What punishment is appropriate?

[seawasp]

Viajames_nicoll

What possible punishment could be appropriate for this?

I am a writer, but currently I have no words. Maybe later.

Comments

[kjn]

Perjury. But he isn't the real villain anyway. IMO Bush, Cheney, Powell et al should go up for war crimes in Hague, unless the US legal system is ready to do a fair trial.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Why does this come as a surprise to you?

[seawasp]

Depends on what you mean by "this" as to whether I am surprised or not.

I suppose the most surprising thing is that the gentleman (I use the term loosely) in question cheerfully admits to having deliberately tried to arrange that war for his own personal reasons. Certainly he found fertile ground for his lies in our then-current administration, but it appears he was quite deliberate and cognizant of what he was doing and why he was doing it, and what the consequences of those actions would be.

One would think you'd try to deny being so clear-headed about what you were doing, at the least.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

I have a feeling that at this point he is safer cheerfully confessing to it in public than trying to keep it quiet. Silence implies a sense of guilt, after all. From his perspective the ends justified the means: he wanted Saddam out -- and I trust nobody here is going to defend Saddam?[*] -- and deliberately set out to use the US government as a lever.

Given that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz et al all clearly wanted a war and they haven't been prosecuted (and they are the guys who issued the orders), what would be the point of going after him?


[*] I demonstrated against the invasion and hold that it was a vile, needless, and deranged massacre. Nevertheless, Saddam was a vile and disgusting serial rapist and murderer who had imposed a reign of terror over his country: I shed no tears for him. Alas, going by its history the only way to rule Iraq was to do so as a heavy-handed strong man in the mold of Yugoslavia's Tito, because Iraq wasn't historically a nation so much as a bunch of dismembered Ottoman provinces glued together under a figurehead king by the British and French empires, doing their usual divide-and-conquer routine. As subsequent events have shown in Iraq (and in Yugoslavia and in half of post-colonial Africa to boot) that's a recipe for civil war after the dictator snuffs it.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

What would the sentence be for 100 000 counts of Criminal Negligence Causing Death? (Concurrent, of course, because consecutive sentences would be absurd....)

-- Steve has this mental image of a skeleton hanging from chains on a ruined wall, pains-takingly excavated by an archeological team of sapient cockroachs in the far-distant future.

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

Why Criminal Negligence Causing Death, instead of Conspiracy to Commit Murder?

I think he should have individual trials for each individual. Conducted entirely by law students as a practice case.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

He didn't conspire fraudulently with anyone; his scheme existed wholly within his head. Now, others did get together and plan the deaths of other people, but historically warfare is not covered under conspiracy statues.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

We had good cause to invade Iraq, WMD or no WMD, so I'd say "no punishment."

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Garbage. But I expect no better of you.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing that in the Charlieverse violating a truce isn't a just cause for going to war?

Then again, you also consider Israel to be no better than the Terrorists, so I'm not sure that we want to be getting our moral marching orders from the Charlieverse.

[niall-shapero.livejournal.com]

We've had good reason to invade a lot of countries, but we haven't done so. Iraq was a waste of resources, an unpaid for war, that has helped to bankrupt us. Not a good idea. Besides, the "making of aggressive war" is a crime against humanity, which carries a death sentence (based on what we did to those Germans we found guilty of that crime, "way back when" after WWII).

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

We've had good reason to invade a lot of countries, but we haven't done so.

Those other countries didn't start a war of aggression against our allies, end it by truce, and then violate the truce.

Besides, the "making of aggressive war" is a crime against humanity, which carries a death sentence (based on what we did to those Germans we found guilty of that crime, "way back when" after WWII).

Saddam was executed -- but not for that -- do you think we should have executed more of Saddam's high officials, or explicitly executed Saddam for that reason?

Heh, I know that's not what you meant, but consider this: you are ignoring the fact that Saddam broke every term of the truce which suspended the 1990-91 war, the "aggressive war" which he launched against Kuwait. With the truce broken, the war could be considered no longer suspended, giving us the right to continue prosecuting it -- which is exactly what we did.

Saddam started a war in 1990, he got us to agree to suspend it in 1991, and then violated the truce. In 2003, we got tired of tolerating these violations, and resumed this war -- this time, carrying it to a complete victory.

[kira-snugz.livejournal.com]

he loses everything. home, car, clothes. they slap handcuffs on him and pass him to iraq where he can spend the rest of his miserable life in chains trying to rebuild the country

[dalesql.livejournal.com]

100000 counts of conspiracy to commit murder. The trials should take up the remainder of his natural life. He should be kept alive by the most unnatural means, and never allowed any pain medication.

Of course, a large number of US intelligence officers and government leaders should also be in the docket right next to him.

I supported the invasion at the time. I believed the president and the his administration when they said they had firm, confirmed intelligence of WMDs. Shame on me for forgetting that politicians will say or do *anything* that they think they can get away with to advance their cause. The world is a better place without Saddam, of course, but the ends do not justify the means.

[niall-shapero.livejournal.com]

Since the dateline for the story was April 1st, I thought initially that it might be an April Fool's joke. But if true, then this was the lie that launched (or helped launch) a thousand ships, figuratively speaking. Now, which circle in Dante's inferno was reserved for false counselors?

[seawasp]

If it IS an April Fool's joke, it's possibly the most tasteless and least-funny one I ever heard of. And I've heard of a lot of tasteless and unfunny jokes.

[niall-shapero.livejournal.com]

I will assume for the moment that it's not just a joke; but then, I've been fooled before. There are times when I think that the entire period of the shrub's (the Lesser Bush - a shrub) administration was a giant April fool's joke that went on far too long.

[niall-shapero.livejournal.com]

As to "what punishment"? For real? How about having to write a sincere letter of apology to the survivors related to each war death. The letters to be customized to deal with the specific circumstances of each individual's death. Writing over a hundred thousand letters of apology would keep this person busy for, I would think, a very long time.

[seawasp]

Oh, that's a different and interesting twist.

Though it's the "sincere" part that's hard to be sure of.

[niall-shapero.livejournal.com]

Granted, the sincere part would be hard to ascertain. But surely a good editor (every writer needs one, even if he's able to self-edit) could determine if the expression of sorrow was really felt? If not, perhaps another, better, editor would be appropriate? (Only half kidding, here...)

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

He gets to live with the fear of being lynched.

[wizwom.livejournal.com]

Complicity in conspiracy to commit what, 100,000 counts of murder? One death is a murder, 100,000 a statistic. but if you arrange for a situation in which you know people will be unjustly killed, it is murder, even if you do not know who exactly will die.