CIA Criminal Revolving Door: CIA Criminal Revolving Door: CIA Officer "Albert" Involved in False Intelligence Linking Al-Qaeda to Iran, Iraq
Reprimanded for Torture, Retired, then Back to CIA as a Contractor. A recent book by former FBI agent Ali Soufan shows that the same CIA officer was involved in generating intelligence that falsely linked al-Qaeda to first Iran and then Iraq. The officer was also involved in a notorious torture episode and was reprimanded by the Agency's inspector general.
The officer, who Soufan refers to as "Fred," but whose real first name is "Albert" according to a February 2011 Associated Press article, served at the CIA station in Jordan in 1999. During that time, al-Qaeda, aided by a collection of freelance terrorists headed by Abu Zubaidah, attempted to commit a series of attacks in the country, known as the Millennium Plot. However, the attacks were foiled by the local Jordanian intelligence service, working with the CIA and FBI.
During the investigations of the plotters, Albert drafted a series of official cables that were later withdrawn. Although the withdrawing of the cables was first mentioned in a July 2006 article by Lawrence Wright for the New Yorker, Wright did not mention what was in the cables or by whom they were drafted. The content of one of them and the drafter were first revealed upon the publication of Soufan's book in mid-September 2011.
The U.S. will try to prosecute Julian Assange under laws that violate the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, laws that were absurd when the U.S. entered World War I and more so now. These are laws that prohibit you from telling the truth about the U.S. government; these are laws that make it a crime to exercise your conscience. Thus, these laws are, by definition, tyrannical.
Let's put aside the myth that we are guaranteed 'Freedom of Speech' in the U.S. Certainly, the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution makes such a guarantee but, in practice, we are often denied that right, most notably when it is the government that is sure to be embarrassed or exposed by the mere exercise of free speech. That is the case today! The U.S. Government has threatened to prosecute Julian Assange for violating the U.S. Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918, the law that progressive labor champion Eugene Debs was accused of violating when he dared to oppose U.S. entry into World War I. The world's biggest idiot --Sarah Palin --has irresponsibly called for the assassination of Assange.
The legislation enacted in 1918 is commonly called the Sedition Act, actually a set of amendments to the Espionage Act.
The Espionage Act made it a crime to interfere with the war effort or with military recruitment or to aid a nation at war with the U.S. The Sedition Act extended its provisions to cover a broader range of offenses, notably speech and the expression of opinion that cast the government or the war effort in a negative light or interfered with the sale of government bonds. One historian of American civil liberties has called it "the nation's most extreme antispeech legislation."[6] Those convicted under the act generally received sentences of imprisonment for 10 to 20 years.[7]
...any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the... form of government of the United States...or the flag of the United States, or the uniform of the Army or Navy.
This law is absurd on its face, a clear violation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It is so overly broad, merely criticizing it, as I have done, probably violates it. It is not the function of government to make criminals of its best citizens. It is the job, the duty in fact, of government to protect the rights that, of late, it seeks to suppress. It is the function of government to guarantee that future Julian Assanges will not be prosecuted arbitrarily for purely political reasons or to avoid prosecutions themselves! As Eugene Debs was unfairly convicted of violating a bad law, an 'unconstitutional law', Julian Assange will, likewise, be falsely accused of 'yelling fire in a crowded theater'!I am of the opinion that at present, when the U.S. empire is illegally embroiled and mired, when the military of the United States has proven its corruption to the entire world, when the armed forces of the U.S. have been videotaped in acts of atrocity and otherwise exposed to have committed numerous war crimes to include tortures resulting in death, mass murders of civilians (captured on video tape), when the criminal nature of numerous U.S. occupations, aggressions, incursions most of which violate every international treaty to which the U.S. is signatory it is unconscionable not to yell 'fire in a crowded theater!!
The law is overly broad, meaningless, clearly intended to silence the very opposition that the First Amendment was intended to protect; it places arbitrary limits on political speech based upon the prejudices of those in office. The government has proven time and again that it is not concerned with the letter of the law, breaking the law overtly when it is to its advantage and prosecuting the laws if it is you that is accused!
The government is concerned only because the information that has been leaked to Julian Assange can prove that the U.S. has become --in fact --a rogue nation whose leaders habitually flout international law to which the U.S. is signatory. The U.S. does this with impunity and threatens opposing nations with war, opposing individuals with prosecution.
The U.S. has not merely countenanced atrocities in Iraq and elsewhere but has ordered and sanctioned them! What we need is not another witch hunt by bureaucrats in an illegitimate and increasingly arrogant, imperial government; we need, instead, a responsible government which understands that the first responsibility of the law is the protection of the sovereign, i.e the people. Elected officials and bureaucrats are not the government; they are not the 'sovereign'. They are, in fact, mere hired hands and had best understand that fact! It is the Constitution itself which establishes as a matter of law, fact and practice that it is the people who are sovereign! Anyone doubting that should consult any competent, brief history of the Magna Carta!
Justice Holmes was wrong about yelling 'fire in a crowded theater'. It was and remains a false analogy! If the theater really is on fire, it is unconscionable not to yell fire. To deny one the right to oppose war --as Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes denied Eugene Debs --is a recipe for military dictatorship. Eugene Debs' 'crime' was that he dared to speak 'truth to power' by 'unlawfully' opposing U.S. entry into WWI. The real reason Debs was targeted was that he had not been fooled by those who benefit from war and for whom the lives of ordinary citizens are sacrificed! For the same reason, the U.S. GOVT is dead wrong to try to prosecute Julian Assange whose only crime may be the unforgivable one of exposing U.S. criminality, imperialism, arrogance, and, in some cases, incompetence.
To Julian Assange have been entrusted numerous 'files' which will most certainly prove to the world the clear and present danger that is posed by the architects of U.S. imperialism. The record speaks for itself but the files may speak louder, clearer. The files will prove that there really is a fire in the theater. There really is a clear and present danger to peace throughout the world, a danger that is posed to it by U.S. arrogance and imperialism benefiting an increasingly tiny elite, in the U.S, just one percent of the nation's total population.
The files leaked to Julian Assange will literally scream FIRE because there really is a fire; there really is a threat! To be silent is to be irresponsible! To do nothing is unconscionable! I support Julian Assange! I support a full revelation of every truth; damn the consequences! I am yelling FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!
The movie of 2006, based upon the original 'graphic novel' stars Hugo Weaving as 'V', John Hurt as Adam Sutler -- the Big Brother-like dictator/tyrant seen on giant telescreens. It also stars Natalie Portman. It is a future Britain following a nuclear holocaust but, in fact, it is any nation seized by fear, embracing upon the pre-text of terrorism an all-powerful government in response. This movie exposes 'terrorism' as a racket!
The 'fascist' party called "Norsefire" resembles the Nazi party by its extermination of opponents in concentration camps and the American GOP for its embrace of torture, violations of human rights, blatant demagoguery and lies.
Sutler rules the country as a police state just as Bush aspired to rule America. Naturally, he is opposed. The opposition are called 'terrorists', though it clear that the tyrant's misrule is both the initial cause and the aggravation. It is hard to imagine any guerrilla movement, any opposition, any 'terrorist' having any success at all against a just and/or competent government or ruler. A dictator by his/her tyranny inspires and justifies his opposition and every effort to unseat or overthrow him.
In "V", the police state is opposed by an 'anarchist revolutionary' who dresses up like Guy Fawkes. History buffs will recall Guy Fawkes for his opposition to the English government of James I whose reign followed that of Elizabeth I, who was, despite her good press, a tyrant.
A reference to a prison closely resembling Guantanamo for its flagrant abuses is but one of many analogies and lessons that must be drawn, that must be applied to the the real world created by George W. Bush and the NEOCON junta which seized power in the United States at the end of a contested election and a violent, seditious assault upon vote re-counters who most certainly would have awarded the election to Al Gore had they not been violently attacked by partisans transported to Florida and paid by the Bush campaign.
Other references to a world now fixated by the specter of 'terrorism' are easy to recognize throughout the film. For this reason, 'V' remains controversial.
"In the not too distant future, Britain is filled with torture cells, unfair punishments, prejudice against minorities."
That excerpt from a review reads like a description of America under Bush and in his wake. Bush ordered that suspected 'terrorists' be denied the protections of 'Habeas Corpus' if one is but 'deemed' to be a 'terrorist'. It was, of course, the very purpose of Habeas Corpus to prevent such arbitrary 'deeming'. To prevent those who might wrongly 'deem' others is precisely the point!
It is, therefore, clear that the Bush administration was less interested in effective, real and reasonable measures against real and/or demonstrable terrorists than it was interested in subverting Constitutional guarantees for partisan, political, venal motives or reasons.
Part of the Bush legacy is that a GOP dominated Supreme Court has 'created' corporations 'people'. And the government need only 'deem' you a terrorist to justify torturing you without benefit of Habeas Corpus. It is a recipe for tyranny and corruption. Prisons in Texas, for example, are owned and operated by huge corporations. As a result, crime has increased as the incompetent and/or criminal regimes of Bush Jr and, later, Rick Perry subverted public education in Texas. They succeeded; Texas now ranks dead last in high school graduations. The GOP, therefore, is not only the cause of increased crime by its neglect of education, its corporate sponsors benefit from it. It's a corporate/GOP circle jerk.The 'future' is now.
Note: The Existentialist Cowboy is currently bombarded by spam from a lunatic name caller of the right wing ilk! Therefore, comments are moderated. Intelligent comments are, as always, welcome! Ad hominem attacks, spam and psychotic drivel is not! Eventually, the offending party will be committed to an asylum and we adults can once again engage in intelligent, articulate dialogue. Thanks for understanding.
One of the aspects of the Iraq War that has fascinated me the most is how CIA agents and U.S. soldiers could actually bring themselves to kill, torture, and sexually abuse Iraqis. After all, don’t forget that neither the Iraqi people nor their government participated in the 9/11 attacks. The worst “crime” that any Iraqi committed against any American was resisting an unlawful invasion of his country.
Nonetheless, even though the Iraqi people were innocent of any attacks on the United States, many CIA agents and most U.S. soldiers have been able to bring themselves to kill and maim hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in an invasion and occupation of a country that never attacked the United States, and murder, torture, and sexually abuse dozens of Iraqis detainees and prisoners.
How is a government able to bring men and women to do such things to people who never did anything to harm the United States?
I’m currently reading a fascinating book entitled Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher R. Browning. It’s about a police unit from Hamburg, Germany, which was assigned the task of rounding up hundreds of Jews in villages in Poland and shooting them at point-blank range.
Why I moderate comments
SPAM: 'comments' that link to junk, 'get rich' schemes, scams, and nonsense! These are the worst offenders.
Ad hominem attacks: 'name calling' and 'labeling'. That includes the ad hominem: 'truther' or variations!
Among several sticky tar babies Bush left Obama the worst are: Guantanamo, torture, capital war crimes! The clock is ticking for Obama. The time for 'good faith' is running out! Unless Obama moves to close Guantanamo now and end the practice of torture while bringing war crimes charges against Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney et al., he risks being so charged himself!
Preventive detention is the classic defining characteristic of a military dictatorship. Because dictatorial regimes rely on fear rather than consensus, their priority is self-preservation rather than improving their people's lives. They worry obsessively over the one thing they can't control, what Orwell called "thoughtcrime" -contempt for rulers that might someday translate to direct action.
Locking up people who haven't done anything wrong is worse than un-American and a violent attack on the most basic principles of Western jurisprudence. It is contrary to the most essential notion of human decency. That anyone has ever been subjected to "preventive detention" is an outrage.
One hundred days have come and gone! There is still no strongly worded condemnation of the practice of torture! There is still no support for the bringing of war crimes charges against Bushco! The 'closing of Guantanamo' is merely confused --not resolved!
As the New York Times noted: "... the unresolved eight year nightmare will continue raining down drip by drip, disrupting Obama's high ambitions". If torture had not been wrong, illegal, immoral, then why did Bush spend so much of his time denying it, lying about it, conning the American people and the world?
Bush lied about US policies of torture and other war crimes because Bush knew it was wrong and deliberately set about to 'fool' the people! He failed because he was and remains a lousy liar, a cretin, an ignorant ass wipe who did not win the White House fairly. His morally bankrupt party stole the White House in what Republicans themselves boasted was a coup d'tat! Bush and his party are likewise 'credited' with Reaganesque and outrageous deficits which coupled with astronomical transfers of wealth upward to the elite have brought the nation to the very edge of financial collapse! We expected more and we deserve more from the Democrats! We held them to a higher standard! Will Obama prove us wrong to have done so?
Obama reversed himself with a declaration that no more photos of torture will be released! Is this not an admission that there are --indeed --more photos that SHOULD be released? Is this not an admission that the practices of torture, some of which should have resulted in capital crimes charges against Bush himself, are still underway? If Bush's orders resulting in death make Bush culpable for the death penalty, then where is the clause that absolves Obama of the same crime?
(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.
This federal law is still on the books! It is still ignored by the office of President of the United States, the office that is empowered by the US Constitution with the authority to enforce and uphold the laws of the United States. Does this basic concept no longer mean anything to the people and, most importantly, to those who are sworn to uphold the law? I want ...no! I demand to know when the laws of the United States came to mean absolutely nothing.
I find it significant that both public immorality and disregard for the 'rule of law' have increased with the rise of the religious right, radical fundamentalism and 'religiosity' in general. I find significant that support for war crimes, state sponsored murder, death squads, torture and other Nazi-like atrocities was extremely strong among the religious right, devotees of Pat Robertson and similar ilk. As I have stated, the 'religious right' is not just wrong but dead wrong and immoral. Pat Robertson, it may be recalled, advocated 'death squads' and the murders of foreign leaders with whom he disagreed! This is just evil --pure and simple!
Ever since he was released from Guantanamo in February after six years of due-process-less detention and brutal torture, Binyam Mohamed has been attempting to obtain justice for what was done to him. But his torturers have been continuously protected, and Mohamed's quest for a day in court repeatedly thwarted, by one individual: Barack Obama. Today, there is new and graphic evidence of just how far the Obama administration is going to prevent evidence of the Bush administration's torture program from becoming public.
In February, Obama's DOJ demanded dismissal of Mohamed's lawsuit against the company which helped "render" him to be tortured on the ground that national security would be harmed if the lawsuit continued. Then, after a British High Court ruled that there was credible evidence that Mohamed was subjected to brutal torture and was entitled to obtain evidence in the possession of the British government which detailed the CIA's treatment of Mohamed, and after a formal police inquiry began into allegations that British agents collaborated in his torture, the British government cited threats from the U.S. government that it would no longer engage in intelligence-sharing with Britain -- i.e., it would no longer pass on information about terrorist threats aimed at British citizens -- if the British court disclosed the facts of Mohamed's torture.
I demand that those government officials in both administrations be arrested, charged and tried for the capital crimes that are specifically and unambiguously the subject of the above cited federal law --US Codes, Title 18, Section 2441!
If the laws do not apply to elected officials, then they do not apply to us! Government may not have it one way! Those governments that presume to be above the law are, in fact, outlaw governments. They are illegitimate. Despite the Obama order that no more photos be released, there are still more photos to be seen! Certainly --the photos are evidence that US Codes were and continue to be violated with impunity. Orders that the photos be suppressed are obstructions of justice and are, in themselves, prosecutable! I will support the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate this order! Clearly, however, any move to impeach Obama is transparently hypocritical if the same charges are not brought against the gang of heinous war criminals who dared call themselves the 'Bush administration'!
The photos will be released --eventually! And the order to suppress them will look foolish if not criminal! Some of them have already been leaked. I am not interested in rationalizations that we hoped had bit the dust along with the failed Bush administration, primarily the cop out that Al Qaeda will be angered! Fuck Al Qaeda! I doubt that they are half as angered as am I! Secondly, I doubt that Al Qaeda exists as anything other than the CIA 'shill' organization that they were in their inception, the CIA 'shill' organization that they most certainly continue to be.
Obama refuses to hold responsible and accountable the very people who authorized and utilized a heinous and un-American program of torture, perhaps murder! It is imperative that the US prove to the world that it take these issues seriously! The entire world takes them seriously and will forever dismiss the US, a waning 'superpower' in any case if it should not! The US has no moral choice but to:
expose and 'own up' to heinous practices of torture and state-sponsored murder!
bring specific charges against individuals who have issued specific orders in specific cases;
bring charges against the architects of these policies in both the Bush and the Obama administrations!
The country, the world is sick to death of talk, spin and propaganda! The world demands action! The world demands an immediate end to this bullshit!
Mr. Obama, TEAR DOWN THESE ILLEGAL PRISONS!
MR. OBAMA, BRING TORTURERS AND MURDERERS TO TRIAL!
MR. OBAMA, STOP THE WAR CRIMES, STOP THE MURDERS, STOP THE TORTURE! NOW!
A list of broken promises continues to grow! These crimes are but a continuation of Bush administration policies.
Mr. Obama --you were NOT elected to be Bush-lite!
You were elected to UNDO Bush's many failures!
You were elected to RIGHT the many wrongs that had been done by Bush!
You were elected to UPHOLD the rule of law!
You put your hand on a black book and swore to protect and defend the Constitution! That act meant nothing to Bush. We had hoped it meant more to you!
Mr. Obama, the commission of war crimes abroad is NOT authorized to any branch of the US government by the US Constitution! Either you will uphold the Constitution or you will not! If you will not, it is the moral responsibility of the US citizenry to remove you and replace you with someone who will.
Bush committed war crimes for which he must be held to account if the phrase 'rule of law' is to mean anything in a post-Bush America. To hold every other American responsible for various laws and petty violations while making exceptions for a mass murderers, torturers, or aggressors is absurd and seditious. Either we are going to have a Democracy under the rule of law or we are not! The choice is ours and America is ours to lose. As he occupied the White House, there were efforts afoot to 'make legal' after the fact the many crimes that Bush had already committed. This is absurd on its face. No other person living in the US has that kind of power --nor would it be tolerated! The issue was pressed when in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the United States Supreme Court ruled that George W. Bush had exceeded his authority with respect to US detainees in the so-called 'War on Terror'. Neither the Congressional Authorization for the Use of Military Force, the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), nor the so-called inherent powers had authorized Bush to set up military tribunals at Guantanamo.
For those of us who had maintained that Bush is a "war criminal" who violated not only internenational conventions but also US criminal codes, the decision of the court was a measure of vindication. In effect, SCOTUS held that for a period of five years, the Bush/Rumsfeld/Cheney gang had been guilty of violating the Third Convention on treatment of prisoners of war as well as a US federal law of 1996 which binds the US executive to those relevant parts of the Geneva convention. [See: US Codes, Title 18, Section 2441]
Predictably, the conspiratorial GOP scrambled to let Bush off the hook. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said that Congress would reverse the Supreme Court's declaration; Sen. Arlen Specter who had much earlier cooked-up a 'magic bullet', went to work on the language of a bill that would, in effect, say that Bush committed capital crimes but would be excused, let off the hook, after the fact. This law would apply to no other accused murderer or torturer in America. Only the so-called 'President' would benefit from it. I submit to Sen. McCain that Congress does not have the authority to reverse a decision of the supreme court; it can only pass a new law addressing its objections. Such new laws, however, must be consistent with the decision. That is the constitutional function of the court. Moreover, congress may not violate the US Constitution by passing laws which excuse culprits ex post facto!
No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
Ex post facto is latin for "from something done afterward" or "after the fact". Ex post facto law is retroactive. On it its face, this is unfair and unconstitutional. Ex post facto laws are not to be confused with pardons or amnesty.
Bush and his GOP co-conspirators are routinely at odds with the supreme law of the land but also simple common sense. Because ex post facto laws change —after the fact —the legal consequences of acts already committed, the ex post facto law becomes an instrument of oppression and tyranny. Hoping to crack down on dissenters, for example, a government need only make the voicing of certain opinions a crime but only after they've been printed, broadcast or spoken. These 'frontiers' of tyranny have been explored much earlier but Bush, Cheney and the GOP regime that supported them had learned all the wrong lessons from history. They thought that they had learned how to get away with it. Such a tyrannical government need only make the law, round up the usual suspects, and prosecute them for actions legal at the time of their commission. Conversely, the dictator-in-chief, in such a society, need only subvert the very foundations of law and order itself and demand that his crimes be made legal —after the fact —after he had already perped them. This is absurd on its face. It allows an executives to rule by decree and make up the laws as he goes along. It removes Constitutional restraints. It gives to mere presidents dictatorial powers that not even British monarchs dared dream of. Everything Bush knows he got by way of his Grandfather's old trading partner --Adolf Hitler, whose notorious Lesson Number One he summed up himself in one sentence.
Terrorism is the best political weapon for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death.
--Adolf Hitler
Bush learned how to rule ruthlessly though he is hated by the people. Hitler never got more than 37 percent of the vote in several elections called over a short period of time ending with the act of terrorism that Hitler would exploit to consolidate his dictatorship. That act was the Reichstag Fire, Hitler's 911. It's hard to imagine that anyone would dare go back to the well. Nevertheless, the tactic, having proved successful for Nazis, would be tried again. On February 27, 1937, Hitler was having dinner with Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels when the phone rang to inform the future Fuhrer: "The Reichstag is on fire!" At the scene, Hitler and Goebbels, found Hermann Goring, later Hitler’s air minister, shouting "at the top of his lungs", blaming communists for an act of terrorism.How Hitler became a dictator is recounted in many sources but William Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is still among the very best.
From Goring's Reichstag President's Palace an underground passage, built to carry the central heating system, ran to the Reichstag building. Through this tunnel Karl Ernst, a former hotel bellhop who had become the Berlin S.A. leader, led a small detachment of storm troopers on the night of February 27 to the Reichstag, where they quickly scattered gasoline and self-igniting chemicals and then made their way quickly back to the palace the way they had come. At the same time a half-witted Dutch Communist with a passion for arson, Marinus van der Lubbe, had made his way into the huge, darkened and to him unfamiliar building and set some small fires of his own. This feeble-minded pyromaniac was a godsend to the Nazis. He had been picked up by the S.A. a few days before after having been overheard in a bar boasting that he had attempted to set fire to several public buildings and that he was going to try the Reichstag next.The coincidence that the Nazis had found a demented Communist arsonist who was out to do exactly what they themselves had determined to do seems incredible but is nevertheless supported by the evidence. The idea for the fire almost certainly originated at the top with Goebbels and Goring. Hans Gisevius, an official in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior at the time, testified at Nuremberg that 'it was Goebbels who first thought of setting the Reichstag on fire' and Rudolph Diels, the Gestapo chief, added in an affidavit that 'Goring knew exactly how the fire was to be started' and had ordered him 'to prepare, prior to the fire, a list of people who were to be arrested immediately after it.' General Franz Halder, Chief of the German General Staff during the early part of World War II, recalled at Nuremberg how on one occasion Goring had boasted of his deed.
At a luncheon on the birthday of the Fuehrer in 1942 the conversation turned to the topic of the Reichstag building and its artistic value. I heard with my own ears when Goring interrupted the conversation and shouted: "The only one who really knows about the Reichstag is I, because I set it on fire!" With that he slapped his thigh with the flat of his hand.
Hitler ordered a round up of the usual suspects, in other words, the opposition, consisting largely of communists whom the Nazis could, with but a shred of credibility, blame for an act of bloody terrorism.Nazis knew what GOPPERS know now --that frightened and anxious people will willingly surrender the blessings of liberty. From Hitler's experience, Bush learned how to use a "Patriot Act" to crack down on dissent.Hitler wasted no time. The very next day, he was in President Hindenburg's office urging the aging statesman to issue a patriot act, a decree entitled, “For the Protection of the People and the State.” Justified as a “defensive measure against Communist acts of violence endangering the state,” the decree suspended the constitutional guarantees pertaining to civil liberties:
(a) The February 28 Decree. One of the most repressive acts of the new Nazi government, this one allowed for the suspension of civil liberties ....The president was persuaded that the state was in danger and, hence, that the emergency measures embodied in the decree were necessary. Even though under Art. 48 of the constitution, the decree would have been withdrawn once the so-called emergency had passed, any hope of this happening was prevented by the establishment of Hitler's dictatorship following the Enabling Act (see below). It was in fact never withdrawn and remained until the end as an instrument of Nazi terror against ordinary citizens who ran foul of the regime. ARTICLE 1. In virtue of paragraph 2, article 48,* of the German Constitution, the following is decreed as a defensive measure against communist acts of violence , endangering the state:
Sections 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124, and 153 of the Constitution of the German Reich are suspended until further notice. Thus, restrictions on personal liberty [114], on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press [118], on the right of assembly and the right of association [124], and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic, and telephonic communications [117], and warrants for house-searches [115], orders for confiscation as well as restrictions on property [153], are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed. *Article 48 of the German Constitution of August 11, 1919: If public safety and order in Germany are materially disturbed or endangered, the President may take the necessary measures to restore public safety and order, and, if necessary, to intervene with the help of the armed forces. To this end he may temporarily suspend, in whole or in part, the fundamental rights established in Articles 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124, and 153 ...........
Patriot Act:
Section 218 which amends the "probable cause" requirement before conducting secret searches or surveillance to obtain evidence of a crime;
Sections 215, 218, 358, and 508 which permit law enforcement authorities to have broad access to sensitive mental health, library, business, financial, and educational records despite the existence of previously adopted state and federal laws which were intended to strengthen the protection of these types of records;
Sections 411 and 412 which give the Secretary of State broad powers to designate domestic groups as "terrorist organizations" and the Attorney General power to subject immigrants to indefinite detention or deportation even if no crime has been committed; and Sections 507 and 508 which impose a mandate on state and local public universities who must collect information on students that may be of interest to the Attorney General.
Bush learned how to suspend civil liberties after a terrorist attack. At the time, only Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio called for a repeal of the Patriot Act. Hitler had hoped to establish a "permanent" majority of elected Nazis in the Reichstag, a rubber stamp which would pass whatever laws he desired while making it all perfectly legal. Under Bush, Karl Rove spoke of creating a "permanent Republican majority", a 'majority' that would rubber stamp Bush's every decree. A GOP court that would make legal Bush's crimes even after he had already committed them. Two weeks after the Reichstag fire, Hitler requested the Reichstag to temporarily delegate its powers to him so that he could adequately deal with the crisis. Hitler denounced his opposition, shouting at them "Germany will be free, but not through you!” Hitler won the vote 441 to 84. It gave him a two-thirds majority needed to suspend the constitution. On March 23, 1933, the “Enabling Act”--a patriot act -- made Hitler dictator of Germany. Bush had hoped the 'Patriot Act' would do the same for him.
This would be a whole lot easier if this was a dictatorship ...just as long as I'm the dictator!--George W. Bush, President-elect
Just as Hitler cut a deal with Thyssen, Krupp, I.G. Farben et al, the triumvirate of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld carved up the oil map of the Middle East for the benefit of big oil and and Halliburton. Hitler coveted Poland's rich coal deposits; Bush coveted Iraqi oil. Bush, was inspired by Hitler's play book. As was the case in 1939, it is still all about energy and for Bushco 'energy' means oil. The esteemed historian John Keegan believed that Hitler might have won WWII had he kept Rommel supplied. Eschewing an invasion of Russia, Hitler would have been better advised to have ordered Rommel to seize the oil fields of the Middle East. Bush also learned from his grandfather that there is big money -- a killing in fact --in the industrial murder business. Our own Treasury Department is the source for the following information about how US corporations, primarily US Steel, for whom Prescott Bush was banker, helped Hitler arm and wage war on the world while carrying out mass murder throughout Europe. US steel produced the following percentages of war munitions for Hitler and his Nazi war lords: Pig iron 50.8%; Pipe & tubes 45.5%; Universal plate 41.4%; Galvanized sheet 38.5%; Heavy plate 36%; Explosives 35%; Wire 22.1%.
George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.
This is the same firm for whom Prescott Bush acted as banker. In effect, then, Prescott was Hitler’s American banker.Bush also learned how to outsource murder and atrocity in ways that benefit his right wing supporters. It's called "private enterprise" but in reality it's a form of socialism, farming out work to partners, robber barons, death merchants and hired murderers like Blackwater, a gang of paid thugs whom National Public Radio charges has strong connections with America's radical, religious, fascist right wing.
NPR: The war in Iraq has been partly outsourced to private military contractors which are performing many of the services that used to be done by the military. My guest, Jeremy Scahill, has written a book about one of those companies, Blackwater, which he describes as "the world's most mercenary army and the embodiment of the Bush administration policy of privatizing military functions." The company, which was founded in 1996, made headlines in 2004 when four of its men were ambushed and set on fire by Sunni gunmen in Fallujah. The charred remains of two of the men were hung on a bridge for public display. The families of the four men are suing Blackwater for wrongful death, raising a lot of questions about accountability and oversight when private contractors play a major role in war. Jeremy Scahill is a Polk Award-winning journalist who is a frequent contributor to The Nation and a correspondent for the radio and TV show, "Democracy Now." Jeremy Scahill -- if you wanted to write about a private military contractor, why did you focus on Blackwater?
Bush is ideologically allied with 'state absolutists', for whom the "state" is "God". That notion opposes every "American" value and those of truly religious folk who find the equation of "God" with the "state" a blasphemous notion. And so it is --not merely of religion but of reason. Bushism is opposite the American ideal espoused by real patriots like Thomas Jefferson whom Bush and Dick Cheney would have derided as "pro-French", "helping the terrorists" or other equally stupid nonsense. James Madison who wrote the first draft of our Constitution would have been demonized as "quaint" by idiots like Gen. Hayden and Al Gonzales.Bush must surely hate our Declaration of Independence because, in it, Thomas Jefferson sides with the misnamed "insurgency" that is most certainly analogous to Iraqi civilians upon whom the US has waged not a war --but a crime punishable by death under our own federal statutes!The notion that Congress can somehow exculpate Bush for the crimes he's already committed is not merely absurd, it's seditious and dangerous —a short road to tyranny and dictatorship. To her credit, Sen. Dianne Feinstein refuted every dubious argument put forward by McCain. If the US had had a legitimate case for war against Iraq, it might have made a truthful case for it at the UN. Instead, Colin Powell's presentation was a deliberate fraud from start to finish. Powell himself later apologized but not soon enough to avoid every war crime, every death, every murder, every act of torture and mass murder that would follow. It was not only the very worst foreign policy blunder in US history, it is a war crime comparable to those perpetrated by Adolph Hitler and Pol Pot, a 'crime against humanity' comparable to those attributed to Josef Stalin. It was claimed that the war in Iraq was based on the fundamental concept of removing a tyrant who supported terrorism against the United States. In fact, US foreign policy has never been based upon removing tyrants either tyrants or terrorists. Rather, the US has installed and supported both tyrants and terrorists. The US, itself, may be the world's number one terrorist, a rogue nation, a threat to world peace and humanity. Read prosecutor Lawrence Walsh's final report of the Iran/Contra affair.
The underlying facts of Iran/contra are that, regardless of criminality, President Reagan, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, and the director of central intelligence and their necessary assistants committed themselves, however reluctantly, to two programs contrary to congressional policy and contrary to national policy. They skirted the law, some of them broke the law, and almost all of them tried to cover up the President's willful activities.What protection do the people of the United States have against such a concerted action by such powerful officers? The Constitution provides for congressional oversight and congressional control of appropriations, but if false information is given to Congress, these checks and balances are of lessened value. Further, in the give and take of the political community, congressional oversight is often overtaken and subordinated by the need to keep Government functioning, by the need to anticipate the future, and by the ever-present requirement of maintaining consensus among the elected officials who are the Government.--FINAL REPORT OF THE INDEPENDENT COUNSEL FOR IRAN/CONTRA MATTERS, Part XI Concluding Observations 561
The US invasion of Iraq in which an estimated 1.5 million Iraqi civilians were killed by US forces IS war crime, specifically, a war of aggression under both US Codes, the Geneva Convention and the principles of Nuremberg to which the US is bound by treaty. A first year law student could make the war crimes case against George W. Bush.
(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.--§ 2441. War crimes, US Codes, Title 18, Section 2441
One wanting or seeking a more dramatic introduction to Nuremberg, I suggest a motion picture from the late 90's: "Nuremberg" starring Alec Baldwin. With minor departures, this film is impressively accurate even to the portrayal of Dr. Gustav Gilbert, the psychologist who concluded that Nazi war criminals were 'evil' in that they 'lacked empathy', a trait that is, of late, found abundantly throughout the American 'conservative' movement, the GOP, the Bush administration. The portrayal of Goring by actor Brian Cox should have gotten an Oscar. Brilliant! As Nuremberg Chief Prosecutor Robert Jackson, Alec Baldwin, again, proved himself a serious actor.
When for years they have deceived the world, and masked falsehood with plausibilities, can anyone be surprised that they continue their habits of a lifetime in this dock? Credibility is one of the main issues of this Trial. Only those who have failed to learn the bitter lessons of the last decade can doubt that men who have always played on the unsuspecting credulity of generous opponents would not hesitate to do the same, now. It is against such a background that these defendants now ask this Tribunal to say that they are not guilty of planning, executing, or conspiring to commit this long list of crimes and wrongs. They stand before the record of this Trial as bloodstained Gloucester stood by the body of his slain king. He begged of the widow, as they beg of you: "Say I slew them not." And the Queen replied, "Then say they were not slain. But dead they are..." If you were to say of these men that they are not guilty, it would be as true to say that there has been no war, there are no slain, there has been no crime.--Summation for the Prosecution -July 26, 1946, Chief US Prosecutor, Robert Jackson, Nuremberg War Crimes Trials [See also: The Impact of Nuremberg on Global Justice and Security]
You will find this closing --word for word --in the movie version. Another observation about the movie is the fact that the producers literally re-created the court room in almost every detail. It has got to be one of the most accurate such re-creations in "filmdom". I can tell you from sources very close to me and likewise the trial, it was, indeed, a "trial", an extraordinary ordeal that took its toll on the judges, the attorneys, the witnesses, the spectators, the media, the defendants, interpreters and translators, indeed, anyone connected with the trial in any way. Robert Jackson himself had not wanted to absent himself from the Supreme Court. But Truman was "persuasive" and, once on the job, Jackson was ever hopeful that the principles forged might help prevent the recurrence of such unspeakable tragedy. Jackson's mocking nemesis was Goring, whose legacy mocks, even in death, Jackson's idealistic hopes for humankind. Goring early on launched a pre-emptive strike in anticipation of a guilty verdict. Before it was returned, he called it "victor's justice", an evil implication that WWII victors were, in fact, no different from the Nazis. How we deal with Bush will either prove Goring correct or it will prove him wrong. If Bush gets away with it, Goring will be laughing at us from his grave.Writer Kelly Kramer recently compiled a ‘resume’ for George W. Bush. Not every item listed are prosecutable as war crimes; but, certainly, they should be taken just as seriously. That Bush is prosecutable for war crimes is not susprising in context. That 'war crimes' punishable by death are among his many crimes should surprise no one. Following are Bush's 'central accomplishments' according to writer Kelly Kramer:
Shattered record for biggest annual deficit in history;
Set economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12 month period;
Set all-time record for biggest drop in the history of the stock market;
First year in office set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in US history;
After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, presided over the worst security failure in US history;
In his first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their jobs;
Cut unemployment benefits for more out of work Americans than any president in US history;
Appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any president in US history;
Signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any president in US history;
Presided over the biggest energy crises in US history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed;
Cut healthcare benefits for war veterans;
Set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest a sitting American President, shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind;
Dissolved more international treaties than any president in US history;
First president in US history to have all 50 states of the Union simultaneously go bankrupt;
Presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud of any market in any country in the history of the world;
First president in US history to order a US attack and military occupation of a sovereign nation;
Created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States;
Set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any president in US history;
First president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the human rights commission;
First president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the elections monitoring board;
All-time US (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations;
Biggest life-time campaign contributor presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation);
Spent more money on polls and focus groups than any president in US history;
First president to run and hide when the US came under attack (and then lied saying the enemy had the code to Air Force 1);
Took the biggest world sympathy for the US after 911, and in less than a year made the US the most resented country in the world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in US and world history);
With a policy of 'disengagement' created the most hostile Israeli-Palestine relations in at least 30 years;
Fist US president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view his presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability;
First US president in history to have the people of South Korea more threatened by the US than their immediate neighbor, North Korea;
Changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts;
Set all-time record for number of administration appointees who violated US law by not selling huge investments in corporations bidding for government contracts;
Failed to fulfill his pledge to get Osama Bin Laden 'dead or alive';
Failed to capture the anthrax killer who tried to murder the leaders of our country at the United States Capitol building. After 18 months he has no leads and zero suspects;
In the 18 months following the 911 attacks he successfully prevented any public investigation into the biggest security failure in the history of the United States;
Removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any other president in US history;
Entered office with the strongest economy in US history and in less than two years turned every single economic category straight down.
This is, of course, an edited list. It omits the deliberate lies Bush told in order to wage a war of aggression against the people of Iraq. If so much as one person had died as a result of his lies and the war of aggression that followed, Bush would be subject to the death penalty under federal law, specifically, US Codes, Title 18, Section 2441. But, in fact, Bush death toll, his murder count, is at least 1.5 milllion Iraqi civilians who are dead as a direct result of US aggression. Former LA prosectuor Vince Bugliosi makes still another case that because Bush perpetrated a deliberate fraud in order to commence war, every death of every US soldier is one count of murder. Then, of course, there is evidence that deaths occurred as a result of the acts of torture that followed from Bush's orders. That Bush tried to make these acts legal ex post facto should be compelling evidence that his orders were planned and deliberate. They are punishable by death.
Justice Robert Jackson: Closing Statement, Nuremberg Trial of Nazi War Criminals
by Kevin Fenton
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