Vincent Bugliosi gets the Chomsky treatment

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TheStatutoryApe said:
I think that Bugliosi wants to try to call it murder for a sensationalist effect. Remember that he is a lawyer and apparently a good one. ...

On the topic of the press ignoring the book it might be good to note that Bugliosi's book came out only about a week before McClellen's "What Happened", and McClellen's publisher had leaked material from the book early to get the press talking about it...

... Unfortunately for Bugliosi an insider expose will almost always trump anything more creative and it seems his book was more or less eclipsed in the media.

He may have been a District Attorney, but looking at his thin hypotheses I can't say he's much of a Constitutional lawyer.

If Bush were a defendant in District Court - subject to regular laws like everyone else - the prospects against might be different. But he is a sitting President at all times relevant to whatever fraud may have been committed by him and his henchmen (Rove, Cheney, McClellan ... his administration) or whatever deaths may have occurred as a result of whatever scheming without regard for those that would die.

If the Country feels he was not justified in bringing the action against Iraq, that he has misrepresented, that he sent soldiers to senseless deaths - their remedy is to remove him from office, not try him for murder.

If there was the threat that the President, as Commander in Chief, would be personally liable for the deaths of any under his command that - rightly or wrongly - might put an overly burdensome consideration on the country's military options present or future at a time of instant communication and threat when rapid response is at a premium.

You may argue whether it would be good or not to burden all Presidents in this way all you want, but that would seem to require modification to the Constitution first, as the President is currently shielded from such liability.

As things now stand we should all rejoice that Bush and Cheney and Rove will be removed from the Halls of Power on January 20, 2009. Let the countdown continue and the parties be planned I say.
 
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If Bush were a defendant in District Court - subject to regular laws like everyone else - the prospects against might be different. But he is a sitting President at all times relevant to whatever fraud may have been committed by him and his henchmen (Rove, Cheney, McClellan ... his administration) or whatever deaths may have occurred as a result of whatever scheming without regard for those that would die.

Bush is subject to regular laws like everyone else, what part of the murder statutes say they don't apply to presidents, or instead, what part of the constitution says that the president is not liable for murder?

It seems that you think the president is always immune from prosecution for his actions in office, but I don't see any reason for this, and in fact it is illogical.

For example, suppose for the sake of argument that Bush intentionally lied to take the country to war. Instead of over 4,000 Americans dead, suppose that there was a draft and we had over 4,000,000 Americans dead. Do you still think that he should be immune to criminal prosecution, if these were his actions?

If the Country feels he was not justified in bringing the action against Iraq, that he has misrepresented, that he sent soldiers to senseless deaths - their remedy is to remove him from office, not try him for murder.

No, article 1 section 3 specifically says that both of these remedies are availble. What would be the point of article 1 section 3 if the president was always to be immune from criminal prosecution?

If there was the threat that the President, as Commander in Chief, would be personally liable for the deaths of any under his command that - rightly or wrongly - might put an overly burdensome consideration on the country's military options present or future at a time of instant communication and threat when rapid response is at a premium.

That is a slippery slope fallacy. Assuming that Bush intentionally lied to take the country to war, any other president who is honestly acting on the best available intelligence will not be in a similar situation. I think we can all agree that in the future, the executive branch should take pains to document its evidence and reasoning for going to war, so that the president can use this documentation as evidence in his own defense. Prosecuting Bush for murder would only further motivate future presidents to honestly document the reasons they went to war.

At this point, let me make it clear that if George Bush had not lied to take the country to war for his own political and personal benefit, there would be no case against him. To show that he is guilty of murder requires to show that he had reckless disregard for the lives of troops, and I hope we all agree that anyone who lies to start a war does indeed have reckless disregard for the lives of the troops. Therefore, if we can prove in court that Bush lied to start this war, we can show that he is a murderer. There is already ample evidence that he lied, and the power of subpoena would likely yield a lot more evidence.

You may argue whether it would be good or not to burden all Presidents in this way all you want, but that would seem to require modification to the Constitution first, as the President is currently shielded from such liability.

By the pardon power? Or something else?

As things now stand we should all rejoice that Bush and Cheney and Rove will be removed from the Halls of Power on January 20, 2009. Let the countdown continue and the parties be planned I say.

Why should we let them get away with this, if they indeed committed the crimes?

Astronuc said:
That would be where Bush (Cheney and Rumsfeld) sent troops into the field without necessary armour (body armour and un-armoured Humvees). Of course, Rumsfeld mentioned, 'you go to war with the army you have.' It wasn't until about mid 2005 into 2006 that the troops got appropriate armour.

Then there was the actions of the CPA in arbitrarily dismissing the Baath party members and the Iraqi military. The insurgency began within about 2 days of the dismissal of the military, even after they sought to work with the US forces.

So much of what has happened could have been avoided.

Bush's actions show a callous if not reckless disregard for the lives of the US troops and Iraqi people.

Good points, and Bugliosi raises these as supporting evidence.
 
Crosson said:
It seems that you think the president is always immune from prosecution for his actions in office, but I don't see any reason for this, and in fact it is illogical.

... No, article 1 section 3 specifically says that both of these remedies are availble. What would be the point of article 1 section 3 if the president was always to be immune from criminal prosecution?

The problem you face in forwarding Bugliosi's improbable application of the law, is the practical matter that Bush hasn't even so much as been impeached. Until that gating event, all the opinion in the world about Bush being a fraud and leading the country to unnecessary war and cynically causing the deaths of Americans in pursuit of some minority agenda is wholly moot.

Your reliance on Section 3 unfortunately overlooks the President's option of Pardoning himself. Section 3 liability can indeed fall to others that may be impeached, as called out in the following Section 4. But Article 2 Section 2 remains unchallenged as regards the President's absolute prerogative of pardon, which includes self-pardon for such criminal matters as Bugliosi would want to concoct.
 
LowlyPion said:
The problem you face in forwarding Bugliosi's improbable application of the law, is the practical matter that Bush hasn't even so much as been impeached. Until that gating event, all the opinion in the world about Bush being a fraud and leading the country to unnecessary war and cynically causing the deaths of Americans in pursuit of some minority agenda is wholly moot.

I agree that he cannot be prosecuted until he is out of office, but I do not agree that impeachment is a necessary pre-condition to his prosecution. What part of the murder laws say that they only apply to former presidents who have been impeached?

Your reliance on Section 3 unfortunately overlooks the President's option of Pardoning himself. Section 3 liability can indeed fall to others that may be impeached, as called out in the following Section 4. But Article 2 Section 2 remains unchallenged as regards the President's absolute prerogative of pardon, which includes self-pardon for such criminal matters as Bugliosi would want to concoct.

If this were true then the president could kill anyone and everyone he wanted and then pardon himself before being impeached. What would happen if a president did that? Does the pardon in general grant him the same powers as a brutal dictator, aside from the slow and inadequate justice of impeachment?

Apparently the horrible truth is that Bush has already pardoned himself for ordering torture:



And so I now agree with you, lowlypion, that we will not be able to bring lawful justice to this case without an amendment to the constitution. I also concede that Bugliosi does not address this issue in the parts of the book I have listened to so far. Perhaps we will have to resort to my backup plan, which is to send Bush to Guantanamo bay prison and throw away the key.
 
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I think it is also important not to confuse his role as Commander in Chief of those that have been killed as in any way his being culpable for murder in the common sense. These deaths were casualties of acts of war. These deaths arose from his execution of office as he is required to do by his oath upon becoming President.

Whatever policy blunders or misrepresentations may have arisen to arrive at the point that war is a matter of national policy necessarily is born of political consent to same. In that sense the appropriate remedy should be a political one - impeachment, removing him from office or cessation of funding or the changing of policy. None of that has been done. The country has attached shared culpability for continuing so long after the realization that there were no WMDs.

Moreover I think to attach criminal penalties for consequences flowing from political acts seems to be inappropriate. While similarities may be drawn from instances appropriate to District Court, I don't see how they can be applied to acts of consensual National Policy. As it stands in this case Bush surely did not act alone. Is there anyone that thinks that he is smart enough to singlehandedly take the country to war? He has held office as the nominal head of a cabal that has controlled National Policy these last 8 years. Mercifully that day is ending shortly as a new cabal is surely going to replace them.

Besides putting on trial any politician that lies would be a tireless exercise. That realization alone might actually be an affirmative defense for Bush. ("You mean you believed me? LOL. I'm a politician.")
 
LowlyPion said:
I think it is also important not to confuse his role as Commander in Chief of those that have been killed as in any way his being culpable for murder in the common sense.

All the members of a conspiracy to commit murder are culpable as principals. I'm sure you know that Bugliosi convicted Manson of murders for which he was not physically present, where he was only acting as the commander.

These deaths arose from his execution of office as he is required to do by his oath upon becoming President.

If that was true, there would be no case. But because Saddam was not a threat, and Bush was repeatedly given information to that effect, the war was not necessary to protect America and Bush could not have been following his duty.

Whatever policy blunders or misrepresentations may have arisen to arrive at the point that war is a matter of national policy necessarily is born of political consent to same.

Even if the argument could be made that the soldiers and all the rest of us consented to Bush's murders by our living in a republic, it does not matter because consent of the victim is not a defense for murder.

In that sense the appropriate remedy should be a political one - impeachment, removing him from office or cessation of funding or the changing of policy. None of that has been done. The country has attached shared culpability for continuing so long after the realization that there were no WMDs.

I absolutely agree, I really wonder what this country has become (or since I am young, I wonder what it ever really was)? But while impeachment is the remedy, I don't think that impeachment would deliver justice to the thousands of American families who suffered for Bush's war.

Moreover I think to attach criminal penalties for consequences flowing from political acts seems to be inappropriate. While similarities may be drawn from instances appropriate to District Court, I don't see how they can be applied to acts of consensual National Policy.

I don't see how they can't.

As it stands in this case Bush surely did not act alone. Is there anyone that thinks that he is smart enough to singlehandedly take the country to war?

It didn't take intelligence, all he had to do was become the president and give the orders. Obviously, rushing to attack Iraq was a stupid thing to do, so I would not be surprised if it was Bush's idea that he strongly pushed on others. Besides, all the members of a conspiracy to commit murder are culpable.

Besides putting on trial any politician that lies would be a tireless exercise. That realization alone might actually be an affirmative defense for Bush. ("You mean you believed me? LOL. I'm a politician.")

Then we should give up the entire enterprise of justice, since it is clearly a farce if only drug dealers and gang members get prosecuted while someone like Bush spends the rest of his life as a free man.
 
Crosson said:
I'm sure you know that Bugliosi convicted Manson of murders for which he was not physically present, where he was only acting as the commander.

When you make no distinction between an extra-legal cult committing crimes against a society and the President acting within the constructs of the Constitution that defines his authorities and powers, duly ceded to him by the members of that society, whether or not they may inure to their eventual benefit, there's no further argument I can really offer.

Regardless of his contribution to any deception of the people that elected him, I can only hold that the failure of the electorate and its duly elected representatives to counteract such action that they so authorized him to make, seems to me to make the entire nation collectively and not individually culpable. Their remedy as we have discussed is to kick his behind out of office. (His lease is up soon anyway.) The people's recourse is to also replace those representatives that consented in his actions.

Since you are determined to cling to the notion that District Court rules would apply universally to Constitutional matters, I will have to leave you to it. As far as any interpretation you might expect from a court of competent jurisdiction, I'd pretty much be certain that the corpus of Bugliosi's argument won't carry much weight.

Remember Bugliosi's haul out of this is revenue promoting his books. That's apparently why he's whining - not nearly so much that Bush is going to get away with anything.
 
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Chew on this then:

Remember the Invasion of that Caribbean Super-Power that we muscled up on?

Codenamed Operation Urgent Fury

Where was Bugliosi in prosecuting Reagan for the 19 deaths incurred in securing Grenada?

Where's his book on that?
 
In short... Can anyone point out any case what so ever where one person sent another into a situation knowing that the person may die (not intending for that person to die) and was convicted of murder? And remember we are specifically talking about murder.
 
Crosson said:
I have listened to enough of the book to be convinced: I believe Bugliosi has an outstanding case for prosecuting George W Bush
for murder in a US court. I found the book excellent in general, with 70-85% of it being direct quotations from primary sources, without any of the extended conjecture that we usually see in political bash-books.

I think that the best way for me to present the legal theory in this forum is to answer the questions and objections that you all have made:
Few of those answers actually say anything about murder. Fraud isn't murder and most people accept that Bush could be impeached for fraud if the Congress was willing and they though they had a reasonable chance to be able to prove it.

So the first question is: how do you arrive at a charge of murder?
Bush did not physically commit the murders, but we know that does not absolve him.

Bush didn't specifically intend for American soldiers to get killed, but because he knew that a loss of life in the conflict would be inevitable, he is liable for murder if we show that he had reckless disregard for the victims lives.
You (he) need to back up a step and actually show that murders have been committed. Never before in history has a combat death of a soldier been considered murder.

And there are plenty of examples from history of blunders up and down the chain of command that led to the deaths of soldiers. One of the more recent is Clinton's in the battle of Mogadishu (though his secdef took the fall for him). But you may as well toss the Vietnam war in there too. And while we're at it, there are plenty of Generals who sent soldiers to their deaths when they knew the odds of success in the mission were tiny. Halsey probably should have been court martialed for driving a task force through a hurricane, sinking 3 ships and killing 800 sailors. That wasn't combat, but it most certainly was dereliction of duty.

This "reckless disregard" thing is a red herring. First he has to prove that there was a murder before he can even get an arrest warrant.

Don't be fooled by the fact that the book is well sourced. That doesn't mean the sources or the arguments behind them are relevant.
 
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Crosson said:
...
2) Compare Bush's concern for the troops with that of any previous American president and we see a marked difference. How many pictures can you find of FDR, Truman, or LBJ smiling during wartime? ...
? A great deal.
Grins galore:
FDR 1942 less than 12 months after Perl Harbor
http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/images/photodb/09-1853a.gif
FDR Jan 22, 1943
http://www.archives.gov/global-page...gue/2006/winter/images/churchill.caption.html
FDR 1944
http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/images/photodb/09-1897a.gif
Patton, Monty, Ike, Arnold showing reckless disregard.
http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/images/photodb/23-0193a.gif
 
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Bush and Torture. The International Red Cross has submitted a report to the CIA proclaiming that the treatment of prisoners at guantanamo is torture.

A former JAG officer agrees that Bush should be prosecuted for war crimes.

http://yannone.blogspot.com/2008/07/joe-abodeely-joins-ranks-with-vincent.html
 
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While he has technically murdered nobody, Bush has to know in his own mind that he is responsible for every single person that has died on both sides in this war. The war was his baby and he told lies until he had the support for it. If you hire a hitman and he kills your wife, you go to prison for murder. What he has done in Iraq is not that different. He'll never be prosecuted but he knows how much blood is on his hands before he lays down at night.
 
I've had several years of training in the laws of physics. Does that count?*ba dum, ptsch*