Tag: Bush

War Crimes Charges Filed in Germany Against Bush Gang

In the wake of the release of the Senate’s Summary Report on the CIA torture program, a German human rights organization, European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), has filed criminal charges in Germany against the architects of the program and the Bush administration.

17 December 2014 – The ECCHR has today lodged criminal complaints against former CIA head George Tenet, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other members of the administration of former US President George W. Bush. The ECCHR is accusing Tenet, Rumsfeld and a series of other persons of the war crime of torture under paragraph 8 section 1(3) of the German Code of Crimes against International Law (Völkerstrafgesetzbuch). The constituent elements of the crime of torture were most recently established in the case by the US Senate in its report on CIA interrogation methods. “The architects of the torture system – politicians, officials, secret service agents, lawyers and senior army officials – should be brought before the courts,” says ECCHR General Secretary Wolfgang Kaleck, who is appearing today in connection with the issue in front of the German Parliamentary Committee on legal affairs. “By investigating members of the Bush administration, Germany can help to ensure that those responsible for abduction, abuse and illegal detention do not go unpunished.” [..]

ECCHR calls on Federal Prosecutor Harald Range to open investigations into the actions of Tenet, Rumsfeld and other perpetrators and to set up a monitoring process as soon as possible. This would allow the German authorities to act immediately in the event that one of the suspects enters European soil and not have to wait until such point before beginning the complex investigations and legal deliberations. [..]

While criminal complaints against those most responsible for the crimes have been discontinued by the authorities, investigatory proceedings are ongoing in Spain and France in the case of individuals who were detained in Guantánamo. ECCHR is representing German resident Murat Kurnaz in the Spanish proceedings. There is no indication that legal action will be taken by US authorities in relation to torture in Guantánamo and in Iraq. For this reason, recourse will be had to all available legal mechanisms in Europe in order to establish legal liability and to lend support to calls within the US for independent investigations into those responsible at the highest level.

Other criminal complaints have been filed in Spain, Switzerland and France. So far, the only person involved with the CIA torture program who has been charged with a crime is the man who exposed the war crimes, whistleblower John Kiriakou.

Democracy Now!‘s Amy Goodman and Juan González spoke with Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights and chairman of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, and longtime defense attorney Martin Garbus about the charges.

Even the New York Times Editorial Board agreed and, in a scathing editorial, accused President Barack Obama of failing his duty to prosecute the tortures and their bosses.

He did allow his Justice Department to investigate the C.I.A.’s destruction of videotapes of torture sessions and those who may have gone beyond the torture techniques authorized by President George W. Bush. But the investigation did not lead to any charges being filed, or even any accounting of why they were not filed. [..]

These are, simply, crimes. They are prohibited by federal law, which defines torture as the intentional infliction of “severe physical or mental pain or suffering.” They are also banned by the Convention Against Torture, the international treaty that the United States ratified in 1994 and that requires prosecution of any acts of torture. [..]

No amount of legal pretzel logic can justify the behavior detailed in the report. Indeed, it is impossible to read it and conclude that no one can be held accountable. At the very least, Mr. Obama needs to authorize a full and independent criminal investigation. [..]

The question everyone will want answered, of course, is: Who should be held accountable? That will depend on what an investigation finds, and as hard as it is to imagine Mr. Obama having the political courage to order a new investigation, it is harder to imagine a criminal probe of the actions of a former president.

Actually, it’s not hard at all. Perhaps the president, after six years, has finely found the courage to do some of the things he promised when first elected, releasing the the innocent men tortured and held illegally at Guantanamo and normalizing diplomatic and some economic relations with Cuba, will find the courage to order his Attorney General to bring them up on charges and put this national disgrace to really behind us.

The Underlying Issue: the War on the Constitution

The Republican and Democratic parties have accomplished an amazing feat with the red state/blue state paradigm. They’ve convinced everyone that regardless of how bad they are, the other guy is worse. So even with 11 percent of the public supporting Congress most incumbents will be returned to Congress. They have so structured and defined the question that people no longer look at the actual principles and instead vote on this false dichotomy.

John Cusack’s interview with Jonathan Turley is a good read if you like intelligent discussions by smart people who put what is important about an issue to the fore. This is in marked contrast with the Mainstream Media that puts trivial, ephemeral concerns front and center of any discussion and utterly ignore the underlying issues that do underlie all our major issues. In a way, it is not their fault since they see their job as merely to mirror the concerns of ordinary citizens who don’t want to think too deeply about anything whether it is the world of national and international affairs or even personal issues. Once there was a notion that the media would serve three important purposes, inform us on significant events that are bound to affect our lives, provide education about the world, and to keep track of the truth and hold politicians accountable. This has not even come close to be its role in recent years and is unlikely to be because the general consensus reality that this media has been presenting to us is the normal American consensus reality. This is the world we live in. Thus Obama is on the left and Romney is on the right. Never mind what left and right means or whether these people really fit the mold-they actually don’t because they are both opportunists-essentially, guns for hire who will pretty much represent their clients’ interest and guess what? We will never be their clients.

Legally Obligated to Prosecute

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

President Barack Obama took this oath on January 20, 2009 as prescribed by the US Constitution, Article II, Section 1:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

That includes a legal obligation to enforce the laws of this country and prosecuting the criminals who break those laws, even if that criminal is another President.

Rachel Maddow tiptoed around a bit when she that Bush-era torture was “probably a war crime,” while discussing the recently released memo by Philip Zelikow, a former Bush counselor. I suspect she did so as to not find herself on the unemployment line.

Rachel Maddow relays the news that the original Philip Zelikow memo advising the Bush administration that waterboarding is torture and such, illegal, has been found despite Bush administration efforts to destroy every copy. Will new proof that the Bush administration did not act in good faith when it tortured detainees push the Obama administration to prosecute? Will the Republican Party, once principled against torture, outflank Obama and call for prosecutions?

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It was probably a war crime, not to put a fine point on it. And that is something we are legally obligated to prosecute in this country. This opens the whole question of legal liability for torture that was administered by the previous administration. The Democratic Party will be split by this, because the White House politically doesn’t want to deal with this, even if it’s wrong and even if they know it’s wrong. And the Republican Party still has to figure out who it is. Is the Republican Party still the party of John McCain, which now has the opportunity to outflank the president on a matter of principle here? Where the Whit house knows what the right thing to do is, but they don’t want do it. Or is the Republican Party still the party of George W. Bush and Mitt Romney who think torture is OK?

Gaius Publius at AMERICAblog  doesn’t think this is going away. He also wonders why the Obama administration didn’t pursue it and links to an article written by Andrew Kreig, executive director of Justice Integrity Project, on September 13, 2011:

President-Elect Obama’s advisers feared in 2008 that authorities would “revolt” and that Republicans would block his policy agenda if he prosecuted Bush-era war crimes, according to a law school dean who served as one of Obama’s top transition advisers.

University of California at Berkeley Law School Dean Christopher Edley, Jr., the sixth highest-ranking member of the 2008 post-election transition team preparing Obama’s administration, revealed the team’s thinking in moderating a forum on 9/11 held by his law school (also known as Boalt Hall)[..]

When a citizen, Susan Harmon, who opposed torture, questioned Dean Ederly on the inclusion of Professor John C. Yoo, former Bush Justice Department attorney who authored a memo justifying torture, to Boalt Hall’s faculty, this is what happened:

Harman’s account of her actions at the Boalt Hall forum, which focused on such goals as human rights and the rule of law:

I said I was overwhelmed by the surreality of Yoo being on the law faculty . . . when he was single-handedly responsible for the three worst policies of the Bush Administration. They all burbled about academic freedom and the McCarthy era, and said it isn’t their job to prosecute him.

Duh.

Dean Chris Edley volunteered that he’d been party to very high level discussions during Obama’s transition about prosecuting the criminals. He said they decided against it. I asked why. Two reasons: 1) it was thought that the CIA, NSA, and military would revolt, and 2) it was thought the Repugnants would retaliate by blocking every piece of legislation they tried to move (which, of course, they’ve done anyhow).

Harman says that she approached Edley privately after the forum closed and said she appreciated that Obama might have been in danger but felt that he “bent over backwards” to protect lawbreakers within the Bush administration. She recalled, “He shrugged and said they will never be prosecuted, and that sometimes politics trumps rule of law.”

The last I checked waterboarding was still considered torture and torture was still a crime. Obama could well become a target for impeachment proceedings should the Democrats lose control of the Senate and more seats in the House. So long as the Obama administration refuses to prosecute former Bush administration officials, as well as, Bush and Cheney, they themselves are complicit in war crimes as per established laws and treaties of this country and the oaths that they took to uphold those laws and the Constitution.  

They Hate Us Because We Bring Freedom

UN Report On Government Torture In Afghanistan:

KABUL, Afghanistan – Suspects are hung by their hands, beaten with cables, and in some cases their genitals are twisted until they lose consciousness in detention facilities run by the Afghan intelligence service and the Afghan national police, according to a study released Monday by the United Nations here.

At War

The report provides a devastating picture of the abuses committed by arms of the Afghanistan government as the American-led foreign forces here are moving to wind down their presence after a decade of war. The abuses were uncovered even as American and other Western trainers and mentors had been working closely with the ministries overseeing the detention facilities and funded their operations.

Read the rest here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10…

Thank you Mr Bush! Thank you too, Mr Obama. And a big shout out to freedom lovers the world over.  

The Brave New Yorkers!

I was sitting on a train headed for the loop at Randolph Station, in Chicago, going to work.  I remarked to myself what an absolutely beautiful day it was — the sky was clear, a bit of crispness in the air and sunny.  A more beautiful day one could not have asked for.

The train was late.  No explanations.  

I arrived at my office and was greeted by my “boss!”  “Barbara, something awful, terrible, the world has gone crazy, I’m so glad you’re here — go watch the TV!”  I had never seen Alan emote this way ever.  I ran to the conference room where the TV was on — I watched, as the second tower was being hit. I viewed that and some re-runs — I think, in my mind, it was so surreal that I believed I was watching an episode from a movie, not something real.  

The 2nd Prudential Building, where I worked, advised us ALL to leave and go home — this was across the street from the building that formerly housed the Amoco Corporation, which later became the Aon Group Building (insurance).  Why?  Because, according to so-called threat knowledges, that building was also a targeted building.

Alan’s son called!  “Tell my dad I want to go home.”  I did, “Alan, you must go home and so must I.”  

I waited an hour and a half for a train to take me home.  There were so many nights that I didn’t sleep, couldn’t eat — as though someone had shot a bullet through my heart, but I was still somehow breathing.  

Then, as I tried to sleep so many nights, I thought of the brave, brave New Yorkers, who witnessed the horrors right in their faces and I could not stop the tears — for weeks on end.

One such individual, Randgrither, a New Yorker and one who worked in one of the towers, who no longer posts here, wrote a most poignant individual accounting:



I can haz cheeseburger  

More by: randgrithr

Mon Sep 14, 2009 at 15:20:53 PDT

Eight years ago today, my husband arrived home early from work. As he walked into the room, I rose from my bed and announced that I wanted to get something to eat.

This was a big deal because I hadn’t eaten anything for three days. I’d spent most of that time laying in bed, not wanting to be alive, not wanting to be awake, trying to wish the nightmare away. Sometimes I would get up out of bed and wander around the house. I’d drink some water and see if anything new was on TV. It wasn’t. I’d stand there for a few minutes watching on the idiot box what I’d already seen with my own two eyes, turn it off, and go back to bed. I slept a lot. I cried more than I care to remember. I’d reassure the cats, who were all expressing the worry and concern of communication-challenged but emotionally astute children.

Most television channels still had footage of the crumbling towers on eternal repeat, but a few were starting to show other coverage. The TV coverage didn’t come anywhere close to the chilling, thunderous sound of the collapses as I experienced them from only a mile away. It was very lost on me, and therefore very easy to walk away from or turn off.

The worst of my horror was the certain knowledge that there was no way the US intelligence community hadn’t seen this coming. I tried to push what I knew to the back of my mind, denying it, unable to deny it, unable to forget it, and unable to share it with anyone. The knowledge of this was kind of like the sound of the towers coming down – it was something you’d never understand unless you’d been there. It wasn’t going to be on TV. Trying to talk about it would get one looked at with the level of sympathy reserved for the insane. That didn’t make it any less real or any less horrifying.

My husband gently asked me what I wanted to eat, fully planning to make it for me. I said I wanted something that we wouldn’t have to cook ourselves. I’m not really a junk food fiend, but for whatever reason I settled on Burger King.

We went to the “Bravo Kilo” as we used to call it in the military, and I ordered my usual, which was a whopper with cheese, no tomato. While we were sitting and waiting for my first meal in three days, a fire broke out in the kitchen. The fire alarm began incessantly shrieking and strobing. Shortly a hook and ladder company came barrel-assing into the parking lot. The other people in the restaurant glanced uncomfortably and sadly at the firemen, still feeling the shock themselves from 9/11. I was quietly laughing like a crazy woman – the last damned time I’d been outside the house there had been the same scene… smoke and incessant sirens. Just what I needed, another overload of adrenaline. Nobody there except my husband would understand why I was laughing, but it wasn’t like anyone could hear me over the siren anyway. Eventually after what felt like an eternity tied to a mast, the husband returned bearing my food.

Three days of not eating won out over the adrenaline. I took my burger to go and we got the heck out of there. I ate it in the car.

Every year on September 14th, rich or poor, sick or well, at home or a hundred miles away from home, I go to my local “Bravo Kilo” and order a whopper with cheese, no tomato.

Now you know why.

 

Hi, I’m from the FBI, Can I Have Some Brain Tissue

Please?

I have a subpoena.

Really I do.

Also, I have a nice shiny drill.

But miss Bin Ladin, I have a subpoena.

No, scratch that, no need:

There is no Ms Bin Ladin, look wiki says he has all brothers.

But wait.

Look again.

It gets better.

Tissue samples taken from his corpse had provided virtually a “100 per cent” match with relations, including a sister who died from a brain tumour in a United States hospital, according to White House sources.

Now, all the papers says he has a sister, most report in Boston, whose name is ‘unknown,’ but that they retained her brain tissue, because you know, American hospitals have peoples brain tissue, even if they don’t know your name, and wiki says you don’t exist.

No worries there, though, a wiki edit is soon to happen.

Oh look:

Yahoo “Does Osama have a sister?

“this answer has been deleted”

5 minutes later:

Yes, he did. She had cancer and died. They took her DNA so if they caught Osama they could be sure that was him. He was the real Osama after they shot him in the head twice and tested his blood.

4 hours ago

Wait, wait, if this answer happened four hours ago, how come it changed 5 minutes ago?

In fact how come all the answers were posted ‘four hours ago’

Anyone Remember the ‘Mission’

Doubt if many have it marked on their calendars, probably don’t want to be reminded that some 70plus% supported it and the drum beating from Washington and the Media outlets, all of them!

But Greg Mitchell over at ‘The Nation’ would like to remind everyone that an important anniversary approaches, everyone outside of those who serve us and their families, you know, the ones the Country has yet to ‘Sacrifice’ for and few even Demanding they do.

At 8th Anniversary of Bush Landing on the Deck: ‘Mission’ Still Not ‘Accomplished’

March 19, 2003: Iraq “decapitation attack”


U.S. and coalition forces launched missiles and bombs at targets in Iraq including a “decapitation attack” aimed at Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and other top members of the country’s leadership.

There were nearly 300,000 American, British and other troops at the border.

President George W. Bush warned Americans that the conflict “could be longer and more difficult than some predict.” He assured the nation that “this will not be a campaign of half-measures, and we will accept no outcome except victory.”

Read about the cost of this war

Timeline

This Week in Peace History

Obama lawyer defends Bush aide against abuse charges

Solicitor General Neal Katyal, the lawyer who represents the Obama administration in the Supreme Court, argued Wednesday for reversal of a lower court ruling that would allow a lawsuit for money damages to proceed against George Bush’s attorney general, John Ashcroft. He is accused of abusing the “material witness” statute by using it as a pretext to jail-under barbaric conditions-a US citizen, Abdullah al-Kidd, suspected of no wrongdoing whatsoever.

You can read the rest about this latest provocation by the Obama administration here: http://wsws.org/articles/2011/…

CCR: Bush Torture Indictment

The Center for Constitutional Rights has released the Torture Indictment against former President George W. Bush!

Done In Our Names

The blowback will be felt for the coming decades, he on the other hand just wants to sell his book and reap more wealth from speaking, if one can call what he does when mouth opens speaking!

Obama’s Totalitarian Vision of a Censored Society

You may recall that Richard Nixon’s declared “enemy” was Daniel Ellseberg, who released “The Pentagon Papers” that finally brought to public light the lies, corruption, and futility behind the Vietnam War. Nixon was so pissed about this, that he formed his own private CIA-hit team, called “The Plumbers”, made up of CIA “Bay Of Pigs” assassins (and Kennedy assassination participants), E. Howard Hunt, Frank Sturgis, etc. to go around and ensure that any leaks were plugged up. Of course, the Daniel Ellsberg burglary, and the Watergate break in then followed, which led to Nixon’s own downfall — something today’s Congress would let pass by without a thought, in the today’s unspeakable age where: Human torture and preemptive War are good things in eyes of The United States Government (as long as we’re the ones doing it, or Israel, or the British Oligarchy, or Saudi Arabia).

Well the Pentagon Papers of today, are WikiLeaks, and guess who’s side President Obama is on?  That’s right, the same side as Richard Nixon.

Obama made a public statement to  Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan where he was quoted as:   “Expressing his regrets for the deplorable action by WikiLeaks“.

Link: Obama Lashes Out Amid Calls to Free Assange

Yeah….in Obama’s World, truth-telling is really “deplorable”, and not our criminal and corrupt Foreign Policy, our Worldwide mass-violence, and his utter waste of Trillions of dollars of American citizens money — who must instead, according to Obama, be robbed of their own Social Security lifeline in order to “keep the debt under control” — while he also hands out over $700 Billion dollars to multi-millionaires, and tells the Democratic Party: “take it or leave it”   (who’s the real treasonist here?).

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This is a tragic statement about our Country, but hardly surprising since President Obama has also happily agreed with Dick Cheney and George Bush (his Foreign Policy role models) supporting the elimination of Haebeus Corpus, elimination of our Miranda Rights, elimination of the Posse Comitatus Act, support for secret brutal CIA Renditions (i.e. the outsourcing of Human Torture), broad based Government Wiretapping and data gathering on U.S. Citizens that would make Richard Nixon blush, and the right of the executive to now kill and assassinate any U.S. Citizen without any charges or crimes ever being demonstrated … on mere suspicion alone.
This is President’s Obama worldview.

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The President also called Mexican President Felipe Calderon as well to make the same statement as well, as part of an effort to put pressure on Foreign Governments to continue to scapegoat, abuse, jail, harass, torture, or possibly assasinate the truth-teller.

Obama has also turned Attorney General Eric Holder loose to prosecute — not the War Crimes committed by criminal government officals whom we all pay the salaries of — but instead to prosecute truth-teller Julian Assange, and by using “all the tools” at his disposal (e.g.: assassination efforts underway).
This is President’s Obama worldview.

___

Support of WikiLeaks may be the most constructive thing that all of us ordinary people can do now, to bring about pressure upon the ruling Elite class, and expose their genocidal and monetary crimes.

A Song Was “Sung” and it ALL was begun — BEFORE 2000!

I had, as early as 2001, read about the PNAC, when we suddenly switched gears “There’s no targets here,” said Bush.  And the propaganda commenced

Military Project etc.  

Even Soc. Sec.  contemplated — enlarge on this

 

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