Largely missed in all the coverage of the Supreme Court's landmark ruling in the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case was the establishment by the court majority that all Bush administration claims to the contrary, the Geneva Convention rules regarding captured prisoners apply to the captives taken not only in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in the so-called War on Terror.
What has been largely missed is the clear point that the Supreme Court has thus now declared that for the past five years, Bush and his gang of war-mongers, including Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State and former National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, former Attorney General Donald Rumsfeld and current Attorney General and former White House Chief Counsel Alberto Gonzales, and many others in the administration, have been guilty of violating the Third Convention on treatment of prisoners of war. They are also, therefore, in violation of federal law, which back in 1996 adopted that convention as part of the U.S. criminal code.
In other words, the whole top administration, from Commander in Chief George W. Bush on down, is guilty of war crimes. The punishment for committing war crimes ranges from a lengthy jail sentence to, in the event the crimes in question caused the death of any prisoners being held, to death. And there have been many deaths among those who have been held and tortured on orders of the administration--most recently the three suicides at Guantanamo, which included on man who had only three days earlier been targeted for release (but who never learned this because government's secrecy and tight security prevented his attorneys at the Center for Constitutional Rights from getting the news to him).
Interestingly, Gonzales actually cautioned Bush about this possibility. In a memo to the president, written on January 25, 2002 when he was still White House counsel, Gonzales warned prophetically that the U.S. adoption of the Third Geneva Convention as a part of the U.S. criminal code in 1996 made violation of the convention a "war crime" under U.S. law, which he said was defined as "any grave breach" of the Third Convention such as "outrages against personal dignity." He noted that this law applied whether or not a detained person qualified for POW status, and added that punishment for violation of the law "include the death penalty." But then he went on to say Bush could "substantially reduce" his risk of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act by making a presidential determination that the Third Geneva Convention "does not apply to al Qaeda and the Taliban."
Clearly, Gonzales here was behaving like a mob lawyer, not like an honest counselor. He was telling the president not what was right and legal, but how to dodge prosecution.
In Bush's case, this crime calls for his impeachment, and for his subsequent prosecution as a war criminal. In the case of his subordinates and abettors, it calls for criminal indictments.
Naturally, we cannot expect to see indictments issue from the Attorney General's Office, particularly given Gonzales' own complicity and personal culpability on the war crimes charge. Conceivably, I suppose, some career prosecutor like Patrick Fitzgerald, who has been given wide authority in his special counsel role, could bring charges, though this seems highly unlikely. Charges could also be brought by another country whose laws permit such extraterritoriality: Germany or Spain for example.
Meanwhile, we who value America's once elevated standing in the world as a supporter and author of the Geneva Conventions, should begin a campaign to press the Congress to consider a bill of impeachment against Bush for war crimes.
There are, as Barbara Olshansky and I explain in our new book The Case for Impeachment (which includes a copy of the above Gonzales memo in an appendix), many important reasons to impeach the president. Surely, however, the deliberate policy of involving the military in the commission of war crimes--torture, kidnapping, denial of access to some process of challenge the justice of their detention--is among the worst of all of those crimes against the Constitution.
The blood of war crime victims is on Bush's hands, and the hands of his henchmen, but unless we the people act, and unless the Congress acts, to call them to account, it will ultimately be on all of our hands.
http://www.thiscantbehappening.net
Dave Lindorff, a columnist for Counterpunch, is author of several recent books ("This Can't Be Happening! Resisting the Disintegration of American Democracy" and "Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Penalty Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal"). His latest book, coauthored with Barbara Olshanshky, is "The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office (St. Martin's Press, May 2006). His writing is available at http://www.thiscantbehappening.net
The unprovoked attack on Iraq was a war crime. There is no difference whatever between Hitler's blitzkreig on Poland or The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The Nurenberg tribunal considered waging agressive war the worst of all crimes. The canard that it was a 'preventive' war is totally insane. The very idea that Iraq could attack an America with twelve aircraft carriers is ridiculous. The continued occupation and installation of a Vichy type government follows the Nazi pattern.
It is obvious that the cabal that initiated this monstrous act are criminally insane, but what does it say for the American media and the American government who have allowed this to happen and refuse to withdraw our troops even now?
by
gramps (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 109 comments)
on Saturday, July 1, 2006 at 2:47:50 PM
I am ashamed. We the People. American people who never let their voices heard , shirked our duty, even though we all know what an UnAmerican action our government took with the war in Iraq and then suspended the Geneva convention without protest. It seems we have all lost our collective will and embraced the Nazi rule:"By whatever means neccessary."
We were all too busy worrying about our realites of life Kids, house payements ,disappering jobs ,the inflation we knew was just around the corner.Terroism was in there somewhere,but not lmportant enough to finish the job in Afganistan .
Now the time has come to rectify some of the damage our inattention has wrought. Impeach those responsible and pledge to never let us get away from our duty again!
by
cluelessfl (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 184 comments)
on Saturday, July 1, 2006 at 5:18:05 PM
Then instead of giving these obnoxious vermin the chance to consider whether or not they are going to recognize the validity of the court's verdict, and whether or not they are going to take one atom of notice of it and let it spoil their plans to rape the planet - Just take them out and hang the bastards!
Don't wait. Just do it! Now!
by
amazin (31 articles, 0 quicklinks, 10 diaries, 377 comments)
on Sunday, July 2, 2006 at 3:54:46 AM
I will not argue that George Bush should definitely go down as the WORST president in history and I would LOVE to see him and all the other pigs around him thrown right out of office... but... for war crimes????... Are you guys serious???... After 9 11 & all the lives that we have lost in this war, how could you give a damn about what is done to these ANIMALS... We should have wiped them off the continent... they deserve everything they get... in fact I'd like to torture some of them myself... I mean come on people... look what they have done to our troops... and they will continue to do it as long as we don't stop them...
by
Ivy (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments)
on Monday, July 3, 2006 at 10:04:00 AM
It must be so easy to ignore the body parts spewed about by one-ton bombs when your media choose not to show them to you. Or perhaps America's willingness to kill dozens at a time indiscriminately from above makes you feel superior. The US has killed around 30 or so Iraqis for everyone who died on 9/11, which the Iraqis had nothing to do with, and in the first Gulf War, the US "preemptively" killed another 30 or so Iraqis for everyone who was to be killed on 9/11. I you consider the Iraqis "animals" for their non-involvement in 9/11 and their distaste for US destruction of their country and themselves, what sort of names would they be justified in using for you, who support wholesale slaughter so enthusiastically? A plant, of course, would be less evolved than an animal, wouldn't it?
by
Thanedoss (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments)
on Monday, July 3, 2006 at 11:24:21 AM
A plant???... I think that maybe you should move and live among your fellow friends, that is of course if you don't already... You darling should be ashamed if you are living in this country... As for their non-involvement... yea, ok... And as for my media choosing not to show the body parts spewed about by one-ton bombs... true, it may make things easier to ignore... funny though... after reading that sentence... all I could visualize is the beheading of innocent lives on national television and how sick some people really are... how easy we forget... think what you want of me... that will not change the fact that a terrorist or any of the countries that breed them, should be exterminated... You're right... they are not animals... I should have never insulted an animal in that way... I apologize...
by
Ivy (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments)
on Monday, July 3, 2006 at 12:56:03 PM
Yes, I do believe the animals should be apologized to.
What I do understand is the motivations and hearts of
4 legged animals, but what is misunderstood is the
motivations and the hearts of 2 legged critters. Notice
I didn't say animals. If you back up the train and do
historical research I think you'll discover President Clinton started this mess by authorizing the bombing of the Sudan and his failure to do any justice with regard to the bombing of the USS Cole and our embasies. Many of our brave young men and women, and as a Viet Nam vet, I refuse to stand back and watch you spit on them like you did us. Instead when I see them on a plane, I shake their hand and thank them, and just one I recently encountered, when I did that had tears in his eyes, and thanked me for thanking him. He had apparently already ran into one of you others, who blamed him for everything.
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Charlie (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments)
on Monday, July 3, 2006 at 5:46:52 PM
Ivy is a plant, you know. If you accept the Iraqis' non-involvement in 9/11, how do you justify dumping tons of bombs on them, long before any beheadings started happening?--"If the US is mad, people just have to die! It doesn't matter if they were involved or not!"? That aligns you pretty well with Mohammed Atta and the rest of the 9/11 crew, doesn't it?
At any rate, unprovoked war is against the Geneva conventions, as the article says, and despite Bush's desire to believe that he is the only arbiter of US law, the actual US legal code says that international treaties that it ratifies are part of US law, too. So, put simply, there's little argument that the Bush administration is guilty of war crimes; your bloodthirst is not an excuse for committing war crimes.
I lived in New York on September 11th, 2001, and taught at the only school (BMCC) to lose a building on 9/11. The roommate of one of my students never came home. It doesn't make me feel any better at all to know that my government slaughters people who weren't involved because it thinks that'll make me feel better. No, that makes me wish the US had rational people governing it instead of a group called "the crazies" under Bush's father.
Because of the animosity between bin Laden and Hussein, Iraq was the one place in the Middle East where it would've been hard to find anyone involved with al-Qaeda (aside from the Kurdish section, where Hussein had no control, and where US allies harbored Zarkawi, whom it would seem you disliked despite the US government's protection of him). You can't call invading Iraq retaliation for 9/11 (well, not logically, anyway--it seems you do anyway, as well as apparently considering the invasion to be retaliation for responses to the invasion--cause and effect utterly reversed), since there was no connection.
Finishing the negotations (reported to have been nearing completion when the invasion began) to take bin Laden out of Taliban hands and then invading Afghanistan anyway because of its complicity would've made a lot of sense and been justifiable. Having invaded Afghanistan, devoting enough attention to it to get a stable government without the Taliban or the drug lords up and running would've made sense. Invading a country with no involvement in 9/11 really could've waited until dealing with 9/11 had been more completely resolved, though.
Perhaps all this is just too much intellectualizing, though.
If it's your belief that when Iraqis kill Americans because the Americans have killed so many Iraqis, more Iraqis need to be killed, then you should have no difficulty understanding an Iraqi belief that Americans should be killed for killing Iraqis who were killed for killing Americans because the Americans killed Iraqis. And eventually we go beyond eyeless and toothless, all the way to lifeless. Yee-haw...
Rational behavior may be more boring, but it's a lot safer for everyone.
by
Thanedoss (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments)
on Wednesday, July 5, 2006 at 10:52:16 AM
When will you get angry....when they kill your relatives?
You need to back up the train. President Clinton authorized the bombing of Sudan to get Bin Laden. We've forgotten the USS Cole, the bombing of our embassies, and the attacts on our Nation on 9/11. There were, by count, over 500 weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq alone. When will you get angry? After North Korea has nuked your home? Or isn't hijacking American airliners and the World Trade Center enough. I'm glad we don't have a President who waits to see what Michael Moore in Hollywood thinks or those who think we can achieve piece by lighting candles and singing John Lennon songs. Had we waited for these folks the attack on Pearl Harbor would have gone unanswered and you would either be speaking German Nazi-ism today...if they left you alive. Sadam Insane was a threat to the world. His mistake was attacking this country while we had a Texan in office. I am as peaceful as the next person, but I'm sorry when you attack me, my family, or threaten my security, the talk is over. If anyone ever deserved impeachment it was President Clinton. He lied before jurys, grand jurys, and to this day bilks over $700,000 of taxpayer money. You don't turn loose prisoners who are terrorists and who have attacked innocent women and children by bombing them. These are not soldiers but terrorists. They are common criminals, much like the gangs we have wandering our streets. They do not have the right to rob and steal from you, to paint your fences and your garage, or terroize the older generations trying to live in peace. Instead we allow them to roam untouched by our laws and our justice. The same ilk is at work here. Recognize evil for what it is, and then deal with them. (Of course criminals will object and they will use our public media to assist them in their lies and some Americans are dumb enough to fall for it!)
by
Charlie (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments)
on Monday, July 3, 2006 at 5:38:26 PM
WIth all this fear and anger from 911, some Americans will want to fight back and get carried away blaming anyone that is related to the terrorist by nationality, religiously, culturaly, etc. We already went through a similar situation during WWII with Japanese Americans because of the Attack on Pearl Harbor. Why were mostly Japanese Americans to blame and not the Germans and Italians?
One big difference between WWII and now is that innocent American civlians were targeted besides the military on 911, and for what? These Muslim extremists want to be left alone? The source of the terroristic activities on 911 came from the Middle Eastern nations and the U.S. did give Iraq plenty of time for their goverment to do something about their regime, but they didn't take U.S. threat seriously. Also, during the Clinton Admistration, Americans did have conflicts with Iraq, Operation Desert Fox. I don't think there would've been an administration that wouldn't considered even going to war with Iraq, it was bound to happen, we should've taken them out during the first war, but that wasn't our mission.
The prisoners at Guantanamo Bay is there for a reason, they are not nice individuals, but the Bush Administration did break the law, so they should be accountable.
by
jim (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Monday, July 3, 2006 at 6:05:49 PM
