Reply #67: OK, it can work like this [View All]

[Jack Rabbit]

First, we get Menendez elected to the Senate. Hopefully, that means the Democrats will have a majority and, along with the their majority in the House, will investigate the manipulation of intelligence prior to the Iraq invasion, the NSA wiretapping program and so on ans so forth. Oh, just for good measure, be sure to investigate how the Big Dick arranged for Halliburton to get big, fat contracts on a no bid basis.

Then, after the investigations and after the House sends a few articles of impeachment over to the Senate, Menendez can vote to convict the two war criminals, ending this unhappy chapter in American history.

Unfortunately, the job still isn't finished. Because of the votes today, Bush and Cheney, by an act of Congress, are not war criminals. By an act of Congress, they never ordered any one to torture anybody. And by an act of Congress, torture isn't torture.

So, if we want to try them for war crimes, then we will first have to find a court with jurisdiction. That can't be an American court because COngress, with Senator Menendez voting Aye, exonerated the regime's war criminals. If we want these people to face justice -- and I do -- we'll just have to ask an international tribunal to hear the case, because no American court can.

Now, I believe shielding war criminals by a legislative act is a war crime in itself. It is possible that an international tribunal might to talk the members of the world's most exclusive club about this and what reasons they had or what the fuck they thought they were doing by voting to shield these thugs from prosecution for acts of torture. The tribunal just may agree with me.

And I know this is Democratic Underground, but quite frankly I cannot think of a fair or valid argument for saying that Republican Senators and Congressmen who voted Aye the last two days should be sent to The Hague for voting to shield war criminals from prosecution in US courts, but not Democratic Senators and Congressmen. Can anybody?

So let's put him Menendez and the other Democrats who voted to shield war criminals today (but not the de facto Republican Lieberman) back in the Senate and House and then, if they are indicted by an international tribunal, agree to send Senator Menendez and the others to The Hague.