Bush's a criminal!!

[S4ur0n27]

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/get ... 0314a5.htm

A citizens' tribunal Saturday in Tokyo found U.S. President George W. Bush guilty of war crimes for attacking civilians with indiscriminate weapons and other arms during the U.S.-led antiterrorism operations in Afghanistan in 2001.

I know it's been pointed at in #fallout, but still, DISCUSS!

[Radscorpin]

...and he's into beastiality as well

[Guest]

BUSH IS TRIGGER-HAPPY?

I'll try to contain my shock at this horrifying revelation.

[Menno]

The tribunal also issued recommendations for banning depleted uranium shells

Been through this before...

and other weapons that could indiscriminately harm people

That basically means every single projectile weapon in existence. Wonder why it doesn't work the other way around though. No one blames Taliban/Pakistani fighters when they spray rounds hitting bystanders with their horrible aim. I guess they have special "only-hit-Americans" bullets.

In reference to bombs, US forces used most of the truly heavy stuff in desolate areas where there are very few civilians in the area, if any at all.

compensating the victims in Afghanistan

That's rich. Yes, let's compensate them entirely. We're sorry for improving your farming infrastructure [Afghanistan was under an extremely brutal famine under the Taliban, and they're just starting to come out of it now]; we're sorry to the Afghani women, who are now just starting to have a few shreds of basic human rights [though there's still a very long way to go in that field]; we're sorry for putting the brakes on the years of domestic in-fighting that was a recurring theme in Afghanistan's history [though now it's verbal, instead of physical], so yeah, looks like you Afghani mothers won't have to see your teenage sons die in pointless clan territory wars, so we apologize for that too. We're also sorry for bringing warlords, who were at each other's throats for years, together to try and hammer out a working government. Oh, and we're sorry about your daughter's having to undergo systematic rapes from time to time.

Basically we're sorry for everything; we're sorry we didn't lose to the Taliban. Let's just re-instate everything as it was before, and we'll pay you off and everyone will be happy again.

On a serious note, those Afghani civilians who were wounded directly by US personnel did receive medical treatment however.

and reforming the United Nations in light of its failure to stop the U.S.-led operation there.

I'm all for reforming the United Nations; though I seem to think these guys are missing the point of the reforms. Its' not meant to "stop" wars; its meant to prevent them before reaching that point. Without enforcement, all regulations and accords are meaningless. It's basically the League of Nations all over again.

Instead of studying what's going on in Afghanistan and making ridiculous charges, I think this tribunal should look west as to what's going on in North Korea. They'll quickly discover that you don't need to use bombs to cause destruction.

[Max-Violence]

The tribunal also issued recommendations for banning depleted uranium shells

Been through this before...

and other weapons that could indiscriminately harm people

That basically means every single projectile weapon in existence. Wonder why it doesn't work the other way around though. No one blames Taliban/Pakistani fighters when they spray rounds hitting bystanders with their horrible aim. I guess they have special "only-hit-Americans" bullets.

In reference to bombs, US forces used most of the truly heavy stuff in desolate areas where there are very few civilians in the area, if any at all.

compensating the victims in Afghanistan

That's rich. Yes, let's compensate them entirely. We're sorry for improving your farming infrastructure [Afghanistan was under an extremely brutal famine under the Taliban, and they're just starting to come out of it now]; we're sorry to the Afghani women, who are now just starting to have a few shreds of basic human rights [though there's still a very long way to go in that field]; we're sorry for putting the brakes on the years of domestic in-fighting that was a recurring theme in Afghanistan's history [though now it's verbal, instead of physical], so yeah, looks like you Afghani mothers won't have to see your teenage sons die in pointless clan territory wars, so we apologize for that too. We're also sorry for bringing warlords, who were at each other's throats for years, together to try and hammer out a working government. Oh, and we're sorry about your daughter's having to undergo systematic rapes from time to time.

Basically we're sorry for everything; we're sorry we didn't lose to the Taliban. Let's just re-instate everything as it was before, and we'll pay you off and everyone will be happy again.

On a serious note, those Afghani civilians who were wounded directly by US personnel did receive medical treatment however.

and reforming the United Nations in light of its failure to stop the U.S.-led operation there.

I'm all for reforming the United Nations; though I seem to think these guys are missing the point of the reforms. Its' not meant to "stop" wars; its meant to prevent them before reaching that point. Without enforcement, all regulations and accords are meaningless. It's basically the League of Nations all over again.

Instead of studying what's going on in Afghanistan and making ridiculous charges, I think this tribunal should look west as to what's going on in North Korea. They'll quickly discover that you don't need to use bombs to cause destruction.

Menno 4 President!

[Kashluk]

Well, as a side notice, here is a (serious, no humor) flash-animation on the subject:
War Crimes

To Menno>

You speak of how United Nations should work in order to *prevent* the conflicts from reaching the point when they become wars, correct? Well the war in Afghanistan was the reason of the Taleban rule, which United States of America installed in the first place...

So all misery before and after the war in Afghanistan was actually caused by your government. I see no reason why to blame Bush jr. for the crimes of the earlier presidents, but nevertheless, all that shit that took place in Afghanistan had been made possible by the US.

---- off-topiccing ----

While we're talking about Bush, I must add that I find the "war president" attitude quite scary: "When we're talking about war, we're actually talking about peace." This stuff I found doesn't help either.

Bush administration issued 15.5 million to nuclear weapon development in year 2003. As a result new NREP -"bunker buster" weaponry was created. (To show the proportions, three NREPs equal the power of the bombs of Nagasaki & Hiroshima.) This is the first time a new class of nuclear weaponry has been introduced in the world since the Cold War. Only one other nation has similar plans on growing their nuclear capacity: North Korea.

Not to mention the The Texas Republican Party Platform for 2000.... Scary stuff, made me almost shit my pants.

[airsoft guy]

You know those things on the platform are usually only supported by hardliners, you would be hard pressed to find someone who supports all of those measures, and the rest of the Republican Party's stuff. I can see where you could shit yourself over making the Bible manditory in school, or treating gays like child molestors, but I don't see what you find objectionable about abolishing the income tax.

"Oh dick, they all get to keep their money, what will they do with it all? Perhaps they will buy something, like a car or an evil gun for which to mow down orphans and Jews, maybe they will invest it so they can buy more evil guns to mow down gays and swell guy and even gay swell guy, or what would happen if they were to invest it in a charity of their choice, helping those that they think need the most help instead of having the omnipotent Federal government choose where it goes! Oh fuck me in the ass, they might give it to their church! No, we can't let that happen, best to have a giant souless entity that hovers over us all making sure we are all good little robots take our money and give it to who they think deserves it, like the U.N. or crackheads or even reparations for slavery! No I got a better, pay raises, that's right, since the government has been doing such a bang-up job managing our money they deserve a raise. Oop, can't pay for a raise and all these government services, lets hike the tax rate to say... 5% higher? Splendid."

I also like how the left bitches about the right wanting to take over the world, I don't know how you do that when there is no income tax. Sure there are plenty of other ways to get money, but not quite as much as an income tax set at about 40%, where it is now.

www.lp.org/issues These are my issues, you might not like them because they love their guns and money, but they think the Republicans at large are idiots but they also think the Democrats are fucksticks.

[Menno]

Well, as a side notice, here is a (serious, no humor) flash-animation on the subject:
War Crimes

To Menno>

You speak of how United Nations should work in order to *prevent* the conflicts from reaching the point when they become wars, correct? Well the war in Afghanistan was the reason of the Taleban rule, which United States of America installed in the first place...

So all misery before and after the war in Afghanistan was actually caused by your government. I see no reason why to blame Bush jr. for the crimes of the earlier presidents, but nevertheless, all that shit that took place in Afghanistan had been made possible by the US.

No Kashluk, because it's the people themselves who cause their own misfortune. The route the Taliban had taken, and its future acceptance of terrorism was through their own doing. Our mistakes [and no one is doubting they were horrendous mistakes] do not excuse the actions of the ones who actually perpetuated these acts.

Well in that case a big FUCK YOU goes out to Europeans for causing WWI and WWII and the millions of deaths associated with that; FUCK YOU to the American Alfred Mahan for writing his works on naval power, influencing Kaiser Wilhelm and laying the groundworks for WWI; FUCK YOU to Wilhelm, for waging war which lead to Adolf Hitler serving in his army, becoming temporarily blinded in a gas attack, and avowing to take a different course in life; the ethnic cleansing of Jews and Polish; FUCK YOU to Britain and France for the gutting of Chekoslovakia to Nazi Germany to appease them; all the borders imposed in Europe and all the ethnic conflicts that occur today associated with such; Europe's colonial expansions into Africa and its apartheid in South Africa. FUCK YOU to Europe of the Middle Ages, where your numerous Crusades have fueled hatred and increased the xenophobia of the west in muslim's eyes. FUCK YOU to Spain, in which your Conquistadors eliminated entire populations of ancient South American civilizations. FUCK YOU to the Germans for allowing Lenin back into Russia and leading to the creation of the Soviet Union. FUCK YOU to the Soviet Union for Communism and your attempts to spread it, and invading Afghanistan and getting the US involved. FUCK YOU to the UK for colonizing territory in North America, eventually leading to the formation of the United States. FUCK YOU to Australia for assisting the United States in the Pacific during WWII; if they had not and we had lost, the atomic bomb wouldn't have been dropped on Japan, etc.

Now, am I being serious with the above absurd comments? Of course not. They were different times, with a different generation of men, performing deeds that they believed were the right course at that time; sons don't pay for the sins of the fathers. We have the advantage of retrospect, in which they did not. How could the Soviets have known that the invasion of Afghanistan would quickly hasten the Soviet Union's demise? Conversely, how could the United States have known getting involved in Afghanistan against their Soviet opponent would later return to bite them in the ass by leaving and allowing the Taliban to set its roots? The counter-factual game is an difficult one to play, because we do not know for certain the outcome of most events even if we would have done differently; in some cases different men seize different opportunities and you have the same result.

Blaming the United States is basically as absurd as me blaming Europe for all of the world's problems to date and all the deaths associated with those events. We learn from history; not live from it Kashluk.

On a more serious note, I noticed you put a link to more "war crimes"-esque photos. I don't know if all of those were caused by the United States [because believe me through experience, most Muslims would rather blame a foreigner than one of their own], but for the purpose of this discussion lets say every single one of those injuries to those innocent civilians were caused by the United States; in fact, lets go as far as to flat-out admit that the United States directly caused those civilians injuries/deaths, no if's, and's, or but's.

Answer me this Kashluk. Where are the flash images of starving children by the hundreds [and thousands, if you count the country as a whole] in which I encountered when I first entered Afghanistan, who ran to our trucks to plea for rations like children run to an ice-cream truck? Where are the flash images of the young girls who self-mutilated themselves attemping abortions after enduring rapes from pervert psychopaths 2X-3X their age? Where are the flash images of when a half-a-dozen Afghani civilians and children were mortally-wounded when Pakistani "freedom fighters" from across the border sprayed their bullets without care of who's else gets hit, because after all they're all dying for Allah anyway. Where are the fucking flash images of a people who's infrastructure is centuries behind modern times; who's government imposed insane regulations upon them and was responsible through forcing upon them the utilization of pre-medieval farming techniques that lead to the massive famine that engulfed the country, that they're only now starting to pull out of?

Those are the images, if they existed on film, in which you'll hopefully never see again in photos. Because those are the images I experienced when I went to Afghanistan and whose images I will never forget. The images your link depicts occur but once [hopefully] to Afghanistan; most of the images I have seen would have occurred over and over again if the Unites States and its allies had not invaded. Most, if not all, of the images you have shown have already come to pass and were during the initial opening segments of the war. If I whipped out a dossier showing you all the civilian deaths that occurred on D-Day alone [over 14,000+], would you have said the liberation of France was not worth it? Those who died may have thought it wasn't, but certainly the ones who survived believed it was worth the sacrifice.

Afghanistan has suffered far fewer civilian casualties then that figure, and most importantly, now they have hope, something they lacked before. Do you know what it's like seeing two people, who were for years at each other's throats [this is including before US-Soviet involvement], finally coming together and making an agreement? Do you know what it's like to look into a child's eyes and see a child who no longer needs to run around and find scraps for food? The United States and its allies have given the Afghanis hope, and more importantly, a chance of a lifetime. Unless the world abandons them, either they seize this opportunity or fall back onto old habits. They now have the opportunity to choose their own destiny. What they do from here on out is going to be their own choice, all we can do is help them set the table. Instead of everyone denouncing them and the US as failures and war criminals because of shit they eat up in the media, perhaps their efforts would be better served in actually helping Afghanistan rebuild it's infrastructure with global support instead of just a few nations?

America is not doing this out of the kindess of it's little-itty-biddy-heart. It just so happens that America's best interests in the region coincide with Afghanistan's overall best interests. About this "Bush for War-Crimes" bullshit, there are plenty of other people who do far more to blatantly violate crimes against humanity [Kim Jong II] than Bush could ever do in his wildest wet dreams; except politics always come into play and instead we have Bush/Blair/Sharon being indicted as war criminals while we give the truely heinous people free passes.

If you wish to equate Bush being guilty of war crimes, then I got news for everyone in here. YOU, ME, ALL OF US are fucking guilty of crimes against humanity, for looking the other way when the Taliban was doing all of this shit while running Afghanistan, as well as all the shit that's going on in North Korea.

I don't love Bush, and you'll never see me with a T-shirt that states "I [heart] Bush", though honestly he's 50X better than that fucking flip-flopping Kerry [who the media really wants me to vote for, which is scary in itself]. Heck, I could give you an entire laundry list of problems I have with President Bush and America in general.

America is not perfect, and it never will be. We are no different than most of the civilized Western world. We will continue to make mistakes, and continue to re-validate the mistakes from past lessons learned. However, I, and hopefully my nation, will not live in history and be afraid to take action because of the past. Unlike the textbooks of history we read, we can influence the outcome because its OUR PEOPLE during OUR TIME. I wish I could wave a magic wand to make everything alright, or talk out our problems with every ruthless regime out there. We don't have infinite resources, but we can at least try to do the best we can.

Monkeys parade around with their canned, recycled slogans protesting wars, shouting ridiculous conspiracy theories, plastering photographs of injured children or wounded soldiers to garner sympathy against the conflict, chanting the same old arguements of imperialism and such. I've seen this before and after my time in Afghanistan, and I will undoubtedly hear and see the same recycled filth all over again. When I arrived back at base, convienently at a time protestors were outside voicing their [disgusting] opinions of the United States, soldiers, and the war, I glanced and gave them a good look, and thanked God the majority of the people didn't listen to them when we first embarked. To me, whenever I see these protestors spouting the usual, I think of all the people in Afghanistan who's lives would have been worse off if we had not invaded.

I am not a warmonger; I have seen warfare [though not on the scale of something such as WWII], I have seen innocents wounded as well as guys in my own company, and it's never pretty or an easy thing to deal with. I don't advocate war for the sake of war. But when diplomacy fails, I would rather act then be dicked around again and again. If this makes me a "war-mongering bafoon", "a war-criminal", "a soldier-for-oil", so be it; while the monkeys were bitching and whining and getting nowhere fast, thousands of guys like me were over there trying to do the right thing. If this is what my "enlightened" betters think of me, then I am proud to be a simplistic "barbarian" and will wear that badge with honor, knowing that in the end I at least tried to do good through the sweat off my back and my own two hands, instead of with just nice-sounding rhetorical words.

[Mismatch]

I heard on the news here that Bush had some fake interview made where actors lied and said untrue things (I dunno what though) about some things (I think it had something to do with the health reform or summit) as part of his election propaganda.

Is this true?
And, if so, is it even legal?

[Kashluk]

Menno>

Wow. That was most enlightening. Seriously, my respect towards you went up thundering.

Thank you. That was a one god damn good post. I'm left speecheless for most parts, because I have no arguments against yours. And I even feel a bit itchy inside. Maybe my anti-Amerikkkan soul just pulverised?

Your reply does not, of course, remove the facts that United States lied about the weapons of mass destruction to rally other nations to the war on Iraq and that the whole point of the war has been their own national interest from the beginning. There are dozens of dictatorships around the world still up & well, but they haven't been of interest for anyone, because they hold little or none economical value OR they're more profitable to the international community under iron-fisted rule. I am not blaming only US for ignoring these places, many major powers and even the UN could've taken real measures in order to overthrow these oppressors (but of course, US is pretty much the only one with the military potential to commence such operations alone).

But as said, I must admit that you have tons of good points there. And I guess we've seen in the past, that complete isolationism of USA is as bad choice as her being the world police. You sound like a very respectable man and especially the last and the third last paragraphs tell me, this is not an idiot I'm chatting with, far from it in fact. You put your words in adequate form and rationalize your arguments, which seems to be so rare on these forums these days.

Some stuff still makes me want to discuss more:

- you're disliking of protestors and
- why not Kerry (for president)?

Is it because they both have something to do with Democra -cy/-tics? But seriously, though.... Could you explain in a bit more detail?



airsoft guy>

I got to disagree with you on the income tax-part. The fact is, that people are greedy and shelfish, that's why communism doesn't work. Well, if you want everyone to live equally happy life and have the same minimal commodities, you need to pay taxes. If taxes became "volunteerly", in way of giving money to charity if you wanted to, chances were about an eighth of unemployment compensations etc. could be paid.

No single person can think of the big picture alone. That's why governments and taxes exist - to share the wealth (as) efficiently (as possible).

I hate to bring my country in this conversation again, but the hell - it's a prime example of high taxation. Our income tax is somewhere about 60 per cent I think and we have extra heavy taxes on "luxury" items, such as tobacco, alcohol and gasoline because they are considered to cause harm to the nation's people, it's economy or it's enviroment. Anyhow, we're quite a stable society, where everyone has the same basic level of education, health care and social welfare. Education is free, doctors and dentists are free 'till you're 18 and all medical operations after that are quite cheap as well, because the government covers approx. something like 70 - 80 % of the expenses.

Of course, this way everything outside the range of "necessities" for sale in the shops is way more expensive than in low income tax countries. It also sets up a huge strain on the society, so we can not afford to build nuclear missiles or start up jogging shoe factories in SE-Asia, nor do we have any huge enterprises on our soil, but I prefer my country this way.

[S4ur0n27]

*snip*

You state your opinion in a way I can neither agree or disagree.

Except about Sharon.

I totally agree with Kashluk, our province is going the same way as your country, and it's fine like it is.

[Mandalorian FaLLouT GoD]

why would anyone be stupid enough to start this thread again.

bush is a retard who has everything dictated to him like a government patsy. he just sits their and signs shit and looks like the retard he is.

his own little personal war was both good and bad for everyone. showing that the UN is totally useless in its only purpose is enough to make the UN dissolve and everyone can go back to pointlessly fighting and making alliances.

on the other hand, the war took out 2 countries that the US itself instilled groups into power. so it was their responsibility to take care of them. if the US would just stay the fuck out of other countries business then they wouldn't have these problems with instituting governments and watching them go totally fucking wrong.

[S4ur0n27]

I was more asking if this (the tribunal convincing Bush) had any influence in the situation or anything?

Thanks for your input though, Mandalorian

[Jawz II]

hey menno whats up with yer PM button?

i cant see it

[Radscorpin]

Fucking Menno for King of America.....You made some great points!

[Wolfman Walt]

As all the popular kids say, *Snip*

Yea, its kinda true, it was about Medicare though, not any war effort. I mostly blame the stupid assed news organizations for airing them as actual news stories instead of infomercials.