International Commission Delivers Verdicts on Bush

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Tue, 7 Feb 2006 03:45:36 -0200

International Commission Delivers Verdicts on Bush

Administration: Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!

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http://rwor.org/a/033/verdict-bush-guilty.htm

 

International Commission Delivers Verdicts on Bush Administration

 

Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!

 

Revolution #033, February 5, 2006, posted at revcom.us

 

It was a historic moment at the National Press Club in Washington,

only blocks from the White House. On February 2, the preliminary

findings of the International Commission on Crimes Against Humanity

were read out by Ajamu Sankofa, executive director of the Physicians

for Social Responsibility-NY and former national secretary of Blacks

for Reparations in America.

 

Listening to the verdicts, Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst and

founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, exclaimed:

" This is what our German forbearers in the 1930s did NOT do. They sat

around, blamed their rulers, said 'maybe everything's going to be

alright.'... That is something we cannot do. Because I don't want my

grandchildren asking me years from now, 'why didn't you do something

to stop all this?' "

 

The findings were based on five days of public testimony in New York

in October and January. The work of the Commission brought together a

unique combination of former government officials, experts in

international law, human rights monitors in the relevant areas, and

victims of the crimes under investigation. It was a Commission of

great legal, ethical, and moral credibility based on its integrity,

its rigor in the presentation of evidence, and the stature of its

participants.

 

On the first charge of committing wars of aggression, the Commission

found: " The evidence is overwhelming that the Bush Administration

authorized and is conducting a war of aggression against Iraq in

violation of international law, including The Nuremberg Principles,

Geneva Conventions of 1949, the United Nations Charter, and the

Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In doing so, the Bush

Administration has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. "

 

Former United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter was a compelling

witness before the Commission on this issue. Ritter led the

investigation into the defection of Sadam Hussein's son-in-law,

Hussein Kamel:

 

" Dick Cheney said because of Hussein Kamel's defection the United

Nations, indeed the United States, received evidence that Iraq was

actively reconstituting its nuclear weapons program... Dick Cheney was

lying. Dick Cheney knew that he was lying.... But it is evidence that

the Bush administration willfully exaggerated the threat posed by

Iraq's WMDs, thereby negating any case they might make about the

existence of a clear and present threat that warranted pre-emptive

attack. "

 

The actual conduct of the war was also a major issue investigated by

the Commission, especially the destruction of the city of Fallujah

using white phosphorous and hyperbaric bombs. The Commission saw film

of the bombing of civilians in Fallujah that was truly damning. Shown

was the pilot's camera trained on the ground where people were running

in the street. The pilot asks his controller, " shall I take them out? "

And the controller says, " Yes. " The pilot kept a laser focused on the

crowd until a guided bomb exploded in the middle of the running crowd.

 

The destruction of Fallujah, a city of over 300,000 people, in

retaliation for the death of four U.S. mercenaries, was a vivid

reenactment of a historic war crime — the destruction of the

Czechoslovakian village of Lidice in 1942 by the Nazis in retaliation

for the assassination of a high Nazi official.

 

On the indictment for illegal detention and torture, the Commission

found: " There was substantial evidence submitted through testimony and

documents that the Bush Administration committed war crimes and crimes

against humanity in conducting its 'War Against Terror.' It did this

by developing and implementing policies and practices that violated

international law and international human rights to force information

from detainees and to punish those whom it believes may be 'enemy

combatants.' "

 

Barbara Olshansky, from the Center for Constitutional Rights, told the

Commission of an August 2002 memo written for Alberto Gonzales, now

Attorney General: " It talks about what the traditional definitions of

torture are... and it says that a very good case can be made for

redefining torture. And the definition that is recommended in that

memo is that torture really is only when someone is at the risk of

complete organ failure or death. And that is a new definition of

torture in the United States according to this administration. Then

the memo proceeds to...examine all the ways that the government could

avoid liability, even if its actions meet that definition of torture.

It is a staggering document... "

 

The results of such " legal theories " by the U.S. government at the

very top were described by Brig. General Janis Karpinski (U.S. Army

ret.), the former commandant of the infamous Abu-Ghraib prison in

Iraq. After photographs of the torture of prisoners there were

revealed, Gen. Karpinski entered the cell block where this happened

and found a memo attached to the wall calling for harsher

interrogation techniques and signed by Secretary of Defense Donald

Rumsfeld. In the margin was handwritten: " Make sure this happens!! "

Karpinski went on to testify that a high-ranking general demanded that

Iraqi prisoners be " treated like dogs. "

 

Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, provided

particularly chilling testimony on the horrible forms of torture used

by the U.S.'s 'Coalition of Willing' and declared, in a very moving

moment, " I'd rather die than have someone tortured to save my life. "

 

On the indictment for destruction of the global environment: " The

testimony of scientists and the scientific reports and other documents

submitted during the inquiry support a conclusion that the Bush

Administration has committed crimes against humanity by its

environmental policies and practices. "

 

Daphne Wysham, from the Institute for Policy Studies and the

Sustainable Energy and Economy Network gave a searing example: " On

June 8, 2005, the New York Times, through whistle-blower Rick Pilz,

exposed [White House official Philip] Cooney as the primary censor of

climate change policy documents at the highest levels of government.

Two days later, Cooney resigned... Cooney and his staff's edits were

pervasive with 100 to 450 changes per report, and shameless. Among the

topics the government doesn't want you to know about are the national

and regional impacts from climate changes, consequences like glacial

melting and floods. "

 

On the indictment for the destruction of New Orleans: " The evidence of

the Bush Administration's conscious and deliberate failings in

preventing the foreseeable devastation, including death toll, caused

by Hurricane Katrina, particularly in New Orleans, and its failure to

respond efficiently and appropriately after the Hurricane was

overwhelming. Its failures constitute crimes against humanity. "

 

The Commission heard stunning testimony that the government knew full

well that New Orleans would be inundated in a major hurricane, and the

President himself knew two days in advance that Katrina would hit New

Orleans. But no efforts were made to evacuate the predominantly poor

and Black masses of the city. As a result, over 1,300 people died on

the Gulf Coast with over 3,000 still missing.

 

Annette Addison, a Katrina survivor, told her personal story to the

Commission: " So many Army trucks just was driving past us. We even

waved for the Army trucks to help us because we were so desperate. We

was dehydrated. They did not give us any assistance. We even asked the

police for water, and where we could get gas to get out of the city.

The police just looked at us like we was nobody, as though we were

nothing. Many were going into the stores, and they said they were

looters. But to be honest, they was going into stores to survive. It

was people helping people.It was not the Army, it was not the police.

It was not the ones that were in authority to help us. It was just the

community helping each other to survive. "

 

At the February 2 press conference to release the Commission's

preliminary findings, three of the five Commission judges were

present, along with Commission Convener C. Clark Kissinger. In

presenting the preliminary findings (more findings will be presented

later), the judges were emphatic about the criminality of the Bush

administration.

 

Judge Ann Wright, 29-year Army reserve colonel with 16 years in the

State Department as former deputy ambassador in Afghanistan, Mongolia,

Sierra Leone, and Micronesia:

 

" I believe the Commission is incredibly important for the future of

the United States and really the world, because it's the people of

America who are speaking to these very serious indictments. It's the

people who are coming forward with evidence, their personal testimony

in many cases of things that have happened to them, or cases of their

lawyers, cases they have worked, the human face of what torture is all

about, what detention is about, what war is all about — a war that's

conducted the invasion and occupation of a country that did nothing to

the United States of America. "

 

Judge Abdeen Jabara, board member of the Center for Constitutional

Rights and past president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination

Committee:

 

" People who launch a war of aggression are in violation of

international law, have committed crimes against humanity, and that is

the kind of discourse we need to introduce into the United States...

the use of torture in the press often reported as " abuse " rather than

torture. Of course, there is no international convention for the

prevention of abuse, but there is an international convention for the

prevention of torture. So we need to change the way in which these

items are talked about in order to get people to face up to the fact

of what this government is doing. "

 

Judge Jabara closed by pointing to the profound significance of what

Craig Murray, the British ambassador to Uzbekistan, had said. Murray

testified that his government and the American government were OK with

receiving intelligence reports that had been obtained by torture in

Uzbekistan. His superiors in the British foreign service said to him

that, " we don't mind as long as we didn't ask them to do that. We can

still receive this information. " Murray then added, " After I heard

that, I understood how some clerk could sign off on these cattle cars

that were going to Auschwitz. " That's really what is at stake, Jabara

pointed out. " The use of this torture, the beginning of all these

black sites — all of these things are the road to Auschwitz. "