March 20, 2003

[spanone]

united states invaded iraq in response to ????

an 'unnecessary' war.

not a single consequence for the perpetrators....

why?

[Mari333]

1. to continue the WAR MACHINE PROFITS

The good old boys do not prosecute or investigate each other.there are plenty of holdovers now in the Obama admin from the Bush era.

they would rather bankrupt this country than look in the mirror and see our policies as actual terrorism.

There is too much money to be made off of illegal corporate warmongering.

[Solly Mack]

2. Because America would have to admit a president lied? Would have to admit

that it broke the peace (war of aggression)? Have to admit all the other crimes (to include the first) - war crimes and crimes against humanity - that followed? Have to admit that many members of Congress went along with it all? If you admit the first truth - the criminality of the Bush administration, all the other truths come to attention...and America isn't about to ever fully admit its crimes.

America will use the neat little narrative of "mistakes made","bad intel", "a few bad apples" and assorted other bullshit phrases like "good faith" to gloss over its crimes. America will claim it doesn't matter how we got to this point, because, golly, no matter how many war crimes we committed, isn't the world better off without Saddam? So let's not look at our war crimes - let's not look at the torture or the lies or the manipulation of intelligence...let's look at it the way we tell you to look at it.

Entrenched corruption and well nurtured hypocrisy prevents accountability.

[Robb]

3. It's actually a very interesting notion.

Look to other nations who have been rocked by scandal at the level it would be to prosecute a former President and/or his administration for ... well, anything, much less something involving the largest military action on the planet.

The cost would be quite high. There would be political fallout domestically, of course, and none of us seem too concerned about that; I'm certainly not. But I suspect the effect would ripple globally with results unacceptable to even the harshest critics of the Bush "doctrine." I think of our inability to correct minor wrongs diplomatically, for example, when parties involved tell us to go pound sand as our own house is not "in order."

That they would be correct would do little to assuage the victims of whatever atrocity we were attempting to end. And yes, it does happen that we resolve minor conflicts with diplomacy. We tend in another direction on major ones, of course.

[bigtree]

5. I think you mischaracterize the potential 'ripple effect' of a prosecution

The consequence of accountability for crimes related to deliberately lying us into Iraq would cast a pall on both the U.S.-enabled Maliki regime and this new U.S. administration which has no intention of relinquishing the autocratic, assumed authority which Bush used to commit troops in the first place.

My view and my aim is that Bush should be held completely responsible for pushing us into war. From his phony 1441 presentation he ordered Powell to present, to his phony briefings which exaggerated the threat from Iraq, to the phony information that his administration hawked in secret briefings with Congress.

The effect of that prosecution would be a repudiation of the very same exercise of U.S. military force that this new president is engaging in. Oh, sure, you can point to differing motives, but the exercise of our military forces in defending the advancement and continuity of the regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq is several degrees apart from what we had considered reasonable and prudent (as well as constitutional) use of our military forces before Bush. If we accept Pres. Obama's, as well as Bush's, justifications for the use of that force, I suppose it could fall under some allowed doctrine. But, I don't accept their justification for their particular exercise of those forces in Afghanistan or Iraq, so I don't see any harm in undermining that sort of conduct.

As for other attempts at resolving other conflicts around the globe, that effort could benefit from the transparency and accountability of U.S. motives abroad which would be the underlying, productive aim of such a prosecution.

[Robb]

7. And I think you take an overgenerous view of foreign diplomats.

Setting aside Iraq and Afghanistan, and I think you've nailed the ramifications there: I can't think of a single situation where a foreign diplomat wouldn't seize on a Bush prosecution as a talking point to suggest weakness, in our government and by association whatever position we were trying to espouse.

We do a lot of sabre-rattling, and we do a lot of dollar-dangling, but there's also the "our good friend" strategy, which would be harmed. How much, and whether it would be worth it, is another matter entirely. At this point in history it may indeed be a wash.

[bigtree]

12. I think any serious and substantial diplomacy involves some sort of patronage

. . . whether it's in the form of aid and development; weapons; troops; technical expertise, or in the form of military-induced coercion.

The things you are concerned about are already openly and freely discussed among our foreign counterparts and rivals. The crimes and abuses are apparent and glaring to anyone inclined to raise them in their defense. A prosecution would take away any inference or accusation that the abuses are sanctioned by our government or ongoing.

[Robb]

14. True

...But it would also take away our ability to continue acting as if nothing's wrong.

The question is whether that is a more powerful diplomatic tool than appearing to be dealing with the situation. I'm not sure history would side with the track record of the honest agent. :shrug:

[Solly Mack]

15. I agree that (some) other governments would rather we didn't...especially the complicit ones.

[malaise]

4. 100% correct

Get this thread to the greatest

[Martin Eden]

6. Yep, the Dems won't bring justice because they are complicit

Not all the Dems, and not President Obama, but nevertheless doing their duty in pursuing truth and justice in this matter would be (by their calculation) a huge political liability.

Any way you look at it -- not all the change we hoped for.

[lunatica]

8. For the oil

And the profits of selling arms to the enemy to make sure the war continues.

[Subdivisions]

9. Don't you remember? Despite 10 years of constant babysitting

by the United States and allies, Saddam was able to build and maintain weapons of mass destructin, which we were very afraid of.

[Octafish]

10. Wall Street needed the money.

If we actually had to pay for the oil, who knows? Goldman Sachs may not've been able to make their levereged buy-out of the U.S. Government. Then, there's the drug "trade"...

Thank you for your great questions, post and thread, spanone.

[BeFree]

13. hey dude

You're a right 'left' smart fellow, what do you think of this:

What if each of us went to the attorney generals offices across the nation and plead guilty to being a co-conspirator in war crimes.

What if, across the USA, red blooded Americans showed up at prosecutors' offices and admitted that we knew bush was going to commit war crimes and we failed to alert the authorities, therefore we should be charged with aiding and abetting.

[Octafish]

17. I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the tee vee...

...in my head and here's my reasoned response:

We the People did warn them. Especially you and all good DUers, BeFree. Remember?

That makes us, Patriots.

Seeing how two administrations, Congreff and the courts have failed: What we might want to do is show up at the AGs' and form citizen's Grand Juries. Investigate the run-up to war, etc. Then, we prosecute the traitors.

For that is just what they are: TRAITORs.

[BeFree]

18. Good idea

Imagine, over several days, across America, from sea to shining sea, that 20 or so American Patriots in each AG district, stood at the doors of said offices and demanded Grand Juries investigate these war crimes.

What would they do?

[Octafish]

19. They might have to do something.

And that is your excellent point, my Friend!

PS: Your idea might serve to mobilize a very, very frustrated public, BeFree. In the '60s, the anti-war protesters didn't give a damn if Uncle Sam spied on their group, took their pictures and put them into Hoover's files. What could they do? Send us to prison or war? They could and did -- but they didn't get everybody.

What We the People face today is a much graver threat. Now that the BFEE and its supporters have turned TIA computerization and NSA spyware on us, they've had each of our numbers -- from Day 1. That means they know who we are, every last one of us, and they could do what they want to ALL of us.

That's why it will take the bravest of the brave to get things changed. We must, or else we really will live in the world of Snake Plissken.

[BeFree]

20. We all hang together...

...or we hang separately.

Same as the founders of this country surmised. We've come full circle.

This is a revolution forced upon us. We did not ask for war.
War was shoved down on us by the neo-King George.

I look around, however, and seems that I shall hang all by myself.
So, I draw back. Am I a coward, I wonder?

[Octafish]

22. Nah. You're keeping your powder dry.

Remember what Col. William Prescott said on Bunker Hill: "Don't fire 'till you see the whites of their eyes."

God, I love our Army.

[SpiralHawk]

11. ...in response to the 'need' for higher Republicon Oil & Munitions profits

There you have it...

[SlingBlade]

16. Cause the United Nations made 'em do it !

Ahh, W e'er not "Look'in Bacwards" here are we ?

Wouldn't wanna piss the W.H off.

[Fire1]

21. Ask your president. n/t

[Odin2005]

23. Same rulers, different front man.

[taterguy]

24. Because most people like having access to oil

Except for those freaks who ride bikes everywhere.

Even they know that most of the stuff they buy gets transported in vehicles that run on oil.