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Bush Administration Pronounced Guilty of War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity

Bush Administration Pronounced Guilty of War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity

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The Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration released its final verdict on Wednesday, September 13, 2006. Guilty.

11:00 AM, Press Conference, Camp Democracy (Constitution & 14)
12:00 Noon, Delivery of Verdict to the White House

Full text of the verdict in PDF.

An unprecedented Commission of Inquiry has found the President of the United States and his administration guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The five-member panel of jurists unanimously found the administration’s actions “shock the conscience of humanity” in five areas – wars of aggression, illegal detention and torture, suppression of science and catastrophic policies on global warming, potentially genocidal abstinence-only policies imposed on HIV/AIDS prevention programs in the Third World, and the abandonment of New Orleans before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina.

THE VERDICT

In their summary, the Commission jurists found that: “Each of these constitutes a shocking crime in itself, and taken together the full horrors are all the more unconscionable. It is also clear that this is an administration that demonstrates an utter disregard for truth and flagrantly lies about the reasons for its actions.

“In arriving at this decision the jurists were particularly alarmed by the degree to which the Bush Administration’s actions in all five indictments were informed by the extreme right. …. although the specific conduct differs among the indictments, the result is the same: human life was debased and devalued by gratuitous acts of violence, torture, narrow self interest, indifference, and disregard.”

In arriving at their verdict, the Commission’s panel of jurists examined a wealth of evidence with care and rigor. Consistent standards were employed, with well-established international law referenced where applicable.

The panel of jurists consisted of Adjoa A. Aiyetoro, William H. Bowen School of Law, Little Rock; former executive director, National Conference of Black Lawyers (NCBL). Dennis Brutus, former prisoner, Robben Island (South Africa), poet, professor emeritus, University of Pittsburgh. Abdeen Jabara, former president, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Ajamu Sankofa, former executive director, Physicians for Social Responsibility-NY. Ann Wright, former US diplomat and retired US Army Reserve Colonel.

THE HEARINGS

The Commission’s year-long investigation included five days of public hearings in October 2005 and January 2006 in New York City. The 45 expert and first-hand witnesses included former commander of Abu Ghraib prison Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray, former UN official Denis Halliday, former UN arms inspector Scott Ritter, Guantanamo prisoners’ lawyer Barbara Olshansky, and Katrina survivors.

The verdict’s release comes with war crimes again on front pages following President Bush’s defense of secret prisons, rendition, and practices constituting torture under existing law, his demand that the War Crimes Act be fundamentally weakened, and his threats against Iran.

In a preface to the printed verdict, historian Howard Zinn writes: “The Bush Administration has been following a course, which can only now be described as a series of crimes against humanity. . . . What could be a higher crime than sending the young people of the country into a war against a small country on the other side of the world, which is no danger to the United States, and in fact a war which is condemned by people all over the world and a war which results in, not only the loss of American lives and the crippling of young Americans, but results in the loss of huge numbers of people in Iraq? These are high crimes.”

Actions of the Day

Actions of the Day

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Restore Scientific Integrity
Federal government scientific information is being censored, manipulated, and distorted on an unprecedented scale. To prevent these abuses of science, members of Congress have introduced the Restore Scientific Integrity to Federal Research and Policy Making Act. They need to hear from us about the importance of protecting government science and our nation’s health, safetey, and environment. Check out the Union of Concerned Scientists efforts to restore scientific integrity in federal policy making. Click here to take action through the Union of Concerned Scientists – it’s easy and free!

Save the Media
Read the pdf version of “A New Standard,” the recent report from Free Press, Common Cause, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, and Media Access Project. Then read or listen to Bill Moyers’ speech at the close of the National Conference for Media Reform in St. Louis. More than 60,000 Free Press activists have already joined a call for the resignation of Corporation for Public Broadcasting Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson and the creation of town hall meetings nationwide to put the public back into public broadcasting.
Add your support to the petition.

Impeach Bush
President Bush mislead Congress and the people as the Administration prepared to wage unprovoked war against Iraq. The evidence used to justify the war and “sell” it to the public was based on fabrications and lies. A number of recent revelations confirm that the Administration knowingly lied about the war and its causes. Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld’s key aide, was quoted in Vanity Fair magazine as saying, “For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.” Since the Administration was flooded with angry letters, undoubtedly many from families of U.S. soldiers, the Pentagon attempted to do damage control, asserting that Wolfowitz was misquoted. The public now knows, as does every member of Congress, that in April 2002 Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair secretly agreed to wage unprovoked war against Iraq (at a meeting at Bush’s Crawford ranch in Texas). This fact, and other incriminating information about the secret maneuvers to wage unprovoked war, are contained in British government documents. In a letter to Bush earlier this month, 89 House Democrats expressed shock over the documents. They asked whether the papers were authentic and, if so, whether they proved that the White House had agreed to invade Iraq months before seeking Congress’ OK. (Los Angeles Times, May 12, 2005)
“If the disclosure is accurate, it raises troubling new questions regarding the legal justifications for the war, as well as the integrity of our own administration,” the letter says. “While the president… was telling the citizens and the Congress that they had no intention to start a war with Iraq, they were working very close[ly] with Tony Blair and the British leadership at making this a foregone conclusion,” the letter’s chief author, Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, said Wednesday. As Ramsey Clark recently stated: “Impeachment now is the only way we, the American people, can promise ourselves, and the world, that we will not tolerate crimes against peace and humanity by our government. Knowing what we know, to wait longer is to condone what has been done, and risk more.” Use the quick and easy-to-use advocacy mechanism on the ImpeachBush.org website to send personal customized letters to the representatives from your district and state to urge them to support the impeachment of George W. Bush and other high officials for the commission of High Crimes and Misdemeanors.