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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
 Posted - 08/13/2007 : 05:22:17
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This is a response to a post in another thread. The thread was supposed to be about responses to an essay by John Pilger, which can be found in several places on the web, which asks why the Clintons are tolerated, much less worshipped in this country.
Chippewa had a reasonable response to that essay:
Here's a blatant example using a moral dilemma. It is likely that everyone here would feel that Adolf Hitler was very immoral and evil, whereas Winston Churchill was shrewd and basically moral.
I may be wrong but I get the feeling that Gorgo's ridged way of moralizing if applied to Winston Churchill might describe Churchill as a war criminal. Duriing WWII Churchill was one of the select few who knew that Britain had cracked German enigma code machine. From this, the British knew that the Luftwaffe was going to bomb the city of Coventry. However, if Churchill ordered the mass evacuation of Coventry, German agents would be tipped off and Germany would change the code. This would lead to further disasters for the Allies. Churchill drank, smoked and lost sleep, but could do nothing about this.
Now earlier, England did initiate a nationwide program of moving children to homes outside the cities and relocating some factories as part of the overall war effort, and this saved some lives, and with the later V-1 flying bomb attacks, the BBC would deliberately announce misleading news about the damaged areas so the Germans would listen and wrongly adjust their targeting so that some V-1s would actually be striking even further out of town, but the real reason was to minimize casualties while not over-reacting to the enigma code deciphering, and instead use the enigma data to counteract German military moves on the battlefield, so before the Coventry bombing raid, Churchill couldn't alert the all citizens of Coventry.
Then there is the later RAF fire bombing of the German city of Dresden, which resulted in massive civilian casualties. The point of all this is if someone were to say that Churchill was a "war criminal" it would be without the slightest context of history or surrounding circumstances, and only through Olympian standards of ignorant moralistic dogma.
This is not a comparison of Churchill with Clinton or any other US president. I just don't see an historic context in Grogo's tirade which actually pins Bill Clinton down as a true war criminal or profiteer. I don't think he was privy to the pre-9/11 planning for the invasion of Iraq as Bush and Cheney were.
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I am not a fan of the U.N. or the state of international law. The U.N., is basically run by a few imperialist countries. However, all the countries which are part of the U.N. have agreed to some basic rules, which they apply to others, and not themselves.
My particular problem is not with individuals like Clinton, or GWB, my problem is with that system. I say, "that system," and I don't mean just the U.N., but rather the entire "system." One of our good presidents invaded Panama and took it over in the same way that his mental cousin Saddam took over Kuwait, only our U.S. "leader" committed his crimes without the permission of April Glaspie.
Bill Clinton invaded and bombed other countries by breaking the rules that he claims to abide by. The only reason people in the U.S. don't call him a murderer, as was shown clearly in the other thread, was because he did not bomb American neighborhoods.
That doesn't mean I care to execute Clinton for his crimes, any more than I wish to execute GWB, or those that help him in his crimes. IT only means that we have a sick system.
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I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2007 : 05:28:04 [Permalink]
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I can't edit the OP. Anyway, to answer Chippewa, I am not against honest mistakes. I'm old enough to understand there are gray areas to everything, and I'm old enough to understand that reasonable people not only get into gray areas, they cross the line once in a while.
This isn't about that. This is about crime. This is about applying the same standards to yourself that you apply to others.
Clinton and Bush and Carter and Daddy Bush and many of their predecessors who came to office after International law became any kind of reality, are criminals by their own standards.
It is a crime to invade another country. The U.S. wars against the people of Yugoslavia and Iraq are clearly crimes against humanity even if the rules hadn't been written down, but they have been. It is a crime to invade another country, and Clinton illegally bombed Iraq, Yugoslavia and Sudan. Those are the crimes that are easy to spot. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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| Edited by - Gorgo on 08/13/2007 05:29:29 |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2007 : 07:19:54 [Permalink]
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| So what your suggesting is that as soon as any politicians term is over they should not pass go but instead go directly to jail.... Sounds good to me. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2007 : 08:38:20 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
So what your suggesting is that as soon as any politicians term is over they should not pass go but instead go directly to jail.... Sounds good to me.
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Well, I think the current crop of Federal legislators have all sold out. If they don't work to impeach now, they are just as culpable as Bush and company. Saying that they can't win so they shouldn't try is a cop out. Bush is a criminal, and anyone with the ability to prosecute that makes no attempt to prosecute, must be in league with them.
I could be wrong, but I don't remember any Democrat using the word 'criminal' to describe Bush. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Chippewa
SFN Regular
USA
1496 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2007 : 12:25:27 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Gorgo
...Well, I think the current crop of Federal legislators have all sold out. If they don't work to impeach now, they are just as culpable as Bush and company. Saying that they can't win so they shouldn't try is a cop out... |
I would go along with that.
The trouble is there is currently no independent body (though it should be Congress, or an independent specialist appointed by Congress,) that would review and overrule violations by Executive branch.
The other problem is that realistically, the world situation is always going to be Machiavellian and all politicians who achieve high office must deal with that. How they deal with that is the key. If such politicians are ultimately motivated by self-serving attitudes, popular appeals to simplistic patriotism or blanket excuses based on national pride will be summoned and co-opted to appeal to unthinking supporters and these excuses for violence in order to get what they really want will be positioned to mask the actual corporate or self-serving goals.
The Supreme Court has no preventative say on this as they might only act if a case were brought before them, wherein citizens or a Congressional investigation wanted to impeach or oust a US President for his actions. Also, since Clinton's term, Bush has created executive privileges as a dictatorial power, weakening Congress's oversight.
As an example of how a more civilized USA would have acted as a victim of 9/11, when attacked the President would place the military on high alert as was done since we didn't know all the details yet, but the attack would have been determined to be a crime and therefore an international police matter. A coalition of troops might have been deployed to Afghanistan as a direct tie to the attackers but Iraq would not have been invaded because an excuse would not be allowable under enforceable laws. We would have had many supportive allies and police agencies around the world, and our reaction would have been focused for the good of all and the easing of violence rather than the escalation of violence for the personal profit of a few. Even if pre Iraq war plans had been in place and 9/11 had been used as an excuse to pursue Iraqi oil, built-in automatic laws or legislated acts that could not be revoked would theoretically not allow self-interest to co-opt a terrible crime for personal gain.
Maybe we need a few more insightful amendments to the Constitution that guide rational resolutions to outside threats with appropriate measures and insure our country's well-being but deny ulterior political plots and expediencies from within our government. Maybe we need these more than the periodically silly proposed flag burning or gay bashing amendments.
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Diversity, independence, innovation and imagination are progressive concepts ultimately alien to the conservative mind.
"TAX AND SPEND" IS GOOD! (TAX: Wealthy corporations who won't go poor even after taxes. SPEND: On public works programs, education, the environment, improvements.) |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2007 : 12:36:25 [Permalink]
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I agree.
I do not have a citation or a even a firm memory, but it seems that the Supreme Court has ruled (so far) that the President is king when it comes to foreign policy. No one but the Congress has the ability to reign him in at all for that, and they're not likely to, as they seem to work for the same masters.
We all would probably been better off if George Bush would have done nothing more about 9/11 than ask the law enforcement community(ies) to get together on their investigations, and then stayed out of it. He should have continued reading children's books and continued to try to look like a rancher.
Thousands and thousands have died, billions of dollars (and pounds) have been spent, and the world is not a better place. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/14/2007 : 01:31:59 [Permalink]
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They can't convict him in the senate, so there really is no point in impeaching him.
What they need to do, in greater measure than they are currently, is hold oversight investigations into the conduct of the war. There is little doubt in my mind that they could turn up enough dirt to get the 60 senate votes to convict if they just did their fucking jobs and start those investigations.
I absolutely agree with you that every member of the house and senate is currently culpable. They (dems) do have the votes to end all funding for the Iraq war, but they refuse to do so because they are afreaid of being called names in the news. Their own inability to respond to the republican spin has crippled them, turned them into useless spineless cowards.
I'd probably let out a fucking cheer if they all died in a fire tomorrow.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Chippewa/Churchill
