Paul Craig Roberts: War Criminal at Bay

INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE: NEWS YOU WON'T FIND ON CNN

War Criminal at Bay

By Paul Craig Roberts

09/18/06 "Information Clearing House" -- President George Bush, betrayed by the neoconservatives whom he elevated to power and by his Attorney General, Torture Gonzales who gave him wrong legal advice, is locked in a desperate struggle with the Republican Congress to save himself from war crimes charges at the expense of America’s reputation and our soldiers’ fate.

Beguiled by neoconservatives, who told him that the virtuous goals of the American empire justified any means, and misled by an incompetent Attorney General, who told him that the President of the US is above the law, Bush was deceived into committing war crimes under Article 3 of the Geneva Convention and the US War Crimes Act of 1996. Bush is now desperately trying to save himself by having the US Congress retroactively repeal both Article 3 and US law.

UNDER THE US CONSTITUTION RETROACTIVE LAW IS WITHOUT FORCE, BUT DESPERATE MEN WILL TRY ANYTHING.

President Bush has given no thought to the impact on America’s reputation of his strident campaign to write torture into US law. He has given no thought to what saving himself means for captured US troops if the US government guts Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.

How could he care? This is the same president who prevented the world from intervening to stop Israel’s slaughter of Lebanese civilians. This is the same president who describes tens of thousands of slaughtered Iraqi and Afghan civilians as “collateral damage.” What sort of war is it when civilian casualties far out number casualties among combatants?

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was used by Bush to lie to the UN in order to create a pretext for Bush’s illegal invasion of Iraq, denounced Bush’s attempt to repeal Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. Powell said Bush’s proposal causes the world to “doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism” and will “put our own troops at risk.” Republican senators John McCain, John Warner, and Lindsey Graham agree with Powell, although their arms may yet be twisted out of their sockets.

Bush’s claim that America cannot fight the “war on terror” without employing torture is just another Bush lie. It is a known fact that torture produces unreliable information. Torture can make people talk but it cannot make them give reliable information.

VERY FEW OF THE TENS OF THOUSANDS OF “SUSPECTS” THAT THE US HAS DETAINED ARE GUILTY OF ANYTHING.

We know this because the US Iraqi Command says that 18,700 Iraqis have been released since June 2004. US officers told the International Red Cross that 70 to 90 percent of the Iraqi detentions were “mistakes.” (See Associated Press reporter Patrick Quinn, September 17, 2006 - Url.: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060917/ap_on_re_mi_ea/in_american_hands )

Most of these mistakes were people who were simply pulled out of their beds or grabbed off streets as “suspected insurgents,” victims of military sweeps akin to the KGB street sweeps of the Stalin era, which resulted in so many Soviet citizens disappearing into the Gulag. Others were sold to naive Americans by warlords who collected a bounty for turning in “terrorists.”

When innocent people are tortured they invent information in order to stop the pain. Sometimes they settle a score with a personal enemy or someone they dislike by giving their name. People who experienced Soviet torture and survived say they tried to remember names of deceased persons to identify as “enemies of the state.”

An actual terrorist or insurgent who believes in his cause is not going to give accurate information. If his torturers demand information on a pending attack, he will give the wrong location. If they demand the identities of his group, he will give the wrong names. He is worth very little as an information source, because his colleagues, aware that he is captured or missing, will change plans and arrangements.

THE US MILITARY HAS NOT LEARNED ANYTHING FROM TORTURING DETAINEES AND CONTINUES TO LOOSE THE WARS IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN DESPITE ITS WIDESPREAD USE OF TORTURE.

Lying is now a full time occupation for US military spokespersons as well as for President Bush. Lt. Col. Keir-Kevin Curry, a spokesman for US military detainee operations in Iraq says that every detainee “ is detained because he poses a security threat to the government of Iraq, the people of Iraq or coalition forces.” President Bush says, “These are enemy combatants who are waging war on our nation.” Someone needs to tell Bush and Lt. Col. Curry that what they allege cannot be true if 70-90 percent of detainees are mistaken detentions and if 18,700 detainees have been released in the last 14 months.

Baghdad shopkeeper Amjad Qassim al-Aliyawi is a good example. He languished in detention limbo for 20 months without charges and without apology when released.

Many studies have concluded that people who go into interrogation and police work are bullies who like to exercise power and to hurt people. Bush is willing to make such people even less accountable in order to protect himself from war crimes charges.

If Bush were a real man, he would fire Gonzales and the neocons. He would say he was given bad advice and regrets that he didn’t know better than to follow it. He would order closed all the secret prisons, end the illegal policy of rendition, and order that all US military detention facilities be run in strict accordance with the Geneva Conventions.

THIS WOULD SERVE BUSH AND AMERICA’S REPUTATION FAR BETTER THAN HIS ATTEMPT TO LEGALIZE TORTURE.

Paul Craig Roberts

Story and interesting comments at the excellent news site 'Information Clearing House' - Url.: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15009.htm

* CHANGE THE US REGIME? - "Brothers and sisters, if you and I would just realize, that once we learn to talk the language that they understand, they will then get the point. You can't ever reach a man if you don't speak his language. If a man speaks the language of brute force, you can't come to him with peace. Why goodnight! He'll break you in two, as he has been doing all along. If a man speaks French, you can't speak to him in German. If he speaks Swahili, you can't communicate with him in Chinese. You have to find out, what does this man speak? Once you know his language, learn how to speak his language. He'll get the point." - Malcom X - on defending human rights. - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/zoora

* GEORGE BUSH II CONFIRMED WHY WE ALL MUST BE AFRAID OF THE US/ISRAELI WAR MACHINE: "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, AND NEITHER DO WE." - August 5, 2004 - At the signing of the defense act for the fiscal year 2005 (H.R. 4613) - Url.: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/08/20040805-4.html

* DEFINITION OF SEMITES from the Collins English Dictionary - [http://tinyurl.com/zj9y4] - "Semitic: a member of the group of Caucasoid people who speak a Semitic language, including the Jews and Arabs as well as the Ancient Babylonians (Iraqis), the Assyrians (Syria), and the Phoenicians (the Lebanese of today). Semitic: a branch or sub-family of languages that includes Arabic, Aramaic, Hebrew.” - Palestinians and Lebanese for instance are semites. The JDL cliché: "anti semitism' has always been a fake accusation, abused to kill debates too in the past. Not anymore. What the US/Israeli war machine is doing is anti semitism on a global scale.

* RELATED: BACKGROUND LINKS TO THOSE RESPONSIBLE - If after checking a factual error is found, pls. send an email so it can be corrected. - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/fhln9

* The Dutch author this far has worked abroad for more than 4 decades for international media as an independent foreign correspondent, of which 10 years - also during Gulf War I - in the Arab World and the Middle East. Having practical experience of coups and the obscenity of war: seeing worldwide that every bullet and every bomb breeds more terrorism!

* FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 - any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. Url.: http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html

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Open letter to Tom Ridge, ex-director of Homeland Security

OPEN LETTER TO TOM RIDGE, MY OLD HARVARD CLASSMATE AND FORMER DIRECTOR OF HOMELAND SECURITY

BY DR. ANDREW BARD SCHMOOKLER, AUTHOR AND RADIO COMMENTATOR.

Although our casual contacts as students at Harvard during the 1960s never amounted to a friendship, they did give me a sense of your character, Tom.

We came to Harvard when JFK was still president, and the torch of liberty had been passed ("the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God") to a new generation whose idealism was being expressed in the Peace Corps, in the civil rights movement, and sometimes at our dining room tables.


You and I, being not only members of the same class but also residents of Quincy House, ate our meals in the same dining rooms for four years. It was during these dinner conversation that I derived my impression of you as an earnest
young man, who did not pose as a sophisticated cynic like some of our classmates, but rather took seriously the great ideals of America.

DID I SEE YOU CORRECTLY THEN, TOM?

It is, in any event, with that image of you in mind that I write to you now. For I believe that you are in a unique position at this historical moment to help America come into better alignment with the great ideals that you and I both cherished back then.

There is an important issue on which I am now asking you to speak out: it is the Bush administration's use of the "war on terror" for its own political advantage.

As you doubtless know, suspicions about this administration's "fear-mongering" have been around for some time, but they have lately been increasing in intensity.

A HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS CORRELATION

Just weeks ago Keith Olbermann, on his MSNBC program Countdown, laid out a timeline that painted a deeply disturbing picture. Olbermann delineated a highly suspicious correlation between those times when the Bush administration faced political difficulties (and thus would have wanted to divert the public's focus) and those times when it made a terror-related announcement that changed the news headlines (and usually lifted the administration's poll numbers).

And then there was the recent, much-publicized bust of an alleged terrorist plot in Great Britain. Even as the American people were being reawakened to fears of terrorists attacking our air travel, reports were widespread that the Bush administration had pressured the British into making the arrests precipitously, well before the British investigators themselves felt the time was right. - [FPF: Fake UK cabal 'terror' - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/rz8ke]

No plausible explanation has been offered as to why the Bush administration was so eager for these arrests to be made immediately, despite the now-evident fact that there was no immediate threat of an attack, and despite the danger that premature arrests might jeopardize a successful prosecution. This failure to offer a legitimate reason clearly suggests the possibility of an illegitimate reason, such as how the "terrorist plot" story could serve to overshadow the extraordinary defeat of Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) by his own party for being too supportive of the Bush administration generally and its war in Iraq specifically.


Surely you'll agree, or at least the young Tom Ridge I thought I knew would have agreed: it would be hard to find words too harsh to describe the perfidy of leadership that deliberately played politics with such vital matters of
national security. How terrible it would be for a president of the United States to evoke and cultivate fear in the American people, not to serve the people's needs but to serve his own at their expense.

PROPAGANDISTICALLY PLAYS THE TERROR CARD

But while many Americans harbor such suspicions of this president and his administration fear-mongering about the "war on terror" to increase their own power, almost half of the country continues to be swayed whenever the Bush
administration propagandistically plays the terror card, hypnotized by the fear that is intentionally evoked by those who declare themselves to be the people's only possible protectors.

If the trust of Bush administration supporters is being betrayed, it would be a matter of urgent national importance for them to know of this betrayal. However, people who still turn to the Bush administration for protection are not going to listen to Mr. Bush's critics. In this deeply polarized society, such critics have long since been dismissed by the president's supporters as "Bush-bashers."

BUT THEY WOULD LISTEN TO YOU.

SO I CALL UPON YOU TO COME FORWARD AND TELL THE COUNTRY WHAT YOU WITNESSED DURING YOUR TENURE AS THIS PRESIDENT'S DIRECTOR OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY.

For instance, were your Department's announcements of movements to higher states of alert ever politically motivated?

One of your public statements since you left office certainly suggests you saw something amiss in that color-coded system of public warnings. "More often than not," you've been quoted as saying, "we were the least inclined to raise
[the threat level]. Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment, sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don't necessarily put the country on alert. There were times when some people were really
aggressive about raising it. And we said, 'For that?'"

But your saying that you didn't see a good reason for the increased alert level is not the same as your telling the country about a perceptible bad reason behind it. So, if you told us all that you know, would the full truth confirm to the country that the Bush administration used this raising of the threat level for their own political purposes?

And how about the threat system itself: was it legitimate? After all, the American people discovered there wasn't really anything the ordinary citizen could do with this information that the threat level had become greater, or more imminent. In fact, we were told not to stop going about our ordinary business. And there really was no way that we could rally to protect the country better.

Was the only point of that color-coded threat system to provide this administration with a strategic mechanism for increasing the level of fear in the citizenry--a fear that, though useless for our national security, might prove politically useful for the Bush administration?

YOU WERE THERE. THE AMERICAN PEOPLE URGENTLY NEED TO KNOW WHAT YOU WITNESSED.

Even now, as the mid-term elections approach, the president's strategy of heightening our fear of terrorism, while claiming that we need him to protect us, is on full display.

Even now, President Bush is using this strategy to pressure Congress to legitimize his use of interrogation methods that are understood around the world to be torture. Moreover, these inhumane coercive methods are forbidden by the
Geneva Conventions, which are part of a Senate-ratified treaty and thus, according to our Constitution, the law of the land. Furthermore, the U.S. military has itself determined that statements elicited by these coercive methods are unreliable.

Even now, President Bush is using this strategy to pressure Congress to legitimize his conduct of warrantless domestic surveillance, despite the finding by a federal judge (and the American Bar Association) that such a practice is unconstitutional. This, despite the fact that the administration has offered no plausible arguments as to why it could not simultaneously protect us while obeying federal law and the U.S. Constitution.

"JUST TRUST US!"

Even now, "Just trust us!" is this administration's disingenuous response to accusations that it has been repeatedly violating the U.S. Constitution's restraints on the executive branch, and thus weakening the constitutional system of checks and balances that has protected the American people from tyranny for more than two hundred years.

If you have personal knowledge that this administration does not deserve our trust, if you know that they have misused these threats for their own political purposes, then the American people need for you to come forward and tell us what you know.

Of course we all agree that we need to be protected against external enemies. But as our Founding Fathers understood, what we most need to be protected against is the rise of internal tyrants.


I can imagine, Tom, that even if you do know something which the rest of the country should hear, you might feel inhibited from coming forward due to a sense of loyalty--loyalty to your party, and loyalty to the president who appointed you.

However, if this president has indeed done what many suspect, then loyalty to him is misplaced, for you cannot owe such a president your loyalty. If you know that this administration routinely puts their quest for power ahead of service to the nation, then it is your paramount duty to put loyalty to America ahead of any lesser loyalty.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell has recently come forward to call attention--albeit too tactfully--to some obvious truths that the Bush administration is trying to obscure: that its position represents an assault on the Geneva
Convention prohibitions against torture; and that "the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism." So too should you help the American people better understand the destructive and dangerous things that are being done in the name of that "war."

I can sympathize, Tom, if you're afraid of retaliation--from people who shamelessly use character assassination against whistleblowers--for telling this nation important truths that hurt your party. But surely the possibility of paying such a political cost would be an acceptable risk for a man who was awarded a medal for "gallantry" in Vietnam.

We have entered our sixties now, you and I, and the rest of the class of 1967. We've still got productive years left, but this is hardly the time--if ever there is one--to place one's ambitions ahead of one's principles and ideals.

IT'S TIME TO THINK OF THE LEGACY ONE WILL LEAVE FOR POSTERITY.

You have served your country in many ways for almost forty years. But nothing you have done so far would serve your country better than coming forward right now, and speaking plainly to the American people about what you have
witnessed concerning this administration's uses and abuses of its "war on terror."

Dr. ANDREW BARD SCHMOOKLER

Source: Published on 9/18/06 by NoneSoBlind.org. - Url.: http://www.nonesoblind.org/blog/?p=309

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Andrew Bard Schmookler's website, NoneSoBlind.org, is devoted to understanding both the root causes of America's moral crisis and the means by which we can meet the urgent challenges of this dangerous moment. Dr. Schmookler is the author of numerous books, such as The Parable Of The Tribes: The Problem Of Power In Social Evolution (SUNY Press) and Debating The Good Society: A Quest To Bridge America's Moral Divide (M.I.T. Press). He also conducts regular talk-radio conversations in both red and blue states. Reach him by e-mail at: andythebard@comcast.net

PLEASE ALSO READ FOUR EXCELLENT RELATED ESSAYS:

[1] Dr. John Mueller's Sept./Oct. 2006 Foreign Affairs essay, "Is There Still A Terrorist Threat?" [Despite all the ominous warnings about wily terrorists and imminent attacks, there has been neither a successful strike nor a close call in the United States since 9/11. The reasonable--but rarely heard--explanation is that there are no terrorists within the United States, and few have the means or the inclination to strike from abroad.]:
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060901facomment85501/john-mueller/is-there-still-a-terrorist-threat.html

[2] Dr. Frida Berrigan's 9/18/06 Common Dreams essay, "Take It From Him: America Is Safer?" Terrorism, Iraq, And The Political Uses Of Fear Five Years Into The 'Long War'" [Mr. Bush's current strategy of shamelessly evoking World War II and Cold War imagery and figures is just the latest in a long line of scare tactics that his administration has used to bolster the increasingly-unpopular Repubican Party.]: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0918-30.htm

[3] Cynthia Tucker's 9/18/06 Common Dreams/Baltimore Sun essay, "Appetite for Oil Fuels America's Warmongering" [Scholars of history acknowledge that America's addiction to oil is the underlying cause of both its growing militarism
and its recent wars of aggression.]: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0918-23.htm

[4] Doug Thompson' 9/18/06 Capitol Hill Blue essay, "Ashamed To Be An American" ["Bush is not only a serial liar but an unstable despot whose sanity is increasingly doubted by members of his own family and party. He ignores the will of the people he is supposed to serve, violates international law at will and shreds the Constitution along with the freedoms it once protected. ... I love my country but I hate what our so-called leaders have done to her. Thanks to the illogical, illegal and insane actions of George W. Bush and those who follow him, Americans can no longer hold their heads high and take pride in their country. Bush and his fellow terrorists have so thoroughly destroyed this great country that I fear the damage may be permanent and irreparable."]: http://www.capitolhillblue.com/content/2006/09/ashamed_to_be_a.html

Fwd. by:

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Largest Swiss newspaper asks if Bush was behind 9-11

FPF-fwd. via T Lee Buyea - Editor in Chief - Fla. NewsService.

9/11: THE MORE WE RESEARCH, THE MORE WE DOUBT THE BUSH VERSION.

by Elie Peter

BLICK - 15.09.2006 - ZÜRICH - 2,973 humans died with the attacks of 9/11. "Bin Laden" and "Al Qaeda", the Bush clan cried. The world believed him. In the meantime even scientists doubt the Bush version. Now, Swiss university professors Albert A. Stahel (63) and Daniele Ganser (34) raise hot new questions.
      
"Something is not correct", says strategy expert Stahel in "World Week", and refers to the "incomplete" official US Government 9/11 Report of 2004.

The university professor confirms his criticism in BLICK (VIEW):  "Osama Bin Laden cannot be 'the large godfather' behind the attacks. He did not have enough means of communication".   Stahel doubts that a passenger airliner crashed into the Pentagon: "For trainee pilots it is actually impossible to crash into the building so exactly. Seven hours after the Twin Towers collapsed, the World Trade Center Building 7 next to it also collapsed. The official version: It burned for a long time. Nothing at all is clear."

Raising questions along with Stahel is historian Dr. Daniele Ganser, his colleague at the University of Zurich. Dr. Ganser also calls the official US version "a conspiracy theory". "There are 3 theories, which we should treat equally":

1. "Surprise theory" - Bin Laden and Al Qaeda implemented the attacks.

2. "Let it happen on purpose" - The US Government knew the Al Qaeda plans and did not react in order to legitimize a series of wars.

3. *"Made it happen on purpose" - The attacks were actually planned and orchestrated by the Pentagon and/or US secret services.

Ganser: "3,000 humans were sacrificed for strategic interests. The more we research, the more we doubt the Bush version. It is conceivable that the Bush government was responsible. Bush has lied so much already! And we already know that the US government planned an operation in 1962 [Operation Northwood] that was approved by the Pentagon that would have sacrificed innocent US citizens for the government's own interests."

As far as Ganser and Stahel go: "We only ask questions."

Elie Peter

Story in BLICK - Swiss/German version - Url.: http://www.blick.ch/news/ausland/9-11/artikel45057

RELATED:

* FPF: 9/11 links at Url.: http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=234999;article=554

* CHANGE THE US REGIME? - "Brothers and sisters, if you and I would just realize, that once we learn to talk the language that they understand, they will then get the point. You can't ever reach a man if you don't speak his language. If a man speaks the language of brute force, you can't come to him with peace. Why goodnight! He'll break you in two, as he has been doing all along. If a man speaks French, you can't speak to him in German. If he speaks Swahili, you can't communicate with him in Chinese. You have to find out, what does this man speak? Once you know his language, learn how to speak his language. He'll get the point." - Malcom X - on defending human rights. - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/zoora

* DEFINITION OF SEMITES from the Collins English Dictionary - [http://tinyurl.com/zj9y4] - "Semitic: a member of the group of Caucasoid people who speak a Semitic language, including the Jews and Arabs as well as the Ancient Babylonians (Iraqis), the Assyrians (Syria), and the Phoenicians (the Lebanese of today). Semitic: a branch or sub-family of languages that includes Arabic, Aramaic, Hebrew.” - Palestinians and Lebanese for instance are semites. The JDL cliché: "anti semitism' has always been a fake accusation, abused to kill debates too in the past. Not anymore. What the US/Israeli war machine is doing is anti semitism on a global scale.

* The Dutch author this far has worked abroad for more than 4 decades for international media as an independent foreign correspondent, of which 10 years - also during Gulf War I - in the Arab World and the Middle East. Seeing worldwide that every bullet and every bomb breeds more terrorism!

* FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 - any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. Url.: http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html

FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
Editor: Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/jwgqa
The Netherlands
fpf@chello.nl

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