Yes, The Real The New Awesome Primary Thread

______________________________________________ Yeah, THAT's not condescending. Vim,We already tangled about Hillary before. Did you actually read my posts Message 76 and Message 678? All of them? If so, I don't know what more I could add to make a difference to you.I assembled the facts, . . . Hillary is a mass-murderer, (unconvicted) war criminal. Per Message 76, every politician that voted for the authorization to invade Iraq deserves to be tried in an international court of law.None among them deserve to be elected president of the US.

Percy, Moose: we need that "jeer" button back.

Consider yourself schooled. To establish that, you would have to establish that she actually murdered more than one person herself, or procured their murder. You have not. One word, at least, you have got right. In order to establish more, you are going to need to establish more than that she supported a war, howevever unjustified that war was, or has proven to have been. That much is clear from the UN Court's decisions. Supporting a war isn't enough. A war criminal needs both to have known about war crimes taking place during a war, and to have ordered them or endorsed them. I have seen no conclusive evidence from you that these evidential requirements have been met.

3751 words, of which only a third were your own. I only had one point, and that was that war crimes *does* have a definition, and you're not using it. You ignored that point and have since indicated you're not backing away from your allegation. Before your points about Hillary Clinton can be discussed I think you have to stop misrepresenting them as war crimes.--Percy

There is a key difference, they weren't trying him for Crimes against peace. This is what dronester is arguing is the case for Hillary by voting for an war that was illegal.

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To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.

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So a potential Nuremburg standard here is that if you conspire to initiate a war of aggression, you adopt responsibility for the accumulated evil of the whole criminal enterprise that consequentially follows. I would argue that morally this is a legitimate position to take. From a legal perspective, just about everybody recognizes it is basically impossible to prosecute someone without some element of what amounts to a kangaroo court (in the sense that just about everybody with the power in the planet wanted the Nazis prosecuted at the time. Didn't the Soviet's get hit with it over Finland too?).From a moral perspective, there is a case that Hillary conspired to start a war of aggression. It's not that big a leap.It's strange that this is not an utterly toxic issue for the Dem voters. I mean it was last time she made a run for it wasn't it?Her speech at the time went something like this:Saddam is horrid. It is undisputed that he has WMD. The danger of unilaterally attacking him are that it may give other nations boldness to start getting aggressive such as Russia or China and it may mean Saddam uses the WMD which he definitely obviously has. We should do what the UN says. Unless they are wrong. In this case they are wrong. We shouldn't use force unilaterally against Iraq. But we should vote to use force unilaterally against Iraq because that will show the UN that the American people are Ein Volk, which they get super impressed about. Also this will scare Saddam into giving up his WMD which he totally has. But the UN is important and we should try and get their votes and if the President takes my authority to use force as authority to use force I will have certain aspects of this speech to remind people that I would call him a poopy head if he did that. So everybody should vote Yes. Especially Dems. For the Troops. 9/11Honestly, that isn't as an egregious a paraphrase as you might think, though its a little harsh. Still, really?Here's Sanders' speech:Saddam is a bad guy. But Iraq isn't a threat to us. Poverty is. Can we deal with this now please? The stock market is in trouble. Can we deal with this? We should vote no because there have been no estimates drawn for the cost in life this is expected to result in, both military and civilian. No because it sets a precedent in international dealings that could bite is in the ass. No because analysts say this action would make the war on terrorism more difficult or outright impossible. No, because we're broke. No because, how the hell do we prevent a complete clusterfuck in a region primed for one?From a debate standpoint, its a clear win for Bernie for the Dems at least, right?I am really trying to figure out Hilary's appeal. Whether or not she's *Evil*, I don't see why she is beating Sanders who is running a considerably less slick but more realistic Obama type run. Are people worried about a president who can't get stuff done because of obstruction? It's the only thinking I've got.

There are a whole bunch of reasons; the Clinton political machine has been around a long time and is well organized and has a diverse political background as a Governor of Arkansas and twice elected President and as a Senator from New York and Secretary of State as well as both being Yale lawyers.Sanders is a Senator from New Hampshire, a state many folk couldn't find on a map; kinda like being the caretaker at the Inns of Court and City Yeomanry Museum. Plus he's a SOCIALIST. Plus he is a JEW. Plus he is OLD. and he is also an OLD SOCIALIST JEW. And he works on Rosh Hashanah and he is an OLD SOCIALIST JEW and they are all COMMIES.

No, I get the ludicrous political machine argument, I just ... it doesn't seem like it should be enough these days...like there's something else I'm missing. Oh. Right. Yeah, that.

Fair points - although the degree of complicity in the decision would need to be established, and I don't know that there is any precedent for holding accountable a member of a democratic legislature who voted to endorse the decision of the executive.I have been having difficulty, though, in tracking down current jurisprudence on crimes against peace. I'm not convinced that the Nuremberg approach remains current. If it does remain current, I'm having to scratch my head very hard as to why Seselj wasn't prosecuted for crimes against peace at The Hague. On the basis of what was said at Nuremberg, he would surely have been bang to rights.

Perhaps getting into splitting hairs, but I don't think the vote was in support of the Bush administration decision to attack Iraq. The vote was to authorize the Bush administration to attack Iraq, IF a proper justification existed. It turns out that the justification was a lie. But launching the war rests on the Bush administration.Still, Hillary and others did place way too much trust in the decision making of the Bush administration. Kudos to Bernie for not having that trust.IIRC, the George H. W. Bush position was that it would be stupid to invade Iraq and get involved in an urban war.

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President George H. W. Bush nominated Cheney for the office of Secretary of Defense immediately after the U.S. Senate failed to confirm John Tower for that position.[46] The senate confirmed Cheney by a vote of 92 to 0[46] and he served in that office from March 1989 to January 1993.

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Source

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Operation Desert Storm (17 January 1991 — 28 February 1991) in its combat phase, was a war in the Persian Gulf region waged by United States-led coalition forces from 34 nations against Ba'athist Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.

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SourceIt would seem that George the first was controlling Dick Cheney then, rather than the more recent Cheney controlling of George the later.Moose

The other thing to distinguish, is what precisely constitutes launching a war of aggression - (in contrast to launching a war of non-aggression ?)Again, I'll need to do some research on that.

It might be splitting hairs - I'm not sure. I'll need a read of a casebook on international law (when I get some time). Google's not cutting the mustard on defining the parameters, when it comes to crimes against peace.

True. In deferrence to fairness, 'my' fair points were largely cribbed direct from dronester. I just skipped most of the evidence part. I don't think that distributing the responsibility to the legislature would work as a shield if USA were at Nuremberg, and the speech she gave could be spun pretty bad in retrospect if you are building such a case. I think the consensus is that it worked only because there was global will that it would. This is to what I referred when I said

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From a legal perspective, just about everybody recognizes it is basically impossible to prosecute someone without some element of what amounts to a kangaroo court (in the sense that just about everybody with the power in the planet wanted the Nazis prosecuted at the time. Didn't the Soviet's get hit with it over Finland too?).

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It's regarded as defined too broad and/or vague for trying someone for such a serious crime. It's not in the interests of China, the UK, the USA or Russia to cooperate in creating the legal framework to make it stick because....they have plans or have taken part in plans that would be undermined... In simple and somewhat inaccurate terms: A war that does not have UN sanction, is not self-defense, and is not part of a border dispute.
If any doubt whatsoever exists, the UN makes the decision as to what it sanctions.It's that last bit that causes the biggest problem.

No. The authorization was conditional on whether or not George Bush determined diplomacy would not solve the threat that Iraq posed to the USA and/or terrorists. 9/11I don't think any further *justification* was required. Just the decider.Summary of H.J.Res. 114 (107th): Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 - GovTrack.us

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Authorizes the President to use the U.S. armed forces to:
(1) defend U.S. national security against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and
(2) enforce all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq. Directs the President, prior to or as soon as possible (but no later than 48 hours) after exercising such authority, to make available to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate his determination that:
(1) reliance on further diplomatic or peaceful means alone will not achieve the above purposes; and
(2) acting pursuant to this joint resolution is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization for use of the armed forces, consistent with requirements of the War Powers Resolution.

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I'd disagree with that somewhat. What you've done is presented things in a more thoughtful, accurate and nuanced way, and we're debating what is a more complex issue than dronester maintains, when trying sanctimoniously to ram his point of view down people's throats. As I've said to him before, there are many things on which he, I and others on here agree, but his constant condescension becomes counter-productive.I'll come back substantively on your points later, when I have more time.CheersEdited by vimesey, : Bad grammar

I don't think many here would consider the US Afghanistan and Iraq invasions as anything but stupid but I'm not sure they rise to the level needed to create a Nuremberg scenario.BUT, there is absolutely no doubt that the US (and other Nations) have behaved in exactly the same manner as Japan, Germany and Italy did in the decades before and through WWII. A don't think there is any doubt a Nuremberg scenario could be justified against the US and probably almost every other sovereign nation.I'd go so far as to claim (and I believe it easily supported) that the only organization that has been more effective at territorial expansion by conquest and genocide than the US has been Christianity.