- Joined
- Apr 14, 2008
- Messages
- 13,012
- Reaction score
- 5,741
- Location
- Huntsville, AL (USA)
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Moderate
A general answer:
I feel the American people should hold their Presidents legally responsible for violations of the Constitution, of treaties the US have signed and for violations of basic human right standards. I think everybody in his right mind will agree that no politician and not even the President is above the law. If we didn't believe that, we could as well get an absolutist king.
Maybe I don't know enough about the situation in America, but my first reaction is that the Supreme Court should have been responsible doing that when these laws were first enacted. If it can't or does not, the system is obviously flawed. Not sure how this can be fixed.
My two cents.
I think there's a wide gap between "mistake" and "intentionally lied to the American people and the whole world for several years in order to justify an unnecessary war." Also the torture of prisoners in Gitmo. I know of no definition of war criminal that includes the Middle Eastern dictators that we've been going after that excludes GWB.
These two dynamics are what I'm wrestling with concerning this poll issue. I can't help thinking of how America and the world all but demanded the heads of the surviving German government officials/military brass for war crimes and crimes against humanity after WWII. Or how America and the Iraqi people celebrated after the capture and subsequent execution of Saddam Hussein for the crimes against humanity he committed. The only difference between the actions of the GWB Administration and those of Hitler and Saddam is GWB acting as this nation's Commander-in-Chief didn't issues direct orders to commit genocide against a people. It's for this reason I don't put GWB on the same plain as the aforementioned dictators.
However, he did violate international law. And for that, IMO, he doesn't deserve a pass. Nonetheless, I'm unsure of what should be done about it.
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