Bush murder trial book, blacked out by mainstream media, thrives on Internet

Anyone read it?

At a glance the premise seems daft. If Bush "lied the country into war" there are a whole lot of people who were complicit in that lie, including many members of the other party. Why stop with Bush (or does he). One would be on much firmer ground prosecuting him for specific war crimes, not for the deaths of every soldier who volunteered to follow the orders of the president, with congressional imprimatur.

The fact that this comes from a guy was the DA of Los Angeles as opposed to just an activist's blog makes it an interestng read, his legal opinion on the matter has some gravitas.

Not only that, he was the one who convicted Charles Manson.

It's on the LA Times bestseller list.

Bruno, obviously lots of other people were complicit in the lies that were told - but as commander-in-chief and president of the USA, the buck stops with Bush, no? It seems totally reasonable to hold him responsible for what has happened.

Maybe, as you suggest, we shouldn't stop with Bush, but it certainly seems like the most reasonable place to start.

He would have to establish that the war was started illegally and I don't see that happening. Apart from that a government has the legal authority to send its citizens to their deaths.

Very easy to establish, I would have thought.

About as easy as pinning on a very finite set of people, with very expensive lawyers, legal responsibility for actions they could, with said lawyers, very easily associate with many others not belonging to that finite set. Unless we're talking about putting half the U.S. government in the dock.

I would think it would make the very daunting prospect of a war crimes prosecution seem like Disneyland.

Hang on, you said "establish that the war was started illegally", not "bring a successful prosecution on those grounds". I assumed you meant establish it in the book, not in court, given that we're talking about a book, not an actual prosecution.

Establishing it in the book would be easy. Page and a half, tops.

I was talking about an actual prosecution, which I took to be the point of the book.

Er, but the book is a book, not a prosecution. How expensive the other side's lawyers are etc doesn't stop you establishing your case in a book, eg by explaining why the war was illegal, which is dead easy.

I remember reading Bugliosi's book about his Manson prosecution when I was just into my teens.

Part of me rejoices that this book has reached such a big audience despite mainstream squeamishness but I'm inclined to agree with BrunoMaggiore on this one. A prosecution like this wouldn't just be unfeasible on pragmatic grounds - it would be easily swatted away, and anyone calling for it would appear immature to those they were trying to persuade - but Bush, for all his awfulness, is not, I believe, a murderer in any legal sense, nor Blair for that matter. That's not to say that they haven't been instrumental in terrible things - but the responsibility for what they did is collective. You could even extend that "collective" to people like us, whose comfortable lives are maintained by the inherent violence of the states in which we live. Bush and Blair are merely the figureheads of Western rapacity - they rise to prominence and do the things they do because others desire them to.

The Horse wrote:

QUOTE:
Er, but the book is a book, not a prosecution. How expensive the other side's lawyers are etc doesn't stop you establishing your case in a book, eg by explaining why the war was illegal, which is dead easy.

Ok, fine, as easy as making the opening argument for the prosecution. Granted. Unless there are two sides arguing their case and an impartial arbiter deciding between them, you haven't really "established" anything.

QUOTE:
Unless there are two sides arguing their case and an impartial arbiter deciding between them, you haven't really "established" anything.

Of course you have, as much as you can in a book, which this is. It's no good saying you can't establish things in a book based on the strictures in place in a completely different arena.

The Horse wrote:

QUOTE:
Of course you have, as much as you can in a book, which this is. It's no good saying you can't establish things in a book based on the strictures in place in a completely different arena.

It's a book expressly about that completely different arena. For it to be believable as legal theater it would need to make the case for how the defense might well lose such a prosecution. (And I sorta doubt anyone with a passing familiarity with how things would likely play out would be convinced.) Then, for it to really establish anything other than a legal brief, its arguments would need to be applied in that different arena and vindicated. The notion that this was an illegal war has been obvious to everyone inclined to agree with that since 2003, and far from obvious to all those disinclined to agree.