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Comment by paganel | Hacker News Reader

He's also a war criminal.

If he was one, Obama was one too and trump too. Targeted official killing was a big NOGO before 9/11. War on Terrorism too, which means nothing else then the US can kill peoples or groups in every country without having to declare war on that country or even to ask, and for the peoples of the US...you can always say your in a War and guarantee enough spending for your Military and Intel-Services.

Well, so is, in varying degrees every US president. I'd say Obama outperforms Bush in that regard.

You think the war machine will fire back up now that Trump is out?

Just with Drones, everything else i unpopular ATM.

I was thinking recently about the same thing (I'm not American, if it matters), for better or worse Trump was the first US president in many decades who had managed to actually help in the opening of diplomatic relations between Israel and some other Arab States (UAE and there was some other one which name escapes me right now).

Is there any recent non-inflammatory/non-partisan analysis that discusses about Biden's possible future strategy outside the US borders?

Agreed — and you would do best to not compulsively classify properties into “good” and “bad” and reason from the assumption that a “bad one” can be used to offset or argue against a “good one”.

That could be true but doesn't seem unusual for an American president - most of them have broken "the laws of war" in one way or another.

Unless convicted isn't he at most an alleged war criminal?

No - he may or may not be a war criminal, depending on whether he committed war crimes. You don't need to be a convicted criminal to be a criminal.

If you can be a criminal before you are convicted, aren't you de factor guilty until proven innocent? I'd say that "being a criminal" doesn't have a lot of meaning if it isn't meant as in the eyes of the law and hence you should be innocent until proven guilty.. or do I misunderstand?

That might be your opinion, but I think you'd be excused sitting on the jury for sharing it.

Right, but Prof Hennessy wants you to understand that he was brilliant at understanding the facts and carrying out the analysis for deciding that he should be a war criminal.

Eye roll.

George Bush, brilliant or not, earned his tainted legacy. If he was really so smart, perhaps he could have found a way to avoid that we are having this discussion about him now.

He's just lucky that President Trump came along to steal the title of "greatest criminal in the White House in the last 50 years" from him.

> He's just lucky that President Trump came along to steal the title of "greatest criminal in the White House in the last 50 years" from him.

Pretty hard to make the argument than in terms of kill count Bush doesn't win this one

>kill count Bush doesn't win this one

True, Trump was probably the most peaceful president since the 2. WW for the rest of the World. But he definitely stole the "greatest Fire-starter and stupidity talker" from Bush.

BTW: If he could make the thing with N. Korea, he would probably be reminded as someone like Nixon (not directly good but for sure not a abomination)

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