Law School Dean Calls Conference to Plan Bush War Crimes Prosecution

[jaqeboy]

Law School Dean Calls Conference to Plan Bush War Crimes Prosecution

Posted Jun 17, 2008, 06:51 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss

The dean of Massachusetts School of Law at Andover is planning a September conference to map out war crimes prosecutions, and the targets are President Bush and other administration officials.

The dean, Lawrence Velvel, says in a statement that "plans will be laid and necessary organizational structures set up, to pursue the guilty as long as necessary and, if need be, to the ends of the Earth."

Other possible defendants, he said, include federal judges and John Yoo, the former Justice Department official who wrote one of the so-called torture memos.

"We must insist on appropriate punishments," he continued, "including, if guilt is found, the hangings visited upon top German and Japanese war criminals in the 1940s."

http://abajournal.com/news/law_school_dean_calls_conference_to_plan_bush_war_crimes_prosecution/

[jaqeboy]

Here's the site for info on the Conference:

http://war-crimes.info/

[PattyLee loves dogs]

The lead times are too long on these proposals. It's too late for Bush; like the Nazis, there's not much point to dragging people out of nursing homes to try them. We need to get started on the war crimes trials of the NEXT President, so he can be sentenced before he dies of old age  .

[dalebert]

Government solutions to problems caused by government? I'm skeptical to say the least.

[jaqeboy]

The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder
The Legal Framework for the Prosecution

By Vincent Bugliosi

http://www.antiwarleague.com/_mgxroot/page_10687.html

...
Perhaps the most amazing thing to me about the belief of many that George Bush lied to the American public in starting his war with Iraq is that the liberal columnists who have accused him of doing this merely make this point, and then go on to the next paragraph in their columns. Only very infrequently does a columnist add that because of it Bush should be impeached. If the charges are true, of course Bush should have been impeached, convicted, and removed from office. That's almost too self-evident to state. But he deserves much more than impeachment. I mean, in America, we apparently impeach presidents for having consensual sex outside of marriage and trying to cover it up. If we impeach presidents for that, then if the president takes the country to war on a lie where thousands of American soldiers die horrible, violent deaths and over 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians, including women and children, even babies are killed, the punishment obviously has to be much, much more severe. That's just common sense. If Bush were impeached, convicted in the Senate, and removed from office, he'd still be a free man, still be able to wake up in the morning with his cup of coffee and freshly squeezed orange juice and read the morning paper, still travel widely and lead a life of privilege, still belong to his country club and get standing ovations whenever he chose to speak to the Republican faithful. This, for being responsible for over 100,000 horrible deaths?* For anyone interested in true justice, impeachment alone would be a joke for what Bush did.
...

[alohamonkey]

I really want to read this book.  Has anybody read it yet? 

If I'm not mistaken, Bugliosi brought down Charles Manson and helped Bobby Kennedy bring down the mob. 

He seems to be pretty talented in developing cases against high profile criminals.  I read "Helter Skelter" and his other book about the NYC mafia.  Both were very well written. 

[David]

The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder
This, for being responsible for over 100,000 horrible deaths?* For anyone interested in true justice, impeachment alone would be a joke for what Bush did.
...

How true. 

Government solutions to problems caused by government? I'm skeptical to say the least.

Agreed, but it is the only way there will ever be any real justice for that war criminal. 

[John Edward Mercier]

Not lying... PERJURY.

Bush violated the US Constitution by refusing to respect US Constitution provisions protecting foreigners on US soil (Gitmo).

[jaqeboy]

I really want to read this book.  Has anybody read it yet? 

If I'm not mistaken, Bugliosi brought down Charles Manson and helped Bobby Kennedy bring down the mob. 

He seems to be pretty talented in developing cases against high profile criminals.  I read "Helter Skelter" and his other book about the NYC mafia.  Both were very well written. 

Haven't read it, but flipped through it last night at a bookstore. Might be good. Wonder where this cowboy is going to hide when he gets out? Oh, yeah, I heard he bought a big spread in Paraguay.

[J’raxis 270145]

Not lying... PERJURY.

Bush violated the US Constitution by refusing to respect US Constitution provisions protecting foreigners on US soil (Gitmo).

Wouldn't violating his oath to uphold the Constitution actually be treason, not mere perjury?

[John Edward Mercier]

US Constitution
Article 3 Section. 3.

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

I really couldn't with a straight face suggest that he gave 'aid and comfort' to detainees at Gitmo.

[David]

During the Nuremburg trials, (the cheif prosecutor was a US supreme court justice) the issue at hand was because the Germans were technically following 'the law', the legal principle of 'crimes against humanity' was laid out.  The basis was that you have a higher responsibility to mankind, irregardless of the law.  For instance, murder is wrong.  It doesn't matter what the sircumstances, or what the laws or code of the land is.  The natural law that states it is wrong to murder trumps mans law. 

Bush and company is responsible for at a conservative estimate, 100,000 deaths in Iraq.  War is such a major choice, 'whoops I was wrong' is not a legitimate excuse.  The administration should have errored on the side of caution and not gone to war.  Since they did not error on the side of caution, they are war criminals worthy of the highest penalties deserving of other historical war criminals. 

The trials were the last major triumph of natural law theory.  It has since been eaten up by statute law, and positivist theory, that is, that man made law trumps all.    

[J’raxis 270145]

US Constitution
Article 3 Section. 3.

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

I really couldn't with a straight face suggest that he gave 'aid and comfort' to detainees at Gitmo.

Ah, yes, the U.S. definition of treason is more restricted than I was thinking. In some places breaking an oath one took to the State can be a form of disloyalty that rises to the level of treason.

[John Edward Mercier]

During the Nuremburg trials, (the cheif prosecutor was a US supreme court justice) the issue at hand was because the Germans were technically following 'the law', the legal principle of 'crimes against humanity' was laid out.  The basis was that you have a higher responsibility to mankind, irregardless of the law.  For instance, murder is wrong.  It doesn't matter what the sircumstances, or what the laws or code of the land is.  The natural law that states it is wrong to murder trumps mans law. 

Bush and company is responsible for at a conservative estimate, 100,000 deaths in Iraq.  War is such a major choice, 'whoops I was wrong' is not a legitimate excuse.  The administration should have errored on the side of caution and not gone to war.  Since they did not error on the side of caution, they are war criminals worthy of the highest penalties deserving of other historical war criminals. 

The trials were the last major triumph of natural law theory.  It has since been eaten up by statute law, and positivist theory, that is, that man made law trumps all.    

I think you mean natural order... and murder is part of natural order.

[jaqeboy]

During the Nuremburg trials, (the cheif prosecutor was a US supreme court justice) the issue at hand was because the Germans were technically following 'the law', the legal principle of 'crimes against humanity' was laid out.  The basis was that you have a higher responsibility to mankind, irregardless of the law.  For instance, murder is wrong.  It doesn't matter what the sircumstances, or what the laws or code of the land is.  The natural law that states it is wrong to murder trumps mans law. 

Bush and company is responsible for at a conservative estimate, 100,000 deaths in Iraq.  War is such a major choice, 'whoops I was wrong' is not a legitimate excuse.  The administration should have errored on the side of caution and not gone to war.  Since they did not error on the side of caution, they are war criminals worthy of the highest penalties deserving of other historical war criminals. 

The trials were the last major triumph of natural law theory.  It has since been eaten up by statute law, and positivist theory, that is, that man made law trumps all.    

Actually, the London Charter (developed by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson and 3 other Allied legal/political minds) contained 4 counts (of an indictment) under which the German leaders were to be prosecuted at the end of the war in the Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal (IMT) - there were several other Nuremberg trials, but this was the memorable one. Jackson's push was firstly, to actually hold trials, instead of just lynching the leaders when captured, which some Allied leaders wanted to do, and secondly, to make waging war (agression) a crime in and of itself. The 4 counts were:

   1. Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of crime against peace
   2. Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression and other crimes against peace
   3. War crimes
   4. Crimes against humanity

The definition of what constitutes a war crime is described by the Nuremberg Principles, a document which was created as a result of the trial.

Jackson seemed to be a high-minded idealist and, I think, was onto a good idea about making it a crime to wage agressive war, but others criticized him, thusly:

US Supreme Court Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone called the Nuremberg trials a fraud. "Chief US prosecutor Jackson is away conducting his high-grade lynching party in Nuremberg," he wrote. "I don't mind what he does to the Nazis, but I hate to see the pretense that he is running a court and proceeding according to common law. This is a little too sanctimonious a fraud to meet my old-fashioned ideas."[32]

Associate Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas charged that the Allies were guilty of "substituting power for principle" at Nuremberg. "I thought at the time and still think that the Nuremberg trials were unprincipled," he wrote. "Law was created ex post facto to suit the passion and clamor of the time."[33]

[some from memory and some lifted from Wikipedia article]

Anyway, I'm assuming the lawyers meeting in Andover will be relying on the Nuremberg Principles and some of the subsequently-developed laws re war and war crimes (referred to in the Wikipedia article).