"if prosecutions are not undertaken, then justice has no meaning"

HAHAHA! Good one!

Maybe they can share the same cell with all the criminal bankers and oil executives currently in stir.

They have not yet Begun to PAY! Send 'em straight to Hague!!

When GB41 sent Iraqi troops back from Kuwait in Desert Storm, we knew it was a limited mission and even that excursion proved more difficult than planned. At least it seemed it was done as correctly as protecting resources militarily can be. GB43's invasion of Iraq was different. The sales job leading up to the invasion was wrong, and it sounded wrong from the beginning. And Americans let it happen anyway, and they continue to let it happen. What is surely one of the biggest national disgraces in our history, and a failure of the people to stop what was rather obviously, from the beginning, a war of choice.

400,000 documents, not pages were released[

You're wrong when you say "now we know too." Actually, we knew for certain back in in 2004, during Carl Levin's statement at the Senate Armed Services hearing with Tenet. Throughout his statement he refers to the fact that the redacted intelligence report given to Congress before the 2002 vote about the war was significantly different from the actual intelligence report.

The actual one did NOT include such statements as "anthrax [etc.] could be potentially used against the US homeland." It also contained many caveats about reports that Iraq could make fissionable materials, e.g., "less likely" or "inexperience" or "challenges".

In short, the Bush administration heavily edited the CIA reports when it prepared them for Congress to make it appear that there was an immediate threat to the US. That is clearly knowledge that information used to bolster the case for war was deliberately falsified. Thus we knew the truth about Bush's lies long, long before the Wikileaks data was public.

Since no action was taken at that time about lying the US into war, nothing will happen now. Just move along, don't look back.

THANK YOU PETE for saying the truth. I agree with you completely.

16:35 — Michael

Hear Hear!!

"Is it time for the guillotines to come out?"

Yes, absolujtely -- and perhaps some good old bombs on Wall Street too.

"Writing the next page of history will require collaboration, unity, diversity, courage."

Indeed -- very much so.

"Who will lead us - or is there already a leader and I just don't know what I am talking about."

No leader is required to start -- thinking that way is part of the problem.

Collaboration is a mutual engagement. Leaders will rise naturally if and as needed once an engaged resistance commences. Think French Resistance, Black Bloc, Tupamaro, Zapatista, etc...

And don't forget America's homegrown Underground Railroad and Sanctuary Movements, leaderless networks of like-minded, brave individuals who dared to do what was right under an oppressive gaze.

Form such networks in plain sight, 'cause running and hiding attracts their gaze. Use social camouflage to mask the activities of your network.

But don't wait for a leader, or for permission, because they may not come.

In the words of great patriot G. Gordon Liddy, "Head shots, head shots.... Kill the sons of bitches!"

Will, Oh Dear Will,

I fear you sound stuck.

It was Bush and his cabal that started these wars, a long list of presidents that have supported the rise of the military-industrial-corporate-media complex , and the world wide financial mega central banker conspiracy that has destroyed the world ecomomy.

It is Obama and his cabal that continues it.

It is part of a plan.

To blame bush now is like blaming your parents at the age of 30 for your personal problems.

Many, many of the German population who lived through WWII were unwilling, even unable to look at the reality of what they had enabled their country to do when confronted with the evidence.
It took new generations to reopen history and by then it was just that - history.
Same for the Japanese in Asia.
And so many of the American people still won't look honestly at slavery or "how the West was won".
What makes us think we as a nation will look honestly at these leaks in this generation?
The nation is in denial. I believe it will stay that way

Daaahhh. Take a real look at what happened on September 11, 2001, The entire US war of terror is the treasonous scam that gave us the unending wars, the fraud of the economic crisis, and the degrading of our Constitution an Bill of Rights. The Corporate lead US banana republic elite rich gain power and the common folks are now sinking into disposable nothingness.
The only way we can get our United States back on track is to require that a truly Independent prosecutor be appointed to have a real investigation and real justice of the crimes of 9-11,. The World Trade Center Complex has been proven to have been brouhht down by demolition. The alleged al-Qaeda did not have access to those highly secure buildings to string the demolition.

I won't resort to any of the buzzwords that immediately turn people with a differing viewpoint off. However, it is time they face the reality of what has been done in our name.

I took action against these invasions from before they started (but as soon as I heard the drumbeats). Many were just too blinded by the desire for revenge and allowed this to happen despite the evidence.

Although I voted for Obama, I have not seen the kind of change I could believe in with respect to these very serious issues about my country's moral and ethical fiber.

Perhaps it is time for a revolution... but unfortunately "they" have the weapons (but we have the numbers if people finally wake up).

My thinking: this is impossible to correct now. The reason is that Americans are now misinformed and are in an ideological/religious fantasyland, as marketed to them as any film by Disney or video game. Half probably think that Wikileaks is a UN disinformation program, and even if they don't think it, they'll believe it if Fox News or some other "conservative alternative" suggests it. In other words, our ignorance and confusion is now being orchestrated into marketing/voting niches that can be manipulated at will-- by the very people who are behind these atrocities, who are profiting from our war, and who wrecked our economy.

The only way I could see this getting better is for it to get far worse first. That is anybody at all being held accountable for the criminal wars we're in, people are going to have to be driven into such poverty by this kleptocracy we now have that they can't afford the propaganda fantasies they buy on cable, and they will see that their ideology has no hope of bringing them out of grinding poverty. In other words, disillusion and desperation has to set in.

Waiting for a leader, is what results in the frustrations and desperations that have people making more bad choices, more frying pans and fires, more Mao's and Stalins and Hitlers. Any good ones can be murdered, bribed, or nobbled, in some way.
Personal responsibility, is the means by which we can learn the lessons of life.
Delegating responsibility to a leader is the means by which we go round the same old circles, stumbling from crisis to crisis.
No matter how much pie in the sky the alternative to leader politics, might seem to be, there is only one alternative to a lack of progress. And that's genuine progress. We can carry on, being divided and conquered. That's where we are divided by confusion. And the confusion results from our lack of self control, the Nuremburg excuse, the, "only following orders" mentality. Or we can turn to the only way that's left.
From the Greek, An, meaning without, and Archos, meaning government. No government, means not being controled by anything other than yourself, so you will be responsible, you can learn how to co-operate with others, which happens when you're not being directed. Co-operation with others means harmony. Being directed by an external means lack of internal balance. That makes a lack of opportunity, and ability to think, and understand,and make informed choices, always having to trust some other imperfect person to make the right choices for you.
Don't tell me that this could only work, in a perfect society. Who gets up in the morning and burns the toast, because the world's not perfect.
What is the alternative to doing anything imperfectly, but to do the best you can do, with what you've got ?
Don't mourn, organise, co-operate, be responsible.

Nothing will be done to bring these criminals to justice because to even attempt to do so would invite a right wing coup. They control the officer corps of every branch of military service, they have a stranglehold over the corporate media and they enjoy nearly unlimited financial backing from their corporate paymasters.

Too little, too late, and democracy disappears.

Why is so easy to prosecute the little guys, even though they may have caused billions in loses - Madoff, Scrushy, Lay, Skillings,etc. - while the vipers at Wall Street, at the banks to0-big-to-fail, the defense contractors, mercenaries and the Bush Administration enrich themselves and get off Scot-free?

We should organize and take back what is rightfully ours.

WRP,,, you sir, are absolutely correct.
I am not a policeman, nor am I a criminal attorney,,
however I do remember , being a resident of North Carolina some years ago, that a citizen's arrest was possible for ANY felony violation in North Carolina.
I assume that there are variations in state laws about this,, but if specific felony charges could be created according to law, then I still imagine that if any of these scoundrels decided to live in North Carolina, they would be fair game to anyone with the determination to initiate the arrest and charge procedure.
We are still a country with a constitution, and we are still a country where many believe in the rule of law.
If our politically dominated justice system refuses to initiate arrest and indictment proceedings, I choose to hope that any citizen following corerct and legal procedures could affect these arrests themselves,, as a simple law abiding person.
Any lawyers out there willing to comment ?
Listen to our returning vets,, this will crank up anyone's determination to make a stand against these scoundrels.
With detailed attention to arrest procedures and specific charges, I truly believe that citizens arrests could be made in several states.

hurry up.

Reading all the 'news' that comes from America about the 'new form' of government these last few years makes me very glad that I moved out of the asylum in 1999 and now reside in Russia.

Many of us have been living the life you describe out of necessity for years. The money is sucked out through the government. That's why it is the military/industrial complex. Of course, Ike's initial draft referred to the military/congressional/industrial complex.

The last sentence of Pitt's article demands a resolution...subsequent correspondents' comment about chucking the buggers out, doing away with them and taking over from them completes the sentence.

Does anyone remember the millions of people worldwide who protested the war on Iraq. London, Sydney, Tokyo -everywhere in the world. 3 million people took part in the protest in Rome. The world was and is against the war. The coalition has crumbled, the U.S. is hated more than ever in some parts of the world. And if you're the big cheese, the one with the guns and the money, then you have to be willing to be hated. That is what American leaders and corporations are good at, sluffing it off like the big winners they are, not giving a rat's ass for who hates them. This kind of arrogance and twisted vision has shaped us all. What a fate.

And these are the GOP liars we are suppose to let back into leadership, Karazi crooks on the take, roles....if voters do that , they are no longer innocent of GOP crimes, they are as guilty as the criminals. Obama did no one any good by not taking his peace medal and pulling out our troops. But do you think Mitch and Boehner will stop the funding of the wars? HA! Wars made presidents rich.

The sad fact is that few care about what these documents reveal or about what we've known since the beginning. The Bush administration learned that there was no effective opposition, especially from Democrats. There will be no "revolution" founded on moral principles, only well-funded eruptions like the "tea party"--designed to eviscerate Congress and convert mouth breathers into brown shirts. Distractions, like the "bourgeois riots" concocted in Florida to pretend popular support for Bush's theft of the 2000 election. And the White House? Occupied by our Nobel Peace Prize winning empty who enacts policies through a State Department headed by the hideous Hillary Clinton. We could have access to every document. It would make no difference.

Julian Asange will someday have statues in many countries, although I fear for him right now. This kind of courage is so rare and often not rewarded in its time. Surely the Bush administration will be reviled for eternity, but in the meantime, our country as we knew it is no longer. Many also blame Obama for continuing and perhaps he could have done some things differently, but I think he has been careful to not overturn the applecart totally here and in the countries Bush attached and/or occupied. I truly doubt that it would have done much good when Obama got into office to embroil the nation in one prosecution after another of the old administration, they were and are still entrenched in government for any of them to be prosecuted. We can still hope that the international courts might do something, but I feel that it would almost be too dangerous for prosecutions in this country. Yes the people could "storm the Bastille," but they are too busy watching Dancing with the Stars or playing war video games.

The sad fact is that war crimes are less important politically than the class warfare that requires external conflict to begin with.

Punish a few criminals, and the system goes free.

Overthrow the system and the problem is solved.

Julian Assange is a hacker and a libertarian. He live inside the artificially axiomatic environment of a computer.

Such an outlook renders the reality of class warfare invisible, however convincing the expressions of moral outrage that it may lead to in the face of individual crimes.

We have to get past this infantile stage of development if we are to defeat the dictatorship that begins next Tuesday.

Regarding Anarchy as a viable alternative to our present state of misery: it ain't! There is a not so small chance that we will live in anarchy in our own lifetime, because all it would take is either an outbreak of a global killer strain (e.g. a potent mutation or engineered variant of the avian flu) or a nuclear WW3. Those of us who would be the (un)lucky survivors will get a taste of anarchy all right.

The idea of a self-governed life, independent of all artificial authorities, being able to self-organize a cooperative society has plenty of appeal when you have the right kind of people for this task: intelligent, educated, emotionally stable and socially motivated.

I'd guess, a third of the US citizens could live up to that standard. Another third would give it a try but ultimately fail due to lack of those qualities. And then there's the last third, which in our case is made up of bible-thumpers, tea-partiers, gun-nuts, militias, people jerking off to Glen Beck and Sarah Palin. Just for how long do you think will this last third let you live your peaceful, self-organized and cooperative life in anarchy?

Bush is in my opinion one of the greatest war criminals of the 21st century. He has the backing of a majority of Americans and will never be prosecuted and with that he will be free until God judges him. He may live his life and be free but upon his death will have to answer for his sins.

We already know who pulled off 9-11; but we keep denying it because our military is at War next door: Pakistani ISI. And are they pissed at Obama for cuddling up to India.