George W. Bush, war criminal

[Quagmire]

Populism does not mean that one is right.
One of the flaws of Democracy.

(And honest criticism is not hate, it is honesty.)

Problem is: depending on where someone is coming from, honesty can be a lot less palatable then hate.

 

[Genuine Realist]

I am very disappointed that he has not and hold him accountable.[/QUOTE]

As I said to Dantas, why doesn't the fact that two different administrations feel the provisions of the Act are useful and necessary cause you to revise YOUR opinion? Or at least think about reasons?

 

[Debunker]

I would rather say that it was an opressed people's idealism that is moving Egypt into a new era. It has nothing to do with GWB. GWB's form of "Democracy" is nothing more than veiled imperialism from what I have seen!

But you have not seen much. In fact, you might have trouble seeing past the end of your nose. It is American idealism that Egypt wants. Nobody in the world is looking to China or Iran for freedom, now are they? Who do you think they are looking to if not GWB. Liberals can be extremely dense at times.

 

[Debunker]

Here ya go, Mr. Critical Thinker. By the way, critical thinkers don't base their opinions on silence. I was wondering why you couldn't provide proof until I read your post again.

United Nations Security Council and the Iraq War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Speaking of silence. when are the liberals going to give us that better plan with which to replace all of policies of GWB? You keep telling us what a moron GWB was, so let's hear your better way.

 

[dmgdnooc]

An opinion of this thread.
A pair of tag teaming trolls derailing an informed debate.

nooc

 

[Bismillah]

Regardless you addressed me and your faulty assumptions affect everyone.

CIA confirms Bush lied about WMDs

Former CIA senior official Tyler Drumheller was an insider and watched Curve Ball emerge from nowhere.

Asked how important Curve Ball was in taking us to war in Iraq, Drumheller tells Simon, "If they had not had Curve Ball they would have probably found something else. 'Cause there was a great determination to do it. But going to war in Iraq, under the circumstances we did, Curve Ball was the absolutely essential case."

In Germany, Curve Ball was caught by surprise. He didn't know Dr. Basil had left Iraq. Curve Ball became less cooperative, more nervous in debriefings. The Germans became uneasy about their source. And they weren't alone. At a CIA meeting in December 2002, the agency’s former central group chief, Margaret Henoch, raised her own doubts.

ust three days later, U.N. inspectors in Iraq visited a suspected WMD location -- Djerf al Nadaf, Curve Ball’s secret site. And what did they find there? A wall -- the very wall that had appeared on the overhead imagery back in 2001. Curve Ball had claimed the mobile bio-weapons trucks entered through doors at one end of a warehouse.

"When the inspectors examined the facility, they found that this was an impossibility," explains Jim Corcoran, whose job it was to relay intelligence to the inspectors in Iraq.

Corcoran learned the wall blocked any entrance to the warehouse. As for Curve Ball's hidden doors at the other end that would allow the trucks to exit?

"Again, there was a wall there, no doors. And outside there was a stone fence that would have made it impossible for this to have occurred," Corcoran says.

Corcoran knew Djerf al Nadaf was of great importance, so he sent inspectors back 20 days later to take samples, to see if any traces of biological agents were there. "They proved negative," Corcoran tells Simon. "There was nothing there."

But the inspectors' findings in Iraq made no impact; the war began three weeks later.

Faulty Intel Source "Curve Ball" Revealed - 60 Minutes - CBS News

he CIA had contact with a secret source at the highest levels within Saddam Hussein’s government, who gave them information far more accurate than what they believed. It is a spy story that has never been told before, and raises new questions about prewar intelligence.

For example, consider biological weapons, a key concern before the war. The CIA said Saddam had an "active" program for "R&D, production and weaponization" for biological agents such as anthrax. Intelligence sources say Sabri indicated Saddam had no significant, active biological weapons program. Sabri was right. After the war, it became clear that there was no program.

Another key issue was the nuclear question: How far away was Saddam from having a bomb? The CIA said if Saddam obtained enriched uranium, he could build a nuclear bomb in "several months to a year." Sabri said Saddam desperately wanted a bomb, but would need much more time than that. Sabri was more accurate.

But, intelligence sources say, the CIA relationship with Sabri ended when the CIA, hoping for a public relations coup, pressured him to defect to the U.S. The U.S. hoped Sabri would leave Iraq and publicly renounce Saddam. He repeatedly refused, sources say, and contact was broken off.

Iraqi diplomat gave U.S. prewar WMD details - Nightly News - NBC News Investigates - msnbc.com

Last month, Paul R. Pillar, a former C.I.A. official who oversaw intelligence assessments on the Middle East before the war, charged in an article in Foreign Affairs that "intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions that had already been made."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/22/politics/22intel.html?_r=1

In the memo, written by top Blair aide Matthew Rycroft (search), Foreign Secretary Jack Straw indicated in the meeting that it "seemed clear" Bush had already decided to take military action.
"But the case was thin," reads the memo on Straw's impressions. "Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."

The memo also paraphrased former head of the British Secret Intelligence Services, Richard Dearlove, fresh from meetings in the United States. The memo said Dearlove believed "military action was now seen as inevitable."

"Bush wanted to remove Saddam Hussein, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD," the memo reads. "But the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy," according to Dearlove's impressions.

Downing Street Memo Mostly Ignored in U.S. - Politics | Republican Party | Democratic Party | Political Spectrum - FOXNews.com

The notes of the Blair meeting, attended by the prime minister's senior national security team, also disclose for the first time that Britain's intelligence boss believed that Bush had decided to go to war in mid-2002, and that he believed U.S. policymakers were trying to use the limited intelligence they had to make the Iraqi leader appear to be a bigger threat than was supported by known facts.

Blair's senior advisers at the July 2002 session decided they would prepare an "ultimatum" for Iraq to permit U.N. inspectors to return, despite being told that Bush's National Security Council, then headed by Condoleezza Rice, "had no patience with the U.N. route," according to the notes. "The prime minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the U.N. inspectors."[Of course Saddam DID allow Weapons inspectors in and they concluded that Iraq DIDN'T posses WMDs]

British Intelligence Warned of Iraq War - washingtonpost.com

He tells correspondent Ed Bradley the real failure was not in the intelligence community but in the White House. He says he saw how the Bush administration, time and again, welcomed intelligence that fit the president's determination to go to war and turned a blind eye to intelligence that did not.

Drumheller was the CIA's top man in Europe, the head of covert operations there, until he retired a year ago. He says he saw firsthand how the White House promoted intelligence it liked and ignored intelligence it didn’t:

In late 2001, a month after 9/11, the United States got a report from the Italian intelligence service that Saddam Hussein had bought 500 tons of so-called yellowcake uranium in order to build a nuclear bomb.

But Drumheller says many CIA analysts were skeptical. "Most people came to the opinion that there was something questionable about it," he says.

In February 2002, the agency sent former ambassador Joseph Wilson to Niger to investigate.

"I concluded that it could not have happened," Wilson says. At the end of his eight-day stay in Niger, Wilson says he had no lingering doubts.

When he returned, Wilson told the CIA what he had learned. Despite that, some intelligence analysts stood by the Italian report that Saddam Hussein had purchased uranium from Niger. But the director of the CIA and the deputy director didn’t buy it. In October, when the president’s speechwriters tried to put the Niger uranium story in a speech that President Bush was scheduled to deliver in Cincinnati, they intervened

The Washington Post recently reported that in early January 2003, the National Intelligence Council, which oversees all U.S. intelligence agencies, did a final assessment of the uranium rumor and submitted a report to the White House. Their conclusion: The story was baseless. That might have been the end of the Niger uranium story.

But it wasn’t. Just weeks later, the president laid out his reasons for going to war in the State of the Union Address — and there it was again.

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," the president said.

One day after Wilson's piece appeared, the White House acknowledged the president should not have used the uranium claim. But according to newly released court records, the vice president’s chief of staff, Scooter Libby, leaked classified intelligence to reporters a day later in an effort to bolster the uranium story. What Scooter Libby didn’t tell reporters is that the White House had been warned before the State of the Union speech not to use the Niger uranium claim.[This guy was later fired for this lie BTW]

"At the same time they were admitting the words should not have been in the State of the Union address, they were, we now know, sending Libby out to selectively leak only those pieces that continued to support this allegation that was baseless. In other words, they were furthering the disinformation campaign," says Wilson.

A Spy Speaks Out - 60 Minutes - CBS News

 

[Bismillah]

"The war, in my view, was illegal, yes. The British knew the evidence [of weapons] was thin, and they should have remembered that before they started shooting," said Blix.

Asked whether Blair could be tried for war crimes, Blix said: "Well, yes, maybe so. Well, we'll see. It's not very likely to happen."

.:Middle East Online :.

Iraq war wasn't justified, U.N. weapons experts say - CNN

Then there was the inevitable and well documented slandering of the weapons inspectors when they failed to go along with the U.S sycophants.

I have no doubt that Bush will be exposed as a war monger and responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands, just as LBJ was denounced at the Gulf of Tonkin.

 

[LuisDantas]

You are the one who lectured me on a lie? Don't you really know? You answer the question O man of Truth.

You don't know then?

 

[Debunker]

Well, it would be intellectually dishonest to attribute GWB's idealism to Egypt. It's likely that they hate his guts and especially is ideals.

The only hypothetical situation that would make me consider liking Bush was if he didn't double the national debt and murder 1.2 million people. You know, that's more than 1/6th the amount of Jews killed by Hitler. WWI was his 9/11 and I'll never like him.

But even if Bush wasn't a colossal failure, I still wouldn't want a Republican President. But if he had a shred of dignity and integrity [assuming he didn't commit the aforementioned crimes], I would at least have respect for the man.

I used to wish that he would not be arrested, and now I hope to God that he does.

At least no body can accuse you of being extreme! If Jesus Christ ran for president as a Republican, would you vote for him? I guess not. So why would anybody get the idea that you were extreme.

 

[Quagmire]

At least no body can accuse you of being extreme! If Jesus Christ ran for president as a Republican, would you vote for him? I guess not. So why would anybody get the idea that you were extreme.

The question is; if Jesus ran for president as a Republican, would any Republicans vote for him?

 

[Danmac]

Here's the truth: You don't follow christ teachings with the jibberish you spew about the Muslim religion. You can sense the hate. And that ain't what your religion is supposed to portray. Truth hurts huh?

The problem is you see truth as hate. Some people can't handle the truth.

 

[Debunker]

If you say so. Let's go back to talking about GWB now?

Ok! Your liberal ideas are too difficult to defend for you. I understand. I am happy the GWB did not share your liberal ideas. Did you share any of his American idealism like the majority of the country did? We would like to know.

 

[Genuine Realist]

An opinion of this thread.
A pair of tag teaming trolls derailing an informed debate.

nooc

The shrieking seems to me on the other side. Anything other than demonizing Bush - the worst ever!!! Responsible for millions of deaths!! - is unacceptable. But it becomes apparent these are articles of faith, not reason. The war total is well under one million, and the vast majority killed by Iragi street gangs and Al Quaeda for their own reasons.

To Bismillah:

Everyone knows the intelligence was flawed. For that, Bush is responsible. Blix was a lot more certain AFTER the invasion, when the Alliance had done its investigations. I have no use for him.

But no one made these points before, and the intelligence officers you now quote have their own agenda. In particular, Wilson and Plume are suspect. Valerie Plume was not outed by the Bush people, but by Richard Armitage, a State Department under-Secretary who opposed Bush policies. You'd never know that by the way they talk.

 

[Debunker]

The murder of 1.2mil people is enough for me. And the destruction of an economy. And the destruction of foreign relations.

Bush can destroy it in a day. Obama can't fix it fast enough because of the obstructionist tactics by the Republicans during the first two years and now they lost the house and the GOP can criticize him even more for moving slow. If Americans vote GOP in 2012, it will not be a mandate but colossal stupidity, and we should pray to God that they don't embrace anything that has anything to do with GWB.

See, the voice of the people means zero to liberals. Rush got that right, didn't he. Sure, it was the obstructionist in the Congress even though Obama spent two years trying to pass a health bill down the throats that the American people did not want. It was the obstructionist and not the will of the people that Obama feared. The Republicans did not have the obstruction power of an ant. Obama did whatever he wanted to do. He proved that with his health care bill that ruined his party and divided the country and sent us into turmoil. You can't see that. can you? That is what you get when you are so much smarter than the rest of the common people..

 

[Debunker]

There's just something about letting a thief and murderer go free, particularly because he's responsible for the death of more than a million people. 800k+ of them were innocent men, women, and children. Not to mention the hundreds of people that the military tortured - and he brags about it.

I hate where our economy is. I hate how other countries view us.

And I know who did it. If he were living on my block, I wouldn't want him anywhere close to my kids and I'd work with the neighborhood to get him out.

I honestly do not know what you are talking about when you say more than a million deaths.

 

[Debunker]

You do realize that heaps upon heaps of evidence exists that contradicts every statement you make? That is not critical reasoning, that is talking out of your ***.

If you have all those facts, why not use them rather than attacking him below the belt. That would be more in line withe the philosophy of the forum than your line of reasoning.

The Realist makes more sense to we the people than your rants about GWG. By the way, where is that plan you guys have to use in opposition to GWB's policies?

 

[dmgdnooc]

The shrieking seems to me on the other side. Anything other than demonizing Bush - the worst ever!!! Responsible for millions of deaths!! - is unacceptable. But it becomes apparent these are articles of faith, not reason. The war total is well under one million, and the vast majority killed by Iragi street gangs and Al Quaeda for their own reasons.

The OP poses the question as to whether or not GWB is a war criminal.
　
There appears to be a considerable body of evidence indicating that he is; and several well respected and competent judiciaries world wide agree that there is a case to be answered.
　
The International Conventions and Agreements under which he would be charged overseas have been signed and ratified by the US and therefore have all the force of US domestic laws.
So there is no need that he be extradited, or rendered, to another jurisdiction.
　
The question, from my pov, is whether or not a US President is answerable to Law or is he, like the monarchs of old, above the Law.
　
GWB does not have to be responsible for millions of deaths to be a criminal.
The implication of your suggestion that millions of deaths are required to meet the standard of criminality, and not the 100s of thousands that have been documented, is untrue.
　

 

[Debunker]

You're a real piece of work.

Your sculptured bust is more firm than mine, which is still in the making. I think your work of art is too extreme and people will not buy it.

 

[Debunker]

Geez. This is worth it, I guess.

Bush didn't kill a million people in Iraq. In fact, no one killed a million people there. The 'million' number came from a study in the British medical journal Lancet back in 2004 and 2006. (Even then, the number was put at 650,000, not a million.) But the study was thoroughly debunked in the years that followed, so much so that its methodology was found to be in violation of professional ethics. Here's the link from ABC News.

Why don't you put FDR or Abraham Lincoln on the list? Responsible for a lot more deaths than the others.

Sort of like Gore;s climate change science. I see, that make sense. Thanks for the information. I was just talking to a fellow liberal about lies and twisting the truth just a little. Thanks

 

[Debunker]

Again. Get a grip and deal with reality.
Your exaggerations only serve to weaken your arguments. Simply address the fact that the Patriot Act allows the violations of liberties I addressed instead of flapping your arms around and mocking an Act which goes against the very things our founding fathers stood for.


I am very disappointed that he has not and hold him accountable.

A few post back, the Realist wrote a response to the P.Act. I accept what he said. Go back there, read it, and be educated.