George Bush Found Guilty of War Crimes in Japan

April 7, 2004 7:49 PM

Citizens find Bush guilty of Afghan war crimesA citizens' tribunal Saturday in Tokyo found U.S. President George W. Bush guilty of war crimes for attacking civilians with indiscriminate weapons and other arms during the U.S.-led antiterrorism operations in Afghanistan in 2001.
posted by jasenlee (26 comments total)

I'm sure this will deliver a devastating blow to the American power structure.
posted by punishinglemur at 7:51 PM on April 7, 2004

lol
posted by jasenlee at 7:53 PM on April 7, 2004

I don't see his name in the article, but this smells of former Attorney General Ramsey Clark (considered by some a kook for his post-70's activities). It would make about the fourth or fifth time he's "convicted" Bush of something or other.
posted by Zonker at 8:07 PM on April 7, 2004

The tribunal also issued recommendations for banning depleted uranium shells and other weapons that could indiscriminately harm people, compensating the victims in Afghanistan and reforming the United Nations in light of its failure to stop the U.S.-led operation there.

Yeah, whew! What nutty ideas!
posted by squirrel at 8:07 PM on April 7, 2004

Please. The US are no more bound by citizens tribunals or international law than they are the Sharia.
posted by Scoo at 8:10 PM on April 7, 2004

shorter Zonker:

I don't have any reason to believe that a certain nut is involved, but if he was boy wouldn't that be nutty?
posted by Space Coyote at 8:10 PM on April 7, 2004

See, this is just another example of why we need SDI. How else can we hope to keep the executive branch safe from Giant Robots piloted by angsty Japanese teenagers?

Because, you know, they're sure to send them. To, um, make the arrest or something.
posted by ulotrichous at 8:15 PM on April 7, 2004

Uh, no, Space Coyote, I do have reason to believe that a certain nut is involved, I just don't have concrete proof based on this particular article. And this "citizens tribunal" is nutty whether or not that particular nut was there.
posted by Zonker at 8:20 PM on April 7, 2004

Whoa. I can ignore most anything the French and Germans come up with, but when the Japanese get involved... I mean, I just don't know if I can argue with the inventors of the high-tech toilet. And I also wouldn't be so smugly sarcastic on the subject of Giant Robots.
posted by Krrrlson at 8:32 PM on April 7, 2004

("Rescue Robot" my ass... I know what that thing's really for.)
posted by Krrrlson at 8:33 PM on April 7, 2004

mmmm, Daisy Cutter.
posted by tomplus2 at 8:59 PM on April 7, 2004

here's a quarter....
posted by BackwardsHatClub at 9:14 PM on April 7, 2004

("Rescue Robot" my ass... I know what that thing's really for.)

Bukkake?
posted by Ryvar at 9:25 PM on April 7, 2004

Is this the world courts version of a citizen's arrest?
posted by fatbobsmith at 9:33 PM on April 7, 2004

I mean, I just don't know if I can argue with the inventors of the high-tech toilet

Be sure to argue with the inventors of the infomercial instead.
posted by Satapher at 9:41 PM on April 7, 2004

americans are the best people ever!
posted by mcsweetie at 9:41 PM on April 7, 2004

forever and always -- as long as we stare at our side of the muticolored balloon
posted by Satapher at 9:48 PM on April 7, 2004

Zonker: You've got a good nose. The International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan [judgement] was founded in "cooperation" with the International Action Center, a Ramsey Clark organ, and Global Exchange, which has participated in prior war crimes soi-disant tribunals such as for Kosovo. (Hey! Wes Clark and Bill Clinton get equal time with this crowd!) I have no idea why they held it in Japan, let alone spend two years on such a theatrical exercise.

Next: Rwanda tries Jeb Bush for vote fraud.
posted by dhartung at 10:13 PM on April 7, 2004

It's a good thing that since we don't care what the world thinks about us, they leave us completely alone.
posted by interrobang at 10:30 PM on April 7, 2004

Personally, I think this registers even more strongly on the lame-no-one-will-pay-attention-o-meter due to the fact that it's Afghanistan - if you're going to make a point, make it write large, by holding a tribunal that holds no weight about, oh, say, IRAQ!
posted by jearbear at 11:47 PM on April 7, 2004

heh.

how dare those granola revolutionaries have a problem with Afghan civilians (between 3,000 and 3,500 -- slightly more than the 9-11 body count, but who's counting, none of them had been shopping at Wal-Mart recently) being seriously fucked up by various instruments of Liberation from their bodily entities

how dare they.

it is also clear that the Japanese obviously hate freedom

a US boycott of (insert casual, condescending slightly racist example of Japanese kookiness here: plasma screens, sushi, and bukkake videos) is in order

not to mention, those wily Japanese may very well be hiding WMD's. or remnants of them.

they'd better watch out.

one imagines that a country that's been (however reluctantly) providing cannon fodder to the Bush/Cheney war effort could receive a slightly larger amount of respect from the neocon keyboard warriors, but whatever.

a small memento about how fuzzy the notion of what constitutes a war crime actually is:

McNamara replies: "Well, I was part of a mechanism that in a sense recommended it. I analyzed bombing operations, and how to make them more efficient." McNamara then recalls a moment after the war ended when he was standing with LeMay and the controversial general said to him, "If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals." "And I think he's right," says McNamara. "He, and I'd say I, were behaving as war criminals."

the war criminal, usually, is the guy who loses the war.
then the winners manage to try him post facto. Bush is not a war criminal because he hasn't lost a war. yet.
on the other hand, poor old Nobel Peace Prize winner Henry Kissinger has to stay away from certain from certain countries who'd like to give him the Pinochet treatment because of that little Cambodia carnage.
posted by matteo at 2:49 AM on April 8, 2004

Killing civilians by accident during a war is not a crime.

Killing civilians on purpose during peace time is.

That is, if we are talking Geneva. What is the legal context? Giant Robot Law? Has the Supreme Court ruled on the applicability of Giant Robot Law to the Executive Branch?
posted by ewkpates at 4:24 AM on April 8, 2004

ewkpates, After doing some careful research, my conclusions are as such, regarding Giant Robot Law.

1. Civilians may not be harmed, even by accident, by a giant robot.

2. If said civilians are harmed, the pilot, an angsty teenager, shall be punished with additional angst.

3. The audience shall also be punished with an episode involving massive introspection and no cool action sequences.
posted by unreason at 5:53 AM on April 8, 2004

In case anyone doesn't know, unreason's list are Asimov's REAL rules for robots. Giant or otherwise.
posted by Krrrlson at 3:07 PM on April 8, 2004

The audience shall also be punished with an episode involving massive introspection and no cool action sequences.

Further punishments include cutting the series short at the climax, and ending with virtually no new animation, no action, and without explaining ANYTHING.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 7:10 PM on April 8, 2004

I was going a different way:

Q: What do you feed a Giant Robot on a diet?
A: He steps on you.

Thank you! Thank you very much! You've been a great audience!


Back to why we're here: I think that people who fire from a school building at the enemy are more responsible than the enemy for kids getting hurt.
posted by ewkpates at 4:56 AM on April 9, 2004