If someone suspected an accountant of embezzling money, clearly someone would
want authorities to investigate it and if there was a possibility of someone molesting children,
we would want an investigation to determine what happened. If a crime may have
been committed then there should be an investigation of what happened. If a CEO of an
company misused money, that is the company money, then what would happen if the CEO suddenly
claimed he was above the rules and could change the rules an CEO had to follow regardless
of what anybody else said? Clearly we cannot allow those in charge to determine their
own status in regards to what rules they can follow. Now Richard Nixon claimed he was
above the law and would have been impeached had he stayed in office because a president
is not above the law. That in fact is one of founding principles of America, that no one is
above the law and even the president must abide by the law. To make an exception, even
in a time of war is to slide down that slippery slope of allowing presidents to create their own
exceptions whenever it is convenient for them. Now it is clear and has been admitted even
by bush, that we have torture people. This is in violation of both international and national law.
To say we didn’t torture is clearly wrong because international law is quite clear about
what torture is and the Geneva convention is quite clear as to what is torture and
the U.S clearly violated those laws even if we only torture ONE person. So say, well we only
torture one person, no big deal, but the fact is violation of the law once is no defense.
Well judge, I only robbed that bank once, so clearly its no big deal. Try that as your defense in
a courtroom and see how many years of prison you get. One or a thousand times doesn’t matter,
if the law has been broken. Now you might say, Other presidents broke the laws, so its ok for
bush to break the law, the defense there fails because trying that defense in regards to
other actions is silly. I rob the bank but its ok because the very same bank was
robbed last week and the guy got away with it, so I must be allowed to get away with it.
A court of law is not a place to try previous actions, there you must look at the current
process and the current actions, not something someone did years or centuries ago.
WE must prosecute bush for war crimes for the very same reason we prosecuted Nazi’s
after WW 2, and under the exact same laws, because we must give justice for the victims
even if the victims are are not “angels” or people we agree with. If we do not then the very idea
of justice means nothing if we do nothing about bush. For experts such as Jonathan turley, a
constitutional expert, says that bush clearly violated national and international law and if we do nothing
then we are condoning a blatant disregard for the law. How can we call for the punishment for
killers, child molesters, rapist if we disregard clear acts of breaking the law from the president.
The president is and must be held accountable for actions committed just as every single one
of us is held accountable for actions committed. We cannot afford to create exemptions for
someone just because they claim it and we cannot look the other way because it may create
a benefit for us. the law must be upheld or it means nothing. That simple. If we fail to at least
investigate bush for war crimes, then it means we have forsaken the very concept of justice in america and
the concept of justice is the very heart of any society. Justice is one of the central concepts
of a civilization, for it is the glue that holds civilizations together. We cannot casually walk
away from one of the benchmarks of civilizations for to do so means we abandon one of our core
principles of American society and to do so means in a very real way we abandon America.
Faust: Peter is paragraphically challenged. You almost get used to it after a while."
K: Top 5 reasons Kropotkin is paragraphically challenged.
The aliens beaming messages into his head don’t really get the idea of paragraphs.
Paragraphs! I don’t need some stinking paragraphs.
You say paragraphically challenged like its a bad thing.
The idea of paragraphs, punctuation, grammar, spelling, way overrated.
UMMMM, what’s a paragraph?
F: Who do you want here, Peter - the entire administration? Why skip over anyone in the chain of command?
How about the Pentagon brass, Homeland Security - and maybe an extra Cabinet member or two?
K: A group of people who plot to violate the law to rob a bank or murder someone are said to engage
in a conspiracy. People in this administration conspired to evade the law on torture and that is a conspiracy.
If we allow them to get away with this, then what is the point of having a justice system? If we allow
people to break the law, then why do we prosecute murderers or sex offenders? Why does one group get to
break the law with impunity and another group get punish? Indeed why have laws at all if we are just going
to ignore people who break the law?
F: Would that be enough?
K: whomever engaged in this conspiracy must be at the minimum investigated otherwise the legal
system means nothing, justice means nothing.
F: Or maybe we just recognise that everyone cheats on the Geneva Conventions."
K: and that’s a defense? Everyone does it, so clearly its ok. No, everyone doesn’t do it and
that’s the point. The rule of law must be followed or we don’t have a functioning civilization.
This casual idea that, so what if a few people got torture, no big deal. Yes, it is a big deal on
several levels. It is in violation of international and national law, it subjects humans to inhuman treatment,
it begins down the path that says today a few were torture, tomorrow millions can be tortured because
if some can be allowed then everyone can be tortured.
I cannot stress enough how important this is, how dangerous this is for the future if we allow
this administration to get away with this. For it becomes the blueprint for future administrations
to violate the law it has sworn to uphold. If we allow this, we stand for nothing, America stands for nothing,
it means nothing because we have renounced the core values of what america stands for which
is the rule of law is everything. The future, our future depends on us understanding what this rule of law
stands for.
I think, for a lot of people, that is a defense. I think a majority of americans see the Geneva Conventions as an outdated device. We just don’t care. Most of the people we will be fighting in the foreseeable future don’t subscribe to it. It was designed to be a reciprocal agreement, but Muslim terrorists don’t reciprocate. And it’s not a domestic law, anyway. Ids there a law that says that if we violate an international treaty, we violate a domestic law? I am not aware of that.
And slippery-slope arguments are not very convincing to many.
Wow. You mean the whole thing goes to hell over this one issue?
If prosecuting an entire American Administration for commission of war crimes is accomplished, then possibly the United States may get the message that commission of war crimes is unacceptable behaviour.
I completely agree regarding the importance of holding persons in the Bush Administration responsible for what surely are crimes against the Constitution and the people of America. Because if you don’t hold them accountable, then the message is that our laws mean nothing.
But…the sad fact is that those same people, by both intent and utter disregard for the institutions that were put into place to preserve our nation and protect the rest of us from the lawbreakers and the greedy, those same people brought this country to its knees.
And now we’re all paying the price for our collective laziness and ignorance and apathy that resulted in a gross lack of involvement in our government. We’ll now likely watch those who perpetrated that criminal behavior live out their lives without ever having to even be investigated. Not even for Iraq. Not even for Katrina. Not even for the financial meltdown.
Dontcha recall the sweet days of innocence, when so many were gung ho to watch the government spend tens of millions to impeach a popular president over a blow job? Well, I guess his problem was that he chose to persuade one single intern to get down on her knees before him. That’s not how you do it; this is America, a place where the grand gesture is necessary! The Bush/Cheney/Rove crew knows how power really works here. You have to force the citizens of this country down on their knees to blow you longer and harder…humiliate 'em before the rest of the world, over and over again…allow the Wall Street evildoers to strip the till clean…let us watch on our wide-screen TVs how poor people are worth nothing, left as bloating corpses floating in the city streets…you gotta do all that in order to walk away free and clear from the halls of power in this great nation.
Maybe the biggest lesson we’ll learn from Bush is how asleep a nation of people can fall. Some people think 9/11 was a wake-up call. I disagree. I think it showed our cowardice and our fear and how easily we pay self-congratulatory lip service to heroes (the real ones, of course, not wanting to be called that) so that we can think of ourselves as a ‘courageous people’…and then how easily we were lulled back to sleep. All it took was bigger TVs, bigger cars, bigger houses, bigger debt. We sleepwalked through the malls and let them do their best to steal away our security and a chunk of our children’s future. Now many will suffer and we’ll all end up holding our breath to see how long it takes to recover from all of this, assuming that we can. We’re putting an awful burden on one man’s shoulders and letting the one who tore so much down just skip all the way back to Texas. And so the wheel turns. At least, from what I’ve read here over the years, a number of you have drugs of one form or another to give you comfort. I’m sure that’s one industry that will ride out this storm.
We invade a sovereign nation, remove its government and replace it with a puppet government, killing thousands upon thousands of people, and now we are supposed to get all worked up because someone swallowed a little water along the way.
If all government officials ought to be held responsible for their actions, then all government officials responsible for any war crimes ought to be held responsible for their actions. If all government officials responsible for any war crimes ought to be held responsible for their actions, then all government officials responsible for any war crimes ought to be brought to trial for any war crimes that were commited due to their actions. All government officials ought to be held responsible for their actions. Therefore, all government officials responsible for any war crimes ought to be brought to trial for any war crimes that were commited due to their actions.
Absolution is not the point of putting those responsible for war crimes on trial. Justice is the point of putting those responsible for war crimes on trial.
If the United States wants to be a respected nation, then the United States ought to behave respectably.
We have never been respected because we have acted respectably. We are respected because we have a lot of very cool weaponry, and the willingness to use it.