The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder

From OpEd News:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/The-Book-They-Can-t-Stop--by-Michael-...

The Prosecutor and the President

Vincent
Bugliosi wants George W. Bush prosecuted for murder.  There are others
who are complicit in the crime, namely the Vice President and
Condoleezza Rice, but Bush is the target of this famed former Los
Angeles prosecutor (the Charles Manson case) and best selling author (Helter SkelterThe Betrayal of America as two examples).   He is undeterred by the virtual major media
blackout on interviews and advertising.  He's taking his case directly
to the people through alternate media and the internet.

Bugliosi constructs a devastating case in The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder. 
As I write this review, it is still difficult to grasp my sense of
shock at this title with this author's name below it.  A legendary
prosecutor with a near perfect record in big cases, Bugliosi
articulates one of the most revolutionary ideas imaginable in a mix of
today's otherwise vapid and obtuse political thinking.  But first, the
book and how the prosecutor makes his case.

He wastes no time in following up on the shock generated by the title.  In the first sentence, we're told:

"The
book you are about to read deals with what I believe to be the most
serious crime ever committed in American history - - the president of
the nation, George W. Bush, knowingly and deliberately taking this
country to war in Iraq under false presences, a war that condemned over
100,000 human beings, including 4,000 American soldiers, to horrific,
violent deaths." (V. Bugliosi, p. 3)

The
president "knowingly and deliberately" caused the deaths of U.S.
soldiers and Iraqi civilians and that's called murder, plain and
simple.  This is not a hypothetical case that could happen under
special legal interpretations.  When the president leaves office, he is
subject to the same law as the rest of us.  Bugliosi explains the
ability to prosecute the case against George W. Bush by a district
attorney or states attorney in any local jurisdiction where a life was
lost in the Iraq war.  Federal prosecutors also have that option.
 Bugliosi's detailed analysis of this phenomenon offers some of the
best analysis in the book and the detailed end notes.

In
the first chapter, "Opening up One's Eyes," Bugliosi explains how he
was able to reach this conclusion and then encourages the reader to do
the same.  He attributes his huge success as a prosecutor and author to
his willingness' to "see what's in front of me completely uninfluenced
by the clothing (reputation, hoopla, conventional wisdom, etc.) put on
it by others" (p. 5).

After
the stage is set for an open minded look at recent history, we're
offered a series of incriminating quotations from Bush, Cheney, Rice,
and others.  Before the invasion, these statements had the power to
shift public opinion in favor of the war.  How could we tolerate a
dictator, Bush asked, who "threaten(ed) the world with horrible poisons
and diseases, and gasses and atomic weapons"? Iraq had "unmanned aerial
vehicles" and was "exploring ways of using these to target the United
States" (p. 22).  These and other inflammatory claims by Bush and his
crew were not only wildly off target, he knew that they were when he
made them, without any doubt.

By
the end of the carefully constructed first two chapters, the
prosecutor, known to devote several hundred hours to a closing
statement for a jury, has the reader prepared to accept his charges. He
pauses before beginning his core case to let us know the cost of these
lies.  Over a hundred thousand died in a war predicated on lies which
were deliberately fabricated by the president.

These
aren't just any deaths, we are told.  We are dealing with the murder of
young, impressionable, patriotic Americans who joined the service for a
variety of honorable reasons.  They all shared one bond, loyalty to
their country and a willingness to die for it in war.  While Bugliosi
shows highly appropriate concern for the dead Iraqi civilians as a result of the civil chaos caused by the Bush invasion, he notes
that he could find no domestic law allowing a prosecution for those
losses.

After
the first three chapters we know the tragedy that requires a legal
remedy and we are clear about the author's motivation to seek justice
on behalf of the fallen.  He is righteously angry that this crime has
taken place and determined to provide the means for justice.  Bugliosi
is indifferent to a virtual media blackout as a result of the comatose
state of the political and corporate elite, manifested through the
calculated denial of their network news readers and the Bush
administration stenographers at the New York Times and Washington Post.

There are three dates that define the guilt of Bugliosi's defendant:

On October 1, 2002, Bush received a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) representing all federal intelligence sources. Iraq's imminent
danger to the Unites States was described in this sentence: There's no
reference to poison dispensing unmanned aircraft, weapons sales to al
Qaeda which would be turned against us, or other immediate dangers.

Baghdad
for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist
attacks with conventional or CBW against the United States, fearing
that exposure of Iraqi involvement would provide Washington a stronger
cause for making war.

"Iraq probably would attempt clandestine attacks against the U.S. Homeland if Baghdad feared an attack that threatened the survival of the regime were imminent or unavoidable, or possibly for revenge. Such
attacks--more likely with biological than chemical agents--probably
would be carried out by special forces or intelligence operatives." NIE, 10/2002 and (V. Bugliosi, pp. 104-105)

On October 4, 2002,
Bush released a doctored summary of the NEI to Congress referred to as
a White Paper. He left out the critical information - Iraq was deemed
an imminent danger only if the survival of the regime were threatened
by a U.S. attack.  "Judgments" and other qualifying language in the NIE
were converted to simple assertions of fact in the White Paper giving
the case for war a seemingly unambiguous authority from the
intelligence community.

In
fact, the White Paper provided to Congress was diametrically opposed to
the NIE which the White House received from the intelligence agencies
on Oct. 1, 2002 and withheld from Congress.  The critical trigger for
an Iraqi threat to the U.S. was said to be just what Bush had proposed
--.an attack that threatened the survival of Hussein's regime.  Rather
than securing the nation's safety, by the logic and advice of his own
intelligence community, Bush put the nation at risk while concealing
vital intelligence. White Paper - Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Program and (V. Bugliosi, pp. 112-116)

On October 7, 2002, Bush spoke to an audience in Cincinnati, Ohio and claimed that Saddam Hussein was a danger to the United states with
his "unmanned aerial vehicles" with WMD "for missions targeting the
United States" (p. 105).

This
is the critical evidence.  It is unambiguous. Bush knew that Iraq was
not an imminent threat to the nation, yet portrayed just that to gain
approval for his war.  It represents only a part of the detailed and
overwhelming case presented in a determined, thorough, and totally
engaging narrative that Vincent Bugliosi sets out to do what he
promised.

He
builds an overwhelming case against George W. Bush, lays out the
jurisdictional and other legal issues that make this a viable case for
prosecution, and argues that presidential accountability is a
fundamental requirement to restore the status of "great nation" to the
United States, so damaged over the past eight years.

But there's a much broader significance to the prosecution, should it take place.

"Each pair of boots represent a dead Georgia man because of the Iraq war."
Boots of the "Fallen" cc

The Birth of the Public Servant

While
a trial and conviction of George W Bush for murder would be an event of
momentous proportions, it would pale in comparison to enduring impact
due to the precedent established.  Presidents could no longer offer up
the lives of soldiers and civilians sent to a war that was stated for
anything other than national defense or imminent danger to the country.

Although
the president had rotating rationales for the invasion, that act and
occupation had little to do with protecting the United States.  As
Bugliosi said in a recent interview with this author, over 4,000 soldiers have died "not your war or my war
or America's war, but George Bush's war."  The explanations offered by
Bush have been discarded by all but the perpetrators and none of the
financial or political motives suggested by others are acceptable
justifications for the death and destruction caused.

Were
there a prosecution and conviction, any future president would need to
think long and hard before serving his political interests or
necessities by filling the trough of financial backers and other chosen
few no matter what they gave or promised.  The president and his top
aids would be accountable for a fundamental individual right that is
obvious to us but not them: the right of each citizen to be free from
death due to a president's egotistical, political, or financial
desires.  Presidents would no longer be able to conceal the sin of
premeditated murder by draping it in the fiction of necessary losses in
the service of a larger national interest.  The real basis for
presidential decision making would be opened up to the scrutiny of
communities through their local prosecutors.

The
long standing conflict between individual rights versus collective
rights would be resolved as well.  By having to serve each member of
the public by refraining from unnecessary war making, the chief
executive would need to show restraint thus eliminating the requirement
for an oversized military establishment designed as an imperial
presence throughout the world.  The tools of diplomacy would devolve to
shared interests rather than coerced solutions forced on weaker
states.  And this would not just be for major wars.

The
United States has engaged in over 40 military incursions since World
War II.  Unless a president could be assured that no one soldier died,
he or she would be wise to have a solid justification for defense of
the nation for any military action in order to avoid an indictment
carrying a hefty sentence.  The president would also have the example
of a convicted and sentenced ex president who was vulnerable due to
nonstop lying about the rationale for war.

The
national defense was sorely lacking during the 9/11 attacks, despite an
awesome world wide military potential.  Similarly, the administrations
successful efforts to exempt themselves from the consequences of
international war crimes tribunals since 2003 occurred while the
potential existed for domestic prosecutions as Bugliosi outlines in
this book.  It poses a much more serious and final threat to willful
leaders who casually use their citizens as fodder in their wars to
benefit the narrow interests of financial actors who fear real
competition on an even playing field.

The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder

By Vincent Bugliosi
Vanguard Press (May 26, 2008 )
ISBN-10: 159315481X
ISBN-13: 978-1593154813
Hardcover: 352 pages

About the author

Michael Collins writes about the assault on voting rights and other corruptions of the
new millennium.  He conducted an extensive interview with Vincent
Bugliosi on August 3, 2008 published here and here. He is the author of Election 2004: The Urban Legend and Notes from the Underground which exposed the distortions required in the 2004 national exit poll
to show a Bush win. He is one of few to report on the ongoing struggles
of Susan Lindauer, an activist accused of being a foreign agent, who was the subject of a government request for forced psychiatric medication.

http://electionfraudnews.com

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