I am rarely failed to be less than impressed with Americans who are obsessed with Bush and Obama and lose all semblance of reality when discussing these two rather unimpressive, but hardly The Antichrist, presidents. I rate them both 3/10 for their lacklustre, divisive and non-achieving policies.
Let's firstly deal with war crimes. War crimes are about deliberate atrocities against civilians or prisoners of war or 'waging aggressive wars ' (something only ever used in the aftermath of WW2).
I have no doubt it has NEVER been the policy of either GWB or BHO, or the USA government to deliberately target civilians or commit any atrocity against prisoners of war. The invasion of Afghanistan was entirely legal, sanctioned by the UN and in a direct response to an an unprovoked attack backed by the government of Afghanistan. Iraq is a little more complicated. At the end of the first Gulf War Saddam was party to several agreements made in order to stop that conflict; Saddam repeatedly broke those agreements and carried out atrocity after atrocity. In my belief that alone is sufficient condition to restart the war and topple Saddam however the main justification was on 'weapons of mass destruction'.
It looks as if there never was any weapons of mass destruction however it is also clear that Saddam attempted to make the world think that he had such weapons. Frankly it is no difference to a man with a known penchant for violence waving a fake pistol around in front of the police.
Specific claims are made around the use of Drones and Guantanamo bay. I see nothing illegitimate about the use of drones and it has long been accepted that collateral damage when the intent was on military targets is acceptable otherwise people would just site military installations besides schools and hospitals.
The people incarcerated in Guantanamo bay are NOT prisoners of war since they were not soldiers under the definitions of the Geneva Convention. As combatants in a third party nation NOT being part of any official armed forces or wearing any form of identification it is completely legal to shoot them as spies., certainly their presence in Afghanistan was illegal.
I also see no evidence that this is about oil. Firstly its an unbelievably expensive way of getting hold of oil and the USA was as cynical as people seem to think it could have made a deal with Saddam to legitimise him back into the world, ignore his atrocities against Kurds and Shias and supply weapons in return for guaranteed oil and a promise not to try and invade Kuwait/Saudi Arabia.
Frankly this was about the USA (and the UK) wanting to be the world's policeman instead of just looking after its own interests.
Let's firstly deal with war crimes. War crimes are about deliberate atrocities against civilians or prisoners of war or 'waging aggressive wars ' (something only ever used in the aftermath of WW2).
I have no doubt it has NEVER been the policy of either GWB or BHO, or the USA government to deliberately target civilians or commit any atrocity against prisoners of war. The invasion of Afghanistan was entirely legal, sanctioned by the UN and in a direct response to an an unprovoked attack backed by the government of Afghanistan. Iraq is a little more complicated. At the end of the first Gulf War Saddam was party to several agreements made in order to stop that conflict; Saddam repeatedly broke those agreements and carried out atrocity after atrocity. In my belief that alone is sufficient condition to restart the war and topple Saddam however the main justification was on 'weapons of mass destruction'.
It looks as if there never was any weapons of mass destruction however it is also clear that Saddam attempted to make the world think that he had such weapons. Frankly it is no difference to a man with a known penchant for violence waving a fake pistol around in front of the police.
Specific claims are made around the use of Drones and Guantanamo bay. I see nothing illegitimate about the use of drones and it has long been accepted that collateral damage when the intent was on military targets is acceptable otherwise people would just site military installations besides schools and hospitals.
The people incarcerated in Guantanamo bay are NOT prisoners of war since they were not soldiers under the definitions of the Geneva Convention. As combatants in a third party nation NOT being part of any official armed forces or wearing any form of identification it is completely legal to shoot them as spies., certainly their presence in Afghanistan was illegal.
I also see no evidence that this is about oil. Firstly its an unbelievably expensive way of getting hold of oil and the USA was as cynical as people seem to think it could have made a deal with Saddam to legitimise him back into the world, ignore his atrocities against Kurds and Shias and supply weapons in return for guaranteed oil and a promise not to try and invade Kuwait/Saudi Arabia.
Frankly this was about the USA (and the UK) wanting to be the world's policeman instead of just looking after its own interests.
