A recent news report asking “Where is Dubya?” found the former president totally unengaged, spending his time painting strange portraits of himself in the bath. In what seems to be a weird personal attempt to emulate Winston Churchill (but more reminiscent of Marie Antoinette playing shepherdess in her last days), the former president calmly ignores the sickening truth that slowly but surely emerges about his Administration’s crimes as well as recent UN demands that U.S. leaders be charged with war crimes (i.e. Ben Emmerson, the lead special investigator, recently described to gathered UN dignitaries a setting of self-approved legal immunity among U.S. and UK national leaders. He called the two governments’ standing policy, “A policy of de facto immunity for public officials who engaged in acts of torture, rendition and secret detention, and their superiors and political masters who authorized these acts.”)
So the hard task will clearly fall to George W. Bush’s soon-to-open Presidential Center to re-fashion history and create the legacy of the great “Decider” who, with neo-con help, so longed to be a “war president” that he decided to illegally and recklessly launch a “war of choice” (otherwise known as the illegal and catastrophic war of aggression upon Iraq based on false premises). The new Bush Library will undoubtedly also credit their namesake with the idea of initiating the “global war on a tactic (GWOT)” that, despite a recent bipartisan congressional bill to end it, teeters on the verge of being made permanent. Bush’s successor having cleverly re-named it, then stretched and expanded GWOT to so many new countries that it now has come full circle under rhetoric of “keeping us safe” from foreign enemies that it now targets U.S. citizens for indefinite detention and assassination and includes the U.S. as part of its ever-widening global battlefield.
Whoever said we can’t look back must not have reckoned with the fact and force of such a Presidential Lie-Bury! Luckily some Dallas residents have sprung to the task of putting forward an honest “People’s Response” to the deceptive refashioning of this unethical and illegal history. Here’s an excerpt from their press release:
When the George W. Bush Library and Policy Institute is dedicated on April 25, 2013, at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas, protestors will be there to demand the ex-president be held accountable for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and violations of U.S. and international law. President Barack Obama, former U.S. presidents and many heads of state are expected to attend the dedication ceremony.
A coalition of local, state and national peace and justice groups organizing the protest is inviting people from across the country to participate in an event called “The People’s Response.” According to Leslie Harris of CODEPINK Greater Dallas, “The illegal invasion of a sovereign nation was declared a ‘supreme crime’ at the Nuremberg trials. That Bush and his advisors walk free today is unconscionable; there must be accountability so history won’t repeat itself.”
Reverend Bill McElvaney, professor emeritus, Perkins School of Theology at SMU, an early opponent of locating the George W. Bush Institute on campus, said, “The invasion of Iraq, and the approval of torture are violations of the United Methodist Social Principles, thus placing Southern Methodist University in contradiction to its own heritage as an institution of The United Methodist Church.”
I plan to participate for a lot of reasons but most fundamentally, from having spent 24 years as an FBI agent working in the criminal justice system always and inherently focused on looking backward to solve the worst crimes, I understand the true purpose of Obama’s ridiculous “only look forward” cover-up was to continue, make worse and even expand upon Bush’s illegal wars, war crimes and war profiteering. It’s hard to put this into words better than author and researcher, “War Is A Crime” and “Let’s Try Democracy” activist David Swanson as he explains “Why I’m Attending the Dedication of the Bush Lie Bury.”
It's difficult to draw the line where free speech ends and crimes against humanity begin. If Hitler were to get a Presidential Library (After all, when Hindenburg died, he became President of the Republic), what publications would it contain, and who would have been the prominent authors? No doubt Mein Kamf and its sequel would have figured prominently, as would have Henry Ford's rehabilitation of the apocryphal "Elders of Zion". So too would Houston Stewart Chamberlain's pseudointellectual musings along with the lunatic ravings of the likes of Aleister Crowley. But the real crown jewels would no doubt be the writings of Alfred Rosenberg, the racial theorist and Carl Schmitt, the jurist. Rosenberg, himself half Jewish, penned "Myth of the Twentieth Century", a pillar of Nazi racial dogma. Schmitt's interpretation of the "state of exception" provides the definition by which sovereignty may be defined as the circumstances under which the executive is freed from any constraints of the legislative, essentially justifying the institution of martial law. Unbelievable as it may seem, some of his opinions were cited in formulating juridical opinions rationalizing aspects of the so-called "Patriot Act", NDAA and the questionably legal rationalization for targeted assasination. A lesser figure due to his questionable intellectual capability and dubious fitness to stand trial by virtue of insanity was Julius Streicher. No rational human being he, but nevertheless, the Nuremberg prosecutors were not about to let a potential guilty verdict slip through their fingers. The man was nutty as a fruitcake, and although he published the hate filled rag "Der Sturmer", his crime was actually what could be argued today as "exercise of free speech". Don't even dare to insinuate that I defend the man: he was a pig. But if he could be hanged at Nuremberg, how should we regard the authors of "Project for a New American Century"? Or, the editors of The New York Times and The Washington Post? Should the Neocon authors of spurious justification for what, under the circumstances of political destabilization, has become one episode of ethnic cleansing after another be allowed to escape the charge of incitement to genocide? Should Wolf Blitzer, Dana Bash, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and their ilk all be given a pass? Should the Feiths, the Perles, the Wolfowitzs, the Cheneys and the Rumsfelds all be lionized in the "Presidential Library"? Or is, as I like to believe, the inclusion of these fascists in the "Library" punishment in and of itself? Of course, Bush's "Library" is a despicable repudiation of the Nuremberg Principles. But at least it will create a shadow over the perpetrators of his legacy, and that monument will never allow them to escape the verdict of history.
I agree, there are dozens of neo-cons who deserve hanging. But Bush Jr, goes first (unless he can prove mental incompetency).
Pretty low hurdle you've set there. This is the man called "Duh-bya".
No argument about G.W. Bush and his fellow traveler neocons' crimes, but in all fairness, the Nuremberg Tribunals were a total farce and a mockery of justice–it was nothing but victor's justice–and hypocritical in the extreme. David Irving's book, "Nuremberg, The Last Battle' covers this in exacting detail. All established international conventions were thrown out the window in the way the former leaders of the Third Reich were treated. Basically their guilt was decided in advance. There were ex post facto charges, defendants were not allowed a proper defense and certain evidence in their favor denied by the Allied judges and some confessions were obtained under torture, such as from Rudolf Hoess, the Commandant of Auschwitz. Rosenberg and Striecher were executed merely for what they wrote. Hermann Goering requested a firing squad, but he was sentenced to be hanged like a common criminal. So he as an honorable military officer took his own life with a cyanide capsule. The chief Soviet judge at the Tribunal was the same man who oversaw Stalin's show trials during his purges of the 1930s. And the chief US Counsel, Justice Robert Jackson was completely disgusted with the proceedings.
Listen – I actually defended Irving when he was getting deported from Canada for "holocaust denial" but let's be clear:
Outside of small villages ALL justice is victor's justice. Someone consoldates enough power and they create a legal system to help them keep it.
But the execution of a few man for planning and carrying out the gross public slaughter of millions is still a form of justice in my books. The world ain't fair – but the tears I'd cry when war-criminals (like Nazis and Neo-Cons) are hung are not tears of sadness!
As for Hermann Goering being an "honorable military officer" – save this debate for Stormfront not Antiwar…
Stormfront is a joke. VNN is head and shoulders above it.
as fas wanting to be shot instead of hanged the author appears to have confused field marshal Wilhelm Keitel with H.Goering.
You are correct–my mistake.
Bush's "Library" is a despicable repudiation of the Nuremberg Principles. But at least it will create a shadow over the perpetrators of his legacy, and that monument will never allow them to escape the verdict of history.
You make the same argument as the first poster (using the exact same words!) under a different name. Strange.
Know what else would create a "shadow over the perpetrators"? Bringing them to trial and executed them on prime-time television!
Let's avoid the sordid sight of Saddam's back-alley execution by balaclava'd hooting thugs. America knows how to stage a spectacle – confetti, balloons, Dolly Parton singing the national anthem – imagine the healing this would do for the world.
I know this sounds like I'm already presuming they are guilty, but since they have stopped extending this privilege to us little people I see no reason to keep extending it to them.
Besides, they've done little to deny what they did – they just defend it as necessary and justified – and then leave it to us to accept or not. They know they'll never be prosecuted.
The US is signatory to the UN. UN law states 'Regime change by force is illegal'. Bill Clinton signed a law declaring 'ANY' American who brakes American or International law is committing a crime. So where is justice? Or is punishment only for the poor & the rich and powerful go scot free. We consider ourselves an exceptional nation so we should be leading the world by example of justice, love and peace for all humanity and not through the age old tactics of bullying, war and criminal ways. We constantly side with injustice in mid-east, we bully other nations, we hold innocent people against their will, we kill them with drones, we torture innocent people, in fact we commit every horror the world has known. Are we exceptional?
Yes, we are. Supremely arrogant and therefore exempt from what we preach to the rest of the world. Didn't you get the memo?
Former FBI Agent. Unbelievable.
For the record: Iraq used WMDs against Iran during their war in the 1980s. Saddam Hussein used them against his own people, to keep them in line. But I digress. 1990 brings Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, and the world comes together to throw them out. EVERYONE on the planet KNOWS Hussein still has WMDs, and he's on the verge of obtaining nukes. After Hussein surrenders, the UN demands that he turn over the WMDs. Of course, Hussein says “no,” denying he even has them. Of course, pea brained pacifists want to leave it at that, but once again, I digress. The UN seals off Iraq, and begins searching for WMDs. 7 years later, they haven't found any, and the pea brainers really believe he doesn't have any. He denies the search team access to a designated search site, the UN subsequently gets 16 resolutions to search, and Hussein DENIES them access every time. Question: How come? Why did Hussein say no? Ya think it could be cuz that there was evidence of them? Maybe? Huh?
9/11 hits, Hussein isn't involved, but it's the Byzantine Middle East. Hussein and bin Laden are enemies, to be certain, but “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is a saying that came about because of scenarios like this one. First, there was prime facie evidence that Hussein had WMDs, which gave us probable cause to use force to search for them. That PC was still in place, we still had the right to search Iraq by force for WMDs in March, 2003.
You can argue that we had enough control that we didn't have to invade Iraq. But then, you can argue that if we'd have taken that chance and not used force, and something went wrong, there would be no forgiveness. So, in 2003 we invaded Iraq, looking for the WMDs that were last seen by outsiders in 1990. 13 years. We never found any WMDs. Question: How come? Hussein never had any? Pea brained pacifists shout that from the rooftops. Actually, it was like a dope dealer being tipped off before the cops got to his house with a search warrant: HUSSEIN GOT RID OF THEM. Go figure.
We could not take the chance that he still had them, or somehow had access to them, wherever they'd been placed.
Now comes the rabble from the left shouting “War Crimes!” “Bush should be in The Hague!” And all the millions upon millions of pages of lying hatred that spewed out from previously trusted sources e.g. the dominant American news media and the rest of the information infrastructure. And at least one former FBI agent. Oh, and the entertainment community, which holds ridiculously huge sway in American political culture.
And waterboarding? Easy. Those few prisoners who were waterboarded were extensions of the battlefield, in that we knew for a fact that they possessed information about plans to kill people. (It's like a parent getting information from a person WHOM THEY KNOW FOR A FACT has kidnapped their child.) Using force under those conditions is not only legal, it is an obligation. Why else have the leaders of the left shut completely the hell up about it? Think it's because the corporate oligarchy etc. has SO MUCH POWER that they shut it down? Laughable naivete. Obama would have personally pulled the switch on the Bush administration if he'd had even a scintilla of evidence that they committed war crimes. That they violated the Geneva Convention.
Of course, I'm on the “other side” of the righteous ones, someone who believes right wing lies, and I don't/can't think for myself. Here's the deal: Everything I just wrote is the irrefutable truth. The arguments against it are partisan political lies, ginned up by hackneyed, anarchic voices who intend to deconstruct America as it currently stands, and create a new, UN-style global breeding ground for half-wits and knaves. Well, The Constitution is still alive, people are still free to vote for whomever they want, and the Alinsky inspired lefties are never going to cram their bill of goods up our behinds.
Thanks for the April Fools.
Thanks for the predictable response from a juvenile "progressive." You people never get off track, you never disappoint. Go watch a Keith Olbermann show and get all enlighten-y and stuff.
9/11 hits, Hussein isn't involved, but it's the Byzantine Middle East. Hussein and bin Laden are enemies, to be certain, but “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is a saying that came about because of scenarios like this one. First, there was prime facie evidence that Hussein had WMDs, which gave us probable cause to use force to search for them. That PC was still in place, we still had the right to search Iraq by force for WMDs in March, 2003.
Bush is mentally ill. His actions in business, sports and politics have proven this time and time again. Out of 2,920 days in office, Bush spent 1,084 days on vacation at his ranch in Texas, which he sold when he moved to Dallas. His puppet-meisters Cheney, Powell, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld should be in Leavenworth federal prison doing hard labor for war crimes. Powell is the architect of Offutt AFB-based StratCom, which is involved in keeping the Iraq war in the public's eye. They have spent over $50 million on disinformation and propaganda campaigns. One of their minions Robert Bohanek was recently arrested for soliciting sex from a 14 year old girl in Austin, Texas. Two more of their minions Martin Beecham and Robert Butts are serving long prison terms for child porn, burglary, child abuse and rape. All three were involved in illegally hacking, cyber attacking and stalking critics of the military and the war in Iraq.
Neither has any known military experience: somebody trained one or both.
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Bush's "Library" is a despicable repudiation of the Nuremberg Principles. But at least it will create a shadow over the perpetrators of his legacy, and that monument will never allow them to escape the verdict of history.