Laugh now. We're on a trail of many, many tears.

Sad to say, it could have been different...

...or maybe not.

As if war crimes were not enough, these people also stole two Presidential elections, which is a clear act of civil war.

I believe only negative things will come of any wild goose chases after war crimes and such. One reason Obama got my vote was his promise to let these sleeping dogs lie. Now of course if they continue to try to scare the public against Obama, then I would say send them all to Gitmo and hang 'em without a trial - ala Cheney - Bush. If they shut their mouths then I say let it go. This witch hunt will only serve to get wealthy lawyers paid more money to do nothing but hold a parade in front of 435 criminals. Besides, the truth is, that if any peace is ever to be achieved between any 2 groups, including Rep's & Dem's one side must stop their foolishness first. If I don't hit you back, we do not have a fight. Harder to do and much easier to say I know. Forgiveness has to be part of our recovery process as a nation.

If only. Where can I get my own TV station, cheap?

I've also suggested a Wall Street version of Cops.

Instead of chasing African Americans in Broward County for a few grams of an illegal drug why not chase bankers down the clean hallways of Goldman Sachs for attempting to sell a credit default swap?

Any network who put this show on would get MASSIVE ratings, especially now.

P.S. Don't forget to bring the tasers.

Well, have it your way then. It never ends when each side continues to act like the other. We will never move forward while chasing the past.

Also if you want to discuss Treaties America has never honored let's start at some place, like Wounded Knee or take a long walk on all the Reservations we STILL have operating in America. Those particular treaties are interesting in that they attempt to preserve the Nations of Native Americans contained within borders of US Govt. choosing, "negotiated" at gun point. Entire Nations were relocated by force to lands that were unsustainable for their populations. Or do these treaties not deserve any reconciliation?

Bush and Cheney had tons of help. The Republicans & Democrats in Congress that abdicated its own Constitutional Authority under the Iraq War Powers Act are guilty of treason. If we follow the Constitution to the letter as you suggest, our government itself is illegal going way back. where do you propose we start? The assassinations of the past? Allende? Do some googling my friend and tell me just at what point in the past shall we begin to correct injustices? Maybe the Inquisition? how about the burning of women through out Europe in the Middle Ages? That was some real good fear mongering gone wild there.

At birth, all human babies, save basic survival instinct, are the proverbial blank sheets of paper. Social forces, chief among them economic influences, then go to writing furiously. In our day and time the socialization process ends with the fully formed capitalist man or woman. This person will think and act in harmony with its relationship to productive forces.

The capitalist economy produces a ruling class, a handful of men who wield dictatorial power and are accorded material privilege beyond all reason. Karl Marx called them the bourgeoisie. Capitalism demands unity among this small group based solely on an absolute allegiance to profits. That unity will not be undermined by nationalism, or racism, or anything as silly as sentiment or mysticism. Patriotism and religious belief are for chumps who fight and die in their wars for profit.

Former President George W. Bush was a prop of the bourgeoisie and Barack Obama has now assumed that same role. Former Vice-President Dick Cheney though provides an object lesson in the nature of a member of the ruling class. His recent warning of an imminent nuclear or biological attack on the US is alarming for his power to order such an attack. For while publicly Cheney takes a backseat to no one in his patriotic determination to “protect America” he has prepared to live out his golden years in Abu Dahbi. Like the Colts stole out of Baltimore in the dead of night, Cheney’s Halliburton has quietly moved its holdings to the United Arab Emirates.

Neither the massive death and destruction being visited by the US military on Abu Dahbi’s Middle Eastern and Muslim neighbors nor the killed and maimed US soldiers enter the calculations of the Kingdom’s rulers or the Vice President. They are ruling class brothers tightly bonded in pursuit of their system’s lifeblood—greater profits.

Another of Dick Cheney’s ruling class counterparts are a Saudi Arabian family, the bin Ladens. Out of deference to the family Cheney flew their members out of the US immediately after 9/11. Muhammed Awad bin Laden most famous son, Usama, is another object lesson in the nature of the bourgeoisie.

Usama’s familial wealth spared him from working a day in his life. His idleness, like many children of the very rich, launched him on a search for meaning, a cause to live for beyond material gratification. He found it in religious zealotry and ultimately in the formation of a cult now known the world over as al-Qaeda. Usama bin Laden and al-Qaeda exhibit the narcissism common to the petty bourgeoisie and their political formations. They readily rationalize the killing of innocents, romanticize suicide and self-destruction, and lead the people, youth especially, away from effective struggle against oppression.

In the fire of US imperialism’s designs in the Middle East, Hamas in Gaza and Hizbollah in Lebanon have, through years of disciplined work and organizing, woven themselves into the lives of the respective peoples they seek to liberate. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda eschews organizing, rejects unity, and embraces futility. Thus it not only presents no threat to imperialism, it has a symbiotic relationship with it. Usama bin Laden serves a useful purpose for the capitalist ruling class, which is why since 2001 “the world’s most wanted terrorist” has remained at large.

Terrific idea, it just might have me watching nbc again. Or not.

You sir, "get it". In the words of the prophet Malcolm X, "I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those who do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice, and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the system of exploitation. I believe that there will be that kind of clash but I don't think it will be based on the color of the skin..."

If we prosecute the so called war criminals what of those who voted for them? Votes are no longer secret ballots with the E voting systems. I am not opposed to going after Cheney and Bush, but only if we include the Senators and Congresspersons (think Clinton, Pelosi, Reid, Kennedy, as well as Republican leaders) who all voted in lock step with the Bush Cheney agenda.

Also, the death penalty has no statute of limitations, meaning a murder can be prosecuted any time after it occurs forever. Therefore your argument that some cases are too old doesn't hold up very well.

http://www.IndictBushNow.org

sign up

Fugitive is armed and dangerous.

Do not approach, even with caution.

Shoot on sight.

re Neoconned 10:13 am

You ask (rhetorically, I'm sure) "...tell me just at what point in the past shall we begin to correct injustices?"

I'll play along. Assuming that's not just a counterargument intended to derail this train of thought, let's start with the crimes whose authors are still alive to face punishment. The "truth & reconcilliation commission" can take up cases in which the perps are beyond the reach of law.

Okay with you?

Cohen, as usual, brings his acute insight to the practices of the mass media to divert the public's attention from the ugly realities of the imperialists who run this country. Truly the MSM has become a Fifth Column acting for the corporate state and those who prefer fascism to democracy.

Today's commentary thread is disturbing, not because most advocate prosecuting the Bush Administration war criminals but because of the language used to discuss their crimes. The commentary is all about these crimes being in the past, albeit an immediate past. The major flaw in the rhetoric is that, because nearly all of Bush's executive orders, the USA PATRIOT Act and much other legislation is still active; it is not in the past.

It is very important to prosecute the perpetrators of the war crimes, but it is even more important to focus on insisting that Obama issue executive orders eliminating Bush's orders which violate the Constitution and that both Obama and the Congress eliminate the legislation that also violates the Constitution. The camps that were built to hold dissidents, loosely defined as terrorists by the USA PATRIOT Act, and the executive orders permitting the president to make orders to round up these "terrorists" are still on the books. Northcom now has brigades retrained and standing by authorized to round up the "terrorists," so thinking that the threat to the people ended with the Bush Administration is a dangerous delusion.

Prosecutions are good to show that we do not tolerate such criminality, but we must eliminate the basis on which it was done, so that Obama and future presidents cannot find an excuse to use those executive orders and laws against the people.

NBC stands for Never Bother Conservatives. So the show definitely won't happen there. HBO might be the only outfit daring enough to try it. The show should be hosted by Dr. Jack Kevorkian or Chuck Barris who tracks Cheney down in Episode One and lays a trail of $100 bills from Cheney's doorstep to the Air Force base at Dover, Delaware. When Cheney reaches Dover, permanently hunched over from picking up the money, he is quickly snatched, placed in a metal coffin and flown back to Iraq where a lush, overblown Bollywood style trial, an absolute mockery of what we consider to be justice, finds him guilty and he is eventually beheaded by a six foot long curved sword. Even though I don't watch tv anymore, I'll pay heavily to see it and buy the eventual DVD.

Interesting discussion. Very good article. Maybe too little - too late. All of this would be unnecessary if only the voters had voted for State Attorneys General and/or County Prosecutors who had campaigned on the promise to indict Bush/Cheney. Only those office holders are authorized to bring this sort of legal action. Only ONE AG/Prosecutor is needed. The voters rejected every candidate who promised Indictments. Seems to me that those voters are just as guilty as Bush/Cheney.
Blaming the Congress, the media, etc might make us all feel better, but the ultimate responsibility has fallen on the voters and they have spoken. OOOPs - maybe we are now having a bit of 'voters remorse'.

Jeff Cohen, you've got it wrong (three times) about NBC Dateline's "To Catch a Predator," which you smear as a "sleaze-fest - in which potential sex offenders by the bushel were lured via the Internet to what they thought would be sex with kids . . ."

First, "sleaze-fest?" A 2001 Justice Department study found about 3 percent of teens have been "aggressively [sexually] solicited by adults online." 3 percent of the 32 million teenagers in the U.S. is about 1 million teens. 1 million children are being targeted by perverse adults for sex, and you criticize NBC for having the guts to take that on?

When the "Predator" series first began the police weren't involved and Dateline was criticized for letting the criminals walk away. After that, they decided to cooperate with law enforcement. You, as founder of FAIR, should have done your homework before disparaging journalists who've actually done some heavy lifting in our society (as they are supposed to).

Second, you say the predators were "lured" via the Internet? Wrong again. No predator was lured . . . they are the ones who did the luring. Every one of the 260 adult predators featured on the program initiated an online contact with (someone they believed to be) a child, and every one of them initiated an explicit sexual conversation. The decoys were careful never to initiate such contacts or conversations in order to avoid any claim of entrapment.

And third, you call the predators "potential sex offenders?" Wrong a third time. They weren't potential criminals, they were criminals. Every one of the predators traveled to the child's home at a time when they believed the child would be home alone. Many had already sent explicit sexual photographs of themselves to the child, and many arrived at the child's home carrying condoms and alcohol. Some removed their clothes when they arrived. This constitutes attempted child molestation. Each predator had committed a sex crime the moment he arrived at the home of someone he believed to be a child.

In addition, at least in some jurisdictions, an adult who seduces a minor or juvenile target over the Internet by using attention, affection, kindness, or gifts can be charged with the sex crime of "Internet luring."

NBC (at one time the most right-wing news network after FOX) did the right thing with the "Predator" series, and their sister network MSNBC is now giving national audiences a taste of left-wing political opinions with the Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow shows. Even Chris Mathews has found the guts to go after the neo-cons, albeit only after they left town. I say, you should be seriously approaching NBC about doing another show for them, rather than dissing them.