Bush boasting of war crimes?

Let me try to get this straight. Attacking a sovereign nation that is no threat to you is clearly recognized as a war crime. Iraq was clearly no threat to the U.S. Bush "pre-emptively" attacked Iraq anyway. He has now accepted the responsibility for doing just that. So why does that not make him a war criminal? As I have repeatedly pointed out, torture is a war crime, hiding prisoners from the Red Cross is a war crime, using white phosphorous on people is a war crime, war profiteering is a war crime, killing civilians is a war crime. Bush/Cheney have clearly been involved in all of this. Then, ipso facto, they are war criminals. Bush has just now said again he will pre-emptively attack others if he feels like it (semi-happily, at least, Rumsfeld having destroyed the army, he probably can't do this). He did say that Rumsfeld has "done a heck of a job." He certainly has, if you think losing a "war" and ruining an army is the way to go.

Now all hopes seem to ride on the Iraqi election. This election can never be seen as legitimate as it is held while the country is being occupied, there is so much violence candidates couldn't even campaign, there are so many candidates most people don't even know who they all are, most Iraqis will vote however their religious leaders tell them to, and so on. As the Bush/Cheney administration's goal is to have permanent bases in Iraq it will be most interesting to see what they will do if even this puppet government asks them to leave (which is apparently a possibility). If Bush/Cheney would come right out and say the U.S. has no intention of having permanent bases in Iraq it would make an enormous difference. But have you heard them say anything like that? Not yet, and you're not likely to either. They will have to be literally thrown out.

We have had no snow for almost two weeks. There is still a little on the ground. The temperature has hung somewhere between 5 and 25 degrees for days. It is miserable. However, tonight is clear and there is a full moon so large you feel you might actually reach out and touch it. Magnificent! We are now engaged in the annual Kill-a-Tree-for Christ" festivities. We did not murder one of our own trees this year. My wife took the easy way and actually purchased a tree at great expense from one of the lots that sell trees this time of year. When I protested that the tree was obscenely expensive she replied that she bought it from a poor woman who was watching the lot while her husband was out cutting more trees. She was probably watching the lot from the comfort of the cab of her fairly new Ford 250. She did not say where her husband was cutting the trees. I am pretty suspicious about all of this but the tree is up, decorated, and ready to be inundated with mostly useless presents. It's the American way. So Happy Holidays everyone wherever and whomever you are. I hope you all get copies of The Cham Stones.