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A nice and simple poll...

Do you think that any important members of the Bush administration will face criminal charges in the next few years for their actions during his presidency? Note; this isn't about whether they're guilty, just whether they will be brought to a trial...

Either abroad or at home, for war crimes, corruption, etc.

- no
- yes, but only minor and irrelevant charges
- yes, on corruption charges
- yes, for other economic crimes
- yes, for war-crimes, but not in US courts
- yes, for war-crimes, in US courts

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Seeing as how they are still being sworn to secrecy, it will be a long time before the real story of the shenanigans comes out. If Congress/Obama do initiate an investigation, my guess is that some may get contempt charges. I seriously doubt that any of them will face a US court though, too many people on both sides would be embarrassed.

A foreign court may charge some of them, but they will never come to trial.

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Warcrimes in an international court? Whoever voted that is dreaming.

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they absolutely should be tried for war crimes...ain´t gonna happen though.

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Neither Johnson nor Westmoreland stood for 'Nam, which had 14 times the US casualties and many more times the civilian casualties. Not to mention an American public out for blood and one that found an identity in the war. Today we seem to want to keep the war from sight and sound.

Everyone walks.

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tell that to Kissinger , he had to run from Paris and couldn't set foot in Brazil .
So will any of the Bush idiots face trial ? It depends on how much they like to travel .

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Politician in office don’t like to send Politicians out of office to Jail…any way you choose spell it.

Some day they will be out of office and they don’t want to spend the money they acquired on other lawyers…

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As I said in another thread, I think people such as John Yoo and David Addington should avoid European vacations for the foreseeable future.

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Paris? A dog and pony show, so that the French could save face after some nationals had been killed. No teeth at all.

As for Brazil. Who really cares. I'm sure Syria, Jordan and other Arab nations will pull the same stunt. More to show that they don't like Bush messing around in there backyard.

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No, of course not. There's no justice in this world.

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He and his administration have repeatedly broken International Law. They should be hanged.

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I think you get the point.

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Civilised countries don't do executions .

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As shown in this thread, that only applies when its someone you like. Of Course Im not talking about you Tribesman. You're the ironclad Irishman.

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If important = Cabinet members, Department heads, and "senior advisors": no, I think they won't, either by US or other jurisdictions. They very carefully provided legally defensible "cover" for all their decisions.

The next level down, i.e. Assistants to Deputy Secretaries - the guys who actually wrote/gave the orders and directives to carry out policy decisions (as they understood them) might find liability exposure. But honestly, I don't think you'll see many, if any, such trials until around early 2012, when they can be used as a springboard to "4 more years", whether there's an actual conviction or not.

Corruption trials for middle-managers, however, will probably happen, as they do any time, under any administration.

What the ICC does, still remains a mystery to me.

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Metaphorically speaking of course.

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Interesting. So nobody on the board thinks any members of the Bush admin will face any prosecution from the U.S.A., and I'm the only person who thinks they should be careful about where they travel. Let's hope the Yoos and Addingtons and Cheneys are as blase about justice as this crew.

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Unfortunatly I don't think they will be charged for all of the crap they have done.

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I didn't say that. I wrote:

I won't be surprised to read a headline: "Bush Official Indicted By ICC".

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BDS

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Hmmm ...


Sorry, KK, I din't fully grasp the implications of what you wrote. My bad.

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Ya gotta listen ta about 20 minutes of talk radio to hear the phrase.

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Alright I'm willing to try Bush for war crimes IF we try every American for them to. Why should one citizen go down when his country authorized him to use force? What about all the congressman and Senators who authorized the Iraq resolution?

I love painting Bush as some evil despot. So evil he and his need to be tried for war crimes. Y'all need some perspective and a chill pill. I realize being part of the group that speaks for our civil liberties and the oppressed brown people is the only reason why some of you get up in the morning. I also realize that simplifying this whole thing to Bush and his staff while at the same time trying to pass it off as truth can be very hard.

I commend you on your hard work and effort. I mean you have convinced a large segment of the population you are right. Bush IS the reason for suffering in the world and should be hanged as one member so eloquently put it (metaphorically speaking).

But thats not the real problem here. The real problem is that in 10 years no one will care. For or against people will just move on and 4,236 American servicemen will have lost there lives so one oligarchy can take another place and we can redo the whole damn thing over again.

See, that it. It's not Bushes fault its Americas. We don't have the luxury of being apathetic or not willing to make tough calls. We don't have the luxury of simply blaming the big ol bully on the block.
If we want war thats fine but how this thing has been conducted is utterly appalling. You capture a man, you bandage him, you feed him, and you give him a fair trial. This sort of thing we are doing now, holding men without cause, leaving them to rot, It's despicable. What Have we become?

America has also lost its sense of direction. Things get a little hard and we want to quit. We suddenly lost when things got a little tough. What in the hell are we supposed to tell these peoples families? "Oh sorry your father/husband/brother/uncle died for nothing but see uhhhh gas prices are down now and the rest of America sort of wants to see more headlines about K-Fed and Britney so we decided were going to end it.....by the way we cut your benefits" It's not like the guys who want us to stay and pump in more troops are any better. These men have no souls. What happened to the men of yesteryear? Men who took up gritty tasks with a tear in there eye but a steely heart.

We take our luxuries today for granted. We don't realize our fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers fought for this stiff tooth and nail. They took all comers and made this backwater province filled with all the unwanted people of the world into the greatest nation it has ever seen.

America used to stand for something, We are the misfit toys. We are all different colors and cultures and at the end of the day the only thing we have in common is that our "home" country undervalued us and we came here believing in what America stood for. I am jealous of immigrants I really am. I can trace my Granpappies back to the French and Injun war. My blood is pretty much old stock WASP. Just once I want to know what it feels like to have landed in your new home and then to succeed. I see it on the faces of mexicans all the time. The come into the store in the America shirts proudly strutting there reptile skin boots and whistling and I can't help but smile because as long as that Mexican or African or Russian still believes then I realize I still can to.

In short my point is this. The Iraq war has really encapsulated Americas culture today and right now we stand on the precipice. Continue down our destructive path, blaming others flouting our republican responsibilities and losing our principles. Or we can look to our past and learn from our forefathers. We can remember what it truly is to be an American.

Of course none of this makes any sense but I'm glad I got it off my chest. /rant

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Reading that made me smile, too, Pard'.

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They should be charged for war crimes but they will not be.

The argument that if Bush is tried then all Americans should be tried is laughable.

There was no referendum (so they people did not really authorise him, they just elected him to make the right decisions and a joly good job he did didn't he?)

An army officer might be forced to fight a war he doesn't want to or believe in. Not the president of the USA. He chose to do it, he chose to fabricate evidence too as history showed us. He was not given orders to do it.

I find it very ironic that there is an attempt to put the blame on the people when they were the victims of such a blatant manipulation and misinformation attempt by their own administration. That constitutes a crime on its own. human rights abuses for a bit. Shouldn't the administration pay for spending trillions of taxpayers' money chasing for WMD's that only existed inside their own sick imagination?

The USA emerged after all this much weaker both in a geopolitical and an economic sense. As we speak, new Superpowers emerge and gain supporters and boast economies that will surpass the US in a couple of decades. All the states need is a couple more 'great leaders' like Bush to go unpunished and we wont have to discuss about such things anymore...

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You missed .....
So will any of the Bush idiots face trial ? It depends on how much they like to travel .

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I don't think any cabinet members will face charges in the USA, though I imagine some of the lower appointees might- but not for anything other than falsifying/witholding documents or similar stuff, certainly not "war crimes". Some of them might have to avoid a couple of countries in the future to avoid trials there (look at Pinochet, for example)

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Don't succeeding presidents always pardon members of the previous administration as a good faith measure?

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Politicians have a knack for looking out for each other, so I voted no. Bush didn't pursue Clinton, Obama won't pursue Bush.

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