Should Bush and Blair be tried for war crimes?

[Gandalf]

Gun ownership is a constitutional right in the U.S. but more than that it is a tradition that goes back to the inception of our nation. The ability for the common citizen to bear arms is the ultimate guard against tyranny. Studies comparing nations with strict gun laws to the U.S. have been inconcluse at best here is one study that would suggest the opposite.

National crime rates compared

You notice that there is only two nations with lower violent crime rates than the US. I think many of you have a completely distorted view of gun ownership in the US due to its portrayal by a biased media. The media never reports anything on the 80 million law abiding gun owners in this country but 20/20 is perfectly happy to run an erroneous show about concealed carry or show every violent crime across the nation that involves guns. I never see a study showing the amount of crime prevented by gun owners and gun ownership yet the media gladly includes suicides that use firearms in the stats of violent crime.

Gun ownership in the U.S. is as far gone an issue as abortion. It aint changing. It just a topic that politicians like to get people on both sides of the fence riled up about. The day the 2nd Amendment ceases to allow a law abiding U.S. Citizens to own and carry fire arms is the day that democracy dies in this country. This is all I'm going to say on this issue. Most of my thoughts can be found in this thread

http://www.saddoboxing.com/boxingfor...b-my-guns.html

You talk about guns being a defence against tyranny, but the way I see it is that America has been looted and continues to be looted. The guns you all have haven't been much of a defence against that.

Democracy is pretty much gone as it is. You have two parties representing the same interests; namely big business and wall street. The elections are run on the agenda and topics that the parties themselves choose. Things that really matter to the vast bulk of the elctorate stay swept under the rug and are seldom discussed. The media, which is typically owned by large corporation is in collusion with the status quo. Real wages haven't gone up in nearly 40 years and standards of living have fallen, those are the kinds of things that should be being discussed openly and fairly. But it's no longer about government run by and for the people. Elections now are merely symobolic.

[VictorCharlie]

Well hell yeah Miles....I'll load my M14 and you can borrow my Sig...lets go start a fucking revolution!!

[Gandalf]

Well hell yeah Miles....I'll load my M14 and you can borrow my Sig...lets go start a fucking revolution!!

Indeed. I would love it if 50 million Americans joined forces and marched on Wall Street with their guns in tow. I might even alter my anti-gun policy for such an occasion. A revolution is sorely needed right now. The forecasts are bleak and 2010 is going to be a very hard year for many. Jobs will continue to be lost and then when the temporary recovery begins to lull, yet more stimulus money will be thrown back into the void. This carry on needs to stop and the 'too big to fails' need to die. They are vampires sucking on the soul of America.

[Gandalf]

My beef is not only an American one, but a British one too. I was reading an article in some newspaper calculating that the cost of the bail outs had cost each family in the UK about 40,000 pounds. Now that is just fucking criminal! What typical family has that kind of money? And yet that's the cost of taxes just handed over to support these screwed up and downright irresponsible corporations. And they have the cheek to still want their christmas bonuses? They are despicable people with no morals. The whole thing makes me fume.

[Kirkland Laing]

Well hell yeah Miles....I'll load my M14 and you can borrow my Sig...lets go start a fucking revolution!!

Indeed. I would love it if 50 million Americans joined forces and marched on Wall Street with their guns in tow. I might even alter my anti-gun policy for such an occasion. A revolution is sorely needed right now. The forecasts are bleak and 2010 is going to be a very hard year for many. Jobs will continue to be lost and then when the temporary recovery begins to lull, yet more stimulus money will be thrown back into the void. This carry on needs to stop and the 'too big to fails' need to die. They are vampires sucking on the soul of America.

The economy will eventually recover although it may go into reverse for a while again and either way it won't seem like recovery unemployment-wise for a long time. Once they get a recovery going they can then get to work on inflating the bubble that they've just created with government money, the one that's currently propping the markets and the banking system up. When that one goes pop and people discover that the government just let the banks run riot after the 2008 meltdown while only pretending to re-regulate them and that the banks are now automatically backstopped by the government for unlimited taxpayer dough it'll be pitchfork time, probably.

[El Kabong]

...oh the economy will be in reverse for quite some time because Obama is in WELL over his head (as was Bush before him but at least he had experience)

[Gandalf]

...oh the economy will be in reverse for quite some time because Obama is in WELL over his head (as was Bush before him but at least he had experience)

Same old crap. It has nothing to do with Obama being over his head. The Republicans would have followed the same policies. After all this was started by Bush and brought on by years of economic mismanagement. But of course, you just want to take party sides and point fingers at the others. You have all been fleeced no matter which side you look at it from, that's why you need to take your country back. The arguments you make serve no useful purpose.

[Gandalf]

Well hell yeah Miles....I'll load my M14 and you can borrow my Sig...lets go start a fucking revolution!!

Indeed. I would love it if 50 million Americans joined forces and marched on Wall Street with their guns in tow. I might even alter my anti-gun policy for such an occasion. A revolution is sorely needed right now. The forecasts are bleak and 2010 is going to be a very hard year for many. Jobs will continue to be lost and then when the temporary recovery begins to lull, yet more stimulus money will be thrown back into the void. This carry on needs to stop and the 'too big to fails' need to die. They are vampires sucking on the soul of America.

The economy will eventually recover although it may go into reverse for a while again and either way it won't seem like recovery unemployment-wise for a long time. Once they get a recovery going they can then get to work on inflating the bubble that they've just created with government money, the one that's currently propping the markets and the banking system up. When that one goes pop and people discover that the government just let the banks run riot after the 2008 meltdown while only pretending to re-regulate them and that the banks are now automatically backstopped by the government for unlimited taxpayer dough it'll be pitchfork time, probably.

You would think it would get to a point where the people just don't take it anymore. I would have thought that point might have been reached with many cities already having upwards of 20% unemployment, but we will just have to wait until it degenerates some more. It takes an awful lot of corruption and bullshit to get even the smallest reaction from people these days. And then of course you have the reactionaries like Lyle. I live in a country where hundreds of thousands protested against beef imports (of all the silly things), and yet the Americans can't even organise themselves against government and big business who are openly looting the populace. It's bizarre.

[El Kabong]

Miles #1 "all this" (re: the economy or the wars) wasn't started just by Bush both had been coming for a long time and Bush isn't the ONLY guy to blame and the Republican party isn't the only party to blame either but yes they did help cause this and because of that nearly all of them were voted out of office. So just how poorly do the democrats have to govern to reach the point where hardcore "big C" Conservatives are the favorites heading into 2010? #2 I find that "reactionary" comment amusing considering you're one of the people suggesting Bush should be tried for war crimes.

The people are always a step ahead of the government and this first year of Obama + the liberal House & Senate have been awful. The people were sold Obama as some kind of wiz kid saviour but he's inexperienced, he's egotistical, and he is seemingly uninterested in anything other than Healthcare and that isn't America's most pressing need at the moment. Now 10% unemployment would be a DREAM scenario for a place like France but in the US it's unacceptable. If you add the unemployment together with the foreclosure rates (Obama is now the sole leader in foreclosures in a year) and the money the Democrats put into TARP and used to bailout various companies you can see why Conservatives are coming back with a vengence...just for a frame of reference it took Republicans over a decade (1994-2006) to wear out their welcome as the majority party.

[Kirkland Laing]

Miles #1 "all this" (re: the economy or the wars) wasn't started just by Bush both had been coming for a long time and Bush isn't the ONLY guy to blame and the Republican party isn't the only party to blame either but yes they did help cause this and because of that nearly all of them were voted out of office. So just how poorly do the democrats have to govern to reach the point where hardcore "big C" Conservatives are the favorites heading into 2010? #2 I find that "reactionary" comment amusing considering you're one of the people suggesting Bush should be tried for war crimes.

The people are always a step ahead of the government and this first year of Obama + the liberal House & Senate have been awful. The people were sold Obama as some kind of wiz kid saviour but he's inexperienced, he's egotistical, and he is seemingly uninterested in anything other than Healthcare and that isn't America's most pressing need at the moment. Now 10% unemployment would be a DREAM scenario for a place like France but in the US it's unacceptable. If you add the unemployment together with the foreclosure rates (Obama is now the sole leader in foreclosures in a year) and the money the Democrats put into TARP and used to bailout various companies you can see why Conservatives are coming back with a vengence...just for a frame of reference it took Republicans over a decade (1994-2006) to wear out their welcome as the majority party.

Bush is entirely to blame for both the economic meltdown and the Iraq war. He's the guy who made up a bunch of bs to get his illegal war on and the guy who deregulated the US financial system back to 1928.

France's unemployment rate is lower than America's.

Bush is responsible for every single dollar of the TARP fund. Obama hasn't added a single dollar to the more than seven trillion dollars of taxpayer money that the socialist war criminal Bush used to guarantee the losses of the socialist bankers, Bush basically guaranteed all losses at 100 cents on the dollar before Obama took office.

And the GOP is gaining support again because America is chock full of dumb motherfunkers who can't remember what happened a year ago.

[Nameless]

Miles #1 "all this" (re: the economy or the wars) wasn't started just by Bush both had been coming for a long time and Bush isn't the ONLY guy to blame and the Republican party isn't the only party to blame either but yes they did help cause this and because of that nearly all of them were voted out of office. So just how poorly do the democrats have to govern to reach the point where hardcore "big C" Conservatives are the favorites heading into 2010? #2 I find that "reactionary" comment amusing considering you're one of the people suggesting Bush should be tried for war crimes.

The people are always a step ahead of the government and this first year of Obama + the liberal House & Senate have been awful. The people were sold Obama as some kind of wiz kid saviour but he's inexperienced, he's egotistical, and he is seemingly uninterested in anything other than Healthcare and that isn't America's most pressing need at the moment. Now 10% unemployment would be a DREAM scenario for a place like France but in the US it's unacceptable. If you add the unemployment together with the foreclosure rates (Obama is now the sole leader in foreclosures in a year) and the money the Democrats put into TARP and used to bailout various companies you can see why Conservatives are coming back with a vengence...just for a frame of reference it took Republicans over a decade (1994-2006) to wear out their welcome as the majority party.

Actually, one of the very most suited economic crack available to me is Ron Paul. The guy's very clever and has seen a lot, he would be a fine pick for the Republican Party for the next elections. As for Obama, he was the best pick among the 3-4 last candidates (Romney, Huckaby, Clinton and McCain), the problem is peoples saw him as a savior when he was just the less shitty option available. He made a few good decisions when he started, some of which the american peoples should be proud of but at the moment, he's juggling with strange knifes and I have the impression he's sinking a bit. The problem is not that much the idea of the healthcare reform but the way he seems to want it to be done, I will have to read a bit more about it to have a more enlightened point of view but from now, I lean toward the good idea wrongfully applied.

[Kirkland Laing]

Indeed. I would love it if 50 million Americans joined forces and marched on Wall Street with their guns in tow. I might even alter my anti-gun policy for such an occasion. A revolution is sorely needed right now. The forecasts are bleak and 2010 is going to be a very hard year for many. Jobs will continue to be lost and then when the temporary recovery begins to lull, yet more stimulus money will be thrown back into the void. This carry on needs to stop and the 'too big to fails' need to die. They are vampires sucking on the soul of America.

The economy will eventually recover although it may go into reverse for a while again and either way it won't seem like recovery unemployment-wise for a long time. Once they get a recovery going they can then get to work on inflating the bubble that they've just created with government money, the one that's currently propping the markets and the banking system up. When that one goes pop and people discover that the government just let the banks run riot after the 2008 meltdown while only pretending to re-regulate them and that the banks are now automatically backstopped by the government for unlimited taxpayer dough it'll be pitchfork time, probably.

You would think it would get to a point where the people just don't take it anymore. I would have thought that point might have been reached with many cities already having upwards of 20% unemployment, but we will just have to wait until it degenerates some more. It takes an awful lot of corruption and bullshit to get even the smallest reaction from people these days. And then of course you have the reactionaries like Lyle. I live in a country where hundreds of thousands protested against beef imports (of all the silly things), and yet the Americans can't even organise themselves against government and big business who are openly looting the populace. It's bizarre.

Things will have to get a lot worse before anything happens. It's going to take a bigger meltdown than last year's before a critical mass of people get motivated. There's a good chance that the economy just staggers sideways for a while, maybe back into recession once or twice in the next few years. It's hard to see any real economic recovery happening for some time but when things do pick up in a year or a decade from now we're going to see it end in another massive mass bankrupcy of the financial system, huge taxpayer bailout etc.

Anecdotal evidence from people working in the city is that bankers are getting verbal abuse on the street now. Some guy had a cup of coffee thrown over him recently but that's the worst thing I've heard of. If people in Britain actually realised how many thousands they're each going to have to pay in extra taxes or lost services over the next couple of decades to pay back the debts the bankers rang up things would be a lot worse than they currently are. Over the next few years as taxes go up/services get cut awareness should tick up quite a lot.

[Kirkland Laing]

LONDON (AFP) – Tony Blair's admission that Britain would have backed the Iraq war even if he knew it did not have weapons of mass destruction sparked outrage Sunday and calls for his prosecution for war crimes.
The former British prime minister, who backed the US-led invasion in 2003, told the BBC he would "still have thought it right to remove" Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein because of the threat he posed to the region.
Lawyers representing the deposed Iraqi leadership said they would seek to prosecute Blair following his remarks, while one newspaper commentator said it was a "game-changing admission" for the ongoing official inquiry into the war.
Former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix added: "The war was sold on the WMD, and now you feel, or hear that it was only a question of deployment of arguments, as he said, it sounds a bit like a fig leaf that was held up."
Blair is due to give evidence to the inquiry into the war, led by former civil servant John Chilcot, early next year, and the commentator in the Sunday Telegraph said the investigation's focus must now change.
"Mr Blair's game-changing admission gives them a licence to be tougher and more prosecutorial," he wrote, a call echoed by campaigners at Stop the War Coalition, who urged Chilcot's inquiry to recommend legal action against Blair.
Professor Philippe Sands, a leading international lawyer, said he believed Blair's comments had left him vulnerable to legal proceedings.
"The fact that the policy was fixed by Tony Blair irrespective of the facts on the ground, and irrespective of the legality, will now expose him more rather than less to legal difficulties," Sands told The Sunday Herald.
A lawyer for Saddam Hussein's jailed former deputy prime minister, Tareq Aziz, wrote to Britain's top legal adviser Saturday asking permission to prosecute Blair for war crimes.
In a statement Sunday, Giovanni di Stefano said the former prime minister's comments were an admission that "his aim was regime change. That is without question unlawful and subject to criminal proceedings".




Blair Iraq war admission sparks fresh outrage - Yahoo! News