[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves]
That’s an awfully fucking depressing thought, that justice is for other suckers. It’s equivalent to “It’s not torture if we do it”.
[/QUOTE]
Often the real world and reality can be that way, sure.
Um…sure. If you are asking me, however, to display spurious charges against Cheney there is the link in the OP and then there was your own link. Those aren’t real hard changes but, instead, come from off the wall groups with axes to grind. Show me charges from a major COUNTRY and I’ll take note. But you can’t, can you? Instead, you show me charges from The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, an organization founded in 2007 for lawyers who pretty obviously have axes to grind and who equally obviously don’t even expect to be taken seriously on those charges, instead are doing it to make hay while they grind those axes.
Feel free to file charges against him in a US public court if you feel there is sufficient evidence to get a conviction. There are more than one liberal, left leaning lawyer in the US with an axe to grind against Cheney, and as I’ve already said I would have zero problem with him being charged in the US with crimes he might have committed. I’m totally good with it and honestly I’d be cheering for you to win the day. I wouldn’t, however, be holding my breath.
So, what you are saying is that drone strikes against ‘civilians’ in foreign countries are completely and totally legal? Not being a lawyer OR an expert on the finer points of International Law™ I really have no idea…just that I’ve seen threads on this subject and certainly there was a side saying it was ‘illegal’. I’ve also read articles where the term ‘illegal’ was used wrt Obama’s drone strikes, and not all of them were by loopy Republicans with axes to grind (though many were, granted).
If you really believe this would be the actual, real world result all I can say is we don’t see eye to eye on this either.
Oh, so you can point to other countries turning over their former (or current) leadership for war crimes trial due to agitation by fringe groups? Do you have a cite for any, because I have to admit I haven’t seen it.
Google ‘US drone strikes illegal by international law’ and you get a bunch of links as well. Should Obama et al be worried about going before the ICC next? Just for drill I looked it up as I was curious about it from Elvis retort, and this was the first link:
There were close to a million hits on that alone. Only 600k+ for your search, however.
Would it be acceptable to the world, and to Americans as a whole, if the USA agreed to stipulate that Dick Cheney was a lying douchebag of epic proportions, a literal talking-out-of-the-side-of-his-mouth bastard, and one of the worst. Presidents. Ever?
(I’m no good at debating, can this be moved to the Pit soon?)
If the US has violated international law under his/their watch, I would certainly hope so.
Here’s an idea, let’s stop violating international law and we won’t have to worry about our leaders going to trial. Other countries seem to have managed okay under the same constraints.
But we don’t have to worry about our leaders going to trial even when we DO violate international law. That is reality. And since we keep hearing that reality has a left wing bias, it should be pretty easy for the folks on the left to understand that.
Have they? Does anyone actually pay that much attention to International Law when their own perceived best interests are involved?? Oh sure, when it’s a small mostly powerless country then everyone is ready to make sure THOSE guys behave, but a major power (and even here, nothing is going to be done to those small countries to ACTUALLY turn over their leaders or whatever for trial…not unless said country is conquered or something along those lines)?? The US is under a microscope on this, but any country that actually does anything outside of their borders (and many simply within their borders) violates International Law when they feel the need (and can actually do whatever it is they are thinking they need to do). Many countries that are pretty much powerless on an international basis are perfectly good with abiding by it, to be sure.
To me, International Law™ is more like the pirate code…sort of guidelines. But since it’s the nations themselves who police it, it’s sort of like putting the criminals in charge of the police. Sure, those criminals are going to be all for rules when they are in their best interest…but when they think they need to do something they are not going to police themselves, and if no one else is going to do it either, well, what good are the ‘laws’ really?
Of more actual concern to me would be that if Cheney et al violated US law then why hasn’t or isn’t he and they being prosecuted for it? I mean, that’s a REAL, serious issue IMHO that dwarfs the rather nebulous and basically ignored International Law thingy. Assuming he has in fact violated US law and could be prosecuted then he SHOULD be, and politics be damned.
Cheney is a loathsome leader by American standards. But by international standards he’s nothing special. Lots of heads of state have had their enemies killed or tortured or arbitrarily thrown into prison. Saying that Cheney should be prosecuted for war crimes is creating a special standard for Americans.
If they don’t commit war crimes, they have nothing to worry about. If we let them commit war crimes without holding them accountable, even providing them excuses (it’s just “enhanced interrogation techniques”, not torture, because torture is something bad that only bad people do, and we’re good people, therefore it isn’t torture when *we *do it) then we have a whole fucking lot to worry about, and we should.
The thread is about what *should *happen. Often, even usually, doing the right thing is harder than doing the expedient thing and trying to rationalize it afterward. One other consequence of telling morality to fuck off, btw, is that you no longer get to claim moral leadership in the world anymore, yanno. But that’s more the fault of the large number of us who try to avoid dealing with the problem.
:rolleyes:
The “real world” considerations you fall back on do not make the facts, or doing the right thing about them, “spurious”. The legitimacy of a charge is *not *based on who makes it, as you seem not to know.
You know better than that how the system works here, don’t you?
Repetition of that observation does not make it any truer or any more valid and certainly not any more convincing. If you have a case to make, or even a legitimate belief, that Cheney did not order torture, then say so. Otherwise drop the “spurious” bullshit, okay?
No, what YOU are saying is that they AREN’T. Your topic, your burden. A topic which, it seems, you began to research only after making the charge. The “both sides do it” approach very often trips and falls into that pit, one which is easily avoided.
It’s not impossible that Obama briefly thought about trying to indict Cheney or Bush or someone, but there is absolutely no change he would ever act on it. That would set a rather unfortunate precedent if they ever decided Obama needed to be tried for something he did as president (like, say, ordering drone strikes based on often-flimsy evidence). And you can be damn sure that thought has crossed his mind.
The relevant point is that the drone strikes could lead to exactly the same debate, but with Obama as the bad guy. And they have. Which is why nobody in the US government has even the slightest interest in opening that can of worms.
Shouldn’t you be prosecuting the worst people first? Are the people calling for Cheney’s trial also calling for Putin’s? Or Ali Khamenei’s or Salman al Saud’s?
Sure man, whatever you say.