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Comment by kennywinker | Hacker News Reader

It really bothers me when obituaries of political figures omit the negative or controversial things they have done. It feels like a denial of history to not mention the legitimate complaints that exist against someone. In her case I'm thinking specifically of her involvement in sanctions against iraq, and the human consequences of that - consequences that are especially relevant today as we heavily sanction russia - but the specific issues are pretty moot to my point.

I don't think every obituary needs to be critical, but I do think political figures have opted into that by being a part of history.

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Everybody is complex and complicated. No one is all good or all bad. Obituaries are a short way of honoring the good in people while biographers can flesh out the complexities that show our poor choices.

The bad that most of us do in our lifetimes doesn't reach the geopolitical scale. When it does, it seems negligent to ignore it when they pass.

This idea of honoring the good in the dead is also arbitrarily applied. An obituary of Osama Bin Laden wouldn't neglect to mention his involvement in 9/11.

That depends on the obituary's avenue. Pretty sure that any obituary published where it matter to his family and close friends highlighted 9/11 with pride.

I'm doubtful that this is true, as I believe bin laden is seen as an extremist by most, but even if it is true - that's the same thing I'm talking about. Celebrating what you see as the "good" someone did, without acknowledging the bad. Even if you cheered for 9/11 - you would not have cheered when it resulted in countless civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I don't even get what you doubt. Bin laden was a leader of an international organization dedicated to his ideas. Their agenda is extremist by most, but that leaves big group of people, arguably even a country, that welcome it as the true will of Allah. They have papers and they publish books. There's a place for many people on the fringe.

I just read the Economist's Obituary someone linked above, which is good and somewhat disorienting. The last sentence is a quote of him with exact negation of what you say about cheering - (spoiler alert - it is probably better to read the whole thing before the quote) - The difference between pure Muslims and Americans, he said, was that Americans loved life, whereas Muslims loved death.

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www.economist.com/obituary/2...

All that says is that bin laden himself was proud of his legacy. I'm sure his followers are too. But of all the people in the world, his followers are a fraction of a sliver of a hair - and there is no country that is ruled by his followers.

L. Ron Hubbard had thousands of followers, but to conflate an internal Scientology paper obituary with "any obituary published where it matter to his family and close friends" would be a mistake.

What you say is true, luckily. But I honestly don't understand what are you are arguing for, you mean that you believe that his wives and followers couldn't find solacing obituary to read? if so than I'm firmly believe that you are wrong, but I'm not going to search for it as this isn't the kind of things I want to engage with - the Economist's was more than enough for me. And if you are right on this and I'm wrong, well, even better.

Edit, in response to OP edit: I am not sure if Hubbard is comparable, I don't know if his family and followers cared about what the NYT write about him, for example. But Bin Laden's followers don't care much for the approval of outsiders, that's pretty obvious.

I actually immediately thought of The Economist's obit on bin Laden: https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www.economist.com/obituary/2...

Also, bad things are often not known until sometime after the people died. Anyway, it is much more civilized to honor the deceased family during their mourning. There's plenty of pages to fill in future newspaper articles and history books.

Knowing that people have died, she gave her personal opinion that she personally supported it[0].

That's a large part of the reason why she's disliked. It's because she advocates for genocide. If you replace "Iraqis" with "Jews" and have someone say that the deaths of half a million Jewish children is "worth it" nobody will be in this comment section trying to talk about honoring the deceased or suggesting everyone has good and bad sides.

[0] https://youtu.be/RM0uvgHKZe8

Those sanctions were imposed as a response to an evil act (invasion of a neighboring country, Kuwait). Hussein could have not committed the evil act in the first place. When a dictator does an evil act, they cannot hide behind consequences to their people. That is obviously of great importance in current events, also.

It is worth pointing out the sanctions caused human suffering, but the result that led to that comment was retracted by the author: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

The deaths of Kuwaitis, the deaths of Kurds, the deaths of Southern Iraqis and other dissidents, and any number innocent human beings that died because of the sanctions are tragic... But consequences for crimes belone with the criminal. Hussein killed tens of thousands of Iraqis with chemical weapons over his time in power. He really was a monstrous person.

> You can play that video over and over, but the sanctions were imposed as a response to an evil act (invasion of a neighboring country)

Should half a million Americans die for each US invasion? If I said it's worth it does that make it OK?

> When a dictator does an evil act, they cannot hide behind consequences to their people

A dictator, by definition, is not representative of a "people." There is no "their people" in this case.

> Also, the result that led to that comment was retracted

So the fact that she said it was worth it -- explicit support for it -- doesn't matter because the data might have been wrong? If I was told half a million Jews were killed yesterday and in my position as representative to the UN said it was "worth it" am I absolved if it turned out to be fake news?

> Hussein killed tens of thousands of Iraqis with chemical weapons over his time in power

This never actually happened. It was just about 2000 people. From what we've learned in this discussion I guess that absolves Saddam for thinking it was worth it to crush the Kurdish uprisings.

Great chatting. I won't be participating any further though.

You said this in a different comment.

"blaming powerless besieged people for their own suffering is a special type of reasoning that only seems to pop up whenever brown people are mentioned"

I agree with you. And Hussein was a US ally when he was fighting Iran. OBL was a US ally when he was fighting the Soviets. That can't be ignored, either. The US helped make those enemies. And the difference in public reaction to Ukrainian dead and refugees vs those who are Palestinian, Syrian, Yemeni, Ahgan ... it is shameful. It is hard to believe racism isn't a part of the disparity, certainly enormous lack of capability for empathy. That being said I think that Albright's comment is out of context and - taken at face value - is not reflective of reality, though. You can blame a lot of people in Russia, the UN, the US, in KSA, from a lot of places.. and, add Madeleine Albright to that list, for what happened to the people of Iraq in the 90s. It will feel great to righteously hate on her but it won't promote understanding what happen or prevent it from recurring. ps - I removed, "You can play that video over and over, but" because I sounded like a jerk and regretted it.

She recanted her statement, and she's right, the question was a trap. It is sad to say so, but the consequent deaths were incidental, not intentional. Place the responsibility where it belongs: the Ba'athists caused those deaths, not the sanctions. Do you think if the Ba'athists had treated the Iraqi people like human beings and asked for food because people were starving, Albright would have been against such aide even while Iraq was under sanction? Honestly, your argument sounds like the abusive partner that asks, "why did you make me hit you?" But here, it is "Look what you did, Albright, you heartlessly starved Iraqi children!" Absurd.

> but the consequent deaths were incidental, not intentional.

Isn't this a bit naive? According to this reasoning, Holodomor death's weren't intentional as well, while most poeple argue that, since the effect of that policy could be easily predicted, they are, for all intents and purposes, intentional. I would apply the same standard to US sanctions against Iraq.

The problem here depends on what "it" she believe was the it that was worth, isn't it? If she believed their death is worth, like the linked video title suggest, finding Iraq's non existent WMDs, than yes. But if she believed that the alternative is a much worse state with a lot more bodies and suffering then it is a defensible moral choice.

And it is not like she was standing behind what she said - she said she fell into a trap[0]. Compare to Truman, who approved the actual Hiroshima, and "never lost any sleep over that decision.” [1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeleine_Albright#Sanctions_a...

[1] https://apjjf.org/-Peter-J.-Kuznick/2479/article.html

So, if Putin, or Stalin, believed they are doing the right thing, then their crimes become a “defensive moral choice”?

I think op is saying that to them (Putin/Stalin) they will delude themselves into thinking that. I didn’t get the gist that they meant everyone.

It should have been defensible moral choice, I have corrected it.

If Putin or Stalin believed that their actions are the right thing, meaning they have decided to act due to moral reasons, than it would be moral choice. If the moral choice is defensible or not depends on the moral reasoning - you don't have to agree with someone's moral position to see agree that it is a valid position even if you don't share it (even strongly oppose it). Saying someone's position is defensible doesn't mean he did the right thing.

Obituaries are also a short way of white-washing the incredible number of bad things that their subject has done.

It's convention that they don't speak ill of the dead. A convention that overwhelmingly benefits the legacies of people who have inflicted disproportionate amounts of misery and suffering in life.

The West is writing all the history books, and with the US having a monopoly in printing the worlds reserve currency and being the backbone of the West’s military might, history is obfuscated. An indictment of a former US Secretary of State is an indictment of America itself, and by proxy, its ally nations.

I’ve worked in big tech companies with some of the most intelligent and capable people I’ve met in my entire life. And while they have very strong views on American politics — labeling Presidents, Senators, and other politicians corrupt, nefarious, incompetent, or some combination of all three - their views on Americas role on the world stage are more like America in a Hollywood film.

The other countries are corrupt, “shitty”, “evil”, etc and only America has the capability, will, and sort of a divine “right” to interfere and fix things, and fixing things means doing whatever we believe is right.

No one in the West batted an eye when children would be murdered in drone attacks in Pakistan’s tribal region. When America and Russia fought proxy battles in Syria, there was no solidarity with the Syrian people. When our “ally” Saudi Arabia bombed the hell out of people in Yemen, again - there was no one asking questions. “We’re not targeting civilians” they’ll all say. I mean, America gave a new classification to all the “collateral damage”, simply labeling anyone they thought might be 18 years or older as being a militant, even if they’re just civilian bystanders.

This is cherry-picking.

> The West is writing all the history books

Sure, the ones read in the west. The history books read in the East are frequently written in the East.

Iran, Russia, and China have very old societies with long histories. They, among others, have their own written histories. There is nothing significant preventing western citizens from researching history books written elsewhere.

It’s not difficult to find common books/movies/documentaries which challenge the rose-colored-glasses narrative of the US / The West. Noam Chomsky, Oliver Stone, et al are “writing the history books” which violate your assertion.

There is plenty of media content which is extremely critical of US. There are hurdles to get the US DoD to participate in projects which are strongly counter to pro-US narratives, but possible to do without their participation.

> Iran, Russia, and China have very old societies with long histories. They, among others, have their own written histories. There is nothing significant preventing western citizens from researching history books written elsewhere.

Their long histories are besides the point. How many Americans recognize Kim Kardashian? Now tell us how many could recognize where Iran is on a map.

The average American doesn’t know Noam Chomsky. The average US middle school or high school textbook gives a distorted perspective of history. The US “founding fathers” are portrayed as being all wise and noble, but I digress.

> There is plenty of media content which is extremely critical of US.

The media content is critical of the other political party. In international matters, they’ve generally presented Russia, China, and other non-European or NATO countries as corrupt, threatening, etc.

In international matters, the US media has not only supported but practically cheerlead American war efforts. During the second Iraq War, CNN, ABC news, Fox, etc had correspondents “embedded” with the US military, purposely creating this fictitious narrative that Iraqis were viewing Americans as liberators.

Meanwhile, American troops were rounding up civilians, forcing entry into their homes and searching house by house for hidden ammunitions and the so called “weapons of mass destruction”. Innocent Iraqis were murdered in cold blood for shooting at the invaders. Ya know, the same thing that Russians are doing now in Ukraine where we’re now calling them war criminals.

You are just complaining. You don’t have a theme in your comments except The West has done things to complain about (I totally agree).

The average person would rather watch celebrity sleaze content and corporate outrage news than challenge their own priors by reading challenging pieces on foreign policy. Same as every place on Earth.

I’m not going to defend US foreign policy, but your false equivalence of US collateral damage and Russian purposefully attacking civilian dwellings only wdilutes any argument you might have been making.

> I’m not going to defend US foreign policy, but your false equivalence of US collateral damage and Russian purposefully attacking civilian dwellings only wdilutes any argument you might have been making.

When America murders innocent civilians or starts illegal wars, it’s simply “collateral damage”. When another country does it, it’s “purposefully attacking civilian dwellings”.

This is exactly what I wrote in my post above - the sort of God/righteous complex that Westerners and particularly Americans have about their government, the same Americans who otherwise recognize their government is corrupt, sleazy, “the swamp”, or whatever other names they’ve come up with.

It’s ironic that you responded a post later literally just confirming my claim. :)

Still false equivalence.

The Russian harm to innocents is orders of magnitudes higher than the US harm to innocents. It actually appears to be a core strategy in Ukraine, Chetchnia, and Afghanistan. They are firing artillery at civilian dwellings, cutting off food/fuel supply lines, and firing at refugee lines that aim for Poland rather than Russia.

The US has a bad name from drone strikes, but those are done intentionally to minimize harm to innocents and Are avoided when the harm is too high compared to the target. There are very few cases of the US military intentionally firing on civilians.

you are talking to the wrong person if you think I have a God/righteousness complex about my country/government. I am heavily critical of my own.

But Russia’s invasion is as idiotic as most of the worst Trump/QAnon conspiracy theories.

That said, I agree that too many people don’t seek out narratives/facts that counter their priors (I think this is psychically painful like an attack on our ego/identity).

And I agree with the bottom of your comment about the lack of empathy for Syrians, Yemenese, etc. Personally I think it’s difficult to understand the different belligerents and their incentives/intents when looking at say Pakistan or Yemen instead of the more obvious “Russia invades Ukraine” plot.

It’s worth explaining this through the lens of the Military-Entertainment Complex (movies, shows/series, books, and sports sponsorships).

The sanctions on Iraq after the first Gulf War were approved by the UN and the bulk of their practical problems had to do with Iraqi non-compliance. There's a decent argument to be made they strengthened Saddam Hussein's regime but the 'human consequences' were themselves direct consequences of the regime's cruelty and intransigence.

I guess 9/11 was a just direct consequence of the US government's cruelty and intransigence given that OBL's stated reason for the attacks were the sanctions. That's a hot take, not one you'd want to say out loud around NYC.

In any case, performing literal siege against a group -- exclusively chosen for political reasons -- and then blaming powerless besieged people for their own suffering is a special type of reasoning that only seems to pop up whenever brown people are mentioned.

The 'political reasons' in question were the unprovoked attack on a sovereign state. The responses were, again, approved through the global legal framework we have for adjudicating such matters - one that typically has so many checks it's almost never used. None of this can be said of either terrorism or the responses to that so I don't really follow this analogy at all.

If your framework enables you to kill million random civilians, I’d say it’s a shitty framework.

Yes, it would be if it had done that. But it didn't.

What global legal approval was granted for the Iraq war in 2003, or even the Afghanistan war in 2001? Can you clarify what "responses" you're talking about in these clauses?

> The responses were, again, approved through the global legal framework [...]. None of this can be said of either terrorism or the responses [...]

Edit: I think I understand now, the first responses are the sanctions post-Kuwait invasion, the second responses are the Afghan and Iraq wars.

Madeline Albright was US Secretary of State from 1997 to January 2001. Previously she was US Ambassador to the UN, starting in 1993.

I know that. Are you implying that my "Edit" is incorrect, and you weren't referring to those events? If so, what were you referring to?

I don't get the sense that this conversation is locked down to the specifics of Albright, as plenty of people (and according to my understanding in the "Edit", you yourself) have made reasonable reference and analogies to events outside her time in office.

I'm not implying anything about your edit, although I tweaked the verbiage of the original comment to be clearer, thanks.

Stating the timeline of her positions hasn't clarified anything for me. To me, your point is now even less clear.

> The sanctions on Iraq after the first Gulf War were approved by the UN

It was not approved by the UN, it was approved by the UNSC.

That goes into the history book, not the obituary. Obituaries are published when the death is still raw and you still have grieving family members. They're not supposed to be historically accurate (how can you compress someone's life into a page-long news story?), and are as much about breaking news & closure as about facts.

A history book has much more room to examine nuance & consequence, as well as more time to do thorough research and usually the benefit of hindsight and distance from the events in question.

> That goes into the history book, not the obituary.

There's plenty of room for it in both.

I’m not sure what you’re saying is universally accepted when it comes to celebrities, politicians, just generally complicated people who are in the public eye. There is no rule that says that has to be the case, and I’m sure you can find a dozen obituaries that show the complexity of a person.

Here's another issue they gloss over:

> Apr 24, 2000, Agence France Presse, NEW YORK, April 24 (AFP) - "US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on Monday called on the United States Congress to vote in favour of China's entry into the World Trade Organisation. . . Turning to globalisation in general, Albright said the United States "must help those hurt by change; but also reaffirm our belief that an open and competitive world economy is the best route to higher standards of living for people everywhere."

Didn't work out so well for the Rust Belt...

Blame her or all the corporations which gladly moved business there for cheaper labor?

Corporations are tools. They'll just do their thing in the environment that they find themselves in. Hoping or depending on them being "good" or lamenting them being "evil" is a fool's errand. They're unthinking automaton.

Absolutely blame the politicians and "experts" who conspired to allow corporations to circumvent our progress on labor and environmental regulation the past 100+ years.

In my experience, if you didn't like the deceased in life, you'll probably want to criticize them at their death, and vice versa. If you ask me, there's no point to tearing someone down in their obituary. The deceased certainly doesn't care one way or another. The people that are grieving in the slightest don't want to hear it and you come off as a jerk without accomplishing anything. The people that aren't grieving already agree with you.

My suggestion is coming from a place of thinking about those who have no opinion. Maybe because Madeleine Albright was out of office before they were born, or maybe because they weren't paying attention at the time. There is a moment now where these people can be exposed to her legacy, good and bad, and it can help inform their understanding and their choices going forward.

I'm not sure those ambivalent about the deceased will suddenly not be. I'm also not sure what you mean by choices. Who to vote for? If this were a startup I'd say you're making way too many assumptions about your audience.

Nah. You aren’t entitled to a sanitized story just because you died. Doubly so when you made decisions that negatively impacted millions. That’s the price of being in power.

Like it or not, the story has already been told once the person has died. All that's left is how you feel about that story. History will be judging us all for a long time and there's no rush. Dunk all you like on someone when they die if it makes you feel better, but it's hardly a classy move and doesn't exactly change hearts and minds.

I didn’t say “dunk” on them. I’m saying you can tell a story that isn’t “oh my god they were angels in life and they’re angels now in death.” There’s a whole range of tones between sanitizing and slandering.

If we're arguing semantics there probably isn't much point in continuing. You can certainly tell that story, but I'm not sure a person's wake is the place to do it...if for no better reason than out of kindness for the grieving. There's plenty of time for history to develop a nuanced opinion.

It’s not just semantics when you change my argument from “we can talk about the negative/more complex sides of a person in an obituary” to “I should be able to ‘dunk’ on someone in an obituary if I feel the need to.” You are misstating my intention in an effort to make my position seem less reasonable than it is.

Your description was off by a large margin, it wasn’t just semantics.

I do agree this discussion probably isn’t going to be fruitful though, so have a nice weekend.

Maybe we need more "Speakings", as described by Orson Scott Card in his book, "Speaker for the Dead".

In that book, a Speaker for the Dead would speak all the truth about the deceased, good and bad, warts and all.

One low point (not the lowest) was her presenting a basketball to Kim Il Jong. What a picture.

To be fair I don't know how much of it was her idea. But so cringy.

With regard to all the civilians she has publically admitted as collateral damage, I think that is worse than a basketball.

I always remember this fantastic obituary by The Economist for Osama Bin Laden whenever this subject comes up https://www.economist.com/newsbook/2011/05/07/reaction-to-th...

If you don’t care for the way her obituary was written, then feel free to write your own and submit it for publication.

If you don’t care for the way pull requests are usually written, then feel free to write your own and submit it.

See how little sense that makes? Even if I were to write an obituary that included some of the critical points I think should have been included - and were to somehow get it published instead of this one - that doesn’t change the fact that almost every other obituary (for this person, and for every other person) follows this convention.

I’m criticizing the convention and the norm, not this particular piece of writing.

By convention obituaries don't speak ill of the dead. Everyone knows this convention. To get a complete story you don't look to the obit. Particularly because this is well known should be harmless.

You may enjoy the mother jones obit. It highlights the US failure to prevent genocide in Rwanda as her deepest regret from her time in public service.

As for the Iraq sanctions, she was asked and famously replied that it was a hard choice but the price was worth it. People may disagree.

I'll have to look into more of the story of her involvement in 1990s actions against Iraq. Whatever it is I am sure it's not as bad as what the other party did in 2003.

Need to vent about something your comment is reminding me of. I saw it in Putin's speeches, and a recent RT clip -- this notion that what the US did to Iraq in 2003 justifies actions in Ukraine. As an American who was very opposed to the second Iraq war I find this false justification very disappointing. Firstly, that one bad action does not justify another. Second, the story that the US tells about itself is that we sometimes make mistakes, then our political process tries its best to correct them as time goes on. See also: slavery. Or the fact that the Iraq war is pretty unpopular in retrospect. We openly admit to not being perfect, but try to commit ourselves to continuous improvement. That's an important point.

> Whatever it is I am sure it's not as bad as what the other party did in 2003.

...

> Firstly, that one bad action does not justify another.

I'm not trying to start a fight, because I agree with your overall point - learning and growing as a nation is important. That's honestly a big part of why I believe political figures obituaries should include their full context. But these two sentences seem to me to sharply contradict each-other.

I think in this case it's important to note that many public officials stopped short of boots on the ground in Iraq because they knew it was trouble.

In this thread i feel like some are conflating the two gulf wars and the sanctions in between. (I seem to recall there was also a Clinton air strike in the middle) Albright was really against the second war if i recall correctly.

> Whatever it is I am sure it's not as bad as what the other party did in 2003.

Democrats don't get to wash their hands of that invasion. Both parties supported it.

Sanctions and sporadic bombings on critical infrastructure under Clinton was estimated to cause on the order of a million deaths, mostly children dieing of disease because the US destroyed water treatment facilities. Albright infamously defended the deaths of 800,000 children as worth the cost in a 60 minutes interview.

(Unfortunately the political lesson from that wasn't don't cause mass death, it was don't acknowledge that you've caused mass death)

Republicans used this as a campaign issue in the 2002 midterms. They wanted to paint a no vote on Iraq as weak. I believe this is a substantial component for why many congressional and senate Democrats voted for it.

It was a really ugly thing to see playing out in public and media... Policy was set arbitrarily in the executive branch and media and congress were ... Yes also responsible, and not really exercising their full power and responsibility, but also some of them bullied into it. The patriotism of anyone against the war was very harshly attacked and unfortunately it seemed pretty effective at the time.

215 (96.4%) of 223 Republican Representatives voted for the resolution. 82 (39.2%) of 209 Democratic Representatives voted for the resolution. 6 (<2.7%) of 223 Republican Representatives voted against the resolution: Reps. Duncan (R-TN), Hostettler (R-IN), Houghton (R-NY), Leach (R-IA), Morella (R-MD), Paul (R-TX). 126 (~60.3%) of 209 Democratic Representatives voted against the resolution. The only Independent Representative voted against the resolution: Rep. Sanders (I-VT) Reps. Ortiz (D-TX), Roukema (R-NJ), and Stump (R-AZ) did not vote on the resolution.

29 (58%) of 50 Democratic senators voted for the resolution. 48 (98%) of 49 Republican senators voted for the resolution. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Milit...

58% of Dem Senators (the more senior controllers of the party), as well as the top brass (Clinton) supported the invasion.

Don't use numbers to repaint history.

Yeah, according to HN, the invasion was mostly the NYT's fault...

Realistically, there is zero chance the invasion would have happened without exaclty that trio of President, Sec-State & VP, plus or minus a Wolfowitz.

But the Republicans successfully goaded some Democrats into voting for it by threatening to taunt them. The US public needed some more important foreign blood to be spilled than Afghani. And that's the way the cookie crumbled...

> The US public needed some more important foreign blood to be spilled than Afghani. And that's the way the cookie crumbled...

I really don't see how you can reach that conclusion that prime mover on the Iraq invasion was the US public at large.

Yeah, it was more like dishonest politicians suggested to the US public that Iraq and 9/11 were related and a lot of people didn't know the difference, and didn't bother to learn. In that respect the US public was responsible and at fault. But not a "prime mover" as you say.

I thought Richard Clarke's book a few years later was pretty informative. Iirc, in his telling, they wanted to attack Iraq before 9/11 happened, and when it did happen, many in the administration didn't care at all who did it, they just wanted Iraq to pay. There was a line attributed to Rumsfeld "but Iraq has better targets".

> But the Republicans successfully goaded some Democrats into voting for it by threatening to taunt them.

Really? Wow, voting for a war you (allegedly) know to be wrong because you're worried about being "taunted". That's the most pathetic spineless thing I've ever heard. Worse than unashamed pro-war crowd, in some ways.

What happened to all those cowardly losers anyway? They all get voted out and replaced with people who were happy to continue those occupations and support the new wars and interventions during the Obama administration?

Technically they voted to authorize the war and the executive branch was trusted to make final decisions wisely (they did not).

Doesn't change anything that's just a sorry excuse for cowardly corrupt warmongers. They clearly knew what the executive branch would do.

More generally, that would be a dereliction of duty too. The entire point of these checks and balances is so that an individual branch does not need to be trusted to make a wise choice.

> In her case I'm thinking specifically of her involvement in sanctions against iraq, and the human consequences of that

I think this is a little bit of blaming the jury for sentencing the criminal. Yeah, I think this is bad taste, because, wow, that's really placing an awful lot on her shoulders, that because she was involved she is thus morally responsible for the consequences, as though the UNSC had no part in it. IMO the Ba'athists themselves are entirely responsible for the consequences of the sanctions for creating the conditions that forced the sanctions.

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