Ah, the world is mine - MINE I tell you. LIMITLESS POWER!!! Bwahahahahahahaaaa!

P.S. Dear Iran and North Korea... you're obstructing my view of Venus....

"During the jury's deliberation, the conscience juror Indian author and activist Arundhati Roy read the nonbinding verdict text that the jury composed after having listened to 54 witnesses from Iraq, the US, and the Great Britain during the trial. Bush and Blair were found guilty." (emphasis mine)

Non-binding verdict. Who would have been bound to it to begin with and by what authority (NGO's, academics, including professors of law, lawyers, judges)? The US? The UK?

"The WTI urged the immediate and unconditional withdraw of all the allied forces from Iraq."

I guess these people didn't get the President's speech the other night.

I've thought about this, and even though there's doubtless some truth to it, and criticizing is easy, and feeling morally superior is even easier, I think your point is basically pernicious and harmful, because you never make a clear distinction between legitimate and illegitimate criticism. One of the main problems with the Iraq war is that it's being run by people who answer every criticism by 1. quoting Teddy Roosevelt ("it's not the critic. . .blah blah") 2. saying "compared to WWII, this is nothing. You're merely soft, and lack resolve."

Ignoring the common-sense point that the appropriate comparisons with Iraq are not WWI or WWII, but Gulf War I, Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia, Haiti, Afghanistan, and possibly the Phillipine-American war.

A governing culture that responds to every criticism with "Who the hell are you to criticize? Why should I listen to you?" is a decadent culture that will, eventually, fail its people.

I don't think the good guys have to aim for the enemy's guns. But I do think that the good guys, among other things, have to have a value for the truth, especially unpleasant & inconvenient truths. The worst criticism I've ever made of Iraq policy is this:

"The second crucial mistake, in addition to not holding early elections, that Bush made in waging the Iraq war was not establishing the principle that we value the truth and we value human life, even the lives of our enemies, while our enemies don't. Immediately on winning the war, we should have announced the formation of a Truth & Reconciliation committee, dedicated to rigorously accounting for every Iraqi life lost during the war, including Iraqi civilian & combat deaths, as well as every Iraqi killed during Saddam's reign, including the first gulf war. If we had done that, the powerful messages we might have sent to the Iraqi people is "your long national nightmare is over" & "the truth shall set you free". Instead the message we have sent over the past two years is that we don't particularly care how many Iraqis we have to kill, as long as the end result is a victory. That is of course unfair to the many heroic US troops & comanders who have taken care & great personal risks in order to minimize loss of life in accomplishing the mission, but it is true nonetheless. When we carefully account for US deaths and injuries in Iraq, the message that is sent is that we care about US deaths and that we value each life. When we refuse to release our best estimates of Iraqi deaths on the flimsy grounds that "the enemy might use it for propaganda", what message does that send?"

I don't think I'm saying that we're omniscient, that we have the power and responsibility to prevent these deaths. But I do think that we have the power and responsibility to account for these deaths, and the circumstances of these deaths, to the best of our ability. If the truth is on your side, then the more sunshine, the more cameras, the more debates, the more interviews the better.

Now, making grandiose, self-righteous criticisms like that opens you wide open to questions of "Who the hell are you to stand in judgement of those who are protecting you? What the hell have you ever done for our national security?" Well, I'm nobody special, and I haven't done anything. But so what? Should I therefore just shut the hell up, put all these little criticisms where the sun don't shine, and maybe give a little money to charity?

Criticizing is easy, and by itself, worthless. But so is dismissing criticism. And there is the important difference that arrogant & self-righteous criticism by people out of power causes relatively little direct damage, unlike arrogant and self-righteous dismissals of criticism by people in power.

Dismissing all criticism is a problem. But even critics have to be accountable - and AL is doing so. Sauce for the gander, and all that...

Did they remember to appoint a counsel for the defendants?

Did the court list Saddam Hussein as a Plaintiff and are we now required to restore him to power?

Seems to me that if part of the charge is that we "illegally" attacked a "sovereign" nation, then part of the remedy ought to be restoring that "sovereign" government to power.

Perhaps if there was more unbiased media with a politcal opposition serious about the war on terror and EVERYTHING wasn't a game of gotcha, then perhaps we'd have an administration more interested in a public discussion of policy, both successes and failures.

It's a chicken vs. egg issue. We may disagree on which is which.

Here is a link to WTI - World Tribunal on Iraq for those that want to do a bit more research on the organization.

The information they provide is rather sparse but here it is in a nut shell.

Orgins

"The idea of organising an international tribunal against the invasion of Iraq originated nearly simultaneously in several places around the world. It was discussed and in principle supported at Anti-War Meetings during 2003 in Berlin, Jakarta and Geneva, Paris and Cancun. The Jakarta Peace Consensus declared on May 25th, 2003 its commitment to the realisation of an international war crimes tribunal. The proposal was also discussed at the Networking Conference (European Network for Peace and Human Rights) organised by the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation in Brussels on June 26/27th 2003, and the idea was broadly supported at that meeting."

"The working group meeting in Brussels discussed the idea and possibilities of convening an international tribunal to investigate and establish the crimes perpetrated against the people of Iraq and humanity. It was decided that it would consist of several hearings around the world, each of them focusing on different aspects of this war and the strategies behind it. The tribunal platform from Turkey was entrusted with the task of acting as the secretariat and the clearing house, and carrying out the coordination in close contact with the groups in Brussels, Hiroshima, New York, London and other cities. This international Coordinating Committee convened a meeting in Istanbul on October 27-29th 2003 to decide the concept, form and aims of the project."

Here is a link to WTI - World Tribunal on Iraq for those that want to do a bit more research on the organization.

The information they provide is rather sparse but here it is in a nut shell.

Origins

"The idea of organising an international tribunal against the invasion of Iraq originated nearly simultaneously in several places around the world. It was discussed and in principle supported at Anti-War Meetings during 2003 in Berlin, Jakarta and Geneva, Paris and Cancun. The Jakarta Peace Consensus declared on May 25th, 2003 its commitment to the realisation of an international war crimes tribunal. The proposal was also discussed at the Networking Conference (European Network for Peace and Human Rights) organised by the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation in Brussels on June 26/27th 2003, and the idea was broadly supported at that meeting."

"The working group meeting in Brussels discussed the idea and possibilities of convening an international tribunal to investigate and establish the crimes perpetrated against the people of Iraq and humanity. It was decided that it would consist of several hearings around the world, each of them focusing on different aspects of this war and the strategies behind it. The tribunal platform from Turkey was entrusted with the task of acting as the secretariat and the clearing house, and carrying out the coordination in close contact with the groups in Brussels, Hiroshima, New York, London and other cities. This international Coordinating Committee convened a meeting in Istanbul on October 27-29th 2003 to decide the concept, form and aims of the project."

Invading another country, violating UN principles, destroying Iraqi infrastructure, killing and torturing Iraqis, destroying the environment, and censorship . . .

I though Saddam's trial had been postponed til August!

lurker on July 1, 2005 04:35 PM

Good point, does anyone doubt that the insistence that the administration admit its “mistakes” is driven by anything less craven than a search for political ammunition?

In a political climate where anything said by you or the lowest functionary within your party or administration can and will be used against you and your policies, who can seriously blame them for not agreeing to sharpen the axe and place their heads on the block?

Actually there was a previous trial held last week on Thursday. Me and about eight other patrons at O'Gara's Bar & Grill held our own trial of Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair and found them not guilty on all counts.

Since our “verdict” preceded that of the WTI, ours is controlling.

We also had a trial recently ( and by we I mean myself and my cat Snukums). And we also found Bush not guilty. In addition we found all Bush-hating socialist ass-hats guilty of being... well... socialist ass-hats. And since they love Jihadis so much, the punishment passed on all socialist ass-hats is that they must immediatly turn themselves in to the nearest Jihadis so that they can have their heads sawed off by minions of the religion of peace. And our trial's verdict takes precendent over theirs, because my cat has an IQ superior to all off theirs combined.
Why do people even pander to these morons with their make-belive trial. Maybe afterwards the Communist World Tribunal had a lovely tea party, and Winnie the Pooh was there, and Tigger, and Karl Marx brought scones, and... oh nevermind.