Rumsfeld: Bush foes lack courage on terror

A rare commentary from the publisher of this blog is preamble to today's entry:






Dear Mr. Secretary,

Bring us Bin Laden's head on a pike, and parade it through Times Square. At that time you may lecture us about "moral and intellectual confusion" and what threatens our nation's security. In the meanwhile, please quit blaming the messenger for the bad news of your failures.

Sincerely yours,

- M. Peach

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (AP) -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Tuesday accused critics of the Bush administration's Iraq and counterterrorism policies of lacking the courage to fight terror.

In unusually explicit terms, Rumsfeld portrayed the administration's critics as suffering from "moral and intellectual confusion" about what threatens the nation's security.

Addressing several thousand veterans at the American Legion's national convention, Rumsfeld recited what he called the lessons of history, including the failed efforts to appease the Adolf Hitler regime in the 1930s.

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Nuremberg Prosecutor says Bush Should Stand Trial For War Crimes

(from Benjamin Ferencz, Chief Prosecutor)

















Bush and Saddam Should Both Stand Trial, Says Nuremberg Prosecutor
Aaron Glantz OneWorld US

A chief prosecutor of Nazi war crimes at Nuremberg has said George W. Bush should be tried for war crimes along with Saddam Hussein. Benjamin Ferencz, who secured convictions for 22 Nazi officers for their work in orchestrating the death squads that killed more than 1 million people, told OneWorld both Bush and Saddam should be tried for starting "aggressive" wars--Saddam for his 1990 attack on Kuwait and Bush for his 2003 invasion of Iraq.

"Nuremberg declared that aggressive war is the supreme international crime," the 87-year-old Ferencz told OneWorld from his home in New York. He said the United Nations charter, which was written after the carnage of World War II, contains a provision that no nation can use armed force without the permission of the UN Security Council.

Ferencz said that after Nuremberg the international community realized that every war results in violations by both sides, meaning the primary objective should be preventing any war from occurring in the first place.

He said the atrocities of the Iraq war--from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the massacre of dozens of civilians by U.S. forces in Haditha to the high number of civilian casualties caused by insurgent car bombs--were highly predictable at the start of the war.

"Every war will lead to attacks on civilians," he said. "Crimes against humanity, destruction beyond the needs of military necessity, rape of civilians, plunder--that always happens in wartime. So my answer personally, after working for 60 years on this problem and [as someone] who hates to see all these young people get killed no matter what their nationality, is that you've got to stop using warfare as a means of settling your disputes."

Ferencz believes the most important development toward that end would be the effective implementation of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is located in the Hague, Netherlands.

The court was established in 2002 and has been ratified by more than 100 countries. It is currently being used to adjudicate cases stemming from conflict in Darfur, Sudan and civil wars in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

But on May 6, 2002--less than a year before the invasion of Iraq--the Bush administration withdrew the United States' signature on the treaty and began pressuring other countries to approve bilateral agreements requiring them not to surrender U.S. nationals to the ICC.

Three months later, George W. Bush signed a new law prohibiting any U.S. cooperation with the International Criminal Court. The law went so far as to include a provision authorizing the president to "use all means necessary and appropriate," including a military invasion of the Netherlands, to free U.S. personnel detained or imprisoned by the ICC.

That's too bad, according to Ferencz. If the United States showed more of an interest in building an international justice system, they could have put Saddam Hussein on trial for his 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

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Busted, again

(from The Baltimore Chronicle)
"For the second time in two months, a federal court has ruled that the president is in violation of the Constitution.

The clear result of the Supreme Court's ruling is that President Bush is a war criminal."

Bush is Two Times a Criminal
by DAVID LINDORFF

For the second time in two months, a federal court has ruled that the president is in violation of the Constitution. This time it's a federal court in Detroit that has ruled that President Bush has violated the Fourth Amendment against illegal search and seizure for his order to the National Security Agency to monitor the phone and Internet messages of Americans without bothering to obtain a court order based upon probable cause.

The first time, it was the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in late June that the president had violated the Constitution by asserting he had the power to ignore the Third Geneva Convention on Treatment of Prisoners of War--a treaty formally signed into law by the U.S. and made an integral part of the U.S. Criminal Code.

The important thing about these two rulings (and it is a point that the squeamish mainstream media have shied away from mentioning) is that they both are declaring the president to be a criminal. That is, he has been found in the first case to be in criminal violation of the Constitution, as well as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, and in the second, he has been found to be in violation of U.S. and International Law.

Note that when someone has committed a felony (say a bank robbery or a case of assault and battery or of murder) and when a court has found that person to be guilty of the crime in question, that person is from that moment hence considered a criminal. The case may be appealed to a higher court, but in the meantime, judgment has been rendered, and a penalty assigned.

In Bush's case, the highest court in the land has reached its verdict in the War Crimes case involving Bush's claim that as Commander in Chief he had the power to ignore both law and Constitution and declare captives in the so-called war on terror and in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to be excluded from the protections of the Geneva convention.

The justices, by a margin of 5-3, declared that his claim was bogus. He has no power to ignore the Constitution, whether in wartime or peacetime. The clear result of that ruling is that the president is a war criminal.

The latest federal court decision, in a case brought by the ACLU, has reached the same conclusion, and on the same grounds. The president has been claiming that as commander in chief, he has the right to ignore both the FISA law passed by Congress and signed into law by President Jimmy Carter, and the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.

A federal judge has again found that his claim is bogus. The president, the judge has declared, is bound by the Constitution to follow the letter of the law, and has criminally failed to do so.

Now there has been no penalty established in either of these crimes, serious as they are, because under the Constitution, the president cannot be convicted or punished by a court unless he is first impeached and removed from office, but the facts of his serial criminal behavior has been established.

It is important to point out, as Barbara Olshansky and I have done in our book The Case for Impeachment, that impeachment is not, primarily, about actual criminal acts by a president. The Founders, when they included impeachment as a remedy for removing elected officials, including the president, from office, were clear that they were primarily concerned about political crimes, which may or may not be literally against the law. Such crimes, it is clear, referred to actions that threatened the political system--for example abuse of power, or lying to Congress or to the American people.

At the same time, it is also clear that the Founders saw impeachment as an appropriate measure when a president actually breaks the law, if the violation is so serious as to threaten the political system or the welfare of the American people. So even if a higher court later overturned the Detroit federal court's decision, Congress could still determine that the president had committed a political crime against the Constitution in authorizing warrantless domestic spying, and could
impeach him.

What Bush and his administration have done in both of these cases falls clearly into that category. By claiming to be above the law and even above the Constitution, the president has in both the NSA spying case and in the Geneva Conventions case, claimed the power of an absolute despot. He has asserted that in time of war--including a so-called "war" on terror which clearly has nothing to do with an actual war--he operates without any checks and balances or any oversight.

He has twisted the role of commander in chief, which the Founders included in the powers of the presidency solely to insure that there would be a civilian responsible to the citizenry above any general, into the role of a generalissimo--a military ruler in charge of the entire nation.

The lock-step Republicans and spineless Democrats in Congress have not challenged this coup by lexicographical manipulation, but the judicial branch has thrown down the gantlet.

Now it is time for the People of the United States to follow up this action.

In November, all the members of the House of Representatives are up for election, along with one-third of the Senate.

For the sake of the future of Constitutional government and for the freedoms enshrined in the Constitution, it is essential that the American people wake up and replace in November all those members of Congress who have allowed this presidential dictatorship to develop unchecked.

Some critics have argued that impeachment is an unnecessary diversion from the task of government, since Bush will be gone in 2008 anyway. These people miss the point that leaving this president's crimes and constitutional affronts unchallenged and unpunished would enshrine his transgressions in the mantle of precedent, allowing the next president and her or his successors to pick up wherever Bush leaves off.

To do that would be to sign the death warrant for American democracy.

Copyright (c) 2006 The Baltimore Chronicle. All rights reserved.

Judge's ruling may provide grounds to impeach Bush

(fromCapitol Hill Blue)
























If a judge's ruling that declares President George W. Bush's domestic spying program unconstitutional holds up under appeal, the President will be guilty of violating federal law at least 30 times and that could provide grounds for impeachment, says a leading Constitutional scholar.

Jonathan Turley, law professor at George Washington University and a recognized expert on constitutional law, says the ruling Thursday by a federal judge in Detroit raises "serious implications for the Bush administration" and indicates that the President "could well have committed a federal crime at least 30 times."

"This ruling is a bad situation that just got worse for the White House," says Turley. "These crimes could constitute impeachable offenses."

Turley knows a thing or two about the impeachment process. He worked with Special Prosecutor Ken Starr on the investigation that led to impeachment proceedings against former President Bill Clinton.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, in a stinging indictment of Constitutional abuse by the Bush Administration over its use of warrantless wiretaps of American citizens by the National Security Agency, ruled the program violates the Administrative Procedures Act, the doctrine of separation of powers, and the First and Fourth amendments to the Constitution and ordered an immediate halt to the practice.

"There are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution. So all 'inherent powers' must derive from that Constitution," Taylor wrote in her lengthy opinion.

The White House went into immediate attack mode, claiming Taylor is an activist judge appointed by a Democratic president (Jimmy Carter) and vowing to appeal the ruling all the way to the Supreme Court.

A Republican National Committee press release declared: Liberal judge backs Dem agenda to weaken national security.

Turley says such tactics are typical for the Bush White House.

"That's what's really distasteful," Turley said Thursday night on MNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann show. "This is not the first judge to rule against the administration. But every time a judge rules against the administration, they're either too Democratic or they're too tall or too short, or they're Pisces. I mean, it, you can, all this spin, this effort to personalize it is really doing a great injustice to our system. If you look at this opinion, it's a very thoughtful opinion. The problem is not the judge. The problem is a lack of authority. You know, when Gonzales says I've got something back in my safe, and if you could see it, you'd all agree with me, well, unless there's a federal statute in his safe, then it's not going to make a difference."

The judge's order to halt the program is stayed during the appeal process and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales vowed the domestic spying program will continue during those appeals, which could extend well beyond the end of Bush's final term in office.

Bush Sees No End to War on Terrorism

and you'll get your rights back as soon as it's over.

Associated Press
Tuesday, August 15, 2006

President Bush said Tuesday that the foiled plot to blow up flights between Britain and the United States is evidence the U.S. could be fighting terrorists for years to come.

"America is safer than it has been, yet it is not yet safe," Bush told reporters at the National Counterterrorism Center just outside Washington. "The enemy has got an advantage when it comes to attacking our homeland: They got to be right one time and we've got to be right 100 percent of the time to protect the American people."

The counterterrorism center is located at an undisclosed site in Northern Virginia known as Liberty Crossing. It merges hundreds of government experts and more than two dozen computer networks from various federal agencies focusing on potential threats.

Its high-tech, 24-hour operations center is among the most sophisticated in the U.S. government.

Bush received a briefing from his National Security Council and Homeland Security Council and had separate sessions with each team, attending lunch with all the officials in between.

Bush spokesman Tony Snow said the meetings focused on improving and streamlining efforts to more effectively fight terrorists. He declined to be more specific, saying that would just give notice to al-Qaida.

Bush credited the workers at the center with helping to bring about last week's arrests of more than two dozen people in England and Pakistan in what officials say was a plot to blow up as many as 10 passenger planes between Britain and the United States.

"That plot and this building and the work going on here is really indicative of the challenge we face — not only this week, but this year and the years to come," he said.

Snow said it is still not clear whether al-Qaida was involved with the plot.

"The characterizations in the past has been it has the looks of al-Qaida," Snow said. "And I'm aware of reports from other governments that it's al-Qaida. But our intelligence, at this point, does not permit us to say with confidence that that was the case."

The nation's safety looms as a major issue in the midterm elections Nov. 7. Both Republicans and Democrats are maneuvering for the political advantage in an election where control of Congress is at stake.

Democrats blamed Bush administration policies for making the country more vulnerable to outside threats.

"Five years after 9/11, al-Qaida has morphed into a global franchise operation, terror attacks have increased sharply across the world and the president has shut down the program designed to catch Osama bin Laden," Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said in a statement following Bush's remarks.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., in a teleconference with reporters Tuesday, accused the Bush administration of "stubbornness" and of holding an "oversimplistic" view of how to resolve Middle East tensions.

"One of the great failures of this administration has been a refusal to consider new approaches to problems," he said.

Bush Proposes Retroactive "Get Out Of Jail Free" Card

(from FOX News)
Retroactive War Crime Protection Drafted

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration drafted amendments to the War Crimes Act that would retroactively protect policymakers from possible criminal charges for authorizing any humiliating and degrading treatment of detainees, according to lawyers who have seen the proposal.

The move by the administration is the latest effort to deal with treatment of those taken into custody in the war on terror.

At issue are interrogations carried out by the CIA, and the degree to which harsh tactics such as water-boarding were authorized by administration officials. A separate law, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, applies to the military.

The Washington Post first reported on the War Crimes Act amendments Wednesday.

One section of the draft would outlaw torture and inhuman or cruel treatment, but it does not contain prohibitions from Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions against"outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment."A copy of the section of the draft was obtained by The Associated Press.

The White House, without elaboration, said in a statement that the bill"will apply to any conduct by any U.S. personnel, whether committed before or after the law is enacted."

Two attorneys said that the draft is in the revision stage but that the administration seems intent on pushing forward the draft's major points in Congress after Labor Day. The two attorneys spoke on condition of anonymity because their sources did not authorize them to release the information.

"I think what this bill can do is in effect immunize past crimes. That's why it's so dangerous,"said a third attorney, Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice.

Fidell said the initiative is"not just protection of political appointees, but also CIA personnel who led interrogations."

Interrogation practices"follow from policies that were formed at the highest levels of the administration,"said a fourth attorney, Scott Horton, who has followed detainee issues closely."The administration is trying to insulate policymakers under the War Crimes Act."

The Bush administration contends Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions includes a number of vague terms that are susceptible to different interpretations.

Extreme interrogation practices have been a flash point for criticism of the administration.

When interrogators engage in waterboarding, prisoners are strapped to a plank and dunked in water until nearly drowning.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Congress"is aware of the dilemma we face, how to make sure the CIA and others are not unfairly prosecuted."

He said that at the same time, Congress"will not allow political appointees to waive the law."

Larry Cox, Amnesty International USA's executive director, said that"President Bush is looking to limit the War Crimes Act through legislation"now that the Supreme Court has embraced Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. In June, the court ruled that Bush's plan to try Guantanamo Bay detainees in military tribunals violates Article 3.

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Bush Seeks Military Court Trials for Ordinary U.S. Citizens

from The Washington Post
By R. Jeffrey Smith

White House Proposal Would Expand Authority of Military Courts

A draft Bush administration plan for special military courts seeks to expand the reach and authority of such "commissions" to include trials, for the first time, of people who are not members of al-Qaeda or the Taliban and are not directly involved in acts of international terrorism, according to officials familiar with the proposal.

The plan, which would replace a military trial system ruled illegal by the Supreme Court in June, would also allow the secretary of defense to add crimes at will to those under the military court's jurisdiction. The two provisions would be likely to put more individuals than previously expected before military juries, officials and independent experts said.

The draft proposed legislation, set to be discussed at two Senate hearings today, is controversial inside and outside the administration because defendants would be denied many protections guaranteed by the civilian and traditional military criminal justice systems.

Under the proposed procedures, defendants would lack rights to confront accusers, exclude hearsay accusations, or bar evidence obtained through rough or coercive interrogations. They would not be guaranteed a public or speedy trial and would lack the right to choose their military counsel, who in turn would not be guaranteed equal access to evidence held by prosecutors.

Detainees would also not be guaranteed the right to be present at their own trials, if their absence is deemed necessary to protect national security or individuals.

The provisions are closely modeled on earlier plans for military commissions, which the Supreme Court ruled illegal two months ago.

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