Should a Federal Grand Jury Consider Indicting Bush, Cheney et al for War Crimes
 

So, what do you all think?

Remember that a grand jury isn't empaneled to determine guilt or innocence. Rather, they are charged with deciding whether there is sufficient evidence to suggest that a crime may have been committed and that a trial should take place to learn the truth and render a verdict.

John

A grand jury should indeed convene on this issue. That said, it'll never happen - too big of a political shitstorm as well as fear from political types in the anti-terror camp that they too could be exposed to criminal prosecution in the future should they get the reins of power.

That said, the International Criminal Court should jump all over it, though a verdict would be moot. At least it would be an attempt to shame the shameless.

A verdict by the Hague Tribunal in the absence of any similar action on the part of the US shames us all.

But then we are rapidly becoming a shameless "exceptional" nation.

John

Yes sir reeee!


We hung offenders after WWII for doing less!



Barney

I'm all for it.

No.

1. It's ugly.
2. Lawful at the time.

What I wanted -- which we got -- is an admission that we did it, haven't in years, and won't do so again (which, of course, we could and we'd never hear about it but you know what I mean).

Retroactive prosecution due to current malem prohibitum is crap: it needed to be illegal, then.

It was, both in terms of our own laws and an international treaty we were signatories to.

While squirrely, John Yoo, Jay Bybee and Steven Bradbury got us internally around that.

And nobody cares about treaties, ask an Indian.

Yeah, ugly. Much uglier than rectal feeding, induced hypothermia or waterboarding.

It was never legal, either under our laws or under the several treaties we were signatory to which, under the Constitution, are "the supreme law of the land". The fact that a White House lawyer wrote a letter saying that EIT were legal doesn't make it so.

In the words of Richard M. Nixon, "When the President does it, that means that it's not illegal."

In 1901 the United States executed Philippine soldiers for waterboarding American soldiers.

In 1947 the United States executed Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American soldiers.

In 2014 the President of the United States describes as "patriots" Americans who waterboarded (and worse) prisoners in our charge.

John

The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 was no different than Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939. The only way it can be considered "legal" is under the "might makes right" rule. War criminals on the winning side get away with it. War criminals on the losing side get hung.

Uh, no.

Article 1

For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.
This article is without prejudice to any international instrument or national legislation which does or may contain provisions of wider application.

Article 2

Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.
No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.

http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cat.html

“Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner]. . . I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause… for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country.” - George Washington, charge to the Northern Expeditionary Force, Sept. 14, 1775

Lincoln agreed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lieber_Code

And the Lieber Code was the seminal document in the 1899 and 1907 Hague Convention.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hague_C...d_1907#History

John

Absolutely.

Give them the Saddam treatment, that's the best they deserve.

Invading a sovereign nation under false pretenses to make a profit and killing tens of thousands of innocent people.

Stealing 2 trillion of our taxpayers hard earned money for the MIC.

Hang em' all and hang em' high.

Strip their names from the history books and confiscate their family holdings.

Voted yes.

Wonder of the Nobel Peave Prize winning prez will be subject to a Grand Jury investigation for war crimes for drone attacks of close to 1000 civilian casualties?

Nah, never happen.

Yep that's the line I've been seeing. Torture, drone attacks, no difference....:rolleyes:

Glad you're back whell--I'd hate to miss the meme of the day.

Haw....that's our Whellie.

"Asymmetrical warfare" and false equivalency to discredit the sitting POTUS. And you would have us do, what?

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

Would you favor indicting President Obama as a war criminal for his drone program?

John

^ This.


and this. ^

There is no excuse for torturing, ever.

No, actually. I'm generally in favor of it.

So, since you equated Obama's drone program with Bush/Cheney's torture program......

John

It could be one of those Opus Dei things with the connies.

That means that it is / was war, John. Shit happens in war. You guys want to keep your focus on Bush, while Obama is busy making more shit happen in Afghanistan. Whatever.

The drone program and the media's relative lack of interest in it does allow the prez to operative with relative impunity and lack of scrutiny. But folks including civilians are still being killed by this prez by the thousands, and the left's lack of reaction to that - while continuing to stay worked up over something that happened years ago - is quite interesting to watch.

Maybe some of us personally know parents whose son or daughter came home in a body bag and wonder at the total waste of young lives.

And because "shit happens in war because", there are international treaties - which we're signatory to - outlaw war crimes, torture among them.

This "leftie" is far from sanguine about the drone program and I'm not alone. I'm with Malala Yousafzai who diresctly asked President Obama to stop the drones. There's such a thing as executive immunity, however, so we'll have to see what the Warren Justice Department thinks.

John

"In June 2004, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the New York Times obtained copies of legal analyses prepared for the CIA and the Justice Department in 2002. These documents developed a legal basis for the use of torture by U.S. interrogators if acting under the directive of the President of the United States."

Sucks but basically legal and non-prosecutable under appropriate chain of command.

Here's the kicker, though: hasn't Bush II implied the CIA kept him in the dark on a lot of this?

Seems it would break the protection gambit...

And it was total bullshit. It was an after the fact rationale, attempting to decriminalize criminal acts that had already been perpetrated and were then still being perpetrated.

It was not law and it was not a legal opinion from a judge hearing a case. It was more akin to a defense attorney's arguments... but free from any prosecutorial rebuttal.

The acts we perpetrated are specifically declared to be illegal in the Hague and Geneva conventions and, since we are signatory to these treaties, they are specifically illegal under US law and the Constitution. No lawyer's tortured argument (pun intended) can change that fact.

John

Do you mean beyond floating away without prosecution?

I'm going to presume that's legal enough in this instance.

Nobody is going down for this.

Your presumption is tragic. A brief written by a lawyer working on behalf of the perpetrators can never.... ever.... be granted the force of law.

My question in the poll doesn't require a prediction. I don't want to know whether you think anyone will "go down" for these acts or even whether they should. The question is whether a grand Jury investigation into these acts should begin.

In light of known facts, an unwillingness to look into the legality of the Bush Administration's treatment of prisoners betrays a total lack of concern for the actions of our government around the world. "Don't know. Don't care." As I said, tragic (and a few more inflammatory descriptors that I'll withhold).

John

And yet accurate in terms of result.

[QUOTE=Boreas;252976]And because "shit happens in war because", there are international treaties - which we're signatory to - outlaw war crimes, torture among them.

Well to the extent that polls matter, it would seem that most folks would skew your poll results away from a Grand Jury outcome. Also open to question whether the CIA truly did misrepresent the treatment of detainees as Feinstein's report suggests.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...e6c_story.html

Just curious - if torture is troubling for you, how do you feel about our efforts / overtures toward Cuba?

Cool. I'll await your posting of a poll regarding a Grand Jury for Obama and company.

I'm aware of the polls and they disturb me profoundly but I see them mostly as the result of relentless media propaganda and not just from Fox.

By the way, I don't exempt Sen. Feinstein from scrutiny either.

Somewhat better than I feel about our relations with China and especially Saudi Arabia.

I'm for a rapproachment with Cuba. The blockade and sanctions have failed utterly (or succeeded only in making life tougher for ordinary Cubans). It's time to try something else. I'll channel St. Ronnie here (but just this once) and say that, as with South Africa, engagement works better than sanctions. Exposing the Cuban people to Americans and American ideals will do far more to bring about change than making them pay a price for their leaders' alleged sins.

But you'll be oppose to that too, right?

John