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Comment by aioprisan | Hacker News Reader

Weren't John Kerry and Hillary Clinton arguably equally responsible for any war that Condy supported? The voted for the funds that made it possible, how is that less responsible for the results?

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I didn't know they were on the board of directors of Dropbox. Very interesting.

Yes: a large percentage of the politicians in power today are responsible for the heinous crimes against humanity being committed, even yet daily, in the name of the American people - and YES, you SHOULD hold them accountable, since - as an American - you, yourself, are also responsible for the heinous actions of your nation state.

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Sadly, most Americans don't hold themselves responsible for the actions of our duly elected leaders. It's how we sleep at night.

brb, dropping Dropbox...

>Sadly, most Americans don't hold themselves responsible for the actions of our duly elected leaders.

Something is going to have to change, sooner or later. I hope its for the better, but I doubt it will be.

See, that doesn't work. There's no such thing as a recall for some positions, and it's pretty hard to be responsible for someone who says they're going to do one thing and then does a completely different thing once they're beyond accountability.

>beyond accountability

There is your problem, America. Fix it.

do other countries fix that somehow? in a way that actually has some teeth?

Its called violent social revolution, and it happens all over the world where political injustice is perceived by the masses.

But not in America.

All that means is that Americans value social stability over all else. The threshold hasn't been crossed yet.

Despite what the media might say, life is still pretty damned good here, and what injustice exists affects a minority, rather than a majority of people.

I have to disagree with this. Look at the civil rights movement. When a minority is affected, we will rise up to change the status quo.

Biggest prison population, enslaved, of any western nation.

Largest perpetrator of crimes against humanity in the last 80 years.

Among the worst health care in the developed world, Atrocious statistics in welfare conditions, in general (been to Skid Row, lately, homie?), categorically the worst exporter of waste, of the so-called developed nations, never mind it considers itself a super-power.

Apartheid in America? You're just not watching it on your channels .. but its there.

Slavery? White slavery? America is the home of it.

"Enslaved"? Hyperbole. Though it is a problem.

Every single developed nation has done (and still does) some pretty horrible stuff.

Healthcare? Disagree, citizens of other nations find themselves coming here. Cost is an issue (another thing we're working on as of late), but quality certainly isn't.

Welfare has always been a sticking point. We're making progress.

And the rest of your post is utter hyperbole.

Actually Rice has never held a democratically elected office - a strange trait of the American government system is that The President can appoint anyone he likes to hold these offices.

This counters to countries like Britain where these roles have to go to,democratically elected Members of one of the two Houses (usually the lower House of Parliament where the Prime Minister sits).

So assumeing Condeeleza Rice had some degree of agency in her role of Secretary of State, it's hard to even hold President Bush accountable for all of her actions.

The check there is that all cabinet members have to be confirmed by the Senate, which are all elected officials.

> Rice has never held a democratically elected office

Technically true, however, she WAS approved by 2/3 of the Senate to hold what is widely considered the second-highest administrative office (after the President).

So you also never eat ketchup as well, right? What about making sure that you never buy gasoline from a major, evil gas producer? Are all of your clothing options carefully selected and verified as to not benefit from child labor? And, of course, you didn't write that message on an Apple product, since they are assembled in what are essentially slave labor camps?

We are in the midst of the imperial order, not the end of it.

> "how is that less responsible for the results?"

Devil's Advocate: It's not. But they didn't join Dropbox's board, so it's irrelevant. It is possible this isn't about partisanship, just personal history.

Though I have a hard time believing that's actually the case.

Do you think if John Kerry or Barack Obama joined their board, we would see this level of outrage? I highly doubt it.

> "I have a hard time believing that's actually the case."

Easy. Voting to give someone the authority to go to war, and actually taking the country to war on faulty or fabricated evidence are in entirely different universes. Voting for war authority was likely necessary as a bargaining chip against Iraq to get them to comply with inspections. That Bush took that as a blank check and skipped further diplomatic processes is entirely on his (and his administration's) shoulders.

What evidence do you have that there was fabricated evidence to justify the war? I'm not saying it wasn't faulty, but all the parties has closed door access to all the intelligence to make a decision. Just because we don't like the decision retroactively doesn't mean it was done on purpose, but rather due to mistakes being made. Not to say that's more comforting, just that they are different things.

I don't have citations off hand, but from memory:

1. Cheney strongly pressured the CIA to discover a smoking gun for Iraq WMDs

2. CIA produced a document that they themselves questioned the authenticity of (the "yellow cake" purchase document)

3. Bush/Cheney ran with that, ignoring the caveats of the intelligence and trumpeting it as the smoking gun

4. Later discovered that the document was fabricated

So while I haven't seen any evidence that they were personally involved in fabricating the evidence, they fabricated the narrative that justified the war by interfering with the intelligence gathering and vetting process and ignoring their recommendations.

Claims that senators that voted for war are just as responsible because "they saw the same evidence" does not account for reality. Senators are shown evidence, they are not involved in the process of gathering and vetting that evidence. If this process is interfered with then the conclusions are worthless.

> Senators are shown evidence, they are not involved in the process of gathering and vetting that evidence. If this process is interfered with then the conclusions are worthless.

Senators can request additional information on the processes that is shares in closed doors. There is also the intelligence oversight committee that can investigate those actions and bring all the parties involved to actually testify. The fact that not many members of Congress questioned what was presented ultimately rests solely on their shoulders, since they can choose to request more information and open inquiries.

> 1. Cheney strongly pressured the CIA to discover a smoking gun for Iraq WMDs

Really? What is your source for that? Where in the Senate's report do you see that information? http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/search/pagedetails.action?browsePat...

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0605-01.htm (wholesale copy of a washingtonpost article)

Also quite a few similar stories and first-hand accounts (of varying credibility) from a google search: https://www.google.com/search?q=cheney+pressure+iraq+intelli...

> Voting for war authority was likely necessary as a bargaining chip against Iraq to get them to comply with inspections.

No, authorization for war action is not a "bargaining chip," it's an authorization to go to war for an extended period of time. The president can already invade any country for 60 days without needing Congress's blessing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution Obama used that power with Lybia. Of course, you can argue that you can invade a country or attack it for a longer period of time without actually breaching the War Powers Resolution, as Obama did: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/us/politics/16powers.html?... How do you recall or condemn that type of action from a sitting president?

I think the way that's usually handled is to say that George Bush tricked them into it. George Bush. Tricked them.

If you put together a list of companies that the politicians who voted for the Iraq war were board members of...you'd be boycotting a lot of companies.

My argument exactly. Isn't Chuck Hagel on the board of PBS, Chevron, Deutsche Bank etc.

I think there is a difference between telling a lie and believing a lie.

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