Osama Bin Laden is Dead - Page 3

Interesting question...I meant impeachment but from the Constituion, Article 1:

(I am assuming the US Constitution to be in the fair-use category?)

So, yea, he could. It's unclear if he would have to be impeached and convicted first, and then tried in a regular court, or if he could be tried in a regular court without being impeached.

Okay, thanks. I'm thinking that he would have to out of office before he could be tried in a court for anything. If I remember correctly a president would have to be removed from office (impeached) before being tried for anything, but I'm not 100% sure. I would think that there has to be some sort of immunity that comes with the job while being in office.

still no answer on what?

To answer one of your questions about which laws he has broken, Bush violated the Geneva convention more than once in a) ordering the bombing of civilian areas such as Baghdad and Basra. This is in direct violation of article 3(1) of the Geneva Convention. He has also violated Article 4 in the treatment and processing of prisoners of war.

He is guilty of a Crime Against Peace (for which Nazi leaders were prosecuted during the Nuremberg trials) in starting the war in Iraq (and also Afghanistan, actually).

There's plenty there, Bruce. It's not just a few rampant lefties here crying wolf - this is a serious international criminal and political consideration.

She's not talking about Abu Ghraib. There is no proof that Bush himself ordered the soldiers to do that sort of thing.

What Bush has directly ordered is Guantanamo Bay and the abduction of people in countries all over the world who are then taken to places where nobody can witness what happens, and if they did it wouldn't much matter-- places with no extradition who are not subject to international law.

People in Guantanamo Bay are being held illegally still. And before you go spouting off about how they're all terrorists, I know one of their wives personally. Her husband was there for years because the wrong person happened to get ahold of his business card, which he had handed out thousands of as he was starting his own business. The police found this business card in the house of someone suspected of terrorism, and boom, off he went. They aren't getting trials because there is no evidence against most of them, because *gasp* a lot of them did nothing wrong.

Al-qaeda and Al-qaeda in Iraq, as far as I can tell, don't fall under the protection of the Geneva Convention. The Iraqi army during the invasion, the Taliban and the insurgents in Iraq all should have been protected by the Geneva Convention as Prisoners of War. I do agree that there a lot of people being held at Gitmo that should probably be let go.

I have no problem at all with us going into Afghanistan because it was the Taliban that was harboring Al-qaeda. In that instance I feel we were justified in doing so because we were attacked first. Iraq is a different story. While I wanted Saddam's head on a stake as much as the next person the timing was wrong for going in there. He couldn't do anything militarily without it being known and the Northern and Southern No-Fly Zones kept him in check. We should still be focused on Bin-laden and his not so merry bunch of cowards in Afghanistan rather than invading Iraq and being part of the cause of a civil war between two groups of people who, historically, have been at each others throats for thousands of years.

Bridges, communications and power (as examples) are all targets to aerial bombardment whether they are in a civilian populated area or not as long they are legitimate military objectives. The destruction of them disrupts command and control of forces and their movement. This is fine as long as civilian areas in the vicinity of these targets aren't bombed through negligence. That being said, it's almost impossible to avoid some civilian casualties in such areas. The loss of civilian life is unfortunate and should be avoided at all costs but at the same time it's also very difficult to do when bombing military targets in cities and other civilian populated areas. Most of the munitions used to accomplish this are "smart" bombs. Even though they don't always hit their intended target it's still a far cry from the carpet and fire bombing of entire cities that occured during WWII.

I want to make it clear that I'm not defending Bush in any way. I just tend to look at issues like these from a military perspective.

That's completely understandable. The problem here is, and I think you illustrate it well, is that you can't wage a war without killing innocent civillians. If this war were on Afghanistan, I'd be far more supportive of it. I am not in support of the one on Iraq... and not saying that you said this, but I'm getting really tired of listening to the rant and implications that if you don't support the war and Bush's agenda, you're effectively not entitled to your opinion, and you're anti-American or not patriotic.

To me, to follow Bush and his agenda, you have to really have that same sort of blind faith that most people have for their religions. They're certainly entitled to it, but I don't have it, and I just don't understand it. And to me honestly, these days, hearing... "you're going to go to h*ll" is right up there with getting told that people are sick of hearing from those that don't support what *America* (which equates to what BUSH) does or that I'm not patriotic because I don't believe in his agenda. The brainwashing that man has done is amazing.

You're right there, Heather. And what's more amazing is that people continue to blindly support and endorse him when his crimes and sins are now as common knowledge as that the sun will rise tomorrow. There's proof, and there's fact, and yet the man still has supporters. But then, so have all the terrible dictators throughout history. I guess some people still identify with what he does, and, astonishingly, actually think it's right.

Not in America. It isn't 'common knowledge' here. It's still in the realm of crazy leftist protesters, conspiracy theorists, and dirty hippies. A great many people don't like him and don't support him, there is still about a third of the country that does (for what reasons... I guess we'll never know, because I've yet to get an answer from one that isn't either emotional or counterfactual).

But as for people who really understand the depths of his wrong-ness... no, it's not common knowledge.