A few weeks ago, a Federal judge shut down the Wikileaks website. The judge did this because this muckraking website, modeled after Wikipedia, published documents about a Swiss bank implicated in alleged moneylaundering. According to one published account, "The anonymous whistleblower site, devoted to battle against corruption and censorship, published several hundred documents from a Swiss banking whistleblower purportedly showing that Bank Julius Baer and its Cayman Islands subsidiary had been involved in offshore tax evasion and money laundering by extremely wealthy and, in some cases, politically sensitive clients from the US, Europe, China and Peru."

Wikileaks is a sign of the times. Today, everyone is a journalist. If you can get your hands on some incriminating documents, it's easy to put them online for all to see. In the 1970's, the Washington Post brought down a President in aggressively covering the Watergate scandal. In the new millenium, anyone else lucky enough to get the right news tip can achieve the same result.

What happened to Wikileaks? A Swiss bank sued Wikileaks over the unquthorized publication of these secret documents. A judge shut down the website. As the New York Times pointed out in editorializing against the Wikileaks shutdown, that's like closing down an entire newspaper because of one bad article. Shutting down Wikileaks means that all the smoking gun documents that it posts online are unavailable. This includes, among other things, documents revealing the U.S. rules of engagement for Iraq.

What makes the Wikileaks case different is that nothing really disappears online. Web pages are cached, or preserved, and mirror websites will copy the content no matter what happens to the Wikileaks site. But that's not the point. The Wikileaks page today looks like this. A small headline along the top of the web page says that "Wikileaks Has Been Unconstitutionally Censored!" In fact, the judge reversed himself the other day, basically changing his mind:

A federal judge on Friday withdrew his earlier order disabling a Web site that allows the anonymous posting of documents to discourage unethical behavior in governments and corporations.

On Feb. 15, the judge, Jeffrey S. White of Federal District Court in San Francisco, ordered the American address of the site, Wikileaks.org, to be disabled at the request of Bank Julius Baer & Company, a Swiss banking company, and its Cayman Islands subsidiary. They charged that Wikileaks had posted confidential, personally identifiable account information on some of the bank’s customers.

The judge’s action drew criticism — and court filings — from numerous organizations concerned that the order violated the First Amendment protection of free speech. Because Wikileaks operates sites, like Wikileaks.cx, in other countries, the documents were and are still widely available, both in the United States and elsewhere.

In reversing himself at a hearing here on Friday, Judge White acknowledged that the bank’s request posed serious First Amendment questions and might constitute unjustified prior restraint. He also appeared visibly frustrated that technology might have outrun the law and that, as a result, the court might not be able to rein in information once it had been disclosed online.

There is nothing more complicated in constitutional law than First Amendment doctrine. The guy on the street may tell you that free speech is free speech and censorship is illegal. But nothing is clear cut. Each time the First Amendment is implicated in a lawsuit, the court has to balance the interests of the government with the interests of the speaker. So that, in the classic case of incitement to riot, the government has a greater interest in suppressing the speech than the speaker has in yelling fire in a crowded theater. When government employees want to blow the whistle on their employers' unlawful or unethical activities, the court has to balance the interests of the government's need for an efficient workplace against the interests of the employee in blowing the whistle. Balancing tests in First Amendment law make it difficult to predict who will win the case.

But in the Wikileaks case, this was an easy call. There is no real balancing test when someone wants to shut down a newspaper or website. If the website is publishing classified or illegally-obtained documents, the court can order the website to take those documents offline. To shut down the entire website over some documents is like cutting off your head to stop the dandruff. I would like to meet this judge and ask what, if anything, he was thinking. I would also ask him what it feels like to be a national laughingstock. A first-year law student would know that shutting down Wikileaks was unprecedented.

The issue of whether the courts can censor the media was settled a long time ago. The answer is that the courts cannot do this. This is equally true in times of war. In the early 1970's, a brave government employee named Daniel Ellsberg smuggled secret documents relating to the Vietnam War and gave them to the New York Times and Washington Post. These newspapers published the documents, which became known as the Pentagon Papers. They revealed that the government had lied to the American people in prosecuting this war for over a decade and that the war was a lie. Confirmation that the Vietnam war was a sham was certainly jarring to the families of the nearly 60,000 American soldiers who died in that needless conflict.

The Nixon administration went to court to stop the newspapers from publishing the Pentagon Papers. The Supreme Court rejected that authoritarian stunt, ruling that the newspaper could publish these documents and that any other outcome would constitute a prior restraint, legalese for the notion that the government cannot stop speech before it happens.

The Pentagon Papers case stands a high point in the Supreme Court's protection of First Amendment liberties. Every school district should educated its students about that case and explain exactly what it means and the terrible consequences that would have ensued if the Supreme Court ruled the other way on that case. The Wikileaks case should also be taught in school. It should also be an issue in the Presidential campaign. The lesson in the Wikileaks case is that even one judge can crumple up the Constitutional with serious consequences for free speech and the dissemination of information.

Raw Story reports that, under a "warrantless surveillance mail prorgram," the government is closely monitoring thousands of pieces of mail in the United States without a court order. In addition, a Bush administration directive apparently allows the government to open the mail, as well. The story is below. This really should be an issue in the presidential campaign. True, the Republicans can spin this story in their favor by arguing that another terrorist attack will ensue without this kind of surveillance. But the Democrats can gain the moral high ground by arguing that it's not too hard to get a search warrant to review private information. That's kinda the purpose of having a Constitution in the first place.

Officials monitor thousands of letters without warrants 03/06/2008 @ 8:29 am Filed by John Byrne

The US postal service approves more than 10,000 requests from US law enforcement each year to record names, addresses and other information from the outside of packages, according to information released through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The warrantless surveillance mail program -- as it is known -- requires only the approval of the US Postal Inspection Service Director, and not a judge.

Since 1998, the inspector has approved more than 97% of requests during criminal inquiries, new documents show. According to USA Today, which filed the request, "In 2004, 2005 and 2006, the most recent year provided, officials granted at least 99.5% of requests."

"The idea of the government tracking that amount of mail is quite alarming," Director of the American Civil Liberties Union's national security project Jameel Jaffer told the paper. "When you realize that (the figure) does not include national security matters, the numbers are even more alarming."

Officials would not disclose how much mail was monitored in national security or "terror"-related investigations. Under the PATRIOT ACT, those who received letters notifying them that they were being investigated often were gagged from even reporting their being targeted.

Responding to a USA Today request for the national security-related data, "inspection service counsel Anthony Alverno wrote that even revealing the frequency of the surveillance would undermine its effectiveness "to the detriment of the government's national security interests."

There's reason to believe more mail may be being opened, as well.

In late 2006, a signing statement issued by President Bush suggested that his office had expanded executive branch power to open mail without a warrant.

The signing statement accompanied H.R. 6407, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, which reiterated a prohibition on opening first class mail without a warrant.

"In 1996, the postal regulations were altered to permit the opening of First Class mail without a warrant in narrowly defined cases where the Postal Inspector believes there is a credible threat that the package contains dangerous material like bombs," the ACLU said in a press release at the time. "Instead of referencing the narrow exception in the postal regulations, the president’s signing statement suggests that he is assuming broader authority to open mail without a warrant."

In January 2007, the ACLU and Center for National Security Studies filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking information regarding any additional warrantless mail surveillance.

The President has vetoed a law that makes it illegal for the CIA to engage in waterboarding. We have now hit rock-bottom. Waterboarding, by any definition, is torture. But as I have said before, The practice of waterboarding is against the law. breaking the law is not what it used to be.

We knew after 9/11 that things in the United States would change. We knew that war was around the corner and that civil liberties at home would be curtained. That certainly happened, though we got more war than we bargained for, $12 billion per month to be exact. But torture? We did not see that coming. At least I didn't.

The news of the day is that New York's Governor has been caught up in a sex scandal, the kind of sex scandal that we can't get enough of. Eliot Spitzer was a tough prosecutor who ran for governor as a reformer. Who knew that he was transporting a prostitute across state lines?

What intrigues me is that an unknown Lt. Governor is about to be annointed Governor once Spitzer resigns. I follow state government in New York, yet I know nothing about this replacement, David Paterson, except that he's a black man who is also legally blind. His life will change forever today.

The last time a Lt. Governor became governor was in the mid-1970's, when Nelson Rockefeller was named U.S. Vice President to replace Gerald Ford who became President when Richard Nixon resigned. The lucky duck in that instance was Malcolm Wilson, who served as Governor for two years. Today, the Tappan Zee Bridge in Westchester County is named after him. As I cross that bridge on a regular basis, I always look at the sign memorializing Malcolm Wilson. And I know that, every day, thousands of New York motorists ask themselves, "Who the &$%& is Malcolm Wilson?"

David Paterson is the Ringo Starr of New York politics. Yes, in some far-flung state like Nebraska or Idaho, the Lt. Governor can become Governor in circumstances like this, but who cares? This is New York! Every New York Governor becomes a media celebrity and a possible candidate for President. I'm sure that some of the bands in Liverpool changed drummers, but on the brink of superstardom, the Beatles gave that opportunity to Ringo, who in replacing Pete Best went from a lifetime of obscurity to the most recognizable drummer in rock history.

David Paterson may be a nice guy, but he's no Ringo. Maybe Paterson will reach the heights of greatness. Ringo did. In the early 1970's, after the Beatles broke-up, Ringo sang maybe the most beautiful of all Beatles solo songs, Photograph, co-written with George Harrison. The melody is all George, hooks and all. The lyrics are all Ringo, simple and direct. Ringo sings, and in its own way, his voice is beautiful. Without his last minute jump to the Beatles, Ringo may have lived his life in obscurity, teaching math at Liverpool High School.

This time of year we read once again the commentary about another Iraq war anniversary. When the bombs began falling five years ago this week, no one thought that the war would extend into a sixth year. These days, no one knows when it will end.

The cost of war is many-fold. News accounts this week predict that the 4,000th U.S. fatality is around the corner, and economic forecasters are predicting that the war will cost the U.S. taxpayer hundreds of billions of dollars, maybe a trillion dollars, including costs for veterans' care and other financial obligations resulting from war. Many of these financial obligations do not land at our feet until many years later, when our grandchildren will have to pay the bill, just as I am now footing the bill for the long-term costs of the Vietnam War, which ended more than 30 years ago.

As our grandchildren pay for Gulf War II, they may very well be fighting a war of their own. Except that it may not be "their" war any more than the current Iraq War is "my" war. No matter. If our political culture remains the same 30 years from now, our grandchildren will have no greater control over issues of war and piece than we did. That's because, when it comes to war and peace, American citizens have no real control over their destiny.

The best way to figure out why this war is entering its sixth year is to think about how American society celebrates war, and how we are condititioned to support war. Elementary school students are taught to be "patriotic" without any real understanding of what that word means. You know patriotism when you see it. The kid who sits down during the Pledge of Allegience is not patriotic. The kid who waves the flag is patriotic. More broadly, few people associate anti-war protesters as patriotic. Patriotism is reserved for this who support war, any war. No one who supports war or an aggressive foreign policy is "anti-American." That epithet is reserved for people who ask too many questions. The assumption is that our government fights wars and intervenes abroad with honorable motives.

There is no risk in being "patriotic." Others may disagree with you, but to articulate pro-war views will not make you stand out. It's the anti-war protesters who have to apologize, telling TV cameras and passersby that they support the troops but not the war, or that their fathers fought in World War II but they have a duty as citizens to speak out against the current war. Why are anti-war protesters so apologetic? Because pro-war, pro-military views are the default position. It's "pro-American."

And why not? We celebrate "war heroes," not "peace heroes." War heroes get statues and buildings named after them. Who are the peace heroes? We do not recognize any. When the country goes to war, the TV news will hire retired generals and other military officials to provide opinions about war strategy. It would never occur to the TV stations to present these views alongside those of peace activists, highly-educated and articulate individuals who oppose the war and provide running commentary about why this particular war is wrong and possibly in violation of international law. Can you imagine the uproar if a leftist anti-war activist spoke out against the war the night the bombs began falling on Baghdad?

Even when anti-war sentiment represents the majority of the population (the case today), the democratic process fails us. That's because of the pro-war mentality that's been ingrained in us since grade school. Retreating or withdrawing troops is considered cowardly or highly disfavored. "We have to finish the job," the pro-war crowd tells us. "Why do you hate America," the more rigid conservative will ask. Statements like this are among the reasons the Iraq War will not end. No one knows how to end it, even when we all agree that American troops are stuck in a civil war, someone else's dispute.

The democratic process fails us because in November 2006 the American people voted for Congressional candidates who opposed the war. The media celebrated that sea-change as a reflection of anti-war sentiment. More than a year later, we're still in Iraq. The President is in denial, growing dumber by the year. His hawkish Secretary of Defense was fired a day after the 2006 election, but his replacement charges full-speed ahead. Books upon books and magazine articles make it crystal clear that the war was sold on lies and cherry-picked intelligence, and smoking-gun evidence has emarged to show that the war is bogus, but the war rages on.

It is time for Americans to face reality. The U.S. political system may have some democratic qualities when it comes to enforcing popular opinion on domestic issues. But the public has almost no influence over foreign policy, even when the blood of our brothers and children are spilled and hundreds of billions of our tax dollars are wasted and thrown into the rabbit hole. Elected and appointed officials can do what they want, they can screw up war strategy and squander lives and untold billions of dollars, and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it.

Why is it that the average voter has no real influence on war and peace? Part of the answer lies in who runs for office. There may be many rational people in Congress who don't like the war, but probably many more got elected because openly anti-war candidates have no chance in many congressional districts. Relatedly, since the President can whip up war hysteria by picking and choosing which evidence will support his position, once the war starts, it's impossible to end it without "victory." Withrawing troops equals weakness. We have not yet reached that point in American society where we can cut our losses and walk away, asking the United Nations or some other peacekeeping body to take care of the problem.

The average voter also has no influence over war and peace because of the size of the federal war-making bureacracy, which includes the Department of Defense, the State Department and the intelligence agencies like the CIA. These agencies are huge, they employ thousands of people and consume billions of taxpayer dollars. Much of what they do is accomplished in secret. While the framers of the U.S. Constitution granted war-making authority to both Congress and the President, it's the President who presides over these agencies, not Congress. The constitutional framers had no idea that these departments and bureacracies would grow this large, and some of these agencies were created long after the Constitution was enacted.

Maybe the Constitution was not designed for this modern society where government has grown larger than anyone could have imagined, and with secret decisions being made all the time without any oversight, we don't even know what we don't know. The most important decisions of all are reached without little, if any, public input. The truth often comes out many years later, when secret records are de-classified and scholars piece them together. Past war crimes are written off as crimes of the past. We've learned our lessons and our government is more enlightened today. That mentality creates more wars, and more war dead coming home in wooden boxes, their families left to pick up the pieces.

This is why even an anti-war President will become a pro-war President immediately upon taking office. A new President will be afraid to pull out the troops and work on some other peacekeeping strategy. The war machine has too much invested in pursuing the war. Momentary downturns in U.S. casualties will produce optimistic pronouncements about our ability to "win" the war. That's happening right now as people think the "surge" is working. But an escalation in troops for an illegal war can never work. We're just throwing more gasoline on the fire.

A final reason why the Gulf war will not end is that the war-promoters continue to believe that the war can be won. It may be "won" as that word is defined by the establishment. But what does it mean to win the war? Killing off every last enemy soldier? And who is the enemy? Won't more enemies turn up the longer the war persists? Maybe we don't deserve to win a war that was unprovoked, against a country that did not attack us and had no intent to attack us. Do I have the right to beat up someone in the street for no reason? An unprovoked fight like this deserves no winners. Ultimately, the question of whether we deserve to win this war is the unanswered question that needs an answer. Until we can look that question in the mirror, then this war is only now getting its boots on.

The New York Times had an article in its magazine over the weekend about U.S. military personnel fleeing to Canada because they don't want to fight in the Iraq war. The point of the article is that

the Canadian House of Commons is slated to debate a resolution that would allow conscientious objectors “who have refused or left military service related to a war not sanctioned by the United Nations” to apply for residency in Canada. The phrasing is vague but the intent is not. The war in question is the Iraq war, and the resolution represents the culmination of a four-year debate about what to do with the small but steady stream of American soldiers who have fled across our northern border to avoid fighting in Iraq.

The Canadian government is taking up this measure because human rights lawyers in Canada are unable to show that American war resisters are "refugees" under Canadian immigration law. When things don't work out in the courts, turn to the legislature to pass a law.

During the Vietnam war, Americans fled to Canada to avoid the draft. Canada took in these young man, some of whom certainly would have been killed or maimed had they been drafted to Vietnam. Since we don't learn from our mistakes, this country is mired in another quagmire that we can't get out of. The difference is that there is no draft this time around. But American soldiers still have to follow orders or face severe punishment for refusing to return to Iraq for another tour of duty. According to the article, quoting a soldier named Justin Colby,

Most of the [war resisters] say they joined the military in part out of patriotism. “I thought Iraq had something to do with 9/11,” Colby says, “that they were the bad guys that attacked our country.” But unlike Hinzman, most did not apply for conscientious-objector status. They tend to say they aren’t opposed to all wars in principle — just to the one they were ordered to fight. It wasn’t until Colby arrived in Iraq that he started to see the conflict as “a war of aggression, totally unprovoked,” he says. “I was, like, ‘This is what my buddies are dying for?’ ” Midway through his tour, he decided: “I’m never going to do this again.” He went AWOL the day before his unit left to train for a second deployment. [Colby's lawyer] House says that more than two-thirds of his clients have been deployed to Iraq at least once. “One is resisting a third deployment.”

There's an old saying in American law: just because something is unfair does not mean it's illegal. Sometimes we hear a variation on that: just because something is not fair does not mean it violates the U.S. Constitution. Indeed, the Constitution protects fewer rights than you might think. Once you get past free speech, freedom of religion and rules guaranteeing criminal suspects a fair trial, it's slim pickings.

Isn't there anything in the Constitution that allows a soldier to back out of his commitment for a war that he no longer supports? Actually, a cold reading of the Constitution would help these soldiers. It's in the Thirteenth Amendment, enacted after the civil war as a means to help the freed slaves. That provision reads:

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

That's right: slavery or other forms of involuntary servitude are illegal. You can't force someone to do things against their will. So doesn't the Thirteenth Amendment prevent the government from mandatory military service? The answer is no. In the case of Butler v. Perry (1916), "The Supreme Court . . . ruled that the Thirteenth Amendment does not prohibit mandatory military service in the United States."

In that case, the Supreme Court reasoned:

The 13th Amendment declares that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist. This Amendment was adopted with reference to conditions existing since the foundation of our government, and the term 'involuntary servitude' was intended to cover those forms of compulsory labor akin to African slavery which, in practical operation, would tend to produce like undesirable results. It introduced no novel doctrine with respect of services always treated as exceptional, and certainly was not intended to interdict enforcement of those duties which individuals owe to the state, such as services in the army, militia, on the jury, etc.

Despite its broad language prohibiting involuntary servitude, the Supreme Court in 1916 interpreted it narrowly, finding that it does not cover military conscription. That case is still binding today, because the Supreme Court has not overruled it. But that does not mean that the Supreme Court cannot overrule this precedent. It does that all the time. As I write this, the Supreme Court is poised to re-interpret the Second Amendment to make it much more difficult for the government to enact gun control laws. In order to do this, the Supreme Court would have to overturn or seriously modify one of its rulings from 1939 which ruled that the Second Amendment only covered the rights of a state militia.

The problem with the Second Amendment is that it's poorly worded. It reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." No one knows what this language means. There are too many commas and it does not conclusively tell you who enjoys this right. True, the Second Amendment makes reference to "the right to bear arms." But in the same sentence, it makes reference to "A well regulated militia." The Supreme Court might say that the Second Amendment covers both the rights of a militia AND the right to bear arms as a citizen. That would be a compromise finding, and it would certainly reflect an expansive reading of individual liberties, provided your idea of freedom is carrying a pistol.

If the Supreme Court is willing to creatively interpret the Second Amendment to guarantee the right to carry a handgun to defend yourself, why won't it interpret the Thirteenth Amendment to prevent the government from forcing people to fight in a war they don't support? Is there anything more coercive than forcing someone to be a soldier, taking away from their homes and their families to risk life and limb in a foreign land with the possibility of death? I don't think so. It's a sad commentary that decades of pressure from the National Rifle Association and other guns-rights groups has compelled the Supreme Court to re-consider one of its precedents on the Second Amendment, but no one is clamoring for a re-interpretation of the Thirteenth Amendment to include forced military conscription.

I really shouldn't have to say this, but one of the hallmarks of a democratic society is the consent of the governed. Public officials do what the public wants, unless there is good reason to take a different path, in which case public officials have to explain themselves and persuade the public to go along with them.

On minor issues, maybe it doesn't matter what the public thinks. But on war and peace it damned sure does. The public has been against the Iraq war for years, yet it rages on, consuming hundreds of billions of dollars, and the lives and limbs of thousands of American soldiers. Vice President Cheney knows this, but managing a war is too much fun without having to worry about the ignorant masses. He gave an interview recently in which he was asked about public opposition to the war.

CHENEY: On the security front, I think there’s a general consensus that we’ve made major progress, that the surge has worked. That’s been a major success.

RADDATZ: Two-third of Americans say it’s not worth fighting.

CHENEY: So?

RADDATZ So? You don’t care what the American people think?

CHENEY: No. I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls.

The cold text of the interview does not capture the true flavour of Cheney's response. To really take it in, click below. Check out the smirk when Cheney said, "So?" This is the response of a sociopath who has long abandoned any sense of accountability in a democratic society.

The New York Times over the weekend published a book review about the Iraq war, called "The War on Error." The book is highly critical of the way the Bush administration planned and managed the Iraq war. What makes the book unique is that the author, Charles Ferguson, supported the war when it began in 2003. It's now 2008 and the war is raging on. The review only confirms what many of us have been saying for quite some time: the collosal disaster that is the Iraq war represents what has to be the greatest policy disaster of our lifetimes.

According to the review, the book in part talks about the logistical failures of the war.

No End in Sight” reads like a primer on incompetence, a catalog of bungling. “There were 500 ways to do it wrong, and two or three ways to do it right,” Bodine tells Ferguson. “What we didn’t understand is that we were gonna go through all 500.”

Doing it wrong started with the looting. This wasn’t a matter of thieves walking off with toasters and television sets. What happened in Baghdad was of an entirely different magnitude, a descent into nihilism that lasted for weeks, even months. Stores, schools, hospitals were destroyed; at least 16 of 23 government ministries were gutted. Organized criminals brought in industrial cranes to haul off parts of a power plant. Yet the instructions from Washington were not to interfere. “Freedom’s untidy,” Rumsfeld intoned. The result was a loss of Iraqi trust that has never been regained.

But the book highlights a larger problem. According to many experts who don't like the war, we cannot simply pull out all the troops:

And if the Americans withdraw? Most of the people Ferguson talked to believe the result would be full-scale civil war; one analyst speaks of three or four civil wars at once. Even some of those who favor withdrawal accept the likelihood of a blood bath. “You would see the Sunnis of Baghdad certainly getting finished off quick,” says one. Another, an American specialist on democracy and development obviously wearied by Iraq, says the mere threat of withdrawal might bring the rival factions together, but if not, “they can have their civil war.”

It’s not that simple, however. A bloody civil war, several experts observe, probably would not be limited to Iraq. Neighboring countries would almost inevitably be drawn in, and the entire region could be engulfed in chaos. Iran would support the Shiites, while Saudi Arabia, Jordan and possibly Egypt would back the Sunnis. Turkey, meanwhile, might become more deeply enmeshed in Iraq’s Kurdish areas. Juan Cole, a historian at the University of Michigan, was an influential opponent of the war who now opposes a pullout. He’s not the only one. Cole points out that a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia could endanger the world’s oil supplies. “Iraq is not like Vietnam, where the U.S. could withdraw precipitately and altogether and let the chips fall where they may. ... The U.S. has destabilized the cockpit of the world economy. The plane is now spiraling down.”

This country f*cked up the Iraq war so badly that our withdrawal could ignite the Middle East, creating a cataclysmic fire straight from the Bible. I'm no military expert, so I can't say what to do about the war at this point. But basic principles of accountability make it clear in my mind what should happen. You don't screw up a policy initiative without being held accountable. If you erase your company's entire hard drive by accident, you get fired. If you try to burn your school to the ground, you get expelled. If you commit a crime, you go to jail. If you start a bogus war that kills 4,000 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, flushes hundreds of billions of dollars down the toilet and makes this country less safe by creating more and more terrorists, here's what should happen: you should be dragged from the White House, put on trial for war crimes and impeached.