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SHOULD SCOOTER LIBBY'S LAWYER BE DISBARRED? Law school dean Lawrence Velvel says, Maybe he should, if he sat idly by while client Libby spouted lies. What lies at the core of Zionism? Michael Neumann tortures Alan Dershowitz, without a warrant! "Sex-mad adulterer from British aristocracy claims to have 'revolutionized' philosophy." Yes, Bertrand Russell, they mean you! Alexander Cockburn on Smearing 101 in the British press. Get the answers you're looking for in the subscriber-only edition of CounterPunch ... CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 |
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December 7, 2005 Jeremy Brecher
/ Brendan Smith December 6, 2005 Ron Jacobs Patrick Cockburn Yifat Susskind Mike Whitney Pat Williams Paul Craig
Roberts Website of
the Day
December 5, 2005 John Walsh Brian Cloughley Mokhiber /
Weissman Robert Jensen Norman Solomon Peter Rost, MD Lila Rajiva Website of the Day
Alexander Cockburn Lawrence R.
Velvel Rev. William Alberts Saul Landau Ralph Nader Paul Craig
Roberts Mike Whitney Allan Lichtman Dave Lindorff Brian Concannon,
Jr. Fred Gardner Manuel Garcia,
Jr. Carol Wolman St. Clair /
Vest / Walker / Pollack Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
December 2, 2005 Stan Goff Mike Ferner Christopher Brauchli Niranjan Ramakrishnan Manuel Talens Peter Phillips J.L. Chestnut,
Jr. Website of
the Day
December 1, 2005 John Walsh,
MD Ron Jacobs Jenna Orkin Joshua Frank Tiffany Ten
Eyck Missy Comley Beattie Eli Stephens Elaine Cassel Website of
the Day
November 30, 2005 Allen / D'Amato Mike Whitney Kevin Zeese Norman Solomon Ramzy Baroud Dave Lindorff Stephen Soldz
November 29, 2005 Phil Gasper Behzad Yaghmaian Joshua Frank Walter A. Davis Gary Leupp Len Colodny Jeffrey St.
Clair Bill Quigley Website of
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November 28, 2005 Chris Reed David Isenberg Ron Jacobs Norman Solomon Justin E.H. Smith Mickey Z. Mike Whitney David Swanson Paul Craig
Roberts Website of
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November 26 / 27, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Saul Landau Ralph Nader Brian Cloughley John Ross Gary Leupp Fred Gardner Christopher Brauchli Dave Lindorff P. Sainath Timothy J.
Freeman Lila Rajiva Eric Ruder Seth Sandronsky Joaquin Bustelo Lewis Alper Will Youmans Phyllis Pollack St. Clair /
Vest Barbara LaMorticella Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
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November 24, 2005 James Petras Bob Shirley Mike Fox Niranjan Ramakrishnan Greg Moses Alexander Cockburn
November 23, 2005 Ramzy Baroud Mike Whitney Stan Cox Linda S. Heard November 22, 2005 Kevin Gray
/ Mike Hersh Ralph Nader Michael Donnelly Mike Ferner Pierre Tristam Marshall Auerback Website of
the Day
November 21, 2005 Mike Marqusee Josh Frank Mike Whitney Norman Solomon Russ Baker Robert Jensen Paul Craig
Roberts
November 19 / 20, 2005 Fred Gardner Rep. Cynthia McKinney Ron Jacobs David Vest J.L. Chestnut,
Jr. John R. Bomar John Ross Phillip Cryan Dave Lindorff Dick J. Reavis Jeremy Scahill Dan Wright John Stanton St. Clair / Vest / Walker Phyllis Pollack Dr. Susan Block Poets Basement
November 18, 2005 Michael Neumann Dave Lindorff Michael Donnelly Mark Chmiel
/ Andrew Wimmer Don Monkerud Tom Kerr Trish Schuh
November 17, 2005 John Walsh Rep. John Murtha Brian J. Foley CounterPunch
News Service Dave Lindorff Mark T. Harris Cockburn /
St. Clair
November 16, 2005 John F. Sugg Noam Chomsky Dave Lindorff Evelyn Pringle Sam Husseini Pierre Tristam Greg Bates Farrah Hassen Bill Christison Website of
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November 15, 2005 Todd Chretien Leah Caldwell Frederick Hudson Harry Browne Jason Leopold Ingmar Lee Diana Barahona Tom Andre Website of the Weekend
November 14, 2005 Diana Johnstone Paul Craig Roberts Conn Hallinan Joshua Frank Christopher
Reed
November 11 / 13, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Gwyneth Leech Elmas Mallo Michael Neumann Saul Landau Sam Husseini Brian Cloughley Ron Jacobs Lila Rajiva Michael Donnelly Joe Allen Roland Sheppard Justin E.H.
Smith Ben Tripp St. Clair /
Vest Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
November 10, 2005 Peterside,
Ogon, Watts and Zalik Pat Williams Steve Higgs Jimmy Massey Lucson Pierre-Charles Anthony Newkirk Lawrence R.
Velvel Website of the Day November 9, 2005 Gary Leupp Tariq Ali Chris Floyd Elaine Cassel Joshua Frank Alison Weir Diana Johnstone
Paul Craig
Roberts Roger Burbach Ron Jacobs Ralph Nader Jim McGrath David Bloom Stan Goff
November 7, 2005 Dick Reavis Jason Leopold Dave Lindorff Eli Stephens David Swanson M. Junaid Alam Matt Reichel Naima Bouteldja Jeff Halper Website of the Day
November 5 / 6, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Lawrence R.
Velvel Diana Johnstone Roosa / Nevins Niranjan Ramakrishnan John Ross Mike Whitney Mark Engler Juliano Mer-Khamis Ron Jacobs Jill S. Farrell Missy Comley
Beattie Mitchel Cohen Evelyn J. Pringle Reza Fiyouzat Charles Sullivan Zachary Richard Ben Tripp St. Clair / Vest
November 4, 2005 Jeffrey St.
Clair Dave Lindorff Phillip Cryan Christopher Brauchli William S.
Lind Daryl G. Kimball George Beres Peter Montague
November 3, 2005 James Petras Saul Landau Rep. Cynthia McKinney Michael Dickinson Joshua Frank Remi Kanazi Reza Fiyouzat Website of the Day
November 2, 2005 Cockburn /
St. Clair Robert Oscar Lopez John Walsh Brian J. Foley Ramzy Baroud M. Junaid Alam Todd Chretien Bruce K. Gagnon Website of the Day
November 1, 2005 Ron Jacobs Gary Leupp John Ross Bill Quigley Joseph Nevins Dave Lindorff Linda S. Heard Heather Gray Michael Dickinson Jeffrey St. Clair
October 31, 2005 Elaine Cassel Mark Weisbrot Mike Whitney Norman Solomon Farooq Sulehria Nicole Colson Madis Senner Paul Craig
Roberts
Cockburn /
St. Clair Peter Linebaugh Tim Wise John Chuckman Steven Higgs Brian Cloughley M. Shahid Alam Nikki Robinson Ralph Nader Joe DeRaymond Joshua Frank Laura Santina Fred Gardner Michael Dickinson Ron Jacobs Dr. Susan Block Vanessa S. Jones Jeffrey St.
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Roberts Ken Sengupta / Patrick Cockburn Conn Hallinan Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed Jackie Corr Robert Day John Sugg
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Christison
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Beattie Kona Lowell Ben Tripp Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement Website of
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October 21, 2005 Dave Lindorff Winslow T. Wheeler Col. Dan Smith Norman Solomon Madis Senner Michael Donnelly
Dave Lindorff Ray McGovern Jeremy Brecher
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December 6, 2005 The Posse GathersBush War CrimesBy JEREMY BRECHER Diverse forces are assembling to bring Bush administration officials to account for war crimes. Cindy Sheehan, Gold Star Mother for Peace, insists: "We cannot have these people pardoned. They need to be tried on war crimes and go to jail." 1 Paul Craig Roberts, Hoover Institution senior fellow and assistant secretary of the treasury under Ronald Reagan, charges Bush with "lies and an illegal war of aggression, with outing CIA agents, with war crimes against Iraqi civilians, with the horrors of the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo torture centers" and calls for the president's impeachment. 2 Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton and former president of the American Society of International Law, declares: "These policies make a mockery of our claim to stand for the rule of law. [Americans] should be marching on Washington to reject inhumane techniques carried out in our name." 3 Can such disparate forces as the peace movement, conservative advocates of the rule of law, and human rights advocates join to halt high government officials demonstrably engaged in criminal enterprise? Can they reach out and appeal to the deep but vacillating commitment of the American people to the national and international rule of law? Or will the Bush administration divide the posse and retain for itself the mantle of defender of international law and the U.S. Constitution?
As Allied armies advanced into Germany, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared captured Nazi leaders outlaws subject to summary execution. But U.S. President Harry Truman, a former small-town judge, insisted instead on formal trials with "notification to the accused of the charge, the right to be heard, and to call witnesses in his defense." The result was the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal and the start of a revolution that, in U.S. Justice Robert Jackson's words, replaced a "system of international lawlessness" with one that made "statesmen responsible to law." It is this revolution that may be catching up with the administration of George W. Bush. During the Cold War era, Nuremberg
was little more than a dimming memory. Charges by Richard Falk,
Marcus Raskin, and others that U.S. actions in Vietnam constituted
war crimes helped swell opposition to the war, but U.S. officials
were never held to account for their actions. Starting in the
1990s, however, the revolutionary principle that Critical to this unprecedented movement has been an evolved relationship between national and international law. In the past, international law was seen as a potential infringement on national sovereignty. (The Bush administration is trying to resuscitate that view-for example, in its attacks on the International Criminal Court.) But today the two are increasingly intertwined and mutually reinforcing, much like state and national law in the United States. Many new democracies see institutions like the International Criminal Court as bulwarks against the restoration of tyranny in their own countries-much as the U.S. Constitution guarantees that its member states will be republics, not monarchies. Toward this end, many countries have incorporated aspects of international law into their national statutes-the U.S. War Crimes Act, for example, makes grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions a crime under U.S. law, punishable in some cases by death. Several overlapping strands have coalesced into a body of law regarding war crimes. One is the prohibition on aggressive war. As the Nuremberg Tribunal put it, "To initiate a war of aggression" is " the supreme international crime." A second strand is humanitarian law, which protects both combatants and civilians from unnecessary harm during war. The devastation associated with World War II led to the recognition of "crimes against humanity," which involve acts of violence against a persecuted group. War crimes were codified in the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and have been further developed in subsequent protocols and agreements. The Nuremberg Tribunal was criticized on the grounds that it represented not impartial justice but "victor's justice," that it provided impunity for the bombing of civilians and other heinous acts committed by the victors, and that it prosecuted people "ex post facto" for acts that had not been declared crimes when they were committed. These charges had considerable justification. But today there is a body of national and international law that clearly defines war crimes and a set of procedures for applying them comparable to the procedures used to judge other crimes. Those are the standards by which allegations of American war crimes must be judged. Law must-and the international law of war crimes now does-provide a single standard of judgment that can be applied without discrimination to different cases. If an act is a war crime, then it is a war crime whether it is perpetrated by Saddam Hussein or by George Bush.
The charge that the U.S. attack on Iraq was a war crime was raised even before the war began. More than 1,000 law professors and U.S. legal institutions organized in opposition to the U.S. war crime of launching an "aggressive war in violation of the UN Charter" against Iraq. Violation of international law was also a central theme in worldwide demonstrations against the war. The attack on the illegality of the war has been revived by the leak of the Downing Street memo; 130 members of Congress joined Rep. John Conyers in demanding that the Bush administration come clean about the invasion-supported by a half million citizen signatures gathered in barely a week. "Scootergate" is fundamentally about the cover-up of White House lies justifying the war. Illegal detention and torture are also war crimes. Starting with the exposure of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, cascading revelations have established that these cases exemplify a pattern of abuse authorized at the highest levels of government. Human rights groups like the Center for Constitutional Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Human Rights First sued in U.S. and foreign courts against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others for breaching the U.S. Constitution and the Geneva Conventions. The Senate's 90-9 vote to restore the military's traditional prohibition against torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners-prompting the Bush administration to threaten a veto-sets the stage for a major confrontation over adherence to both the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Constitution. Despite massive cover-ups, the evidence is emerging: the Bush administration planned an illegal war of aggression against Iraq, conned the American people and their representatives into supporting it, conducted an illegal occupation marked by massive violation of Iraqi human rights, and justified and promoted systematic torture. Now the White House seeks opportunities for further criminal attacks against Iran, Syria, and other countries around the world, issuing threats to use death squads and nuclear weapons at will. These acts violate American law, international law, and the basic values of the American people. They are crimes against peace and crimes against humanity. They are outlawed by the Geneva Conventions, the UN Charter, and treaties against torture and other human rights abuses. They are war crimes, and those who ordered and condoned them are war criminals.
The Nuremberg principle that statesmen are "responsible to law" extended to international relations the principle of "government under law" already enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Indeed, no principle of American democracy is more fundamental or more widely accepted than the precept that no one is above the law. But a central endeavor of the Bush administration has been to put the government, and more particularly the president, above both U.S. and international law. This was made clear in President Bush's refusal to apply the Geneva Conventions to prisoners of war captured during the Afghanistan War. Soon after, the United States refused to adhere to UN Charter requirements regulating the use of force. Then the Justice Department argued that courts would not have jurisdiction over Guantanamo detainees even if they were being summarily executed. The Ninth Circuit Court commented, "the U.S. government has never before asserted such a grave and startling proposition," a position "so extreme that it raises the gravest concerns under both American and international law." 5 As Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman put it, the claim that the president is above the law "strikes at the very heart of our democracy. It was the centerpiece of President Richard Nixon's defense in Watergate-a defense that was rejected by the courts and lay at the foundation of the articles of impeachment voted against him by the House Judiciary Committee." It is ironic that such a doctrine should emerge from a movement that calls itself "conservatism" and purports to have limitation of government as its fundamental principle. Indeed, it is more than ironic; it is totally hypocritical. And this claim of unlimited presidential powers has turned many genuine conservatives-ranging from former government and military officials to the many corporate lawyers defending Guantanamo inmates-against the Bush administration. Law entails more than an individual or social preference; it obligates individuals and institutions to act. Describing his evolving viewpoint, Daniel Ellsberg wrote that he saw the U.S. involvement in Vietnam "first as a problem; then as a stalemate; then as a crime." Each of these perspectives called for "a different mode of personal commitment: a problem, to help solve it; a stalemate, to extricate ourselves with grace; a crime, to expose and resist it, to try to stop it immediately, to seek moral and political change." 6 A focus on government-sponsored crime has the potential to open a discourse with those across the political spectrum-from civil rights advocates to military attorneys-who believe that government must not be exempt from the rule of law. It draws on a democratic, constitutionalist tradition and the powerful popular conviction that law and law enforcement are necessary and that they must apply to all, including the government and its highest officials.
Bush administration malfeasance can be described as a problem of democracy, of human rights, of usurpation, of the rule of law, of constitutionalism, or of war crimes. These terms all point to the same fundamental problem: those in charge of the political and military apparatus of the U.S. government are using it to further a criminal enterprise in violation of national and international law. Each step of this criminal behavior has been contested by different constituencies and on somewhat differing grounds. If those constituencies could unite around a common frame, they could halt the entire Bush enterprise. The role of the Bush administration in promoting war crimes in Iraq and beyond can provide that unifying frame. Resistance to such government criminality can unify diverse constituencies who believe in rule of law. Accusations of American war crimes have long been a staple of left-wing groups like ANSWER and the International Action Center . But many mainstream peace activists have been wary. As one well-known leader put it earlier this year: "War-crimes talk pushes people away. People don't want to hear it. Polls indicate that the population says under some circumstances torture is OK, and that what's being done is not torture. People blame bad apples. They want to prosecute the bad apples so they can have a cleaner war. Besides, they say, we're dealing with horrible people who cut off people's heads. What is our end goal? If our objective is to stop the occupation, then war crimes is not the best angle." These are legitimate concerns. However, they imply not that the issue of war crimes shouldn't be raised but rather that it should be raised wisely with due respect for the feelings of the American people. War crimes accusations should not be presented as anti-American but rather as an appeal to the American people to share the right and obligation of all people to hold their governments accountable. By rejecting the Bush administration's attempt to blame torture and other abuses on "bad apples" at the bottom, accountability can be placed squarely on those at the top. The crimes of U.S. opponents can be acknowledged without justifying those perpetrated in Washington. Illegal detention, prisoner abuse, and torture can be presented as part of a larger pattern of war crimes. As Justice Jackson noted at Nuremberg, a war of aggression differs from other war crimes only in that "it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." If the peace movement can connect with the American public's belief in the rule of law, the days of George Bush's criminal enterprise will be numbered. The war crimes frame also provides the peace movement a way to reach out to Americans on the basis of moral and religious convictions. Religious opponents of the war, such as the ecumenical Fellowship of Reconciliation and the Catholic St. Patrick's Four, have frequently stressed international law as a basis for their actions. The faith-based group Reclaiming the Prophetic Voice calls it a way to reach out to "the people in the pews." Some sectors of the human rights movement have been outspoken opponents of the Iraq War from before its start. The Center for Constitutional Rights, for example, organized lawyers nationwide to declare it illegal under national and international law. But other human rights advocates have tried to separate torture and prisoner abuse as a "human rights issue" from the broader questions of war and occupation, leading some to portray their objective as "a clean war." Human rights advocates need to recognize that the use and legitimation of torture by the Bush administration is just an extreme manifestation of a broader illegal enterprise. Both the peace and the human rights movements need to pay more attention to current and planned future war crimes. Last year's attacks on Fallujah were condemned as war crimes around the world, but there was not much response in the United States. The withholding of food and water to civilian populations in recent attacks on Tal Afar are clear violations of international law that would have provided a clear opportunity to raise the question of war crimes as they occurred. 7 Plans to turn targeting of U.S. air strikes over to the Iraqi military, recently revealed by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker, could be challenged as likely to greatly increase civilian casualties. 8 U.S. plans to use nuclear weapons against Iran, openly discussed by Vice President Cheney, surely constitute a war crime. These ongoing daily events provide a target both for action and for public education. The Bush administration's crimes of aggression, occupation, and torture are all part of one sordid story. That story can best be told when these actions are called by their proper name-war crimes.
There are four obvious objectives for a movement against U.S. war crimes: Halt the crimes. This requires withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq, closing the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, releasing or immediately putting on trial all captives, and shutting down U.S.-controlled death squads all over the world. Bring war criminals to justice. Impunity breeds crime. The mechanisms for investigation, prosecution, and trial of criminals must be applied to anyone-from the president on down-who is responsible for war crimes. Every agency charged with investigating governmental crimes must end its paralysis and perform its duties. Those responsibilities should include congressional committee hearings on war crimes, a Sept. 11-style investigative commission, appointment of a special prosecutor, and an in-depth congressional investigation into whether impeachable offences have been committed. Draw the lessons. Unchecked presidential authority and flouting of international law led the United States to a national catastrophe in Vietnam , but the obvious lessons were deliberately obscured or denied. We are paying the price today. Only an extensive and extended public confrontation with the implications of U.S. war crimes can lay the basis for averting similar catastrophes in the future. Establish barriers to future war crimes. The Bush administration's war crimes were made possible by the dismantling of legal and constitutional barriers to government secrecy, deceit, manipulation, and lawlessness. Their perpetuation has been enhanced by the dismantling of legal restrictions on presidential authority and the seduction or intimidation of those whose duty it is to enforce such restrictions. The U.S. democratic heritage and recent experiences of many countries in eliminating dictatorships point to specific institutional arrangements-from independent prosecutors to battlefield legal supervision and from freedom-of-information laws to international courts empowered to hear war crimes charges-that can be effective in preventing war crimes in the future. A national repudiation of war crimes and an end to impunity for those who order them could open a new chapter in America 's relations with the rest of the world. It might help the United States re-engage with Iraq and the rest of the Middle East on an entirely new basis-one cleansed of the legacy of Fallujah and Abu Ghraib. It would evidence America's good faith if Washington utilized international law to address such genuine problems as terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Ending impunity for those responsible for U.S. war crimes would help restore the role of international law in constraining self-aggrandizement by any nation. After being convicted for pouring his own blood on a Lansing, NY military recruitment center, war protestor Peter DeMott declared the real crime to be that "our government conspired against the American people and lied us into an illegal and immoral war. The task is now upon us all to better understand the criminality of our government's aggression and, as citizens, to act accordingly to demand that our government adheres to international law." 9 As Cindy Sheehan put it to more than 100,000 war protesters assembled in Washington, DC, "We'll be the checks and balances on this out-of-control criminal government." 10
1. Mike Ferner, "What One Mom Has to Say to George Bush," August 9, 2005, available at <http://vitw.org/archives/974>. 2. Paul Craig Roberts, "Impeach Bush Now," available at <http://www.LewRockwell.com>, September 3, 2005. 3. Quoted in Robert Kuttner,
"Will Bush Wriggle Out of This One?" Boston Globe,
September 10, 2005. Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith, with Jill
Cutler, are the co-editors of In
the Name of Democracy: American War Crimes in Iraq and Beyond
(New York: Metropolitan/Holt, 2005) and co-founders of War Crimes
Watch. They are frequent contributors to Foreign Policy In Focus
(www.fpif.org). They can be reached at: blsmith28@gmail.com.
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from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann  Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair          Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.               |
