Former McCain supporter and star prosecutor: Bush should be tried for murder
Consider the source. Vincent Bugliosi knows law. In his career at the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office, he successfully prosecuted 105 out of 106 felony jury trials, including 21 murder convictions without a single loss. His most famous trial was the Charles Manson case.
Bugliosi, who supported John McCain’s 2000 presidential bid, believes President GW Bush should be tried for murder and is publishing a book next week that outlines his case: The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder. Considering his 100% conviction record, I’d say he probably has a good case.
Naturally, the wingnuts will scream “BDS… BDS.” To that, Bugliosi offers this about his book and his case:
“… whether I’m giving a final summation to the jury or writing one of my true crime books, credibility has always meant everything to me. Therefore, my only master and my only mistress are the facts and objectivity. I have no others. This is why I can give you, the reader, a 100 percent guarantee that if a Democratic president had done what Bush did, I would be writing the same, identical piece you are about to read“
Regarding the crime:
” …in America, we apparently impeach presidents for having consensual sex outside of marriage and trying to cover it up. If we impeach presidents for that, then if the president takes the country to war on a lie where thousands of American soldiers die horrible, violent deaths and over 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians, including women and children, even babies are killed, the punishment obviously has to be much, much more severe. That’s just common sense. “
William–
The war cannot be considered illegal, as we were at a point of “cease-fire” with Iraq. That means, technically, we were still at war with Iraq. So the entire notion of a “war on a lie” is completely without basis. As we were at cease-fire, and Bush was President, he didn’t even need Congressional approval to go back into Iraq– that permission was granted with the original invasion.
Iraq broke the cease-fire by repeatedly firing on our planes in the No-Fly zone. At that point, any military action by the US was completely justified.
You can rationalize all you want, there is culpability here. There is evidence of intentional misleading. We just found out about the military analyst propaganda program, we’ve seen lie after lie where the president made statements like “war is a last resort” while planning for it even before 9/11. What we’re seeing now is just the tip of the iceberg of intentional systematically disseminated misinformation. The president and his top advisers did not allow the American people or Congress to have the information necessary to make reasoned judgments on going to war. Any opposing views were dismissed. More will eventually come out. A war crimes tribunal is in order.
Also, consider the fact that there are a huge number of impeachable offenses committed by the Bush administration in addition to the intentional lying about the rationale for war.
Make no mistake, Bush’s lies about Iraq were clearly impeachable offenses.
here’s a short list list of ten impeachable offenses:
1) torture/ illegal incarceration - violation of Geneva Convention
2) illegal domestic spying
3) politicizing the Justice Dept.
4) illegally manipulating environmental policy
5) destruction of and/or failure to maintain presidential records
6) ignoring subpoenas, oversight/bogus claims of executive priviledge
7) subverting law by profuse use of signing statements
8 involvement in the Abramoff case
9) involvement in the Plame outing (treason)
10) Illegally transferring $700 million from the budget for the war in Afghanistan for war preparations in Iraq in July 2002, without Congressional Approval. This is a Constitutional violation.
There are other offenses that will come to light in the future, probably vote fraud and suppression, dereliction of duty before 9/11, and others.
William, are you now commenting on your own posts?
William, are you now commenting on your own posts?
Talks to himself also. Sad.
No, there isn’t. Bush could have said Saddam was training hybrid orangutans to sneak into the US and ravage our women and it still would not have changed the fact that we were still at war with Iraq.
William, if your entire premise (Bush lied to start a war) is based on something that is not in fact, doesn’t that mean that everything you’re accusing Bush of (starting something because of a lie) is exactly what you are doing by clamoring for impeachment and “murder charges” that are built on another lie.
it seems that while you accuse most of America of buying into Bush’s “big lie for war”, you’re buying into propaganda that states the “war was based on a lie”. And that makes you a hypocrite.
red herring. This is why your argument is bogus. Mikey
February 27, 1991, the first Gulf War came to an end when the Iraqi government announced acceptance of the UN resolution. Later that day, US president George H. W. Bush announced that the war was officially over.
From the words of James Madison, father of our Constitution: “The Constitution expressly and exclusively vests in the Legislature the power of declaring a state of war [and] the power of raising armies. A delegation of such powers [to the president] would have struck, not only at the fabric of our Constitution, but at the foundation of all well organized and well checked governments. The separation of the power of declaring war from that of conducting it, is wisely contrived to exclude the danger of its being declared for the sake of its being conducted.”
We were not formally or legally at war with Iraq, Bush was acting on his own in using force. This is verified by AG Gonzoles:
Therefore, under our system of government although the president is personally convinced that war against a certain nation is just, he is nevertheless prohibited by law of the land from waging it unless he first secures a declaration of war from Congress. That was precisely why presidents Wilson and Roosevelt, who both believed that U.S. intervention in World Wars I and II was right and just, nevertheless had to wait for a congressional declaration of war before entering the conflict.
William– on Feb. 27th, Bush 41 declared a cease-fire, not that the war was actually over. Here’s an article from the NYT about it. Let me quote this section:
Attacks on coalition aircraft by AA batteries qualifies as an attack on allied forces. So, Iraq violated the cease-fire agreements, effectively nullifying the treaty in total. That means the war’s back on. Clinton didn’t reinvade, but that didn’t mean Iraq was in violation of the agreement.
I like the way Bugliosi calls out those that say they suspect that Bushed lied to Congress and the people in order to invade Iraq, but gloss over or ignore the stark consequences that must then necessarily apply.
It reminds me of spineless wimp bloggers that post comments to the effect of, “I agree with your positions, but could you please tone down the moral outrage because not offending our hyperlocal blogging community is so much more important than the people demanding accountability for malfeasance.”
Mikey,
If we already at war with Iraq, why then did Bush say, “We are doing everything we can to avoid war in Iraq.”
He didn’t want to send troops into harm’s way, and “war” was a more succinct method of communicating than “We are doing everything we can to avoid resuming active military action in the Iraq theater.” This is W we’re talking about– not the most succinct speaker.
But don’t let that get in the way of your obfuscation of the facts at hand.
You can rationalize all you want . . . .
Actually, he rebutted your argument.
So what if he has supported a Republican for president in the past. Only in your hyper-partisan, absolutist mind is that some kind of de facto proof that anything he has to say about any Republican is somehow gospel truth (which for me, means “truth). That being said, I guess you’ll accept Bugliosi’s conclusions on the JFK “conspiracy,” too?
CaptainBrainstorm:
What you are overlooking is that it was not Bush 41 that agreed to the ceasefire, but rather the United Nations. Therefore, only the United Nations had the authority to revoke it. This is why 43 needed congressional approval to invade Iraq, but in so doing violated the ceasefire agreement. This is why the United Nations holds the action to be illegal. Now, you may choose to disregard international law, but if evidence is presented under the U.S. legal system that he intentionally decieved Congress and the American people in order to secure AUMF I am glad there is at least one attorney willing to prosecute the case.
Patently untrue, HB. The treaty can be revoked in total by the UN, but it can also be nullified through willful severance of the binding terms of the treaty. Once Iraq fired upon coalition planes, they showed willful disdain for the UN treaty and immediately nullified its effects. Only the voluntary obedience of a broken treaty saved Saddam– that and the spinelessness of a C-in-C from Arkansas.
Then why does the United Nations consider the U.S. invasion to be illegal?
In fact, it was Kofi “Oil for Food” Annan who declared it “illegal”, although every member state was under legal consul that the invasion was perfectly legal by UN resolutions. You can read about it here.
In addition, the invasion has not been considered illegal by the international criminal courts. Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the lead prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, has found no basis for a criminal charge against the states participating in the invasion.
The complaint that it was an “illegal war” was just the opinion of Kofi Annan, probably because it deprived his son of so much money from kickbacks.
If I understand correctly the primary reason Luis Moreno-Ocampo found no basis for a criminal charge against the states because the United States never entered into the Rome treaty on which his jurisdiction was contingent.
Bur the United States is bound by the United Nations charter; which it violated by ignoring its obligation to obtain UN approval before resuming military belligerence vs. Iraq.
Right Mikey, we know you’re a Bushie authoritarian, grasping at straws to legitimize something that the entire Arab world sees as illegal, including our allies.
Don’t you ever get tired of trying to dress up a pig?
Actually, he rebutted your arguments.
Don’t you ever get tired of the crippling effects of BDS?
William: The Iraq War wasn’t approved!
Me: Actually, it was. Here’s the source.
William: The Iraq War was illegal!
Me: Actually, it was. Only Kofi Annan said it was illegal. The Word Court found no basis for prosecution.
William: Yeah, well, the Arab world thought it was illegal!
And this is how the goal posts shift for the loony left. We also see how memes get started on the Left and how they often aren’t based in fact. It just shows how William is willing to buy the crap that flows from Media Matters and Think Progress without actually doing any research for himself.
Which bears the question: is it considered trolling if you actually originate the post?
Here’s a short list
compendium of war crimes committed by George Bush and Dick Cheney
1. George Bush and Dick Cheney ordered a War of Aggression against Iraq. This constitutes a Crime Against Peace - for which Nazi leaders were prosecuted at the Nuremberg Trials - and violates the UN Charter.
* Iraq never attacked the US or threatened an attack, so the US was not acting legally in self-defense, which is permitted under the UN Charter.
* Iraq played no role in the September 11, 2001 attack on the US and never provided material support to any terrorist group that attacked the US, so even the non-legal Bush doctrine of pre-emptive attack did not apply.
* At the time of the US attack, Iraq was nearing full compliance with UN Resolution 1441 and prior resolutions requiring disarmament, and the majority of the Security Council believed UN inspectors should be given more time, so the US was not enforcing UN resolutions, as it claims.
* George Bush and Dick Cheney ordered the invasion of Iraq in order to bring about a regime change, which was never authorized by a UN resolution, and violates the UN Charter.
A Crime Against Peace is defined as “planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing.” By invading Iraq, Bush has committed a Crime Against Peace.
2. George Bush and Dick Cheney ordered the bombing of civilian areas like Baghdad (with 5 million innocent civilians) and Basra. This resulted in the deaths of hundreds of non-combatants, in violation of Geneva Convention (IV) Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, August 12, 1949.
* Article 3(1): The following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to [non-combatants]: (a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture.
3. George Bush and Dick Cheney are ultimately responsible for the torture and murder of Iraqi prisoners, which resulted from policies that were approved by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, and Vice President Cheney himself. These policies were adopted with full knowledge that they could result in war crimes, which persuaded Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee to urge Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to appoint a special prosecutor.
Guilty
Ah, the retort of the truly immature. Instead of saying, “Wow, you’re right. How could I have believed such nonsense about the illegal war?”, William now copies and pastes directly from Democrats.com, showing once and for all that he cannot and will not think for himself.
Thanks for proving what we all suspected, William. How many points do you get from Obama when you post this drivel in comments sections?
Glen, please take my response out of moderation, the captain would like to read it.
I bet you money that it’s off topic and includes 3 links to “war crimes” posts.
Not to mention that the administration’s use of torture is a violation of Federal codes.
Oh, I forgot, their lawyers said they could do it.
So we’ve migrated from “illegal war” to “war crimes”. You robots of the Left are so predictable.
Your boys are pretty predictable as well, ducking subpoenas and all.