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"Extend the Statute Of Limitations on Bush and Cheney's Wiretapping and War Crimes."

Still At Large

Still At Large

Bin Laden And Bush And Cheney

John McCain should add George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to his list of those who should be brought to “justice through a Nuremberg-like international trial.”

From McCain: bin Laden could face Nuremberg-like justice by Ed Homick:

Sen. John McCain on Friday said as president he would consider bringing Osama bin Laden to justice through a Nuremberg-like international trial.

He told CNN's Wolf Blitzer, "We have various options. The Nuremberg Trials are certainly an example of the kind of tribunal that we could move forward with. I don't think we'd have any difficulty in devising an international -- internationally supported mechanism that would mete out justice. There's no problem there."

McCain said it would be a "good thing to reveal to the world the enormity of this guy's crimes, and his intentions, which are still there."

Read the rest here.

I don't think we'd have any difficulty in devising an international -- internationally supported mechanism that would mete out justice to bin Laden, Bush and Cheney. It would be a good thing to reveal to the world the enormity of their crimes and intentions.

Just Do It

Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith say that there are Nine Reasons to Investigate War Crimes Now:

Retired General Antonio Taguba, the officer who led the Army's investigation into Abu Ghraib, recently wrote in the preface to the new report, Broken laws, Broken Lives:

"There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."

Should those who ordered war crimes be held to account? With the conclusion of the Bush regime approaching, many people are dubious, even those horrified by Administration actions. They fear a long, divisive ordeal that could tear the country apart. They note that such division could make it far harder for the country to address the many other crises it is facing. They see the upcoming elections as a better way to set the country on a new path.

Read the rest here.

Gerald Ford used the same argument that the country would face “a long, divisive ordeal that could tear the country apart.” Ford was wrong to pardon Nixon way back when. What Bush has done is much worse than what Nixon did.

Both Bush and Congress have fallen so low in popularity that the case could easily be made that investigating the Bush administration would only bring the country together, not tear it apart.

“Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.” Mark Twain

Without Merit

From An Interview with Tom Farer, Author of ‘Confronting Global Terrorism’ by Scott Horton:

The Bush “doctrine” when first announced in the heady days when the President-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Rove quadrumvirate were sweeping all before them, seemed to declare a right to attack, without regard to borders, persons and groups deemed to be America-threatening “terrorists” even if no attack was thought to be imminent. In effect they were adopting a policy Israel had been employing for years.

In the normal use of the word pre-emption in diplomacy or law, this was not a doctrine of pre-emption, because it had specifically excluded the condition of imminence with which pre-emption had been associated even before the adoption of the UN Charter. Rather it sounded like the doctrine of “preventive” war, that is war in anticipation of threats that are not imminent and may never materialize. In defending themselves at the post-World War II Nuremburg War Crimes against the charge of having committed as one “crime against peace,” the invasion of Norway, some Nazi defendants in effect invoked a preventive war justification, arguing that they believed the British would occupy Norway as a base for operations against Germany if Germany did not do so first. The Nuremberg Court found the defense to be without merit.

War And Responsibility

From Wars of Choice and Crimes of War by Mike The Mad Biologist:

The revisionist pro-Iraq war argument that 'the idea was sound, but the implementation was problematic' has always bothered me. It assumes that a 'war of choice'--that is, an unprovoked assault against another nation which does not pose an immediate threat--will work out just fine. So when it doesn't work out--and it almost never does--it's not the fault of war supporters, it's someone else's. Never mind that wars of choice almost always end in massive blowback, there's just no conceivable way anyone could have foreseen the outcome…