All Entries Tagged With: "war crimes"

‘Sickening’ torture report to be published Friday

More ’sickening’ truths about torture soon to be revealed

A crucial CIA Inspector General’s report from May 2004 is expected to reveal some long-hidden truths about the Bush administration’s use of torture.

According to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, “This report is sort of the big kahuna in terms of what we have been waiting to see from the government’s own files on torture. That report, which is long and has been described by people who have seen it as ’sickening,’ apparently stopped the torture program in its tracks.”

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) recently warned in a speech on the floor of the Senate that almost everything we think we know about the Bush administration’s torture program is wrong.

via Raw Story » More ’sickening’ truths about torture soon to be revealed.

Torture goon squads at Gitmo”

Thom Hartmann talks w/Jeremy Scahill

YouTube – Thom talks w/Jeremy Scahill Torture goon squads at Gitmo”.

Succumbing to the Dark Side

Succumbing to the Dark Side

Torture is a violation of U.S. and international law. Yet, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney gave the OK to interrogators to violate U.S. and international law.

Editor’s Note: The following article was contributed by Paul Craig Roberts and may not reflect the views or opinions of EconomyInCrisis.org. Feedback is welcome.

Torture is a violation of U.S. and international law. Yet, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, on the basis of legally incompetent memos prepared by Justice Department officials, gave the OK to interrogators to violate U.S. and international law.

The new Obama administration shows no inclination to uphold the rule of law by prosecuting those who abused their offices and broke the law.

Cheney claims, absurdly, that torture was necessary in order to save American cities from nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists. Many Americans have bought the argument that torture is morally justified in order to make terrorists reveal where ticking nuclear bombs are before they explode.

However, there were no hidden ticking nuclear bombs. Hypothetical scenarios were used to justify torture for other purposes.

We now know that the reason the Bush regime tortured its captives was to coerce false testimony that linked Iraq and Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida and Sept. 11. Without this “evidence,” the U.S. invasion of Iraq remains a war crime under the Nuremberg standard.

Torture, then, was a second Bush regime crime used to produce an alibi for the illegal and unprovoked U.S. invasion of Iraq.

via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.

Jimmy Carter Charges Obama “Doesn’t Want to Punish Those Who are Guilty” of Crimes

Jimmy Carter Charges Obama “Doesn’t Want to Punish Those Who are Guilty” of Crimes  - by Jeremy Scahill

The Democratic Party power structure’s least favorite ex-President is speaking out of school again. Jimmy Carter has some strong words about President Obama’s decision to fight the release of thousands of photos that reportedly show further US abuse and torture of prisoners and has weighed in on the debate over prosecuting former Bush administration officials for torture. In an interview to be broadcast tonight on CNN, Carter says this about Obama’s position on the release of new torture photos:

[M]ost of [Obama's] supporters were hoping that he would be much more open in the revelation of what we’ve done in the past. But he’s made a decision with which I really can’t contend that he doesn’t want to resurrect the past, he doesn’t want to punish those who are guilty of perpetrating of what I consider crimes against our own laws and against our own constitution. And the revelation of those pictures might very well inflame further animosity against our country causing some harm to our soldiers, so I don’t agree with him, but I certainly don’t criticize him for making that decision.

Regarding calls for prosecution of former Bush administration officials, Carter says

via Jimmy Carter Charges Obama “Doesn’t Want to Punish Those Who are Guilty” of Crimes | CommonDreams.org.

Court Rules In Favor Of Transparency In Guantánamo Cases

Court Rules In Favor Of Transparency In Guantánamo Cases

American Civil Liberties Union

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NEW YORK – In an important ruling affecting the public’s access to records regarding the cases of Guantánamo detainees, a federal court today denied a government motion to seal unclassified information related to those cases. Judge Thomas F. Hogan of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, citing a “First Amendment and common law right to access” judicial records, ruled that the government cannot suppress unclassified documents and must seek court approval to seal specific information.

The following can be attributed to Jonathan Hafetz, attorney with the ACLU National Security Project:

“Today’s decision is a victory for transparency. For far too long, the government has succeeded in keeping information about Guantánamo secret, and used secrecy to cover-up illegal detention and abuse. The decision marks an important step towards restoring America’s open court tradition that is essential to both accountability and the rule of law.”

via American Civil Liberties Union : Court Rules In Favor Of Transparency In Guantánamo Cases.

Gen. Ricardo Sanchez calls for war crimes truth commission.

OPS:  A “Truth” Commission will be another cover-up.  This is WHY people like Sanchez are being trotted out to float the idea.  We need a Special Prosecutor, Grand Jury’s Investigations and Trials to clear this up.  Not another Cover-up Commission, like the 9-11, Iran-Contra or Warren Commissions.

Gen. Ricardo Sanchez calls for war crimes truth commission.

Sitting on a panel moderated by Rachel Maddow last night, retired Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. commander in Iraq from 2003-2004, called for a truth commission to investigate Bush-era interrogation and torture tactics. The Huffington Post’s Jack Hidary reports:

The General described the failures at all levels of civilian and military command that led to the abuses in Iraq, “and that is why I support the formation of a truth commission.”

The General went on to say that, “during my time in Iraq there was not one instance of actionable intelligence that came out of these interrogation techniques.”

I interviewed General Sanchez after the event and asked him to elaborate on why he felt the US needed such a commission. … “If we do not find out what happened,” continued the General, “then we are doomed to repeat it.”

Sanchez described the interrogation program as “a personal failure on the part of many.” Indeed, Sanchez himself wrote and signed a 2003 memo that included specific interrogation tactics approved for use despite noting that they may violate the Geneva Conventions. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sanchez denied signing off on these interrogation methods.

via Think Progress » Gen. Ricardo Sanchez calls for war crimes truth commission..

Horton confirms reports that unreleased torture photos show rape and sexual assault.

Horton confirms reports that unreleased torture photos show rape and sexual assault.

This week, the Daily Telegraph reported that the torture photos President Obama recently decided to withhold from the public depict “rape and sexual abuse.” The Pentagon denied the report, saying, “None of the photos in question depict the images that are described in that article.” But yesterday, Scott Horton reported that he has confirmed that the photos do, in fact, “depict sexually explicit acts,” including “a government contractor engaged in an act of sodomy with a male prisoner and scenes of forced masturbation,” as well as “penetration involving phosphorous sticks and brooms.” Horton writes further:

A senior military officer familiar with the photos told me that they would likely provoke a storm of outrage if released. … Some show U.S. personnel engaged in sexual acts with prisoners and each other. In one, a female prisoner appears to have been forced to expose her breasts to be photographed. In another, a prisoner is suspended naked upside down from the top bunk of a bed in a stress position. [...]

Still other withheld photographs have been circulating among U.S. soldiers who served in Iraq. One soldier showed them to me, including a photograph in which a male in a U.S. military uniform receives oral sex from a female prisoner.

via Think Progress » Horton confirms reports that unreleased torture photos show rape and sexual assault..

Conservatives Express Hope That Their Attacks On Pelosi Will Quiet Calls For Truth Commission

OPS: interesting framing here since a ‘truth commission” is all about cover-up and no accountability.  We need an independent prosecutor, investigations and prosecution not another cover-up commission.

Conservatives Express Hope That Their Attacks On Pelosi Will Quiet Calls For Truth Commission

For weeks, conservatives have been launching hypocritical and disingenuous attacks on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) regarding her level of knowledge of the Bush administration’s torture program.

Fox News conservatives are revealing one of the underlying motives for these attacks — to diminish calls for a truth commission on torture. While interviewing Newt Gingrich, and later, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Fox host Neil Cavuto wondered whether “both parties will cease and desist” from investigations:

Is it a potential Mexican standoff? And by that, I mean, Senator, that Democrats feel they have the goods on the prior administration to drag out hearings on what they knew about Iraq and when. Now Republicans have the goods, presumably, on Nancy Pelosi about what she knew about interrogation and when. So to avoid mutual self-destruction, both parties cease and desist.

Last night on Fox, Dick Cheney’s official biographer Stephen Hayes said, “Democrats who have been so enthusiastic about truth commissions have to be stopping and saying, OK, wait a second.” Mort Kondracke chimed in with some advice for the President: “I think Obama really has to get this stuff stopped.” Watch a compilation:

via Think Progress » Conservatives Express Hope That Their Attacks On Pelosi Will Quiet Calls For Truth Commission.

Bush Seeks Immunity for Violating War Crimes Act

Bush Seeks Immunity for Violating War Crimes Act

Thirty-two years ago, President Gerald Ford created a political firestorm by pardoning former President Richard Nixon of all crimes he may have committed in Watergate — and lost his election as a result. Now, President Bush, to avoid a similar public outcry, is quietly trying to pardon himself of any crimes connected with the torture and mistreatment of U.S. detainees.

The ”pardon” is buried in Bush’s proposed legislation to create a new kind of military tribunal for cases involving top al-Qaida operatives. The ”pardon” provision has nothing to do with the tribunals. Instead, it guts the War Crimes Act of 1996, a federal law that makes it a crime, in some cases punishable by death, to mistreat detainees in violation of the Geneva Conventions and makes the new, weaker terms of the War Crimes Act retroactive to 9/11.

Press accounts of the provision have described it as providing immunity for CIA interrogators. But its terms cover the president and other top officials because the act applies to any U.S. national.

Avoiding prosecution under the War Crimes Act has been an obsession of this administration since shortly after 9/11. In a January 2002 memorandum to the president, then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales pointed out the problem of prosecution for detainee mistreatment under the War Crimes Act. He notes that given the vague language of the statute, no one could predict what future ”prosecutors and independent counsels” might do if they decided to bring charges under the act. As an author of the 1978 special prosecutor statute, I know that independent counsels (who used to be called ”special prosecutors” prior to the statute’s reauthorization in 1994) aren’t for low-level government officials such as CIA interrogators, but for the president and his Cabinet. It is clear that Gonzales was concerned about top administration officials.

via Bush Seeks Immunity for Violating War Crimes Act.

Justice Department Ethics Report No Substitute For Criminal Investigations

Justice Department Ethics Report No Substitute For Criminal Investigations (5/6/2009)

Top-To-Bottom Investigation Of Torture Program Necessary, Says ACLU

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

(202) 675-2312; media@dcaclu.org

NEW YORK – According to news reports, a draft report from the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility concludes that the lawyers who wrote the “torture memos” legally sanctioning illegal interrogation methods committed serious lapses of judgment but should not be prosecuted. The Washington Post reports that former Bush administration officials launched a behind-the-scenes campaign to get the Justice Department to soften the ethics report.

The following can be attributed to Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union:

“Regardless of the findings from the Department of Justice ethics division, the ball is in Attorney General Holder’s court. The attorney general should not be swayed by political considerations or by an inquiry that was intentionally neutered and limited in scope. Attorney General Holder has said that he intends to follow the facts and the law wherever they lead. The logical next step is to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate those who authorized the torture program, those who legally sanctioned it and those who implemented it. It would be a dangerous precedent to conclude that lawyers who played a critical role in an illegal program are immune from criminal investigations. No one is above the law.”

The following can be attributed to Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office:

“Given the disturbing reports of pressure from Bush administration officials to water down this report, Congress must intervene and assert its oversight role. We cannot turn the page on the failed policies of the Bush administration when its lobbyists are attempting to rewrite history. This ethics review is only one piece of the puzzle. More than five years after the first disclosures of torture, it should concern all Americans that there is a 200-page draft government report on the role of three lawyers, but absolutely no Justice Department investigation of their clients – those top White House and CIA officials who asked for the opinions and reportedly made decisions on what torture tactics to use on which detainees. A top-to-bottom investigation is needed to examine not just those who authored these opinions but those who requested them and to determine whether these DOJ findings were watered down for political reasons. Congress can and must play an active role in that investigation.”

via American Civil Liberties Union : Justice Department Ethics Report No Substitute For Criminal Investigations.

Stanford Antiwar Alums Call for War Crimes Investigation of Condoleezza Rice

Stanford Antiwar Alums Call for War Crimes Investigation of Condoleezza Rice – by Marjorie Cohn

During the Vietnam War, Stanford students succeeded in banning secret military research from campus. Last weekend, 150 activist alumni and present Stanford students targeted Condoleezza Rice for authorizing torture and misleading Americans into the illegal Iraq War.

Veterans of the Stanford anti-Vietnam War movement had gathered for a 40th anniversary reunion during the weekend. The gathering featured panels on foreign policy, the economy, political and social movements, science and technology, media, energy and the environment, and strategies for aging activists.

On Sunday, surrounded by alumni and students, Lenny Siegel and I nailed a petition to the University President’s office door. The petition, circulated by Stanford Say No to War, reads:

“We the undersigned students, faculty, staff, alumni, and other concerned members of the Stanford community, believe that high officials of the U.S. Government, including our former Provost, current Political Science Professor, and Hoover Institution Senior Fellow, Condoleezza Rice, should be held accountable for any serious violations of the Law (included ratified treaties, statutes, and/or the U.S. Constitution) through investigation and, if the facts warrant, prosecution, by appropriate legal authorities.”

via OpEdNews » Stanford Antiwar Alums Call for War Crimes Investigation of Condoleezza Rice.

Turley: ‘God help us’ if torture only gets a ’9/11 commission’

Turley: ‘God help us’ if torture only gets a ’9/11 commission’

The recent release of Bush administration torture memos has given rise to calls for prosecution of the Justice Department lawyers who wrote those memos. However, law professor Jonathan Turley believes that this may represent a deliberate attempt to draw attention away from George Bush, Dick Cheney, and the other high Bush administration officials who ordered the torture.

“That’s the really strange thing,” Turley told MSNBC’s David Shuster on Tuesday. “In the last week or so, we’ve seen an effort to define a potential investigation in terms of the lawyers who wrote these memos. … A war crime investigation does not look at the people who drove the trains — they look at the people who told the trains to roll.”

“George Bush and Vice President Cheney, the CIA director, the attorney general … implemented, in full knowledge that it was a war crime, the torture program,” Turley emphasized. “The effort to define it in terms of lawyers is something of a Beltway shift. That is, it’s setting us up for failure.”

via The Raw Story | Turley: ‘God help us’ if torture only gets a ’9/11 commission’.

Former Blair aide says government covering up Iraq war meetings

Former Blair aide says government covering up Iraq war meetings

John Byrne

Minister says notes will show Blair cut off discussion on Iraq war

The British government has refused to release minutes of a cabinet meeting held by Prime Minister Tony Blair in the lead-up to the Iraq war, which a former cabinet member says is being done because there was “no discussion” on the merits of invading Iraq.

Former cabinet minister Clare Short, who resigned as the UK’s International Development Secretary after the war began, told a UK newspaper for Sunday editions that the minutes have been withheld because there was no conversation about invading Iraq — and in fact, says she was cut off when trying to bring it up.

via The Raw Story | Former Blair aide says government covering up Iraq war meetings.

Is Nancy Pelosi Really Against War Crimes?

Is Nancy Pelosi Really Against War Crimes?

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

Is it even remotely possible that senior officials in the Bush administration – maybe even at least one of the top two – will be the target of public war crime hearings and even criminal prosecutions, here in the United States? From dismissal only a few months ago by leading Democrats in Washington as unthinkable, the glorious possibility can at least be glimpsed in the middle distance, like the mountain lion I saw here a decade ago in the twilight, loping off into the brush.

For the perps, overseas is already dangerous terrain. George W Bush’s first defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, fled Paris a couple of years ago to avoid having to honor a subpoena from French investigators, replicating a similarly hasty exit from the French jurisdiction by former secretary of state Henry Kissinger.

via Alexander Cockburn: Is Nancy Pelosi Really Against War Crimes?.