Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark inspired and endorsed the educational and stimulus website Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now, which contains pertinent laws and a country by country history of US crimes in 19 countries.
Two further often quoted erudite warnings of Ramsey's seem apropos to mention:
"There are few better measures of the concern a society has for its individual members and its own well being than the way it handles criminals."
"A great many people in this country are worried about law-and-order. And a great many people are worried about justice. But one thing is certain; you cannot have either until you have both.
Ramsey Clark enhanced thousands of people's lives immeasurably, both by his example and by his warmth and kindness towards us all. In the opening quote of this article Ramsey gives us an poetic idea of his own "feeling for the beauty of the planet -- a rose, an impala in motion, a baby's hand, a Confucian analect, a Bach cantata, a parable of Jesus, pilgrims bathing in the Ganges, a crowd watching a soccer game in Rio, the subway in Moscow, the skyline in Manhattan."
It's for sure that Ramsey Clark will be missed and not forgotten. Whether his warnings about the frightening if not terrifying nature of his country's past and present government will remembered and heeded in time is an open question.
End Notes
1. Church Committee (the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities) was a U.S. Senate select committee in 1975-6 that investigated abuses by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) chaired by Idaho Senator Frank Church. The committee's amazingly criminal findings must have caused the publishers of the normally CIA supportive New York Times to feel some obligation to report on its covert criminal activity which the Church Committee had brought to public attention.
2. The Fire This Time: U.S. War Crimes in the Gulf by Ramsey Clark, 1992 Relying on evidence gathered firsthand as well as eyewitness reports, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark accused the U.S. government and its allies of committing war crimes during their attack on Iraq. Clark also presented evidence that the U.S. provoked the war to gain permanent domination over the Gulf. Amazon Book Review.
3. The Ramsey founded ANSWER Coalition staged a counter inauguration protest at John Marshall Park, speakers took to the stage throughout the day. Among them, former U.S. Attorney General, Ramsey Clark:
RAMSEY CLARK: Really to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. We have to take the Constitution back, back from crimes against peace, from war crimes and crimes against humanity.
You know, the Nuremberg tribunal called the war of aggression the supreme international crime, and it is. And George W. Bush has waged a war of aggression against Iraq. He's killed more than 100,000 people. Are their lives worth nothing? Can we have a moment of silence in memory of all the people who have died in Iraq because of the criminal acts of George W. Bush in waging this war of aggression?
Every moment of their lives is fraught with danger right now because of us. The world is the most dangerous place it's ever been now because of what our country has done, and is doing, and we have to take it back. We can't wait four more years.
There can't be any more Fallujahs. Fallujah is the 21st century equivalent of Guernica. We just went in and destroyed that city, drove the people out, killed them, thousands. We don't know how many. They won't even bother to count who's been killed or how many, or estimate how many. They just keep killing. Almost every day we're reading about another checkpoint where some family got wiped out because they didn't do what they were supposed to do, according to the military there.
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