He has not lost his arrogance. He wants to sell his book, titled 'Decision Points'.
He still dodges questions that are uncomfortable.
I caught a short clip of George Bush's appearance with Matt Lauer regarding the legality of waterboarding. He was told by experts that waterboarding was legal; so he said: 'Let's do it'. When Lauer then reasoned that establishing waterboarding as legal would make it acceptable to use the technique on American captured troops, there wasn't a hole big enough into which Bush could hide. He just wasn't going to 'debate the issue'.
I, for one, do not intend to read or buy this book, because there is nothing in its pages that would forgive the deception sold to the American people by Bush and his administration to take us to war in Iraq.
In the meantime, Amnesty International has called for the prosecution of the former president who confessed in his book having given the order to waterboard detainees in order to extract confessions.
Amnesty International (AI) representative Rob Freer declared that the Obama administration is obligated to take criminal action againt Bush, according to Orf.at, one of the 63 articles published in German on the subject as of this writing. In a press release, AI is also asking the United States to set in motion an independent inquiry to shed light on human rights violations committed in the name of the 'war against terrorism' which took place under the Bush presidency (2001-1009).
Comments
"I, for one, do not intend to read or buy this book, because there is nothing in its pages that would forgive the deception sold to the American people by Bush and his administration to take us to war in Iraq."
Might want to check yourself, your ignorance is showing.
I don't see how that statement in any way shows a lacking of knowledge or information.
Might want to check yourself, your logic does not follow.
Have you ever heard a satisfying excuse for a war of aggression initiated under false pretenses?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/us/20generals.html
no, i agree. if you're gonna disagree with the man, at least hear him out. shutting out a voice that disagrees with you doesn't seem like the best policy to me.
i'm no fan of Bush, but I'll read his book because i want to hear his side of the story.
Pssst. Your partisanship is showing!
Please, Ms. Kligman, your self-righteous outrage is tiring. No one is going to make you read the book, so calm down.
Here's the thing, though. Obviously, you're a liberal, which means you're supposed to be open minded, and see both sides of an issue, yet you refuse categorically to even hear the man's side of the story. Sounds like maybe you aren't as enlightened as I am sure you'd like to think.
So you admit that you're a closed-minded über-douche? Thanks for clarifying that. Additionally, since you are a conservative, I presume you expect open-minded libs to accept your POV while you categorically reject theirs.
Snore. Mr. Predictability is predictable.
Part of the purpose of a trial is to let Bush tell his side of the story--but with cross-examination.
We lived his side of the story eight effin' years.
@Tekz: uhh.. maybe you should do the same.. don't believe everything that fox news tells you.
Wait, ppl are watching Fox?
Who in the world would buy a book by this idiotic buffoon? I doubt he could write anything except maybe Skull & Bones! His so-called book was undoubtedly written by Rahm Emanuel or other Mossad agent terrorist.
I say prosecute him for his war crimes and deception. There is no excuse for water boarding. We would not accept it being done to our troops and therefore should not be willing to do it to anyone's troops. Anyone who disagrees with that statement is a true moron.
I would have much rather us be nice to the terrorists and asked nicely. If the result means innocent people dying, well...at least we were nice to the terrorists.
Do you not believe this is done to our troops, unfortunately? Maybe even some worse things are done to our troops, possibly... We may not "accept it" but realistically things like this happens. To protect our country, we might have to go to the extreme. Scenario: Your wife was ravaged/murdered but your kids are still alive. You have the guy responsible in your custody and the only one who knows where your kids are at. What would you do? Better let the court system decide their fate because that is basically what you are saying. It is looked down upon using extreme techniques to extract information from someone.
I am just saying that the president had to make tough decisions. Not everyone will accept his decisions in which he made.
They water board our own troops as part of there torture resistance training. Ask any Marine that has a combat job, I think you will be in for quite a shock.
Who says WE aren't willing to accept our own troops being waterboarded? I am. I'm sure it sounds real nice typing that from your comfortable computer chair, with no one but anonymous to judge you. Really, if you are against waterboarding, I don't see how you can consider yourself to be un-selfish. I think I am willing to trust a former PRESIDENT, mind you, when he says that if not for waterboarding, London would have been attacked, with countless casualties. How selfish of us to stand up for what we like to think of as "Peace" and "Fairness" when in all reality it is only people who hold valuable information that are waterboarded. They don't do it for fun, they do it because they must, for the safety of thousands of lives. We need to get off our moral high chairs.
Imagine a terrorist had planted a bomb in the most populated area of your hometown, and you can confirm that all of your loved ones are enclosed in the area of effect. You have captured the terrorist, but he will not tell you anything. The only way to extract the necessary information from him is to extract it forcibly. You only have a few hours maximum to get the information, find the bomb, and defuse it before your entire world comes crumbling down on you.
Now tell me that you would protect the emotional well being of just one individual and let say 1000 people die on your watch.
i suppose then that you would be ok with the outsome if we had not extracted any information from the detainees. more US troops killed and innocent lives lost. its your opinion and you are entitled to it but you seem to be missing the bigger picture. plus scew the fact that we would not accept it being done to our troops. there are far worse things that have been done to our captured troops and citizens that we would never consider doing to anyone. there are far worse thing than waterboarding.
It is a part of war and as a president he had to make tough decisions, decisions that you and I would not want to make. He made the decision to waterboard detainees because he had the responsibility as commander and chief to protect the citizens of this country. I am sure that the majority of people believe that he had the best intentions for our country in mind.
For Lauer to even ask the question, "Would this technique be acceptable for a US detainee in a foreign country" is a ridiculous question. All governments have there ways and the US is by far one of the most lenient.
Hate him or love him, he was our president and was voted into office through majority vote. We should at least respect him as our former president as it is definitely one of the toughest jobs in the world. Put yourself in his shoes, would you make all the right decisions? Come on people.
You can debate morality indefinitely and get no where, as people's concepts of what is moral and what is not vary. This is why law exists. Regardless of whether or not you, me, the president, or anyone else thinks the use of water boarding is acceptable in any situation, international law prohibits its use. Therefore anyone responsible for the use is prosecutable under said law. The purpose of Laurer's question was to illustrate the universal nature of the law. One's rationalization of an action does not effect its legality.
As for the reverence you instruct people to apply to (former) presidents, I can only say I hope people continue to disregard your advice. The president is human; humans make poor decisions as you yourself imply, but we as humans must remain accountable for our actions or humanity as a whole cannot function.
Really? This guy is such a puppet.
http://whatthefuckhasgopdonesofar.com
That idiot ex dictator Bush should bein JAIL!
online-privacy.edu.tc
Your opinion is all over this article.
You are a poor journalist.
All poiticians should be sujected to Waterboarding every 2 years, presidents and vice presidents at the end of their term's.
and ALL ELECTED members of the tea party .OnCE A YEAR.
So lets take a look back from after 9/11 until Bush left office. How many attempts were made here in OUR country as acts of terror? ZERO. What are the terrorist doing to innocent people that dont agree with their views, ideologies or beliefs? They slaughter them, bomb them etc... What do they do with OUR brave men and women if they are captured? They truly torture them and chop their F'ing heads off. Hmmm, waterboarding aint nearly that bad is it? It got the information that we needed to keep our people, servicemen and women and COUNTRY safe.
Phoenix AZ wrote: "So lets take a look back from after 9/11 until Bush left office. How many attempts were made here in OUR country as acts of terror? ZERO."
Actually that's untrue. There was the shoe bomber and Bush claimed that he saved America from some wild haired scheme to blow up Los Angeles. I believe there was another. It sounds like you believe what Bush told you to believe; that he has kept you safe. Sending our servicemen and women to Afghanistan and Iraq has not kept them safe. Many have died or come home and committed suicide. How is that keeping America safe? Explain it to us please.
Hey programmer of this website, you might consider using Joda Time ( http://joda-time.sourceforge.net/ ) instead of java.util.Date.
You are pathetic for even suggesting this Amiee.
Please move to another country or drop dead.
I hope you die a slow and painful death and your family too.
Dear Aimee: Wow, did I have you figured wrong! I'm totally with "W" on this. His job while in office, the way I see it, was to defend America and the Americans who serve in our Armed Forces. So WWJD (What Would Jimmy do? Jimmy Carter -- who rolled over and kissed the feet of whatever enemies were on the prowl during his "administration". Don't want to be callous, but I couldn't care less about the vicious radical Muslims getting a little choked up, if they surrender information important to our safety and security. So we waterboard a few Muslim jihadist sand fleas? So what? The rejoinder from liberals and pacifists is that it "might make the jihadists really get mean." Not very rational. What would they do? Would they behead our soldiers, then hang their bodies from a bridge? They're already doing that, girl! I'm disappointed. There are a lot of chinks in your armor. You are wrong about all this. These radical Muslim murderers think the Geneva Convention is a big party in Switzerland -- with lots of whiskey and babes! Almost heaven, they say.
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