IntolerableBehaviour

Special Prosecutor for Bush War Crimes

Submitted by Bob Fertik on December 18, 2008 - 9:45pm.

43497 of 100000 people have signed this petition.

Background

Dear Attorney General Eric Holder,

We the undersigned citizens of the United States hereby formally petition you to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute any and all government officials who have participated in torture and other war crimes.

Update 1: Initially, we emailed Mr. Holder at his law firm. On 12/20/08 we received a reply from Mr. Holder: "Enough folks. I hear you." So out of respect we stopped forwarding each signature individually.

Update 2: After his Senate confirmation on 2/2/09, we began forwarding each signature to the Justice Department. We are trying to schedule a meeting to deliver the full list of signatures.

(Thanks to buhdydharma and the Docudharma community for the petition, and to Edger for the logo.)

Petition

Dear Attorney General Eric Holder,

We the undersigned citizens of the United States petition you to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute any and all government officials who have participated in torture and other war crimes.

These crimes are being euphemistically referred to as "abusive interrogation techniques" by such respected figures as Senator John McCain. These are euphemisms for torture. Torture is a war crime. Waterboarding is a war crime. The CIA has admitted waterboarding detainees. Former Vice President Cheney brazenly admitted authorizing the program that led to waterboarding, other forms of torture too numerous to list, and ultimately, the deaths by homicide of detainees.

As Major General Antonio Taguba, the Army general who led the investigation into prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison has stated:

"After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."

The Washington Post summarized the Senate Armed Services Committee Report on detainee treatment:

A bipartisan panel of Senators has concluded that former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other top Bush administration officials bear direct responsibility for the harsh treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, and that their decisions led to more serious abuses in Iraq and elsewhere.

We the undersigned citizens demand a full and thorough investigation immediately. This investigation should be pursued no matter where it may lead and no matter what the political implications may be. To this end, we remind you that you work not on behalf of or for the President or the Congress, but for the People of the United States of America and for Justice itself.

The United States is a representative democracy. The actions of our government officials are done in the name of its citizens. War Crimes have been committed in our name. Torture has been done in our name. The only way to clear our name of war crimes is to repudiate them through the aggressive prosecution of each and every person involved to the fullest extent of the law through the appointment of a Special Prosecutor.

http://www.democrats.com/special-prosecutor-for-bush-war-crimes

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WAR CRIMES

"They plunder, they slaughter, and they steal: this they falsely name Empire,
and where they make a wasteland, they call it peace."

The Commander and Chief of the Military, Should Be Held Accountable For These Crimes

TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 118 > § 2441

§ 2441. War crimes

(a) Offense.— Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.

(b) Circumstances.— The circumstances referred to in subsection (a) are that the person committing such war crime or the victim of such war crime is a member of the Armed Forces of the United States or a national of the United States (as defined in section 101 of the Immigration and Nationality Act).

(c) Definition.— As used in this section the term “war crime” means any conduct—
(1) defined as a grave breach in any of the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party;
(2) prohibited by Article 23, 25, 27, or 28 of the Annex to the Hague Convention IV, Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, signed 18 October 1907;
(3) which constitutes a violation of common Article 3 of the international conventions signed at Geneva, 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party and which deals with non-international armed conflict; or
(4) of a person who, in relation to an armed conflict and contrary to the provisions of the Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices as amended at Geneva on 3 May 1996 (Protocol II as amended on 3 May 1996), when the United States is a party to such Protocol, willfully kills or causes serious injury to civilians.

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The following piece by Paul Findley is a must read (I had told CBS News correspondent Lara Logan about his 'They Dare to Speak Out' book as she has a copy of it along with the James Bamford 'A Pretext for War' book that I had sent her in the bookshelf of her '60 Minutes' D.C. office as can be seen via the video linked with the following URL):

Lara Logan's Spoils of War

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/blog/1380000138/post/1700033570.html?nid=3349

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AMERICAS WAR CRIMES IN GAZA by Paul Findley

Americas abject subservience to the government of Israel has led us into deep complicity in Israels shocking air and ground military assault on 1.5 million defenseless human beings called Palestinians who are crowded in a hellhole called Gaza. I toured Gaza four years ago and was amazed that human beings could survive in that hot, humid land covered constantly with a heavy blanket of dust.

They could not escape, because Israel long ago converted Gaza, a tiny coastal strip adjacent to Israel and only twice the size of Washingtons District of Columbia, into a miserable outdoor prison. Inmates are effectively locked down around the clock, except for a few injured who are permitted to seek medical care in Egypt. For 18 months they suffered from an Israeli blockade. Food and medical supplies dwindle dangerously. Even before the assault, electricity was intermittent and food supplies dangerously low.

Eighty percent of the inhabitants of Gaza are victims of Israels illegal expansion into Arab territory in the Jewish states early history. They, or their forebears, fled into Gaza as a place of refuge when they were forced by Israeli military units to leave their homes in what is now Israel.

As I write, 524 Palestinians have been killed and over 3,000 injuredmany of them women and children. The pretext for this most recent assault on Gaza are homemade missiles launched by Hamas supporters in Gaza that occasionally hit a nearby Israeli village. The missiles caused four Israeli deaths, a few injuries and some destruction. These bombings are also a lamentable violation of international law, but they hardly justify the massacre Israel has inflicted on Gazans.

The plight of Gazans intensified when they voted to power several years ago members of Hamas, a political organization that Israel helped bring into being years ago as a political counterweight to the PLO. Hamas developed into a large, independent and popular organization that provided needed social and other services before emerging as a strong critic of Israels mistreatment of Palestinians. The leadership proposed an extended ceasefire without response from Israel.

The moment Hamas gained authority in a free and fair election, the U.S. government began conspiring privately with Israel on ways to reverse forcibly the electorates decision. So much for the democratic process.
President George W. Bush publicly defends Israels bombing and ground assault by saying, Israel has a right to defend itself. It would be comforting if he would also say that the Gazans have a right to defend themselves against Israels longstanding harsh and abusive treatment. Are Palestinian lives less precious than Israelis? President-Elect Barack Obama has remained silent.

Just before the current Israel assault, Prof. Richard Falk, a distinguished Jewish scholar in international law at Princeton University and recently designated as United Nations reporter on Palestinian rights, was refused entry to Israel and unceremoniously deported after being confined in a dirty cell for 20 hours. Falk writes that the spate of homemade rockets does not give Israel either the moral or legal authority to punish the entire population of Gaza. He adds,
Even before Israels strike a recent study reports that 46 percent of all Gazan children suffer from acute anemia. The sonic booms associated with Israeli over-flights have caused widespread deafness, especially among children. Malnutrition is extremely high and affects, in varying degrees, 75 percent of GazansThe magnitude of Palestinian suffering and the deliberate violations of international humanitarian law by Israel are indefensible.

As a veteran former Republican Member of Congress, I was upset when Senator Mitch McConnell, Senate Republican Leader, brushedd off a reporters question about Israels assault on Gaza in these words: Israel had no choice.

Americas political structure and most of our media are bereft of balanced appraisal. In the Congress, only Democrat Dennis Kucinich of Ohio speaks out in protest. Almost all other Members of Congress toe the Israeli line and express supportive words similar to McConnells.
The Palestinian death toll approaches 500 with over two thousand seriously injured. In contrast, one Israeli soldier was killed and a handful injured. Only Aljazeera television has kept the Arab world fully informed with regular glimpses of the true extent of death and injury suffered by Gazans.

The American people, largely unaware about our governments subservience to Israel, are unwitting partners in the inhuman brutality being inflicted on the people of Gaza. The fighter planes, helicopter gun-ships, tanks, and missiles used to visit death, injury and destruction upon the Palestinians are gifts of the U.S. government. In the UN Security Council, only the United States opposed a call for an immediate ceasefire. Without Americas unconditional military and political support, Israel could never carry out the destruction of Gaza or its humiliation of Palestinians in the West Bank and other war crimes. Americas indifference to the plight of Gazans makes we wonder if our citizens have lost all capacity for moral outrage.

If you wish to find out who is really responsible for Israels scofflaw behavior and war crimes, look in the mirror. Citizens like you and me let lobbyists for a small, ruthless government make America its uncomplaining servant.
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Paul Findley; Member of Congress 1961-83, is the author of three books on the Arab-Israeli conflict, including the Washington Post bestseller They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israels Lobby. He resides in Jacksonville, Illinois.

http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=102066
AMERICA'S WAR CRIMES IN GAZA by Paul Findley

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First Published 2009-01-06

Bush’s Last War Crime

George Bush's rubber stamp alliance with Israeli military savagery against Gaza adds to the list of criminal-level disasters he has involved the United States during his eight-year regime. Will Barack Obama be a peacemaker? Asks Robert Dreyfuss.

The Israeli invasion of Gaza, launched Saturday, might very well be George W. Bush's last and final war crime. For eight years, Bush has coupled unparalled ignorance of the Middle East with supreme arrogance. It is precisely that deadly combination of ignorance and arrogance that is on display now, as a politically motivated Israeli invasion of Gaza unfolds with the full support of the Bush administration.

In his weekly radio address, delivered as Israeli tanks and armor rumbled into the Gaza Strip, Bush declared: "This recent outburst of violence was instigated by Hamas -- a Palestinian terrorist group supported by Iran and Syria that calls for Israel's destruction. ... Another one-way ceasefire that leads to rocket attacks on Israel is not acceptable. And promises from Hamas will not suffice -- there must be monitoring mechanisms in place to help ensure that smuggling of weapons to terrorist groups in Gaza comes to an end. I urge all parties to pressure Hamas to turn away from terror."

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=29585

Middle East Online