Criminal Prosecution

United States' Nuremburg Chief Prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz Speaks Out on Iraq
by Gene Cappa | OpEdNews.com

United States Chief Prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz, was only 26 years old when he successfully prosecuted 24 Nazis SS officers for war crimes, at the infamous "Einsatzgruppen (Nazis Death Squads) Trials", including SS General Dr Otto Ohlendorf who pleaded not guilty due to self-defense in the murders of over 1,000,000 jews.

By David Swanson

Dick Cheney today previewed a likely argument defense attorneys will employ when he and Bush and their subordinates are tried, an argument that some of us have been predicting for years: If we weren't impeached and it was "war time" anything we did must have been legal. But, of course, none of the many arguments against impeachment that were frequently employed by the Democrats in Congress ever included the laughable assertion that Bush and Cheney were obeying laws. After all, Congress was busy passing bills to legalize their actions, and other bills to redundantly criminalize them, and watching bills of the latter sort be tossed out with "signing statements." The arguments against impeachment focused on the self-fulfilling alleged impossibility of doing it, the fear of being criticized on Fox News, the supposed need to focus on something else (anyone recall what it was?), the imagined electoral impact, and even the theory that the courts could better handle it.

The latest comment from the big Dick is of special relevance to those who made that last excuse. I really do hate to say I told you so, but the fact is that impeachment could be begun this Tuesday, completed on Wednesday, and a Senate trial scheduled for February, and Cheney's leading argument would be shot.

Watch CBS Videos Online

After five days of citizen voting at President-elect Obama's Change.gov website, the top-ranked question seeks a non-partisan Special Prosecutor to investigate the crimes of the Bush Administration:

"Will you appoint a Special Prosecutor - ideally Patrick Fitzgerald - to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush Administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping?" -Bob Fertik, New York City

The second round of questions began on December 30. As of January 4, nearly 4 million votes had been cast for over 63,000 questions. The first round of questions ended on December 15 with nearly 1 million votes cast for over 10,000 questions.

By David Swanson

"It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners."
— Albert Camus

Washington Post editorial writer Ruth Marcus has joined the side of the executioners and provided a clear example of how that is respectably done in our time and place.

Her recent column begins:

"Should Bush administration officials be put on trial for crimes such as authorizing torture?"

By BOB AUDETTE, Brattleboro Reformer

BRATTLEBORO -- The man behind the local movement to impeach, arrest and indict President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for war crimes and violations of the U.S. Constitution is asking the country's next president to grant Bush a pardon.

"The country needs reconciliation," said Kurt Daims.

But Daims doesn't want the next president to pardon Bush until he is tried and convicted of war crimes and of violating the United States Constitution. Daims also hopes a trial will shine a light on all those who have committed crimes while hiding in the shadows. "Bush wasn't the only wrong-doer, he said. "Without accountability millions of people are losing all faith in our nation."

By PATRICK McARDLE, Rutland (Vt) Herald

BRATTLEBORO — Voters are likely to see a resolution on Town Meeting Day asking Barack Obama to pardon George Bush after he is convicted of violating his oath of office, one year after voters approved a measure indicting Bush and Dick Cheney.

Kurt Daims of Brattleboro said he is calling this resolution "Truth and Reconciliation." It calls for Obama to issue what Daims calls a "Revelation Proclamation" to pardon Bush but only after he is tried for war crimes.

"If there is no accountability, millions will lose all faith in our nation. And millions more know Bush wasn't the only wrong-doer, but they will be embittered for decades if he is punished. The country is divided either way. The compromise is to let Bush be safe, and have the truth out," Daims wrote in a release explaining the resolution.

An era of heartless, revolting dishonesty
By Pat Murphy | Idaho Mountain Express

Bernard Madoff, the New Yorker who fleeced investors of $50 billion with heartless precision, and Vice President Dick Cheney, a principal architect of America’s ruin as an envied world leader and engineer of calculated abuse of power, share the same amoral lack of ethics except for one distinguishing fact.

Madoff forlornly admits his revolting dishonesty and theft of investments from philanthropists, friends, foundations and celebrities. However, right up to the last days of his dark reign, Cheney not only refuses to admit his deceit, but boasts that kidnapping and torture of terror suspects, wiretapping Americans, ignoring Congress, lying to the public, launching a war on fraudulent grounds, alienating overseas allies, pandering to loony religious agendas and legislating for the wealthy were collectively beneficial to Americans.

Loyalists of George W. Bush and Cheney will protest. However, a reasonable case can be made that the Bush-Cheney years were golden for corrupt public conduct.

With a Foreword by former Nuremberg prosecutor Benjamin B. Ferencz, the book George W. Bush, War Criminal? The Bush Administration’s Liability for 269 War Crimes by Professor Michael Haas was released today by Greenwood Press. Further information is available at www.USwarcrimes.com

Based on information supplied in autobiographical and press sources, the book matches events in Afghanistan, Guantánamo, Iraq, and various secret places of detention with provisions in the Geneva Conventions and other international agreements on war crimes. His compilation is the first to cite a comprehensive list of specific war crimes in four categories—illegality of the decision to go to war, misconduct during war, mistreatment of prisoners of war, and misgovernment in the American occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

From Bob Fertik

Melber: Ask Obama For a Torture Special Prosecutor

Lithwick: Cheney's Ludicrous Torture Defenses

Greenwald: Liberal Apologists for Torture

Worthington: The Ten Lies of Dick Cheney
One
Two

Wheeler: Cheney is Lying about Congressional Wiretap Approval

President-Elect Obama's website asked for questions. People submitted and voted on questions, and finishing in sixth place was this one:

"Will you appoint a Special Prosecutor - ideally Patrick Fitzgerald - to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush Administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping?"
Bob Fertik, New York City

Now round two begins, and we'd appreciate your voting for this question:

"Do you believe the pardon power extends to allowing a president to authorize a crime and then pardon his subordinate? Are you aware that the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture commit the United States to prosecuting violators?"
David Swanson, Charlottesville VA

Please go here, and...

1. Sign in. Click to sign into the Change.gov website. It's just one easy step. You won't need to check your Email, and you'll be returned to the screen you were on.

2. Search. On the Open-for-Questions page type or paste into the search box these words:
pardon power

3. Vote. That should bring up the right question which you can then vote for by clicking on the check mark.
Please do it now!

Note to the confused: Yes, I've squeezed two questions into one, and the answers we'd like to them are "no" and "yes." That should not give you any difficulty in voting the two questions together up the list by clicking the check mark. You're not answering them yes or no but voting them up to where the president elect has to read them. Thanks!!

UPDATE 1: Please also vote for this question:
"Will you appoint a Special Prosecutor - ideally Patrick Fitzgerald - to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush Administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping?"
-Bob Fertik, New York City

New Note to the further confused: We appreciate the efforts of everyone who has copied the above questions word-for-word and reposted them as new questions, but this is actually counterproductive. Instead, please find the questions posted by David Swanson and Bob Fertik and click the check mark. That's our best shot at moving those questions up the list. Thanks!

UPDATE 2: Please also vote for this question:
"* President-Elect Obama, you were elected in large part because of your promise to end the War in Iraq. Will you sit down with leaders of the peace movement to talk about bringing our troops home? Sincerely, PeaceVoter"
CODEPINK Women for Peace, Anywhere, USA

Did Lame Congress Enable Connell Murder?
By Ralph Lopez | War On You

Condolences to Mr. Connell’s family on this holiday season.

In many other countries this is kind of coincidence would have people spilling into the streets. The hotly disputed Ohio 2004 election count is what swung the election toward Bush, thus sealing our image in the world as fearful, hate-filled warmongers. 2000 came under the category “stuff happens.” In 2004 the world saw us actually re-elect this monster.

Karl Rove Destroyed My Life
by Paul Alexander | The Daily Beast

Excerpt: Now it’s up to Congress—and the House and the Senate judiciary committees—to bring Rove before the House Judiciary Committee....Actually, the House Judiciary Committee has already subpoenaed Rove to testify and he has refused to appear....That’s why it’s so important for the House and the Senate to hold Rove in contempt of Congress and exercise their inherent authority to enforce that subpoena by sending the Capital police to go get him and bring him in or by pursuing the thing through litigation. But one way or the other, it is critically important that the subpoena be upheld. Otherwise, it sends the message to all his accomplices that they are free to carry out their mischief in the future with impunity because nothing is going to happen to him.

Cheney's Delusions | LATimes.com

We probably shouldn't have been surprised at Vice President Dick Cheney's blustering, obstinate insistence on ABC News on Monday that he's been right all along about virtually everything. But that doesn't mean we have to agree.

In the interview, Cheney not only acknowledged that he was involved in approving the harsh interrogation methods used by the CIA on suspected terrorists, but said he still thinks that waterboarding was an appropriate way to extract information. He said -- contradicting even President Bush -- that he believes the notorious American prison at Guantanamo Bay should remain open for the foreseeable future, and he reiterated that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was justified by, believe it or not, Saddam Hussein's weapons programs.

Dear President Elect Obama,

On his third day in office President Grant revoked two pardons that had been granted by President Andrew Johnson. President Nixon also undid a pardon that had been granted by President Lyndon Johnson. There may be other examples of this, as these two have somewhat accidentally come up in a discussion focused on numerous examples of presidents undoing pardons that they had themselves granted, something the current president did last week. (See http://pardonpower.com ). In 2001, President George W. Bush's lawyers advised him that he could undo a pardon that President Clinton had granted.

By Daphne Eviatar, The Washington Independent

Blackwater case shines light on status force agreement loophole.

Earlier this month, the Department of Justice announced to great fanfare that it had indicted five guards employed by the private security firm Blackwater Worldwide for their role in a Baghdad shooting that left 17 Iraqis dead last year. A sixth guard had pled guilty to manslaughter and weapons violations.

But lawyers for the five men indicted in the first case of its kind appear to have a strong defense, regardless of the circumstances of the shooting: private security guards contracting with the Department of State may not be subject to American law. And despite a new Status of Forces Agreement negotiated between the United States and the Iraqi government that would seem to make future contractors subject to Iraqi law, guards like the Blackwater men hired by the State Department may glide through a large loophole in that new agreement as well.

The Movement to Try George W. Bush et al for War Crimes
by Len Hart | OpEdNews.com | Submitted by Lance Ciepiela

Members of the Bush administration and George W. Bush personally conspired to violate the Geneva Convention, the Nuremberg Principles and US obligations to both. Bush and key members of his administration deliberately violated US criminal codes and tried to make their crimes legal after they had already committed them. Bush and his minions embarked upon this subversive action when it was made clear to them that they could be put to death for violations of US Codes which bind the US to Geneva and other treaties that were almost insisted upon by the United States.

Here's some history.