Richard Clarke: BUSH ADMINISTRATION COMMITTED WAR CRIMES

[Segami]

"..It’s clear that things that the Bush administration did — in my mind, at least, it’s clear that some of the things they did were war crimes...." -- Richard Clarke

The 'Bush Cabal Crime Syndicate' should NEVER be allowed to re-write history.......

In a Democracy Now! exclusive, the nation’s former top counterterrorism official has said he believes President George W. Bush is guilty of war crimes for launching the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Richard Clarke served as national coordinator for security and counterterrorism during President Bush’s first year in office. He resigned in 2003 following the Iraq invasion and later made headlines by accusing Bush officials of ignoring pre-9/11 warnings about an imminent attack by al-Qaeda. On Tuesday, Clarke spoke to Democracy Now! in an interview that will air next week.


Amy Goodman: "Do you think President Bush should be brought up on war crimes , and Vice President Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, for the attack on Iraq?"


Richard Clarke: "I think things that they authorized probably fall within the area of war crimes. Whether that would be productive or not, I think, is a discussion we could all have. But we have established procedures now with the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where people who take actions as serving presidents or prime ministers of countries have been indicted and have been tried. So the precedent is there to do that sort of thing. And I think we need to ask ourselves whether or not it would be useful to do that in the case of members of the Bush administration. It’s clear that things that the Bush administration did — in my mind, at least, it’s clear that some of the things they did were war crimes."


http://crooksandliars.com/2014/05/richard-clarke-bush-administration

[mother earth]

1. Hell yeah. So what is the International Criminal Court in The Hague waiting for?

There is overwhelming evidence that starts with outright lies and manipulation of evidence brought before a nation to bring it to war. Hell, the people of that nation expected and wanted justice expecting it fully with the new administration. Now that hope and change has been dashed against the wall of the fiscal carnage they left when leaving office, we absolutely know our own country is not going to deal with it.

Eternal gridlock at home is the double whammy of our rogue "democracy".

We are totally screwed when the justice system overlooks the greatest crimes of all and death by a million cuts ensues.

K & R, Segami.

[Old and In the Way]

5. One of their 1st orders of business after their selection, IIRC,

was to exit the ICC. A little housekeeping before starting their criminal war with Iraq.

[rhett o rick]

7. I feel that if we dont at least address it as a nation, we will be doomed to repeat it.

But what would you do if you if you were the President and your advisers convinced you that if the Democrats pursued war crime trials for the Bush group, the Democrats would lose control of the HoR, the Senate, and the POTUS for a decade or two?

Or how about the Republicans making it clear that if the Bush bunch were to be tried, then the Republicans would seek a trial of Pres Obama for drone strikes?

And how far back do we go? I am sure Nixon and Reagan commited treason and Johnson most likely committed war crimes if we looked.

Now were we in the good ole USofA might have a problem trying them, I wonder, as you, what's holding the International Criminal Court in The Hague back from pursuing charges.

I would love to see Cheney frog marched anywhere.

[KoKo]

9. Recommend!

[abakan]

23. Your picture of Cheney is one I have prayed for everyday since Obama was elected.

It is one of the reasons I voted for him the first time. He promised to hold them accountable, I don't believe his promises any more.

[mother earth]

26. I don't think prosecutions that are very much in order would necessarily mean we would lose control

of HOR, the Senate or POTUS for a decade or two. Quite the contrary, what it would mean and confirm, for once and for all, is that rule of law exists and does dictate that crimes that cry out for accountability will be addressed. To never address the crimes of the outgoing administration is essentially to condone them.

How do we condone criminal behavior and NOT expect to lose control politically, and all respect in the face of doing so?

The GOP raises hell over imaginary crimes of Benghazi while we blindly ignore the monumental crimes of Bush/Cheney...is it any wonder we are where we are today? Rule of law does not apply, seemingly, we know better though, don't we? We fool no one.

At best we can only hope for the Hague to address these crimes, and in so doing, our own nation is shown as being the height of hypocrisy. It seems we are not capable of measuring up to the standards we hold other nations to. It's truly absurd and worst, shamefully ignorant. This will forever be a blight upon us as a nation, until we address it. Not likely at this stage. Too big to fail, and apparently, there is to big to jail.

[rhett o rick]

34. It's just my opinion but I think very few Americans want to go thru the brutality of

trying to prosecute the war criminals. I think the Republicans would use is as a bludgeon. It would be wonderful if most Americans thought establishing the rule of law was important, but I dont think they care.

[mother earth]

35. Maybe so, but might it be something that could reawaken accountability and belief in gov't.? nt

[rhett o rick]

36. I wish that were true. I am all for trying. We really have little left to lose. nm

[mother earth]

37. Sadly...

[Perseus]

13. I do wish he had not asked the question of whether it would be good or bad to prosecute.

How can it be bad? there should be no question about it.

Let's see, if it is decided that it is bad the message is "Politicians, you can do anything you want, no matter how corrupt or criminal it may be, you WILL get away with it.", which unfortunately, has been the norm the past years.

If it is decided that it is a great idea to prosecute, it will send a huge warning to al politician and incoming presidents that corruption and crime will not be tolerated, that accountability is alive, and they will be prosecuted for their crimes. That should derail a few wars, if not stop them completely.

[mother earth]

28. Agreed, include with politicians; banks and corporations, too big to jail is a malignant cancer. nt

[mindwalker_i]

2. What does this have to do with misogeyny?

[Segami]

3. Do you mean 'misogyny'?

What exactly are you asking?

[mindwalker_i]

4. Yeah sorry, typo

[heaven05]

6. PNAC and bush co are above the law

evidently. Move on, nothing to see here. And no IT WAS NOT up to Obama to charge those murderers or try to incarcerate them.You think he's been attacked in the last six years because of his race and policies? If he had tried that, he would have been impeached by the ryan gang and pilloried by RW media. And the Democrats would not have done a damn thing to help him, especially the blue dogs.

[7962]

15. They would've looked like fools. There was nothing to impeach him FOR!

But then again, having a reason never stopped them from trying other crap.

[Vincardog]

19. Launching a WAR of aggression? Torture? Use of WMD "Phosphorus"? Depleted Uranium?

[7962]

21. I was referring to the impeachment of OBAMA mentioned in Post #6

And even if I was referring to Bush, being already out of office he couldnt be impeached, I assume.

[Vincardog]

22. OK Obama IMO TTP is an impeachable offense. I think it would be sunny to see the GOP arguing

against suborning our country to Corporate interests.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

8. 1998: PNAC wanted a "new Pearl Harbor". 2000: Got themselves installed. 2001: MIHOP/LIHOP. nt

MIHOP/LIHOP.

Just as I said in the earlier OP on this subject:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5016072

[VA_Jill]

10. Of course they did

and nobody seems to give a shit, so why do we keep talking about it, since no one is ever going to do anything about it and Bush, Cheney, and Rummy are going to be allowed to die in their beds?

[Autumn]

11. He should talk to Holder and the President.

It's almost like they don't know and someone is keeping them out of the loop.

[truedelphi]

25. Yeah, right.

The thing is, important upper level Democratic party people did know.

Remember Nancy Pelosi and her whole "if we had a Dem majority then we could talk about impeachment."

So when we gave them their damn majority, suddenly that issue was "off the table."

[Autumn]

27. Yeah, I remember that.

They got elected, we got screwed huh?

[SammyWinstonJack]

33. heh . Looking forward, ya know?

[Fred Sanders]

12. Only media criminal Fox will host war criminal Cheney to spew his irrelvancies and bile.

When Fox and Cheney admit they lied on purpose to America to start a war for oil and power, only when they admit they cheered supported and ordered torture should anyone listen to their rantings.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

14. You KNOW Conservatives have disowned the Neocons when they claim they're "Liberals"....

"Party of personal responsibility" my ass.

[polynomial]

16. Reading reading looking looking looking

Reading and reading, looking at news telecasts like this which is slowly making way to the big three, CNN, Fox, MSNBC that do not say a peep about Bush Cheney connections to the Arab Bin Laden family. Especially the money connection with the Bin Laden’s for decades.

The media is complicit, they are more guilty for keeping silent. These mainstream media big wigs are wading and bobbing in the caldron of lies, deception, and fraud that disperse spreading widely and wildly into unnecessary so called news America likely does not need, or in mainstream media Bush Cheney propaganda modeling are used to confuse and misinform the electorate.

The new rhetoric the “Low information voter” are driven by twenty second commercials. Especially, political commercials.

Even Rush Limbaugh says it best, Rush Limbaugh uses the term with regular frequency to denote voters who pull the lever for Democratic candidates for largely esoteric reasons.

In a March 25, 2013 transcript, Rush says "I have never said that low-information voters are stupid. I just said they don't know what they think they know.

They are prisoners to the media, which has dumbed them down. Now we know Rush Limbaugh is just paid to lie.

So Rush admits America is loaded with news terrorism, we the people are media prisoners.

Ground zero is Bush Cheney treason...

[mother earth]

29. The media is completely complicit. We've known that about MSM for quite some time.

There's a war on for your mind, and all minds, propaganda is a useful tool...distractions abound and opinion is shaped....those are the weapons of mass destruction du jour.

[7962]

17. I blame Cheney. I really wish I could see him take questions from a live audience.

And I dont mean "Code Pink" type crap, real honest respectful questions. He wouldnt be able to answer them. Because of him, we have a MORE powerful Iran. We have Al Queda in Iraq; where they werent before. Etc Etc.

[Fred Gilmore]

18. And

Somehow this is just now becoming a newsworthy topic. Some of us realized this more than a decade ago while the crimes were still happening.

Thankfully The Village Idiot and his National Dick did no more harm to our nation than they did. We still haven't even began to recover from the economic catastrophes they laid upon us, but thanks to our current president, our national honor has been restored through our apologies to the world for the crimes committed by the previous administration.

The prior administration should have been tried, convicted, and hung, long before now.

[Festivito]

20. This just after we LOST the letter to Blair.

They said we should go to war because we had information. We went to war because Blair said the information was there.

Now the critical letter is lost.

Amazing how many things disappear around the bush family.

[Demo_Chris]

24. Which administration hasn't? nt

[Rex]

30. This thread will be ignored so that the true(tm) liberals on this board can complain more

about DU and how they hate it etc..

[napkinz]

31. hold them accountable!

[MrMickeysMom]

41. Dayhum!

That was a nice trip through the horror Bush years.

Necessary as is the question, "why aren't they in jail?"

[truedelphi]

32. i will always be grateful to the following 23 Senators who voted against the IWR:

A shame that the others of both parties were taken in.

But here are the names of the 23 who braved public opinion and voted against the Iraq War Resolution. It is also important to remember that Wellstone and his family, his staff and both pilots flying the plane, they gave their lives in part on account of his vote on this issue:


Akaka (D-HI)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-CA)
Byrd (D-WV)
Chafee (R-RI)
Conrad (D-ND)
Corzine (D-NJ)
Dayton (D-MN)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feingold (D-WI)
Graham (D-FL)
Inouye (D-HI)
Jeffords (I-VT)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murray (D-WA)
Reed (D-RI)
Sarbanes (D-MD)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Wellstone (D-MN)
Wyden (D-OR)

[spanone]

38. the torture alone.... but then there's that invasion of iraq.....

[AzDar]

39. K & R

[Algernon Moncrieff]

40. On a semi-related note....

The Daily Californian: Campus’s War Crimes Studies Center moves to Stanford

The UC Berkeley War Crimes Studies Center will relocate its operations to Stanford University after 14 years on campus.

The War Crimes Studies Center researches topics on human rights, war crimes and genocide and sends interns to participate in international tribunals. Rhetoric department chair Marianne Constable recently requested the center be moved from the department after director David Cohen, a rhetoric professor, retired two years ago. This, along with a lack of campus funding, prompted the move.

In June, Cohen relocated his research to Stanford, knowing he might have to leave campus after his retirement. The new center, named the WSD Handa Center, will replace the Berkeley location, which is set to leave its location in Dwinelle Hall by July 31.

...

Now, Cohen will receive funding from Stanford, where he has been a fellow at the Hoover Institution since 2009. Cohen founded the War Crimes Studies Center in 2000 and notes the extraordinary experience he’s had working with undergraduates on campus.

How nice! The War Crimes school will now reside at Condi Rice University.

[MrMickeysMom]

42. It would be nice for everyone to check in on this thread...

I believe this is a unifying thread.