Who is "MORE" Guilty?, W. Bush or the Troops Options

[Guest_CANNONBALL_*]

just a theoretical debate on guilt...

So you have a couple incidents where troops are being held in confinment for war atrocities.

And you have W...who sent the country to war based on shotty intel (if you wish to believe that). I don't...I think he's been gunning for Saddam since his daddy was in office and suspected him of having a smoking gun to justify his invasion, but whatever.

Who is more guilty? Bush may not have pulled a trigger, but he did something far worse IMO...he is responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people....both foreign and our own.

Whether or not the troops did what the media has convicted them of is not for me to say. what the situation was, motivation was...etc is all speculative to date, because really, unless you're there...how can you tell what they did was wrong (or perceived to be wrong)? the fog of war is a bitch.

[impala454]

Who is more guilty? Bush may not have pulled a trigger, but he did something far worse IMO...he is responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people....both foreign and our own.

As long as we're being uber theoretical you have to look at from all viewpoints. You say he's responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people. I don't know the exact numbers, but obviously we'll assume the vast majority of those are iraqis, and probably the majority of those were iraqi military. Death, damage (collateral or otherwise) are part of war, and imho usually worth the outcome depending on the circumstances.

Even so, lets just take it at lives lost, 10,000 even. Who's to say that's a bad number? All we can do is speculate as to what could have happened over there had we not intervened. Two thoughts come to mind:

1. Saddam might have been developing chemical/bio/nuclear weapons, and ended up killing millions, and starting more wars with more people which result in even more death. In that case 10,000 lives lost to prevent millions, I think pretty much anyone would agree that's an awesome trade.

or

2. Saddam could have just lived out his life as a wise & wonderful leader to his people and died of natural causes 30 years from now.

That's just two possibilities, but given his track record I'd give #1 a much higher possibility. You have to think of it as a choice the president would have to make, and there is no other choice. 10,000 will die, or millions could die. There is no magic 0 fix all be all solution like some of you think.