The US Invasion of Iraq Was a Crime and Its Perpetrators Are Murderers

[Octafish]

The author of the following is a former prosecutor in the New York County District Attorney's Office and a past dean of the John F. Kennedy University School of Law.

The US Invasion of Iraq Was a Crime and Its Perpetrators Are Murderers

On the criminology of the Iraq War on its tenth anniversary

by Paul Savoy
Published on Tuesday, March 19, 2013 by Common Dreams

Ten years after the invasion of Iraq, it is astonishing in a nation dedicated to the rule of law that every aspect of the war has been debated except the relevant law.

SNIP...

The whole litany of excuses for the catastrophe in Iraq has been recited in the language of mistake and misadventure, as if the war were a tragic accident, like a colossal train wreck caused by an act of God.

SNIP...

In other words, a reasonably prudent president would have known from reading the NIE that as long as the United States did not attack or threaten to attack, Iraq posed no continuing threat to the United States, as the congressional authorization required. A reasonable president therefore would have known that invading Iraq would have been unconstitutional.

If President Bush knew he had no constitutional authority to go to war, then he knowingly broke the law and a properly instructed jury would have little difficulty in finding him guilty of murder. Even if he was not conscious of any wrongdoing, which seems more likely, a jury would still be warranted in finding him guilty, at the very least, of criminally negligent homicide if it found that his ignorance constituted a failure to perform the duties of his office with due diligence.

The mother whose dead body was found in the bombed ruins of Baghdad, holding her baby so tight they could not be pried apart and had to be buried together, can no longer be dismissed as "collateral damage." That mother and child, and the more than 3,000 Iraqi civilians killed directly by U.S. bombs and artillery fire in the first month alone, as well as the Iraqi troops killed while defending their country against an arguably unlawful and unreasonable attack, may have been victims of criminal homicide.

CONTINUED...

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/03/19-10

About the photo.

[malaise]

1. Duh!!!

War crimes

[Octafish]

15. TIME's CIA guy is helping rewrite the history of the Iraq thing.

[font size="1"]President Kill by Carl Oxley III.[/font size]

What Bush Got Right on Iraq — and What Obama Can Learn from It

By Massimo Calabresi
TIME Viewpoint March 20, 2013

When George W. Bush became President in January 2001, American policy towards Iraq was in free fall and the United Nations sanctions against Saddam’s regime, in place since the first Gulf War, were in tatters. By early 2003, Bush had achieved something most analysts had thought impossible: sanctions on Iraq were tighter than ever and inspectors were back in the country. Most surprising, Saddam Hussein had reportedly offered to go into exile, as long as he could take $1 billion with him.

And then Bush threw that diplomatic progress aside and committed the U.S. to a war that would cost thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi ones, and more than $700 billion in American treasure. If you factor in veterans care and other costs, the price runs to the trillions. As President Obama heads down his own path to war over Iran’s nuclear program, it’s worth reviewing not only what Bush did wrong as he confronted Iraq ten years ago–but what he did right.

In Jan. 2001 the collapse of the Iraq sanctions regime was obvious. Passed in the wake of the Gulf War, the sanctions were intended to enforce provisions of Iraq’s 1991 surrender requiring the destruction of all of its chemical and biological weapons and prohibiting its pursuit of a nuclear program. All Iraqi oil sales were to be controlled by the U.N. But throughout the Clinton administration, Saddam violated the surrender terms and the U.N. sanctions regime. In Oct. 1998 he permanently kicked out U.N. inspectors. By November 2000, Syria had opened an unauthorized pipeline from Iraq. Oil and refined petroleum were flowing across the Turkish border in long convoys of tanker trucks. International flights, also banned under the sanctions, were starting up again. “The U.S. position is deteriorating by the day,” Ken Katzman, the long-time Middle East analyst for the Congressional Research Service, told TIME late in 2000.

By Jan. 22, 2003, things could hardly have looked more different. The year before, the U.S. had won a replacement sanctions regime at the United Nations allowing civilian supplies into Iraq while cracking down on material that could be used for WMD programs. These so-called smart sanctions brought renewed international cooperation and opened the way for more aggressive U.S. enforcement of the embargo. Soon the New York Times reported that the U.S. Navy was “taking a very, very energetic posture” on the enforcement of sanctions in the Gulf, at the same time that U.S. forces were patrolling borders from the air.

After mounting threats of war from the Bush administration in the summer of 2002, Saddam agreed to let U.N. inspectors back into Iraq for the first time in nearly four years. Congress authorized Bush in Oct. 2002 to go to war to disarm Iraq, and the following month the United Nations unanimously adopted a resolution threatening “serious consequences” if Iraq did not allow inspectors full access to all suspected weapons sites. When U.N. and IAEA inspectors returned to Iraq, their access was not complete: in testimony in Jan. 2003, the inspection leaders said weapons inspectors had been harassed and prevented from viewing some sites. But Bush had put Saddam under new scrutiny, and inspectors were learning more about his activities every day.

CONTINUED...

http://swampland.time.com/2013/03/20/what-bush-got-right-on-iraq-and-what-obama-can-learn-from-it/#comments

And to add to the, uh, plausibility of it all, TIME reports Saddam would have survived the Arab Spring. I'd laugh, were it not for the all the death and suffering.

[NoMoreWarNow]

19. oh my god

where's the vomit emoticon anyway?

[zappaman]

20. Here

[NoMoreWarNow]

77. thanks

http://www.democraticunderground.com/

+ emoticons/puke.gif

[stevenleser]

22. He wouldn't be CIA if he is trying to defend Bush. Bush threw the CIA under the bus for his acts.

Bush blamed the CIA for the mistakes even though he and Cheney and the rest deliberately misstated CIA and other intelligence estimates.

[Octafish]

35. He ''covers'' CIA for TIME. As for what TIME Inc and the Media do on behalf of CIA...

The "special relationship" is a legend dairy.



[font size="1"]Professional Liar by susan m hinckley.[/font size]

THE CIA AND THE MEDIA

How Americas Most Powerful News Media Worked Hand in Glove with the Central Intelligence Agency and Why the Church Committee Covered It Up

BY CARL BERNSTEIN

EXCERPT...

By far the most valuable of these associations, according to CIA officials, have been with the New York Times, CBS and Time Inc.

SNIP...

■ Time and Newsweek magazines. According to CIA and Senate sources, Agency files contain written agreements with former foreign correspondents and stringers for both the weekly news magazines. The same sources refused to say whether the CIA has ended all its associations with individuals who work for the two publications. Allen Dulles often interceded with his good friend, the late Henry Luce, founder of Time and Life magazines, who readily allowed certain members of his staff to work for the Agency and agreed to provide jobs and credentials for other CIA operatives who lacked journalistic experience.

For many years, Luce's personal emissary to the CIA was C.D. Jackson, a Time Inc., vice‑president who was publisher of Life magazine from 1960 until his death in 1964.While a Time executive, Jackson coauthored a CIA‑sponsored study recommending the reorganization of the American intelligence services in the early 1950s. Jackson, whose Time‑Life service was interrupted by a one‑year White House tour as an assistant to President Dwight Eisenhower, approved specific arrangements for providing CIA employees with Time‑Life cover. Some of these arrangements were made with the knowledge of Luce's wife, Clare Boothe. Other arrangements for Time cover, according to CIA officials including those who dealt with Luce), were made with the knowledge of Hedley Donovan, now editor‑in‑chief of Time Inc. Donovan, who took over editorial direction of all Time Inc. publications in 1959, denied in a telephone interview that he knew of any such arrangements. "I was never approached and I'd be amazed if Luce approved such arrangements," Donovan said. "Luce had a very scrupulous regard for the difference between journalism and government."

In the 1950s and early 1960s, Time magazine's foreign correspondents attended CIA "briefing" dinners similar to those the CIA held for CBS. And Luce, according to CIA officials, made it a regular practice to brief Dulles or other high Agency officials when he returned from his frequent trips abroad. Luce and the men who ran his magazines in the 1950s and 1960s encouraged their foreign correspondents to provide help to the CIA, particularly information that might be useful to the Agency for intelligence purposes or recruiting foreigners.

CONTINUED...

http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php

Three Things Every American Should Know About Corporate McPravda

[stevenleser]

37. None of that means anything in this context. The CIA probably hates Bush. They would not cover for

him. He threw them under the bus.

[Octafish]

39. It absolutely does. The real bosses stay in power, no matter who sits in the Oval Office.

I understand your point that Bush 'tossed CIA under the bus.' My point is CIA's real bosses LOVE Bush and use their influence in media to get the rest of the country to go along with the program, whether it's war abroad or austerity at home.

From p. 100 of Joseph Trento's "Prelude to Terror: The Rogue CIA, The Legacy of America's Private Intelligence Network and the Compromising of American Intelligence"

...During George Bush’s Zapata-Offshore years, he had met most of the Gulf region’s royals and had developed close personal relationships with several of them. When Saudi money began flowing into Texas in the 1970’s, Bush and his family became very friendly with the most influential Saudis living in the United States.

The most important friendship Bush had was with a quiet, dignified man named Sheikh Kamal Adham, Director of Saudi Intelligence, whom Bush had met through his father. Bush has told reporters, ‘I never met Kamal Adham personally.’ But according to lawyers for the late Saudi intelligence head and several officials at the CIA who served under Bush, there were several official meetings inside and outside the United States, both before and after Bush was the DCI. ‘Bush and Kamal were old friends. I was present when they met in New York when Bush was still United Nations Ambassador,’ Sarkis Soghanalian said. Bush and Adham shared a fascination with intelligence. Bush also took a deep interest in the sheikh’s American-educated nephew, HRH Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Sa’ud.

Prince Tuki had been a subject of CIA interest ever since his father had sent him to prep school at the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey. Agency talent spotters on the faculty at Georgetown University kept close track of Turki until he dropped out of Georgetown University to return home at the outbreak of the 1967 war with Israel. After later completing his education in England, Turki again returned home to prepare himself to eventually succeed his uncle-Kamal Adham as Director of Saudi intelligence.

SNIP...

Both Prince Turki and Sheikh Kamal Adham would play enormous roles in servicing a spy network designed to replace the official CIA while it was under Congressional scrutiny between the time of Watergate and the end of the Carter administration. The idea of using the Saudi royal family to bypass the American Constitution did not originate in the Kingdom. Adham was initially approached by one of the most respected and powerful men in Washington, Clark Clifford, who rose to power under Harry Truman and had enjoyed a relationship with the intelligence community for years. ‘Clark Clifford approached Kamal Adham and asked that the Saudis consider setting up an informal intelligence network outside the United States during the investigations,’ Robert Crowley said. Crowley, in his role as the CIA’s liaison to the corporate world, was privy to the plan, in which worldwide covert operations for the Agency were funded through a host of Saudi banking and charity enterprises. Several top U.S. military and intelligence officials directed the operations from positions they held overseas, notably former CIA director Richard Helms, at this time Ambassador to Iran.

From the 1980 election:

Agents for Bush

The 1980 Campaign

by Bob Callahan
Covert Action Information Bulletin

George Bush owed his recent political fortune to several old CIA friends, chiefly Ray Cline, who had helped to rally the intelligence community … and started … "Agents for Bush."

Bill Peterson of the Washington Post wrote in a March 1, 1980 article, "Simply put, no presidential campaign in recent memory – perhaps ever – has attracted as much support from the intelligence community as (has) the campaign of former CIA director George Bush."

George Bush’s CIA campaign staff included Cline, CIA Chief of Station in Taiwan from 1958 to 1962; Lt. Gen. Salm V. Wilson and Lt. Gen. Harold A. Aaron, both former Directors of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Also included were retired Gen. Richard Stillwell, once the CIA’s Chief of Covert Operations for the Far East, and at least 25 other retired Company directors, deputy directors and, or, agents.

… Angelo Codevilla, informed a congressional committee that was "aware that active duty agents of the CIA worked for the George Bush primary election campaign.

… Ray Cline claimed that he had been promoting the pro-CIA agenda that Bush had embraced for years, and that he had found the post Church-hearings criticism had died down some time ago. "I found there was a tremendous constituency for the CIA when everyone in Washington was still urinating all over it," Cline said. … "It’s panned out almost too good to be true. The country is waking up just in time for George’s candidacy. …

In July 1979 George Bush and Ray Cline attended a conference in Jerusalem. … (with) leaders of Israel, Great Britain and the United States. … The Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism was hosted by the Israeli government and … most of Israel’s top intelligence officers … were in attendance. …

… The Israelis were angry with Carter because his administration had recently released its annual report on human rights wherein the Israeli government was taken to task for abusing the rights of the Palestinian people on the West Bank and Gaza Strip. …

The Republican delegation was led by George Bush. It included Ray Cline and Major Gen. George Keegan (former USAF intelligence chief) and Harvard professor Richard Pipes.

Looking for a mobilizing issue to counter the Carter-era themes of détente and human rights, the Bush people began to explore the political benefits of embracing the terrorism/anti-terrorism theme.

… Ray Cline developed the theme that terror was not a random response. … but rather an instrument of East bloc policy adopted after 1969 when the KGB persuaded the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to accept the PLO as a major political instrument in the Mideast and to subsidize its terrorist policies by freely giving money, training, arms and coordinated communications. …

… Within days after the conference the new propaganda war began in earnest. On July 11, 1979, the International Herald Tribune featured a lead editorial entitled "The Issue is Terrorism," which quoted directly from conference speeches. …

SOURCE: Covert Action Information Bulletin No.33(Winter 1990) "The Bush Issue"

ONLINE(scroll down for excerpts):

http://mediamayhem.blogspot.com/2004_04_11_archive.html

Secret Government is un-American. And un-Democratic.

[stevenleser]

40. I disagree. I've never seen evidence of any such influence.

I have seen evidence of corporatist influence, not CIA or MIC influence.

[Octafish]

42. Here ya go...

Correspondence and collusion between the New York Times and the CIA

Mark Mazzetti's emails with the CIA expose the degradation of journalism that has lost the imperative to be a check to power

Glenn Greenwald
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 29 August 2012 14.58 EDT

EXCERPT...

But what is news in this disclosure are the newly released emails between Mark Mazzetti, the New York Times's national security and intelligence reporter, and CIA spokeswoman Marie Harf. The CIA had evidently heard that Maureen Dowd was planning to write a column on the CIA's role in pumping the film-makers with information about the Bin Laden raid in order to boost Obama's re-election chances, and was apparently worried about how Dowd's column would reflect on them. On 5 August 2011 (a Friday night), Harf wrote an email to Mazzetti with the subject line: "Any word??", suggesting, obviously, that she and Mazzetti had already discussed Dowd's impending column and she was expecting an update from the NYT reporter.

SNIP...

Even more amazing is the reaction of the newspaper's managing editor, Dean Baquet, to these revelations, as reported by Politico's Dylan Byers:

"New York Times Managing Editor Dean Baquet called POLITICO to explain the situation, but provided little clarity, saying he could not go into detail on the issue because it was an intelligence matter.

CONTINUED with LINKS...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/29/correspondence-collusion-new-york-times-cia

[stevenleser]

44. That's pretty milquetoast. I thought you said the CIA was pro-Bush and pro-Republican.

Now you are asserting they are pro-Obama?

[Octafish]

49. You stated you never see CIA influence in the media. I showed it to you.

As for CIA being pro-Bush and pro-Republican, it's not just the ideology. There's money involved:

Know your BFEE: Spawn of Wall Street and the Third Reich

And if you're wondering how that applies to the present day:

Know your BFEE: WikiLeaks Stratfor Dump Exposes Continued Secret Government Warmongering

As for milquetoast, ask Obama why his Department of Justice has allowed Bush to escape investigation on his various corruptions detailed above.

[stevenleser]

50. It's milquetoast because it doesnt rise to the level of what I thought you were suggesting

Every organization has PR folks that try to influence the coverage of that organization in the press. That is what the PR folks are for.

As far as not prosecuting, prosecutors choose not to prosecute people for various things all the time.

[sabrina 1]

56. The CIA had actual 'reporters' planted in the media. Were you around during the Bush years btw?

The reason the US media is the least trusted around the world is because these facts are generally known.

[rhett o rick]

54. In what way did he throw them under the bus? He awarded Tenet the medal of freedom. nm

[sabrina 1]

53. Bush 'cleansed' the CIA and remolded it to his liking. He made sure to replace any dissenters

Well, I should say the whole cabal who took over this country made sure that the CIA was run according to their liking.

[rhett o rick]

55. I think he got some help from Cheney, but I guess that goes without saying.

[sabrina 1]

57. Lol, well as we all know, Cheney was the real president. Bush probably just did as he was told.

As he said, it was his job, and it was HARD, to keep spreading the propaganda! I have to give him some credit though, he often told us the truth without intending to!

[rhett o rick]

68. I know this may sound weird but I feel a little sorry for him.

Dont misunderstand, I want him held responsible for all the damage he did. But poor George didnt have a chance with a mother and father he had and the fact that he was a little slow. People took care of him all his life and he actually thought or thinks that he was someone. He was manipulated most of his life. Like when Poppy suggested that he get Dick Cheney to help him find a good vice president. Total manipulation. I dont know if he knows to this day that they all laughed behind his back. Poor Laura probably knows.

Now Cheney IMO is evil personified. He is a sociopath bordering on psychopathy.

[tclambert]

46. Wait, wait! Saddam offered to leave for $1 billion? And we spent TRILLIONS on war to oust him?

And he just wanted to "keep" $1 billion. American taxpayers wouldn't have to pay it. Holy Jesus on a Ritz cracker with horseradish sauce! Somebody owes us a helluva lot of money.

[just1voice]

2. Yes, the WMD propaganda conspiracy to commit war was treason and,

setting up torture camps is a direct violation of the 1996 War Crimes Act and, wiretapping 1000s of Americans was 1000s of felonies.

They are criminals alright, too bad they're allowed to escape prosecution by the current administration.

[NoMoreWarNow]

21. yep-- such a tragedy

and all we can seem to do is scream about it

[zeemike]

26. Yes, but moving forward...

That phrase relieves them of the responsibility for the past...that is why they all say it.
There is not a day I do believe that I have not heard one of them say it.

[Octafish]

51. Here's an historic photo of a Japanese officer who oversaw water-boarding Allied POWs...

Now the United States used waterboarding to "extract" information they would use as "evidence" Iraq possessed WMDs.

Damn right, George Bush should face criminal proceedings for waterboarding

Though signatory to the convention against torture, Canada neglected to investigate George Bush. Will the UN now act?

Katherine Gallagher
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 17 November 2012 10.00 ES

One thing brings together these four men – Hassan bin Attash, Sami el-Hajj, Muhammed Khan Tumani and Murat Kurnaz: they are all survivors of the systematic torture program the Bush administration authorized and carried out in locations including Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantánamo, and numerous prisons and CIA "black sites" around the world. Between them, they have been beaten, hung from walls or ceilings, deprived of sleep, food and water, and subjected to freezing temperatures and other forms of torture and abuse while held in US custody.

None was charged with a crime. Two were detained while still minors. And one of them remains at Guantánamo.

SNIP...

Thanks to the Obama administration's call to look only "forward" – even in the face of torture that demands a proper reckoning – and a court system in the US that has readily closed its doors to torture survivors, the crimes of the Bush era are effectively beyond the reach of justice in the US. But the immunity – the impunity – granted to these criminals here should not follow them into other countries, particularly those that are signatories to international laws and treaties against torture.

If the UN convention against torture is to have any hope of fulfilling its mission of preventing torture, the committee must send countries like Canada a clear message: it is their legal obligation to ensure there is no safe haven for torturers; and any action to the contrary makes these states effectively complicit in furthering impunity for some of the worst crimes of the past decade.

CONTINUED...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/17/george-bush-criminal-proceedings-waterboarding

My grandfather's cousin, a member of MacArthur's staff that remained on Corregidor, survived the Bataan Death March, the POW torture ships to Japan, and two years of captivity, only to die from untreated illness a few months before the war's end. He gave his life to defend the nation and fight the kind of people who torture.

[raccoon]

3. Off to Greatest! nt

[Octafish]

52. Defector admits to WMD lies that triggered Iraq war

• Man codenamed Curveball 'invented' tales of bioweapons
• Iraqi told lies to try to bring down Saddam Hussein regime
• Fabrications used by US as justification for invasion

Martin Chulov and Helen Pidd in Karlsruhe
The Guardian, Tuesday 15 February 2011 07.58 EST

The defector who convinced the White House that Iraq had a secret biological weapons programme has admitted for the first time that he lied about his story, then watched in shock as it was used to justify the war.

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed Curveball by German and American intelligence officials who dealt with his claims, has told the Guardian that he fabricated tales of mobile bioweapons trucks and clandestine factories in an attempt to bring down the Saddam Hussein regime, from which he had fled in 1995.

SNIP...

[font color="red"]Janabi claimed he was first exposed as a liar as early as mid-2000,[/font color] when the BND travelled to a Gulf city, believed to be Dubai, to speak with his former boss at the Military Industries Commission in Iraq, Dr Bassil Latif.

The Guardian has learned separately that British intelligence officials were at that meeting, investigating a claim made by Janabi that Latif's son, who was studying in Britain, was procuring weapons for Saddam.

That claim was proven false, and Latif strongly denied Janabi's claim of mobile bioweapons trucks and another allegation that 12 people had died during an accident at a secret bioweapons facility in south-east Baghdad.

CONTINUED...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/15/defector-admits-wmd-lies-iraq-war

PS: Thank you, raccoon! Weird how little coverage of any kind this issue gets on this side of the Atlantic.

[RoccoR5955]

4. So I ask...

Why isn't the ENTIRE Bush Crime Syndicate pounding salt in a rat hole at the Crowbar Hotel already?
huh???

[OldDem2012]

8. I'd much rather see them incarcerated at Gitmo for the rest of their miserable lives. nt.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

62. It must be, as said with so many other issues, "It's all the fault of the Republicans."

[librechik]

5. Yes indeed, and more than that

they are war criminals whom all of humanity should shun

[Octafish]

58. Remember Mark Lombardi, librechik? The artist connected bin Laden And Bush with his Art.

His pen and ink social network diagrams tied people, events, and time together in a very understandable way. That was in 2000. Then, just as his career was really taking off, he died from suicide cough murder. The FBI visited his gallery and took pictures of this in 2000.



A pertinent detail...



Obssesive-Generous

http://www.wburg.com/0202/arts/lombardi.html

The only way we're going to win is using the only weapon We the People have -- the Truth.

[librechik]

78. I do remember him and think of him frequently

yes,he had the courage to tell the truth as he saw it, no matter who objects, even in the face of lethal threats.

I hope I'm one of those people too

[ProSense]

6. This is

If President Bush knew he had no constitutional authority to go to war, then he knowingly broke the law and a properly instructed jury would have little difficulty in finding him guilty of murder. Even if he was not conscious of any wrongdoing, which seems more likely, a jury would still be warranted in finding him guilty, at the very least, of criminally negligent homicide if it found that his ignorance constituted a failure to perform the duties of his office with due diligence.

...a concept that escapes many people. Bush had no authority to lie and manufacture intelligence.

[shraby]

32. And what do they tell us ordinary folks with no "on tap" high powered attorneys? Ignorance

of the law is no excuse to break it. With his attorneys, he had no ignorance of any law, he had
ignore-ance of the law.

[L0oniX]

7. We are murderers. n/t

[Octafish]

9. I'd agree if we were still a Democracy, my Friend.

That's when government is of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Someone else has been, pardon the expression, calling the shots.

It's been a while since "We the People" were part of the equation -- 50 years, IMO, come November 22.

[Lionessa]

10. +1, it's not like billions worldwide and clearly here in many cities didn't protest this action.

[NoMoreWarNow]

23. that's definitely part of the whole problem

the evil motherfuckers took over for good, then

[zeemike]

28. Exactly.

Can't add anything to that...said plain and simple.

[bananas]

11. They were found guilty by a war crimes tribunal

https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/05/13

[chknltl]

60. Found guilty in an earlier International (War Crimes) Tribunal too:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5855.htm

[mindwalker_i]

12. The statement that we are a nation dedicated to the rule of law is incorrect

or at least incomplete. Laws apply with greatly different strengths depending on the financial or, in some cases, social status of the perosn commiting the crime. For example, the banks, which committed fraud against homeowners are rich (and too big to prosecute). Drug or prostitution laws are not applied to Republican politicians (Vitter comes to mind). Other examples of rich committing fraud result in relatively small fines rather than jail time.

However, if a poor person is caught with an ounce of weed, it's <Office Space> for them.

[trusty elf]

13. .......

[IMG][/IMG]

[JDPriestly]

16. I am in complete agreement with the point of view expressed in the

article in the OP.

Excellent. Clear. Simple.

In my view, the author's conclusion is irrefutable.

Thanks.

[NoMoreWarNow]

17. recommend times one trillion

or six trillion, since the eventual costs will be that much

[formercia]

36. Just think how much Oil the US could have bought with 6 Trillion.

or paid for Universal Health Care.
or helped folks lift themselves out of Poverty.
or provided a free College education for all that wished it.
or rebuilt the US Infrastructure.

or paid off the debt.

....

[tex-wyo-dem]

71. Yes, imagine the good work that could...

Have been done with that money, rather than blowing apart a country, killing and maiming hundreds-of-thousands of people and causing untold suffering.

At least a very few well connected war criminals got extremely wealthy off the deal...yeah!

[aquart]

18. Yes.

[SunSeeker]

24. K&R

[Tikki]

25. Mass murderers and pretty proud of it...

...they are.


Tikki

[Whisp]

27. don't get all conspiratorial on us, Octafish, you know how That flies here...

there aren't any!

[Octafish]

65. What sets them off like nothing else is mentioning the BFEE tie to Dallas.

"And the conspiracy theorists can say what they will..."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x3029417

[indepat]

29. These ticky fine points of law and humanity matter nary a whit to post-WWII America

in its pursuit to keep the dominoes from falling, to rid the world of regimes leaning even a tad to the left, and what ever the whim of a post-Eisenhower Republican president happens to be at the moment.

[G_j]

30. K&R!

[Blue_Tires]

31. The worst kept secret in the world is how profitable war is for an economy

Especially a smaller, manageable one thousands of miles away from your own borders...Clever businessmen always know how to cash in from both sides, too...

[on point]

34. Never profitable for an economy involved in war. Only good for profiteers

Different of course if only a bystander and supplier to parties at war. Then profitable for economy. Otherwise no spend in non productive assets or the destruction of profitable assets is ever good for economy

[on point]

33. Under international law it is a war crime 'act of aggression'

There was no just cause for the war. As a war of choice this is a war crime under un charter to which USA is a signatory. Btw, this is one of the war crimes used to prosecute nazi of dials in world war II.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

38. It's a good thing we ratified joining the ICC and the killers can be brought to trial...oh, wait.

[DollarBillHines]

41. That video makes me nauseous.

The way the little puke would smirk his way thru a question at a presser and immediately respond with "Yeah" and hunched shoulders at the end of the question used to make me want to shoot my teevee.

I believe that Irish reporter was the only one who ever asked him an unscripted question.

[Octafish]

66. He laughs when he says 'money trumps peace.'

The Irish reporter must've caught hell for the question. Remember the presser the night before the invasion? The reporters were like captives suffering Stockholm Syndrome, even going along with the "joke" when Bush called on a lucky reporter out of sequence. Sickening scene in every way, from the oilman's joy to the missing integrity.

The Dim Son must've inherited his hatred for peace from his father, who laughed when he mentions "a deluded gunman" killed President Kennedy. It also was a telling moment:



Poppy Bush brought up JFK Assassination and ''Conspiracy Theorists'' at Ford Funeral

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x3029417

Poppy smirks or laughs or grins at the moment he says "deluded gunman" near the 1:09 mark:

George H.W. Bush’s Eulogy for Gerald R. Ford

The New York Times
Published: January 2, 2007

Following is the transcript of the eulogy for former President Gerald R. Ford delivered today by former President George H.W. Bush in Washington, as recorded by The New York Times.

EXCERPT…

After a deluded gunman assassinated President Kennedy, our nation turned to Gerald Ford and a select handful of others to make sense of that madness. And the conspiracy theorists can say what they will, but the Warren Commission report will always have the final definitive say on this tragic matter. Why? Because Jerry Ford put his name on it and Jerry Ford’s word was always good.

A decade later, when scandal forced a vice president from office, President Nixon turned to the minority leader in the House to stabilize his administration because of Jerry Ford’s sterling reputation for integrity within the Congress. To political ally and adversary alike, Jerry Ford’s word was always good.

SOURCE:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/02/washington/02cnd-ford-ghwb.html

PS: Of course, to Gerald Ford Warren Commission skeptics presented "no problem."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3772251

PPS: What's even more telling is how there are still people interested in scrubbing the assassination record of any reference to Poppy.

PPPS: For those interested, background...

Know your BFEE: Poppy Bush was in Dallas the day JFK was assassinated.

[Rex]

43. "Ooops no WMDs under this desk (hahahaha)."

People that sat there and laughed should roast in hell.

[Octafish]

59. That made me furious.

That was something that should also have outraged the nation. As it was, few people, evidently, knew about it, thanks to our captive news media.

Here's another attempt at humor by George W Bush, uttered to the mother who lost a son in Iraq and to whom he had just presented a medal (paraphrasing from memory):

"Don't go sell it on e-bay, now."

EDIT to add:

Bush to mother: Don't sell on eBay

Posted by Mark Silva at 2:30 pm CDT
Originally posted: May 31, 2007

Several mothers who have lost children at war in Iraq took part in a new talk show today on National Public Radio.

One of them, Elaine Johnson, recounted a meeting that she had with President Bush in which he gave her a presidential coin and told her and five other families: "Don’t go sell it on eBay.”

An excerpt from the interview on NPR's Tell Me More can be heard here.

The president told her that the war goes on because the U.S. has "a mission'' to complete. But Johnson says she has discovered her own mission now: Fighting to bring the troops home.

Host Michael Martin asked Johnson: "What about you? Why did you decide to start speaking out? ''

"My son was killed November 2, 2003,'' Johnson said. "After they had my son’s memorial in Colorado Springs -- that’s Fort Carson -- I was interviewed by the Gazette Newspaper, and that started it all.

"They said they had a mother or a person to ever lashed out at the president, criticize the president of being insensitive,'' she said. "So a couple of days after that they called me and said that President Bush would like to meet me. And I said well okay, only at his cost because I was not spending my money to meet him.''

"So he flew about a hundred families back to Fort Carson,'' she recalled.

"And in the room that I was in it was only me and four more other families. And I asked him questions you know, on um why we were over there? He couldn’t answer that. I said, well what are we fighting for? He said to finish a mission.

"I said, why was my son and the rest of the soldiers on the Chinook helicopter, which was supposed to be only to transport cargos not humans? He said, well he didn’t know. He referred me to General Wilson, which was in the same room. General Wilson’s response was that they, you know, they was transporting them on that same helicopter and never was shot down.

"They flew over Fallujah; Fallujah was always the hot spot. Common sense would've tell them, if you fly them over Fallujah, you should have escorts that has the equipment to detect these weapons that would attack the plane.

"But you know, they so brilliant, they up there in D.C., now, that a mother with a high school diploma can sit down and day, okay, now I won’t send them over a hot spot without protection.

"President Bush, he just didn’t see that, and he told me I was kind of, seemed like I was kind of hostile. I said, ‘yes I am hostile, because you sent my son over there.’ So my thing is -- all the questions that I asked him, he didn’t know nothing then, and he definitely don’t know nothing now, because the United States is in worser shape now that it was in 2003 that my son died.''

Martin asked: "So when you left that meeting did you leave with determination to do something or did that happen over time?''

Johnson said: "When he told me -- I said what’s, what’s the mission? He couldn’t give me an answer. I says, well I’m going to tell you what: I’m on my mission now. My mission had just begun. And my mission is to fight to bring these troops home, to take care of these troops when they get home.

"Then he gave us a presidential coin,'' she said. "Now you check this out: He gave six of us a presidential coin, tell us not to tell the rest of the people that was there, and then after that he told us don’t go sell it on eBay. Now you tell me how insensitive that can be? What kind of caring person is that?''

http://web.archive.org/web/20070603153217/http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/news_theswamp/2007/05/bush_to_mother_.html

Thank you for standing up to Them, Rex.

[Hotler]

45. All of America should be really pissed off over the war but,

Dancing With the Stars Pro football and NASCAR trumps war.

[tclambert]

47. So can I go to the police station and file charges against him?

Maybe we should organize a campaign to stop every police officer we meet and say, "Officer, I'd like to report a crime. This guy named George . . ."

[Initech]

48. And George Bush gets to spend his retirement painting puppies.

[RoccoR5955]

74. That's funny, I didn't know that he graduated from coloring books! n/t

[xtraxritical]

61. Wow, I am astonished, thanks for informing me.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

63. K&R

[wildbilln864]

64. k & r to that! thank you. eom

[Solly Mack]

67. K&R

[Kurovski]

69. K&R. (nt)

[madfloridian]

70. Octafish, watch this video by Arundhati Roy this week when you have time.

It will not be popular here, but it is indeed powerful.

Thanks for your post.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017106877

[blkmusclmachine]

72. Forward!

[Coyotl]

73. How long must justice wait?

[Mnemosyne]

75. Kick nt

[dem in texas]

76. Now we are paying the price

It never made sense to me, reading the Dallas Morning News and NYT every day, that we had a real threat. I remember seeing maps in the paper of how far one of the Iraq missiles would travel and it would have been 1500 miles at the most. Blick was doing his job. But most of all, waging a preventative war as it was called is a sin. It is immoral to knowingly go out and kill innocent people. Why didn't all those conservation Christians who brag about their Christian values come out against the war. Remember Freedom Fries? The French president said he was against the war because it would be immoral, that is what got the right so riled up against France.