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.