Bush-Cheney as war criminals - #2 Grounds for impeachment - 5of6 CDIC OK1 talks

[LeftDemocrat]

Here's another of the Committee's presentations, 4 Oct 2007, to Tulsa City Council:

Tulsans are victims of war crimes committed by the executive branch of our national government.

As my colleague has observed, many actions by the current executive branch of our national government can be categorized as war crimes.  This is demoralizing to civic-minded Tulsans, who see that the current administration in Washington has abandoned core American values.

Further, it seems credible that recent crime sprees in Tulsa could be one result of the flouting of public morality by Bush and Cheney.  Citizens see that crimes at the highest level of our government are NOT being investigated and punished.

I would like to speak especially, however, about a category of war crime that is, by design, unknown to most citizens. It is virtually ignored by the mainstream media.  Personal experience of this crime has a devastating effect on the restricted group of local people who know that they or their family members are victims.

What is this crime?  What is this UNSPEAKABLE crime?  Victims hardly dare name it for fear of losing their military health coverage .  People who do discuss it at conferences and on the radio are harassed and threatened.

Radioactive waste is being used liberally on battlefields by American troops.

The waste, of which there are great quantities, is mostly U-238, left over from the enrichment process where uranium is prepared for nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants.  The waste is attractive to the military because it is so dense and because it is virtually free.  Since it is a leftover, the industry calls it "depleted" uranium.  "Depleted" is quite a misnomer!  This term sounds harmless to the uninformed. They tend thus not to look closely at the hazards of using the material, hazards which have been known, if not publicized, for many years. Our troops are supposed to be educated about these hazards.  There are strict guidelines for civilian and military handling and shipping of so-called "depleted" uranium or DU.

DU is not only radioactive and highly toxic; but it is pyrophoric, capable of igniting spontaneously in air.

Just how very hazardous this substance can be on the battlefield was a well-kept secret even for highly placed military during the first Gulf War..  But evidence from that war was sufficient to show that use of uranium munitions should have been halted.

Some members of the US military who, during the first Gulf War, had experienced the battlefield effects of uranium munitions -did speak out against their continued use.  These included Major Doug Rokke, former Director, U.S. Army Depleted Uranium project,  who was in charge of cleaning up uranium-contaminated vehicles from the first Gulf War, and Colonel Asaf Durakovic(formerly of the Pentagon and formerly Chief of Nuclear Medicine for the Veterans Administration Hospital in Wilmington, Del.).  The concerns of this scientist and this physician were brushed aside.

In Mississippi, a Veterans Administration survey after the first Gulf War found that 67% of the veterans surveyed had returned home to conceive children who were stillborn or who had severe birth defects, such as no eyes.

Did this give pause to the Pentagon?  Did it stop using DU or embark on serious warnings about DU?  Hardly.  In fact, Department of Defense and Department of Energy officials and their representatives made (and continue to make) personal attacks aimed to silence or discredit those demanding that testing and medical care be provided to all DU casualties.

During the current war uranium munitions have continued to be used on the ground and from the air.  Combat troops are still uninformed of risks to their health. Even NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) specialists are not adequately educated about DU.

To its credit, the Tulsa World of August 13, 2006, carried an article showing pictures of our radioactive weapons, -of the battlefield uses of DU in munitions and in armor.  (A copy of this Tulsa World article has been provided for each city councillor.)

What makes military use of uranium munitions so very dangerous? When anti-tank shells are fired and also when they hit their target, the DU bursts into flames and airborne particles of uranium oxide, with a radioactive half-life of 4 1/2 BILLION years, are released.  These particles can be swallowed, inhaled, or enter an open wound.  Many of the particles are small enough to enter a human blood cell.  Some particles are excreted, but others can remain in the body for years, radiating surrounding cells and attacking DNA.

The particles tend especially to lodge in lungs, bones, kidneys, reproductive organs....  Resultant disorders include leukemia, multiple cancers, immune system damage, nervous system damage, and major birth defects.

The Tulsa World article of August 2006 tells of a Gulf War veteran from another part of the country and his many medical problems, which are blamed on DU.  He is one of thousands upon thousands --over 400,000-- of US Gulf veterans suffering serious health problems.  The Pentagon and the Veterans Administration have been careful not to provide these veterans adequate testing for DU contamination, contamination which can be passed on to wives and can affect succeeding generations.

It would seem unthinkable that the Pentagon would poison our own troops.  Yet this is happening with so-called "depleted" uranium weapons now used under the current administration of Bush and Cheney.

Civilian and military populations in areas where the US has fired radioactive munitions suffer illnesses similar to those of our troops and their families.  Children in Iraq and Afghanistan have shown greatly elevated rates of leukemia and birth defects --defects like those occurring in the children of US veterans.  Because the radioactive contamination remains indefinitely in soil, water, and air, these populations can expect to inhale and ingest the poison for many years to come.  Some knowledgeable people speak of the situation as genocide.

DU weaponry violates the Hague and Geneva war conventions, the 1925 Geneva gas protocol, US laws and US military law.

Rather than belabor the international implications of the use of DU and the horrible devastation our uranium weapons have brought to other countries, their present and future populations, I prefer to close by emphasizing that these weapons are by their nature turned indiscriminately against our own troops.  The federal government under Bush and Cheney has knowingly allowed this to happen, has shown utter lack of concern for the troops in this matter, as in other matters, and has left troops and veterans unenlightened and uncared for.  The indifference and negligence are appalling and criminal.

What of Tulsa area residents whose health has been destroyed by the radioactive waste our government uses in armor and in munitions?  Does the city care about the fate of these individuals and their families?

I believe that the least the City Council of Tulsa can do for its soldiers and veterans and their families is to join the more than 85 other cities that have signed on to a resolution to investigate abuses by the Executive Branch of the United States government.

[LeftDemocrat]

This man Frank Belcastro is a self-syndicating low-profile editorialist doing an end-run around the MSM.   He publishes all his contact details with every editorial he sends out.  To my knowledge, his LTEs are not actually printed by any print media.

From: fbelcast -symbolhere- hotmail.com
Subject: Bush as war criminal

285 North Grandview Avenue
Dubuque, IA  52001
October  25, 2007
 
 
Letter to the Editor
 
 
What of the Iraqi population? An estimated 4 million Iraqis - 15 percent of
the total population - regularly cannot buy enough to eat, and now depend on
food assistance. Of those, only 60 percent have access to rations through
the government-run Public Distribution System, down from 96 percent in 2004.
 
Seventy percent of the people are without adequate water supplies and 80
percent lack adequate sanitation. Dr. Abdul-Rahman Adil Ali of the Baghdad
Health Directorate has warned of the serious consequences of exposure to
defective sewage disposal systems. "In some of Baghdad's poor
neighborhoods," he said, "people drink water that is mixed with sewage."
 
Hospitals are unable to respond to people's needs. Ninety percent of
hospitals lack essential resources such as basic medical and surgical
supplies. Of 34,000 doctors living in the country in 2003, 12,000 have
emigrated and more than 2,000 have been murdered.
 
Most international aid agencies have left the country, a situation
compounded by the emigration of qualified personnel.
 
These situations along qualify Bush as a war criminal under the Geneva
Conventions and the U.S. Constitution.  Impeachment is the remedy.
 
Frank P. Belcastro  563-588-1044

Thanks "thinkcivic" for bringing this op/ed to the impeachment committee's attention.

How many more Iraqis/Muslims have to die before the "genocide" charge starts to stick?

[LeftDemocrat]

Here's a constitutional expert and former Congresswoman with experience using impeachment measures of the U.S. Constitution.

She explains just what the war crime is that Bush-Cheney are likely going to be prosecuted for, after their term of office expires.  Barring their escape to Paraguay first!!

Torture is a war crime, stupid!

     Beyond Mukasey's Confirmation, White House Liability Issues Loom Large
     By Elizabeth Holtzman
     t r u t h o u t | OpEd
    Tuesday 13 November 2007

    Though it failed to send his nomination the way of Robert Bork, attorney general nominee Michael Mukasey's evasiveness on the definition of torture has done something historic. It has made it unmistakably clear to mainstream observers that the president may be criminally liable for violating anti-torture laws. Criminal liability of this White House will have wider repercussions than Mr. Mukasey's confirmation. It will reverberate through his tenure as attorney general and beyond the end of the Bush administration.
    We now know that the reason Mr. Mukasey refused to acknowledge that waterboarding meets the legal definition of torture, or at the very least cruel, degrading and inhuman treatment, clearly had nothing to do with not being briefed about the procedure. If he didn't know at the time of the Senate committee hearing, he certainly learned afterwards that the US had considered waterboarding criminal and prosecuted it for at least a century. The real reason, as mainstream news analysts now acknowledge, was that publicly admitting waterboarding is torture or cruel and inhuman would have put the president in jeopardy of criminal charges.
    The War Crimes Act of 1996 makes cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees a violation of the Geneva Conventions and a federal crime. In addition, a 1994 law, 18 USC Section 2340 (a), makes it a federal crime to engage in torture outside the US, and it also applies to those who conspire with (or aid and abet or order) torture outside the US. Both statutes apply to any US national, including the president, the vice president and other top officials, as well as subordinates, such as CIA officers or other US personnel. If the president ordered, directed or authorized waterboarding or other forms of torture or mistreatment, he may have violated these laws. They carry the death penalty in cases where the victim dies. In such cases there is no statute of limitations, so the president could be subject to prosecution for the rest of his life.
    Some contend that imposing criminal liability for acts performed in the heat of combat is wrong and that we can't hold the administration to 20/20 hindsight. But we know these acts were not spontaneous, but part of a premeditated pattern of legal manipulation dating back years. At least since 2002, President Bush, Attorney General Gonzales and possibly others, including Vice President Cheney, knew that torture and detainee mistreatment entailed criminal liability, which they sought to defuse with novel legal theories and retroactive suspensions of established law.
    In a February 2002 memo, then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales warned President Bush about exposure to criminal liability under the War Crimes Act, mentioning the danger that future independent counsels or prosecutors might seek to enforce the law (they generally prosecute top government officials, including presidents). He therefore recommended opting out of the Geneva Conventions, famously calling them "obsolete." His theory was that if the Conventions didn't apply, then the War Crimes Act wouldn't apply, so no prosecutions could be brought. The president accepted Gonzales's theory and suspended the Conventions' protections for suspected al-Qaeda detainees.
    But in June 2006 the Supreme Court rejected this theory and held the Geneva Conventions applicable to the treatment of all detainees, leaving the president open to liability for violating the War Crimes Act. So in October 2006 the White House effectively pardoned itself by slipping a little-noticed provision into the Military Tribunals Act, conferring effective immunity from the War Crimes Act on high-level officials by making it retroactively inoperative, from 1996 to 2006. Public attention was focused on habeas corpus and other controversial provisions in the bill, so it passed more or less unscrutinized.
    Still, holes remain in the legal barricades the Bush administration has tried to erect around itself. Even if immunity from prosecution under the War Crimes Act stands, it only applies through 2006, not for mistreatment of detainees after that. And the 1994 anti-torture law applies throughout.
    As attorney general, Mr. Mukasey can try to plug these holes. He may shield President Bush and others from criminal liability; he may resist appointing an independent prosecutor to investigate White House actions. But he cannot, as the 2002 Gonzales memo recognized, tie the hands of future prosecutors. In lethal cases, our anti-torture laws have no statute of limitations. Sooner or later, those who violated US law will be held accountable to them, if not by Mukasey, then by some future AG.
    ---------
    Former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman served on the House Judiciary Committee during the impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon. She co-authored the 1973 special prosecutor statute, and co-wrote (with Cynthia L. Cooper) the 2006 book, "The Impeachment of George W. Bush."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/111407R.shtml

[LeftDemocrat]

scientific paper to be published in the journal "Science of the Total Environment"
DU CONTAMINATION IMPOSSIBLE TO ERADICATE = WAR CRIME           DU CONTAMINATION IMPOSSIBLE TO ERADICATE = WAR CRIME     DU CONTAMINATION IMPOSSIBLE TO ERADICATE = WAR CRIME
Confirmation of war crime (DU contamination)
committed during the Bush-Cheney administration
DEPLETED URANIUM PROVEN to be IN THE BLOOD 25 YEARS AFTER CONTAMINATION

>CAUSES SLEW OF HEALTH PROBLEMS, SOME FATAL<

    "Safe" Uranium That Left a Town Contaminated
    By David Rose
    The Observer UK
    Sunday 18 November 2007

    They were told depleted uranium was not hazardous. Now, 23 years after a US arms plant closed, workers and residents have cancer - and experts say their suffering shows the use of such weapons may be a war crime.

    Colonie, New York - It is 50 years since Tony Ciarfello and his friends used the yard of a depleted uranium weapons factory as their playground in Colonie, a suburb of Albany in upstate New York state. 'There wasn't no fence at the back of the plant,' remembers Ciarfello. 'Inside was a big open ground and nobody would chase us away. We used to play baseball and hang by the stream running through it. We even used to fish in it - though we noticed the fish had big pink lumps on them.'

    Today there are lumps on Ciarfello's chest - strange, round tumours that protrude about an inch. 'No one seems to know what they are,' he says. 'I've also had a brain aneurysm caused by a suspected tumour. I'm constantly fatigued and for years I've had terrible pains, deep inside my leg bones. I fall over without warning and I've got a heart condition.' Ciarfello's illnesses have rendered him unable to work for years. Aged 57 and a father of five, he looks much older.

    The US federal government and the firm that ran the factory, National Lead (NL) Industries, have been assuring former workers and residents around the 18-acre site for decades that, although it is true that the plant used to produce unacceptable levels of radioactive pollution, it was not a serious health hazard.

    Now, in a development with potentially devastating implications not only for Colonie but also for the future use of some of the West's most powerful weapon systems, that claim is being challenged. In a paper to be published in the next issue of the scientific journal Science of the Total Environment, a team led by Professor Randall Parrish of Leicester University reports the results of a three-year study of Colonie, funded by Britain's Ministry of Defence.

    Parrish's team has found that DU contamination, which remains radioactive for millions of years, is in effect impossible to eradicate, not only from the environment but also from the bodies of humans. Twenty-three years after production ceased they tested the urine of five former workers. All are still contaminated with DU. So were 20 per cent of people tested who had spent at least 10 years living near the factory when it was still working, including Ciarfello.

    The small sample size precludes the drawing of statistical conclusions, the journal paper says. But to find DU at all after so long a period is 'significant, since no previous study has documented evidence of DU exposure more than 20 years prior ... [this] indicates that the body burden of uranium must still be significant, whether retained in lungs, lymphatic system, kidneys or bone'. The team is now testing more individuals.

    In 1984, having bought the factory from NL for $10 in a deal that meant the firm was exempted from having to pay for its clean-up, the federal government began a massive decommissioning project, supervised by the Army Corps of Engineers. The clean-up did not finish until summer 2007, having cost some $190m. Contractors demolished the buildings and removed more than 150,000 tons of soil and other contaminated detritus, digging down to depths of up to 40ft and trucking it 2,000 miles by rail to underground radioactive waste sites in the Rockies. All that is now left of the NL plant is a huge, undulating field, ringed by razor wire.

    Despite this colossal effort, Parrish and his colleagues found high concentrations of DU particles in soil, stream sediments and household dust in the vicinity of the site, deposited long ago when the factory burnt the shavings and chips produced by the weapons manufacturing process: the study estimates that, over the years, about 10 tons of uranium oxide dust wafted from the chimney into the surrounding environment.

    The Army Corps clean-up team tested the soil from some of the gardens of houses backing on to the plant, and in cases where it was found to be emitting more than 35 pico curies of radiation per gram they removed it. The researchers discovered dust in and around buildings emitting up to 10 times as much. DU, inhaled in the form of tiny motes of oxide that lodge inside the lungs, emits alpha radiation, nuclei of helium. Unlike the gamma radiation produced by enriched, weapons-grade uranium, alpha particles will not penetrate the skin.

    But inside the body DU travels around the bloodstream, accumulating not only in the lungs but also in other soft tissues such as the brain and bone marrow. There, each mote becomes an alpha particle hotspot, bombarding its locality and damaging cell DNA. Research has shown that DU has the potential to cause a wide range of cancers, kidney and thyroid problems, birth defects and disorders of the immune system.

    When DU 'penetrators' - armour-piercing shells that form the standard armament of some of Britain's and America's most commonly deployed military aircraft and vehicles - strike their targets, 10 per cent or more of the heavy DU metal burns at high temperatures, producing oxide particles very similar to those at Colonie.

    TV footage shot in Baghdad in 2003 shows children playing in the remains of tanks coated with thick, black DU oxide, while there have long been claims that the DU shells that destroyed Saddam Hussein's tanks in the 1991 Gulf war were responsible for high rates of cancer in places such as Basra.

    Parrish's team includes David Carpenter, an environmental health expert from Albany University. 'DU burns, it releases particulates that can be breathed in, and it doesn't go away,' he says. 'The issue does not concern military personnel as much as civilian populations in theatres where they are used. Now we know that we can still find measurable levels of DU among the people of Colonie, we need a much bigger study to establish whether they have suffered disproportionate ill-effects such as cancers as a consequence. If they have, it would raise a serious ethical challenge to the use of these weapons. Arguably it could constitute a war crime.'

    The NL plant on Central Avenue, Colonie's main artery, opened in 1958 and became one of the Pentagon's main suppliers. DU - the material left in huge quantities by the process of refining enriched uranium for bombs and nuclear reactors - is extremely dense. ... In 1979 a whistleblower from inside the plant told the local health department that it was releasing large amounts of DU from its 50ft chimney, which was not properly filtered. The state government carried out atmospheric tests and in 1981 ordered that main production cease. The factory shut three years later.

    One of those who has now tested positive is Mike Aidala, 71, who worked at the plant for 22 years and became its health and safety director. 'When it started, the place was spotless,' he says. 'But over the years it got dirtier and dirtier. We burnt the chips produced by the lathes in a steel furnace.' He added: 'A lot of my co-workers died young. Whether the plant was the reason, I guess we'll never know.'

    As concern in Colonie rose, a residents' group began to call for a publicly funded health study. For Anne Rabe, a founder member of a campaign that has now lasted for 25 years, the Parrish study represents overdue vindication. 'I do find it very ironic that the US government at state and federal level refused for so long to do anything, and now the UK comes along and has funded these tests,' Rabe says.

    Repeatedly, US agencies have claimed that the Colonie plant was reasonably safe, despite the massive clean-up. Most recently, in 2003, the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry issued a report saying that, although the pollution produced when the plant was operating might have slightly increased the risks of kidney disease and lung cancer, there was now 'no apparent public health hazard'.

    Rabe's campaign has conducted a health study of its own, assembling a dossier from personal contacts and by knocking on neighbours' doors. It found that among almost 400 people surveyed there were numerous cases of rare cancers, thyroid and kidney complaints and birth defects.

    The main difficulty the campaigners faced in the past is that DU eventually dissolves and is passed in the urine. The US government claimed that the plant had been shut so long that it would be impossible to determine who had been contaminated - so rendering a full health survey pointless.

    However, Parrish has developed new, more sensitive methods. At the same time, his impartiality is impeccable. Before his work in Colonie, Parrish tested more than 400 Gulf war veterans, failing to detect DU in any of them - so dealing a serious blow to those who claimed that DU is one of the causes of Gulf war syndrome. 'I did not expect to find it in Colonie,' he says.

    Some of those who have tested positive display classic, common symptoms found in DU victims elsewhere. For example, Ciarfello says he was still in his twenties when his teeth 'just started to crumble: they ground down to nothing until they were just these little stumps and I pushed them out with my tongue'. Other members of his family are sick. His son developed a severe kidney condition, while his brother, Frank, can barely walk and also suffers chronic fatigue. A nephew was born with a disfiguring facial skin tumour that has required repeated surgery.

    Tom Donnelly, 56, spent 34 years as a foreman at a garage door workshop next to the NL factory, where tests have found high concentrations of DU in dust samples from places such as shelves and light fittings. He has three auto-immune disorders: Crohn's disease, a chronic inflammation of the bowel, total alopecia, and cerebral vasculitis, an immune system-related narrowing of blood vessels in the brain.

    'The new tests suggest I inhaled about 4,000 particles of DU,' Donnelly says. 'I used to come to work in the morning and see the chimney blowing its smoke in a thick black plume. Most of us had no idea that the plant was using uranium at all. After all, the sign outside said National Lead. The Army Corps removed all that soil, but they never looked at the dust at all. The effect on my life has been devastating, but how many others are already dead?' One is his late boss and friend Tom Murphy - who, like Donnelly, developed Crohn's and died of it at 61.

    Ann Carusone lived in a house behind the plant from the time of her birth in 1966 until 1993. 'When I tested positive, my reaction was sheer disbelief,' she says. She has endured years of a chronic lung disease, sarcoidosis, an inflammation of the lymph nodes usually found in much older people, as well as a blood disorder that produced petecchiae - dots of blood beneath her skin, similar to those seen in some of those exposed to radiation at Hiroshima. In her twenties she had a pre-cancerous ovarian cyst that when removed was the size of a grapefruit.

    'I knew many people from round here who died young, in their twenties and thirties,' she says. 'We used to play out in the creek that flowed out of the plant site. The water was sluggish, a weird yellow-green colour. We'd splash about in it. Now we know it was laden with depleted uranium.'

    'It's very striking how many people in this small group have immune disorders like Tom Donnelly's,' says Carpenter. 'I can say with great confidence that people who inhaled DU are at greater risk of lung cancer, as well as leukaemia, other cancers and genetic damage of the type that causes birth defects. Previous responses by official bodies could be said to amount to a cover-up. People have been told that there's no problem, and that's very clearly not true.'

    Yesterday NL failed to return calls requesting comment.

    Deadly Residue

    Depleted uranium (DU) is ... used to make armour-penetrating shells, standard armament for some of the West's most widely deployed military aircraft and vehicles, such as Bradley armoured cars, Abrams tanks, and Jaguar A10 fighter planes. ...

    DU emits alpha particles, known to cause cancers.

    DU weapons that strike their targets produce clouds of tiny uranium oxide particles, which lodge in the lungs and other soft tissues such as the brain and bone marrow.

    DU shells were widely used in the 1991 Gulf war; in Bosnia and Kosovo; and are being used now in Iraq and Afghanistan.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/nuclear/article/0,,2212931,00.html

[LeftDemocrat]

Sundialsvc4 writes:

Let us begin by toppling one keystone: the thought that "we must wait until November of this year, and at that time we must choose from hand-picked candidates of the status quo's own choosing."

Wrong, and wrong. That's a vote for eight more years of hell, and we all know it.

Let us instead re-introduce one cornerstone: The Law, and the oath that all public officials must swear to uphold and to protect it. That oath is legally binding; to violate it is a felony. Period.

Let us then lay beside it a new stone: the principle that Congress has no power to put impeachment "off the table." That this is a solemn law enforcement duty that cannot be set aside, nor unduly delayed, neither for political nor for any other motivations.

For six long years and more, "civil officers" in all three Branches of this Government have run roughshod over the Supreme Law of the Land, and have committed the same crimes that left several Nazis hanging at the end of a rope in Nuremberg. If necessary, and if duly convicted (after the "due process of law" that they steadfastly denied to their enemies), another rope waits for them. Yes, it is THAT serious.

There are about 320 million "plaintiffs" in this case: "We, the People." And only a few hundred people who have so willfully inflicted so much harm to us all, to our young people, and to the world. We have lived under the scourge of laws that were not duly enforced. Let's make a New Year's resolution that 2008 shall be different. And let's introduce the first of many Articles of Impeachment this month.

"It's not just a good idea. It's the Law."

posted 11:43 am on 01/01/2008
source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bromwich/maxims-of-peace-and-war_b_79043.html

[LeftDemocrat]

"Decapitation attacks" - file under fascist crimes, like "preventive war"

The President's culpability for civilians killed in drone attacks

Assassinations by air are a relatively new tactic in warfare. Only in the past quarter century has the United States developed munitions accurate enough to attempt a surgical strike against a target as small and mobile as a person. "Fire and forget" laser-guided Hellfire missiles were first used by the American military in Panama in 1989; jdams, or guidance kits that convert regular bombs to smart bombs, weren't employed until 1999 during the nato bombing of Yugoslavia; armed MQ-1 Predator drones came online in 2002 as part of Operation Southern Watch in Iraq. And of course, recent decades have brought dramatic advances in computer, satellite, and GPS technologies.

In 2001, U.S. officials mistook a convoy of elders headed for Afghan president Hamid Karzai's inauguration for a Taliban group and bombed it, reportedly killing some 20 civilians. In Iraq, U.S. warplanes tried to hit Saddam and his deputies based on their sat-phone signals, though these only pinpoint a phone to within about a city block.  Human Rights Watch found that not a single air strike aimed at Saddam's henchmen during the invasion achieved its objective, and instead, dozens of civilians were killed. The "complete lack of success and the significant civilian losses" showed a disregard for civilian casualties, in violation of the laws of war, the organization concluded.

In 2006, an attempt to kill Ayman al-Zawahiri in Pakistan instead killed 18 civilians. (ed. note: Today, 17 March 2008, AP reports another such attack by un-manned drone: Missiles Strike Pakistani Tribal Area, 20 Reported Dead)

In his first speech after 9/11, President Bush promised to hit terrorists with "dramatic strikes visible on TV and covert operations secret even in success." Since then, the administration has argued that the war on terror's battlefield is global, and it has expanded decapitation strikes accordingly—aiming them at targets across the Muslim world.

Virtually all aspects of the assassination program are classified, and so information about it has emerged only in bits and pieces. In January 2006, the Los Angeles Times reported that unnamed officials had confirmed that Predator drones bearing Hellfire missiles—the preferred weapon in decapitation bombings—had hit "terrorist suspects overseas" at least 19 times since 9/11. "The Predator strikes have killed at least four senior Al Qaeda leaders," according to the Times sources, "but also many civilians, and it is not known how many times they missed their targets."

There have been media accounts of at least nine other such strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, where members of Al Qaeda are thought to be hiding. Dozens more have been conducted in Afghanistan, according to William M. Arkin, a military expert and author of the Washington Post's Early Warning blog. In Iraq, the military claims, more than 200 Al Qaeda operatives have been eliminated by air strikes, be they targeted killings or broader-based attacks.

Premeditated and narrowly focused air bombings often fail to kill their intended foe and hit civilians instead. "It's much more difficult to hunt people with a 2,000-pound bomb than people realize," says Marc Garlasco, who until 2003 was one of the Pentagon's leading analysts of air strikes, including assassinations.

Without soldiers on the ground to make moment-by-moment evaluations, the burden of complying with the laws of war would appear to reside with commanders or intelligence sources, explains Gabor Rona, the international legal director of New York-based Human Rights First. "The fundamental rule remains," he says. "Targeting decisions must be made with a view toward minimizing civilian casualties. Anything less is a war crime."

In December 2006, the Israeli Supreme Court issued a landmark decision ... that international law constrains the targeting of terror suspects. Currently, in order to justify a strike, Israel must have reliable information that the suspect is actively engaged in hostilities (such as planning a terrorist attack) and must rule out an arrest as being too risky. The court also requires that there be an independent investigation after each strike.

Under the Intelligence Authorization Act of 1991, the president is required to sign off on covert missions, and key congressional committees must be notified.

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2008/03/the-us-militarys-assassination-problem.html

So we know who to hold accountable.  Impeach him.

And if you're wondering about the Congressional oversight, it's Congressman Adam Smith (D-Wash.) who's enabling this war crime, as chairman of the House subcommittee responsible for unconventional warfare and special operations.  Let's hope the above Mother Jones expose convinces him to step down, so that we can replace him with someone who actually respects the rule of law.  And I don't mean Conyers (D-Mich), another sad excuse for a committee chairman.

For a related op/ed published today, see Tom Engelhardt's satire: http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=12534

[LeftDemocrat]

Probably the most under-reported story of the year
http://rockcreekfreepress.tumblr.com/post/35323739/spanish-judge-calls-for-bush-to-be-tried-for-war

[/quote]

Spanish Judge Calls for Bush to be Tried for War Crimes

BY VICKY SHORT

Baltasar Garzón, the Spanish judge who sought to prosecute Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet, has called for US President George W. Bush and his allies to be tried for war crimes over Iraq.

Writing in El Pais on the fourth anniversary of the invasion, Garzón stated, “Today, March 20, marks four years since the formal start of the war on Iraq. Instigated by the United States and Great Britain, and supported by Spain among other countries, one of the most sordid and unjustifiable episodes in recent human history began.

“Breaking every international law, and under the pretext of the war against terror, there has taken place since 2003 a devastating attack on the rule of law and against the very essence of the international community. In its path, institutions such as the United Nations were left in tatters, from which it has not yet recovered.” “Instead of commemorating the war,” Garzón continues, “we should be horrified, screaming and demonstrating against the present massacre created as a consequence of that war.”

He then writes that George W. Bush and his allies should eventually face war crimes charges for their actions in Iraq: “We should look more deeply into the possible criminal responsibility of the people who are, orwere, responsible for this war and see whether there is sufficient evidence to make them answer for it.” “For many it would be merely a question of political responsibility, but judicial actions in the US are beginning to emerge, as is the case of the verdict passed on one of vicepresident Cheney’s collaborators, [I. Lewis Libby] which point in a different direction.”

“There is enough of an argument in 650,000 deaths for this investigation and inquiry to start without more delay,” he added.

Garzón then turns his scathing criticisms towards the former Spanish Prime Minister, José María Aznar, who followed British Prime Minister Tony Blair in supporting Bush’s war of aggression against Iraq.

“Those who joined the US president in the war against Iraq have as much or more responsibility than him because, despite having doubts and biased information, they put themselves in the hands of the aggressor to carry out an ignoble act of death and destruction that continues to this day.” Aznar still defends the invasion of Iraq. He reluctantly admitted last month that he now knows Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, but added that “the problem was not having been clever enough to know it earlier.”

Garzón answers this in his article: “If he didn’t know enough, he should be asked why he didn’t act prudently, giving United Nations inspectors more leeway instead of doing the opposite in total submission and fidelity to President Bush.”

Fearful of the extension of the insurgency in Iraq throughout the Middle East and internationally, Garzón declares that “the North American bellicose action, and that of those who supported it, has determined or at least has contributed to the creation, development and consolidation of the biggest terrorist training camp in the world…. In some way, with a terrible lack of awareness, we have been and are helping this monster grow more and more and strengthened by the minute, so that it is probably invincible.”

Garzón has investigated everything from Basque terrorism to the March 11, 2004 Madrid train bombings, whose alleged perpetrators are currently on trial. He led the investigation into the rightist terror group Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación (GAL), whose creation was attributed to the Socialist Party (PSOE) government of the day. He also banned Herri Batasuna, the political arm of ETA—the first political party to be outlawed since the death of Franco in 1975.

Back in 1996, the Progressive Union of Prosecutors filed criminal complaints against the Argentine and Chilean military for the disappearance of Spanish citizens under the dictatorships that ruled them in the 1970s and 1980s. One year later, Garzón issued an arrest order that included Argentine Navy Captain Adolfo Scilingo, who made a televised confession in 1995 of “death flights” in which hundreds of detainees were thrown from airplanes to their deaths in the Atlantic Ocean. Scilingo was detained after travelling to Spain voluntarily.

Former Chilean President Pinochet was arrested during a medical check-up in London in 1998 based on a warrant issued by Garzón. For months the judge attempted to have the dictator extradited to Spain to be tried for heading the military coup in 1973 that overthrew the elected president Salvador Allende and the subsequent murder of thousands of students and workers. He has also signalled his intention to question Richard Nixon’s national security adviser Henry Kissinger about events in Chile, after declassified documents released by the US State Department and the CIA suggested that Kissinger was well aware of what was happening.

The fact that such a prominent international judicial figure openly speaks of bringing war crimes judgement against the leaders of the US, UK and Spain is an indication that the entire Iraq campaign is heading towarda disaster and a response to the mounting opposition around the world. Yet his statement was given only the most cursory coverage by the media in the United States and internationally. No publication chose to make an editorial comment and most simply reproduced or slightly amended a Reuters report. Such is the level of hostility to the Iraq war and occupation in Spain, however, that even sections of ex-Prime Minister Aznar’s Popular Party (PP) are publicly declaring that his attendance at the meeting in March 2003, in the Azores that supported Bush in his decision to invade Iraq was an error. Reporting on their criticism, the right-wing newspaper El Mundo commented on March 20, “The PP should not continue avoiding an auto-criticism on Iraq.”

It continues that, although the present critics were in the main opposed to sending troops to Iraq at the time, today “even if only a few dare to say it aloud … the vast majority in the PP accept in private that Aznar made a mistake. In his zeal to make Spain more of an Atlantic country, trusting Bush blindly, he only succeeded in fertilising the rank anti- Americanism of a sector of Spanish society, as well as neglecting the repercussions this would have on domestic affairs, which, as the new (PSOE) government is demonstrating, demanded more attention than our projection abroad.”

A few hours after the El Pais article by Garzón had reached the shops, the secretary of organisation for the PSOE, José Blanco, declared in an interview in Telecinco that someone had to pay the consequences for the decision to invade Iraq. And if Bush, Blair and Aznar were to be made legally accountable, then he would support this.

Vicky Short is a journalist; her articles have appeared on www.globalresearch.ca and World Socialist Web Site, wsws.org

http://rockcreekfreepress.tumblr.com/post/35323739/spanish-judge-calls-for-bush-to-be-tried-for-war

[/quote]

[LeftDemocrat]

op/ed piece by noted conservative

Now an International Criminal Court prosecutor wants to bring charges against Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, for crimes against humanity and war crimes.

I have no sympathy for people who make others suffer. Nevertheless, I wonder at the International Criminal Court's pick from the assortment of war criminals? Why al-Bashir?

Is it because Sudan is a powerless state, and the International Criminal Court hasn't the courage to name George W. Bush and Tony Blair as war criminals?

Bush and Blair's crimes against humanity in Iraq and Afghanistan dwarf, at least in the number of deaths and displaced persons, the terrible situation in Darfur. The highest estimate of Darfur casualties is 400,000, one-third the number of Iraqis who have died as a result of Bush's invasion. Moreover, the conflict in the Sudan is an internal one, whereas Bush illegally invaded two foreign countries, war crimes under the Nuremberg Standard. Bush's war crimes were enabled by the political leaders of the UK, Spain, Canada, and Australia. The leaders of every member of the "coalition of the willing to commit war crimes" are candidates for the dock.

But of course the Great Moral West does not commit war crimes. War crimes are charges fobbed off on people demonized by the Western media, such as the Serbian Milosovic and the Sudanese al-Bashir.

The International Criminal Court is a bureaucracy. It has a budget, and it needs to do something to justify its budget. Lacking teeth and courage, it goes after the petty war criminals and leaves the big ones alone.

Don't get me wrong. I'm for holding all governments accountable for their criminal actions. It is the hypocrisy to which I object. The West gives itself and Israel a pass while damning everyone else.

President Bush claims that the enormous destruction and death he has brought to Iraq and Afghanistan are necessary in order for Americans to be safe. If we are accepting excuses this feeble, Milosovic passed muster with his excuse that as the head of state he was obliged to try to preserve the state's territorial integrity. Is al-Bashir supposed to accept secession in the Sudan, something that Lincoln would not accept from the Confederacy? How long would al-Bashir last if he partitioned Sudan?

Last October the Atlanta Journal-Constitution had a photo on its front page above the fold of an elderly man with mikes shoved in his face. Paul Henss, 85 years old, is being deported from the US, where he has lived for 53 years, because Eli Rosenbaum, director the the US State Department's Nazi-hunting bureaucracy, declared him a war criminal for training guard dogs used at German concentration camps. Henss was 22 years old when World War II ended.

A kid who trained guard dogs is being deported as a war criminal, but the head of state who launched two wars of naked aggression, resulting in the deaths of more than 1.2 million people, and who has the entire world on edge awaiting his third war of aggression, this time against Iran, is received respectfully by foreign governments. Corporations and trade associations will pay him $100,000 per speech when he leaves office. He will make millions of dollars more from memoirs written by a ghostwriter.

Does no one see the paradox of deporting Henss while leaving the war criminal in the White House?

Only Little War Criminals Get Punished
by Paul Craig Roberts
 July 17, 2008
http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=13148

byline: Paul Craig Roberts wrote the Kemp-Roth bill and was assistant secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was associate editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and contributing editor of National Review. He is author or co-author of eight books, including The Supply-Side Revolution (Harvard University Press). He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon chair in political economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and senior research fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He has contributed to numerous scholarly journals and testified before Congress on 30 occasions.

[LeftDemocrat]

Just how far this country slipped into fascism is becoming increasingly clear.  Meanwhile, a UK Lord condemns the Bush administration for acting like a vigilante, contrary to collective security arrangements and international law.

Rumsfeld comes across as main reason for this fascistic turn.  Does he dare travel abroad anymore?  Will he be arrested by the International Criminal Court (ICC), created to bring war criminals to justice?

Secret and Illegal US Order Governs Raids Anywhere on Earth

Posted November 9, 2008

The New York Times is reporting tonight that a secret military order signed by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in spring of 2004 gave the military formal authority to conduct attacks against al-Qaeda anywhere in the world, including nations not current at war with the United States.

The order explicitly mentions 15 to 20 countries across the Muslim world with specific levels of approval needed for missions in each country. A strike in Somalia would only require the defense secretary’s approval, while attacks in Pakistan and Syria need presidential approval.

It is unclear from the report how broadly the directive defines “al-Qaeda terrorist network,” but as it appears to have been the source of the authorizaiton to attack “suspected elements of a robust foreign fighter logistics network” in Syria, not to mention the innumerable attacks in Pakistan over recent months which have targeted everything from Pakistani Taliban-linked religious schools to unfriendly tribes it is being very broadly interpreted.

The report, which cites senior US officials, also brings to light previously undisclosed attacks, such as a 2006 Navy Seal raid in Pakistan’s Bajaur Agency. An attack on September 3 of this year was previously believed to be the first incident of US ground troops attacking targets inside Pakistan.

http://news.antiwar.com/2008/11/09/secret-us-order-governs-raids-anywhere-on-earth/

If Congress, under the Democrats since 2006 November, had reasserted its authority as a co-equal branch, these vigilante air raids and invasions would not occur.   The Judiciary has been telling Congress to buck up and repudiate this imperialist presidency for years, and still the Congress does nothing.   Impeachment at minimum.  Indictment and Imprisonment called for.

Is the U.S. now a Banana Republic unable to hold crazed generals and warmongers in check?

About that raid in Syria:

Anti-U.S. sentiment grows in Syria after raid

Brooke Anderson, Chronicle Foreign Service

Monday, November 10, 2008

Abu Kamal, Syria -- The U.S. incursion into Syria late last month put this eastern border town near Iraq on the world stage and many of its residents on edge.

"At the beginning of the war, we were scared. Then we got used to it. Now we're scared again - and angry," said Yusef Tara, who spoke to a reporter near the site of the Oct. 26 U.S. commando raid against an alleged al Qaeda in Iraq hideout that Damascus says killed eight civilians.

In this tightly controlled police state that had been trying to change its image and end years of global seclusion, protest groups are now allowed to stage anti-American rallies. And even though YouTube is banned, video footage of four U.S. helicopters carrying out the raid is making the rounds on cell phones.

The anti-American sentiment is in sharp contrast to months of toned-down rhetoric against the Bush administration as the two countries edged toward serious talks. The United States had been pleased that Syria accepted Iraqi refugees, made peace overtures to Israel, established full relations with Lebanon and shared intelligence about al Qaeda radicals. Two months ago, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met in New York with her Syrian counterpart, Walid Moallem, in the highest-level talks between the two nations since 2005.

Now, the local media refers to the United States in language reserved for Israel after a military operation in the West Bank or Gaza Strip - war crimes, martyrs, terrorists and deaths of innocent civilians.

"This is the first time in Syrian-U.S. bilateral relations since 1945 (the year diplomatic relations were established) that the Americans attacked Syria," said Sami Moubayed, a political analyst in Damascus, Syria's capitol. "The raid makes it difficult for bilateral relations."

 As Saoud Rak Khalif entered the building, he viewed dried blood, shattered glass and walls pockmarked with bullet holes. His brother Ahmed, a 21-year-old construction worker, died during the raid by U.S. Special Forces.

"They did to us what they're doing to the Iraqis," Khalif said. "I have nothing against the American people. But they attacked civilians. This is terrorism."

Another fatality was Ali Abbas Ramadan, whom family members described as a 35-year-old construction site guard.

"I was in a tent when the helicopters came. The (American) soldiers came to inspect it. I don't know why," said 7-year-old Mariam Ramadan, Ramadan's daughter. "They were speaking a foreign language, and I didn't understand anything."

Syria has demanded that Washington apologize for the strike and has threatened to cut off cooperation on Iraqi border security. The government has also ordered all foreign staff of the American Language Center and American Cultural Center in Damascus to leave the country, and postponed a Nov. 12 meeting of a joint Syrian-Iraqi committee in Baghdad to improve troubled relations.

Baha Rakad, a member of the Human Rights Association in Syria, has pledged to file a lawsuit in Syrian courts against President Bush and the Pentagon on behalf of the victims of the raid.

Meanwhile, political analyst Moubayed points out that Syria's response to the raid has so far been restrained and that President Bashar Assad has expressed hope that Sen. Barack Obama's victory in the U.S. presidential election will bring "constructive dialogue."

"We did not expel the U.S. charge d'affaires, nor recall our ambassador," Moubayed said. "We are keeping room for future dialogue with President Obama."

E-mail Brooke Anderson at foreign@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A - 13 of the San Francisco Chronicle

The so-called "war on terror" that Rumsfeld and Cheney started under Bush is a self-fulfilling prophecy, creating enemies as it goes.

Meanwhile, a British Lord condemns 'serious violation of international law' committed by U.S. and U.K. both.

Lord Bingham, Top Judge in Britain: US and UK acted as 'vigilantes' not 'world policeman' in Iraq invasion

One of Britain's most authoritative judicial figures last night delivered a blistering attack on the invasion of Iraq, describing it as a serious violation of international law, and accusing Britain and the US of acting like a "world vigilante".

Lord Bingham stated: "It was not plain that Iraq had failed to comply in a manner justifying resort to force and there were no strong factual grounds or hard evidence to show that it had." Adding his weight to the body of international legal opinion opposed to the invasion, Bingham said that to argue, as the British government had done, that Britain and the US could unilaterally decide that Iraq had broken UN resolutions "passes belief".

The effect of acting unilaterally was to undermine the foundation on which the post-1945 consensus had been constructed: the prohibition of force unless formally authorised by the nations of the world empowered to make collective decisions in the security council ..."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/18/iraq-us-foreign-policy

Law Lords versus Warlords.

[LeftDemocrat]

We agree with John Nichols that there's still time to impeach! Especially when Cheney seems to want so desperately to be impeached.

Torture-Fan Cheney Securing Worst Veep Title
posted by John Nichols on 12/22/2008 @ 10:54pm

Twenty-three percent of Americans surveyed by CNN say Dick Cheney is the worst vice president in history.

Another 41 percent say Cheney has been a poor No. 2.

So, as the draft-dodging, corporation-coddling, obscenity-spewing, torture-sanctioning shredder of the Constitution prepares to leave the position he should have been forced from by Congress, almost two-thirds of Americans rank Cheney as bad or worse than Spiro Agnew.

But that was before Cheney acknowledged on national television that he had violated his oath to defend a Constitution that bars cruel and unusual punishment by promoting the use of waterboarding.

When asked about the use of torture, Cheney told ABC News, "I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared, as the agency, in effect, came in and wanted to know what they could and couldn't do. And they talked to me, as well as others, to explain what they wanted to do. And I supported it."

Those are the words not merely of the worst vice president in history but of a man who still can -- and should -- be impeached.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/state_of_change/391466/torture_fan_cheney_securing_worst_veep_title?rel=sidebox

[LeftDemocrat]

Largely disgusted here with Obama's willingness to shake the hand of a war criminal.  What a low point in his administration.

Recent news has confirmed what we suspected here at ImpeachOK1, that Bush-Cheney used "dirty bombs" against the city of Fallujah, during the occupation of Iraq.  See above, for story on so-called "depleted" uranium (which of course is still highly radioactive, since its uranium!) used in U.S. missiles, bombs, bulllets, etc.

It is illegal to cause "indiscriminate deaths" on the battlefield, and especially, to do so for untold generations after the original conflict is over and done with.  There should be a war crimes trial for Bush-Cheney, preferably before the latter croaks.

Toxic legacy of US assault on Fallujah 'worse than Hiroshima'

The shocking rates of infant mortality and cancer in Iraqi city raise new questions about battle

By Patrick Cockburn

Saturday, 24 July 2010

Children in Fallujah suffer from birth defects which are thought to be linked to weapons used in attacks on the city by US Marines

Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study.

Iraqi doctors in Fallujah have complained since 2005 of being overwhelmed by the number of babies with serious birth defects, ranging from a girl born with two heads to paralysis of the lower limbs. They said they were also seeing far more cancers than they did before the battle for Fallujah between US troops and insurgents.

Their claims have been supported by a survey showing a four-fold increase in all cancers and a 12-fold increase in childhood cancer in under-14s. Infant mortality in the city is more than four times higher than in neighbouring Jordan and eight times higher than in Kuwait.

Dr Chris Busby, a visiting professor at the University of Ulster and one of the authors of the survey of 4,800 individuals in Fallujah, said: "To produce an effect like this, some very major mutagenic exposure must have occurred in 2004 when the attacks happened".

Dr Busby says that while he cannot identify the type of armaments used by the Marines, the extent of genetic damage suffered by inhabitants suggests the use of uranium in some form. He said: "My guess is that they used a new weapon against buildings to break through walls and kill those inside."

The survey was carried out by a team of 11 researchers in January and February this year who visited 711 houses in Fallujah. A questionnaire was filled in by householders giving details of cancers, birth outcomes and infant mortality.

The study, entitled "Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005-2009", is by Dr Busby, Malak Hamdan and Entesar Ariabi, and concludes that anecdotal evidence of a sharp rise in cancer and congenital birth defects is correct. Infant mortality was found to be 80 per 1,000 births compared to 19 in Egypt, 17 in Jordan and 9.7 in Kuwait. The report says that the types of cancer are "similar to that in the Hiroshima survivors who were exposed to ionising radiation from the bomb and uranium in the fallout".

Researchers found a 38-fold increase in leukaemia, a ten-fold increase in female breast cancer and significant increases in lymphoma and brain tumours in adults. At Hiroshima survivors showed a 17-fold increase in leukaemia, but in Fallujah Dr Busby says what is striking is not only the greater prevalence of cancer but the speed with which it was affecting people.

Of particular significance was the finding that the sex ratio between newborn boys and girls had changed. In a normal population this is 1,050 boys born to 1,000 girls, but for those born from 2005 there was an 18 per cent drop in male births, so the ratio was 850 males to 1,000 females. The sex-ratio is an indicator of genetic damage that affects boys more than girls. A similar change in the sex-ratio was discovered after Hiroshima.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/toxic-legacy-of-us-assault-on-fallujah-worse-than-hiroshima-2034065.html

Let's face it, Bush-Cheney were together a species of evil, for being willing to order the use of such weapons against an entire city, causing indiscriminate death, pain, and suffering, none of which is limited in time, and may continue indefinitely.   DU weapons were originally classified as genocidal weapons, by the U.S., in the 1940s.

Shouldn't Bush-Cheney be held to account for using genocidal weapons?