Quote:
Originally Posted by Sliver
Well it's not like they don't have a leg to stand on. If say the president of Mexico invaded a random country under the guise of a bunch of lies and kidnapped, detained and tortured thousands of people, we'd probably consider him to be a criminal. GWB is a criminal. An untouchable one, but I like that Amnesty International is at least calling him out on it.
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100% disagree, the only thing I may have a soft side for is the torture comment (which is what the actual story is on), but I still disagree. Torture is illegal, and he broke the law, but nothing is black and white, and more so when it comes to protecting and running a nation.
Bush was a terrible president, but as much as people hate him, he was in charge of a hurt and scared nation - to no fault of his own (you could argue the Clinton argument that 911 could have been prevented, but its a stretch to say its his fault). He used torture to defend a nation which was attacked. He was in uncharted waters for the modern presidency and made mistakes. As much as I would love to be a politician, I do not envy his first few years of his term.
As for the false evidence and invading an random country, you have to be very careful with this argument. Bush isn't Hitler or Gaddafi, meaning, he can't force the nation to go to war. Congress voted for it based on his staff's evidence. The United States government voted to go to war. As for the fact he mislead Congress, its a shady argument at best. First off, it would be a stretch to say its illegal (evidence could be "point of view"), secondly, from my brief understanding of what happened, he can plead ignorance, as they did have sources (terrible ones) stating there were nukes in Iraq. Lastly, as bad as it has been for the middle east region, for the American tax payers, and for the brave soldiers, Saddam deserved to die. If it came down to a trial, one could easily argue that based on the previous genocide Saddam ordered, invading the nation to arrest him was lawful. I disagree with the Iraq invasion, but you couldn't ring up Bush for it.
I am aware of Jason K's open letter the Amnesty Int. and while I didn't go into the background of what Amnesty was charging Canada with, I have no problem with them criticizing us. I skimmed through Jason's letter, and read how he ripped Amnesty because they are focusing on Canada when there are much worse human rights violations occurring in the world. As a cabinet member, he has to defend our reputation, and that's fine, but if we are making minor human rights mistakes, we need to be called out on them. Just because were not as bad a China, doesn't mean we can't improve. The day China because the minimum standard for Human Rights is the day we need to rebel.
In the end, I think this was a mistake for Amnesty as it makes them seem naive and will drive people away from them.