Fully agreed.

On the particular time, place, and people involved. Might makes right, it always has. Values, morals, they're all relative and subjective.

It usually takes an external body to have those kinds of trials. Since no governing body can tell the US government no, or do anything to it, since it set up and maintains the international system, I'd say don't expect much.

Although we tend to forget, and a significant proportion of the population are little better than animals to whom torture is okay since we're the biggest kid on the block.

And no, to me it doesn't depend. Torture is against the law, and it's a biggie. Prosecute it.

These laws were written by man, and so are always going to be malleable by man.

If they find someone to prosecute it, go nuts. Where is it going to come from though? A Congress that either went along with it, or didn't know/couldn't stop it? The UN, which nobody listens to anyway, especially without the US military backing it up? China? Russia? England? France?

You're thinking of the pre-Citizens United concept of "one man-one vote." Nowadays we have corporations, the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, voter suppression, suspect electronic voting machines, propaganda mills calling themselves news channels, and Karl Rove's machinations to manipulate every election, so "consent of the governed" becomes more a form of purchased trickery.

The founding fathers were clear about the source of ultimate authority.

Clinton, Bush, Obama, Democrat, Republican, Independent, I don't care. This shit is far beyond politics.

Then trials for the banksters and their enablers.

Time to start putting the correct people in jail in this country.

Bush and his minions of course, but also including some of the more questionable drone strikes carried out under the Obama administration.

War mongers need to face penalties for the innocent people the killed.

the events of 1974 prove Chomsky's predictions totally and utterly wrong, at least so far as Watergate and Tricky Dick were concerned?

Pelosi said in 2006 that impeachment was 'off the table.' If that isn't code for bi-partisan support for war crimes, well, I don't know what would be.

The policy of torture and crimes against humanity had almost unanimous bi-partisan support among the political cadre. Only Barbara Lee voted against the AUMF on Afghanistan and only Feingold voted against the Patriot Act in the Senate.

There were no consequences for the war crimes that he and Kissinger committed in Cambodia, Chile etc. Americans and especially the corporate media proved that they did not care how many brown folks in other countries got murdered as long as rich white Americans were treated with respect. Nixon fell because the AG at the time, John Mitchell decided to put Katy Graham's "tit in the wringer" to quote him, threatening her media empire. Since the illegal bombing of Cambodia did not threaten anyone's media empire, no one in the MSM gave a rat's ass about it. The fact that Henry Kissinger was part of the Bush/Cheney administration and probably responsible for a great many of their war crimes proves that Chomsky was correct.

we as a country knew what they were doing when they were doing it and no one could do a damned thing to stop them.
What good is your trial going to do?
Get a rope.

. . .which unfortunately is not fit for public discussion.

where a Nazi prison guard returns after the war to the camp he ran to relive the 'good old days'. He is then visited by the ghosts of the people he tortured. I wish the same for the entire cabal of criminals.

and sing that song.

If we don't pursue a war crimes trial then the United States has abandoned international law and treaty obligations. Why should we expect any foreign government not to torture our soldiers and citizens if they are detained in the future?

It's time for some Nuremberg style trials.

But nothing associated with G W Bush has ever involved Justice. Remember he was appointed to the office of the President after he lost the election.

His dumb brother once again gets in the way of success for Jeb. Let's dig ALL the way through the Bush shit shall we. Let's go back to the Bay of Pigs, Nov 22nd 1963, and the day planes penetrated steel and concrete like a hot knife through butter with NO fallout of plane pieces or resistance. Or that the Bush family was responsible for the security of the Trade Center. Call me crazy.

to anyone that has been paying attention and has read a little bit of history.

It isn't conspiracy theory, it is FACT.

to set in motion, and that will require a different Supreme Court and Congress, and that will require another couple of Nov. 2008 game changers, and that will require another couple of Obamas. I'm sure they're out there, but it might be a decade or two before this wish comes true. Hope I'm wrong.

....it will go nowhere even if they have some mock up trials.
It will be turned and used to excuse the truly guilty.

But, yes, let's try.

Actual writing on offical CIA website, circa Dec 2001:

"The extreme obstacle for the CIA is currently having a way to program American military to turn on American civilians."

I am paraphrasing, but that remark was on those pages. Not somebody's blog about the CIA - this was the CIA's actual website.

The war the USA has waged against the people of Iraq, and the people of Afghanistan, and many places where Muslims live, in part that war was brought about to install in soldiers the notion that only their safety was important. The brutality by which American service people enetered people's homes, slammed the men women and children to the ground, and then rounded up the men and took them off to infamous black holes such as Abu Ghrab, all those tactics were brought about to re-condition human beings into the equivalent of Nazi Storm troopers.

We now see the murderous rage with which the police across our nation respond to any and everything.

Our legislatures across the nation are filled with like minded Nazis. In Illinois, on Dec 2nd, 2014, the state legislature had language inside a bill making it a felony to photograph or in any way record any police activity, without prior permission!

would not be surprised if that was their policy, or at least their aspiration, but such an inflammatory accusation requires you anchor it with evidence.
thx.

however, i'm sure you are aware of anthony romero's, head of the aclu, plea to obama to pardon bush and cheney. and he lays out a compelling case.

a pardon at least establishes that these are crimes, and he points out that already there are loud noises that torture is ok and the report is wrong (we all know where to find those voices). so there would continue to be a 'debate' with a trial, whereas the pardon would just put at least an official lid on all that.

ma trial would also just stir up that ‘debate’ and allow those who claim it’s ok to get that ‘balanced’ voice out there. most importantly, there is always - especially with the legal team bush and cheney could put together - the chance they could walk. legally and officially. i mean, hell; OJ walked. money talks, loud.

and, last but not least, the pardon puts bush and cheney in such a delicious (or some other less inappropriate term) bind. think about that; what are they gonna do? reject it? then the admin is legally obliged to prosecute, or turn them over to the world court, to which we don’t even subscribe, so we’re legally bound by treaty to prosecute them ourselves. plus, not sure as they could actually reject it, especially without those consequences. accept it silently? that’s even more, erm, delicious.

i kinda like that last one. the image of especially cheney finally gagged forever from ever piping up for an interview or opinion that does not also put this chapter of his life front and center. that is truly delicious. and if they do pipe up, esp. dick, he will look even more churlish and nasty than he already is, to be biting the hands that freed him.

yup; i do believe i’m all in with this pardon. and it may well inform my position on nixon’s pardon, as well. giving it, ford established that what that particular dick did was wrong, too.

not the ideal result, but cleverly best for now.

and i'm impressed with romero for putting it out there; now if obama ignores it, he's complicit. which of course he already sorta is, despite his call to end torture. sadly, extra-judicial killings are also against international law.