Call to pursue Bush, Rumsfeld for torture

This is not about the war in Iraq. This is about allowing torture, making torture legal, refusing to allow detainees to stand trial and torturing them.

Bush should stand trial.It is his hand that made all this possible, so he has to take full responsibility.

Reply on "Who is the UN?"

If UN actually wanted to pursue charges against him they should do it. They have the power under war crimes. I think BO should let them have at it and stay out of the way

Originally posted by tezzajw

How much protection will Bush receive from prosecution?

I have a feeling that he'll get away with it all. Maybe there will be some back-room deals that we will never know about but I doubt that bringing ex-pResidents to 'justice' is ever going to gain much momentum.

Besides, it's an opinion coming from the UN, like they've got a real voice or power anyway...

www.news.com.au
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 21-1-2009 by tezzajw]

He bought 100,000 acres in Paraguay. Does Paraguay have an extradition treaty with the U.S.?

reply to post by tezzajw


This is just posturing from a toothless UN organization. Nothing is going to happen as usual when involving the UN.

If they try to go after Bush for allowing torture then they better go after the leaders from just about every country in the world. If you think that this doesn't go on all over the world you are fooling yourself.

Put yourself in the shoes of a world leader of millions of people. You had a prisoner that had information that would save thousands perhaps millions of your citizens lives. Do you torture him to save your people or just allow them to die because you felt it was wrong to torture? These are the tough decisions that have to be made by leaders. You do what you have to do for your people.



[edit on 1/21/2009 by Erasurehead]

reply to post by Erasurehead


The President is a virtual representation of the people of the United States. Sure, in essence he is an individual, but in principle his actions are directed by his personal sense of what the country needs and what he thinks the country voted him into office for. He chose to run for office, but we gave him the job.

[edit on 21-1-2009 by cognoscente]

Originally posted by Erasurehead
These are the tough decisions that have to be made by leaders. You do what you have to do for your people.

Seriously? Wow...

Like all 'leaders' they make the decisions to suit themselves. If any of those decisions happen to have a positive spin-off for the sheeple, then so be it. That would be by coincidence rather than by design.

That scumbag will face zero consequences. He should be brought to trial under a suitable tribunal and punished, like, e.g., Saddam Hussein, another of his kind. A shame it won't happen.

What has this unconscionable monster done?

Increased potential terroristic willingness; determination for revenge.

When your Son or Daughter is taken in war as prisoner, they will no longer have right to claim Geneva Convention anti-torture protection, as it has been ignored by usa leaders.

These sons & daughters will bear the brunt of these acts, absolutely guaranteed! Proud to be a us citizen? Good; you support your own children's torture if they become soldiers and are taken prisioner. Good, good, and better, yes? How many stupid, selfish, mindless, 'better-than-thou/tougher-than-thou' us citizens will realize that they've created a heartless monster of retaliation?

I think if the ex-(scum)pres and co. gets away scot free (they will), then no us citizen has a right to complain, ever. The atrocity is beyond belief, below human standards, pure animal.

You think it's not going to happen, eh? Living for today, forget consequences, eh? Times a coming; times a-coming for the scales to be balanced due to beanmaster & co.s extreme violation of human rights acts.

us citizen did nothing to stop it, period. The payback will be horrific, I imagine; and rightfully so. You don't torture human prisoners, and be human. Period. No excuse. Pandora's box reopened. And us citizen's keep praising this monster of the depths. Mindless.

[edit on 21-1-2009 by SS,Naga]

I'm not a Bush supporter, but I'll agree to charge Bush and company with war crimes if you agree to charge Obama for treason and corruption based on his crooked quid-pro-quo deals with slum Lords like Rezko while he was in the Senate.


Change your mind? I thought so.

Sorry to ruin your fantasy land, but the president is going to make some hard decisions. They have to make tough calls at the expense of their approval rating whether you like it or not.

Move on .. You cannot blame Bush anymore. It's all on Obama's shoulders now.

reply to post by cognoscente


We MUST investigate it. The truth will set them free. If they are in the right, it will clear their place in history. They have little to lose.

reply to post by SS,Naga


Terrorism will not grow in retaliation to the invasion of Iraq. While revenge does seem to be a rational conclusion, their place in the Middle East has been severely diminished, and with the infrastructural and political changes in Iraq over the past few years, it will be exceedingly difficult to come back to an identical seat of power (that would mean a societal regression to conditions similar to that of Saddam's Iraq in the previous last decade-which is highly unlikely given the current democratization and increasing negotiations between the existing political and religious organizations in Iraq).

The fact is the majority of terrorists have been killed, displaced, and removed from their positions of power, whether social, religious or governmental. The Ba'aths are out. There is presently a much greater degree of discussion between Iraq's two major clerical organizations, the Sunni and Shiite and the country now has a legitimate government that is respected by all previously warring factions.

The more the Islamist terror organizations are required to impose their values and policies in the region, and the more violence they perpetrate on their coreligionists in the process, the more they lose support. Al-Qaeda has been virtually eliminated, not to mention the entirety of their public backing...

On another note: while Palestinian terrorist attacks have increased a lot recently, it is different in that they are perpetually at war and their targets consist primarily of Israelis, as opposed to fellow Muslims, which was commonplace in Iraq. So we should be cautious when watching current mainstream media. A rise in terrorist attacks on television holds no correlation with a rise in terrorism globally, because the majority of this will have occurred in Palestine, obscuring reality to a great proportion.

Otherwise, it is apparent that Iraq has been greatly strengthened and improved by the democratization process, ultimately reducing its susceptibility to radicalization by Isamist terrorists or over-imposing clerical organizations.

A Pew poll in July 2007, for example, revealed that Muslim support for terrorist violence against civilians had declined by half or more over five years in the four countries polled: Lebanon, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Indonesia.

By late 2007 in Afghanistan just 1 percent of Afghans "strongly supported" the presence of the Taliban and foreign jihadi fighters in their country.

In Pakistan, support for Islamist political parties has collapsed, dropping by some 500 percent between the 2002 and 2008 national elections. And in the North-West Frontier Province where al-Qaeda has its strongest presence in Pakistan, support for Osama bin Laden dropped from 70 percent in August 2007 to 4 percent in January 2008.

A December 2007 poll in Saudi Arabia found that Osama bin Laden’s fellow countrymen had "dramatically turned against him, against al-Qaeda, and against terrorism in general".

And in Iraq, where the Islamists have suffered their greatest recent strategic setback, a major poll also released in December 2007 found that 100 percent of Iraqis, Sunnis as well as Shia, found al-Qaeda attacks on civilians to be "unacceptable."

This pattern has been repeated in country after country in the Muslim world. Its strategic implications are critically important because the historical evidence suggests that terrorist campaigns that lose public support will, sooner or later, be either abandoned or defeated. Without popular support, the Islamists cannot hope to create a successful political revolution. Lacking any serious conventional military capacity, they cannot hope to defeat incumbent regimes by force of arms, especially those propped up by foreign internationalists, such as the U.S.

As Muslim publics increasingly reject Islamist policies and terror tactics, they are more likely to cooperate with official counterterror campaigns. This is precisely what happened in Iraq, where Sunni insurgents became so alienated from their former al-Qaeda allies in Iraq that they joined with the US in an anti-Islamist alliance to defeat them.

pewglobal.org...

While the world in its present situation, with an economic depression around the corner, will try its best not remember Bush for what he assuredly accomplished, historians will become increasingly more supportive of his administration as time goes on. I see why people might be skeptical of the use of the term "terrorism" as a way to get at the oil reserves, or to impose the special interests of certain internal political organizations in the U.S, but terrorists were always a very real threat. You have to admit that in all Democracies war doesn't last long as it exhausts the public treasury, costs thousands of civilian lives, and engenders both fear and anger in the public as they come to expect retaliatory measures by the enemies. But does fear, money, and lost lives invalidate the war itself? Well, we can agree that there is no such war that is desirable, but once it gets going there are inevitable costs involved, which almost certainly cannot be redeemed.

Some poor people got water-boarded... I'll stick to my main point: They should be given the opportunity to sue whoever was responsible, provided sufficient evidence is supported to exonerate them from their charges. Otherwise, the Bush administration did what they believed was in the best interest of the American public. He was elected by the people after all.

[edit on 21-1-2009 by cognoscente]

reply to post by cognoscente

You're rationalizing this; you are intellectualizing the results due to your beliefs of the various conditions you've referred to.

Not so. You presume people and nations are unable to feel. I was not talking just Islam, get it? Islam is not the world. That this blatant/overt policy of torture is well known by the World awareness, is not to be disputed by you, or anyone else. You don't speak for the World, neither do I. The world Knows, is what I'm saying. When it first became known, CNN played islamic terrorist videos of captured 'enemies' who had received 'like due' (of torture). We know that that has been somewhat lessened.

But the World also was Watching.

We'll see who's right, ok? You, or me: we'll see who's Hand is Stayed on the world Stage when the next war or wars break out (don't tell me next that no other wars will occur: that's idiotic), and if america is part of that war, whoever the enemy is, let's see if they refrain from use of torture tactics (actual torture, mind).

I'm afraid you not only misunderstood, but also missed the boat.

Consequences of immoral behavior are often magnified beyond the original offenses, perceived or real. My post referred to this, and this alone. An accounting of the world recognized indifference and deliberate disregard for human moral treatment is due, and the World Stage is aware of this.

There will be absolute consequences for what has been permitted: I'm an american citizen, and I can see that. If you can't understand it, or others can't, it doesn't mean it isn't on the world awareness table. It is.

Standards of decency have been destroyed by the behavior of the last administration, regardless of the 'reasons.' See my last post: no excuses.

I'm 58, and a vet.

But regardless, I appreciated your post. It just goes beyond that, assuredly.

[edit on 21-1-2009 by SS,Naga]

Well I guess the point was the Bush administration traded the suspension of human rights, dignity and civility of a certain group of individuals for the elimination of radicalism, and the establishment of democracy in the Middle East. It's undoubtedly working. In light of recent evidence, there really is no other conclusion. People in the Middle East are enjoying greater civil liberties, more personal freedoms and a higher standard of living.

It's up to you to decide whether or not terrorism was as real a threat as initially perceived... or whether such injustices could be condoned for purposes of both national security and the freedom of potentially millions of people in what was a virtual hell only ten years ago.

Anyway, I get it. This thread is about the use of torture, plain and simple. It's not about trade offs, or even the process of democratization in the Middle East... Many people, whether innocent or not, were treated horribly and without dignity. While the introduction of legal implications for state leaders might set a precedent for the future, it would at the same time undermine their ability to lead effectively and possibly reduce their flexibility in other, unrelated areas of governance. I do believe, however, that there should be increased international dialogue on the issue and that the U.N. should regularly convene to discuss torture and its abuse, and to make public their opinions more frequently.

The last post I provided was directed at another member, who said terrorism should increase due to American presence in Iraq. I replied by saying that although that might appear to be a rational response, too much has changed in that part of the world for such a conclusion to be a reality. I think I incorrectly replied to your post by pressing the wrong button.

[edit on 21-1-2009 by cognoscente]

reply to post by cognoscente
Your post did include my username as 'reply to.' No harm done. You obviously have some well-rounded thoughts on the matter. My own were more of the nature of outrage, which I still feel, as do many others.

I made my previous post, was replying to someone else, and went to yahoo to check my email. Here is what I just found, which you might find interesting, as it entirely validates my point of view, given in the previous two posts!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama is ready to issue orders on Thursday to close Guantanamo prison and overhaul the treatment of terrorism suspects, in a swift move to restore a U.S. image hurt by charges of torture.

news.yahoo.com...

Isn't that coincidental?

They should impeached/indicted for war crimes. I am against capital punishment on principle, but incarceration would be just. Get Blair too. And Cheny. The lot of them. Bang 'em up and stash the key with the WMD's in Iraq!

reply to post by SS,Naga


Well, that's the best way to do it. I still don't think punishment for state leaders is acceptable. However, having the worst approval rating in the history of the U.S. is enough to dissuade future leaders from taking the same course as the Bush administration. Then again, they could always just be more secretive. I think we should focus our efforts on dedicated journalism, on public assembly and petition. We should be more aggressive with our freedom of speech, our right to criticize the actions of our leaders every step of the way. Regular citizens are free to lobby for things they believe in.

www.bmj.com...
physiciansforhumanrights.org...

I think this is an issue that we as citizens should tackle independently. I think we're obligated to do so because it was the Democratically elected administration, which was responsible for such abuses. Even if you didn't vote Republican, your vote for the Democrats essentially gave Bush a victory. Everyone's votes are interconnected I think. If you decide to vote for any given party, your opinion shouldn't change if your opponent wins. Neither should your involvement in the political process. The ideal citizen should continue expressing their beliefs.

[edit on 22-1-2009 by cognoscente]

In America, we used to believe in higher ideals, to uphold basic human rights, even for the lowest scum of the earth.

During WWII, when we were aware that the Japanese were torturing their prisoners, we did not torture our's. Oh, I'm sure it could have been rationalized as a way to "protect our fighting men", but in reality, it is barbaric. We were disgusted by it.

It doesn't matter if you're the POTUS, a decorated general, or the warden of a prison. We don't torture people. We don't believe in "cruel and unusual punishment." We also hold that everyone has a right to a fair trial.

If we do not uphold those basic tenets for even the most vile and despicable terrorists, we can have no expectation of justice for ourselves.

Maybe Bush might be a bit frightened of being done for it. Cheney's already starting the "poor sick man" routine. [(C) Christopher Skase.]

reply to post by cognoscente


SO DO WE FORGIVE HITLER AS WELL???

Forgiving Bush is the same as forigiving Hitler for his crimes against humanity...

bush needs to be tried infront of a court and brought to justice...frankly, it will happen.

Originally posted by cognoscente
People in the Middle East are enjoying greater civil liberties, more personal freedoms and a higher standard of living.

Ah-huh.

Tell that to the people living in Gaza...