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Tutu: Bush & Blair should face trial at The Hague

bobknightfan said:
http://news.yahoo.com/tutu-bush-blair-face-trial-hague-094855285.html

Tutu, the retired Anglican Church's archbishop of South Africa, wrote in an op-ed piece for The Observer newspaper that the ex-leaders of Britain and the United States should be made to "answer for their actions."

The Iraq war "has destabilized and polarized the world to a greater extent than any other conflict in history," wrote Tutu, who was awarded the Nobel prize in 1984.

"Those responsible for this suffering and loss of life should be treading the same path as some of their African and Asian peers who have been made to answer for their actions in the Hague," he added.

The Hague, Netherlands, based court is the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal and has been in operation for 10 years. So far it has launched prosecutions only in Africa, including in Sudan, Congo, Libya and Ivory Coast.

Tutu has long been a staunch critic of the Iraq war, while others opposed to the conflict — including playwright Harold Pinter — have previously called for Bush and Blair to face prosecution at the Hague.

"The then-leaders of the U.S. and U.K. fabricated the grounds to behave like playground bullies and drive us further apart. They have driven us to the edge of a precipice where we now stand — with the specter of Syria and Iran before us," said Tutu, who last week withdrew from a conference in South Africa due to Blair's presence at the event."


I agree wholeheartedly. These two men should not be walking free today.
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BKF you can't be serious?
 
I guess Tutu was feeling upstaged by Clint Eastwood's performance the other night...
 
Thanks, Desmond. Carry on.

There's a reason why the US hasn't signed onto the "World Court"...
 
Steve Schmidt had an interesting commentary on this topic a week or so ago on Morning Joe. He was very adamant that it was a horrible failure of the intelligence community and that Bush didn't "lie". If I recall correctly, he is not a big Bush guy and he's been critical of Bush but I may be mistaken. FWIW, I think he adds a lot to the show when he's on and has a good perspective given his past roles.
 
As the Brits, Frum and Woodward have stated, W was going to war with Iraq no matter what. His minions absolutely lied to the US and world media. They knew there was no meeting with Atta in Prague. they knew Joe Wilson was telling the truth. They knew everything Curveball told them was a lie.
 
bobknightfan said:
http://news.yahoo.com/tutu-bush-blair-face-trial-hague-094855285.html

Tutu, the retired Anglican Church's archbishop of South Africa, wrote in an op-ed piece for The Observer newspaper that the ex-leaders of Britain and the United States should be made to "answer for their actions."

The Iraq war "has destabilized and polarized the world to a greater extent than any other conflict in history," wrote Tutu, who was awarded the Nobel prize in 1984.

"Those responsible for this suffering and loss of life should be treading the same path as some of their African and Asian peers who have been made to answer for their actions in the Hague," he added.

The Hague, Netherlands, based court is the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal and has been in operation for 10 years. So far it has launched prosecutions only in Africa, including in Sudan, Congo, Libya and Ivory Coast.

Tutu has long been a staunch critic of the Iraq war, while others opposed to the conflict — including playwright Harold Pinter — have previously called for Bush and Blair to face prosecution at the Hague.

"The then-leaders of the U.S. and U.K. fabricated the grounds to behave like playground bullies and drive us further apart. They have driven us to the edge of a precipice where we now stand — with the specter of Syria and Iran before us," said Tutu, who last week withdrew from a conference in South Africa due to Blair's presence at the event."


I agree wholeheartedly. These two men should not be walking free today.
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I worry a little about you Bob. Yeah, I get worked up over stuff from time to time but your hatred of W. cannot be good for you. I don't care what your politics are we cannot have our leaders being hauled in front of The Hague. I can understand Tutu feeling this way since he lives in Africa.
 
If you read Hide and Seek, it's pretty clear that the Bush administration was 100% committed to war in Iraq when Bush entered office, and was merely looking for evidence to allow it to happen. They used 9/11 as the lever to get public support. That said, it's also likely true that the Bush administration did believe that Iraq was hiding WMDs in violation of the UN resolutions, and that they could win a war very easily (with much the same deliberate, ignorant stupidity that was earlier exercised in Vietnam). So they ignored any evidence pointing against those conclusions and manipulated the "evidence" they did have to make the case against Iraq appear much more compelling that it really was. It was a massive leadership failure from the executive, the military, and the intelligence community.

Did they lie? Perhaps not. They truly thought that Iraq was hiding WMDs, even without evidence. Did they manipulate the truth to achieve a pre-ordained outcome? Without question. And they happened to be completely wrong. But, frankly, that wasn't a huge concern, since the war was a total success in terms of profitability to the administration's private corporate interests, which only cared about knocking over Iraq and overcharging to rebuild it. Any national security or US budgetary concern was secondary to begin with. The tax money got funneled to the right corporate interests. Cheney did his job.
 
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beatrix said:
BKF - read this and circle back -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Resolution

As an aside, that's what a typical bipartisan vote looks like.
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It was a bipartisan vote because Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Tenet, etc,, kept ALL of the intel that contradicted what W wanted to say out of the finding that was presented to Congress.

They voted on the data the they had presented to them and not all of available intel.

This has been proven to be a fact.
 
RJKarl said:
It was a bipartisan vote because Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Tenet, etc,, kept ALL of the intel that contradicted what W wanted to say out of the finding that was presented to Congress.

They voted on the data the they had presented to them and not all of available intel.

This has been proven to be a fact.
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Allowing that independent Senators (some with higher aspirations and all able to call upon any available intel) were somehow hoodwinked by the hated opposition during a potentially career-defining vote, I’m still not sold that the United States should subjugate its sovereignty to the World Court.
 
beatrix said:
Allowing that independent Senators (some with higher aspirations and all able to call upon any available intel) were somehow hoodwinked by the hated opposition during a potentially career-defining vote, I’m still not sold that the United States should subjugate its sovereignty to the World Court.
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Your first sentence is not true. If the contradictory intel was taken out before it was printed, they wouldn't know it existed.

You also need to get over the GOP, knee jerk concept that disagreeing with someone equals "hate".

Do you think Milosovic or the guy from Cote D'Ivore or Idi Amin should be able to be tried by the World Court?
 
RJKarl said:
Your first sentence is not true. If the contradictory intel was taken out before it was printed, they wouldn't know it existed.

Right-wing conspiracy? Jesus. My point is some Senators voted yes, some voted no. To circle back years later and spin what turned out to be an unpopular vote as something they were blindly led into (unlike their ‘nay’ peers) is disingenuous at best.

You also need to get over the GOP, knee jerk concept that disagreeing with someone equals "hate".

What?

Do you think Milosovic or the guy from Cote D'Ivore or Idi Amin should be able to be tried by the World Court?
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I don't know. The US has reasonably sound institutions in place to provide checks and balances on abuses of power. Have those broken down?

ETA: I managed to cluster-fuck my responses by somehow commingling them in the original quote and below. Clearly BKF is accurate in his assessment of my capabilities.
 
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They clearly broke down prior to the Iraq War. There are hundreds of articles from people who created the original finding who said all of their negative materials were "lost" before they were shown outside of their office.

This is a matter of historical fact.

It's just like the Germans, French, Brits and Israelis ALL told Tenet and the CIA that Curveball was a liar who had NO valuable intel. They had each disproven all of his stories. Yet, Tenet, Rumsfeld, Cheney and others hid this from Powell before his UN presentation.

There is a long list of proven lies and withheld information leading up to the Iraq War. You can support Bush, but you can't deny this happened.
 
RJKarl said:
They clearly broke down prior to the Iraq War. There are hundreds of articles from people who created the original finding who said all of their negative materials were "lost" before they were shown outside of their office.

This is a matter of historical fact.

It's just like the Germans, French, Brits and Israelis ALL told Tenet and the CIA that Curveball was a liar who had NO valuable intel. They had each disproven all of his stories. Yet, Tenet, Rumsfeld, Cheney and others hid this from Powell before his UN presentation.

There is a long list of proven lies and withheld information leading up to the Iraq War. You can support Bush, but you can't deny this happened.
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My only problem with your assertion is the 'break down' would have to be on-going if it were true. Why isn't Holder, for instance, crushing Cheney or other Bush underlings?
 
Because Bush, Cheney, et al, had determined they were going to war with Iraq before 9/11. Even Bush speechwriter David Frum states this in his book.

There's nothing Holder can do about the lies and deletions in the finding that was shown to Congress. There's is nothing holder can do about Ciurveball.

To this day, Powell says his presentation to the UN was the most embarrassing day he ever had representing the US.

There is no wiggle room here. There are articles about these issues from the people involved.
 
bobknightfan said:
Are you too goddamned stupid to understand how that came to be? I guess you are, so I will spell it out for you:

And if you can't understand this, you should take your Wake Forest diploma and wipe your ass with it, because that's about all it's good for.
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As an aside.. if it turns out you're the guy who sits three offices down from me on the right, you know there's going to be no end to the shit I'm going to give you for this, right?
 
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