How can Sweden fairly prosecute Assange when they don't prosecute GW Bush?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

"He was convicted in absentia."

"Oh? Will he be serving his time there?"

 

[Watanabe]

The Swedish constitution. (Not that it matters to you, since you're either trolling or running around with goalposts on your shoulder.)

And who will enforce that Constitution, if necessary, against the Swedish Government and the Swedish Judiciary system?

 

[Watanabe]

I suppose there's some kind of continuum at work here. If the democratically elected leader of Country A started a war with Country B and in the process exterminated or attempted to exterminate an ethnic group in Country B then I think that the leader of Country A should stand trial for that.

My personal problem is with wars where the objective is to topple the leader of another country. I know that Saddam Hussein was a very bad man and I would much preferred that he wasn't in charge of Iraq but to go to war to depose him (IMO the WMD was a convenient ruse) sets a dangerous precedent. In a bizarro future world where by some cruel twist of fate the current leadership of Iran has become a model for much of that part of the world I can imagine the forces of Islamic theocracy invading a Western country to free us from the yoke of secular democracy.

We in the West honestly believe that secular democracy is the best system of government (or to paraphrase Winston Churchill, the least worst) and will support those in other countries who profess to want to implement it in their own countries and will support them financially and even militarily. We believe that we are right by some kind of objective standard. There hundreds of millions of people out there who don't share our view.

Establishing the right to depose by force is IMO dangerous and political assassination moreso.

I have tro admit, but I agree with all you have said.
And I would go a little bit further saying that in this case, the West behaved worse than Iran, since Iran never toppled any Western democracy, so far

 

[eirik]

And who will enforce that Constitution, if necessary, against the Swedish Government and the Swedish Judiciary system?

The people. Via a parliament that in an election would ensure new laws that kick corrupt judges to the curb, and corrupt ministers with them. In addition they would be impeached and put in jail.

Now you: Do you have *any* Swedes or any with knowledge of Sween, e.g. Swedish media or voters that complain that their entire legal system, government and parliament is corrupt?

How long are you going to play this game? It's called checks and balances.

I would bet you would be hard pressed to find *even a single case in the last 100 years of corrupt judges and ministers, except the odd minor abuse of a state credit card from a government official. Which almost ruined her career.

Now, what do you have, except no knowledge whatsoever of the legal system, and how a modern state is organized, much less in Sweden?

 

[Spindrift]

The Swedish constitution. (Not that it matters to you, since you're either trolling or running around with goalposts on your shoulder.)

 

[The Don]

I have tro admit, but I agree with all you have said.
And I would go a little bit further saying that in this case, the West behaved worse than Iran, since Iran never toppled any Western democracy, so far

The trouble is that my airy-fairy hands off approach fails to address a problem like Iraq (under Saddam Hussein), Iran, North Korea, Burma, Cambodia (under the Khmer Rouge) and a large number of Central African states in the 1960's, 70's, 80's where the people are suffering under the yoke of a tyrant but are unable to get rid of that tyrant.

But this is off topic.

The original question is moot - Sweden cannot prosecute GWB so it's irrelevant to whether Assange will get a fair trial.

 

[Crossbow]

Right, the leader of the UN had an opinion on the matter and that means he could be prosecuted for a nonsense concept?

If I may interject ...

'Travis' you may not be aware of this fact, but since the USA has signed on to various UN Charters/Treaties which, among other things, forbid member states from engaging in wars of agression and torture. Therefore, since the Iraq War can be considered to be a war of agression by the USA and things like waterboarding can be considered to be torture which was done by the USA, therefore the responsible parties (like George W. Bush and his various flunkies) can be prosecuted accordingly.

However, I seriously doubt that such a thing will ever happen.

How was it unnecessary? Was there another way to remove Saddam from power that should have been tried? And what were those lies?

There were many other ways of dealing with Saddam besides going to war. However, George Bush and the pro-war people were far too stupid to use them.

 

[squealpiggy]

If I may interject ...

'Travis' you may not be aware of this fact, but since the USA has signed on to various UN Charters/Treaties which, among other things, forbid member states from engaging in wars of agression and torture. Therefore, since the Iraq War can be considered to be a war of agression by the USA and things like waterboarding can be considered to be torture which was done by the USA, therefore the responsible parties (like George W. Bush and his various flunkies) can be prosecuted accordingly.

However, I seriously doubt that such a thing will ever happen.

Can you imagine the UN even attempting such a thing?

Speaker: Motion to prosecute the United States for war crimes including engaging in wars of aggression and the use of torture...

US Delegate: VETO!

 

[The Don]

Can you imagine the UN even attempting such a thing?

Speaker: Motion to prosecute the United States for war crimes including engaging in wars of aggression and the use of torture...

US Delegate: VETO!

U.S. partisanship would have to get much worse

Speaker: Motion to prosecute the Republican President of the United States for war crimes including engaging in wars of aggression and the use of torture...

US Delegate (Democrat party Apparatchik) : Seconded!

 

[Travis]

Nonsense according to you.
and I do not want to argue again about the legality of the Iraq war (it was illegal, though) but it lead to 200000+ deaths

Liberating Belgium also killed loads of people. Was that an illegal war? I'm sure the Nazi's thought so.

Was the American Civil War an illegal war? The South sure still seems to think so.

As Saddam did not have relevant quantities of WMDs?

Irrelevant. He was still a genocidal madman that needed to be removed from power. Just because he didn't have the ability to threaten the rest of the world at large didn't mean he wasn't still oppressing his own people in cruel and terrible ways.

Who said that Saddam needed to be removed from power at at all costs?

Those that wanted him removed. Like the majority of his own citizens.

And, if he had to, why in 2003 and not in 1983?

Because the timing just came out that way. No one seemed to want to do it before then (except weirdos like me that spent their free time reading Amnesty International reports on his death and terror squads). If I had my way he would have been ousted during the Clinton years. But there wasn't the national will before 2003 to do it.

I suppose there's some kind of continuum at work here. If the democratically elected leader of Country A started a war with Country B and in the process exterminated or attempted to exterminate an ethnic group in Country B then I think that the leader of Country A should stand trial for that.

My personal problem is with wars where the objective is to topple the leader of another country. I know that Saddam Hussein was a very bad man and I would much preferred that he wasn't in charge of Iraq but to go to war to depose him (IMO the WMD was a convenient ruse) sets a dangerous precedent. In a bizarro future world where by some cruel twist of fate the current leadership of Iran has become a model for much of that part of the world I can imagine the forces of Islamic theocracy invading a Western country to free us from the yoke of secular democracy.

Well in bizarro world that might actually be what is best for the people. Not in my world but in that one....who knows?

We in the West honestly believe that secular democracy is the best system of government (or to paraphrase Winston Churchill, the least worst) and will support those in other countries who profess to want to implement it in their own countries and will support them financially and even militarily. We believe that we are right by some kind of objective standard. There hundreds of millions of people out there who don't share our view.

Establishing the right to depose by force is IMO dangerous and political assassination moreso.

I'm not keen on assassination. But I think it is important to retain the right to depose.

I often go through a thought exercise where the Tea Party takes control of the USA and radically reforms our government into an absolutist theocracy with a mission to cleanse the earth of those they deem sinners. If I existed in that society—where millions of my fellow citizens were being massacred every year for imagined religious crimes—I would very much hope another nation would take it upon itself to invade my nation to get rid of our leaders before we all end up dead from the genocide.

For me the crystallizing moment in all this was when I was in college and encountered someone from Rwanda who wanted to know why we in the west did nothing to try and stop the genocide there.

I had no answer that was of any worth. I knew the real answer was that we all just didn't give a damn (Madonna was probably up to something then and that was deemed way more important to obsess about). But I wasn't going to tell him that. Right then I decided that from then on I would give a damn. Never again would I do nothing while oppressive foreign governments abuse and murder their own citizens.

Seeking justice is always fraught with peril. Allowing the psychopaths of the world to do whatever they want is even more perilous.

 

[Travis]

There were many other ways of dealing with Saddam besides going to war. However, George Bush and the pro-war people were far too stupid to use them.

Then please enlighten us dimwitted yokes. What were these other options to remove Saddam from power and convert Iraq into a secular democracy?

 

[squealpiggy]

U.S. partisanship would have to get much worse

Speaker: Motion to prosecute the Republican President of the United States for war crimes including engaging in wars of aggression and the use of torture...

US Delegate (Democrat party Apparatchik) : Seconded!

Hahaha then there would be

China: Oh crap. VETO!
Russia: Yes, we too will veto!

 

[The Don]

Well in bizarro world that might actually be what is best for the people. Not in my world but in that one....who knows?

That's why I'm uncomfortable with the whole deposing thing.

I'm not keen on assassination. But I think it is important to retain the right to depose.

These days there's (almost) no way that we will be able get global consensus about a decision to depose (the fact that the North Korean regime is still in place bears testament to that) which means that we're making absolute decisions that our model is the right one.

I was all for getting rid of the Taliban but I recognise that it would be hypocritical to decry another country for supporting the Taliban to depose the regime we put in place.

 

[uke2se]

What does it matter if Iraq was an illegal war or not? Fact of the matter is that Sweden doesn't have jurisdiction to prosecute GWB for any crimes committed outside of Sweden, and even if we did, doing so would be tantamount to political suicide. Furthermore, prosecuting GWB for war crimes has nothing to do with prosecuting Julian Assange for rape.

Don't let Watanabe get away with these off-topic rants.

 

[Crossbow]

Can you imagine the UN even attempting such a thing?

Speaker: Motion to prosecute the United States for war crimes including engaging in wars of aggression and the use of torture...

US Delegate: VETO!

Indeed! I doubt that such a vote would ever be presented to the Security Committe.

Unfortunately, nations are seldom held to the same criminal standards that individuals are held to.

 

[Metullus]

Trolling or just not reading post #8?

Bush should be charged with "Trolling or just not reading post #8"?

As far as I can tell the only charge that you can articulate against Bush is that he did some stuff that you don't like. I fail to see why you would expect Sweden or any other country to act against someone on that basis.

 

[Crossbow]

Then please enlighten us dimwitted yokes. What were these other options to remove Saddam from power and convert Iraq into a secular democracy?

Well, if the various dimwitted yokes were not so terribly dimwitted, then they would already know the answers to that question.

However, I will do my best to expunge your ignorance.

First, I do not know of any other options that would have removed Saddam from power in Iraq. Furthermore, I did not really care if Saddam stayed in power or not.

However, what I (and many, many others) did care about, was keeping Saddam contained in Iraq. The pre-war sanctions were doing an excellent job of keeping him in his own country as well as building the international cooperation which would be needed to properly handle a post-Saddam Iraq.

Second, as for transforming Iraq into a democracy, that has not been done yet. And I doubt that such a thing will happen for quite some time.

But since you do not know how to radically change radically change the population of an entire nation into a new direction in a short time, then I will tell you how such a thing is done. What needs to happen is to completely occupy that nation so that the population is forced to accept the designated direction. And again, such an occupation has not been done in Iraq.

 

[Watanabe]

Liberating Belgium also killed loads of people. Was that an illegal war? I'm sure the Nazi's thought so.

Belgium was liberated from an outside aggressor, the Nazis
Iraq was not liberated from an outsider aggressor

Irrelevant. He was still a genocidal madman that needed to be removed from power. Just because he didn't have the ability to threaten the rest of the world at large didn't mean he wasn't still oppressing his own people in cruel and terrible ways.

If the US were sodedicated to liberating the world from evil Saddam, why were they supporting him 20 years before?

Those that wanted him removed. Like the majority of his own citizens.

You mean the same citizens that were suffering when the US was supporting that genocidal madman?

Because the timing just came out that way. No one seemed to want to do it before then (except weirdos like me that spent their free time reading Amnesty International reports on his death and terror squads). If I had my way he would have been ousted during the Clinton years. But there wasn't the national will before 2003 to do it.

Ah,. it is the timing
You support dictators in even years and remove them in odd years..

 

[Stacko]

Is Assange the only accused rapist this applies to or is Sweden unable to prosecute any accused rapists until they have sufficient international morality points by this arbitrary standard?

 

[The Don]

If the US were sodedicated to liberating the world from evil Saddam, why were they supporting him 20 years before?

In the Iran/Iraq war, the U.S. determined that Iran was "worse" than Iraq (what with it being an Islamic Theocracy and because it had recently held more than a hundred US diplomatic staff hostage).

20 years later the US determined that Saddam needed to be deposed (probably because of the threat he now posed to US allies like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia) and used WMD as the means to do so.

You mean the same citizens that were suffering when the US was supporting that genocidal madman?

Maybe in 1982 they felt that Iraq under Saddam was preferable to Iraq under whoever the Iranians would put in power.

In 2003 they felt that Iraq under Saddam was much worse than Iraq under whoever the US would put in power.

Ah,. it is the timing

True for both international diplomacy and comedy. Allied invasion of France in 1944 - good. German invasion of France in 1940 - bad. It would also have been bad if the Allies had invaded France in 1938.

You support dictators in even years and remove them in odd years..

Yep, if the U.S. had a way to depose Stalin in 1938 or 1946 I'm sure they'd have used it.