The Bush Six/Fake Faith and Epic Crimes.

[Rogers]

I'm a good few months late with this, and don't know if anyone has heard of it before.

The Bush Six:

"The Spanish prosecutors advised the Americans that they would suspend their investigation if at any point the United States were to undertake an investigation of its own into these matters. They pressed to know whether any such investigation was pending. These inquiries met with no answer from the U.S. side."

"The Bush Six labored at length to create a legal black hole in which they could implement their policies safe from the scrutiny of American courts and the American media. Perhaps they achieved much of their objective, but the law of unintended consequences has kicked in. If U.S. courts and prosecutors will not address the matter because of a lack of jurisdiction, foreign courts appear only too happy to step in."

"Scott Horton is a law professor and writer on legal and national-security affairs for Harper's magazine and The American Lawyer, among other publications."
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-04-13/the-bush-six-to-be-indicted/

"It is hard to predict what will happen next, but, if arrest warrants are issued, the Obama Administration may be forced either to extradite the former officials or to start its own investigation. Sands, who admires Obama, said, “I regret that I have added to his in-box when he has so much else to sort out. But I hope he does the right thing. There’s not much dispute anymore: torture happened, and the law is clear—torture must be punished.”

Meanwhile, Sands reiterated a warning that he made in his book. “If I were they,” he said, referring to the former officials in question, “I would think carefully before setting foot outside the United States. They are now, and forever in the future, at risk of arrest. Until this is sorted out, they are in their own legal black hole.”"
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2009/04/13/090413ta_talk_mayer

[Rogers]

Fake faith and epic crimes

by John Pilger
Published 02 April 2009

"The Brussels War Crimes Tribunal and the newly established Blair War Crimes Foundation are building a case for the former British prime minister’s prosecution"

"The Pinochet case was the ignition. On 19 January, the George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley compared the status of George W Bush with that of Pinochet. “Outside [the United States] there is no longer the ambiguity about what to do about a war crime,” he said. “So if you try to travel, most people abroad are going to view you not as ‘former president George Bush’ as a current war criminal.” [b]For this reason, Bush’s first defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, who demanded an invasion of Iraq in 2001 and personally approved torture techniques for use in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, no longer travels. Rumsfeld has twice been indicted for war crimes in Germany. On 26 January, the UN special rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, said: “We have clear evidence that Mr Rumsfeld knew what he was doing but nevertheless he ordered torture.”"

"“We pray,” said Blair, “that in acting we do God’s work and follow God’s will.”

To decent people, such pronouncements about Blair’s “faith” represent a contortion of morality and intellect that is a profanation of the basic teachings of Christianity. Those who aided and abetted his great crime and now wish the rest of us to forget their part – or who, like Alastair Campbell, offer their bloody notoriety for the vicarious pleasure of some – might read the first indictment proposed by the Blair War Crimes Foundation: “Deceit and conspiracy for war, and providing false news to incite passions for war, causing in the order of one million deaths, four million refugees, countless maimings and traumas.”

These are indeed extraordinary times."
http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2009/04/war-crimes-blair-pilger-iraq

[Rogers]

Tony Blair: ‘I wanted war – it was the right thing to do’
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/the_blair_years/article2886547.ece

[Blair's] Religious faith
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Blair#Religious_faith

[Bliar's] Middle East policy and links with Israel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Blair#Middle_East_policy_and_links_with_Israe l

[hippifried]

No American official, past or present, will ever be extradited to the Hague. We've never acknowleged their jurisdiction ove anyone but others, usually the defeated, as justification for actions we've already taken. They're a tool. Jonathan Turley's full of crap.

[Rogers]

No American official, past or present, will ever be extradited to the Hague. We've never acknowleged their jurisdiction ove anyone but others, usually the defeated, as justification for actions we've already taken. They're a tool. Jonathan Turley's full of crap.

Don't think he mentioned extradiction, just that they may be arrested if abroad. He cited Pinochet:

"In 1998, Pinochet, who still had much influence in Chile, travelled to the United Kingdom for medical treatment — allegations have been made that he was also there to negotiate arms contracts [4]. While there, he was arrested under an international arrest warrant issued by judge Baltasar Garzón of Spain, and was placed under house arrest: initially in the clinic where he had just undergone back surgery, and later in a rented house. The charges included 94 counts of torture of Spanish citizens, the 1975 assassination of Spanish diplomat Carmelo Soria, and one count of conspiracy to commit torture —allegations of abuses had been made numerous times before his arrest, including since the beginning of his rule, but never acted upon. Still struggling with the conditions set by the difficult transition to democracy, the Chilean government of the Concertación, then headed by President Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, opposed his arrest, extradition to Spain, and trial.

There was a hard-fought 16-month legal battle in the House of Lords, the highest court of the United Kingdom.[5] Pinochet claimed immunity from prosecution as a former head of state under the State Immunity Act 1978. This was rejected, as the Lords decreeded that some international crimes, such as torture, could not be protected by former head-of-state immunity [6]. The Lords, however, decided in March 1999 that Pinochet could only be prosecuted for crimes committed after 1988, the date during which the United Kingdom implemented legislation for the United Nations Convention Against Torture in the Criminal Justice Act 1988 [7][6]. This invalidated most, but not all, of the charges against him; but the outcome was that extradition could proceed."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Pinochet%27s_arrest_and_trial

It's a pretty sad state of affairs to be honest.

[hippifried]

The Pinochet argument won't work either, because he was under indictment in his home nation. We're not going to indict any American members of the Bush administration for war crimes, regardless of how much Jonathan Turley wishes it was so. The Solicitor General's office will fight any attempt by anyone else to bring indictments, & the US government will not allow any member of any previous or the current administration to be arrested by foreigners for actions taken under military action.

Turley likes to talk a bunch of legalese, & shed a bunch of crocodile tears when nobody pays attention to him, but there's something else going on. He's either got a personal vendetta happening or he's just trying to write the book that'll let him retire rich. Either way, I think we've had enough of fanatics setting our national direction.

[Rogers]

The Pinochet argument won't work either, because he was under indictment in his home nation. We're not going to indict any American members of the Bush administration for war crimes, regardless of how much Jonathan Turley wishes it was so. The Solicitor General's office will fight any attempt by anyone else to bring indictments, & the US government will not allow any member of any previous or the current administration to be arrested by foreigners for actions taken under military action.

Turley likes to talk a bunch of legalese, & shed a bunch of crocodile tears when nobody pays attention to him, but there's something else going on. He's either got a personal vendetta happening or he's just trying to write the book that'll let him retire rich. Either way, I think we've had enough of fanatics setting our national direction.

Seeing justice done makes someone a fanatic? If that's the case, then maybe we need more "fanatics" of this kind. I'm maybe missing something, but Pinochet was arrested in the U.K.. Not being someone who knows much about the law; I've noticed that those who do know about it are also good at breaking it, but what did him being indicted in Chile have to do with his arrest? It was a Spanish arrest warrant. Both Spain and the U.K. are part of the E.U.. Political pressure helped get him released admittedly, but it really sounds to me that you want the whole thing swept under the rug. And I have to say, that you've given me exactly the same impression over 9/11. You also sound shockingly pro-"American Empire", which doesn't fit at all well with many of the things you've said on this forum.

The least that can be done is to tag these bastards real good with the "war-criminal" label they deserve. So that when they pop their evil heads up again the majority knows exactly what they are. I bet you that some will most definitely be back in power otherwise.

There seems to be a lot of these "Justice Fanatics" going around thankfully:

"Rumsfeld's resignation, they say, means that the former Defense Secretary will lose the legal immunity usually accorded high government officials. Moreover, the plaintiffs argue that the German prosecutor's reasoning for rejecting the previous case — that U.S. authorities were dealing with the issue — has been proven wrong."
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1557842,00.html

[Cuchulain]

I doubt any of these brazen thugs will ever be prosecuted - and that's a damn shame. Christ, the Bush/Cheney gang made Nixon and Reagan look like rank amateurs.

I wouldn't call Mr. Turley a fanatic for seeking justice. All those dead bodies, and for what? We SHOULD be outraged. I'd love to see these creeps' hides nailed to the wall. Maybe then the next 'imperial' President will think twice before he blatantly shits all over the law.

[hippifried]

Justice my ass!
Turley has a political agenda. He's full of shit. If he's as smart as he claims, then he knows full well that this can never be limited to the prosecution of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, & a few others. He's advocating putting the United States of America on trial in a foreign court, where our nation can be judged by a bunch of Europeans. No time or tort limits. Where's the end? Can it even be limited to the current adventures? We're still at war with Korea.

Fat chance the US will ever cede it's sovereignty over the blather of some tenured shyster. We're not a conquered nation, & we're not an old world declining empire. There's no imperitive for US surrender.

[Rogers]

Maybe then the next 'imperial' President will think twice before he blatantly shits all over the law.

Co-sign.

"Rumsfeld himself was reportedly upset."
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1557842,00.html

Awww, the big mass-murdering baby. :lol:

"Rumsfeld had made it known immediately after the complaint was filed that he would not attend the Munich conference unless Germany quashed the legal action."
http://www.expatica.com/de/news/local_news/rumsfeld-scraps-munich-visit-over-war-probe-16014.html

What a coward... but aren't they all!

[Rogers]

Cheney, Nuremberg and aggressive war: the day the smirking stopped
"The key members of the BushCheney administration had planned for years prior to March 2003 to invade Iraq.

•George Bush fantasized about being a "war president" - specifically, about invading Iraq - as far back as the 1990s; his cabinet choices and all of his public utterances on the issue all pointed toward that inevitable outcome

•The Project for the New American Century, from which most of the key members of the BushCheney foreign policy and defense teams were drawn, as its first public policy statement called in 1998 for the United States to make as its pre-eminent foreign policy focus the removal of Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq

•Immediately after taking office in January 2001, Dick Cheney convened his energy task force, which drew up (a) a map of Iraq which divided the country’s western desert into oilfield parcels, and (b) a list of "Foreign Suitors for for Iraqi Oil Contracts"

•On February 3, 2001, a top-secret National Security Council memo was circulated which "directed the N.S.C. staff to coöperate fully with the Energy Task Force as it considered the ‘melding’ of two seemingly unrelated areas of policy: ‘the review of operational policies towards rogue states," such as Iraq, and "actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields.’"

•The day after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Bush ordered his national security "czar," Richard Clarke, to look for links between the terrorists and Saddam Hussein, in spite of Clarke’s insistence that no such links exist

•In March 2002 – a full year before the invasion of Iraq - President George W. Bush told a group of U.S. Senators, "F@#k Saddam - we’re taking him out."

•The BushCheney administration tortured people in order to get them to confess to a non-existent link between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks

•The BushCheney administration lied to Congress and to the American people about Saddam Hussein’s ostensible seeking of uranium – lies that were based on documents that the administration knew were forgeries

•The BushCheney administration actively proposed fabricating an international incident by staging the shootdown of a surveillance aircraft painted in United Nations colors and blaming the shootdown on the government of Iraq

All of the above are documented facts. The case for the crime of aggressive war - the same offense for which Nazis at Nuremberg were tried and convicted - against the BushCheney administration is, on its face, already a strong one."
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/5/18/727464/-Cheney,-Nuremberg-and-aggressive-war:-the-day-the-smirking-stopped

[Cuchulain]

Nice job of summing up the case against the Bush/Cheney gang for lying us into war, Rogers. Those lads have a lot of blood on their hands.

hippifried, I get it. You really, REALLY don't like Jonathan Turley. I dunno, I've seen him interviewed a lot and he seems like a smart, reasonable man who's just outraged at the lawless behavior of a President.

Anyway, I don't see how America can pretend to be a nation of laws if we just ignore overwhelming evidence of illegal behavior at the highest levels of our govt. If it's not pursued, it will happen again.

Nixon resigned in disgrace. Reagan got away with Iran-Contra and is revered like a god by the REICHwing, but at least Ollie, Abrams and many of their cronies were indicted, and most had to be pardoned by Bush the First.

BushCo should be prosecuted in the good old USA. I understand that's not politically expedient, but it's sad to see Obama run away from it.

I seriously doubt any of these guys will ever be tried in another country, and Obama would try to save their asses if they were. It's kinda nice to know that these rich old cretins have to worry about it though.

[hippifried]

You're right. I don't like Turley. He's a one trick pony. Smart? Yes. Reasonable? I'm not seeing it. He's fixated on prosecuting the Bush administration for "war crimes". Now don't get me wrong. I'd like to see Cheney have his next/last heart attack in Leavenworth, but I'm not convinced there's a makable case. George W Bush was the duly elected President of the United States of America, & the US Congress gave him a blank check to pursue all the war he wanted & wage it however he saw fit. Other than torture allegations, where's the criminality? Even that's highly questionable. We can't afford to ever allow the President of the United States to be prosecuted for carrying out the mandate of the Congress. Especially by a foreign court. Whether any of us personally like the decisions is irrelevant.

Nixon was the worst kind of crook & cause horrible damage to the country, but he was nailed for trying to cheat in the '72 election. Clinton was prosecuted & impeached for his extracurricular activities. My opinion is that the Bush administration was god-awful incompetent, & a terrible backslide for the country. But I'm not willing to lay claims of calculated malice toward the nation. I'll leave that kind of hubris to Rush Beck. Turley can join them.