War Crimes Times

Justice misdirected in U.S. Capital

2012-01-29T12:09:00.000-05:00

Constitution Incommoded: Peace activists convicted; War criminals remain at large.

(This post and the two following relate to a nonviolent protest at the White House and its outcome.)

Sober, conscientious, orderly citizens at the White House on the afternoon of March 19 nonviolently and peaceably assemble to protest the violation of international humanitarian law and the U. S. Constitution. Police arrested 113 people, including World War II veteran Jay Wenk.

If you want peace, work for justice.

—Pope Paul VI

by Kim Carlyle

But if you work for justice, where do you find it? Not in the District of Columbia Superior Court—at least not the kind of justice that will bring peace.

On March 19, 2011, the eighth anniversary of the illegal invasion of Iraq, hundreds of justice-seekers converged on the front gate of the White House fence. Many of these activists have been working for years to put a stop to our country’s immoral foreign military adventures. They had exhausted the conventional means of persuasion—letters, phone calls, petitions, visits to elected officials; now they came in person to exercise their First Amendment rights to peaceably assemble and petition the chief executive of their government for redress of grievances and to act in accordance with the Nuremberg Principles—namely, to make the moral choice to refuse to be complicit in the ongoing war crimes committed by the United States.

More than a hundred persons were arrested that day for unlawful assembly-disorderly conduct (specifically, obstructing or incommoding the sidewalk) and failing to obey the order to leave the area. Eighteen of those arrested chose to contest the charges in court. The trial was held in late October with most of the defendants representing themselves (pro se), a tactic that provides more latitude in defense arguments. All faced up to 90 days in jail and up to $1500 in fines.

The nonviolent action in March had been organized and led by Veterans For Peace. The veterans present had, upon their induction to the military, taken an oath to “defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Since this oath has no expiration date, veterans remain obliged to honor this commitment.

That the Constitution has been violated is fact. Article VI states: “all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby…” Such treaties include the UN Charter which limits war-making to two conditions: UN Security Council approval and self-defense against an attack. The U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq satisfied neither condition.

Additionally, in conducting its illegal wars of aggression, the U.S. has violated international humanitarian law—rules established to limit the effects of armed conflict on people and property and to protect particularly vulnerable persons—by targeting civilians, destroying civilian infrastructure, torturing prisoners, and extrajudicial killings.

Defendant Richard Duffee submitted a pre-trial motion to admit factual evidence that the U.S. persistently commits crimes against peace. Such evidence was intended to show that the defendants’ belief that they should attempt to prevent war crimes is a reasonable belief; that they acted on the privilege the Nuremberg treaty gives all citizens of nations engaged in war crimes, to act in “a measured but effective way” to prevent the continuing commissions of those crimes; and that they acted to prevent the “greater harm” of the government’s commission of war crimes (see post below of Nuremberg Principles).

Judge Russell Canan denied the motion.

Instead, the trial centered on whether or not the sidewalk was incommoded. According to the police testimony, a person trying to cross the sidewalk in front of the White House might have needed to spend several seconds walking around the peaceably assembled demonstrators—not unlike the detour that pedestrians routinely take to avoid being in the line of sight as a tourist takes a photograph in this “picture postcard area.”

Despite the fact the prosecution provided no specific instance of a real pedestrian being obstructed or incommoded, but relied on the testimony of the police (who were on the periphery of the peaceable assembly, not within it); and despite the defendants’ direct testimony that there was plenty of room for passage through the demonstrators—they even provided a three-dimensional model to demonstrate that the police perspective gave a false impression, Judge Canan found the defendants guilty on both charges.

Curiously, in cross-examination, the police commander at the scene, Lt. LaChance, said he did not know of any instance where someone was arrested in front of the White House who was not protesting some government policy. This suggests that if you demonstrate in support of government policy, anything goes (see photos below).

So here is “justice” in the U.S. capital: For seven months, the government expended much energy and expense to attempt to prove that a hypothetical person—not a real person; not a named person, but a hypothetical person—might possibly have been inconvenienced (incommoded) as he walked in front of the White House on a Saturday afternoon.

Meanwhile, the government has made no effort to even bring charges against the criminals in the government who lied and led our country into illegal and immoral wars that have:

· killed thousands of real—not hypothetical—Americans;
· injured, physically and psychologically, hundreds of thousands of real—not hypothetical—Americans;
· caused suffering for the families and friends of the dead and injured—more real people!;
· killed hundreds of thousands of real—not hypothetical—children, women, and men in the countries we’ve illegally bombed, invaded, and occupied;
· displaced millions more real—not hypothetical—people from their homes; caused untold suffering to millions of innocent civilians—real, not hypothetical people!;
· and wasted trillions of real—not hypothetical—dollars in the process.

There is the letter of the law. There is the spirit of the law. And there is justice. The court followed the letter of a minor law in finding eighteen conscientious people guilty of a minor crime. Perhaps the day will come when the letter of the law and the spirit of the law and the elusive justice we seek will all come together to hold accountable the perpetrators of the much larger crimes—the grievances that people sought to redress on March 19 at the White House. Then we’ll take a step towards peace.

Until then, how do we keep seeking justice, if not through the judicial system? Is it surprising that some are choosing to take to the streets? Let’s remember to be nonviolent out there!

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Thousands of raucous demonstrators amass at the White House on the evening of May 1 (the day of Osama bin Laden‘s summary execution) and on into the early morning of May 2 to celebrate the violation of numerous international laws as well as President Ronald Reagan’s Executive Order 12333 in 1981: “No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.” Although demonstrators climbed trees and lampposts, and some were even drinking, no one was arrested.

Words from the March 19 defendants

2012-01-29T10:24:00.000-05:00

Even though the universal convictions with absolutely no personal evidence were disappointing, that was to be expected. The small fines probably express the extent of sympathy any U.S. judge feels able to express for civil resisters.

—Ellen Barfield, Baltimore, MD; post-trial comment

In the first half of the last century our government made a number of serious efforts to expand international law and extend the reach of international legal institutions. In 1945 we took the unprecedented step of setting up war crimes tribunals for German and Japanese officials, and we pledged ourselves to be subject to the same rules. We set up the UN. But in the late 1960’s we lost our forward momentum and for the last 30 years we have been reneging on our commitments.

—Richard Duffee, Stanford, CT; from his sentencing statement

In particular I mentioned that I continue to pay a high personal price for having failed to comply with, failed to enforce, International Humanitarian Law. Let me be clear about the long-term, delayed, cost of failing to comply with IHL.

Night after night at 4am you heard the scream in your ear. There was the image. You and your squad hit the dirt because there was suspected enemy activity. Through a break in the brush you see something moving. Over your sights you see it looks like a woman, and it looks like she is carrying a baby. You ask, “Should you open up and fire on her?” Your orders are that this is a free fire zone and all people are considered the enemy. You double-check yourself; can she be a threat? She could be a weapon courier, she could be growing the rice for the Viet Cong, and she could be a scout for an ambush.

As you jolt awake you know you followed the wrong law, you asked the wrong questions. Instead of asking, “Is she in a free fire zone?” you should have asked your command, “Is it legal to force a population to leave their homes and ancestral village under threat of death?” Instead of asking, “Could she be growing food for the Viet Cong?” you should have asked. “How is it legal for you, a U.S. soldier, to be lying in wait in her field?” If I had asked the right questions, if I had followed the right law, only our imagination can say how many innocent lives would have been saved? That was an opportunity to support IHL—I failed the test. These opportunities come and we are tested.

—Elliott Adams, Sharon Springs, NY; from his sentencing statement

We emphasize that our intent on March 19 was not to commit a crime, but to prevent a crime; to keep the law, not break the law. Judge Canan, although you have ruled that International law is not a valid defense in this case, we ask you to please reconsider your position and reverse your ruling in light of all the evidence we have presented.

What more evidence is needed to show the applicability of international law in this case than the testimony and closing statement we just heard from Mr. Adams (regarding atrocities he was ordered to carry out in Vietnam—-actions he now knows were in violation of International humanitarian law)…. We acted on March 19 because there were no other political or legal alternatives available to us as the executive and legislative branches of government continue to wage war.

We acted to prevent an imminent harm from occurring. People are dying now as a direct result of U.S. drone attacks and other U.S. military actions, just as they were dying at the time of our March 19 action. These people aren’t merely statistics—they have names and families. We seldom hear in the media who the innocent dead really are! For example, you heard Joan Nicholson testify that on March 1, 2011, U.S. military forces in a helicopter gunship, killed nine boys in Afghanistan as they collected firewood. But do we know their names? Do we know anything about them or their families? Do we, as society, even care? The youngest of the boys killed was named Shahidullah, son of Rahman—-he was 7 years old, 7 years old! As the father of a young son, I went to the White House on March 19 to be a voice for Shahidullah…

Judge Canan, who will speak for the victims? What recourse do we, as citizens have, when people, even young children, are being killed indiscriminately, but to engage in nonviolent acts to seek redress such as we did. What recourse do we have when an estimated 2 million Iraqis have died over the last 20 years as direct result of U.S. bombings, U.S.-UN lead sanctions, and U.S. invasion?

—Art Laffin, Washington, DC; from his sentencing statement

There was an older black woman sitting in the courtroom amongst our supporters during today’s sentencing process. She was waiting for her son to be sentenced—he had been brought into the courtroom in orange jail garb with chains connected to his feet and hands before our case was called. During our sentencing statements I saw her paying close attention and at times crying; so after we were finished, right before the judge began to pass judgment on her son, I went up to her and wished her good luck. She looked deeply into my eyes and said, “I am so proud of you people.”

It is not only the people in Iraq-Afghanistan-Pakistan-Libya-Yemen-Somalia who are being destroyed at the hands of U.S. militarism. The poor in our own country are left without jobs and then have to turn to selling drugs or their own bodies on the streets in order to make a buck so they can survive. They are then locked into the jails of the Prison-Industrial-Complex. The judge is just one more cog in this evil machine.

For several days this week we interrupted the judge’s mundane job of sending legions of poor people from the nation’s capital to these cells of desperation. For a short time we challenged him, his clerk, the U.S. Marshall, the court stenographer, the two Park Police who testified against us, and the two government prosecutors to think outside their normal boxes. But the most important heart we reached during this trial was the black mother who feels alone in our heartless society as she sees her beloved child suffer inside this demented and broken system.

—Bruce Gagnon, Bath, ME; from his blog

One of the basic physical laws first articulated by Isaac Newton in 1687 is that an object in motion stays in motion until acted upon by an opposing force. The same is true about democracy, as many of those in the courtroom today have been witness to that change which has only occurred through opposing forces such as Rosa Parks, Dr. King, and many others who have acted in contradiction to current law.

I stood with my brothers and sisters on march 19th to be such an opposing force, a non-violent force, to the illegal, immoral, violent, unjust wars that continue in our names, which are a continuation of wars past. I stand before the court today with the individual belief that although the court may believe it acted justly, that it’s ruling is allowing for the continuation of the illegal, immoral, violent, and unjust wars for Empire that continue in our name and serves only to preserve the union and keep It’s violent trajectory unchanged.

Therefore, I ask that the court take this into consideration in its sentencing, and any future rulings, to help correct the trajectory of this society by giving the defendants a sentence of time-served, as well as finding all future defendants, who acted in the same vein, only guilty of love, peace, and respect.

—Richard Marini, Staten Island, NY; from his sentencing statement

Everything said by the defendants during this trial was compelling, but not as powerful as how it was said. These were not dry legalities being related; these people were talking about lives devoted to Peace and openness, the time and expense and courage required to stand up to the government and its supporters, their dedication to a future without war. Clarity, articulateness, and profound emotion were communicated along with detail, to the point that many observers in the room were clearly moved. This quality was what the process in court was all about, and should be about, for every defendant, in every court.

—Jay Wenk, Woodstock, NY; from an article he wrote about the trial

When I left Vietnam I pledged to the guys I served with who did not come back that I would speak out against my country whenever my country decided to commit our troops to war based on lies.

—Chuck Heyn, Damascus, PA; from his sentencing statement

Principles of Nüremberg Tribunal—Adopted by the International Law Commission of the United Nations, 1950

2012-01-29T10:16:00.000-05:00

Principle I: Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment.

Principle II: The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law.

Principle III: The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible Government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.

Principle IV: The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.

Principle V: Any person charged with a crime under international law has the right to a fair trial on the facts and law.

Principle VI: The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:

(a) Crimes against peace:

(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;

(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).

(b) War crimes: Violations of the laws or customs of war include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment, or deportation to slave-labour or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war, of persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.

(c) Crimes against humanity: Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connexion with any crime against peace or any war crime.

Principle VII: Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law.

Military Industrial Complex at 50 -- The Book!

2012-01-26T17:18:00.004-05:00

by David Swanson

The Military Industrial Complex ... kills large numbers of people, endangers us, hollows out our economy, transfers our wealth to a tiny elite, devastates the natural environment, and threatens civil liberties, the rule of law, and representative government.

The Military Industrial Complex at 50 is the most comprehensive collection available explaining what the military industrial complex (MIC) is, where it comes from, what damage it does, what further destruction it threatens, and what can be done and is being done to chart a different course.

This book is the fruit of labors begun by Quaker House in Fayetteville, NC, the longest continuously serving GI Rights Meeting House in the US (1970) under the guidance of Director Chuck Fager. On the 50th anniversary of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell address and dire warning about the dangers of the Military Industrial Complex, a three day conference was held at Guilford College in Greensboro, NC, also coinciding with the observance of our MLK Holiday.

The conference theme was picked up by the Charlottesville (VA) Center for Peace and Justice, and the September conference featured North Carolina activists Mia Austin-Scoggins and Wally Myers (Raleigh), George Friday (Gastonia); Clare Hanrahan and Coleman Smith (Asheville); graphics artist Barbara Stanley (Shallotte) and John Heuer (Chapel Hill).

Authors (from within and without the MIC) contributing chapters to this collection (and available for interviews) include: Ellen Brown • Paul Chappell • Helena Cobban • Ben Davis • Jeff Fogel • Bunny Greenhouse • Bruce Gagnon • Clare Hanrahan • John Heuer • Steve Horn • Robert Jensen • Karen Kwiatkowski • Judith Le Blanc • Bruce Levine • Ray McGovern • Wally Myers • Robert Naiman • Gareth Porter • Chris Rodda • Allen Ruff • Mia Austin Scoggins • Tony Russell • Lisa Savage • Mary Beth Sullivan • Coleman Smith • Dave Shreve • David Swanson • Pat Elder • Jonathan Williams • Ann Wright.

The book is available at MIC50.org in paperback, bulk discount, audio, PDF, kindle, Epub, and iPad/iPhone.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower found the nerve in his farewell speech in 1961 to articulate one of the most prescient, potentially valuable, and tragically as yet unheeded warnings of human history:
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

“We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

This collection shows that the “total influence” of the MIC has increased, the disastrous rise of misplaced power is no longer merely a potential event, our liberties and democratic processes are in a state of collapse, and that Ike himself disastrously misinformed the citizenry when he claimed that the very monster he warned of had been “compelled” by the need for “defense.”

Pressure Israel, Not Iran

2012-01-24T10:12:00.002-05:00

by Marjorie Cohn

Neocons in Israel and the United States are escalating their rhetoric to prepare us for war with Iran. Even the infamous John Yoo, architect of George W. Bush’s illegal torture and spying programs, is calling on the Republican presidential candidates to “begin preparing the case for a military strike to destroy Iran’s nuclear program.”

Under the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran has the legal right to produce nuclear power for peaceful purposes. The United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has found no evidence that Iran is developing a nuclear weapons program. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recently said on CBS that Iran is not currently trying to build a nuclear weapon.

Nevertheless, the United States and Israel are mounting a campaign of aggression against Iran. The United States has imposed punishing sanctions against Iran that are crippling Iran’s economy, and pressuring other countries and strong-arming financial institutions to stop buying oil from Iran, the world’s third largest exporter. The Obama administration is also preparing new punitive measures that target the Central Bank of Iran. And the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to pass the Iran Threat Reduction Act of 2011 which would outlaw any contact between U.S. government employees and some Iranian officials.

There is also evidence that Israel, with the possible assistance of the United States, has orchestrated the assassinations of at least five Iranian nuclear scientists or engineers since 2007. The New York Times reported: “The campaign, which experts believe is being carried out mainly by Israel, apparently claimed its latest victim on [January 11] when a bomb killed a 32-year-old nuclear scientist in Tehran’s morning rush hour.” These assassinations constitute acts of terrorism. There have also been cyber-attacks on Iranian centrifuges and an explosion at a missile facility last year that killed a senior general and 16 other people.

These acts of aggression are designed to provoke Iran to retaliate, including possibly closing the Strait of Hormuz, which will spark a war that could spread to the entire Middle East.

In addition, the United States has shifted combat troops and warships to the Middle East, and supplied Israel with bunker-busting bombs. Moreover, President Barack Obama has deployed 9,000 U.S. troops to Israel to participate later this year with thousands of Israeli troops in “war games” to test the U.S./Israeli air defense system; this exercise will be the largest ever joint drill between the two countries. Panetta said the exercise is designed “to back up our unshakable commitment to Israel’s security.”

Iran is not a threat to Israel’s security. Iran has not attacked any country in some 200 years. In 1953, the CIA engineered a coup that replaced a democratic government in Iran with the vicious Shah. He ruled Iran with an iron hand for 25 years, wreaking torture and terror on Iranians while keeping Iran open to Western investment. When I visited Iran in 1978 as a human rights observer, there were dozens of U.S. corporations in downtown Tehran. One year later, the chickens came home to roost. The Iranian revolution overthrew the Shah, replacing him with a tyrannical theocracy that continues to violate the rights of the Iranian people. But that does not mean that Iran, if it does obtain nuclear weapons, will attack Israel. The Iranian government knows that Israel and the United States would retaliate with unimaginable military force that would devastate Iran and much of the Middle East.

Article 2 of the United Nations Charter requires the peaceful settlement of international disputes between Iran and the United States. Both the U.S. and Iran are signatories of the Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact of 1928, which states, “The High Contracting Parties agree that the settlement or solution of all disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them, shall never be sought except by pacific means.” Yet the United States has been illegally threatening war against Iran, dating back to the administration of President George W. Bush.

Security Council Resolution 687, that ended the first Gulf War, requires a weapons-of-mass-destruction-free zone in the Middle East. Israel, which reportedly has an arsenal of 200-300 nuclear weapons, stands in violation of that resolution. Israel refuses to sign the NPT, thus avoiding inspections by the IAEA. As Shibley Telhami and Steven Kull advocate in a recent op-ed in the Times, we should work toward a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East, and that includes Israel. They cite a poll in which 65 percent of Israeli Jews think it would be best if neither Israel nor Iran had the bomb, even if that means Israel giving up its nukes.

AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), the Israel lobby in the United States, has tremendous support in the U.S. Congress. Even Zionist Thomas Friedman wrote in the Times last month that the standing ovation Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu got in Congress “was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.” AIPAC also exerts considerable pressure on Obama to be tough on Iran. When the new Chairman of the joint Chiefs of Staff and the new head of CENTCOM told Obama late last year they were disappointed that he was not firmly opposing an Israeli strike on Iran, Obama replied that he “had no say over Israel” because “it is a sovereign country.”

Obama does indeed have a say – a strong say – over Israel. The United States has pledged $30 billion to Israel over the next 10 years. Obama should inform his counterparts in Israel that if it launches a military attack on Iran, the U.S. will withhold foreign aid from Israel. Although pressure from the neocons to support an Israeli attack on Iran will increase as the presidential elections draws near, Obama has a legal duty to refrain from actions that will lead to war with Iran.

Additionally, the U.N. Security Council, which has the duty to prevent threats to international peace and security, should order Israel and the United States to cease their aggressive provocation against Iran.

The same voices who brought us the illegal, tragic, and ill-advised war with Iraq will continue to try to dominate the national conversation with battle cries against Iran. It is up to us to prevail upon our elected officials to avoid a tragic conflagration in Iran by pressuring Israel to cease and desist.

Marjorie Cohn is the immediate past president of the National Lawyers Guild and a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, where she teaches criminal law and procedure, evidence, and international human rights law. She lectures throughout the world on human rights and U.S. foreign policy.

Honor Martin Luther King (by continuing the struggle for peace and equality)

2012-01-13T11:57:00.000-05:00

by Kim Carlyle

[first published in January 2010]

I knew I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without first having spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent ...

— Martin Luther King, Jr., Riverside Church, NYC, April 4, 1967

If the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. were still among us, he would see President Obama as a symbol of progress toward the American ideal of equality. But he would be appalled at the administration's continuing purveyance of violence. And, as inequality is a partner to violence, he would find the symbol lacking in substance as inequality remains rampant.

Dr. King would observe an America increasingly divided into two distinct and unequal classes: the rich and powerful, and the rest of us. He'd see bankers prospering as foreclosures increase; insurance executives reaping profits as people die for lack of health care; and the military-industrial-congressional complex advocating and perpetuating war (and enjoying the spoils) as the underclass fights, suffers, and pays the costs.

America's founders, who established equality as a human right, understood the connection between war and class inequality. James Madison wrote, “War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.” (Today's war debts will burden the next generations; war taxes take form as reduced services — e.g. the national health care we can't afford as most of our federal budget pays for past, present, and future wars.)

Beyond this domestic dichotomy of class, Dr. King would see inequality deeply entrenched in our foreign policy and largely responsible for our perpetual state of war. The notion of American exceptionalism — that we are better, smarter, stronger, and especially, more virtuous than everyone else in the world — gives us the right, even the duty, to select (or depose) the leaders of other nations, to choose and impose their forms of economy and government, and to allocate their natural resources. We bestow this beneficence on them through the threat or the use of military force.

That's why we have 737 foreign military bases with 255,000 troops deployed across a world divided into U.S. military commands.

This inequality of exceptionalism pervades our culture. Our media and our government pay scant attention to civilian casualties of other countries.

Foreign nationals are less valuable than Americans. Our losses are tragedies; theirs are collateral damage. The American public remains callously indifferent to the suffering of human “others.” According to polls, a majority of us would approve of torture — a war crime for which our enemies have been executed.

We must overcome this superiority complex by recognizing that all people, of all countries, are created equal. Pay heed to Dr. King's words at Riverside (just substitute “Afghanistan” for “Vietnam”):

“Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.”

Dr. King understood that we are all in this world together and we must stand up for one another — not just “the poor of America” but “the suffering poor” of the whole world. The initiative must be “ours.” We can't continue to cling to the audacious hope that elected “leaders” will stop the wars, end the violence and promote equality. History shows that change only occurs when the people take charge. It was people — abolitionists, suffragists, unionists, and civil rights activists — not political leaders, who demanded the changes that ended slavery, expanded voting rights, made workplaces fair and safe, and put a stop to Jim Crow. It was people who ended the Vietnam War. We would honor these heroes, including Dr. King, by continuing their work.

There is urgency. Our great global problems, such as the climate crisis, can only be addressed through the human solidarity which peace and equality will bring. The initiative must be ours.

U.S. OBLIGATED TO TAKE IRAN DISPUTE TO INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION

2012-01-08T10:04:00.000-05:00

U.S. military poised for non-diplomatic intervention

The reason given by the U.S. for threatening Iran is alleged to be that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon in secret. This charge is made with a straight face even as the U.S. lavishes military aid on its ally Israel. Israel is said to have an arsenal of 200-300 nuclear bombs it refuses to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect.

by Sherwood Ross

It may come as a surprise to Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum but the U.S. is obligated under international law to the peaceful resolution of its grievance against Iran.

Santorum has criticized President Obama’s attempt to negotiate with Iran and, according to the Christian Science Monitor, “called for increased covert sabotage, bombings, and even arresting foreign scientists” working in Iran. Romney has called Iran “the greatest threat we face” and for pulverizing its nuclear facilities “through airstrikes and (to) make it very public we are doing just that.”

If the U.S. sought to prevail by military force, however, it would be in contravention of at least three historic treaties the U.S. has signed pledging itself to the peaceful resolution of disputes. As war fever sweeps Washington and the Republican candidates, save for Rep. Ron Paul, cry for war, it behooves Iran to initiate legal action.

In this age of instantaneous communications, the whole world is watching to see if either nation will seize the diplomatic initiative, to see which truly prefers conversation to conflict. As members of the United Nations, both Iran and the U.S. are obligated to go to arbitration, not to come out shooting, a fact lost on the hawkish GOP politicians who seem unaware the American people have had a bellyful of war and want to prioritize a domestic agenda.

Both Iran and the U.S. are signatories of the Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact of 1928 which states, “The High Contracting Parties agree that the settlement or solution of all disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them, shall never be sought except by pacific means.”

To the contrary, “The United States has been illegally threatening war against Iran going back to the Bush Jr. Administration,” says international law authority Francis Boyle of the University of Illinois, Champaign, and author of Destroying World Order: U.S. Imperialism in the Middle East Before and After September 11 (Clarity Press).

Boyle reminds, “Article 2 of the United Nations Charter requires the pacific settlement of the international dispute between the United States and Iran.” The UN Charter, he adds, “sets up numerous procedures” for the U.S.-Iranian dispute while prohibiting “both the threat and use of force by the United States against Iran.”

Ditto for the Hague Convention of 1899, to which both nations are a party. That pact set up the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague and made it the duty of other signatories of that treaty to remind the aggrieved parties the Court is there for them.

The spurious U.S. pretext for war flies in the face of U.S. aggression against Iran long before Iran began building the nuclear facilities it says are needed to expand electrical output. Past U.S. aggression had everything to do with Iran’s oil and nothing else.

It is indisputable that the CIA in 1953 overthrew by force and violence Iran's democratic government, causing Iranians years of suffering under a savage, despotic regime. The CIA overthrow was prompted by Great Britain, peeved when Iran took over management of its own oil fields after years of being cheated by the British corporation to whom they were entrusted. That firm today is known as BP.

The U.S. also backed Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran and supplied him with conventional weapons as well as illegal chemical and biological warfare agents responsible for the horrible killing and maiming of tens of thousands of Iranian troops. This was, in fact, by any reasoning, an act of war by the U.S. against Iran.

As peace activist David Swanson (davidswanson.org) writes on January 6th: “For the past decade, the United States has labeled Iran an evil nation, attacked and destroyed the other non-nuclear nation on the list of evil nations, designated part of Iran's military a terrorist organization, falsely accused Iran of crimes including the attacks of 9-11, murdered Iranian scientists, funded opposition groups in Iran (including some the U.S. also designates as terrorist), flown drones over Iran, openly and illegally threatened to attack Iran, and built up military forces all around Iran's borders, while imposing cruel sanctions on the country.”

This same U.S. that is threatening to Iran today has a long history of lying in order to justify its wars of aggression. It lied to invade Iraq by charging Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, when he did not. It lied in 1964 to justify its war in Viet Nam when it claimed the Vietnamese attacked a U.S. destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin, when they did not. And much of the U.S. public believes Washington lied about those responsible for the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington to justify the start of the war against Afghanistan. Aggressive nations relish a fight and the U.S. presently is doing just that in a half dozen countries in the Middle East and Africa.

This history is important because, by contrast, Iran has not started a war in approximately 300 years. Its defense budget of less than $8 billion a year is a tiny fraction of the U.S. warfare budget of nearly $1 trillion annually. (Describing Iran as America’s “gravest threat” reflects poorly on Romney’s foreign affairs smarts.) In fact, Iran would commit national suicide if it launched an attack upon the U.S. or Israel. The Pentagon’s annual budget is the largest in the world and, in fact, greater than the next 20 military powers combined.

Yet another measure of Iran’s peaceful intent and America’s warlike posture is that Iran has no military bases outside of its own borders while the U.S. has over 800 bases around the world from Okinawa to Diego Garcia, frequently established against the will of the local inhabitants. More than 40 U.S. bases are located in six nations that encircle Iran, from which the Pentagon is poised to attack.

Betraying America’s aggressive intent is that none of its military response has been to defend its own borders from attack. Its troops are always waging war halfway around the world in Asia and the Middle East, bombing the other guy’s yard. Given the foregoing facts, which nation does Gov. Romney conclude poses the greater menace to world peace and security? Iran, of course.

While Iran’s military in recent days says it will give a good account of itself if attacked, there is every prospect Iran would suffer the terrible punishments the U.S. inflicted on Viet Nam and Iraq, among others, if war broke out.

An imaginative leadership in Iran likely would be better off to announce in advance a course of non-violent resistance to any aggressive move by the U.S. and/or Israel. And it needs to immediately present its case to the International Court of Justice at the Peace Palace in The Hague.

(Sherwood Ross is an American public relations consultant who formerly reported for major dailies and wire services and was active in the civil rights movement. Reach him at sherwoodross10@gmail.com).

Faking It: How the Media Manipulates the World into War

2012-01-05T16:47:00.000-05:00

You are probably aware that the corporate-controlled mainstream media frequently function as the public relations department of the U.S. government's war machine. They manufacture the consent of the American public for war policies by manipulating the news. That is, they lie to us.

This video Corbett Report from Global Research TV describes how we've been lied to for more than a century. But it also tells us what we can do.

The report concludes: "Because ultimately, an informed and engaged public is far less likely to go along with wars waged for power and profit. And as the public becomes better informed about the very issues that the media has tried to lie to them about for so long, they realize that the answer to all of the mainstream media’s war cheerleading and blatant manipulation is perhaps simpler than we ever suspected: All we have to do is turn them off."

Yes. Turn them off, view the 14-minute video, and pick up a copy of the War Crimes Times.

How's the war economy working for you? -- Your tax dollars at war

2011-12-29T14:22:00.000-05:00

Don't like what you see in the video? Read "Moving from a War Economy to a Peace Economy" by Mary Beth Sullivan.

ADVOCATES OF WAR WITH IRAN TAKE SOME HEAVY MEDIA HITS

2011-12-27T09:08:00.000-05:00

A U.S. Navy Grumman A-6E Intruder aircraft dropping CBU-59 cluster bombs over Iranian targets in retaliation for the mining of the guided missile frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) on 18 April 1988. (US Navy photo)

“The case against Iran is...spectacularly flimsy.”

– Seumas Milne writing in The Guardian

by Sherwood Ross

Advocates of a hot war with Iran have just taken some heavy hits from a Harvard professor of international relations and two prominent journalists.

Harvard’s Professor Stephen Walt has savaged an article in the forthcoming Foreign Affairs magazine(Jan.-Feb.) by Matthew Kroenig titled, “Time to Attack Iran: Why a Strike Is the Least Bad Option.” Kroenig is an Assistant Professor of Government at Georgetown University who wrote:

“The truth is that a military strike intended to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, if managed carefully, could spare the region and the world a very real threat and dramatically improve the long-term national security of the United States.”

Calling this “a remarkably poor piece of advocacy,” Harvard’s Walt writes that Kroenig “makes the case for war by assuming everything will go south if the U.S. does not attack and that everything will go swimmingly if it does. This is not fair-minded ‘analysis’; it is simply a brief for war designed to reach a predetermined conclusion,” Walt writes of the Foreign Affairs piece.

“He (Kroenig) is openly calling for preventive war against Iran, even though the United States has no authorization from the U.N. Security Council, it is not clear that Iran is actively developing nuclear weapons, and Iran has not attacked us or any of our allies--ever,” Walt writes.

“He is therefore openly calling for his country to violate international law. He is calmly advocating a course of action will inevitably kill a significant number of people, including civilians...and Kroenig is willing to have their deaths on his conscience on the basis of a series of unsupported assertions, almost all of them subject to serious doubt.”

Writing in UK’s The Guardian newspaper December 7th, journalist Seumas Milne points out that Iran is a peaceful nation that “has invaded no one in 200 years” while “the U.S. and Israel have attacked 10 countries or territories between them in the past decade.” What’s more, Milne adds, “Britain exploited, occupied and overthrew governments in Iran for over a century. So who threatens who exactly?”

He goes on to write, “For months the evidence has been growing that a U.S.-Israeli stealth war against Iran has already begun, backed by Britain and France. Covert support for armed opposition groups has spread into a campaign of assassinations of Iranian scientists, cyber warfare, attacks on military and missile installations, and the killing of an Iranian general, among others.”

Milne also called it an “extraordinary admission” that British defense officials said if the U.S. planned to attack Iran, as they believed it might, America would receive “UK military help,” including sea and air support. “The British military establishment fully expects to take part in an unprovoked U.S. attack on Iran--just as it did against Iraq eight years ago,” he said.

(This admission shouldn’t be that astonishing as the U.S. and UK are inextricably tied together militarily and in a number of other significant ways and appear to be bent on advancing the imperial goals of the old British Empire. A superficial difference today is that the Empire’s capital has moved from London to Washington. In reality, from their joint intelligence operations to their collaborating oil companies to their defense contractors, etc., U.S./UK operate as One. Maybe the long-time partners should rebrand themselves the United States of England?)

Meanwhile, American journalist Patrick J. Buchanan pointed out that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta “dropped some jolting news” when he told CBS, “If we get intelligence they (Iranians) are proceeding with developing a nuclear weapons, then we will take whatever steps necessary to deal with it.”

In his column of December 22, Buchanan charged, “Panetta is raising the specter of preemptive war,” adding, “This is no minor matter. For not only have Panetta and Barack Obama talked about ‘all options on the table’ regarding Iran--i.e., we do not rule out military strikes--so, too, have the GOP presidential candidates, save Rep. Ron Paul.”

Responding to Pentagon Press Secretary George Little’s statement, “We have no indication that the Iranians have made a decision to develop a nuclear weapons,” Buchanan wrote it “coincides with the consensus of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency, in December, 2007.”

Or, to put it another way, in the blunt words of The Guardian’s Milne, “The case against Iran is...spectacularly flimsy.” #

(Sherwood Ross is a U.S.-based public relations consultant for “good causes” who formerly reported for the Chicago Daily News and worked as a columnist for several wire services. Reach him at sherwoodross10@gmail.com).

The true costs of war: the Iraqi body count – 4.6 million?

2011-12-21T12:42:00.000-05:00

The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading as a last resort all other justifications having failed to justify themselves as liberation. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of innocent people.

—Harold Pinter

In a recent Countercurrents post, Dr. Gideon Polya blasts the mainstream media for its complicity in what he calls U.S. genocide and holocaust in Iraq. He provides a detailed accounting for war-related deaths, clearly proving that the “100,000 plus” often cited in news reports “enormously underestimates the death toll.” He writes, “The number is shocking and sobering. It is at least 10 times greater than most estimates cited in the U.S. media.”

Excerpts from “U.S. Withdraws & Australian ABC Censors4.6 million Iraqi Holocaust War Dead”:

“The Americans have almost completed their withdrawal from war-devastated Iraq that since 1990 has suffered 4.6 million war-related deaths, 1.7 million violent deaths, 2.9 million avoidable deaths from war-imposed deprivation, 5-6 million refugees and 2.0 million under-5 infant deaths, 90% avoidable and due to egregious U.S. Alliance war crimes in gross violation of the Geneva Convention. However the mainstream media of the Western Murdochracies and Lobbyocracies have resolutely refused to report the carnage of the two-decade U.S. War on Muslims in an ongoing process of utterly repugnant genocide complicity, genocide ignoring, genocide denial, holocaust complicity, holocaust ignoring, and holocaust denial…

“In his 2005 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, Harold Pinter advocated war crimes trials before the International Criminal Court for Bush and Blair, declaring ‘How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice.’

“4.6 million? Surely enough, I would have thought.”

Farewell To Arms

2011-12-20T08:40:00.001-05:00

ELP -- still making music; Great images, too!

And from CCR...

PENTAGON PRESSURE MAY HAVE DELAYED OBAMA APOLOGY

2011-12-19T09:14:00.000-05:00

There are two U.S. policies on Pakistan: that of the White House and State Department, which prefer to talk, and that of the CIA and Pentagon, which prefer to fight.

by Sherwood Ross

Reportedly, under pressure from the Pentagon, President Obama “hesitated for more than a week” before he phoned Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari “to provide a qualified apology” for the November 26th killings by U.S. aircraft and artillery of two dozen Pakistani soldiers at a border post near Afghanistan, Robert Dreyfuss reports in The Nation magazine.

There are two U.S. policies on Pakistan: that of the White House and State Department, which prefer to talk, and that of the CIA and Pentagon, which prefer to fight, Dreyfuss writes in the December 26th issue of the American liberal magazine. President Obama’s delayed and weak response may have been a result of that internal tug-of-war.

Dreyfuss raises the possibility that by its sustained attack on the Pakistani troops the U.S. military may have been sending a message to the Pakistanis, whose sanctuaries for Afghan insurgents it considers a major obstacle to its progress in the fighting. It is possible, the article said, the Pentagon might be “thinking about escalating the (Afghanistan) war into Pakistan.”

In the wake of the U.S. attack, Pakistan did not attend a Bonn conference hosted by German Chancellor Angela Merkel to work out an accord between Afghanistan, the U.S.-led coalition, Pakistan, and the Taliban, editor Dreyfuss noted.

What’s more, Pakistan also demanded the U.S. quit a drone base there and closed down U.S. supply lines into Afghanistan. Pakistanis are seething not only over the Nov. 26th slaughter but also over the killing of two Pakistanis last January by an armed CIA contractor; the incursion into their country that killed Osama bin Laden last May 1st; and “the barrage of drone attacks on Pakistan’s tribal areas,” Dreyfuss reports.

“Even many U.S. generals know that the war in Afghanistan can’t be won militarily,” Dreyfuss writes, “so the U.S. needs an all-out focus on a settlement, even after the crash-and-burn conference in Bonn.”

A good place to begin, he proposes, would be with a unilateral U.S./NATO cease-fire. “By halting drone attacks, the United States could provide a face-saving way for Pakistan to enter serious negotiations. A cease-fire would also end the mixed messages sent to the Taliban and their allies and provide a true test of their willingness to come to the table.”

Coaxing Pakistan and the Taliban into talks while getting the region’s powers to underwrite a rebalanced Afghan accord, and very likely a new Constitution is complex indeed, Dreyfuss points out. “With each passing day, it seems the Obama administration isn’t up to the task, and that could mean we will remain bogged down in the (Afghan) quagmire even after 2014,” he writes.

This is unfortunate, he adds, as the American people have turned sharply against the war and want their troops out of Afghanistan. Currently, the timetable for departing calls for 33,000 U.S. troops to quit Afghanistan by next September and withdrawal of nearly all foreign forces by 2014.

Dreyfuss writes that by pursuing “a contradictory policy of war making, peace talks and development assistance,” it isn’t all that clear that the Obama administration knows what it’s doing.

Sherwood Ross, who formerly worked for major dailies and wire services, is a public relations consultant for good causes. Reach him at sherwoodross10@gmail.com. Hear his commentaries on New American Dream internet radio at 8 PM EST the first Thursday of each month.

The Trial of Bradley Manning — Rule of Law or Rule of Intimidation, Retaliation & Retribution

2011-12-17T10:27:00.000-05:00

by Ann Wright

Yesterday, December 16, 2011, 40 supporters of Bradley Manning saw him in person in the military courtroom at Fort Meade, Maryland and another 60 saw him on a video feed from the court, the first time Manning has been seen by the public in 19 months. Over 100 other supporters, including 50 from Occupy Wall Street who had bused down from New York City, were at the front gates of Fort Meade in solidarity with Manning.

Hundreds of supporters will gather today, Saturday, December 17, for a large rally and march.

For his first court appearance, Bradley was in what looked to be a new military uniform and typically military, he had a fresh haircut. He was not in shackles in the courtroom, but it appeared in a photo that he was shackled in the van that brought him to the court. Manning talked freely with his civilian defense counsel and his two military legal counsels.

He did not turn around and look at the people in the court, but as he was brought in and taken out during the various recesses of the court, he no doubt noticed supporters in Bradley Manning t-shirts.

Bradley Manning has been imprisoned for 19 months, since May, 2010, without a trial. Yesterday, December 16, 2011, an Article 32 hearing began at Fort Meade, Maryland, in which an investigating officer will determine whether there is sufficient evidence of the crimes with which the military has charged him for the case to be referred to a General court-martial.

In July, 2010, Manning was charged with transferring classified information onto his personal computer and communicating national defense information to an unauthorized source. 22 more crimes were charged in March 2011, including "aiding the enemy," a capital offense. Defense Department prosecutors said they would not seek the death penalty. In April, 2011, Manning was found fit to face a court martial.

Defense Challenges Impartiality of Investigating Officer

On Friday, December 16, Manning’s civilian lawyer, David Coombs challenged the impartiality of the investigating officer US Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Paul Almanza, citing Almanza’s civilian employment as a lawyer in the Department of Justice which has conducted investigations on Manning, Julian Assange, and Wikileaks. The defense team had requested that 38 witnesses be allowed to testify in the Article 32 hearing. Coombs also said that the decision of Almanza to allow only two defense witnesses other than the10 the prosecution wanted demonstrated a bias by Almanza.

Coombs told Almanza, “That simple fact alone, without anything else, would cause a reasonable person to say, ‘I question your impartiality.’ ” Stating that his office of child exploitation in the Department of Justice had nothing to do with the Wikileaks investigation or with national security issues, Almanza denied Coombs’ request for recusal.

Almanza told Coombs and Manning, “I do not believe a reasonable person, knowing all the circumstances, would be led to the conclusion that my impartiality would be reasonably questioned. I thus deny the defense request to recuse myself.”

After that, Coombs filed a writ with the Army Court of Criminal Appeals to stay the proceedings until a decision can be made on whether Almanza should continue to preside. According to military law experts, the hearing can proceed while the appeals court makes its determination.

Manning under harsh imprisonment at Quantico reeked of intimidation and retaliation

The military’s treatment of Manning has reeked of intimidation and retaliation.

Until citizen activist protests six months ago in March, 2011, brought sufficient attention to the harsh conditions of his pre-trial confinement, the U.S. military was treating him as if he were beyond the scrutiny of the law — as if he were an "enemy combatant" in Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib. Amnesty International and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture expressed great concern about the conditions under which Manning was being held — in a maximum-security, single-occupancy cell, placed on a prevention-of-injury order and allowed to wear only a suicide-proof smock at night.

Independent UN expert on torture calls for unrestricted access to Manning and other U.S. detainees

On July 12, 2011, Juan Mendez, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, stated that it was "vital for him to have unmonitored access to Bradley Manning." Mendez said,

"I am assured by the U.S. Government that Mr. Manning's prison regime and confinement is markedly better than it was when he was in Quantico, however, in addition to obtaining firsthand information on my own about his new conditions of confinement, I need to ascertain whether the conditions he was subjected to for several months in Quantico amounted to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. For that, it is imperative that I talk to Mr. Manning under conditions where I can be assured that he is being absolutely candid."

At the request of Mr. Mendez and after several meetings, the U.S. Department of Defense said it would allow him to visit Mr. Manning, but warned that the conversation would be monitored.

Mendez said such a condition violated long-standing rules that the UN applies for prison visits and for interviews with inmates everywhere in the world. On humanitarian grounds and under protest, Mr. Mendez, through Mr. Manning's counsel, offered to visit him under these restrictive conditions, an offer Manning declined.

Mr. Mendez said, "The question of my unfettered access to a detainee goes beyond my request to meet with Mr. Manning -- it touches on whether I will be able to conduct private and unmonitored interviews with detainees if I were to conduct a country visit to the United States."

Additionally, Mr. Mendez has requested several times since his appointment in November, 2010, that the U.S. Government allow him to visit the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. However, the U.S. government has not responded to his requests.

Best Military Legal System in the World?

Despite the military’s mantra of having the best military legal system in the world, the past treatment of Manning—keeping him in solitary confinement, forcing him to stand naked while in pre-trial confinement and the lack of compliance with the norms of the military legal system of a "speedy" trial have added to the low points of Abu Gharib and Guantanamo in the history of military “justice.”

The federal courts have long established mechanism of dealing with classified information in national security cases.

The military’s contention that it took 19 months to figure out how to try him while protecting classified materials reeks of intimidation, retribution and retaliation.

Ann Wright is a retired U.S. Army Reserve Colonel and a former U.S. diplomat who resigned in 2003 in opposition to the Iraq war. She is a member of Veterans for Peace and is on the Advisory Board of the Bradley Manning Support Network.

Bush & Blair found guilty of Crimes against Peace

2011-11-22T11:22:00.000-05:00

(AFP) – Nov. 22

KUALA LUMPUR — Former US president George W Bush and British ex-prime minister Tony Blair were Tuesday found guilty at a mock tribunal in Malaysia for committing "crimes against peace" during the Iraq war.

The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal, part of an initiative by former Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamad -- a fierce critic of the Iraq war -- found the former leaders guilty after a four-day hearing.

"The Tribunal deliberated over the case and decided unanimously that the first accused George Bush and second accused Blair have been found guilty of crimes against peace," the tribunal said in a statement.

"Unlawful use of force threatens the world to return to a state of lawlessness. The acts of the accused were unlawful."

Mahathir, who stepped down in 2003 after 22 years in power, unveiled plans for the tribunal in 2007 just before he condemned Bush and Blair as "child killers" and "war criminals" at the launch of an annual anti-war conference.

A seven-member panel chaired by former Malaysian Federal Court judge Abdul Kadir Sulaiman presided over the trial, which began last Saturday, and both Bush and Blair were tried in absentia.

"The evidence showed that the drums of wars were being beaten long before the invasion. The accused in their own memoirs have admitted their own intention to invade Iraq regardless of international law," it said.
The verdict is purely symbolic as the tribunal has no enforcement powers.

The tribunal is also expected to later hear torture and war crimes charges against seven others, including former US secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld and former vice president Dick Cheney.

Unmasking the Illusion - Drones on Trial

2011-11-20T12:47:00.000-05:00

Remember Fallujah Week 2011 -- begins November 14

2011-11-09T10:27:00.000-05:00

See list of events at the Justice for Fallujah website as well as videos of Noam Chomsky, Dahlia Wafsi, Dahr Jamail, and Ross Caputi.

International Criminal Court to investigate NATO for possible Libya war crimes

2011-11-05T12:41:00.000-04:00

Chief prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo told the UN that NATO would be investigated as well as rebel actions in addition to Gadaffi's troops for breaches of the laws of war during the battle that overthrew Gadaffi. There have been complaints about NATO bombings as well as actions of rebels brought before the court.

Read more at All Voices.

Also note that NATO was also accused of war crimes in the bombing campaign in Serbia. In 2000, C-Fam reported:

Canadian NGOs charged that NATO conducted "a coward's war," that was nothing short of "all out total war" and "a terrorist war against the Yugoslav people." Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, specifically cites NATO's use of cluster bombs, and also the deliberate targeting of facilities used by civilians. Though an investigation was carried out, Tribunal prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said there was "no formal inquiry into the actions of NATO during the conflict in Kosovo."

ACLU Appeals Israeli 'War Crimes' Metro Bus Ruling

2011-11-05T12:25:00.000-04:00

The ACLU has appealed a ban by King County Metro in Seattle of an ad campaign about Israeli war crimes.

Banned in Seattle

"In a free and democratic society, we cannot allow the government to suppress lawful speech," said Kathleen Taylor, ACLU of Washington executive director. "We should keep in mind that mild speech doesn't need protection. It is when we are faced with controversial speech, speech that is upsetting to some people, that support of the First Amendment is most important," added Taylor.

Read more at the Seattle Weekly blog.

Tarak Kauff (WCT co-founder) -- October2011 action Senate Hart Office Building

2011-11-04T15:18:00.000-04:00

Why I arrested Donald Rumsfeld

2011-10-02T10:44:00.003-04:00

by Nate Goldshlag -- one of several members of Veterans for Peace who disrupted Donald Rumsfeld's book tour event in Boston this week.

“As a Veteran for Peace, I consider the lies we were told by the Bush administration made the Iraq invasion a war crime.”

On Monday 26 September, three members of Veterans For Peace and a member of Code Pink confronted Donald Rumsfeld at a Boston stop of his book tour. I attempted to make a citizen's arrest. Police hustled all four of us out, while a hostile rightwing crowd shouted and jeered. To get in, we had to dress nicely, pay $50 and give Rumsfeld a standing ovation so that we did not stand out from this crowd. The $50 got you a copy of his book, which I could not stomach taking. Once Rumsfeld started talking, at two-minute intervals, one of us got up to confront him.

Donald Rumsfeld, George Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and the rest of this crew are war criminals, according to international law. They lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They lied about Saddam Hussein being linked to 9/11. They lied about mobile weapons labs, yellowcake from Niger, how painless a war would be and countless other things. They instigated a program of torture in Guantánamo, Bagram and who knows how many other black sites. These lies were used as a pretext for initiating a war of aggression against a sovereign nation – an international war crime.

They are also guilty of violating the UN convention against torture (ratified by the US) and are responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and 5,000 Americans. Iraq has been devastated to the extent that, years later, many of its people still do not have 24-hour access to electricity. Much other infrastructure is destroyed in one of the oldest civilisations on the planet. Millions of Iraqis are refugees in other countries.

War criminals such as these need to be confronted at every opportunity. This is already happening. They cannot travel freely in Europe for fear of being arrested. However, the problem is not restricted to the Bush administration. Barack Obama is also guilty of war crimes, as he has continued and expanded the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. In all these countries, war and/or drone strikes have killed thousands of innocent people while doing nothing good and creating more people who hate American policy.

The real problem is the corporate-controlled government here and the military-industrial complex that President Dwight Eisenhower warned us about in 1961. The multinational corporate elite need to continue this policy of endless war, for profit, for resources like oil, and for global economic control. The military-industrial complex and the national security apparatus set up after 9/11 consume more than $1tn a year, while pensions, social security and Medicare are under attack. Rarely if ever mentioned by the corporate-controlled mass media is the enormous cost to taxpayers of war, the military and the national security state.

I became an activist in college at Harvard in 1968, at a time when there was a huge antiwar movement that, along with GI mutinies, stopped the Vietnam war. After being drafted into the US Army, I co-founded an underground GI newspaper in Germany. Militant mass nonviolent resistance – people demanding and creating real participatory democracy – is rising again against militarism and corporatism, and for human needs not corporate greed. Events in Tahrir Square have sparked the occupation of Wall Street in New York. An occupation of Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC, will begin on 6 October. As Bob Dylan wrote many years ago, "the times they are a-changin'."

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright Recalls Obama’s Fall From Grace

2011-09-29T15:03:00.001-04:00

Chris Hedges in Truthdig writes about his conversation with Rev. Wright. An excerpt:

“I was walking through the airport a few weeks ago,” Wright said. “I saw on the cover, I think, of Time Magazine, Osama bin Laden’s picture.

The caption on the cover said ‘Justice.’

I said, ‘How about murder? It was an assassin’s hit.’

What really bothered me as I read more about it was that Barack and Hillary [Clinton] and the war folk were sitting in the war room watching the hit. There were cameras in the field. It was a hit, two right above the eyebrow. Why, why, why did you murder that man? We have international courts. We have trials like the Nuremberg trials. Why did you murder him? Why not put him on trial? And I sat up in the middle of the night, about 10 days later, with the answer. I said, because you didn’t want him to talk. If he starts talking on the stand everything comes unraveled. We will have to look at the Cheney war machine. A trial would rip to shreds the lies we have been telling ourselves and our American public. We can’t afford that, so we murder him. We murder him and call it justice. That one really hurt. I said to myself, this is the Barack you once knew who cared enough about humankind to work in Altgeld Gardens [one of Chicago's poorest communities] with the poor, to not run against an African-American female [Carol Moseley Braun], who now calls for a professional Navy SEAL assassination, a hit, and watches it. It’s like that story you heard your dad preach and you know from seminary in Acts, where the demons said to the seven sons of Sceva, Jesus I know and Paul I know, but who are you? Who have you become?”

Read the whole article.

Overseas Troop Reductions 'On the Table'

2011-09-17T10:35:00.000-04:00


U.S. Military bases in the world

Kevin Baron and Chris Carroll, Stars and Stripes, September 14, 2011

WASHINGTON — Reducing the number of U.S. troops and bases located overseas is “on the table” as part of spending reduction talks, the Pentagon’s incoming No. 2 official told Congress on Tuesday.

During Undersecretary of Defense Ashton Carter’s confirmation hearing to be the next deputy secretary of defense, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said Congress must look at relocating some of the more than 300,000 troops stationed overseas, not including war zones, and closing some of the nearly 700 overseas bases, installations and other DOD sites.

“Is that on the table?” Levin asked.

“On the table,” Carter responded.

Obama's Promise -- You can take it to the bank!

2011-09-08T14:05:00.000-04:00

US attacks Iraq despite mission's end

2011-08-18T13:10:00.000-04:00

PressTV--The American military acknowledges that it has launched two unilateral airstrikes in Iraq in June, almost a year after President Barack Obama declared an end to the U.S. combat mission in the country.

The spokesman for the U.S. military in Iraq, Brigadier General Jeffrey Buchanan, said on Tuesday that the air raids had been carried out against militants targeting American troops, AFP reported.

This is the first time the U.S. army has acknowledged using air power to attack targets in Iraq since the American government ended its combat mission in the country in August 31, 2010.

Referring to the first U.S. strike against a group of militants attacking a U.S. base near the Basra airport, Buchanan said, “We had a team of Apaches (helicopters) up at the time. They identified the guy firing the rockets, they engaged and killed him.”

In the second airstrike, U.S. forces killed two militants who planned to explode a roadside bomb on the way of U.S. convoys, he added.

The confirmation may spark tensions between Baghdad and Washington because any unilateral U.S. military attack violates the security pact signed between the two sides last year.

Under the accord, Iraq would oversee security operations in its territory, with the U.S. forces only authorized to play a supportive role.

The comments by the U.S. military spokesman come a day after a series of bombing attacks in different Iraqi cities killed at least 76 people and injured over 180 others.

Bombings and other forms of violence have become an almost daily occurrence in Iraq as the U.S. government has made no secret of its strong desire to extend its military presence in the war-torn country beyond the December 2011 withdrawal date.

About 46,000 American troops are still stationed in Iraq while Baghdad has agreed to hold negotiations with Washington on the future status of American forces in the country.

War is not the answer -- never was, never will

2011-07-31T08:03:00.000-04:00

Lawyers, Relatives of Pakistan Drone Strike Victims Call for Arrest of Former CIA Legal Chief

2011-07-19T08:31:00.000-04:00

From Democracy Now! July 18

Lawyers and relatives of victims of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan are seeking the arrest of the CIA’s former legal chief on murder charges for approving attacks that have killed hundreds of people. The effort to seek an international arrest warrant for former CIA general counsel, John Rizzo, is being led by British human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, along with a number of Pakistani attorneys. Stafford Smith’s campaign group, Reprieve, estimates U.S. drone strikes have led to the deaths of some 2,500 Pakistani civilians since they began in 2004. The campaigners argue their case against Rizzo turns on the fact that the United States is not at war with Pakistan. Last week, two drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas killed 48 people. President Obama has thoroughly expanded the drone program. In 2009 alone, there were 118 attacks in Pakistan, compared to just one in 2004.

Human Rights Watch Says: United States, Investigate Bush, Other Top Officials for Torture!

2011-07-14T08:30:00.000-04:00

If the US government does not pursue credible criminal investigations, other countries should prosecute U.S. officials…

July 11, 2011 (Washington, DC) – Overwhelming evidence of torture by the Bush administration obliges President Barack Obama to order a criminal investigation into allegations of detainee abuse authorized by former President George W. Bush and other senior officials, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The Obama administration has failed to meet US obligations under the Convention against Torture to investigate acts of torture and other ill-treatment of detainees, Human Rights Watch said.

The 107-page report, "Getting Away with Torture: TheBush Administration and Mistreatment of Detainees," presents substantial information warranting criminal investigations of Bush and senior administration officials, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and CIA Director George Tenet, for ordering practices such as "waterboarding," the use of secret CIA prisons, and the transfer of detainees to countries where they were tortured.

"There are solid grounds to investigate Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Tenet for authorizing torture and war crimes," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "President Obama has treated torture as an unfortunate policy choice rather than a crime. His decision to end abusive interrogation practices will remain easily reversible unless the legal prohibition against torture is clearly reestablished."

Read the whole article at the Human Rights Watch website.

WikiLeaks has provided evidence of war crimes, say Assange supporters

2011-07-14T08:18:00.001-04:00

The World Socialist Web Site spoke to some of those protesting outside the High Court in London Tuesday in support of Julian Assange.

Among these were Ben Griffin, a former Iraq war veteran and former member of the British Special Air Services (SAS). In 2008, the previous Labour government took out a high court injunction to prevent Griffin from revealing further details about the government’s involvement in “extraordinary rendition”. (See “Britain: Labour government gags ‘extraordinary renditions’ whistleblower”)

Griffin said, “I am here today to stand in solidarity with Julian Assange, who I see as a war resister. For years both I and other veterans in the UK and America have spoken out about the crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan; the civilian dead, the destruction of these countries. We’ve been silenced and ignored and we’ve been asked the question again and again: ‘Where’s your evidence? You’re just disgruntled soldiers. Where’s your evidence of these crimes?’

“Julian has provided the evidence. The Iraq war logs, the Afghan war logs, Cablegate [the US diplomatic cables WikiLeaks has begun to release] and, most important, the Collateral Murder video have provided evidence of what veterans have been saying for years about these two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. So we are here today in solidarity with fellow war resisters.

Read Robert Stevens' article at The World Socialist Web Site.

In Reversal, Admin to Send Condolence Letters to Families of Vets Who Committed Suicide

2011-07-06T18:21:00.000-04:00

from Democracy Now! 06JUL11

The Obama administration has reversed a longstanding U.S. policy to deny presidential condolence letters to families of soldiers who have committed suicide. Democracy Now! broke this story in 2009 when we interviewed the parents of Chancellor Keesling, a U.S. soldier who took his own life during his second tour of duty in Iraq. During his first deployment, Chancellor suffered mental health issues so severe he was placed on suicide watch. After getting back to the United States, Chancellor turned down a bonus offer to return to Iraq in the hopes that he would not be redeployed and could get his life together. He committed suicide one month after the military forced him to return.