Calling someone a war criminal just doesn't have the bite it used to.

[Philosoraptor]

Remember when the term 'war criminal' really meant something? If you called someone a war criminal, it was pretty much accepted that that person was indeed, guilty of war crimes, or at the very least, suspected of war crimes.

These days though, it hardly makes a ripple when you call certain republican senators and congressmen and women and certain republican secretary's of defense, or vice presidents or presidents war criminals.

I guess people just can't get the reality to sit right in their skulls....the president and all his men are fucking WAR CRIMINALS......too bad really.

[Solly Mack]

1. to be expected with a government that "debates" the "merits" of torture

[loveable liberal]

2. Try "baby burner".

[tekisui]

3. It still makes me shuder.

War Criminals.

[hendo]

4. its because

people over use the term, and toss it around to mean people that they disagree with. Kind of like nazi, holocaust, and massacre. If we can only use the words for what they mean rather than as a reaction to something we do not like they would continue to mean something and carry weight.

[Philosoraptor]

6. How bout' 'Nazi-like'? Or does that automatically lose the argument?

[hendo]

22. Nazi-like

also loses the argument.

Come on people, there are plenty of other great descriptive terms to use without using a questionable "nazi" claim. Use the english language.

Like fore example, I heard the best description of Bush on the radio. Now personally, I do not believe the man is an idiot, which i am sure will get me in trouble with a few people. However, I did agree with what was said on this radio show. They called George Bush, "intellectually lazy". is that stupid, no. However, it is slightly worse, because it means that he just doesn't care enough to get a broader understanding of something before making a decision.

I do think that quite a few people here are intellectually lazy as well.

[RaleighNCDUer]

9. You mean like

The war criminals in our administration are responsible for the holocaust in Iraq - without these Nazis' instigation, the massacre in Falluja would have never happened.

Let's see: Holocaust - 1-2 million killed. Check.
Nazi - fascist coup which has undermined the rule of law, for the profits of a few corporations. Check.
Massacre - encirclement of a city, and killing everybody who tried to get out. Check.

War criminals. Check. Check. Check.

[hack89]

16. How many civilians were killed in Falluja?

are there any hard numbers?

[RaleighNCDUer]

19. Nobody knows for sure - that I've heard of.

But estimates I've read range from 20,000 to 40,000. Official numbers, I understand, are a tenth of that.

A city of 200,000 that was encirlced, and told to evacuate - anyone still inside the wire after the cutoff date was assumed to be hostile. I've also read estimates that there were no more than 1000-1500 actual fighters in the city (IMO that's highballing it, but I of course have no real knowledge - just what I've inferred from reading about insurgency numbers in general).

The fog of war can hide all kinds of crimes.

[hendo]

21. wrong wrong wron

Nazi (NDSP)- national german socialist party. To call the current administration nazis is insane and ignorant.

Massacre - a large scale planned killing of every unarmed civilian in a specific region, or of a specific ethnic group. Chances are, if they fired a shot first they are not an unarmed civilian.

Holocaust (from the Greek ὁλόκαυστον (holókauston): holos, "completely" and kaustos, "burnt") - "Holocaust" with a capital "H" refers to the specific killing of 6 million (not 1 or 2 million) Jews by the Nazi's that happened before and during World War II. I believe the word you are looking for is genocide.

Genocide - The mass killing of a race or ethnic group with the purpose of whiping that group off the face of the earth. Genocides have happened, and continue to happen to this day. However, the US has not committed an act of genocide in a long long time. to toss around hte word genocide is to make it lose its meaning.

Think before you speak.

[libnnc]

5. Same with the word torture.

This administration (and those in congress who refuse to dissent against it) has immunized the discourse from the sting of that language. The meaning is gone simply because they put those words in to practice. It's a diabolically brilliant strategy, really.


Yeah. Let's "debate" torture and its "criminality"...as if you can debate what is wholly wrong and sick to begin with.

[Philosoraptor]

7. 'Aggressive interrogation methods', or, 'frat house pranks'.

[fascisthunter]

8. especially when War Criminals Get Away with War Crimes

it carries much more weight when the accused is held accountable for such actions.

[Solly Mack]

10. Now there's the truth of it

[Philosoraptor]

11. They hang war criminals don't they? Unless they're republican.

[fascisthunter]

12. could you imagine if it were a Democrat?

[Philosoraptor]

13. They'd have already faced a repub firing squad, or lynching.

[fascisthunter]

14. first some waterboarding

[Philosoraptor]

15. .........

[Octafish]

17. Traitors, too.

And warmongers and mass-murderers and thieves and liars.

These describe George Walker Bush and Richard Bruce Cheney and their cronies.

Can't wait till we know them as convicted war criminals...

[samsingh]

18. there are just so many of them in the government leadership now

like ants

[behave]

20. convicted war criminal would be better

[Liberal Gramma]

23. Amen. In any court, providing there was a custodial sentence.

[hootinholler]

24. Seems to have gone the way of fascist.

All the power words are loosing energy.

-Hoot