Working on a big — nay, a HUGE — story.
Meantime, here’s a blast from the past. But first, a contemporary headline, from a most un-pacific Andrew Sullivan at the Atlantic:
14 Feb 2010 10:40 pmThat seems to me to be the big news out of Jonathan Karl’s interview with the former vice-president today. There is not a court in the United States or in the world that does not consider waterboarding torture. The Red Cross certainly does, and it’s the governing body in international law. It is certainly torture according to the UN Convention on Torture and the Geneva Conventions….
So, let’s take a skip down the primrose path to damnation, shall we?
From the Eugene (OR) Register-Guard (note the date):
Letters in the Editor’s Mailbag
June 19, 2003A question of war crimes
After 80 days, it’s time Americans confronted a grave question: If no weapons of mass destruction are found, then members of the Bush administration are guilty of war crimes.
The U.S.-sponsored United Nations Charter, Chapter 1, Article 2, states: “The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its members.” And “All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.”
Saddam Hussein was evil, but we had no lawful right to depose him. These are our American values.
In the 1945 Nuremberg Trials, there were four counts, and one, if not two, are applicable here. Count one: conspiracy to wage aggressive war, and count two: waging aggressive war, or “crimes against peace.” When it was argued that the court had no jurisdiction, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, lead prosecutor, rejoined, “The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant and so devastating that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored because it cannot survive their being repeated.”
Remember that in the near year of spin leading up to this war the term “regime change” was never used until 48 hours before the war began: because such a war would have been unlawful.
If war crimes have been committed (thousands are dead), those who screamed about the “rule of law” in 1999 better step up to the plate, else there is no such “rule.”
Hart Williams
Some of us figured this crap out early on. Moreover, some of us got the bigger picture that is still being ignored in favor of the little crap. Hundreds of thousands of innocents are dead. Mass murder and wars of aggression? Anybody there? Who gives a shit whether Cheney hangs for waterboarding?
That “macho” pussy from Wyoming
Courage.
I am very disappointed with many aspects of the Obama administration.
From my perspective, as a veteran of a previous ill-begotten war in southeast Asia, the failure of the Obama administration to investigate (and prosecute as appropriate) the criminalities of the Bush administration is at the top of the list. That Bush, Cheney, the entire Iraq Study Group, and numerous other functionaries of that administration should be facing prosecution for Crimes Against Humanity.
Other areas which should be investigated are illegal wiretapping, ‘disappearances’, and other likely criminal acts.
That our president, who is a constitutional lawyer, would whitewash the criminality of The Bush Criminal Enterprise is a failure to uphold his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution and to uphold the laws of our country.
That we, as a country, have allowed torture to be done in our name is a mark of shame. A question that I have asked others is “If you believe that the German people of the late 1930′s and early 1940′s bear any level of responsibility for the acts of their leadership; how can you not feel a level of responsibility for what our leaders have done in our name?” That a significant portion of the Amerikan Sheeple believe that we should torture persons is disgusting and thoroughly repulsive!
I can’t disagree with a word you say, Sad Old Vet. Thank you, belatedly, for your service.