Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Guilty of Protecting War Criminals
We, the people of the United States of America, have considered your coverage of the so-called weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, vote fraud, torture by U.S. soldiers, and 9/11, and have found you guilty of willfully failing to disseminate the real news of the day in order to protect those in power.
We have carefully examined pre-war evidence that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, evidence widely disseminated at the time by knowledgeable people such as former weapons inspectors Scott Ritter and Hans Blix, and have found that this information was readily available to anyone open to seeing it. We have decided that you willfully ignored such evidence, and instead trumpeted the obvious propaganda of the king and his minions.
We have analyzed the many credible reports that the election of 2004 was stolen through vote fraud, including the recent report by the GAO, and found that this would be the conclusion of any thoughtful, non-partisan who spent the time to think through the issue. We thus find you have willfully attempted to consolidate the power of those who came to power through a coup.
We have thoughtfully reflected on the abundant evidence that U.S. troops violated the Geneva Conventions by torturing prisoners -- many of them innocent people -- in Afghanistan, Iraq, and around the world, and that such torture was ordered and condoned by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and other top officials. We have concluded that you willfully ignored such evidence for years, so as to protect the wars of adventure undertaken for imperial purposes.
Finally, we have taken a long, sober look at what really happened on September 11, 2001, and concluded that you have consciously ignored the overwhelming evidence that certain elements of the U.S government were complicit in the attacks. You have thus aided and abetted the commission of the greatest crime against American citizens in modern history.
We, who are republicans, democrats, and independents, therefore find you guilty of using disinformation and censorship to protect those in power. When they fall, you also will fall. Admittedly, you must have realized this fact long ago, and made the conscious decision to "close ranks", so that the truth of the multiple criminal actions of the current administration would not come to light, since you realized that if such crimes see the light of day, your participation in covering them up would be apparent.
But please note that you are only making it WORSE for yourself by delaying the inevitable. There is a season for all things, and the season of this administration is rapidly ending.
If you tell these long-suppressed stories now, at this time, then the American people may mete out a degree of forgiveness for your failure to report the news. If not, you will be treated as all other war criminals. For wasn't Hitler's propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, guilty of war crimes? Were not his false statements responsible for causing untold death and misery, as much as the actions of any soldier or general?
We, the people of the United States of America, judge you guilty of protecting war criminals, and the door of leniency for your failure to tell the truth about those in power is quickly closing.
The War Crimes Act of 1996: Bush, Rumsfeld could be Indicted under US Law
The statute applies not only to those who carry out the acts, but also to those who ORDER IT, know about it, or fail to take steps to stop it. The statute applies to everyone, no matter how high and mighty.
18 U.S.C. § 2441 has no statute of limitations, which means that a war crimes complaint can be filed at any time.
The penalty may be life imprisonment or -- if a single prisoner dies due to torture -- death. Given that there are numerous, documented cases of prisoners being tortured to death by U.S. soldiers in both Iraq and Afghanistan (see for example this report), that means that the death penalty would be appropriate for anyone found guilty of carrying out, ordering, or sanctioning such conduct.
Here's where it gets interesting. The general in charge of the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq stated this week that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other top administration officials ORDERED that inhuman treatment and torture be conducted as part of a deliberate strategy. This confirms what the Pullitzer prize-winning reporter who uncovered the Iraq prison torture scandal and the Mai Lai massacre in Vietnam previously wrote.
Indeed, an FBI email declassified in December 2004 states that Bush signed an Executive Order authorizing torture (here is the list of documents obtained through a freedom of information act request, and take a close look, for example, at this one, which mentions the "executive order").
It has also recently come out that, even after the torture at Abu Ghraib hit the news, torture still continues at that prison and, indeed, the U.S. is still torturing people worldwide. Even to the casual observer, it is obvious that the administration has no plans to stop, but has instead been working tirelessly to make it easier to carry out torture in the future.
Let's recap. We now know that torture in Iraq was ordered by top officials, and that torture is continuing, notwithstanding the administration's claims that it was only "a couple of bad apples" that were responsible for Abu Ghraib. Making a potential prosecutor's job easier, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wrote a memo in January 2002 to President Bush saying that America should opt out of the Geneva Convention because top officials have to worry about prosecutions under 18 U.S.C. § 2441. By attempting to sidestep the Geneva Convention, Gonzales created a document trail that can be used to prove that top administration officials knowingly created a policy of torturing prisoners, and that such a policy could reasonably have been expected to result in the death of some prisoners.
The U.S. did opt out of the Geneva Convention for the Afghanistan war, but we never opted out of the Geneva Convention for Iraq. Indeed, President Bush has repeatedly stated that Geneva applies in Iraq (although he has since claimed that foreign fighters captured in Iraq are not covered). Thus, there would be very little room for fancy footwork by defense lawyers in a prosecution against top officials concerning torture in Iraq.
And to the extent that claims that the U.S. has sent prisoners to other countries for the express purpose of being tortured are true, violation of the war crimes act by the highest officials of our country would be even clearer. For who else but Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and other top officials would have the ability to authorize such flights? How could such a program be undertaken without their knowledge? And how could such a program be anything but the intentional "ordering" of torture, or at least "knowing about it" and "failing to take steps to stop it"?
The Abu Ghraib general's recent statements about torture coming from the top and the existence of the "ghost flights" are important pieces of evidence for convicting Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, and a host of other top administration officials for violation of the War Crimes Act of 1996. Upon conviction, they could be sentenced to life in prison, or even death.
Additionally, violation of the war crimes act almost certainly constitutes a "high crime or misdemeanor" which would allow impeachment of such officials.
Postscript: Since this essay was written, new information has come out about torture and other potential violations of the Geneva Convention. The former director of the CIA accused Cheney of overseeing torture policies. Colin Powell's former chief of staff stated that Dick Cheney is guilty of war crimes. Some of the torturers themselves have come forward to confess their actions (see also this article; see also this article, this one, this one, and finally this one).
It was also revealed that the U.S. is holding prisoners at gulags in Europe.
In addition, before attacking Falluja, the marines allegedly stopped men "of fighting age" from leaving. The marines also levelled thousands of buildings, illegally denied access to the Iraqi Red Crescent and, according to the UN's special rapporteur, used "hunger and deprivation of water as a weapon of war against the civilian population".
And the U.S. military's use of white phosphorus and also napalm as weapons in Iraq has been exposed (see also this essay).
These facts further strengthen the case that high level officials committed war crimes. Indeed, even the lawyers and other people who aided in the effort may be war criminals; see also this article.
Comments:
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The American Political structure itself is cleverly designed fraud to begin with. This criminal design is useful to the criminal classes to continue to defraud the people from one Administration to the next.
You mention Clinton, notice how he and Bush senior seem to be great pals today. With no statute of limitations for War crimes and murder, he must be real concerned that when the current war criminal falls, the population may take a look at his mass murder and terrorist bombings in Kosovo,
The business community wanted those bombings so that they could get the working class running for their lives, and then the victims could come to America to "Pump up the labor resource.
War, along with being the most depraved form of human behavior, produces great wealth by ripping off labor, the creator of all wealth.
Our criminal classes knew that we would figure this all out someday, so they went ahead with a nuclear build-up to kill us all, and indeed they have tried repeatedly to launch nuclear weapons on us. This is why they keep mum about the visitation by the Extraterrestrials.
ET has physically defeated our war criminal classes, now we need to merely drop them into our little bag for their trials. With new courts, not their phony group of Winkin, Blinkin and Nod. They, that is, our human criminal classes are finished. Period.
http://politicsofet.com -
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TALK TALK TALK WHATS THE POINT OF THIS BLOG OR ANY OTHER FREAKIN BLOG NO BODY TAKES ANY ACTION ABOUT THIS STUFF ITS ALL BITCHING AND WHINING NO ACTION WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH US?
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I believe that this current presidency is what we Americans deserve now because as a people we've lost our purpose of direction and our national identity. We've lost our integrity as a nation, a nation that once stood for liberty and justice for all, through the manipulating leadership of this current administration that has shown us and the whole world that nothing will stop them from obtaining their goals. Not lying, not war, not torture or even the treasonous act in giving our enemies the names of the very people who fight the battles everyday to ensure our freedom like Plame and the many others like her. We've allowed individuals and groups hungry for power and money take control of our country by rewarding them for pandering to the wants of the majority rather than the needs of all. While at the same time they indulge the rich to gain more wealth at our expense in outsourcing their industries (our industries) to other countries to make an extra buck or two.
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Well, I certainly hope that something in the near future will happen to these criminals, sooner or later. Because if justice is not sent to do its work, then there will be a FINAL solution for all of them come judgement day when someone is seeking retrobution for all those murders. And if justice doesn't , May God help them find justice come revenge. And you you know about revenge, a dish best served cold! And it's a cold day for a bullet to sink in for the revenge of John F. Kennedy all the way to today. HEY BUSH! It's judgement day!
How could we begin a campaign for impeachment about this info?
How can we begin a campaign of HANGINGS for this?
Let's get George Sr. & Clinton while we're at it. Depleted Uranium IS an international war crime AND standard operating procedure.
Watch Beyond Treason
The issue of depleted uranium is a big one. The GI's now in Iraq are coming up with DU in their semen. DU is not only highly carcinogenic but a proven deformed baby maker.
The costs of this war will still be coming in long after the last GI comes home.
4.5 billion year half life for DU means DUbya babies will be being born for a long time to come.
America is not worried how many people these guys get killed, but god help them if they get caught with a girl going down on them.....