war crimes times fall issue

8/14/2019 War Crimes Times Fall issue

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The War Crimes TimesWarCrimesTimes.org

News a Press

Thats Free

Would Print

Fall Ed

Therno statulimita

on war c

AFGHANISTAN ESCALATES

Vol. I No. 4 Fall 2009 Free (as the press sh

5 0 T o p U . S .

War Criminalsby David Swanson

Compiled below, in hopes that

it may be of some assistance toEric Holder, John Conyers,Patrick Leahy, active citizens,foreign courts, the Interna-tional Criminal Court, lawfirms preparing civil suits, andlocal or state prosecutors withdecency and nerve is a list of50 top living U.S. war crimi-nals . These are men andwomen who helped to launchwars of aggression or whohave been complicit in lesserwar crimes. These are not thelowest-ranking employees ortroops who managed to strayfrom official criminal policies.

These are the makers of thosepolicies.

The occupations of Iraqand Afghanistan have seenthe United States target civil-ians, journalists, hospitals, and

(See TOP 50 on page 6)

War Criminals

Watched!by Sharon Pavlovich

News Flash: Attorney General

Eric Holder appoints a Special Prosecutor to investigate whether Bush and major figures in his

administ ra t ion should be

prosecuted for war crimes un-

der U.S. and international laws.

Unfortunately, this was not themessage crawling beneath thewell-groomed heads of main-stream media communicators.Holder did appoint a federal

prosecutor to examine about adozen prisoner abuse cases inwhich detainees were held bythe Central Intelligence Agency.This is clearly a limited task andfar from full exposure of the

issue of war crimes: it avoids prosecution of the formulatorsof an illegal aggressive warin Iraq and it does not followthe path of torture of detaineesto the top of the chain of

(See CRIMINAL WATCH on page 6)

Girl killed by

NATO missileby Saboor Mangal

KHOST CITY, Sept. 2, 2009(Pajhwok Afghan News): Amissile fired by NATO troopshit on a house, killing one girland injuring another in the

restive southeastern Khostprovince, bordering Pakistan.

The incident happened in Narizi village of Tani districtTuesday night, resident MirHakim told Pajhwok Afghan

News on Wednesday. The vic-tims were sisters.

One of the girls was killedon the spot and another shiftedto a nearby hospital. No infor-mation about her health condi-tion was immediately available.

NATO's media office inKhost City verified the inci-dent and voiced deep regretsover it. It said they were in a

bid to contact the affectedfamily and to help it.

McChrystal tries

to calm Afghans

after air strikeby Mohammad Hamed

YAQOUBI, Afghanistan, Sept. 5,2009 (Reuters): The commanderof U.S. and NATO forces in

Afghanistan flew on Saturdayto the scene of a deadly airstrike by his forces, trying tocool anger that threatens hisstrategy of winning hearts andminds.

Afghan officials say scoresof people were killed, many ofthem civilians, when a U.S. F-15fighter jet called in by Germantroops struck two hijacked fueltrucks before dawn on Friday.

The incident was the firstin which Western forces areaccused of killing large num-

bers of civilians since U.S.A r m y G e n e r a l S t a n l e y

McChrystal took command inJune, announcing that protect-ing Afghans was the centre-

piece of a new strategy.In an unprecedented televised

address to the Afghan people,the general said his forces hadlaunched the air strike againstwhat they thought was a Tali-

ban target. He promised tomake the outcome of an inves-tigation public.

"As Commander of theInternational Security Assis-tance Force, nothing is moreimportant than the safety and

protection of the Afghan people," he said in the taped ad-dress, released in versionsdubbed into the two officiallanguages, Dari and Pashtu.

"I take this possible loss oflife or injury to innocent Af-ghans very seriously."

He later made a brief per-sonal tour of the site in Kun-duz, a once-safe northern

province where fighters havestepped up attacks and seizedcontrol of remote areas, part of

Inside War crimes past and present: USS Liberty (Joel Kovel),Vietnam (Deborah Nelson), Afghanistan (Francis A. Boyle, JayJanson); Torture (Dave Lindorff); Army Experience Center (Pat

Elder); Readers and veterans speak out; poetry; and more.

Civilian Casualties MounOutrage as

Forces Atta

Afghan HosNo Explanation G

as Troops Force

Way in, Tie Up St

by Jason DitzSept. 6, 2009(AntiwThe charity group Swedmittee for Afghanistan outrage today in repU.S. attack on a remot

being operated by thThe troops burst in to

pital without explanconducted a full anviolent search of the f

The troops reportup several employeesfamily of some of theordered the bed-riddeno u t o f t h e i r r o osmashed down sever

including the door to nutrition ward. Theyarrest anybody, but uping ordered the staff anybody coming to thtal to seek treatment btreatment was provide

NATO spokesmfirmed the raid, but had no information abit was done and respeculate. The Unitedcautioned that the ra

potential violation oneva Conventions, wsist that military pavoid operating insidefacilities.

The charity sayssame hospital was inan incident in July, wvate contractors escsupply convoy forcway in and used the hhide from insurgentshelicopter also attsmall medical clinic iProvince last week osis of a report that a insurgent might be ins

an insurgency that is now atits fiercest stage in the 8-year-old war.

NATO says its targets inthe raid were Taliban fighterswho had hijacked the fueltrucks, but has acknowledgedthat some of the victims beingtreated in hospital are civil-ians.

In the village of Yaqoubi,a scattering of mud-brickhomes near the blast site, resi-

dents wept and prayed besidedozens of graves of victims onSaturday, while Taliban fight-ers with rifles looked on. Themilitants' presence was proofof their increasing dominationof an area recently under gov-ernment control.

"We will take revenge. Alot of innocent people werekilled here," one of the Tali-

ban fighters, only his eyes leftuncovered by a thick scarf,said at the funeral.

Citizen Groups Continue to

Call for Prosecution , Action


2/16

War Crimes Times WarCrimesTimes.org NEWS & VIEWS Fall 200

prisoners by the hundreds, afact that the entire Israeli armyleadership knew about andcondoned, according to thearmys own historian. Inother words, one war crimewas used to conceal another.

Why did the United Stateslet Israel get away with this?In the narrow, immediatesense, there is no mystery.According to an admiralquoted by Bamford, PresidentLyndon Johnson came on witha comment that he didnt careif the ship sunk, he would notembarrass his allies. Thatshow it had to happen: a com-mand from the top overrulingeven the views of the Secre-tary of State, and explicitlyforbidding acknowledgementand investigation; even thesurviving sailors were threat-

ened with court-martial if theyspoke out.We may safely infer two

levels of motivation. First,LBJ and the U.S. High Com-mand had already decided thatIsrael was to be a primestrategic asset in the pursuitof imperial aims, in the MiddleEast and elsewhere. And sec-ond, it is impossible to overes-timate the political threat

posed by the Israel Lobby towhoever challenges the Zionist

s ta te . Mer e massAmerican seamen, miliation of the Supnone of this can sta

balance against the Israel in the United S

The impunity giv

rael for its destructiLiberty is scarcely aevent. It may be theepisode to have America directly, butone in an unending human rights violatending from the fouthe Jewish State rightlatest atrocity in Gazwhere we look in thcriminality we see i

by impunity conferrUnited States and anmultiple places in oufrom the Congress to and the media. But t

on the Liberty and itswere exceptionally oueven within the grimhuman rights violaexposure, therefore, cvital role in breaking of impunity and about justice in theEast. We need to fogress to begin the invthat has been postponyears. This is a storynot be allowed to fade

The War Crimes Times reports on war crimes, war criminals, and on the need to prosecute war criminals. TheWCTis published by Veterans For Peace Chapter 099 (Western North Carolina) and distributed free of charge acrossthe country. Our funding comes from our distributors (VFP chapters and like-minded groups) who pay onlyfor printing and postage costs. A number of copies are distributed completely gratis. We welcome donations.Send a check (with memo "WCT") to:

Death by Ally: 1967 Attack on U.S.

by Israel

Contact: [email protected] Editorial Team: Kim Carlyle, Susan Carlyle, Mike Ferner,

Clare Hanrahan, Stack Kenny, and Tarak Kauff

Veterans For Peace Chapter 099PO Box 356Mars Hill, NC 28754

launched their missiles. It wasfortunate that only one torpedostruck its target, tearing anenormous hole in the hull, elsethe ship would have sunk ut-terly, all lives lost, as was ob-viously the Israeli intention.

But even so, 34 sailors andtechnicians died while 174were wounded and the shipwas for all intents destroyed. Itwas the worst disaster to besuffered by the United States

Navy since the World War II and itwas the work of our greatest ally,Americas strategic asset.Most remarkable and distress-ing, the dreadful end of theLiberty has become, officiallyspeaking, a non-event, virtu-ally unrecorded in our newsmedia of record and basicallyignored by our government.

I was keenly attentive to the

Six Day War as it unfolded, andthough I recall seeing newsstories about the destruction ofthe Liberty, the notion that themayhem might have been de-liberate barely entered mymind. It was just too cognitivelydissonant. Instead, I found thestrenuous Israeli insistencethat a tragic accident hadoccurred persuasive by de-fault. This had nothing to dowith its merits, everything todo with the fact that neither acompelling alternative expla-nation nor any criticism ofIsraels behavior was ever

publicly advanced by the U.S.Israels version filled the vac-uum, and our pro-Zionist me-dia, as usual, accommodated it.

How were we to know thatthe Israeli investigations of theevent were inadequate, andindeed, bogus? Or that a furi-ous debate was raging at thehighest levels of the UnitedStates government. This wasnot about whether Israel haddeliberately attacked the ship,

but whether tol e t t h e m g e taway with it or

not. On one sidewere officialslike Secretaryof State Ruskand high mili-

by Joel Kovel

Not all crimes of war arecommitted against helplesscivilian populations.

The rising sun of June 8,

1967 shone upon an unusualship in international waters offthe corner of the Mediterra-nean defined by Gaza to theEast and the Nile Delta to theSouth. It was the USS Liberty,the largest and best equippedof the seven-vessel f leetlaunched by the National Se-curity Agency, the top surveil-lance faculty of the UnitedStates. Loaded with state-of-the-art equipment, the Libertyhad arrived to monitor the SixDay war of 1967 between Is-rael and the adjacent Arabstates, at this moment enteringits fifth day. The Liberty feltsafe. After all, Israel was thegreat friend and client of theUnited States; and so when theIsraeli jets appeared in the skyat dawn to circle the communi-cations ship, the seamen andtechnicians may have musedabout the fact that the fighter-

bombers were made in Amer-ica, indeed, were gifts fromUnited States, and that theIsraelis had sovereignty of thesky thanks to daring strikesthat had destroyed the Egyp-tian air force on June 4. But

surely, on this cloudless day,the planes would see the largeAmerican flags prominently

placed on the Liberty. Noth-ing, therefore, to worry about.

But then, around noon, the planes returned and beganbombing and strafing the de-fenseless Liberty, killing USsailors sunning themselves onthe deck and opening holes inthe hulls. They did this againand againand then the tor-

pedo boats appeared and

tary officials; on the other De-fense Secretary McNamara andPresident Johnson, who werewilling to let bygones be by-gones to preserve the SpecialRelationship. And the relation-ship, once again, prevailed.

There is no Statute ofLimitations for war crimes.

Now, forty-two years later,thanks to an unrelenting effort

by survivors and their families,along with permanently out-raged military and intelligencecadre and a small but fiercelydedicated band of sleuths andactivists,* the truth is comingcloser and closer to the sur-face, and we can begin devel-oping the answers to somevery pressing questions:

Was the attack on the Lib-erty, as Israel has claimed, atragic case of mistaken iden-

tity? The answer, flatly, is NO.We have the records of Israeli

pilots telling their base insome anguish that the targetwas a United States ship and

being ordered to take it out.Oliver Kirby, Deputy Directorof the NSA, has stated: "I cantell you for an absolute cer-tainty [from intercepted com-munications] that the Israelisknew they were attacking anAmerican ship." Or DeanRusk: "I was never satisfiedwith the Israel i explana-tion....Through diplomaticchannels we refused to accepttheir explanations. I didn't be-lieve them then, and I don't

believe them to this day. Theattack was outrageous."

Why would Israel havedone such a thing? It stands toreason that the Israelis musthave thought it necessary todestroy the Liberty to preventdisclosure of something theyfelt had to be kept hidden.Here a degree of speculation isnecessary. James Bamford,definitive historian of the

NSA, is probably closest to themark when he wrote that as

the Liberty was setting up itswork on June 8, a scant dozenor so miles away, Israeli sol-d i e r s w e r e b u t c h e r i n g[Egyptian] civilians and bound

USS Liberty before attack (above) and after (b


3/16


by Dave Lindorff

When you hear about thes i c k , t w i s t e d t h i n g sthat America's torturers have

been doing, courtesy of Presi-dent George W. Bush andVice President Darth Cheney,

you have to remember thatthe U.S. military and the CIAwere not really all that reliablewhen it came to picking up thereal terrorists. In fact, their

batting average was prettylousy.

According to even the Pen-tagon's own reckoning, forexample, probably 85 per centof the captives being heldat Guantanamo over the pasteight years were notterrorists at all, and afair numberprobablythe majorityweren'teven fighting anyone

when they were cap-tured. I'm sure that theaverages at Bagram AirBase in Afghanistan, orat the secret prisonin Iraq are no better.The military was offering

bounties in Iraq and Afghani-stan for alleged terrorists, yousee, and probably still is, butin both of those lawless, tribalcountries, many people haveused the offer to settle oldfeuds, turning in people theywanted to punish or disposeof, and many others just turned

in random people to get thereward money.Remember this when you

hear about torture tactics thatwe are learning were used byo u r s i d e t h i n g s t h a tmake waterboarding soundlike a walk in the park. We're

now getting confirmation ofthings that we journalists werehearing rumors of earlier:faked executions using blanks,faked executions in neighbor-ing rooms, followed by threatsof the same to a person who

had just heard the screams anda shot in the cell next to him,threats with an electric drill,and now perhaps the worstyetthe threat to kill a cap-tive's children. And of coursethere is the already disclosedcase of a captive who had hisgenitals cut with a razor, andgenerous use of tasers inplaces on the body designed tocause maximum pain. That,

and of course there are a lotraped captives ( includingyoung boys), and a lot of bod-ies yet to be dug up of captiveswho were simply killed duringtorture.

We've got a litany of horrorand abuse here that sounds likethe worst kind of stories thatused to come out of SaddamHussein's Iraq, or the Argentine

Junta or Idi Amin's Uganda.About the only thing missingis word that the military andCIA torturers were eating theirvictims, or feeding them theirown genitals, but who knows?Maybe we'll get there yet. It'sh a r d a t t h i s p o i n t t o

rule anything out.What has becomeof the U.S.? Wes ta r ted ou t thevictims of an at-tack in 2001, withthe whole worldr a l ly ing to our side, and within amatter of weeks,our government,a c t i n g i n o u r name, had secretlyembar ked on awholly unneces-sary and totallycriminal descentinto barbarism.A nd now ? Thenew administra-tion has claimed tohave put a stop to

the atrocities, but it remainsadamant that it is not going toroot out the evil that was al-ready done to hundreds, per-haps thousands of people.

President Barack Obama sayshe does not want to look backat any crimes that were com-

m i t t e d . H e w a n t s t o g o"forward." This is not thevoice of justice, though. Thisis the voice of political gut-l e s s n e s s a n d o f b i g

power exceptionalism. Thesame America that demandsthe prosecution of war crimi-n a l s i n l i t t l e c o u n t r i e slike Cambodia or Serbia or Sudan, considers itself exemptfrom criminal liability for its

own crimes.Attorney General Eric

Holder is appointing a special prosecutor, John Durham, toinvestigate cases where CIA or

private contract torturers"overstepped" the rules set bythe White House and JusticeDepartment, but he has said hewill not allow the investigation

to go beyond that to pursue thepeople who enabled those actsof torturepeople like Secre-t a r y o f D e f e n s e D o n -ald Rumsfeld who personallyinstructed torturers in Afghani-stan to "take the gloves off" inone case, or Assistant AttorneyG e n e r a l s J o h n Y o o a n d

Jay Baybee (now afederal judge), whoruled that any-thing short of thedestruction of bodilyorgans or of a painlevel equivalent todeath was okay.

Nor will he allowany investigationto look at acts oftorture that wereauthorized, likewaterboarding, ifthey had the sanc-tion of the Bush/C h e n e y W h i t eHouse.

This positiontaken by the newadminis t r a t ionshould sicken usa l l . W o r s e , i tshould be broadly condemned,

because if the descent into bar- barity which occurred with thehighest White House sanction is

not investigated thoroughly,and punished fully, there is noway we can say it will not hap-

pen again. In fact, it's safe tos a y t h a t i t w i l l h a p -

pen again, the next time anothercharlatan gets into office anduses fear to blind the American

people to all that is right anddecent, and to the importance ofmaintaining the rule of law.

I know there are terriblethings happening right nowwhich demand our attention andactionan escalating, endlesswar in Afghanistan that increasinglyresembles Vietnam in 1966 or 1967,

a presidential cave-on on healthcare reform, but this particularcrimethe crime of failing toact to punish violations of theGeneva Conventions on treat-ment of prisoners of war, whichis being committed today bythe Obama administrationisso obscene, so directly in ourfaces, and is such a stain on the

whole nation, that itaction.

We will probabknow how many ilives have been dest

America's eight yearcially sanctioned torwe can at least see to

people who sanctionnot just those who enit (and that goes through the chain of to the Commander and to the real powthe throne, Dick Che

put in the dock like nals at Nuremberg, toc h a r g e o f w a r and crimes against hu

As the citizens ofcall a democracy, wmand nothing less.

Dave Lindorff, a jou

36 years , has wr

CounterPunch, SalonessWeek, The NatioStone, Mother JonesVoice, Forbes, The Loserver and the Austrtional Times. His wthiscantbehappening.n

G e t t i n g A w a y W i t h T o r t u r e

Obama says he does not want to look back

This is the voice of political gutlessness andof big power exceptionalism.

A SeptemberCNN/Opinion

Research Corp. survey showed that 58percent of Americans oppose the warin Afghanistan.

Collateral Dam

Smart bombsurgical strik

pinpoint precis

Whoops!

Orphanedbleedingblinded

permanently disfistarvinglimblessshoelesshomeless

half-nakedrefugees.

Stuff happen

Mac

ACTION: Show the powerful, 48-minutefilm, Rethink Afghanistan; inviteyour congressperson for the discus-sion. Info at rethinkafghanistan.com.

Think Again!


4/16


TheArmy Experience Centerand the Developmen

of a Warrior CasteBy Pat Elder

Afghanistan raged, recruitingcompany commands faced adiminished pool of talented,educated officers with somesemblance of an educated,world view. The wars in Iraqand Afghanistan have placed atremendous strain on the Armyofficer corps and systemicshortages exist in many keyranks and specialties. Conse-quently, this shortage of Cap-tains and Majors has necessi-tated the assignment of manylower quality officers to re-

cruiting command.For many, war is prefer-

able to the hassle of recruiting.Rolling a donutcoming upwith no recruits for a month can be tortuous. Consider thefive Houston battalion recruit-ers whove killed themselvesin a relatively short period oftime. Recruiters work 12- to14-hour days, six or sevendays a week. If they dont fill

monthly quotas, thecized as failures, with even longer hthreatened with losinreceiving poor evaaccording to mediaI t s a l l about p rbodies on the floorrecruits at MEPS, Military Entrance PCommand. These chevidence of a fun

paradigm shift.

This shift is alsterized by a drift

more cloistered exisrecruiters, as evidencsuccessful unveilinArmy Experience CPhiladelphia. Incrrecruiters are persgrata in thousands onities across the naticalls are anathema tand teens in millionsholds. To counter tthe military is micro

potentiaAt FranMall, thgon is gteens w

have Xhome, t o a nrecruit

battalion

These trcontinually. SAEC oparea res t a t i o nclosed.

(Continu

Teaching 13-year-old chil-dren military tactics through

the use of video games at thelocal shopping mall maysound like a completely novelidea, but the concept of train-ing and indoctrinating 13-year-olds to join a warrior caste has

been around since very earlytimes. The ancient Chinese,Indians, and Japanese beganindoctrinating youth at 13. Weknow from the Greek historianThucydides, who lived 2,500

years ago, that boys in Spartawere cultivated and supervised

by military officials like themodern-day military recruiters

and educational specialists.

The children of Spartawere drilled in battle usingknives and swords. At theArmy Experience Center inPhiladelphia the same kind oftraining for warfare is taking

place, except children usesimulated M-16 automaticrifles and M-240B light ma-chine guns. The training in

each scenario is appropriatefor different kinds of battlefacing the dreaded Atheniansin hand-to-hand combat duringthe Peloponnesian War orlaunching Hellfire missiles tosuspected terrorist targets inAfghanistan by robotic dronescontrolled from digital warrooms in suburban Maryland

and California.

The Spartans realized theimportance of developing theethos of a warrior caste andwere seeing that same phe-nomena today in America.

This i sn t a f a r -fetched notion. ThePentagon is intent onmilitarizing Ameri-

can youth at the ear-liest ages to cultivatethis new breed ofsoldier, based on an

ancient model.

Consider the changesmade to the U.S.Armys Soldier sCreed. The old creed,discarded in 2003, hadsoldiers recite, Nom a t t e r w h a t t h esituation I am in, Iwill never do any-

thing, for pleasure, profit, or personal safety, which willdisgrace my uniform, my unit,or my country. I will use everymeans I have, even beyond theline of duty, to restrain myArmy comrades from actionsdisgraceful to themselves and

to the uniform.

T h e s e w o r d s w e r escrapped for: I am an Ameri-can Soldier. I am a Warriorand a member of a team. I willalways place the mission first.I will never accept defeat. I

will never quit. I will neverleave a fallen comrade. I amdisciplined, physically andmentally tough, trained and

proficient in my warrior tasksand drills. I stand ready to de-

ploy, engage, and destroy theenemies of the United States

of America in close combat.

In 2005, when Army Chief ofStaff Peter Schoomaker orderedArmy recruiters in the nations

public schools to wear combatuniforms, it signaled a philoso-

phical sea change in the tenorof military recruiting through-out the nation. It was disturb-ing to many recruiters, used towearing Class A or Class Buniforms. It squarely placedthe subject of polarizing, un-

popular wars on the table ofnational discourse, reflective

of President Bushs us vs.them mindset.

Career recruiters recognizedthe change. Recruiter manualswere purged of references ofcontracts or references toselling. Instead, a new crea-ture, a new animal was to becultivatedthe warrior. Arti-cles in the U.S. Armys RecruitingCommands Recruiter Journal

became bellicose overnight.There was no overall strategyin the shift, according to tworecruiting insiders, except thata strident, jingoistic tone was

adopted in communicationsfrom the command to recruiters.The August-September 2009 edi-tion of the Recruiter Journal callson recruiters to Take Back theSchools and is filled with com-

bat-related analogies to recruiting

in high school hallways.

Another phenomenon hasshaped the drift toward thegoal of recruiting lifelong war-riors rather than citizen sol-diers. As the wars in Iraq and

U.S. Armys Soldiers Creed.

THEN: I will never do any-thingwhich will disgrace my uniform,my unit, or my country. I will useevery meansto restrain my Armycomrades from actions disgraceful to

themselves and to the uniform.

NOW: I am a WarriorI willalways place the mission first. I willnever accept defeat. I will neverquit.I stand ready to deploy,engage, and destroy the enemies of

the United States

From Pat Elders call to Shut Down the Army ExCenter at shutdowntheaec.net:

"This is so cool!" This is so cool!" The enthralled 1old kept repeating as he squeezed rounds from his M-16

off "enemy combatants" while perched on a real Army H

The young teen, who doesn't look older than eleven, wously impressed with the Army's killing machines. "I juto the mall to skateboard in the skate park across the everyone said this was pretty cool. I just had to try it and its

Video games offer the perfect segue between childhocence and institutionalized killing. Thats why the Armthe Army Experience Center, a one-of-a-kind, 14,500foot virtual educational facility in August of 2008. Athe Army says its not about recruiting, all 20 soldiers sat the mall are active duty recruiters.

The virtual shooting ranges and video games are an abothat cheapen life and blur the lines between virtual kilthe real thing. We are outraged by this development. Wea dangerous escalation in the militarization of Americanand we vow to shut it down.

The simulated experience: Youth and adultsenjoy the killing games at the Army ExperienceCenter at Franklin Mills Mall in Philadelphia.

The actual experience:Afghan orphans.


5/16


Winning their hearts & mindsIs showing children how to kill a war crime?

A number of Veterans For Peace mem-bers saw this picture in theJuneau Empireand made these comments.

Dear Editor:On Sunday morning (May 24, the day

before Memorial Day), the Empire did agreat service to our community by pub-lishing a photograph of a NationalGuardsman, a Humvee, an M249 machinegun, and a group of children, convergingat the so-called Outdoor Safety Exposponsored by the Juneau Rotary on Satur-

day, May 23.A cynical attempt to manipulate and

militarize children is the only conceivable purpose for the National Guard to showup to display fancy killing machines, andto encourage little kids to play with them.The M249 is a light machine gun; itsonly purpose is to maim and kill human

beings. What in Gods name did that dis-

play have to do with outdoor safety?

Shame on the National Guard, andshame on the Juneau Rotary for sponsor-

ing this dishonorable atrocity.

Phil Smith, President

Veterans for Peace, Chapter 100Juneau, Alaska

Sadly though, it probably doesntoccur to Staff Sgt .Manson that he mightwell be grooming potential poster kids forthe back door draft and Post-TraumaticStress Disorder, if theyre lucky enoughto come home.

Gene MarxNaval Flight Officer 1969-76

Gulf of Tonkin 1971-72

The disconnect of that NationalGuard guy from the fundamentals ofsimple humanity is apparent. That agrown man would expose what appearto be four and five-year-olds to theworkings of a lethal weapon and thinkit fun and cute is sad. It speaks to the

pervasive militarism that produced thatyoung man and his distorted notions ofwhat is and is not appropriate play forvery young children.

Woody PowellUSAF Korea 1952-53, K9 Corps.

What an amazing photograph! Those

kids are now marked by some infantilefantasy that shooting this gun would be funand that if they join the Army they will getto do that. They have no concept ofdeath, or that this gun deals death, orthat they and their victims will pay aterrible price for their desires.

Paul Cox

USMC Infantry 1968-1972,Vietnam 1969-70

Id like to see Sergeant MichaelManson sitting behind the machinegun instead of helping children sitthere and then Id like to shoot a fewhundred rounds from another machinegun at his bullet screen, while the kidswatch safely from someplace nearby.

Maybe then he would think twice before glorifying the act of sittingbehind a machine gun to kids, withoutteaching the true ramifications of

being an army gunner. The childrenwouldnt EVER want to be there again.Shame on the National Guard for allowingthis activity with our children.

And this was at a Safety Expo?Ward Reilly

U.S. Army Infantry

and ex-gunner 1971-74

That a national guardsman would at-tempt to seduce children this young issymptomatic of a society in deterioration.

Robert PoteatUSN, 1950-53

Worth 1,000 Wordsadapted from http://mikeferner.org/

Alaska Army National Guard Staff Sergeant Mi-

chael Manson helps kids climb on a HumVee and

handle a M249 Saw gun.Juneau Empire 5-24-09

I have worked in schools foryears, and have witnessed increasing military presenceceptance of it by public school o

The thorns that I have reapAre of the tree I planted,They have torn me, and I blI should have known what fwould spring from such a se

Lord Byr

Budda said something to

The world is made up of our thouWhat thoughts will the

leave with after seeing, toucbeing told about this article oexcept not being told of its true pu

JeArmy, Vietnam

101st Airborne and 1st Cav.

These young children looto be four-year-olds, the NGing what their bosses told themin Abu Ghraib, Bagram and Guan

George McUS Army (MPC) 1966-

Training for U.S. militaralists of the 21st century start

John U.S. Army Security Agency

Kids this age still play wfriends, sometimes with toy seeing children look in awe athingmakes something only to kill appear commonfriendly, like a favorite toy.

Joe AUSMC 1966-68

So many oppor tun ipersonal growth. Like a job

pression now, thats a gre

tunity. Cant get work, heyimperial centurions and go hand kill kids out there on the empire in some place like Afwhere kids just like you can

job either and have the opporpersonal growth offered tosome mullah & madrassa thawork of our Army Experienor your local festival featuHumvees and SAWs. Seems is full of opportunities for growth these days. Kurt Vsummed it up best: And so it g

JoArmy Security Agency

Vietnam

Some actions, which can ocduring times of peace, could considered war crimes. Perthe culture of war is one of this a sickness of our society not be cured until we stop glountil we stop sanitizing it, stop pretending its a game, we stop indoctrinating impreyoung people.

Kim Carlyle,

Veterans For Peace, ChWestern North

will no longer be coming into contactwith the mainstream and thats just finewith the Pentagon. Developing a WarriorCaste isnt dependent on popular sup-

port. With the AEC, the Army is expos-ing/indoctrinating teens to a very narrowslice of what the Army doeskilling

bad guys. There are nearly 200 occupationalspecialties in the Army. Even those servingin the infantry are called on to do awhole lot more than shoot people. ThePentagons agenda is very clearpresenta narrow view of the Army experienceand hope that those indoctrinated willenlist; and volunteer for a combat cate-

gorization on their own accord.

Throughout world history, warriorcastes have been built from particular

(Continued from page 4) regions or ethnicities within the territorialconfines of an empire. Were no exceptiontoday. Our warrior caste is being built dis-

proportionately from recruits who hail fromthe Old South. We are witnessing the de-velopment of a military radically unmooredfrom the intellectual and popular center ofAmerican socio-political thought, furthercontributing to the refinement and furtherdevelopment of a new caste in American

society the warrior caste.

That brings us back to the two 13-year-olds giving each other high-fives in asuburban shopping mall in Philadelphia forwiping out ragheads with automaticmachine gun fire. The Army has plans toextend these Experience Centers acrossthe country. Wed better wake up before

its too late.


6/16


memo promoting presidential power to launch aggressivewar; and claimed the power todecree that the federal statutesagainst torture, assault, maim-ing, and stalking do not applyto the military in the conductof the war, and to announce anew definition of torture limit-ing it to acts causing intense

pain or suffering equivalent to pain associated with serious physical injury so severe thatdeath, organ failure or perma-nent damage resulting in lossof significant body functions

will likely result. Yoo claimedin 2005 that a president has theright to enhance an interroga-tion by crushing the testicles

of someone's child.

2. Robert J. Delahunty:Along with John Yoo, authored aninfamous memo (1/9/02) for theU.S. Justice Department whichadvised that the Geneva Con-ventions do not apply to the waragainst al Qaeda, the Taliban, andterrorism. The legal advice

prosecute or cease commissionof these crimes. The list could

be greatly expanded. It couldalso be narrowed. I would ar-gue, however, that it presents amore reasonable starting placethan Holder's reported pro-

posal to investigate only CIAemployees who failed to com-

ply with criminal torture poli-cies, of whom there are no

doubt more than 50.

Because each of the peo-ple on this list should be non-violently protested everywhere

they go, I have organized themby location.

CALIFORNIA

1. John Yoo: Professor ofLaw at Boalt Hall School ofLaw in Berkeley, California,(but a lawyer with the Penn-sylvania bar from which heshould be disbarred and would

be if enough people demandedit) counseled the White Houseon how to get away with warcrimes; wrote the famous

ambulances, use antipersonnelweapons including cluster

bombs in densely settled urbanareas, use white phosphorousas a weapon, use depleted ura-nium weapons, employ a newversion of napalm found inMark 77 firebombs, engage incollective punishment of Iraqic i v i l i a n p o p u l a t i o n s including by blocking roads,cutting electricity and water,destroying fuel stations, plant-ing bombs in farm fields, de-molishing houses, and plowingdown orchardsdetain peoplewithout charge or legal proc-ess without the rights of pris-oners of war, imprison chil-

dren, torture, and murder.

The list below does notinclude those responsible forwar crimes prior to 2001. Nordoes it include those currentlyin power who are makingthemselves complicit by failing to

(Continued from page 1)

command. Among other state-ments, Holder has made clearthat the Bar Association ratherthan the courts should dealwith the Bush lawyers in theOffice of Legal Counsel thatlegitimated torture.

Accountability is appar-ently off the table for theO b a m a a d m i n i s t r a t i o n .Obama says we must moveforward. This appears, how-ever, to be more like movingon with a lite or, more cor-rectly, legitimated version ofthe same policies. The ad-ministration refused to releasethe torture photos from Iraqand Afghanistan, called forcontinuing the policies ofpreventative detention andrendition, refused to abandonclaims of national securityas the government defense fordetainees seeking redress in thecourts, and on and on and on.

The truth is the countrycannot go forward withoutaccountability for the crimesof the past. World Cant Wait

(Continued from page 1)

has initiated a project called

W a r C r i m i n a l s W a t c h :www.WarCriminalsWatch.org.The project organizes and re-

ports on actions around thecountry to hold war criminalsresponsible for their illegalacts. War CriminalsWatch can be visited onFacebook as well.

W a r C r i m i n a l sWatch identifies andtracks accused war criminals as they move

back into civil societyfrom their roles in theBush administration.

The website providesdetailed factual research aboutmajor actors who created thetorture policies and committedother war crimes. It tracesthose people to their new rolesin universities, foundations,think tanks, courts, boardsof directors of corporations,etc.

In addition to providinginformation, the site has otherimportant functions: primarilyencouraging and building ac-tions against war criminalswherever they are and provid-

Top 50 criminals

Criminal Watching support to individuals andgroups with organizing tools,such as articles, flyers, posters,etc. The site is interactive andhas a single purposeto builda local and national base ofsupport for prosecution.

The campaign to fire JohnYoo has been valuable in itselfand as a model for the kind ofa c t i o n s t h a t n e e d t o b elaunched around the country,especially on college cam-

puses. Yoos return to UCBerkeley's Boalt Hall Schoolof Law from a semesters exileat Chapman Law School wasmet by protesters from groupslike World Can't Wait dressedin orange prisoner suits similarto ones seen in infamous pho-tos of Iraq's Abu Ghraib

prison. They carried signs thatread, "Shame on Yoo" and"Say No To Torture." (Seewww.firejohnyoo.org).

Protesters also rallied forthe impeachment of Judge JayBybee in front of the Ninth

Circuit Court of Appealsin San Francisco. WorldCan' t Wait set up aBush and Bybee Tor-ture museum featuring

photos of tortured pris-oners and signs that de-tailed approved torturetechniques.At Texas Tech, where

Alberto Gonzalez wasrecently hired at a reportedsalary of $100,000 to teachone 15-student seminar oncontemporary issues in theexecutive branch, at least 38

professors signed a petitionprotesting the appointment.

Other developments have brought the issue of Bush re-gime illegalities to the fore.On September 4th, a three-

judge panel of the U.S. Courtof Appeals for the Ninth Cir-cuit ruled that former AttorneyGeneral John Ashcroft can be

held personally respothe illegal detention olah al-Kidd who, almany others, was roafter 9/11. This coufloodgate of civil law

Neither torture war crimes have gonnor has the call for tion. Check out the on the site for a mevents taking place acountry.

War Criminals Wcollaborative project.a movement requiresshipswith groups,

tions and individua board of advisors outspoken cr i t icscrimes: William BC a n d a c e G o r m aMcGovern, David SLawrence Velvel, Anthington, and Ann Wrare endorsed by Veteranand AfterDowningStr

Neither torture nor other warcrimes have gone awaynor

has the call for prosecution.

of this memo helped the Bushadministration to legitimizeharsh methods of interroga-tion, which are widely under-stood to be torture. He should

be disbarred in NY, is now atenured professor at the Universityof St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN.Ironically, he teaches constitu-tional law and legal ethics. He

briefly and with considerableprotest taught at the University

of Minnesota Law School.

3. Patrick F. Philbin: Yoocolleague, Deputy, should be

disbarred in D.C. and MA.4. Jay Bybee: Federal judgeon the United States Court ofAppeals for the Ninth Circuit,headquartered in San Francisco,California (but Bybee is basedin Las Vegas), counseled theWhite House on how to get awaywith war crimes, including byhelping Yoo draft the memodescribed above. He signed notonly torture memos but also amemo purporting to legalizeillegal and unconstitutional

wars. BYBEE SHO

IMPEACHED.

5. William J. "Jim" HWas General CounsD e p a r t m e n t o("Defense"). He is nCorporate CounseChevron Corporate San Ramon, Califocounseled the White how to get away wcrimes, including bymemos for Yoo. M

bar in GA, NC, DC.

6. Major General (Ret

E. Dunlavey: Judge, ECourt, Common Pleas, E

7. Diane Beaver: To

lawyer at Gitmo.

8. Jack Landman GIII: DoD General C

Office at Pentagon .

9. Ms. Eliana Davidson

tional Law Division, OfGeneral Counsel, Off

Secretary of "Defense

(Continue

Get involved

Contact:

warcriminalsw

@worldcantwai


7/16


openly for an illegal war ofaggression against a "non-al

Qaeda target."

31. Elliot Abrams9: Served asDeputy National Security Advisorfor Global Democracy Strategy inWashington, D.C., and whereverhe can do the most damagearound the world, was a well-established war criminal even

before he helped to build afalse case for attacking Iraqand supported a failed coup

attempt in Venezuela.

32. Karl Rove8,10: Owns mil-lion dollar houses in Washing-ton, D.C., and Florida, andworks for Fox News, News-week, and the Wall Street

Journalwhen not testifying tocongressional committees orfederal prosecutors about hisnumerous unindicted non-warcrimes. (Citizens arrests ofRove have been attempted in

Iowa, California, New York.)

33. I. Lewis Libby8,9,10: Livesin McLean, VA; has been dis-

barred in Washington, D.C., and PA;and has already been convicted ofobstruction of justice for inter-

fering with investigation.

34. Mary Matalin8: Married toJames Carville, both of them ad-

dicted to Washington, D.C.

35. Stephen Hadley8,10: Served asNational Security Advisor to the

President.

36. James R. Wilkinson8:Worked for Bush as Deputy Na-tional Security Advisor for Com-

munications.

37. John Bolton9

: Lives in Be-thesda, MD; associated with theAmerican Enterprise Institute,Jewish Institute for National Secu-rity Affairs, Institute of East-WestDynamics, National Rifle Associa-tion, U.S. Commission on Interna-tional Religious Freedom, and theCouncil for National Policy;helped to launch an illegal war ofaggression by disseminating falseclaims through the State Depart-ment while he was under-secretary

of state for arms control.

38. Michael Chertoff 1: FormerSecretary of Homeland Secu-rity and co-author of the USA

PATRIOT Act..

39. Timothy Flanigan1: Works

in Washington, D.C.

40. Alice Fisher1: Works in

Washington, D.C.

41. John Bellinger3: Works in

Washington, D.C.

42. John Negroponte3: Works

in Washington, D.C.

43. Jonathan Fredman: Wasa top torture lawyer under

John Rizzo at the CIA.

D.C., lied about mushroomclouds, and was in fact a lead-ing liar in making the falsecase for an illegal war of ag-gression. In March 2009, Ricereturned to Stanford Univer-sity as a political science pro-fessor and the Thomas andBarbara Stephenson SeniorFellow on Public Policy at the

Hoover Institution.

25. Donald Rumsfeld7, 9: Wasa leading liar in making thefalse case for an illegal war of

aggression

26. George Tenet7: Distin-guished Professor in the Practice ofDiplomacy at Georgetown Univer-sity, oversaw the Central Intelli-gence Agency as it engaged inillegal renditions, detentions,torture, murder, and coverupsof crimes, as well as helping tobuild a false case for an illegal

war of aggression.

27. John Ashcroft7: Has hiso w n l o b b y i n g c o m p a n ythrough which to profit fromhis government connections:

The Ashcroft Group, LLC.

28. Alberto Gonzales: Hashired a criminal-defense law-yer while others have created atrust fund to help pay for hislegal expenses. Has been un-able to find work as a lawyerhimself, so his income comesfrom speaking engagements.When White House counsel, wrotea memo on January 25, 2002. Itexplained that under the 1996 WarCrimes Act, U.S. officials might be prosecuted for violating the Ge-

neva Conventions for actions inAfghanistan (and future partsof the "War on Terror"), withpenalties up to and includingdeath. He suggested that Bushdeclare that the Taliban and AlQaeda weren't covered by Ge-neva, to be on the safe side.Bush did so. Gonzo now has a job at Texas Tech, but notteaching law. Remember thatwe drove him out of office by

almost impeaching him.

29. Paul Wolfowitz9: Lives inChevy Chase, MD, and is avisiting scholar at the Ameri-

can Enterprise Institute; advo-cated illegal war of aggression.

30. Doug Feith: On the facultyof the Edmund A. Walsh School ofForeign Service at GeorgetownUniversity as a Professor and Dis-tinguished Practitioner in Na-tional Security Policy. Manu-factured, cherry-picked, anddistorted information, and pressured others to do thesame, to help build a false casefor an illegal war of aggres-sion, and advocated early and

10. Colin Powell7: Strategiclimited partner with Kleiner, Per-kins, Caufield & Byers, a SiliconValley venture capital firm, ap-

pears as a speaker in a seriesof motivational events calledGet Motivated, board memberof Revolution Health and ofthe Council on Foreign Rela-tions, lied to the United Na-tions about the grounds forwar in a failed attempt to le-galize a war of aggression, andwas in fact a leading liar inmaking the false case for an

illegal war of aggression.

NEW YORK

11. Henry Kissinger: Had aresume envied by other warcriminals long before he ad-vised George W. Bush to com-

mit war crimes.

12. Nicholas E. Calio8: Citigroup'sExecutive Vice-President for

Global Government Affairs.

13. Michael Mukasey1: For-

mer U.S. Attorney General.

TEXAS

14. George W. Bush1 ,2 ,3:

Lives in Dallas, Texas.

15. Karen Hughes8: Lives in

Austin, Texas.

16. Paul Bremmer3: Formerhead of the Coalition Provi-sional Authority in Iraq nowlives in Chester, Vermont, and

also works in Austin, Texas.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

17. Dick Cheney4,5: The for-mer vice president lives nextdoor to CIA headquarters in

McLean, VA.

18. John Rizzo4: The GeneralCounsel for the CIA (then andnow) works next door to Dick

Cheney's house.

19. Robert Eatinger: CIA

lawyer.

20. Steven Hermes: CIA's

National Clandestine Service.

21. Paul Kelbaugh: Deputy

Legal Counsel, CTC, CIA

22. Steven Bradbury 1,4,6: Former

head of the Office of Legal Counsel.

23. David Addington: Chief

of staff to Dick Cheney; coun-seled the White House on how toget away with war crimes, includ-ing by helping Yoo draft the memodescribed above; and drafted sign-ing statements for Bush declaringthe right to violate laws redun-dantly banning war crimes includ-ing torture and the construction of

permanent bases in Iraq and ef-

forts to control Iraq's oil.

24. Condoleezza Rice7,8: served asSecretary of State in Washington,

(TOP 50from page 6)

44. Scott Muller: Was general

counsel at the CIA.

45. Kyle D. "Dusty" Foggo:Was instrumental in setting up

illegal secret prisons.

NEBRASKA

46. Andrew Card3: FormerBush

Chief of Staff and head of WHIG.

AFGHANISTAN

47. Stanley McChrystal: Hasbeen promoted as reward for

his war crimes.

UNKNOWN LOCATION

48. James Mitchell: According toThe 13 People Who Made Tor-ture Possible (note 4): Even whileAddington, Gonzales and the law-

yers were beginning to build thelegal framework for torture, twomilitary psychologists were layingout the techniques the militarywould use. James Mitchell, aretired military psychologist,had been a leading expert inthe military's SERE program.In December 2001, with his

partner, Bruce Jessen, Mitchellreverse-engineered SEREtechniques to be used to inter-rogate detainees. In the spring

of 2002, before OLofficial legal approv

ture, Mitchell oversZubaydah's interrogaFBI agent on the scscribes Mitchell oversuse of "borderline And after OLC approterboarding, Mitchell its use in ways that the guidelines in tmemo. Under Mitcheance, interrogators waterboard with "fafrequency than initiacated"a total of 183a month for KhalidMohammed and 83 ti

month for Abu Zubay

49. Tommy Franks3Commander of the U.

Command.

50. Michael Hayden3

Director of the Central In

Agency.

David Swanson is co-f AfterDowningStreet.org

ofDaybreak: Undoing thPresidency and Formin

Perfect Union.

1Crimes detailed at DisbarTortureLawyers.com.2Crimes are described at AfterDowningStreet.org/bush3 Crimes described at WarCriminalsWatch.org4See The 13 people who made torture possible at salon.com5Crimes are documented at ImpeachCheney.org6Crimes described at SourceWatch.org.7Took part in White House meetings personally overseeiapproving torture by authorizing the use of specific tortur

niques including waterboarding on specific people.8Served as a member of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG

planned the marketing of an illegal war of aggression on the basis of li9Pushed for wars of aggression for years as a participant in t

ject for the New American Century.10Took part in exposing an undercover agent as retribution

posing one of WHIG's lies.

NYC: a pier at the end of Wall Street, the financial distrpublic location where boats take off for Brooklyn aJersey. The unknown photographer passes by thereWarning sign every day on his wa y to work. Pomenacing glances when he takes pictures but don't do a


8/16

War Crimes Times WarCrimesTimes.org SPECIAL FEATURE Fall 2009

had gotten this declarationBush and his lawyers knew fuwould have been a Constitutitator. And I refer you here to

by my late friend Professor George Washington University La

Presidential Power, that withdeclaration of war the prescomes a Constitutional Dicfailed to get a declaration of spite all the rhetoric we have the Bush, Jr. administration, never declared war against Afor against anyone. There is teno state of war today against aa matter of constitutional law

mally declared.

Bush, Sr. v. Bush, Jr

Now what Bush, Jr. did War Powers Resolution authorizsimilar to what Bush, Sr. got.

game plan was the same herthe path already pioneered by in his war against Iraq. So hfrom Congress a War Powers Rauthorization. This is what lawsors call an imperfect declawar. It does not have the conssignificance of a formal declawar. It authorizes the use of milita

specified, limited circumstance

That is what Bush, Sr. goIt was to carry out the Security

(Continued on

The Illegalities of the Bush Jr

War Against Afghanistanby Francis A. Boyle entire regime to deal with all issues indispute here, including access to theInternational Court of Justice to resolveinternational disputes arising under theTreatysuch as the extradition of BinLaden. The Bush administration com-

pletely ignored this treaty, jettisoned it,set it aside, never even mentioned it.They paid no attention to this treaty orany of the other 12 international trea-ties dealing with acts of terrorism thatcould have been applied to handle this

manner in a peaceful, lawful way.

War of Aggression Against Afghanistan

Bush, Jr . instead went to theUnited National Security Council toget a resolution authorizing the use ofmilitary force against Afghanistan andAl Qaeda. He failed. You have to re-

member that. This war has never beenauthorized by the United Nations Secu-rity Council. If you read the two reso-

lutions that he got, it is very clear thatwhat Bush, Jr. tried to do was to get theexact same type of language that Bush,Sr. got from the U.N. Security Councilin the late fall of 1990 to authorize awar against Iraq to produce its expul-sion from Kuwait. It is very clear ifyou read these resolutions, Bush, Jr.tried to get the exact same languagetwice and they failed. Indeed the firstSecurity Council resolution refused tocall what happened on September 11 an"armed attack"that is by one stateagainst another state. Rather theycalled it "terrorist attacks." But thecritical point here is that this war hasnever been approved by the U.N. Secu-

rity Council so technically it is illegalunder international law. It constitutesan act and a war of aggression by the

United States against Afghanistan.

No Declaration of War

Now in addition Bush, Jr. thenwent to Congress to get authorizationto go to war. It appears that Bush, Jr.tried to get a formal declaration of waralong the lines of December 8, 1941after the Day of Infamy like FDR goton Pearl Harbor. Bush then began touse the rhetoric of Pearl Harbor. If he

tion at that time. However, there is nogenerally accepted definition of an actof terrorism under international law, forreasons I explain in my book. Soonthereafter however, and apparently af-ter consultations with Secretary ofState Powell, he proceeded to call these

an act of war, ratcheting up the rhetoricand the legal and constitutional issuesat stake here. They were not an act ofwar as traditionally defined. An act ofwar is a military attack by one state

against another state. There is so far noevidence produced that the state of Af-ghanistan, at the time, either attackedthe United States or authorized or ap-

proved such an attack. Indeed, just re-cently FBI Director Mueller and thedeputy director of the CIA publiclyadmitted that they have found no evi-dence in Afghanistan linked to the Sep-tember 11 attacks. If you believe thegovernment's account of what hap-

pened, which I think is highly ques-tionable, 15 of these 19 people allegedto have committed these attacks werefrom Saudi Arabia and yet we went towar against Afghanistan. It does not

really add up in my opinion.

But in any event this was not anact of war. Clearly these

were acts of terrorism as de-fined by United States do-mestic law at the time, butnot an act of war. Normallyterrorism is dealt with as amatter of international anddomestic law enforcement.Indeed there was a treatydirectly on point at that time,the Montreal Sabotage Con-vention to which both theUnited States and Afghani-stan were parties. It has an

The "Blowhard Zone"

On September 13, I got a call fromFOX News asking me to go on theO'Reilly Factor program that night,two days after the tragic events of Sep-tember 11, to debate O'Reilly on War v.

Peace. It is pretty clear where I stoodand where he stood. I had been on thisprogram before. I knew what I was gettingin to. But I felt it would be important forone lawyer to get up there in front of anational audience and argueagainst a war and for the applica-tion of domestic and internationallaw enforcement, international

procedures, and constitutional

protections, which I did.

Unfortunately, O'Reilly hasthe highest ranked TV news pro-gram in the country. I thoughtsomeone should be on there on Sep-tember 13. I think most people agreethat I beat O'Reilly. By the end of theshow he was agreeing with me. But thenext night he was saying that weshould bomb five different Arab coun-tries and kill all their people. But letme review for you briefly some of theinternational law arguments that I have

been making almost full time sinceSeptember 13. They are set forth in theintroduction in my new book, The

Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence.

Terrorism v. War

First, right after September 11President Bush called these attacks anact of terrorism, which they were underthe United States domestic law defini-

The critical point is that this war has never been approvedby the U.N. Security Council so technically it is illegal.

Editors note: This is the text of a speech delivered at a conference sponsored bythe Chicago Chapter of the National Lawyer's Guild held at DePaul Law School in

the summer of 2002. Still, and sadly, the information here remains very relevanttoday. One notable update is that Bush Jr.s war has become Obamas war. The

new presidents decision to escalate U.S. involvement and deploy drone bombershas resulted in increased casualty rates of both coalition forces and civilians..

Francis Anthony Boyle is a pof international law at the Uof Illinois College of Law. P

Boyle received a J.D. degrecum laude and A.M. and Ph

grees in political science frvard University. He has wrilectured extensively in the

States and abroad on the relabetween international law and


9/16

War Crimes Times WarCrimesTimes.org SPECIAL FEATURE Fall 2009

States armed forces to be detection under the Third Genvention. And as you know,have U.S. armed forces in opAfghanistan, Georgia, the Phin Yemen, and perhaps in Ircally Bush's position will be jing their ability to claim prwar status. All that has to happadversaries say they are unlaw

batants and we will not give oner of war status. The Third

Convention is one of the fewtions U.S. armed forces hathey go into battle. Bush, JrFederalist Society lawyers ju

the rug out from under them.

U.S. Police State

In addition the Internationnant on Civil and Politicaclearly applies down in Guantapplies any time individuals the jurisdiction of the United America. Guantanamo is aenclave, I will not go throughany further. But clearly those als are subject to our jurisdihave the rights set forth t

which are currently being deni

If and when many of theAshcroft, Gonzalez police sttices make their way to the

preme Court, we have to cona five to four majority of the Court gave the presidency to What is going to stop that samfour majority from giving Bu

police state? The only thing t

ing to stop it is the people in th

of about 35,000 people in Nicaragua onhis hands when he was U.S. Ambassa-dor down in Hondurassent a letter tothe Security Council asserting Article51 of the U.N. Charter to justify thewar against Afghanistan. And basicallysaying that we reserve the right to useforce in self-defense against any statewe say is somehow involved in the

events of September 11.

Well, the San Francisco Chronicleinterviewed me on that and asked whatis the precedent for this? I said that the

precedent again goes back to the Nur-emberg Judgment of 1946 when thelawyers for the Nazi defendants arguedthat we, the Nazi government, had aright to go to war in self-defense as wesaw it, and no one could tell us anydifferently. Of course that preposterousargument was rejected by Nuremberg.It is very distressing to see some of thehighest level of officials of our countrymaking legal arguments that were re-

jected by the Nuremberg Tribunal.

Kangaroo Courts

Now let me say a few words aboutthe so-called military commissions. Ihave a little handout out there called"Kangaroo Courts." It would take me awhole law review article to go throughall the problems with military commis-sions. I have been interviewed quiteextensively. I have some comments on

it in my book. Professor Jordan Paust,a friend and colleague of mine at theUniversity of Houston, just publishedan article in the Michigan Journal of

International Law which I would en-courage you to read. It goes throughthe major problems. But basically thereare two treaties on point here that are

being violated at a minimum.

First, the Third Geneva Conven-tion of 1949. I will not go through allof the arguments here but it isclear that just about everyonedown in Guantanamo (notcounting the guys who were

picked up in Bosnia and basi-

cally kidnapped) but all thoseapprehended over in Afghani-stan and Pakistan would qual-ify as prisoners of war withinthe meaning of the Third Ge-neva Convention of 1949,and therefore have all therights of prisoners of warwithin the meaning of thatconvention. Right now how-ever, as you know, all thoserights are being denied. Thisis a serious war crime. And

resolution that he had gotten a monthand one-half before to expel Iraq fromKuwait. But that is all the authority hehadeither from the Security Councilor from Congress. And that is what hedid. I am not here to approve of whatBush, Sr. did. I do not and I did not atthe time. But just to compare Bush, Jr.with Bush, Sr. So Bush, Jr. got a WarPowers Resolution, which is not a dec-

laration of war.

Indeed, Senator Byrd, the Dean of theSenate, clearly said this is only a WarPowers authorization and we will giveauthority to the president to use mili-tary force subject to the requirementsof the War Powers Resolution, whichmeans they must inform us; there isCongressional oversight, in theory, (Ido not think they are doing much of it);controlled funding; and ultimately wedecidenot the Executive branch ofthe governmentwe are the ones who

gave the authorization to use force.

Again very similar to what Bush,Sr. got except

the Bush, J r .W a r P o w e r sResolut ion isfar more dan-gerous becausei t b a s i c a l l yg i v e s h i m a

blank check touse military force against any state thathe says was somehow involved in theattack on September 11. And as youknow that list has now gone up to 60states. So it is quite dangerous, whichled me to say in interviews I gave atthe time this is worse that the TonkinGulf Resolution. Better from our per-spective than a formal Declaration of

War, but worse constitutionally andpolitically than the Tonkin Gulf resolu-tion. But still subject to the control ofCongress and the terms of the WarPowers Resolution. Indeed you might

be able to use that War Powers Resolu-tion and the authorization in litigation

that might come up. Keep that in mind.

No War Against Iraq!

For example, on Iraq. Right nowthey cannot use that War Powers Reso-lution to justify a war against Iraq.There is no evidence that Iraq was in-volved in the events on September 11.So they are fishing around for someother justification to go to war with

Iraq. They have come up now with thisdoctrine of preemptive attack. Quiteinteresting that argument, doctrine wasrejected by the Nuremberg Tribunalwhen the lawyers for the Nazi defen-dants made it at Nuremberg. They re-

jected any doctrine of preemptive attack.

Nazi Self-Defense

Then what happened after failingto get any formal authorization fromthe Security Council, the U.S. Ambas-sador Negropontewho has the blood

unfortunately PresidentBush, Jr. himself hasincriminated himselfunder the Third GenevaConvention by signingthe order setting upthese military commis-sions. Not only has heincriminated himselfunder the Third GenevaConvention, but he hasincriminated himselfunder the U.S. War CrimesAct of 1996 or so, signedinto law by PresidentClinton and making it a serious felonyfor any United States citizen either toviolate or order the violation of the Four

Geneva Conventions of 1949.

The Federalist Society Cabal

I am not personally criticizingPresident Bush. He is not a lawyer. Hewas terribly advised, criminally mis-advised, by the cabal of Federalist So-ciety lawyers that the Bush administra-

tion has assembled at

the White House andthe Department of In- justice under Ashcroft.President Bush, Jr., bysigning this order, hasopened himself up to

prosecution anywherein the world for violat-

ing the Third Geneva Convention, andcertainly if there is evidence to believethat any of these individuals have beentortured, which is grave breach, let alone atthe end of the day executed. So this is a

very serious matter.

I did not vote for President Bush,Jr. But I certainly think it is a tragedythat these Federalist Society lawyersgot the President of the United Statesof America, who is not a lawyer, tosign the order that would incriminatehim under the Geneva Conventions andUnited States Domestic Criminal Law.

This is what happened.

Jeopardizing U.S. Armed Forces

Moreover, by us stating we willnot apply the Third Geneva Conventionto these people we opened up United

It is very distressing to see some of the highest levelof officials of our country making legal arguments

that were rejected by the Nuremberg Tribunal.


10/16


by Jay Janson

The first president of the National Security State hadthat famous sign on his desk:The buck stops here!

President Harry Trumanaccepted responsibility foreven his vilest acts, includingthe fire bombing of residentialTokyo, the needless atom

bombing of the populations ofHiroshima and Nagasaki, andthe U.S. invasion of the Ko-rean peninsula.

The present National Secu-rity State president, BarackObama, favors the first person

pronoun plural, we (as inwe Americans or simplyAmerica), when rationaliz-

ing his intensifying the bloodyoccupation of Afghanistan as awar of necessity, and dictat-ing foreign policies that em-

phasize the use of overwhelm-ingly and terrifying lethal mili-tary actionsuch as theP r e d a t o r d r o n e swhich hangin the air o v e r t h eP a s h t u n

populationo f t w ocountries ready to fire deadly

Hellfire missiles.In their Mail & Guardian

article, At Least 90 Killed inU.S. Attack (09/04/2009),Ameen Salarzai and AngorBagh wrote: The stench of

burnt flesh hung over thebanks of the Kunduz river inthe early hours of Friday, theground scattered with the body

parts of villagers....Bush mass-murderer!

shouted the U.S. peace move-ment, which imperialist mediahave now successfully anes-thetized by selling America atop Harvard graduate black

man-of-the-people as savior.One doesn't hear anyone

c r y i n g O b a m a m a s s -murderer!yet. But what isthe difference between theorders of the present Com-mander-in-Chief and those ofhis predecessor? The sameSecretary of Defense (readSecretary of War) ostensiblycarries out presidential or-dersor tells his presidentwhat orders to give. More

who reported the atrocities.Stemme went public in April1970 at a Los Angeles press con-ference of the Citizens Commis-sion of Inquiry into War Crimes

in Indochina. CID investigatorsinterviewed him twiceand then just disappeared. He figured theyddropped the case.

Neither Henry norStemme knew thatCID had investigatedand substantiated theirallegations until NickTurse and I contactedthem three years agofor a series of articlesfor the Los AngelesTimes. Their cases were part of alittle-noticed collection of declas-sified documents on U.S. warcrimes in Vietnam at the National

Archives and Records Administration.The files included 246 case files withroughly 300 confirmed allegationsand 500 reports that CID couldnt

prove or didnt try. They werecompiled by Army Staff in the1970s and then covered up by anadministration that wanted the

public to believe atrocities wereisolated incidents attribut-able to rogue soldiers rather thansystemic problems and policies.

In fact, the files include amemo from the White House re-questing an inventory of war crimereports in 1971, shortly after John

Kerry testified in

t h e S e n a t e t h a ta t r o c i t i e s w e r eday-to-day occur-rences. The ArmyStaff quickly re-sponded with a 25-

page list. Yet in thew eeks tha t f o l -lowed, Nixon aidesworked closely with arival veterans group

by Deborah Nelson

On Feb. 8, 1968, a month before My Lai, U.S. troopsmassacred 19 Vietnamese ci-vilians in a hamlet near Hoi

An. Soldiers had been givenorders to kill anything thatm o v e s , a n d t h e y d i d children, women, babies, andan elderly man. Jamie Henry, amedic, witnessed the atrocity.When he reported it to theArmys Criminal InvestigationCommand (CID), the agentaccused him of lying. He went

public with his account in Feb-ruary 1970 at a Vietnam Veter-ans Against the War news con-ference in Los Angeles. Thatgot the Armys attention. CIDinvestigators contacted him thesame day. After a couple fol-

low-up conversations, theystopped calling. He figuredtheyd dropped the case.

Robert B. Stemme Jr. had asimilar experience. In thespring of 1969, he and a dozenothers at Landing Zone Eng-lish wrote letters alerting theinspector general that interro-gators were torturing detaineeswith field phones and waterrag. Their superiors knew,they wrote, but hadnt stoppedthe abuse. The inspector gen-eral sent a major, who threat-ened to court martial the men

gung-ho generals prwar of senseless occua country not one ocitizens ever attackeica.

If not Obama's faufault was this ongoincre? The U.S. airmGerman NATO offcalled in the AmericThe targeted Afghanitheir countrys invthey have a lw ayJimmy Carter, who

provoke the Soviets athis whole 30-yeahomicidal story byfunding, arming andfundamentalist hill trdid not want their werated? Ronald Reagave support to the

and al Qaeda? Businvaded an entire cocause its leaders waccede to U.S. demarrest and extradite Osama bin-Laden? O

OwsetroAs tod rt aP a

Taliban and on Pash

who don't accept Pakernment suzerainty otraditionally free triba

For all the imperdia build up of this nmander-in-Chief, weable to castigate Afirst black president ing him for yet anotmassacre. But can wcall him stupid? For lowing the immoral his predecessor, and

ping the ante. Can wea betrayer of the publa nation tired of warsuspect him of beingtruthful about why wants to permanentlor control both Afgand Iraq?

And are we allhate? Is it okay for uthis continual slaught

ple in nations of tWorld by the worldsuperpower bully? Wsolid amount of hsome use?

(Continued

bent on discrediting Kerry andthe Winter Soldier Investiga-tion, a forum on war crimes.

Bey ond the ind iv idua lcases, the records implicatedspecific military policies and

practices in atrocitiessuch asbody count, free-fire zones and

search-and-destroy missions.Yet there is no indication thatanyone at the Pentagon or the

White House went through therecords looking for such pat-terns. I asked Ret. Col. Jared B.

Schopper, the officer responsiblefor maintaining the files, whatthey did with the information.

Generally no action wastaken, he told me. What hap-

pened to the files then? I sup-pose they ended up in the reser-voir of official documents thatno longer have viability.

The tragedy in what themilitary did with this excep-tional compilation of war-crimeaccounts is that it hid not onlythe truth about the VietnamWar from Americans, but alsothe truth about war.

That realization came to one

of the officers who helped com- pile the records in the 1970s,Ret. Brig. Gen. John Johns, asthe Bush Administration beganthe build up to the Iraq War,one of the great blunders ofhistory. Until that point, Johnsthought the mi l i t a r y hadlearned the lessons of Vietnam,that no purpose would beserved by publicly airing thewar crime files. Now he be-lieves otherwise.

I dont think the American people should be led blindlywithout knowing whats hap-

pening, he said. We cant

change current practices unlesswe acknowledge the past. If werationalize it as isolated acts aswe did in Vietnam and as weredoing with Abu Ghraib andsimilar atrocities, well never

correct the problem.

Deborah Nelson was Washington

investigative editor for the Los

Angeles Times before joining the

University of Maryland faculty as

the Carnegie Visiting Professorat Merrill College of Journalism.

Exposing Vietnam W ar Crimes May Help

Change Todays Practices

O b a m a I s R e s p o n s i b

For Slaughtered AfghaNo Afghani Attacked U.S.

One doesn't hear any-one crying Obamamass-murderer!yet.

National Archives Restores Public Access to

V i e t n a m W a r C r i m e R e p o r t sCOLLEGE PARK, MD. The National Archives and Records Ad-

ministration in September released declassified reports on hundredsof U.S. war crime allegations from the Vietnam War, many of themconfirmed by Army investigators.

The reports are part of a 9,000-page war-crime cache compiledduring the war by the Army Staff for Nixon administration officials.The entire collection was originally declassified around 1990. How-ever, the National Archives cut off public access to the documentsin 2004, soon after researchers and journalists began examining therecords, and around the time Democratic presidential nominee JohnKerry was being attacked by the Swift Boat Veterans for testifyingin the 1970s that atrocities by U.S. troops were commonplace. Aspokeswoman for the National Archives said the collection was

(Continued on page 11)

Until the build up to the IraqWar, Gen. Johns thought themilitary had learned thelessons of Vietnam.

My Lai, 1968


11/16


accommodated our occupationquite well, even injecting in-dustrial-grade silicon into theirwomens breasts to satisfy theerotic appetites of our soldiers.

Americans who blithelyclaim the moral high ground

with every pledge of alle-giance to a flag that, because itis American, is assumed tohave never been sullied byimperial greed or moral con-tradiction expect no less thaninstant and full forgiveness forour mistakes. Only this pastAugust, four decades after heled the massacre of 500 villag-ers in My Lai, Vietnam, did

former Army Lt. WilliamCalley express regret for hiscrimes. He served no time in

prison for the point-blankshooting of toddlers, thanks tothe commutation of his sen-tence by Richard Nixon, whomight have been anticipatinghis own need for a presidential

pardon.In blind and wrathful re-

taliation for 9/11 we wreaked

havoc on Iraq, a nation thatour then-president knew hadnot attacked us, and we con-tinue to slaughter peasants inAfghanistan who arent able tofind Manhattan on a map.

We, a people whose nation

mostly rice farmers,whom Robert McNa-mar a admi t ted tohaving helped killw i t h h i s c a r p e t -

bombing of their country, are a forgot-ten footnote. Yet wewho have never ex-

perienced such car-nage on our homefront all too easily

poke out tens of thou-sands of eyes for each lost oneof our own.

Surely two planes crashinginto office buildings and an-other hittingthe Pentagondoesnt compare to theleve l ing of

every majorcity in Japanwith conven-tional bomb-ing, capped off by the massmurder of hundreds of thou-sands more at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Speaking of eyeslost, mark the words of Hi-roshimas mayor two yearsago: That fateful summer,8:15 AM. The roar of a B-29 breaks the morning calm. A parachute opens in the bluesky. Then suddenly, a flash, anenormous blastsilencehellon Earth. The eyes of young

girls watching the parachutewere melted.

We assumed that the Japa-nese people would readily for-give us and, having beenraised in the spirit of total obe-dience to their emperor, they

This article was originally published

on Truthdig (www.truthdig.com).

What if eight years ago theWorld Trade Center had beenleveled by a small nuclear

bomb that took out most oflower Manhattan as well?How many millions of inno-

cent civilians would we havekilled in retaliation? Would westill be a free society, or wouldDick Cheney have attained the

power of a demented king,having moved on from snoop-ing on our phone calls andouting honest CIA agents todestroying the last vestiges ofthe rule of law?

As assaults on a society go,the 9/11 attacks, which left3,000 dead and are sure to bedescribed on each Septemberanniversary as being amongthe greatest of historical out-rages, were something less

than that, given the worldsexperience with the ravages ofwar. The countless Russiansand the 6 million Jews killed

by those so finely educatedGermans come to mind. The3 .4 mi l l ion V ie tnamese ,

has never suffered along and widespreadoccupation, eas i lygave vent to our most

barbaric impulses,assuming the absoluteright to arrest and tor-

ture anyone anywherein the world withoutrevealing his identity,let alone respecting asingle one of thoseGod-given rights thatwe claim for ourselvesalone. And even whenwe identify the few we holdresponsible for the attacks onour soil, we refuse them public

and fair trials even after yearsof torturing them.

But we do have a savinggrace for our experiment indemocracyalthough unfortu-nately it did not exist in theSupreme Court or Congress asa barrier to an imperial vice

presidency. It is the power ofthe lone whistle-blower ofconscience, occasionally givenvoice in what remains of our

free press and which can influ-ence presidential elections, ashappened quite dramaticallythis last time around. There arethose like Joe Wilson, whoexposed presidential fraudmasquerading as national se-

curity concern ovIraqi purchases of from Niger, and morthe truth-telling of Alfan, a former FBI alead interrogator of te

In his September 5 Times article, Wha

Never Told Us, Sowas involved in omuch reliable infofrom prisoners befwere tortured, obsethe recently releasecited by Cheney to argument that torturecient actually failthat the techniqueseven a single imminof terrorism.

So, Cheney is agawrong, but if there hlarger attack on 9/11whether many f rwould be around no

him so.

ROBERT SCHEER, a

for more than 30 yea

Viet Nam corresponde69) and is editor-in

TruthDig.

A 9/11 Reality Checkby Robert Scheer

Nagasaki, August 9,194New York, September 11, 2001

In blind and wrathful retaliation we wreaked havoc on Iraq, anation that had not attacked us, and we continue to slaughter peas-

ants in Afghanistan who arent able to find Manhattan on a map.

We hate all Americans. We hate youfrom the bottom of our souls, said a wellknown Pakistani journalist to the face anObama-appointed, foreign public relations officer.

When are Americans going to stop listen-ing to fatuous praise from the war-promoting,conglomerate-owned, everywhere-intrusive,entertainment/news media cartel? When areAmericans going to start counting up the mil-lions, perhaps billions, of earthlings whotremble, are mentally distressed, or are angry

at the sight of the Stars and Stripes?

Jay Janson is musician and writer who has

lived and worked on all the continents. His arti-

cles on media have been published in China,

Italy, England and the U.S. A member of theManhattan VFP chapter, he resides in New

York City.

This article was originally published in

OpEdNews on September 7, 2009.

(OBAMAfrom page 10)

withdrawn after staff raised privacy con-cerns.

This release involved 246 status reports on Army war-crime investigationsinto allegations of murder, massacre, tor-ture, rape, assault, and mutilation. Whilenot a full accounting, the reports repre-

sent the most extensive compilation tosurface so far. They show war crimeswere a systemic problem in Vietnam, andnot isolated incidents committed by a fewrogue units, as the military has longmaintained. In fact, every major divisionthat served in Vietnam is represented inthe files.

The reports were released in responseto a Freedom of Information Act requestfiled by Deborah Nelson, a Pulitzer

(NATIONAL ARCHIVESfrom page 10) Prize-winning journalist and author ofThe War Behind Me: Vietnam VeteransConfront the Truth about U.S. WarCrimes (Basic Books 2008). Social Se-curity numbers and some names wereredacted from the documents. Nelsonalso requested release of the full casefiles, which include sworn witness state-

ments, investigator notes and findings.Several have been processed and re-stored to public access. One describesthe massacre of 19 civilians on Feb. 8,1968, a month before the My Lai massa-cre. Another follows the Armys effortsto stifle allegations that hundreds of ci-vilians were being killed in the MekongDelta to meet pressure by commandersfor high enemy body counts.

The War Behind Me (thewarbehindme.com)

is based on the declassifiedinterviews with combat vetformer Pentagon officials them. The records also wecus of a 2006 Los Angelseries co-authored by Ne

Nick Turse, who obtained his dissertation while at

University and prior to thdrawal.Beginning in 2006, Ne

fought for release of the rmake them available to researchers and the generThe collection, Records ofnam War Crimes Workingis located in Records Gr

National Archives II, CollMD.

When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die. Jean-Paul Sartre


12/16

War Crimes Times WarCrimesTimes.org PERSPECTIVES Fall 2009

becomes stronger than their de-mocratic state itself. That, in itsessence, is Fascismownershipof Government by an individual,

by a group, or by any other con-trolling private power."

Roosevelt was the last presi-dent to consistently warn theAmerican public about corporate

power, although President Eisen-hower's Farewell Address pointed tothe same danger. Since then, wehave had leaders like Obama, who

promised change but deliveredonly more of the same. Charlatansserving the plutocracy.

Fred NagelRhinebeck, NY

But then, he never had achance. America is in the deathgrip of the banks, the insuranceindustry, the weapons makers, big

pharma, and big oil. These hugecorporate entities have strangledour democracy and replaced itwith lobbyists, campaign contribu-tions, and media ownership. Wethe people never had a prayer ofgetting change at the ballot box.The system is fixed, and has beenfor some time.

According to Franklin Roose-velt, "The first truth is that theliberty of a democracy is not safeif the people tolerate the growth of

private power to a point where it

Letters

happening today is part of a coAmerican history of war, racisery, genocides, worker explcorporatism, and what Pope Johcalled, savage, unbridled, ismthe list is virtually endle

can I wave the flag proudly?

During my years in the swas ready to fight, maybe die, efor this country. Im thankful I

sent overseas. I dont have the memories that burden many othans. Yet, I remain grateful and

be a brother in Veterans FoThese veterans have seen thronarrow and separatist idea of

patriotism to a much largeembracing vision of a world wi

scourge of war.

Today my allegiance is to dren, to the world at large, nocountry circumscribed by artific

made boundaries.

There is always a bright sgood friend and fellow VetePeace Doug Zachary, remindont want to forget that. Mich

ford helps me remember:

Stop thinking this is all thRealize that for every ongoing religious outrage and envirodevastation and bogus Iraq attathere are a thousand counter-bacts of staggering generosity manity and art and beauty happover the world, right now, on ataking scale, from flowerbox tdral. Resist the temptation tin fatalism, to shake your head and just throw in the karmic tRealize that this is the perfect to change the energy of the wstep right up and crank your

volume; right when it all seeand bitter and offensive and aous and conflicted and biliousyour opening. Remember mafinally, believe you are pagroundswell, a resistance, a sesmall but actually very, very l

pending karmic overhaul, a grthe beginning of something im

and potent and unstoppable.

democratic people allow a bunch ofpower-hungry, egotistical and cowardlywretches like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeldand the like rule for as long as they didand get away with war crimes as they

have?

And what will they think of themoral cowardice and hypocrisy ofObama, a president who claims to de-spise torture, yet has continued andeven expanded most of the Bush

agenda?

C h r i sH e d g e s ,P u l i t z e r P r i z e -w i n n i n ga u t h o r o f W a r I s a

Force ThatG i v e s U sM e a n i n g ,

and former N Y T i m e sforeign cor-respondent,writes, The

right-wing accusations against BarackObama are true. He is a socialist, al-though he practices socialism for corpo-rations. He is squandering the countrysfuture with deficits that can never berepaid. He has retained and even bol-stered our surveillance state to spy onAmericans. He is forcing us to buy intoa health care system that will enrichcorporations and expand the abuse ofour for-profit medical care. He will notstanch unemployment. He will not end

our wars. He will not rebuild the nation.He is a tool of the corporate state.

Im not proud of America, Im not proud of our current or recently pastPresidents, and Im not proud to be anAmerican. Neither have I any pride thatI was once a U.S. Army paratrooper. Ican do without all that nationalistic

pride. I am filled with a sense of shameand regret for this country, my home forlonger than I care to mention. What is

Thus the national discussion re-volves around whether or not torture isan effective tool to gather informa-tionnot is it right or wrong, but sim-

ply is it utilitarian? Forget that torture isan international crime, forget that it is

cruel and inhumane, forget that it de- bases the soul of both the tortured andthe torturer; forget all thatDick Che-ney says it protects us. Not only do peo-

ple listen to this irrational and immoralm a d n e s s ,many comet o b e l i e v eand accept ita s a so l id ,even patr i-otic justifica-

tion.

M a n yA m e r i c a n sh a v e b e e nremarkably

d u m b e ddown by themass media,a s i tua t ionwhich can be forgiven. But what ofthose who have become abject moralcowards as well, willing to sell theircollective souls for a measure of illu-

sory security?

As a young boy I was so proud, sograteful to be an American. I believedthat this was the land of the free, thehome of the brave. But the free and the

brave do not wage war against civilians,do not torture, and do not imprison in-definitely. Americas arrogance, igno-

rance and greed are second only to itsmassive and calculated brutality in-

flicted on a suffering world.

Oh yes, someday history will judgeus harshly but it is our children and ourchildrens chi

war crimes times fall issue

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