h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"Public-health experts from the USA and Iraq estimate that around 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the March 2003 invasion-the majority being violent deaths among women and children relating to military activity. Results of the research, done among clusters of Iraqi households last month, is published online by THE LANCET at 0001 H (London time) Friday 29 October 2004."

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/507991/



Do you agree that by voting for Bush people are voting for a mass-murderer, a war-criminal, a new Saddam for the Iraqi people?


azahar

Yes.

I was going to say: "No. Bush does not bear the same kind of responsibility that Saddam does, or Hitler did, and to suggest he does is perhaps to come over as excessively dramatic."

However, I stopped typing at that point and tried to construct an argument to support what was a gut reaction.

I thought "He's not responsible because he's too stupid."

I thought "He's not responsible because he's not really in power, any more than Zaphod Beeblebrox was when *he* was president" (has Douglas Adams written anything else so prescient?)

I thought "He's not responsible, because he is not in direct, day to day command of the military operations."

I thought "He's not responsible because it's a combat situation, and in a legally prosecuted war, civilian casualties are an unfortunate but inevitable consequence."

None of these arguments help. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm struggling to see how someone could defend Bush against a charge of crimes against humanity. He has two things preventing him from being charged: first, he's head of state, and they apparently get immunity from prosecution (see Pinochet), and second, he's American, and international law apparently doesn't apply to them.

I'm quite looking forward to Saddam's trial. I wouldn't fancy being his defence team, because they're going to be pretty unpopular people, I'd guess. I say this because they have a pretty good defence that even I, a non-lawyer, can already see - namely that their client is the legally recognised head of state of Iraq, and therefore immune from prosecution. He is being held illegally by an invading power who took over without UN mandate. In law - Iraqi law and international law - he's still President. The situation is no different than if China invaded Australia and locked up John Howard. He'd still be PM, just as Saddam is still president. And this is not like the idle posturing of... oh, what's his name, Yugoslav, on trial in the Hague? He's lost it, obviously, but Saddam has a pretty good case. He wasn't a threat, he had no WMDs, so why is he in a cell?

Funny old world.

H.

Slobodan Milosovic!

H.

*wondering how long the subject line will remain*

What is to stop heads of state from being prosecuted?

.

Diplomatic immunity. The principle was tested a couple of years ago when Augusto Pinochet, former military dictator of Chile, mass murderer, torturer and close personal friend of Margaret Thatcher was in England for some medical treatment and was arrested. Spain wanted to try him on charges of torturing some Spanish citizens in Chile. In a fine display of European cooperation, the English authorities housed him in a home counties mansion while they refused the Spanish efforts to get him extradited, and eventually returned him to Chile, on the apparent justification that as a former head of state he could not be prosecuted for actions taken in his capacity as head of state.

This is one of those things that heads of state tend to get enacted into law, because they see the wisdom of something that may, one day, come to their own aid.

H.

"Our results need further verification"

damn right.

alec.

I don't know. The polling methods and sample size seemed about what would be termed "accurate within +/- 3% 19 times out of 20" if it were about "if there were an election tomorrow and Ralph Nader weren't in the running, who would you vote for?"

+/- 3% of 100,000 is still a honk of a lot of dead Iraqis 19 times out of 20.

"Do you agree that by voting for Bush people are voting for a mass-murderer, a war-criminal, a new Saddam for the Iraqi people?"

New Saddam--in the long run, I don't think it makes a difference--I don't think either candidate can keep Iraq from going down that path at this point.

War-criminal--yes.

Mass-murderer--questionable--I think that would imply intentionally killing civilians; I'm not convinced he actually intends to as opposed to doing it as a side effect of fighting a war that doesn't make much sence.

US rules of engagement and methods of fighting wars lead to unnecessarily large numbers of civilian casualties. That and the complete lack of planning with regards to keeping the infrastructure up and running when they took power…
Is Bush a mass murderer? No.
Is he as "commander in chief" responsible for the deaths? Yes.

War criminal, Stealth? In your opinion?


az

"Is Bush a mass murderer? No.
Is he as "commander in chief" responsible for the deaths? Yes."

So, what is it we've charged Milosovic with?

Does stupidity and bad planning downgrade mass-murder to mass-manslaughter?

Personally, I think some of these charges certainly fit Bush:

http://www.balkanpeace.org/hed/archive/nov01/hed4390.shtml

"Does stupidity and bad planning downgrade mass-murder to mass-manslaughter?"

I'd say yeah--mass-murder implies intent to kill a lot of civillians, which is evil, as opposed to merely being too stupid to avoid it, which is criminal but not as evil. Bush is dangerous to world peace and responsible for a lot of deaths in Iraq; that does not make him evil in the sence of mass-murder.

Yep, that's pretty much what I'm saying, he didn't as far we know give orders with the direct intention of killing civilians. Or take captured Iraqis of for swift execution.
What the US/Bush did do was authorise the use of missiles and napalm in civilians areas on the flimsiest of justification. And US troops are trained to shoot first and analyse the situation later or not at all.

Their is certainly enough evidence out there to make the claim that the US forces are guilty of war crimes and as such Bush as their commander for failing to do anything to prevent them.