Why wasn't former President Bush of the USA, charged with any crimes, when we marched into Afghanistan and Iraq by his orders, under pretenses?
Why wasn't former President Bush of the USA, charged with any crimes, when we marched into Afghanistan and Iraq by his orders, under pretenses?
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I wouldn't put Afghanistan and Iraq on the same level.
Bin Laden (and Al-Qaeda) was in Afghanistan and they refused to hand him over. That invasion had the support of NATO and even Russia and China. Why? Because Al-Qaeda existing doesn't benefit anyone and they were behind the attacks.
Iraq was different. It was mostly a US and British invasion, under false pretences. Iraq used to have chemical weapons and even used them against civilians back in the 80s, started a war with Iran and invaded Kuwait, but those were not the reasons given for the invasion...
Now, why wasn't Bush charged with any crimes? For the same reason nothing will happen to Putin in Russia. What are you going to do, invade the country to arrest the president?
Is it fair? No. But it's how the world works.
Fun fact! In 2002 the US passed a law allowing themselves to invade the Hague in case any high-ranking US officials ended up on trial there.
Which I'm sure they passed in the year between 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq just by coincidence, and they weren't expecting any shady shit to go down at all.
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But still, quite convenient timing to pass a "Guys we're SUPER SERIOUS about not being on the hook for war crimes" bill.
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How would that work? Wouldn't that be an act of
warunprovoked aggression per the UN charter?No no, don't you know that we don't do "war" any more? We do "operations" now. War is totally different. Then we have to obey Geneva conventions and all sorts of other hairy stuff. Our politicians have decided as long as we don't call it "war" then we're fine.
Sure it would, but the US has veto power on the UN security council so they would not be passing any resolutions against the US if this happened.
Well, you know, the US always considered the international treaties to be more akin to suggestions.
I mean what are they gonna do, send them to the Hague?
Yeah, it would be.
It’s geopolitical dick wagging, not a law that was actually needed or does anything.
This is why I maintain that Trump will never go to prison.. The u.s government itself would never allow it. They'll likely help him stay out on appeals till he dies, that's gonna be the worst punishment he'll get. I think the government would have him killed and made it to look like an accident before they ever allow him to set foot in prison.
The US government will allow Trump to go to an American jail. This is like ruling over like. The US government would never allow Trump to go a foreign jail, no matter how much he deserved it.
I think there are enough people in power who will use the "one of our presidents in jail will hurt our country" excuse, or they'll fear reprisal from the maga cult, that they'll let him walk. I hope I'm wrong, but the u.s pulls this shit all the time.
Iraq was different. It was mostly a US and British invasion, under false pretences
Lil Bush didn't even really know...
He was just a puppet, and Cheney was part of his dad's "old guard". Lil Bush knew the game, so Cheney set it up so every intel agency reported to Dick Cheney, and Dick Cheney decided if that info went anywhere else, including Lil Bush.
Cheney wanted the war, so he only passed on info that would cause the war, and it's entirely likely he was the only member of the American government who could have seen 9/11 coming. The reason no one else could, was everything has to go thru Cheney, and he saw everything.
I'm not saying Lil Bush is innocent, I'm saying he was a useful idiot that knew he was just a puppet and went along with
But it pisses me off everyone acts like the puppet fall guy is who we should be upset with, not the people who were actually doing stuff and still work with the American Republican political party.
Bush and his cabinet all knew
Even Powell? Always assumed he resigned once he realized he’d been used to sell that false evidence for Iraq.
I believe he admitted it was lies
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Condi Rice and Colin Powell? Just my guesses.
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So, tl;dr: After being hammered by strikes they made an offer to hand him over to a 3rd party?
That's correct. It wasn't their first attempt, either. Instead Bush opted for the 20 years of occupation for whatever reason.
I'm not defending the occupation and whole "nation building" (which I doubt they though would take 20 years). Just pointing out that there was a difference between Afghanistan and Iraq, and that difference was reflected by the support (or lack of) from other countries.
The United States today rejected yet another offer by Afghanistan's ruling Taliban to turn over Osama bin Laden for trial in a third country if the U.S. presents evidence against bin Laden and stops air attacks.
It's insane to suggest the US would ever agree to that.
I believe it would have been the correct move, but the US as a nation would straight up never agree to that. The citizenry would have lost their fucking minds.
Officially that was the reason. The violation of the ceasefire. Iraq did not abide by the terms of the ceasefire.
In hindsight, we shouldn’t have invaded. I supported the invasion at the time because of the violations of the ceasefire. I didn’t completely buy the wmd argument.
Looking back, Iraq distracted us from Afghanistan.
Both countries also do not recognize the authority of International Court. High ranking officials definitely should have been hauled off to jail for authorizing, developing, and employing "enhanced interrogation" (aka torture) techniques
Now, why wasn’t Bush charged with any crimes? For the same reason nothing will happen to Putin in Russia.
Trump is being charged with crimes
Trump is being charged by the US and state governments with violation of US and state laws
That's a far different scenario than an international court attempting to charge and arrest a US president (current or former
Bush lied to congress and the American people. I don't believe there were no crimes committed by doing that.
But did Bush knowingly lie to a degree provable in court?
He would have had to have known it was a lie and for that to be proven in court. With trump, his crimes were so egregious there were devout party line adherents backing out and explicitly stating just how illegal what they were doing is. Trump had been told multiple times, in multiple ways that what he was doing was illegal and he went for it anyways.
Another point to add. It is not illegal for anyone to lie, so unless he was testifying under oath, Bush could lie as much as he wanted without legal repercussions.
Not quite. The constitution has a cutout for official duties of the office. The president must faithfully carry out the duties of the office. So knowingly lying can fail that test.
If you want someone to blame for the US invasion of Iraq, blame Italy, their Intelligence apparatus, and Nicolò Pollari in particular. He submitted the “Iraq is buying Yellowcake” to the CIA twice, who figured out it was a forgery before setting a private meeting with the vice president who did not know the CIA had already ruled it out.
The Constitution lists one crime: treason. He didn't do that. Not faithfully carrying out the duties of the office is absolutely grounds for impeachment, but it's not a crime.
That’s not true. Even the specific rules laid out in the constitution have limits. You have the right to freedom of speech, and yet it is silent about the type of speech protected. We did not write down that the president is allowed to lie about winning the election in the constitution, but we did write down the president must carry out the duties of the office faithfully, and we gave Congress the power to create laws, which all citizens are bound. The president is a citizen, not a king, and I have to say this again as it was very important to the authors of the constitution: The president is not a king. He doesn’t have the divine right. Trump’s just another citizen who was temporarily given the power of the executive. You could charge him with a crime and put his ass in prison while he was a president without impeaching him. Executive privilege is court tested, but it only applies to confidentiality, and going in front of the public and lying is, by definition, not confidential.
That’s not true.
Source? This says it also mentions piracy and counterfeiting, but it's just listing it as one of the enumerated powers.
and we gave Congress the power to create laws, which all citizens are bound.
Exactly. Congress has to make things a crime. The fact that the Constitution says that the president has to faithfully carry out their duties doesn't make not doing that a crime.
If you're saying that Congress did pass such a law, can you tell me which one?
I think you folks are talking past each other. The constitution requires faithful fulfillment of the duties of office, so because of that requirement, presidents swear oaths of duty. Lying under oath is a crime (not delineated in the constitution) and a violation of the faithful fulfillment of duties, which means that he is violating the terms of presidency set out in the constitution (also not a crime, but impeachable).
It's not illegal to not do that. The legal framework to deal with that is impeachment and trial by Congress.
Not quite. Trump is currently being charged in federal court for his part in lying to overturn the election. They used “knowingly false” 32 times in the indictment for a reason. His defense is not that the president is allowed to lie, but rather that he truthfully believed he was telling the truth, so I’m not sure where you assertion is coming from: It is illegal to lie in furtherance of breaking the law, even for the POTUS.
Trump is not being put on trial for lying per se. The lying however is part of the furtherance of a criminal conspiracy, which is illegal. So with regards to Bush, he can't be charged with lying to the American people. It can however be used as evidence against him if it was part of furthering a criminal conspiracy.
To the best of my knowledge, we have never put a president on trial for the faithfulness clause (and no, impeachment is not an actual criminal/constitutional trial, no matter how much we treat it as such)
It's not illegal to lie to the American people. And it's practically a requirement for office.
Trump didn't even try and hide his crimes. He thinks being rich means he can do whatever he wants.
Well he's been at it since the 80s and so far it's been the only thing he's ever been mostly right about for an extended period..
So it's better when they try to hide it?
Trump is being charged with crimes
Not for dropping bombs or ordering drone strikes in a different country.
As criminals should.