VirusHead

The Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration released its final verdict on Wednesday, September 13, 2006. Guilty.

11:00 AM, Press Conference, Camp Democracy (Constitution & 14)
12:00 Noon, Delivery of Verdict to the White House

Full text of the verdict in PDF.

An unprecedented Commission of Inquiry has found the President of the United States and his administration guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The five-member panel of jurists unanimously found the administration’s actions “shock the conscience of humanity” in five areas – wars of aggression, illegal detention and torture, suppression of science and catastrophic policies on global warming, potentially genocidal abstinence-only policies imposed on HIV/AIDS prevention programs in the Third World, and the abandonment of New Orleans before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina.

THE VERDICT

In their summary, the Commission jurists found that: “Each of these constitutes a shocking crime in itself, and taken together the full horrors are all the more unconscionable. It is also clear that this is an administration that demonstrates an utter disregard for truth and flagrantly lies about the reasons for its actions.

“In arriving at this decision the jurists were particularly alarmed by the degree to which the Bush Administration’s actions in all five indictments were informed by the extreme right. …. although the specific conduct differs among the indictments, the result is the same: human life was debased and devalued by gratuitous acts of violence, torture, narrow self interest, indifference, and disregard.”

In arriving at their verdict, the Commission’s panel of jurists examined a wealth of evidence with care and rigor. Consistent standards were employed, with well-established international law referenced where applicable.

The panel of jurists consisted of Adjoa A. Aiyetoro, William H. Bowen School of Law, Little Rock; former executive director, National Conference of Black Lawyers (NCBL). Dennis Brutus, former prisoner, Robben Island (South Africa), poet, professor emeritus, University of Pittsburgh. Abdeen Jabara, former president, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Ajamu Sankofa, former executive director, Physicians for Social Responsibility-NY. Ann Wright, former US diplomat and retired US Army Reserve Colonel.

THE HEARINGS

The Commission’s year-long investigation included five days of public hearings in October 2005 and January 2006 in New York City. The 45 expert and first-hand witnesses included former commander of Abu Ghraib prison Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray, former UN official Denis Halliday, former UN arms inspector Scott Ritter, Guantanamo prisoners’ lawyer Barbara Olshansky, and Katrina survivors.

The verdict’s release comes with war crimes again on front pages following President Bush’s defense of secret prisons, rendition, and practices constituting torture under existing law, his demand that the War Crimes Act be fundamentally weakened, and his threats against Iran.

In a preface to the printed verdict, historian Howard Zinn writes: “The Bush Administration has been following a course, which can only now be described as a series of crimes against humanity. . . . What could be a higher crime than sending the young people of the country into a war against a small country on the other side of the world, which is no danger to the United States, and in fact a war which is condemned by people all over the world and a war which results in, not only the loss of American lives and the crippling of young Americans, but results in the loss of huge numbers of people in Iraq? These are high crimes.”

Ignoring the Supreme Court, the advice of top military lawyers, our nation’s laws, and the domestic and worldwide outcry against torture, the Bush Administration is aggressively fighting for the legal right to abuse detainees in U.S. custody.

This administration is currently polishing up an amendment to the War Crimes Act (Section 2441 of title 18 US Code) that would legally permit abusive interrogations. This would further undermine Common Article 3 in the Geneva Conventions, and try to evade the recent Hamdan v. Rumsfeld Supreme Court ruling. The amendment would not ban “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment” (such as “waterboarding”), although such acts are specifically banned by the Geneva Conventions.

The White House also announced that the bill “will apply to any conduct by any U.S. personnel, whether committed before or after the law is enacted.” So, they want to grandfather in any previous criminal offenses – duh.

Passing this legislation would excuse the administration from current, past, or future criminal charges stemming from its treatment of prisoners in the “war against terror.” It looks to me as though it’s quite concerned with protecting its own policymakers from being prosecuted under the War Crimes Act. Yeah, I wonder why that would be.

The time-honored and (almost) universally-accepted Geneva Conventions help to protect our own troops. The Bush administration is not only willing to risk the lives of our soldiers – and further tarnish our reputation – so that it can engage in cruel and inhuman treatment with impugnity – but it also want to protect those who have authorized it from any accountability!

Outside of all the ethical and legal reasons to oppose torture (especially in our name), there is also the pragmatic reason not to torture: Expert interrogators have already said that good information comes not through torture, but rather by establishing relationships of trust. People who are tortured will say anything to make the torture stop. Read up on the Inquisitions. The Witch Hunts. Or something more recent. Take your pick. Torture doesn’t work.

Shall we go down as the first nation to retreat from the Geneva Conventions?
Shall we be known as the country who stood up to champion cruel and degrading treatment?

Is this what America has become? Is this what we stand for? Will Americans speak up?

The “good guys” don’t need to do this.

No more torture in America’s name!
No grandfathered protections for those who authorized it!

Tell the President to drop this bid to gain the legal right to abuse detainees. Tell him to respect our laws and the Geneva Conventions. (Human Rights First)

Read up on the issues. Then, please contact your representatives to tell them your views, and the position you would urge them to take on this matter.

Reading:

• Supreme Court Strikes Fear: Reprimanded by the Supreme Court, the Bush administration rushes to evade punishment – Village Voice
• War Crimes Act Changes Would Reduce Threat Of Prosecution – Washington Post
• White House Wants to Amend War Crimes Act – National Public Radio
• No impunity for war crimes: US administration seeking to amend the War Crimes Act – Amnesty International
• Retroactive Laws Invoked to Protect Administration Officials from War Crimes Prosecution – Indybay
• A free pass on war crimes? – Salt Lake Tribune

I am participating in this blogger action, in a limited way. I’m not following directions, which would be to replace my entire front page with the single word “Impeach.”

I am participating in this more limited fashion because we don’t have the congressional votes for an impeachment process and I think there are actually even more important issues to work on. In the November election, we ought to be proposing solutions to this octopus-armed disaster that the Bush administration has created.

Still, there is certainly a solid case for impeachment. Here’s a sprinkling of the many available sources.

Bush Crimes Commission – International Commission of Inquiry On Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration
http://www.bushcommission.org/

Articles of Impeachment
http://www.impeachpac.org/?q=articles

Four Reasons
http://www.thefourreasons.org/impeachbush.htm

“Constitution in Crisis” by John Conyers summarizes evidence of illegal activities.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.com/?q=node/5769

A memo from a January, 2003, White House meeting of Bush and Blair at which Bush made clear that the U.S. would go to war with or without the United Nations and proposed various strategems to try to create a justification for war.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.com/whitehousememo

Bush Crimes
http://www.freewebs.com/bushcrimes/

A report that the CIA had strong evidence before the war that Iraq possessed no Weapons of Mass Destruction.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.com/node/9141

A January, 2003, State Department memo showing awareness that Niger documents were forgeries.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.com/node/8889

A British memo shows that Bush proposed bombing Al Jazeera.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.com/node/5073

A report that Bush was personally informed that the aluminum tubes claims were not supported by the State Department or the Department of Energy and that Iraq was very unlikely to attack the United States.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.com/node/8440

Testimony that Bush and Cheney were involved in the leaking of misleading classified information and in a campaign of retribution against Joseph Wilson.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.com/node/8586

Paul Pillar, who was the CIA’s national intelligence officer for the Middle East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005, writes that facts were fixed to support going to war.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.com/node/7732

Top aide to Secretary of State says facts were fixed to support going to war
http://www.afterdowningstreet.com/node/1907

War Crimes
http://www.nogw.com/warcrimes.html

An Amnesty International report on ongoing torture and unlawful detention.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.com/node/8686

Reports that almost 100 prisoners have died in US custody.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.com/node/8078

“State of War” by James Risen reveals illegal spying and reports on meeting between MI6 and CIA that preceded the Downing Street Meeting in July 2002.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.com/node/6558

Henry Waxman collects 237 Bush administration lies in a searchable database.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.com/node/5394

Report that Germans told US “Curveball” was unreliable.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.com/node/4960

U.S. Army admits using White Phosphorous as a weapon
http://www.afterdowningstreet.com/node/4576

Cheney’s Chief of Staff Indicted for Obstruction of Justice
http://www.afterdowningstreet.com/node/4161

NSA spying months before 9/11
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB24/nsa25.pdf
http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/48/16920

Chart of all stolen public data:
http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/Datathefts.php

This was an excellent Frontline. You can watch it online if you missed it.

The Dark Side

“OOOOSH-Whooosh….Luke – I mean George -I am your President….whoosh.”

Oh, and on the Supreme Court ruling on Guantanamo… isn’t it pretty clear now that this administration is guilty of war crimes? So… what? Are the Republicans so tied to their funding that they will ignore even this?

Who do you call to protect you from the New Iraq’s security forces?

We found out a few hours later that one of our neighbors, two houses down, had died. Abu Salih was a man in his seventies and as the Iraqi mercenaries raided his house, he had a heart-attack. His grandson couldn’t get him to the hospital on time because the troops wouldn’t let him leave the house until they’d finished with it. His grandson told us later that day that the Iraqis were checking the houses, but the American troops had the area surrounded and secured. It was a coordinated raid.

They took at least a dozen men from my aunts area alone- their ages between 19 and 40. The street behind us doesn’t have a single house with a male under the age of 50- lawyers, engineers, students, ordinary laborers- all hauled away by the ‘security forces’ of the New Iraq. The only thing they share in common is the fact that they come from Sunni families (with the exception of two who I’m not sure about).

We spent the day putting clothes back into closets, taking stock of anything missing (a watch, a brass letter opener, and a walkman), and cleaning dirt and mud off of carpets. My aunt was fanatic about cleansing and disinfecting everything saying it was all “Dirty, dirty, dirty…” J. has sworn never to celebrate her birthday again.

Question: Why are we rounding up Sunni men?