Re: WAR CRIMES 101--How George Bush Admitted His War Crimes- and How Edward McSweegan spilled the beans on the Navy using NERVE GAS, etc


Kathleen wrote:
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2006 15:09:20 -0700 (PDT)
From:

Subject: WAR CRIMES 101--How George Bush Admitted His War Crimes

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Oh, Good. Now I don't have to write it myself. "Imagine George W.
Bush taking the stand in The Hague, following in the footsteps of
Slobodan Milosevic. Imagine Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and
Condoleezza Rice imprisoned. Imagine." (article below)

There's a lot more international crime where that came from, and this
has been going on for years. I'll just mention briefly:
http://www.actionlyme.org/BIOWEAPONS_101.htm
http://actionlyme.org/BIOWEAPONEERS_CORIXA_YALE_TLRS.htm
Squalene antibodies, Gulf War IIlness, and Congressman Rob Simmons
(CIA) blowing off all the Vets as well as all the Lyme victims...When
we sold Saddam the biological and chemical weapons in the first place.

Also, take a look at NIH's Edward McSweegan discussing the Department
of the Navy buying their own nerve agents, instead of making them
themselves:
http://actionlyme.org/GOLDWATER_LETTER.htm
h
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?itool=abstractplus&db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=abstractplus&list_uids=8954750
That report is about DEET (tick spray) plus nerve gas pre-treatment
which was taken as a preventive during Gulf War I, was shown to
increase the neurotoxicities, or amplifies the effects of the brain and
nerve damage of each.

But Gulf War Illness is imaginary, like Lyme borreliosis?

Abuses of Gulf War Illness Vets and Lyme borreliosis victims are
violations of the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
================
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0930-22.htm


Published on Saturday, September 30, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
How George Bush Admitted His War Crimes
by Richard W. Behan

It was brilliantly deceptive, trumping even his orchestrated dishonesty
in leading us to war.
Buried in the 94 pages of the Military Commissions Act of 2006-the
"detainee act" or the "torture bill"-the Bush Administration tacitly
admits it has committed war crimes.
There is no question war crimes have been committed. Corporal Charles
Graner, Private First Class Lyndie England, and several of their
teammates are serving time, for mistreating prisoners at the Abu Ghraib
prison in Baghdad.
At the time these soldiers were tried and sentenced many people felt
the culpability must extend above the ranks of enlisted personnel, up
some distance into the chain-of-command, perhaps to the top. Many still
do.
There are two pairs of dots to be connected. One is a pair of small
dots, the other two are huge.
On December 28, 2001, a memo to President Bush from his Office of Legal
Counsel made two claims: the US court system had no jurisdiction
regarding the detainees at Guantanamo, and the Geneva Conventions did
not apply to them.
Acting on this advice, on February 7, 2002 President Bush suspended
Common Article 3 of those conventions-which, among other things,
prohibits torture. Two years later, thanks to CBS' 60 Minutes and the
New Yorker magazine, the prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib came to light.
Connect those dots. These are the small ones.
Subsequent lawsuits addressing the detainee issue were considered and
resolved by the Supreme Court. Rasul v. Bush found the US courts did
have jurisdiction over the detainees. Hamdi v. Rumsfeld said detainees
have a right to contest their detention: they are entitled to habeas
corpus protections. Hamdan v. Rumsfeld tested the military tribunals
President Bush created to bring the detainees to justice. The Supreme
Court found the tribunals in violation of Common Article 3 of the
Geneva Conventions, and their existence to be illegal, absent a basis
in federal statute. The decision was handed down June 29, 2006.
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld put on display the Bush Administration's guilt in
committing war crimes. This is one of the huge dots. It will be
connected to another one shortly.
The Bush Administration wasted no time drafting a law to legalize the
military "commissions," as they came to be called. Senators McCain,
Warner, and Graham initially and vigorously opposed it-and then caved
in.
A "compromise" was worked out in Vice President Cheney's office.
Trivial tweaks.
The law signed by the President precludes federal courts from any
jurisdiction whatsoever, in direct contradiction to the Supreme Court's
finding. It denies habeas corpus protections, also in direct
contradiction.
And it prohibits explicitly the detainees from claiming rights under
the Geneva Conventions. Here is the language that does so:
No person may invoke the Geneva Conventions, or any protocols thereto,
in any habeas or civil action or proceeding to which the United States,
or a current or former officer, employee, member of the Armed Services,
or other agent of the United States, is a party, as a source of rights
in any court of the United States or its States or territories.
This means that no detainee can bring suit for any violation of the
Geneva Conventions, and this is the other huge dot. The Bush
Administration already stands accused by the Supreme Court of violating
Common Article 3, but the Administration wrote a law, and bulldozed it
through a compliant Congress, to render prosecution impossible.
This also means the US simply is not bound by the Geneva Conventions.
If detainees cannot claim rights under them the Conventions are moot.
The Military Commissions Act of 2006 is retroactive. It shall ".take
effect as of November 26, 1997, as if enacted.[on that date]." Nothing
the Bush Administration has done can be called into question.
Why would the Bush people write these several requirements into a law?
Only if they are guilty of committing war crimes and know they will
face prosecution. Though ingeniously obscured, this is a de facto
admission of guilt.
The Military Commissions Act of 2006 is mostly smokescreen. The law's
primary purpose is to immunize the Bush Administration, which explains
the Administration's frantic anxiety to have it passed. The thrust of
the bill, relating to detainee trials, is hardly a matter of top
priority: the detainees have been languishing for years. Elizabeth
Holtzman saw through the smokescreen in a recent essay in the Chicago
Sun-Times, "Bush Seeks Immunity for Violating War Crimes Act." Not many
other commentators have noticed.
This new law shields the Bush Administration from their mistreatment of
prisoners, but that issue is truly a marginal one. Still to be
confronted is the illegality of the Iraq war writ large: sold to the
American people on conscious lies and prosecuted at horrific expense in
human lives and treasure. Crimes against humanity are involved here.
The Military Commissions Act was created by desperate people terrified
of prosecution. Imagine George W. Bush taking the stand in The Hague,
following in the footsteps of Slobodan Milosevic. Imagine Richard
Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice imprisoned. Imagine.
Richard W. Behan's last book was Plundered Promise: Capitalism,
Politics, and the Fate of the Federal Lands (Island Press, 2001). He is
currently working on a more broadly rendered critique, To Provide
Against Invasions: Corporate Dominion and America's Derelict Democracy.
He can be reached by email at rwbehan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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