Eight Questions to Ponder

Bugliosi devotes the heart of his book to the aruguments, legal case law, evidentiary material and even a hypothetical cross-examination of how he would deal with Bush sitting in the witness chair. Those issues are primary for any thinking person to consider.

His "opening statements" contained in other chapters are worthy of putting the Administration and Bush as an individual in context. Some opinions are pretty harsh, but the totality would stir any jury to consider their own preconceptions. Here are a few I extracted for you to ponder and comment with alternative answers, if so inclined.

1. What was Mr. Bush doing in the immediate aftermath of 9-11 other than remaining for 5 minutes in a children's classroom?

2. What American President would not respond to an attack on the country in the same way? Essentially, greatness is emblematic of making choices. Bush, nor any American President would have had any other choice than to go after the perpetrators.

3. What was the reason for Mr. Bush's sudden reversal on the importance of finding Bin Laden six months before the Iraq invasion?

4. Why did The American Afghanistan contingent not actively engage until six months after hostilities, allowing the Northern Alliance to do all the fighting?

5. What did Rumsfeld actually admit when Bin Laden was trapped in Tora Bora?

6. Why would we leave his capture at Tora Bora up to ~50 Northern Alliance fighters, not stationing a division of American troops on the Pakistani border and allowing him to slip into Afghanistan with the protection of a former Taliban freedom fighter under the Soviet invasion for the paltry sum of $13,000?

7. Why was the Bin Laden unit of the CIA, established under Clinton, disbanded six months ago?

8. Why did Bush do everything in his power to prevent the 9-11 Commission from happening, and why did he do everything he could to retard their progress?

Under Bush this country is less safe, has created an incubator of future terrorist by invading a country which could not, if it wanted to, threaten the U.S., is seen by the Muslin world and much of the rest of the earth with disdain.

Even the 9-11 Commission came to the conclusion:

"We find no collaborative relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda and no evidence that Iraq was involved in 9/11."

And this and WMD were the two premises that led us to declare a pre-emptive war with all its consequences.

Finally, the 9/11 Public Disclosure Project, a watchdog group created by the Commission, released its results and graded the Bush Administration on the 41 recommendations of the Commission. They gave the Administration 17 F's" and "D's". The Bush Administration did get 1 "A", an A- actually, for efforts to stem financing of terrorist networks.

The Essential Legal Argument: Could Bush Really be tried in a regular Court?

First, my full disclosure. I am not a lawyer. This post is intended to relay the essence of Bugliosi's superior legal mind in making the argument that any federal prosecutor, state attorney general or local district attorney living in a jurisdiction in which a soldier has died in Iraq has the standing to bring an indictment before a Grand Jury and indict George Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice and Karl Rove for the crimes of murder in the first degree, conspiracy to commit murder, and at the very least, murder in the second degree.

It is my hope that it spurs others to action by taking the steps noted in an earlier post:

http://prosecutebushformurder.blogspot.com/2008/07/prosecute-bush-what-you-can-do-today.html

The Prosecution can only proceed when Bush leaves Office.

Bugliosi makes it clear that the only remedy under Impeachment is removal from office. Though he agrees that Impeachment would be a preferable first step, it is not necessary and is certainly not sufficient punishment for the crimes committed and conspiracy that led to these murders.

Remember that after the Watergate scandal and Nixon's resignation from office, he could not pardon himself. There was serious consideration of prosecution for obstruction of justice and illegal wiretapping, but Ford's pardon eliminated this possibility. Bugliosi even acknowledges that he would not have brought charges. In his opinion Impeachment would have been a sufficient punishment for those crimes.

But he contends that murder is another matter and makes the point that for those who say that they could not conceive of bringing a President up on charges in a regular American courtroom, especially for the crime of murder he makes the counter observation:

[If one accepts his legal argument for the ability to indict and evidence of murder, then what are the options?] "Since a regular courtroom is the only place that a president could be prosecuted for murder, and you agree that Bush and his cronies conspired to take the country to war under false pretenses, knowing that they were false, and if thousands, even 50 million Americans, die as a result, other than removing him from office through the impeachment process, would you still conclude that the president should be immune from criminal responsibility?"

The Congressional Authorization of October 11, 2002 would not eliminate the possibility of prosecution

Bugliosi deals with this point head on by noting that fraud cannot vitiate consent. He notes that consent of the victim is not a defense for murder, as in some crimes (e.g. rape, theft). Even if the argument were made that Congress represents those dead soldiers, that consent is nullified by the deliberate fraud Bush made to induce them to give him consent.

The theoretical and legal framework for prosecution

Bugliosi methodically leads the reader through the legal framework and establishes all of the necessary components for bringing a murder charge. Through explaining the legal terms of actus rea and mens rea, he applies these to Bush's state of mind by starting a war with wanton and reckless abandon and indifference to [it's consequences, the loss of] human life.

He addresses the counter arguments of self-defense (e.g. he was protecting the country because it was in imminent danger), by comparing this to the reasonable fear or reasonable man arguments. A prosecution would have to show that he did have a criminal state of mind. Much of his later case presentation deals with how he would deal with the self-defense argument.

He conducts an eye-opening analysis of "malice aforethought" and shows how "premeditation" doesn't have to include "hatred" (malice) for another. A contract killer doesn't necessarily hate his victim. He demonstrates that modern case law means a specific intent to commit a highly dangerous act with reckless and wanton disregard for the consequences and indifference to human life. He also demonstrates how premeditation doesn't have to be long at all, though he argues that Bush and his co-conspirators carefully tried to weave their scheme, even at times understanding the potential ramifications and carefully choosing their words so as not to imply intent.

He discusses implied malice and how it can relate to this case. Though in some states implied malice could only result in a second degree murder conviction, interestingly the state of Texas and others can actually impose not only first degree convictions, but also a death sentence.

Though this brief summary comes short of Bugliosi's thorough treatment, hopefully it gives the thoughtful reader enough information to find out more. In the next post I will summarize the essential case that Bugliosi would make to prove that George W. Bush is guilty of first degree murder.

Prosecute Bush: Part II

Though I am responding to a poster on the ABC News comments site, to someone who has obviously not bothered to read the book before commenting, hopefully a more thoughtful reader will benefit.

This poster started his reply by quoting from a White House press release. Below I use his quote and respond by using Bush's own words:

He quoted: "He never said wait till an imminent threat, he said we can't wait"

In his October 7, 2002 speech, (from Cincinnati, Ohio, Bush's first address to the nation on the Iraq threat):

"If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today -- and we do -- does it make sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons?...Iraq can decide on any given day to provide biological or chemical weapons to a terrorist group...The risk is simply too great that he will use them, or provide them to a terrorist network...Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun-- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."

If you read Bugliosi's book, he explains how these and numerous other statements constitute legal proof that he did not have to use those specific words. If he had meant anything other than "imminent" he could have chosen to use "in the future" or even "in the near future", instead of "Iraq could launch a chemical or biological attack in as little as forty-five minutes".

Perhaps the most damning evidence against Bush's premeditation lies in the classified version of the National Intelligence Estimate (October 1, 2007), released to the Administration just six days before his speech to the nation in Cincinnati. A sanitized, unclassified version with numerous deletions, known as the White Paper, was released on October 4, 2007, by the Bush Administration:

That classified estimate (subsequently declassified in 2004) did include opinions that Chemical and Biological Weapons (CBW) could exist, but footnotes in the document clarify these as just that -- guesses, opinions, hunches. One example: "Although we have little specific information on Iraq'a CW stockpile, Saddam probably has stocked at least 100 metric tons..."

But, in the White Paper, these footnoted qualifications were deleted and the most significant statement in the NIE was totally excised:

"Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorit attacks with conventional or CBW against the United States, fearing that exposure of Iraqui involvement would provide Washington a stronger case for making war. Iraq probably would attempt clandestine attacks against the US Homeland if Baghdad feared an attack that threatened the survival of the regime were imminent or unavoidable." [emphasis added]

In other words Baghdad, according to our intelligence agencies, had no intention of provoking a war, and the White House knew it before scaring the begeezus out of all of us.

The poster also quoted numerous statements in the Congressional Authorization and claim that this exonerates Bush of premeditiation and responsibility.

Again, if you read the legal arguments, you would understand the distinction. I can't lay out the entire case in a few words, but Bugliosi writes:

"The answer [to the poster's citations of Authorization] is that the congressional authorization is not a defense to the crime of murder... But even if the argument were made that Congress represents all Americans, consent is not a defense to the crime of murder... Consent, though a defense in some crimes (e.g. rape, theft), is not a defense to the crime of murder. Further, it is boilerplate law that fraud vitiates consent. So, the consent that Congress gave Bush is nullified by the deliberate misrepresentations he made to Congress in inducing it to give him its consent."

Bugliosi deals with this issue extensively throughout the book

Finally, the poster quoted:

"ALSO.... do you know that by Saddam's continued no fly zone violations he directly ignored the 1991 Peace treaty. He went on to ignore 13 UN resolutions!
There was also 350 tonnes of yellow cake totally processable for WMDs discovered in Iraq. So please tell me again how President Bush is a murderer when he had all of the above validation?"

Do you seriously want to argue that violations of UN Resolutions and the presence of unprocessed yellow cake, justifies launching an unprovoked attack upon a country that has resulted in more than 4,000 American lives lost, literally (since the Bush Administration still refuses to estimate civilian casualties), tens of thousands of dead and maimed Innocent Iraqi citizens, the loss of more than $1,000,000,000,000 in American treasure (that's trillion, my brother!), and the hatred and loss of trust throughout the world?

Apparently, you have already decided (funny how that sort of matches our "Decider-in-Chief", who rarely reads a newspaper and has his 100-page memos summarized into a paragraph), so I'll speak through you in hopes that an iquisitve, open-minded reader will stop just posting opinions, read, my original post and TAKE THE ACTIONS suggested to bring this criminal to justice.

Prosecute Bush: What You Can Do Today

Say what?

You heard me right. A very serious former prosector, Vincent Bugliosi of the Manson Family murders trial, has written a book of the same name.

And there's something that you can do today to bring George W. Bush to justice.

I will summarize on a regular basis my own "Cliff Notes" version as I read it for the third time.

For now, here's the summary of current events since the book's publishing:

Vincent Bugliosi ("Helter Skelter" and Manson prosecutor) has released a book with the title in the subject line of this post laying out the criminal case for bringing this war criminal to justice in federal or state court after he leaves office.

I watched the entire 1 hour 55 minutes of a CSPAN "Book Notes" episode and couldn't turn away as he laid out the case with information in the public record, but of which much that I was unaware.

Won't try to summarize in this post, but f you are interested, do what I am doing:

1. Go to www.prosecutionof bush.com, or just click on the link attached to learn more.

2. Watch a few of the videos from the few alternative media interviews that have been conducted. Search on YouTube (c) for "prosecution of Bush" to see even more.

3. Send an email to your Congresspersons and States' Attorney Generals, along with any local prosecutor with standing (the web site explains).

4. Send an email to every editor and producer with every news program or newspaper that you know or care to contact asking why that outlet has not interviewed Mr. Bugliosi

5. Buy the book or audiobook.

The most fascinating part of this unfolding story:

1. He (Bugliosi) was turned down by every publisher he approached, even though he is a reputable prosecutor who won all but one of his 106 cases and NY Times non-fiction best seller book list writer, until Vanguard picked up the rights. He and Vanguard approached every audio book publisher in the U.S., and were turned down again. The BBC published the audio book.

2. He has yet to receive a single interview with any "mainstream" media organization (CNBC's "Morning Joe" was the sole laughable exception), even though the book without publicity sits currently at #9 on the NY Times Bestsellers List.

3. If you've followed the lead up to the war in any detail and remember the "Downing Street Memo", where "fixing the facts" to support the war was allegedly discussed, forget it. Read the "Manning Memo", two weeks before Bush went before the American people on national TV with "incontrovertible proof that we were in imminent danger of being attacked".

As Bugliosi detailed in this speech on Book TV (I'll try to do justice to his comments.)

"Of course, he should be impeached, but that would just remove him from office. I am committed to pursue this prosecution until George W. Bush is on trial in an American courtroom for the murder of nearly 4,000 American soldiers. Recall that it took 30 years to finally bring a case against Augusto Pinochet, but I won't rest until a jury gets the opportunity to hear this case. In the end, if nothing else, I want George W. Bush to go to bed each night with the nagging doubt that some morning he might wake up in Crawford and an aid comes to him and says, 'Sir, I don't know what this is about, but some prosecutor in Fargo, North Dakota, has filed an indictment and you are ordered to be arraigned tomorrow.'

I wouldn't dismiss this out of hand. Bugliosi won 105 of his 106 cases, including 21 straight murder prosecutions, is dead serious and has a fascinating case.

Also, Bush cannot pardon himself, and once he leaves office, only the next President could prevent this from happening.