promotes and condones the use of torture. You are very satisfied with that? Typical self centered ostrich reaction if you ask me?
Well guess what you will not be allowed to forget it.
Hyped, sure, but what was fictional about it?
What surprises me is that W. didn’t get the comic-book version of military briefings.
Maybe. There’s been a steady erosion of the system of checks and balances. For over a hundred years, the executive branch has consolidated power. At the same time, the legislative branch has willingly abrogated its power; they now issue “authorizations for use of military force” instead of “declarations of war” and this alone should be both illegal and terrifying. And the judicial branch has now directly appointed a president in Bush v Gore. That president’s lawyers invented for him the power to suspend the First Amendment.
Many signs of constitutional democracy are now missing.
Teehee. Someone linked to it, and it wasn’t me! :)
It’s great. I usually link to it here, since there’s other fun stuff:
http://www.thedossier.ukonline.co.uk/music_satire.htm
There’s also this:
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/irqindx.htm
Jared Diamond – How Societies Fail and Sometimes Succeed
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4271982381147720351
“…little would be gained by putting Bush, Cheney and their minions on trial.”
Our leaders tortured people to cook up evidence for going to war.
They should be in jail.
Looking forward is looking the other way.
strangebrew,
As was stated, lighter crudes are much more valuable to the oil companies than heavier crudes. As it stands, nearly 1/4 or 1/3 barrels of oil is used to produce (transport, separate, treat, transport again) every barrel of oil that makes it to an end-user. A lot of that energy goes into heating water to drive heavier crudes out of the ground, and then heat the mix again so it flows through pipes. Then it’s used in separating crude from the water (chemically and gravitimetrically, heat helps). Then the fractionating comes in. We have lots of crap (tars, etc.) which we can ADD to pure crude if we need to; the pure stuff is the gold.
Starting with lighter oil eases all of this production run-around by massive amounts.
violation of the Geneva Conventions.
In case it’s escaped anyone’s notice, the Geneva Conventions are largely ignored by everyone, except for where whining about them is politically expedient.*
We used chemical warfare (i.e.: WMD) like it was going out of style in Vietnam** and got away with it; of course we did.
The Geneva Convention never meant anything; it’s just a sop for rubes who don’t realize how manipulative and violent governments are.
(* Bush’s comments about Saddam’s troops committing “possible war crimes” by putting captured airmen on TV causes my hypocrisy meter to fission)
(** Napalm, Agent Orange, and CS gas used in lethal concentrations to “clear” VC tunnel complexes)
“What surprises me is that W. didn’t get the comic-book version of military briefings.”
Hark back to 2005 (U.S. D.o.D. news):
Spiderman, the original webbed wonder, and Captain America, a former 98-pound weakling who a science experiment turned into the perfect soldier, visited the nation’s military headquarters to shake hands, pose for photos and unveil a new Marvel comic book that features a military character in the opening scene.
The comic was designed and is being distributed in partnership with DoD’s “America Supports You” program, which seeks to showcase ways in which the American public is supporting the men and women of the armed forces, and the Army and Air Force Exchange Service.
“The New Avengers: Guest Starring the Fantastic Four” features the America Supports You program logo and other military-themed artwork on the cover. “Marvel salutes the real heroes, the men and women of the U.S. military,” is printed across the bottom of the front of the comic.
Also, a two-page “centerfold” contains a poster of the America Supports You logo surrounded by Marvel superheroes.
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=31325
Check out the photo. We live in a sick country.
How much blame belongs to Bush and how much belongs to those (mis)informing him?
The last time Congress declared was was December 11, 1941, when replying to the German and Italian declarations of war against the US. There is nothing illegal about not declaring war. Congress has the Constitutional authority to declare was but they are not required to do so.
Google “jessica lynch real story.”
Hey, You’re the guy who wants “a strong” central government and think that those who want to take away the power and the toys are crazy loons…
Well, you got one.
Suck on it, fuckers…
This past Veteran’s Day, my nephew had a school assignment to interview a veteran, so he choose me. I was in the Air Force Reserve for 4 years many, many years ago.
The last question he had for me was just for a general comment on my thoughts about the military an I said that I felt that the USA really needs to think about how they use the military and what USA asks their soliders to do.
Having the biggest, baddest standing Army in the can seem quite silly if you don’t use it. Use it only for true and compelling dangers and threats. Invading Iraq did not meet this criteria–and the military was badly missued.
Our soldier, our grunts, our boots on the ground should not be sent around the world on the fools errands of rich spoiled boys (and girls) just because they can. That in my view is evil.
Whats that famous quote by Hannah Arendt “The Banality of Evil.” Describes the Bush Regime and the USA’s modern use of the military.
The GQ article is important and disgusting–bring those banal rat bastards to trial I say–this country needs a good long true look at the evils done in our names.
Hank Fox foams:
THEY KILLED YOUR NEIGHBOR’S KIDS.
Do you want to live in a nation, in a world, where we have a PRECEDENT for that? Where it can NEVER be stopped?
That is the kind of world we live in. Wake up and smell the maple nut crunch.
If you lived in a small town, and one guy stabbed another one to death, in full daylight, in the town square, and there were 20 witnesses, and news cameras, and a smear of blood running 15 feet down the sidewalk where the dying guy dragged himself, and when you looked you realized that the guy dragging himself and bleeding to death was your own neighbor’s son, a boy who was on your son’s softball team …
Wow. How lurid. How Kitty Genovese.
As in the earlier thread about dumbass boy who wants to avoid chemotherapy, I find it interesting that we’re always supposed to care more about the agony of a) a young person and b) someone who’s at least familiar to us. After all, what you just described was commonplace in Rwanda, and everyone stood around watching and wringing their hands. So the dynamic appears to be “someone killed kids in my in-group, therefore my kids might eventually be threatened” or something close to it. Note that everyone continues to cheerfully not give a fart (other than making sanctimonious blog postings or maybe buying a bumper sticker, that is) Does that observation align with the selfish gene? Are kids in our in-group (especially if you also mate with your neighbors’ spouse behind their back) more likely to carry our genes than some kid 4,000 miles away? Makes sense to me.
I rarely post to any blog. I’m mostly a reader. (lurker?) However, reading the pros and cons of this debate I can’t help feel like one of the angry villagers with a pitchfork in one hand and a torch in the other listening to both sides of the question. Suddenly, one man steps up with a strong voice of reason and passion and asks if we’re “fucking insane.” I can’t help but feel he’s right. I’ve lived for eight dreadful years under a corrupt, criminal regime and to let them walk away “scott-free” is an anathema to my soul. Hank’s right! They killed my neighbors kids. They killed my brothers, my cousins, and possibly my future relations. Politics be damned! I’m ready to take up my pitchfork and storm the castle.
Obama can’t move on. He can’t pretend that the last 8 years didn’t happen. At best he’ll be president for eight years, and it’s not impossible that the next president will be like GWB. Or the one after that. If Obama simply “moves on” now, then he’s really saying that, while president, you can do anything you want with no accountability, because the next administration will bury it or simply ignore it. If he really wants change, then he’s got to set the tone that you will be accountable for your actions forever. The worst precedent that he could be setting is to ignore misdeeds of the previous administration.
That they’re getting away with it doesn’t mean they’re not required to do otherwise.
War is war. A nation going to war without declaring war is a nation trying to hide the fact that they’re waging an aggressive war.
The Constitution does not recognize any form of international conflict not called war. War without a formal declaration of war is still explicitly called war, and authorized only in defense: “No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.”
Since the Constitution speaks of international conflict only as “war” and speaks of war authorization only in defense or with a formal declaration, this implies that the United States can not instigate or join an international conflict without a Congressional declaration.
mattb @38: “It never occurred to me that Rumsfeld would manipulate Bush in such a simple and obvious way.”
Well, Rummy did so because he could see that it was obviously the simplest way.
Feynmaniac @39, Vox Day is obviously simple.
Come to think of it, fundamentalism is also, in whatever guise it appears.
Doesn’t “Never Forget” ring a bell?
Doesn’t even “if you don’t know history, you’re forced to repeat it” ring a bell?
Prosecute away. If the Reptilian Party doesn’t self-destruct in 2012, they’ll make up another Whitewater anyway; there will be no extra repercussions for prosecuting.
And yes, Marcus Ranum, the surviving criminals of the Vietnam war should also be prosecuted. Every last one of them. That goes without saying.
The same holds for the five Supreme Court judges who stopped the counting of the votes and installed Captain Unelected because otherwise his right to win the election would be injured (that’s what it says in the verdict); it’s called mounting a coup. (They probably thought it was a bloodless one… hah…) Too bad one of them is already dead.
But surely you don’t want to keep it that way?
A lot would be gained. Let’s start with the psychological gain: It would send a signal to the whole world that you can’t get away with war crimes even if you’re a head of state. Not even if you’re the head of state of the most powerful country on Earth. Equality before the law.
Not one strong enough to break the Constitution. As you know full well, troll.
What Hank Fox said @ 57!
Simply obvious.
I think each US president should present himself/herself before the Hague for investigation after their terms in office are finished. Even if no prosecution results (and I would suggest the bar for prosecution be set very high) the light shed on actions would be a deterrent to cavalier acts of violence and rights violations around the world. Didn’t republican Rome do something of this sort with Consuls after their terms? If the US did this unilaterally it would send a strong message to nations around the world that the days of capricious action by states was over, and the era of rule of law had begun.
Wow, it really is true. The left does have all the good graphic designers.
Gee, I just came over here to give this link:
http://men.style.com/gq/features/landing?id=content_9217
But I see you’re on it, PZ. I guess Bush was even st00pider than we thought. These reports prolly made him feel great every dang day! Doin’ God’s work, bless his heart.
A declaration of war gives a country certain rights and responsibilities. If the country is willing to forgo the rights, then a declaration isn’t needed. Incidentally, the responsibilities don’t go away if war isn’t declared.
JBB (#83) wrote: “I think each US president should present himself/herself before the Hague for investigation after their terms in office are finished.”
Dang – now I need to update http://www.paulburnett.com/hague.htm which I put together long before the presidential election. The whole crowd should present themselves to the Hague – from Bush / Cheney / Rumsfeld / Ashcroft to Bybee / Yoo.
For decades I have maintained that every politician (president / senator / congresscritter / governor / legislator / mayor / etc.) should be limited to serving two terms: One in office, and one in prison; said prison term to be determined after serving in office. Theoretically, a few might get off completely, but the majority would do time and a few should pay the ultimate penalty for treason and murder.
Paul Burnett #87
Yeah, because as the looneytarians keep telling us, gummint is EBIL! And everyone connected to the government is also evil. Why send them to jail? It’s Final Solution time.
Paul, you’re a fucking idiot if you honestly believe that crap.
That’s international law, but the United States’ powers are more limited by the Constitution.
I’m looking at Article 1 Section 8. Among the enumerated powers:
“To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;” and
“To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;”
There are unenumerated powers, but they too are limited:
“provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;”
And that’s it. The United States can go to war in its own defense, or it can declare war. It cannot otherwise participate in an international conflict. If Congress “authorizes use of force” without declaring war, then the legality of that authorization should be subject to challenge in court by any US citizen, whereupon the government would have the burden of proving that the conflict was in fact a matter of national defense.
What Hank Fox (# 57) & Naked Bunny with a Whip (# 60) said!
Snarla @ # 47:
IIRC, that was a story made up by the Kuwaitis, adding a little spice to Dubya Daddy’s visit to their “liberated” land.
The men accused immediately recanted their confessions, claiming that they had been coerced by torture, but were promptly silenced by execution. Everything the US has done in the Middle East since has been deja vu.
‘Tis Himself, Nils Ross, bobxxxx and other amnesia advocates – let’s make a deal. I’ll agree to support your proposals for letting lying bloodsoaked US war criminals skate away scotfree, if you’ll
a) remove that “liberty and justice for all” scam from the Pledge of Allegiance;
b) replace that bogus “land of the free and home of the brave” lyric in the national anthem; and
c) pay my relocation expenses to a country with standards a human being with a conscience could be proud of.
wow wow wow wow wow.
this is just so unbelievable. I am dumbfounded. shocked.
jesus freaking christ on a pogostick.
I have a tendency to get upset at the mere mention of “forgetting about the past” and “moving on” when used as justification for not trying alleged war criminal George W. Bush, alleged war criminal Richard B. Cheney, alleged war criminal and current professor of law John Yoo, alleged war criminal and current United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit judge Jay Bybee, alleged war criminal Donald Rumsfeld, alleged war criminal Condoleeza Rice, alleged war criminal Alberto Gonzales, and alleged war criminal and current practicing attorney Steven Bradbury. Please just replace “war criminal” with “rapist” or “pedophile” or “murderer,” and consider how reasonable it is to just forget and move on and be happy with the punishment that comes from the shame of having the suspicion hang over those individuals’ heads. Just because someone is a member of a political party does not mean that every attempt to hold that person accountable for criminal actions is a “partisan” attack of some sort. Most district attorneys are Republicans, and many of the people they prosecute are Democrats–under the above formulation, we should be suspicious of the prosecution of thse individuals and possibly even forego holding them accountable for their criminal actions because of the appearance of partisanship. That’s absurd. We know it isn’t partisan because there is compelling evidence of these individuals’ guilt. To further insulate these individuals from a purely partisan prosecution, our constitution requires that we hold jury trials at which the government bears the burden of demonstrating guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the accused have a right to compell the attendance of witnesses, confront the government’s witnesses and other evidence, present their own evidence, and testify or remain silent, which was a process the alleged war criminals denied to those we tortured to death and we continue to deny to those we have tortured such that no civilian court could accept the evidence allegedly showing these individuals to be horrible terrorists. Furthermore, as long as we condone the war crimes by not holding the alleged war criminals accountable, the crimes may rightly be attributed to all citizens of this county. But I guess if everybody’s guilty, then nobody’s guilty.
The Bush Administration’s greatest crime was the destruction it did to our very institutions and system of government, of which their alleged war crimes are only a part. They committed crimes against our nation–torture, agressive war, unconstitutional surveillance, politicizing the DoJ and initiating prosecutions based solely on political considerations, lying to the public, utilziing the agencies as a means of supporting their donors through the granting of contracts, appointing to the heads of agencies that regulate businesses and natural resources individuals within those businesses or adverse to conservation of the natural resource as a means to weaken those agencies’ regulation, making civil service hiring decisions on the basis of loyalty to George W. Bush, redistributing money to the weathiest members of society, bankrupting the nation, etc. Only someone that hates (or just doesn’t care about) our system of government and hates (or just doesn’t care about) our constitution would possibly call prosecution of those that worked hard to destroy that system of government and that constitution “partisan” or unnecessary. It’s time for the people of this country to take responsiblity for what happened. At this point, we are all complicit in an aggressive war that killed or injured hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and tens of thousands of members of the United States military, torture of individuals within our custody, murder of individuals within our custody, the kidnaping of individuals from other countries so that they could be held secretely and tortured, etc., etc., etc.
20# & 68#
I stand down on the point ;-)
I read it a few months back…some opinion pierce in a broadsheet no less……just goes to prove not all that is printed is gold….but maybe just crude :-)
So the idiot committed the world to war based on religious comic books.
Rummy and Cheney and their defense contractor billionaire buds played him so easily.
Hopefully these will be on exhibit in the Bush Presidential Library.
David Marjanović, OM writes:
And yes, Marcus Ranum, the surviving criminals of the Vietnam war should also be prosecuted. Every last one of them. That goes without saying.
It was just an example. The point is that the number of conflicts in which the Geneva Convention was honored is zero, or close to it. It may as well not exist because – for all intents and purposes – it doesn’t.
‘Tis Himself writes:
Yeah, because as the looneytarians keep telling us, gummint is EBIL!
Well, they sure do put on a convincing performance. (The governments, not the libertarians) We’ve graduated from “the divine right of kings” thanks to Locke, Rousseau, and Paine, to “trust us, this is for your own protection.” I guess it’s a step in a good direction but nationalism seems pretty stupid to me, altogether.
Wow! I had very little hope on that anymore.
If Shell can have its day in court, why not Bushco.?
MORE BULLSHIT FOR THE GOD-BOTS
Citation, please. And even if that were entirely true (including in the sense of never restraining anyone, ever, from committing gross violations of human rights), you haven’t answered David Marjanović’s question: “But surely you don’t want to keep it that way?”
If nothing else, the graphic design is appalling!
My main question to all of you is, Where can I get some of that GREAT AWESOME FANTASTIC Kool Aid? Because, the world you live in has to be better than any video game around. Please send me some. You know what,after going after Bush we need to go after the British Primeminister Tony Blair. Yeah! then, Rush, and Sean, and Dr. Laura, and then the Universities that spawned such individuals. Yes that’s it. Yale. Bush went to Yale. We need to destroy them too. Man this is so fun.
Rockman- wtf?? Did you have a point in all that twaddle?
I hardly think “monsters” is the right term. We sacrificed a lot by allowing administrative decisions to be made based in any part on religious lunacy, but we’re still safer due to decisions made during the Bush administration.
Blair isn’t the PM. Moron.
Does anyone have any idea where these came from? GQ isn’t the worst source on the web, but these could have been Photoshopped rather easily. While these briefing covers don’t surprise me in the least, and I would love to spread them like a virus all over the web, I am skeptical. I need some other confirmation that these are legit before I grab my torch and my pitchfork.
I cannot even believe this. I mean it is so disgusting. please tell me this was all a elaborate May joke or something….How could any sane people behave thus?
Hey #103, It takes one to know one! Na Na Na Na Na Na, He was the PM during Bush’s time. But you are the King Morons. Bozos like you are just Bozos and Morons like you make more Morons because, all you have are words and no action. So all your loquaciousness is for not.You have to take ACTION! BOZO! Clowns… please…. This is a great game. More Kool aid please!
I do not think there is any one agenda or reason why a country toddles off to war.
Maybe an intricate combination binds it altogether…but the mistake in Iraq was in playing to the ‘war on terror’ mantra.
WMD was just the dog whistle…once that was invoked the tail wagging by the body politic was sufficient to give it the momentum.
An appeal to patriotism is always a give away…when the real reason lies elsewhere.
The whole set conspired to emanate the whiff of BS when the ranting raving and shock of 9/11 started to gain a little equilibrium!
By that time the West was more or less up to their necks in the mire…and America was bobbing under more often then not!
It always seemed odd that a second front was opened seeing as the perps of 9/11 were identified and known to be in Afghanistan…a country with a long history of nightmare warfare against the infidels…
More so in many ways then Iraq…
Russia being the last super power to get their arse well and truly kicked by the Mujahaddin/Al Qaeda and not so long ago…Seeing as Cheney was supplying the arms ‘ta fite de commies’…way back then he at least he would have known the hell that was the khyber pass & Helmond province!
Anyway what reasons actually were for Iraq is the one that seems quizzical…many ..lots …even some ideas…I have no clue!
That religion gets invoked is no shocker…just how much that religion was accepted as impeachable at the top is!
That is was used to support the act is not unusual…but utilised to sell it to the most powerful bunny on Earth at that time has got to rank as the most criminally insane act ever perpetrated by any government official.
Cheney & Rumsfeld…the chuckle brothers supreme…I presume they look into no mirrors!
You’re not completely wrong here, but I cannot agree.
What you’re really saying here is,. “Accountability is bad for America!” This is what a genuine concern troll would say. Is that what you are? I don’t think so.
Bush, Cheney, et al. are ALREADY seen as heroes in the eyes of those who have, do, and always will support their actions, and they wield the “for the protection of the office of the Presidency” argument as a weapon against accountability with one hand while self-righteously preaching the doctrine of personal accountability with the other. If no attempt is made to at least formally examine the deeds of the late administration, we allow that bogus “protection” argument to gain legitimacy. To this, I object.
Rick R.
I am sure you have the ability to read into the comments as they are self evident. Your Choice of “WTF”. Nice. Are you of the Bush Yale Alums? Please come up with something substantial.
It’s nice for individuals to put up non challenged statements without evidence. It’s nice for people to hide in anonymity and be Bold and Brave! If you could face me one day your abilities both physically and intellectually would be found wanting. How easily suckered you were into a one on one. Have some more Kool Aid and take a nap and maybe watch some Good Will Hunting or something. Lot’s of Love my Friend!
Id like to see one that showed pics of 9-11, with the verse about turning the other cheek and loving thy enemies on top.
Three words:
– TSIB.
– Humpty Dumpty.
Yes, of course, if not at the same time.
Did they actually, like, kill anyone? Being stupid is not officially a crime as far as I’m aware.
Really… LOL!
Care to give an example? Just one? Pretty please…?
Good point.
the first “big conflict” we left unresolved in the formation of the constitution was the “race/slavery” question. Not settling that one led to the Civil War and over a hundred years of civil right struggle. It was not possible to just let it go as being too much trouble.
We tried to establish a republic governed by the rule of law but we like politics and political power. We have another conflict that may never fully settle political power vs rule of law. If we think that we avoid this question and just go forward we are dreaming. It is not a question of should we investigate and or prosecute previous administration for abuse of power and war crimes etc.
it is a question of when, now or later!
Rome was a republic first!
this conflict will not go away without effort, the easy way is always down hill.
I believe this sums it up. Next Obama will be brought up on charges.
http://www.post-gazette.com/robrogers/Default.asp?id=1
Dinzer @ # 104: Does anyone have any idea where these came from?
Read the Robert Draper article cited by Rich:
Put those doubts to rest. Having access (if not direct control) was clearly one of the objectives of the neoconservatives as outlined in the mission statements and documents published on the PNAC site as early as the late 1990s. Eliminating threats to national security and to American access to energy supplies were and are considered to be very much in the national interest, which is what neoconservatism is all about: to exert American military might abroad, where applicable, to protect American interests.
The policy of regime change in Iraq was not entirely about the oil supply, but the fact that Saddam was sitting atop one of the world’s largest oil reserves was a major contributing factor in the decision to depose him. Meanwhile, nations that were arguably more dangerous than Iraq even back in 2000 – Iran, Pakistan, N. Korea – had time to see what happened to fellow “Axis of Evil” nation Iraq and to beef up their own defenses in anticipation of the next exercise in US-led “liberation”.
It was all very self-fullfilling: Create a rhetorical “Axis of Evil”, crush one of the member nations of that Axis, watch the remaining nations pursue their nuclear programs as a result of our agression against Iraq, and then point out how Evil they are for pursuing those programs. Great stuff.
Anon@106:
Wow, for a second I thought I was at Faux News forum or CNN political ticker comment section. If you have anything adult to say, in the form of a coherent argument, please pipe up. If you just trolled in to act a fool. Go away, you aren’t even a good troll… (your inanity is showing)
A quick look at The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible would show that the choice of a quote from Joshua is especially troubling. To a skeptic, Joshua reads like the rantings of a genocidal maniac who wanted to justify his crimes by saying “God told me to do it”.
Rockman:
I see you’re making the most of your own opportunities here.
Whatever you say, “Rockman”.
I’m sure you’re a very big, strong man! We’re all terribly afraid of you, just as we are in awe of your pioneering sense of syntax. Suckered, Rick was. (Too much Star Wars, dude?)
Oh yes, your comments are just dripping with love.
Now then. Do you have anything substantial to say? If so, then why not try saying it, instead of indulging in vacuous, confrontational babble??
@ Rockman & AnonymusRockman
Drink some Brawndo.
It’s got what trolls crave. It’s got electrolytes.
SC, OM writes:
Citation, please.
Let’s try it another way: why don’t you tell me a few of the wars that were fought since WWI that didn’t have gross violations of the Geneva Convention? I wasn’t being clever – I tried pretty hard to think of one and I couldn’t. Even if it’s little things like the use of shotguns in combat, dogs, flamethrowers, gas – demanding a citation – *snort* For crying out loud, the Geneva Convention explicitly calls for the protection of civilians (I think it was ratified in the 1940s, conveniently after the carpet-bombing of parts of Europe) Asking for a citation is an embarrassing debater’s trick.
And even if that were entirely true (including in the sense of never restraining anyone, ever, from committing gross violations of human rights)
I don’t know how we can practically measure whether there’s a restraining effect. I’d argue that’s because damn little restraint is shown. Again, I’m trying to think of conflicts in the late 20th and present century that haven’t cut straight to attacks against civilian populations. When you look at things like Rwanda and Kosovo, it’s really hard to argue that either side was restraining themselves – the only restraint shown was when direct military force was applied.
you haven’t answered David Marjanović’s question: “But surely you don’t want to keep it that way?”
I like to deal with reality. When humans go to war, the rules go out the window and history gets rewritten by the victors. Maybe we’d be better off understanding that – and being prepared to deal with it – than to put our hopes in the tooth fairy?
“Do you want to keep it that way?” is the wrong question; a more useful question would be “do you think it’s possible to change?” I say “signs point to ‘no'” regardless of what I want or don’t want.
Ha, that’s just priceless. I don’t know about Rick, but rest assured that you absolutely scare the hell out of me, “Rockman.” Yup, pretty terrified right here.
But surely you don’t want to keep it that way?
I don’t go around railing about friction, or that the sun is going to eventually explode. There are certain realities that we’ve just got to deal with and it’s possible that misplaced idealism will distract us from dealing with them effectively. I’m comfortable with the notion that humans are nasty, vicious, territorial killers – always have been and are going to remain that way for a very long time.
I used to daydream that maybe somehow we’d come up with a clever way of de-violentizing people through socialization or technology, but then I realized that if any such technique were available it’d be used by a power elite to cement permanent despotism by giving them rebellion-proof slaves (urrr, “citizens” or “employees”) rather than doing anything that would benefit mankind as a whole.
Then your claims about no practical effect are essentially meaningless.
Deal with it how?
If change is impossible, then there’s no point in “understanding” anything or trying to “deal with it.” I’m all for alternative, more radical initiatives for restraining the powerful or changing the system entirely, in conjunction with or in addition to efforts to hold people accountable. You have not put forth any. That’s hardly dealing with reality.
Marcus Ranum, sounds to me like a very cynical and somewhat naive argument: “let’s not prosecute those who can’t be prosecuted/cannot be hold accountable”. How do we find out if they can be held accountable without trying to prosecute them for their crimes?
“let’s not change things that cannot be changed”
How do you know without trying to change ’em?
Posted by: Rockman | May 17, 2009 2:31 PM
I believe this sums it up. Next Obama will be brought up on charges.
***********
I am not sure if Obama’s covering up war crimes and failing to prosecute war crimes is criminal but Obama’s refusal to recognize Geneva Convention Common Article 3 for prisoners held as Bagram AFB. is a war crime, IMO. The Supreme Court has ruled on Common Article 3 in Hamdan v Rumsfeld.
What’s troubling is the symmetry between our god-crazed “leaders” and theirs.
The whole thing comes down to whose deity is best, with each side ready to kill as many people as necessary to prove that they’re the good guys. When in fact neither god actually exists – except in the made-up holy books.
As Frank Zappa said, “People please tell me when we’ll be rid of these men…”
I thought of you when I read that. :)
Ah, the idiotic, simplistic view of “human nature” at the root of inaction. What a waste of time you are.
“let’s not prosecute those who can’t be prosecuted/cannot be hold accountable”.
**********
I don’t know who he is but he is an idiot.
He needs to read the US War Crimes Act of 1996 US Code Title 18.2441:
(a) Offense.— Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.
(b) Circumstances.— The circumstances referred to in subsection (a) are that the person committing such war crime or the victim of such war crime is a member of the Armed Forces of the United States or a national of the United States (as defined in section 101 of the Immigration and Nationality Act).
(c) Definition.— As used in this section the term “war crime” means any conduct—
(1) defined as a grave breach in any of the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party;
(2) prohibited by Article 23, 25, 27, or 28 of the Annex to the Hague Convention IV, Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, signed 18 October 1907;
(3) which constitutes a grave breach of common Article 3 (as defined in subsection (d)) when committed in the context of and in association with an armed conflict not of an international character; or
(snip)
This, BTW, was a Republican wing-nut law, hoist meet petard???
Marcus Ranum is a coward.
He tells himself that nothing can be changed, to convince himself that he is free of responsibility.
Quoting the Bible once helped my plea for an allowance raise. But I guess this was more because it was plain weird ^^ You know, one of those plans that’s so wacky it has to work.
SC. OM writes:
Then your claims about no practical effect are essentially meaningless.
What about a treaty whose signatories regularly ignore it isn’t “no practical effect”? Or are you saying that we dropped a few less bombs on Cambodia because of it? Or that the Hutus really backed off because they were afraid of the war crimes tribunals? Slobodan Milosevic was laughing in their faces with his last breaths. There are over 100 countries that are signatories to the GC – for FSM’s sake – just read the list! Israel? Iran? Zimbabwe? Serbia? Bosnia? Yes, perhaps Iceland has been so humanitarian because it’s a signatory – but more likely it’s just that they haven’t engaged in armed conflict lately. I don’t know about you, but I woulndn’t tangle with them, either.
Obviously, we can’t resolve this by just waving our hands, and – because it’s impossible to test both sides of the argument – it’s only reasonable to expect that the proponents of a remedy argue in favor of evidence of its effectiveness. On one hand we’ve got a few million dead civilians due to various genocides, and refugees all over the place – did the GC maybe help those refugees by preventing their outright slaughter? If you were going to try to make an argument for how effective the GC have been, how would you go about doing it? I’m genuinely curious.
If change is impossible, then there’s no point in “understanding” anything or trying to “deal with it.”
If you understand that your leaders aren’t your friends and don’t necessarily have your best interests at heart, that makes you (maybe) a bit harder to fool with appeals to emotion. If you understand that people will turn on you in a heartbeat when their self-interest outweighs your value to them, that gives you a chance to be prepared and trust or watch them appropriately. That’s “dealing with it.”
Deal with it how?
Well, if we did all (or even most of us) think that the lives of other random humans were important, we would probably act differently than we do. For one thing, there’d be a lot fewer humanitarian crises brought about by human actions. We talk a good game about hating war and cruelty but we sure do it a whole lot, don’t we?
“Dealing with it” means accepting that we’re nasty, vicious primates that tend to worry about our pack first and foremost and are pretty comfortable screwing everyone else. Worse yet, “dealing with it” means recognizing that humans don’t appear to be satisfied with mere economic parity; we’re not interested in fair – once we’ve got that, we’ll grab the other guy’s stuff, too. That’s how we are.
“Dealing with it” means not turning your back on the other guy and trusting that he’ll follow the Geneva Convention. There are mass graves all over the planet filled with people who tried that strategy. (Admittedly, they probably only “tried” that strategy because they didn’t have any other option)
@84:
My thoughts exactly. Those shitty covers scream “Overworked Intern Using Microsoft Word”. Then there’s official font of the Banality of Evil: Times Roman. Add to this visual affrontery, “LORD” in all caps. Drama queens.
Final summary? the whole typed-by-yer-mama-on-a-PC ambiance is just not Presidential.
Report Card:
Composition = Fail
Leading = Fail
Kerning = Fail
Use of Negative Space = Fail
But then again, bad design never killed anybody . . .
I’ll add my support for Hank Fox @57.
He even gets bonus points for invoking the end of Alice’s Restaurant in my mind with the way he kept upping the ante in his analogies. I was expecting to be swept up in a “movement”.
I used to daydream that maybe somehow we’d come up with a clever way of de-violentizing people through socialization or technology
It’s been done Marcus. It’s called law. Works best when broadly agreed and fairly applied in societies with good social services. We know it works in cities, nations and regions, it’s time to take it global.
Nothing would do more to further planetary rule of law in the long term, than trying Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.
OK a global constitutional congress, establishing an elected global parliament, and a ban on war would do more; but trying a bunch of neo cons would be a cool start to all of the above. Satisfying to watch too I suspect.
Obviously, we can’t resolve this by just waving our hands,
*********
Exactly…and that is why I posted part of the US War Crimes Act above. Unlike a lot of countries, the Geneva Conventions have been “enabled” into the United States Criminal Code. We don’t need to “wave our hands”, the Obama/Holder DoJ needs to do the damn job.
Do we really want to get into the habit of threatening former presidents with prison every time they didn’t do exactly what we wanted?
In the 1950’s should we have put Truman in prison for vaporizing thousands in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Let’s just call Bush an idiot and move on.
Nothing would do more to further planetary rule of law in the long term, than trying Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.
**********
Under US Code 18,2441, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Pelosi, Goss, Ashcroft, Gonzo, et al could be strapped to a gurney and get a needle in the arm. That would really make people sit up and take notice.
Sartre’s Evil Eye wrote:
Marcus Ranum is a coward.
He tells himself that nothing can be changed, to convince himself that he is free of responsibility.
Oh, ow, you really would have hurt my feelings if I cared about what you think. *waah* *waah* *waah*
I take responsibility for my own actions and I worry about problems that are within my domain, just like you do. Presumably you’re sitting fat, dumb, and happy, behind a computer someplace – not at the front lines of some humanitarian disaster actually trying to “do something”? Right? Perhaps you convinced yourself that it was too big a problem for you and therefore not yours? Just like everyone else. I’m just a bit more honest and accept the fact that I really don’t give much of a shit about complete strangers – and that includes you.
Because, yes, if I did give a shit about dying people in some other part of the world, I’d sell my stuff, quit my job, and get a one-way plane ticket to go see what I could do to help them. I haven’t; therefore I probably don’t. I just don’t make excuses and try to pretend that I’m a “good person” I don’t put fucking bumper stickers on my car saying “support the Geneva Convention, plz” either. Because it wouldn’t fucking work.
(I do think that the concept of “responsibility” is dodgy and probably indefensible but let’s not get into that; I do feel involved in the effect of my actions whether they were done with willfully, with choice, or not. So for all intents and purposes let’s say I feel it, OK?)
Kismet writes:
Marcus Ranum, sounds to me like a very cynical and somewhat naive argument: “let’s not prosecute those who can’t be prosecuted/cannot be hold accountable”. How do we find out if they can be held accountable without trying to prosecute them for their crimes?
Cynical, I am. Generally you don’t find naivete and cynicism together and I like to think I’m not naive. Where did I say not to prosecute people or hold them accountable? I just don’t think the Geneva Convention works. Obviously. Personally, I’m in favor of identifying aggressive political leaders and nipping them in the bud with a well-aimed bullet. I choose inaction on that strategy because there’s a significant social downside to me for doing so, and I don’t accept the problems of people on the other side of the planet as being my own. I find it absurd that politicians are allowed to rally young people on each side of their conflicts to do the fighting for them and that we’ve allowed them to enshrine the ancient doctrine “kings don’t war on kings” even in this modern day.
SC, OM writes:
Ah, the idiotic, simplistic view of “human nature” at the root of inaction.
Calling it “idiotic” and “simplistic” doesn’t do much to refute it. You can call friction “a pain in the ass” but it’s still there.
Besides, you’d scream bloody murder if I actually tried to put any of my political ideas into action. Believe me.
Back to Kismet writing:
How do you know without trying to change ’em?
I’m pointing out that the Geneva Convention is largely honored by being ignored. That was a change and I think it was a good try. It just didn’t work. Advocating change is best done when you have an idea that might, actually, work. What’s yours?
Do we really want to get into the habit of threatening former presidents with prison every time they didn’t do exactly what we wanted?
*********
So if a politician crimes are bad enough, then they are above the law?
Because, yes, if I did give a shit about dying people in some other part of the world, I’d sell my stuff, quit my job, and get a one-way plane ticket to go see what I could do to help them. I haven’t; therefore I probably don’t. I just don’t make excuses and try to pretend that I’m a “good person” I don’t put fucking bumper stickers on my car saying “support the Geneva Convention, plz” either. Because it wouldn’t fucking work.
I think you’re confusing apathy and evil. You’re not evil, just apathetic. Nonetheless, as you note, appeals to “love one another” will always fail, law must in the final analysis be backed up with force. Ideally a set of sanctions broadly agreed, but really force will generally get the job done. That is why the neo-cons must be fried publicly; as an object lesson.
If the president of the country with the most powerful military on the planet can be tried, and perhaps even locked up (I can dream!), then your common or garden tyrants and despots become that much more exposed.
I love this plan! Lets do it!
While the Bible verses are off putting, not in a >:( way, more of a :/ way, I think it’s extrapolating beyond available information and getting off into conspiracy theory to proclaim that this was part of a Biblical propaganda campaign from Donald Rumsfeld to influence George Bush.
If more evidence shows some kind of Bible-Verses-As-Carrots practice, then so be it. But I don’t think this constitutes enough evidence for anyone serious to draw a real conclusion. To me it just confirms the null hypothesis: I would expect to see pictures from the combat theater on the covers of intel briefs, and inappropriately placed bible verses in general from an administration that was both evangelical and at war. More conclusions require more evidence. And there are plenty of unquestionably legitimate and well founded reasons to despise the former administration.
Tis himself @#6
Little would be gained by putting Bush, Cheyney and their minions on trial.
Nothing could be further from the truth. First it would put the Nazi scum who tried to destroy freedom in our country (while it still is legally) to justice.
It would show the world that, once again, we are a nation of laws. Not just in name. Not just law pretecting the rich and being inflicted on the rest of us.
And it would prevent the return of torture the next time the Republicans are in office. If we don’t, there will be domestic waterboarding by 2019, best case scenarioi after 2 terms of O’Same.
I feel bad for all those people who thought they were voting for FDR and got Barry O’Ford instead.
The part that “regularly ignore” (with or without impunity) does not equal “no practical effect.” Has every war since WWII been conducted on all sides exactly as the Nazis conducted war?
Is this a fucking joke to you?
No one here has suggested that we do that.
Says you. You are the one who argued that you can’t imagine how this could practically be assessed. But you’re ignorant and you’re not a social scientist, so that’s not surprising. Whether the GC have had restraining effects, and whether they or similar agreements could have some effect in current or different circumstances, or if enforced differently, are questions that can be subjected to empirical study.
First, it’s not necessarily an argument about how effective it’s been, but also about how effective they could be if enforced properly. I would look systematically at the history of armed conflict for changes in its conduct. I would examine government (and especially military) documents for evidence of how behavior was shaped, or not, by these agreements, attentive to the various means of evasion. I would look at how domestic politics of countries engaged in warfare have been influenced by these and similar documents, and whether they’ve provided weapons to dissenting groups. And I would examine how, if such agreements have failed, they could be made to work better, or which alternative courses of action have been shown to be more effective. For a start. (Some of this I’ve done, by the way.)
I’m an anarchist. And you’re an idiot.
So your ridiculous notions about some supposed transhistorical and transsocial “human nature,” as opposed to a sophisticated social analysis, and based on that doing nothing, is dealing with it. Right.
Who are “we,” and what does any of this have to do with this discussion?
Why would I accept this silly, simplistic notion?
Now, we’re clearly in the realm of projection.
WTF? No one has suggested that. Quite the opposite, in fact. You’re the one who hasn’t suggested any course of action other than total submission and inaction.
I call it all fraud. Fraud through force. It’s appalling, it’s stupid, it’s arrogant, it’s enslaving, it must never happen again.
Rumsfeld and Condi are criminals, Cheney is a criminal and above all, Bush is a criminal. Moreover, those who voted with these criminals are accomplices and guilty of fraud as well…lock them all up, waterboard them to confession, don’t give them trials…we do onto them as they have done unto others. Heinous!
I expect this has been said before, but what else would one support from the Bible? OK, hell, discrimination, genocide, etc.
There seems nothing about the Bible or religion that doesn’t easily lend itself to supporting war, certainly. It’s the people who use it to “argue peace” who are at best picking and choosing, if not outright misrepresenting the Bible.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
Marcus Ranum @ # 65 eq seq.: The Geneva Convention never meant anything; it’s just a sop for rubes who don’t realize how manipulative and violent governments are.
John McCain:
Vanity Fair:
@Marcus Ranum
Oh, ow, you really would have hurt my feelings if I cared about what you think. *waah* *waah* *waah*
What makes you believe peolpe care about what you think? That is other than for personal amusement. Every change in society, for good or for bad, started with a small group of determined and dedicated people.
“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.”
Edmond Burke
(to quote a conservative dude)
@143 Whether the GC have had restraining effects, and whether they or similar agreements could have some effect in current or different circumstances, or if enforced differently, are questions that can be subjected to empirical study.
I’d submit this work has already been done. All the developed world nations are subject to extreme pressure from civil society when they go to war. This has led to quite extreme efforts to sanitise war, minimising casualties quite remarkably.
Even the Iraq war for all it’s savagery was a fairly modest affair in terms of body count when compared to WWII or Vietnam.
Personally, I think we are getting there (there being a world where war is simply off the table), a trial for the neo-cons complicit in the Iraq war and of course the torture, would make it that much less attractive an option for the next asshat.
As for war coming off the table, it’s already off the table in massive regions of the world. Indians, Americans, the Chinese and Europeans all solve their disagreements through dialouge, or in the final analysis through their judicial systems. Thats a 3.5 billion person head start on global law. In the case of the EU, these are people that killed each other in tens of millions less than 65 years ago.
The people haven’t changed, the institutions have.
I love this plan! Let’s do it!
“So if a politician crimes are bad enough, then they are above the law?”
Are you sure you want to call a foreign policy decision against the law?
Anyone want to answer the question I asked earlier – In the 1950’s should we have put Truman in prison for vaporizing thousands in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
My point is if we can put Bush in prison for what he did, we could have done the same with Truman who was responsible for the death of thousands of women, children, and babies.
But what Truman did was nothing more than a difficult decision he had to make. He thought he was saving American lives and perhaps what he did was correct.
What Bush did was wrong, very wrong. He’s an idiot and he screwed up. So do we put a former president in prison for being stupid? Or do we just call Bush a moron and enjoy our new much better president?
This was the thinking of the Democrats who held power after the Nixon administration. As subsequent events showed, they were very wrong.
Prosecute the bastards.
“…if I did give a shit about dying people in some other part of the world, I’d sell my stuff, quit my job, and get a one-way plane ticket to go see what I could do to help them.”
You could help by adding to the pressure that is being put on Congress and the President to investigate the serious abuses of power that got us into the Iraq war.
Your selfish cynicism accomplishes nothing.
David @ #111:
The creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the position of the Director of National Intelligence both helped facilitate the quick exchange of information between agencies concerned with our safety. The latter is especially vital to cooperation between the CIA and the FBI–organizations whose failure to work together led to our inability to prevent the September 11th attacks.
It’s been established that you don’t.
Um, no. Many are active in various ways. Sometimes that includes typing on a computer.
Yes, you’re an asshole. We get it.
And such bumper stickers have been suggested as a sole means of action where, exactly?
My point is if we can put Bush in prison for what he did, we could have done the same with Truman who was responsible for the death of thousands of women, children, and babies.
A true “patriot” will break the law and face the consequences.
Enforce the law.
I love this plan! Lets do it!
I presume that you’re referring to the body count of non-combatants? You’re not speculating that the soldiers on the opposing sides treat each other better than they did in previous conflicts, are you?
The only way Bush and company’s crimes could be considered acceptible is if we also NULL AND VOID ALL THE LAWS in the US. That’s right…throw all the laws out, stop prosecuting everyone, let everyone out of prison, fire the judges and all the attorneys. Sound like anarchy? Yes, it certainly does. Are Bush and company anarchist? They would be if we let prosecuting them pass us by.
SC, OM writes:
The part that “regularly ignore” (with or without impunity) does not equal “no practical effect.” Has every war since WWII been conducted on all sides exactly as the Nazis conducted war?
No, that’s true. Do you think that was because there were rules written down someplace, or because the Nazis got rather ruthlessly suppressed in retaliation? Which, really, do you think made the difference? Meanwhile, the litany of ruthless wars goes on: Korea, Eritrea, Rwanda, Zaire, Kosovo, The Sudan…
If you’d said that politicians appear to be sensitive about misbehaving too much while they’re winning, for fear of getting it handed back to them when they lose, I think we’d be violently in agreement It would also explain Hitler and Milosevic: they didn’t expect to lose/have an intervention so they encouraged their pack to run wild.
We can’t both try something and not try it; that’s the problem. I think we’ve tried the Geneva Convention and so far it hasn’t worked. I’ll be generous and say “…it hasn’t worked very well” How about that? Maybe that’ll remove your need to nitpick what is obviously a truthful observation?
What’s Plan B?
Is this a fucking joke to you?
No, but I find it funny. It’s a subtle difference.
But you’re ignorant and you’re not a social scientist, so that’s not surprising
Two things:
1) I don’t think there is such a thing as “social science”
2) .. but if there were, would my BA (1985, Johns Hopkins U) in Psychology make me one?
Ignorant? Pot, meet kettle.
By the way, I’ve noticed that you seem to be incapable of disagreeing with someone without trying to make things personal. It doesn’t really bother me but it makes me wonder if you’re very well socialized. If I assured you that I don’t care what you think of me, personally, would it encourage you to save space spent name calling in future postings?
Whether the GC have had restraining effects, and whether they or similar agreements could have some effect in current or different circumstances, or if enforced differently, are questions that can be subjected to empirical study.
Get back to me when you’ve got something, then.
First, it’s not necessarily an argument about how effective it’s been, but also about how effective they could be if enforced properly.
I’ve seen arguments like that, before. I.e.: “if there were no guns, there would be no gun crime.” Of course, if every law were enforced ‘properly’ then there would be no war crimes – no crime at all – and we wouldn’t be having this discussion. What you’re saying amounts to “it’d work, if it worked.” Yeah, but, the proof of its working is – as I said – buried in shallow graves all over the planet. It’s not working, so “try harder” may amount to just more hand-wringing.
I would look at how domestic politics of countries engaged in warfare have been influenced by these and similar documents, and whether they’ve provided weapons to dissenting groups. And I would examine how, if such agreements have failed, they could be made to work better, or which alternative courses of action have been shown to be more effective. For a start. (Some of this I’ve done, by the way.)
Great – then you can provide some references?? It’d be a pleasant change from unsupported ideology and ad hominem.
I’m an anarchist. And you’re an idiot.
Ah, really? Personally, I’m stuck in this horrible never-never land, convinced that government is always compulsory and morally indefensible (I read Paul Wolff when I was a teenager and it made a lasting impact) — but I don’t see how most of the models for anarchism would work in the face of human’s natural tendencies to be nasty. If you’re a self-described anarchist, though, that would explain how you might be able to adopt impractical political idealism. Some of us eventually reject anarchism for nihilistic realpolitik, as I have, whereas others… Well, I envy you your idealism, though obviously I don’t share it.
So your ridiculous notions about some supposed transhistorical and transsocial “human nature,” as opposed to a sophisticated social analysis
Can you offer me a pointer to such a sophisticated social analysis?
I don’t know what you mean by “transhistorical” and “transsocial” human nature; I merely observe that humans are pretty nasty in general, and appear to have been so for a very long time. Except, of course, for pleasant name-calling rays of sunshine like yourself.
Why would I accept this silly, simplistic notion?
Because the converse is improbable? That humans are kind, helpful and worry about complete strangers first and foremost and their families secondly, and are basically honest?
Now, we’re clearly in the realm of projection.
It’s 2009; do you still take Freud seriously? No wonder you have a weird spin on things.
You’re the one who hasn’t suggested any course of action other than total submission and inaction.
Oh, was I supposed to solve the problem?
I merely pointed out that the Geneva Convention hasn’t worked. How did that turn into me being responsible for offering a course of action?
As I said earlier, you wouldn’t like my preferred course of action at all. I can’t say I like it that much, myself, which is why I find it easier (and, indeed, more moral) to sit back and let humanity take itself to hell in its own handcart.
You have no idea what you’re talking about.
If you understand that people will turn on you in a heartbeat when their self-interest outweighs your value to them, that gives you a chance to be prepared and trust or watch them appropriately. Marcus Ranum
Fortunately, psychopaths who act like that are quite rare – perhaps you’re generalising unsoundly from your own case, Marcus?
If violence were a simple outgrowth of us being “vicious primates”, then the huge differences between levels of violence in different societies would be inexplicable. You just like the idea, because it enables you to pose as being oh-so-tough-minded, and simultaneously absolves you of responsibility. The pretence that there’s no course of action between your “I-don’t-give-a-shit” approach, and “sell all thou hast and give to the poor” generally comes from “libertarians”, but it’s still crap when it comes from “nihilists”. Yes, few of us are prepared to go as far as that. We can still volunteer, give to charity, campaign against war and for justice, and many of us do.
Besides, you’d scream bloody murder if I actually tried to put any of my political ideas into action. Believe me.
Ooh Marcus, you’re so scary!
I have no intention of hurting your feelings. I’m just pointing out a fact. Your rationalizations that nothing can be done are characteristic of cowardice and feelings of inferiority. To be honest, I’d be happy if you weren’t suffering with those issues.
If this projection makes you feel better, keep at it. But no, not everyone is as sad and scared as you are.
@155
I presume that you’re referring to the body count of non-combatants? You’re not speculating that the soldiers on the opposing sides treat each other better than they did in previous conflicts, are you?
Both. At the risk of sending mixed signals, I consider the general treatment of POW’s by the US military to have been pretty acceptable. For the most part, and certainly in the context of WWII, the Korean and Vietnam wars … Hell yeah!
Still though, it’s a crazy way to run a planet and I’d be happier if we didn’t do it (war) at all. One way to give every jumped up tinpot dictator and wannabe Stalin on the planet pause for thought, is to try a president of the US for war crimes.
I really love this plan! Lets do it!
Brian Coughlan writes:
All the developed world nations are subject to extreme pressure from civil society when they go to war. This has led to quite extreme efforts to sanitise war, minimising casualties quite remarkably.
Agreed. Getting the world more economically interdependent is crucial; it makes war “bad for business.” Unfortunately, we’ve got huge vested interests for whom war is the business and they’re close to the seat of power. :(
I suspect that a good number of the many newly minted Iraqi widows would appreciate having their conflict added to that list.
If I had a haaaaammer, I’d hammer in the…
Nevermind.
Okay. I agree with that. I wasn’t really thinking about POWs. That’s a good point.
…I should really never write comments quickly, but I never seem to learn.
Agreed. Getting the world more economically interdependent is crucial; it makes war “bad for business.”
Thats not quite what I meant, but I do agree with your general point. Still though, large cities are completely integrated economically, and yet people still knock each other on the head. Sometimes, whole gangs of people will visit violence on each other and innocent bystanders. We don’t simply throw up our hands and say “lets move on” when it comes to crime. Do we?
No. To manage this we pass laws, and empower police officers and judicial systems to enforce them; Not by carpet bombing the troublesome neighbourhoods with mustard gas (although this is tempting isn’t it?), but by identifying the criminals, arresting them and trying them.
Same difference with Bush and his cabal of neo-con asshats.
I love this plan! Lets do it!
Speaking of which, even the Nazis generally treated American and British POWs within the limits of the Geneva Conventions. (Which might be surprising to anyone who thinks “the Geneva Convention” is one treaty which was drafted in the 1940s.)
Ooh, equivocating genocide and name-calling.
Do get a grip.
David Marjanović, OM writes:
Ooh, equivocating genocide and name-calling.
Do get a grip.
Would you lighten up a bit? I’m dealing with someone whose idea of argumentation is loudly shouted abuse, and tried to make a bit of fun of it. Sheeeeeeesh.
Poll alert!
Should our health care system be overhauled?
http://fwnextweb1.fortwayne.com/ns/editorial/poll/
The poll is open until midnight Eastern. Go godless socialists.
Relating this to the actual discussion that’s going on, how do these differ, precisely, in practice? There’s an intelligent discussion about lustration, TRCs, etc., that’s been going on for a while (more academically, for example, in Human Rights Quarterly), but yours is a simpleton’s response.
And so many kids have developed autism around the same time as their vaccinations! Enough with the amateur social analysis.
And…?
You’re getting closer to appreciating the issues at hand, but you’re still quite far.
This is muddled, black-and-white, and evidence free, and still doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the discussion of prosecutions of specific individuals.
Oh, so if you take a muddled, evidence-free assertion and dilute it somewhat, but call it “obvious,” that’s supposed to be better?
That’s the question to you, idiot.
There’s nothing subtle about your assholishness.
Fine. Trained analyst of empirical social reality.
No.
*snort*
Bullshit. It’s so easy to pull your little tiny chain it’s ridiculous.
*resnort*
I wouldn’t believe you, based on the evidence.
So Rumsfeld’s briefs leaked. Anyone surprised? :P
Brian Coughlan writes:
To manage this we pass laws, and empower police officers and judicial systems to enforce them
There’s the problem, isn’t it? We used to think of ourselves as the world’s cop, and now we find that the commissioner was on the take. :(
I don’t know how much of a deterrent effect sending Mr/s Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Yoo up would have, but I think it’d be great only because in March 2003 Bush was spouting about how showing US airmen on Iraqi TV was violating the Geneva Convention and a possible war crime – while his administration was twisting around backwards to convince itself that torture was legal. He should be convicted of first degree irony, if nothing else. I suspect we all agree that history will judge him harshly (“Inferior to Nero” comes to mind) and he appears concerned about his legacy.
The problem is ultimately that those who want power are those who are usually most likely to cause trouble when they get it. You’re completely right to cast this problem as an issue of criminality – short of being able to predict the future and convict someone in advance of the crime, society has to let them screw up before we can realize what screw-ups they’re going to be.
There’s the problem, isn’t it?
Nope.
We used to think of ourselves as the world’s cop, and now we find that the commissioner was on the take. :(
For the record, I’m not an american. I’m an enthusastic EU citizen currently residing in Sunny Sweden.
Casting the US as the worlds cop is not law enforcement, it’s vigiliantism, and that so rarely ends well. It’s the lack of a formal and enforceable body of global law that is the problem, not the lack of an enforcer; that we have too much of.
– short of being able to predict the future and convict someone in advance of the crime, society has to let them screw up before we can realize what screw-ups they’re going to be.
Correct:-) With the addendum that a member of a society needs to be convinced that sanctions exist for sufficiently spectacular screw ups.
How can realpolitik, which presumes the value of a national interest, be called nihilistic?
Marcus:
Exactly, so why not ask for prosecution? Think of the massive quantities of irony and hypocrisy that would be exposed to the amusement of cynics like yourself.
“War crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be punished and it will be no defense to say, ‘I was just following orders.’” -GWB
SC, OM writes:
What is your opinion on this specific issue, and how do you support it?
I think Bush should be shot.
As far as how would I support or justify it – I wouldn’t bother with justification. People do things like waterboard eachother because they can; sometimes they later discover that, oops, they’re going to have to pay a price for it and other times they get away with it completely. Bush and his pals aren’t going to lose any sleep over their actions and I wouldn’t lose much sleep over them, either. I might actually lose a bit of sleep, so maybe I’m a nicer guy than I thought. Hmmm. Naaah. I didn’t lose any sleep over Hussein, I probably wouldn’t over Bush.
As far as your other comments: I’m going to start ignoring you now that you’ve descended to nitpicking my apostrophe usage. If you want to give me a reading list you can email me anytime, I’m easy to find. You’ve called me an idiot I don’t know how many times (‘cuz I’m too -duuuuh- to count!) so I see no reason to keep trying to grapple with ideas, with you, since you seem to think you’re just scoring cheap shots by deriding my “assholiness” (Wait, am I the pope? Or is he the “assHolyness”?) You know the problem with The French? They don’t understand English any better if you shout it at them. That’s something you ideologues never seem to grasp, either.
By whom? In what context? This is potentially a serious discussion.
Try reading this string of sentences again. Try giving it a bit more thought.
Really. Even if they’re prosecuted.
YAM Scale (Dr. Jay Gordon still the champion with a perfect 10): 7.
You’ve called me an idiot I don’t know how many times (‘cuz I’m too -duuuuh- to count!) so I see no reason to keep trying to grapple with ideas, with you, since you seem to think you’re just scoring cheap shots by deriding my “assholiness” (Wait, am I the pope? Or is he the “assHolyness”?)
I believe I said “assholishness.” You can’t even read. Sigh.
LOL!
In fact, yes. I thought he was too stupid to be afraid. :-)
Some see Nero as the first attempt at an enlightened absolutist. It looks like the common people (unlike the upper-class history-writers…) loved him so much they refused to accept his death and believed he was hiding out in Parthia to return one day, like Elvis.
From a purely utilitarian point of view, you should have, because it would have been very interesting (and without any doubt extremely irony-rich) to know what he knew and when he knew it.
BTW, “Hussein” is not his surname, it’s the second of his given names. He had no surname, like most people in the region. If you’re looking for the name of his clan, try al-Tikriti, though even that just tells where they come from…
windy writes:
Exactly, so why not ask for prosecution?
It’s a great idea.
Satre’s Evil eye writes:
How can realpolitik, which presumes the value of a national interest, be called nihilistic?
Good nitpick. Not all uses of the word “nihilism” are Nietzschean; I use it in the sense that all ‘values’ are invented. I.e.: the state’s leaders make up whatever is convenient and sell it as for the good of the state. We could certainly point at the Bush administration as a case in point. They said whatever was convenient for them and claimed to hold whatever beliefs were most marketable, to convince the rubes to do what they wanted them to.
I’m not sure what scares me more: politicians that believe in what they’re doing, or politicians that believe in nothing but power. And, in that case, I am projecting. If I had vast amounts of power, I’d use it the same way they do.
Thread over, we have a winner.
?
*headdesk*
Gosh, I wonder if the institutionalization of vast amounts of power should be fought, then?
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/09/science_is_not_your_merkin.php#comment-1111997
(OK, in this case it’s directed at me specifically, but it’s the same basic principle.)
;)
Alas, he appears to have popped off. Pity.
resnort?
resnort?
+500
Try reading this string of sentences again. Try giving it a bit more thought.
Bush and his pals aren’t going to lose any sleep over their actions
********
Albert Gonzales was losing sleep..he sent memos pointing out that they could be prosecuted for War Crime under 18,2441. They made attempts to give themselves retroactive immunity in the Military Commission Act of 2006.
Who says creative writing is dead…
Let’s try it another way: why don’t you tell me a few of the wars that were fought since WWI that didn’t have gross violations of the Geneva Convention?
Most countries make murder illegal. Find me one where no murders occur.
How is this playing in main steam US media?
I hope Obama allows the full investigation of Bush , Cheney , Rumsfeld ,Rove , Yoo , and Bybee.
We need a fresh 9/11 commission to investigate what really happened that day because there are still way too many unanswered questions.
I don’t see how we can move forward as a nation until we address these issues : war-profiteering , Judicial Branch and Executive Branch of Bush Administration ,prosecute torture from the top down ,signing statements used by Bush instead of veto ,methods used to capture detainees at Guantanamo , Abu Graib , etc.
I read most but not all of the comments so if this point of view has been put forth already I apologize.
IF these slides are true, to Islam, the United States government was highjacked by a christian fundmentalist regime and attacked them without provocation; in the full on superpower kind of attack way.
We are charting new waters here as they could be right.
In case this hasn’t been posted: The Military Religious Freedom Foundation and article at HuffPo.
How odd. Went out to pick up a pizza, realized they were closed, ended up at Applebee’s (sorry – whatever – Fiesta Lime Chicken is quite good, and they were open) watching the Celtics, and evidently little has occurred since…
Josh:
Not the first time, including in that way, that I’ve thought of you in the past 24 hours…
Oh, you love it and you know it, E.V. It’s a crescendo of adoration…
:D
There’s a thought: You could bundle up Cheney, ex-Prez Bush, Gonzales, and other torture apologists and authorizers and send them to The Hague for trial by an international court. Just send along the evidence and a list of witnesses and things to subpoena. It would be easier to find an unbiased jury in Europe.
“Oh. And keep them, please. They don’t have authorization to enter the U.S.”
If I would have been constantly subjected to this crap, I’m almost glad my knee gave out before I tried joining.
If I’m interpreting that correctly, then the past 24 hours has been similar on this end.
good thread.
backing up a bit.
belief in invisible forces seems to be one of the things making us human.
santa claus,fairies, a friend only i can see are part and parcel of childhood.
they fade with maturity.
but religions, falling within the same category,do not.
they strengthen,mutate,evolve,branch off.
what’s happening?
if there was ever a subject crying out for scientific investigation it is religion.
Or…compatible…
I like the word compatible. I hope it really is applicable.
Getting back to ‘Tis Himself’s comment
We would at least gain an official record of what happened, since it appears we don’t know half of it yet. And maybe that information would shed some light on detentions that are still going on in places like Bagram. (“The camp looked like the Nazi camps that I saw in films”, and the linked article suggests that the violations at Guantanamo are not over either)
Me too.
[Apologies for the hijack.]
SC + Josh= Pharyngularomance?
*smacks Rick*
Josh, I’m one to talk. I have a huge cybercrush on Sastra.
Of course, I’m a gay man, which makes things…complicated, to say the least.
Rob Reiner’s making a movie about it next year.
Josh, can’t you smack Rockman instead? He seems like someone you’d like to smack.
(But it seems he left, and did not deign to return. So… Never mind!)
I was so waiting for him to come back…
Drat.
Okay, eyes are blurring. I’m down. ‘Night all.
*pops smoke*
Sweet dreams, Josh. :P
Ranum: “it’s only reasonable to expect that the proponents of a remedy argue in favor of evidence of its effectiveness”
How about, it’s only reasonable to expect that the proponents of a remedy argue that it be attempted, not weaseled out of. Chickenshit.
What would Jesus do? Certainly he would bomb foreigners to hell.
So, when are you going to bring those responsible for torture to justice? Oh wait, that’s not going to happen.
Probably not, but maybe there’s some value in attempting, at least to get more of the dirty laundry out in the open. Marcy Wheeler has the “most wanted” list up in Salon. AFAIU, she has been instrumental in piecing the story together. Firedoglake is asking for donations to hire her so she can continue the work, hint, hint.
Hmmm. The YAM scale should be used more often, sort of like the Tc scale.
And you think none is being done? You should get out less and read more.
=================
Off topic: Here’s a poll to crash.
A short look here will show that it’s a half-rotten raccoon carcass that had been floating in the sea for some time (an option that was only added to the poll after several days). There are only 1909 votes so far. Go, hordes!
Incidentally, a turtle without its shell is physically impossible. The shell is the ribcage, containing the ribs, the vertebrae of the back and sacrum, the collarbones, and several other such things.
In all honesty, I’m surprised that the president was impressed by anything having to do with the Bible.
Scary stuff! Of course, in the UK, we had the equally insane Tony Blair, who attempted to use religion to justify our country’s part in the Iraq fiasco. And now he has his ‘Faith Foundation’ – as if he hasn’t done enough damage already!!! That’s the annoying thing about religion – religious people think that they can get away with facilitating the maiming of children and the slaughter of thousands of innocent people if it’s in the name of their religious ‘beliefs’. The man makes me sick. (Dr David Kelly RIP.)
R. Carter Gray,
Rumsfeld undoubtedly knows GW Bush better than you do; and in all honesty, having glanced through your website, it’s clear you’re a complete dingbat.
OT but relevant and very important because of another Bush religious disaster concerning science and stem cells. The next 8 days are crucial in the stem cell research struggle.
“The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) launched a new
“Oppose Destructive Stem Cell Research” campaign today, equipping citizens
to contact Congress and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to oppose
embryonic stem cell research .” — WASHINGTON, May 6
/PRNewswire-USNewswire
Dr. Wise Young of Rutgers University , “. of the 6000 plus comments that NIH
has received concerning the draft guidelines, 99% were from people who
opposed embryonic stem cell research.”
Supporters of stem cell research must be heard.
Please go to the link below, read it and then go to the link on the page and add your comment about relaxing stem cell research restrictions.
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dd5vs2xt_0hkwp6xd8
PZ, maybe you can do a post about this?
I still think the thing to do is SELL Bush and Cheney to Iraq.
If nothing else, we’d get back the money we paid ’em over those 8 years.
Wow, they were quoting Joshua? Intentionally calling up the most despicable parts of the OT, the one’s referring to genocide as a holy act?
That’s only one step away from quoting Mein Kampf.
What’s missing from Rich’s story is the long-overdue apology for his stories about Al Gore. Rich spent years denigrating Gore before during and after the 2000 election. Have you read his “review” of An Inconvenient Truth?
Rich is a typical childish and immature, not to mention wealthy, member of the opinionocracy. It’s nice to see him write an article castigating Bush, a sentiment wholeheartedly endorsed here, but if Rich hadn’t been such an ass in the 2000 election, he wouldn’t have to write such an article now.
He’s undeserving of any encomiums, he deserves your opprobrium. Stop linking to the fool.
And to mine, but side by side with the imperative to hold them accountable is the imperative to clean up the mess they made, and these are potentially competing imperatives. AFAIK, there’s no statute of limitations on war crimes; I fear that rushing to prosecute now would be the equivalent of court-martialing the freshly deposed captain before saving the sinking ship.
Obama was eloquent during the campaign about the need for an administration that could “do more than one thing at a time”… but he’s also smart enough to realize that would be impossible if one of the things was the wholly unprecedented prosecution of an entire American administration on capital war crimes charges. Anyone who thinks we, as a nation, could accomplish that and do anything else at the same time is living in his/her own private Idaho… and anyone who doesn’t think there are other things we absolutely have to be doing hasn’t been paying attention to the news.
The most draconian outcomes some of us are imagining…
…might potentially quite literally destroy the republic: There are enough armed wingnuts among us that a parade of executions like this would precipitate nationwide riots that could only end in either martial law or civil war.
The destruction of the United States through political violence (or its economic collapse through distraction from domestic policy) would not, it seems to me, be a net win for peace and justice in the world, no matter how many retired Bushies we executed in the process.
So, accountability, yes… but exactly how and when is, I think, a somewhat more complex issue that the most passionate advocates on either side are admitting.
1 I think including Pelosi on this list constitutes “assuming facts not in evidence,” but whatever.
Just for the sake of comparision:
The supreme court of reunited Germany has cooly amnestied ALL the stasi goons who tortured for Mengistu.
Those apparatchiks and generals responsible for sending helicopters and men to fight for Saddam in his war of aggression against Iran were never brought before court, although it would have been easily possible after the collapse of the GDR, and the role of those “advisors” might have been tacticaly decisive, see here:
http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_214.shtm,
nor were those who sent Migs and pilots to fight for Syria in another war of aggression, the Yom Kippur war (mercifully, those planes saw no action).
Oops, the link should be:
http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_214.shtml
Yes, to try former leaders for crimes against humanity you need a truly stable nation like IRAQ. As I recall, the US positively insisted that they do so. Probably there weren’t so many things they needed to be doing anyway. And how about Peru, it must be a really prosperous country to afford such a distraction.
FFS, these excuses are getting out of hand. Maybe you could explain to the Iraqis how stability and health care and all that are more important than dealing with the war crimes your leaders have committed.
I think this blog entry is utter bullshit. I don’t believe a word of it.
Yeah, well… if we were under the thumb of an occupying army that promised to keep (its preferred version of) order while we did its nation’s judicial dirty work, we might have a better chance of pulling it off.
But seriously, you don’t really think we should emulate that farce, do you? The “Iraqi” government (hand installed by aforementioned occupying army) had, realistically, nothing on its dance card that could compete with its imperative to complete the political assassination of its predecessor, thinly covered in a veneer of concern over his war crimes (note that I’m not expressing doubt over the reality of the crimes; just over whether said crimes were any significant part of the reason the new Iraqi leadership were so eager to kill him). It’s precisely that kind of shit that would tear this country apart, because unlike Iraq we have a large, geographically dispersed armed population not currently constrained by martial law. They may have more privately owned guns per capita in Iraq, but in absolute terms, firepower in the streets is probably a bigger problem here.
I’m not excusing things, nor am I arguing against holding these bastards accountable; I’m just arguing for a responsible pragmatism in how we do it. We’re responsible for their crimes… but that’s not even close to all we’re responsible for, and we have no right to abdicate all our other responsibilities in the prosecution of a single one.
Personally, I think we owe the Iraqis huge economic reparations (which I’m guessing many of them would care more about than seeing Bush get the needle)… but we have to survive first, in order to make them whole. It’s like the instructions you get on an airplane: Put your own oxygen mask on first, before attempting to help others.
BTW, though, maybe you could explain to a family going bankrupt (and mortgaging their other children’s futures) in a probably-futile attempt to save one child from dying of cancer that health care isn’t “more important than dealing with the war crimes [our already deposed] leaders have [already long since] committed.”
It’s really never quite as simple as “just do this one thing and screw the consequences”; it would be a world of much greater clarity if it were.
Anonymous Rockman @106:
Not not; naught.
If you’re going to be locquaciousessly pedanticizing at least get your fucking words correct. Jeez, damn kids these days.
No one should be surprised by all of this: despots have been dragging the Good Book through the mud for hundreds of years in order to justify their demonic deeds; just because we now live in the supposed New Millenium doesn’t mean that the old tactics have suddenly gone away.
Fear and hatred have long proven to be useful and effective ways to promote war, death and destruction. Even for those who assert that America is a Christian nation, there is no excuse for our behavior towards our Muslim brothers and sisters. I too, was very hurt and angry when our country was attacked on 9/11. Like many of us, I wanted to see our country stike back. It is human nature to want to inflict the pain that has been inflicted on you.
Not that this really matters; the verse was still taken out of its context, but the quote misused on that report to Bush was a passage from the Old Testament, not the New. One of the reasons why Christ preached the opposite of the Law of Moses is because the Mosaic Law has within it a fatal flaw: an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind. There is nothing to stop the resulting cycle of violence. As we can all now see, this is exactly the situation in which our soldiers find themselves trapped. No matter how many troops we send to the Middle East, it won’t change the fact that we can’t force freedom as we define it down someone else’s throat.
Christ taught His followers to turn the other cheek when attacked; to respond not with more violence, but to respond instead with love. If we were truly a Christian nation, we would have dropped food instead of bombs on Afghanistan, and we would never have supported the invasion of Iraq. If America truly is a follower of Jesus Christ, she has a long way to go before she reaches understanding.
IDer:
Of course you don’t. Because you’ve seen the evidence that refutes the claims made herein. Right? Right?
Bill:
Who would disagree with that?
Again, I agree.
Frankly, I’m appalled by the idea that we should be executing anybody. I’m far more interested in simply getting at the truth, if possible. I’d like to see at least one conviction above and beyond the token sacrifice of Scooter Libby and the subsequent commutation of his sentence. Isn’t it time to stop allowing these criminals to keep pardoning themselves?
But… “the needle”? Is that where people want to go with this? Count me out, thank you very much.
This is so absurdly appalling that I think we have absolutely no choice but to investigate and prosecute.
We are 100% certain that tens of thousands (I think way more, but that’s irrelevant) died because of Bush’s lies; we are 100% certain there was no separation of church and state; we are 100% certain the lies originated with Bush.
I am so ashamed of Bush today. And Vice President Vader. And… All of them.
I am waiting for someone with the courage of James Dean to come forward, and tell everything he or she knows. Rice? Powell? A general I’m not familiar with?
Please, someone step forward. We know you are out there, we know you’re ashamed of your role.
Put criminals into jail. Period.
Right now, somewhere in CA, a prison inmate is getting 25-to-life for some petty third conviction. It’s likely the third strike was less severe than telling lies that led to many tens of thousands of dead people.
Come forward. Do the right thing. Investigate Bush NOW.
Oh, and Cheney? Keep talking. Keep the mouth running, boy. I want to hear more. You know everything, don’t you?
IMADOOFUS.
John Dean.
Sorry.
No worries, Mike. Many of us would love to hear from James Dean as well.
Intelligent Designer #221
Congratulations, ID. Because it’s obvious that anything you’re in favor of is idiotic and anything you’re against is good and right, I’m forced to change my mind about BushCo.
Give ’em a fair and impartial trial, then hang the guilty bastards!
Of course. But you are in effect saying that the US can never be held responsible for war crimes.
Think about it. How likely it is that war crimes are committed by a nation that has no other serious issues to deal with at the same time? If this is a valid reason not to prosecute them, we might as well scrap the whole idea of war crimes.
The Iraq that has been fighting a civil war for years? Compared to your hapless teabaggers? You can’t be serious.
But if what you say is true, your “republic” that you are so worried about preserving is effectively a hostage to armed thugs.
How are they ever going to get reparations unless there is an admission of war crimes? The US won’t even apologise to the innocent people it illegally detained for years, let alone pay reparations to them.
Oh please. Only if we accept your false dichotomy. What about discouraging present and future war crimes? Does that figure anywhere in the calculation?
windy:
No, you completely misunderstand me: I think we must hold ourselves responsible for not only Bush’s war crimes, but also all the other ways in which U.S. policies under Bush damaged the rest of the world (esp. the current financial meltdown and our potentially world-threatening reticence on climate change). For the sake of affirming the primacy of law, part of that responsibility must be some form of personal accountability for the key culprits… but throwing already-ousted leaders in prison (or executing them) is perhaps the least materially consequential of the debts we owe the rest of the world, and it’s the one with the most potential to prevent us from discharging all our other responsibilities. If you have multiple creditors, the ethical thing is to find a way to pay them all off, even if it takes some time; not to go bankrupt trying to pay off just one right away.
So yes, we need prosecutions, or perhaps a Truth and Reconciliation commission… but it needs to be done in a manner and at a time that will not bring down the government, nor cripple its ability to do anything else. That is not an abdication of responsibility, but an acceptance of the larger responsibility.
So why is Just.Another.Politician. worried about Abu Ghraib 2.0 pix? The Muslim world is going to see this shit now.
I just received the pictures of these top secret report covers via email.
Please, please tell me this is a “Poe”?
OMFG the Americans have the largest arsenal of nuclear and conventionasl weapons in the history of mankind at their disposal. We (the rest of humanity, that is) are SO screwed.
When might that be? Not now, you say, with all the crises to deal with, then there are elections coming up, then people are going to say that Obama needs to get re-elected first… and by then there may have been too many incidents like this under Obama’s watch so it will be politically unfeasible. And the statute of limitations will soon have run out on some of the crimes, anyway.
Can’t afford to lose our moral leadership…
Your government is still holding many of the victims of the previous one.
The one where you have to choose between prosecutions now and your “ability to do anything else”. Or is that a slippery slope?
Unless it’s Afghanistan or Pakistan, who have the obligation to obey the US at the expense of their own citizens.