G W Bush first US president tried for war crimes?

be it next year or twenty years from now, what are the chances?
from 1 (yes) to 10 (no)

some background:

(Keep in mind the U.S. War Crimes Act of 1996 has no statute of limitations when death is a result of the crime)

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/30/1333214

Thursday, June 30th, 2005
Fmr. NY Congressmember Holtzman Calls For President Bush and His Senior Staff To Be Held Accountable for Abu Ghraib Torture


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In a newly-published article in The Nation former New York Congressmember Elizabeth Holtzman, who served on the committee that voted to impeach Richard Nixon calls on the public and the press to demand President Bush and his senior White House staff be held accountable for the torture of Abu Ghraib and be prosecuted under the 1996 War Crime Act.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<snip>
Well, The Nation magazine is publishing an article in its July 18th issue titled "Torture and Accountability." ** http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20050718&s=holtzman In the article, the author, former Congressmember Elizabeth Holtzman, writes that there is precedent to hold U.S officials accountable for wrongdoing. She points to public pressure that forced Congress to end the Vietnam war, relentless press coverage of the Watergate scandal which ultimately lead to Nixon's resignation and public demands that led to the independent 9/11 commission.

<snip>

ELIZABETH HOLTZMAN: And it seems to me that with the terrible scandal, Abu Ghraib, that we need -- we can’t, as they tried in Watergate to do, cut off the investigation at the small fry, at the lowest level. You have to look, and the international law precedence and American law requires it, you look up the chain of command. What I discovered by accident was that -- this is not a concern that I have alone -- President Bush's White House counsel, Alberto Gonzales, himself, who is now the Attorney General of the United States, wrote a memo in January 2002 to President Bush saying one of the reasons we need to opt out of the Geneva Conventions wasn't just because they didn't like the Geneva Conventions because they don't like treaties, but he said, we have to worry about prosecutions under the U.S. War Crimes Act of 1996. That, it turns out, is a federal statute that applies to any U.S. national, military or civilian, high or low, who violates the Geneva Conventions in certain ways. In other words, who engages in murder, torture, or inhuman treatment. And it's not just those who engage in it, it's those who order it or those who, knowing about it, fail to take steps to stop it. That means higher-ups.

JUAN GONZALEZ: This 1996 law is not very well known.

ELIZABETH HOLTZMAN: No. It's totally obscure. I only found out about it because Alberto Gonzales was worried about prosecutions of high level officials under it.

JUAN GONZALEZ: What brought this law about? In other words, was Congress reacting to --

ELIZABETH HOLTZMAN: What happened was in the 1990s, during the, I guess it was the Clinton administration at that time, Congress decided that it wanted to adopt laws to take it into full compliance with its obligations under an international torture statute and an international torture treaty and the Geneva Conventions. And so, it passed two laws. One is a statute making it a U.S. crime to engage in torture. It was passed two years before the 1996 law, and then you have the War Crimes Act of 1996.

And basically, what it does, it makes grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions a federal crime. Got it? Just like kidnapping or interstate burglary or child pornography, it is a federal crime. And the other thing, that's interesting is that it carries the death penalty. If death results from torture or inhuman treatment, then there is a death penalty, and that means there's no statute of limitations. That means that if any high level official violates the War Crimes Act, and somebody died, they can be prosecuted. They are subject to prosecution for the rest of their lives.

<snip>

.

the chances are good. Why? Because there are scores of people who will pursue him and others to the grave to hold them accountable.
At the very least, the war crimes issue will dog him for the rest of his days.

I have little faith of it happening in this life.

But it certainly couldn't happen to a nicer guy :)

I prefer to hold that vision and visualize lady justice having her day.
There are places where Kissinger can't go because he is wanted for war crimes.

He will be the first. He will be convicted of criminal offenses in the US. He will then be delivered to the Hague to stand trial. And then he will be delivered to the Iraqi and Afghan people to carry out his sentence.

And so will Cheney and Rumsfeld.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

...for starters.:eyes:

pretty lame dude! RIP

to turn people on to "Torture and Accountability", The Nation article by Elizabeth Holtzman.

http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20050718&s=holtzman

http://action.humanrightsfirst.org/human_rights_first/learn.html

The United States has long been a leading defender of freedom and human rights around the world. Unfortunately, in a misguided approach to fighting terrorism, the United States has trampled on human rights guaranteed by our own Constitution and by the Geneva Convention treaties we have observed since World War II. In addition to being ineffective, this approach endangers the lives of U.S. soldiers who may be captured in this and future conflicts.


The United States may be holding hundreds, even thousands of secret or 'ghost detainees,' not just in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, but also in other secret locations around the world. That is why we are calling for the United States to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to meet with individuals in U.S. custody. We are also calling for an independent commission to investigate the hundreds of allegations of torture, abuse, and other illegal detention practices that appear to have been imposed upon individuals held in U.S. custody.


End Unjust Security Detention and Abuse: 10-Point Strategy

Since the revelation of the disturbing photographs of abuse at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the Secretary of Defense and others have rightly condemned and apologized for the shocking behavior the photos revealed. But the United States has much work to do to repair the damage done – to America's reputation and to those who have wrongly suffered. An apology is only the first step. Human Rights First has proposed a 10-point plan of action to ensure that no one is tortured in America's name.

<snip>

No + 1 option?