Peace and Justice Post

By Jim Lobe | Asia Times, June 10, 2008

WASHINGTON – Once again, notably in the wake of last week’s annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference and the visit to the capital of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, there’s a lot of chatter about a possible attack by Israel and/or the United States on Iran.

Olmert appears to have left the White House after meeting with President George W Bush and an earlier dinner with Vice President Dick Cheney quite satisfied on this score, while rumors – most recently voiced by neo-conservative Daniel Pipes – that the administration plans to carry out a “massive” attack in the window between the November elections and Bush’s departure from office, particularly if Democratic Senator Barack Obama is his successor, continue to swirl around the capital.

What to make of this? Is this real? Or is it psychological warfare designed to persuade Tehran that it really does face devastation if it doesn’t freeze its uranium-enrichment program very, very soon and/or to warn Russia and China that they have to put more pressure on Tehran or deal with the consequences of such an attack?

Continued . . .

Ordinary Germans will be glad to see the back of this particular US president, writes Kate Connolly

Kate Connolly in Berlin | guardian.co.uk,Tuesday June 10 2008

This particular young German, photographed with George Bush in 2006, would seem to echo the feeling of many of his compatriots towards the outgoing US president. Photograph: Reuters

Typically when US presidents visit Germany they walk through the Brandenburg Gate and take in the city and its historical sites.

It has not been lost on any commentator that on his farewell visit to the country, which kicks off on Tuesday night, George Bush will not be received at the heart of the capital.

Attempts to persuade him to open the brand new US embassy – back in its place after a gap of over six decades – failed. His father, George Bush Snr, a less despised figure, will come to do the honours instead, on July 4.

Instead Bush Jr is heading for the sandy plains of Brandenburg, 40 miles north of Berlin, to Schloss Meseberg, the idyllic but isolated country pad of the German government.

It is called keeping a low profile, probably a sensible thing to do for a man who has never been considered a friend by the majority of Germans. He is said to be the least popular US president in German history, and in a recent survey for the opinion pollsters Forsa, the majority of respondents went so far as to deem him to be the biggest single threat to world peace.

But neither did he, for a long time, want to have much to do with Germans either, particularly after the former chancellor Gerhard Schröder secured an election victory in 2002 thanks to his dogged insistence that he would not support the Iraq war.

In recent years the bilateral frostiness has thawed. He even gave Angela Merkel a shoulder massage at the last G8 meeting. But there is no sense that he will ever manage to retrieve his reputation here.

German gratitude for the role the US has played in much of its 20th century history – the Marshall Plan, the Berlin airlift, protection against the Soviet Union – still endures, but it has been greatly overshadowed by seven Bush years, the Iraq invasion, Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib.

It has often been said that Germans became more anti-American during this period than at any time, but the more thoughtful ones have always been quick to point out that it was rather “antibushismus”.

Now they appear to be happy at the prospect of being able, as they see it, to put this unpleasant period behind them. Almost 70% have said they would vote for Barack Obama if they were able (while sympathy for John McCain is scant). They admit they donít know what Obama really stands for, but what most appeals to them is that he is not Bush.

The Raw Story, June 9, 2008

David Edwards and Mike Sheehan

An Ohio Democratic lawmaker and former presidential candidate has presented articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush to Congress.

Thirty-five articles were presented by Rep. Dennis Kucinich to the House of Representatives late Monday evening, airing live on C-SPAN.

“The House is not in order,” said Kucinich to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), upon which Pelosi pounded her gavel.

“Resolved,” Kucinich then began, “that President George W. Bush be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate. …

“In his conduct while President of the United States, George W. Bush, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of president of the United States, and to the best of his ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has committed the following abuses of power…”

The first article Kucinich presented, and many that followed, regarded the war in Iraq: “Article 1 – Creating a secret propaganda campaign to manufacture a false case for war against Iraq.”

continued . . .

35 ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT

Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio
In the United States House of Representatives
Monday, June 9th, 2008

A Resolution
INDEX
Article I
Creating a Secret Propaganda Campaign to Manufacture a False Case for War Against Iraq.
Article II
Falsely, Systematically, and with Criminal Intent Conflating the Attacks of September 11, 2001, With
Misrepresentation of Iraq as a Security Threat as Part of Fraudulent Justification for a War of
Aggression.
Article III
Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Possessed Weapons of
Mass Destruction, to Manufacture a False Case for War.
Article IV
Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Posed an Imminent Threat
to the United States.
Article V
Illegally Misspending Funds to Secretly Begin a War of Aggression.
Article VI
Invading Iraq in Violation of the Requirements of HJRes114.
Article VII
Invading Iraq Absent a Declaration of War.
Article VIII
Invading Iraq, A Sovereign Nation, in Violation of the UN Charter.
Article IX
Failing to Provide Troops With Body Armor and Vehicle Armor
Article X
Falsifying Accounts of US Troop Deaths and Injuries for Political Purposes
Article XI
Establishment of Permanent U.S. Military Bases in Iraq
Article XII
Initiating a War Against Iraq for Control of That Nation’s Natural Resources
Article XIIII
Creating a Secret Task Force to Develop Energy and Military Policies With Respect to Iraq and Other
Countries
Article XIV
Misprision of a Felony, Misuse and Exposure of Classified Information And Obstruction of Justice in
the Matter of Valerie Plame Wilson, Clandestine Agent of the Central Intelligence Agency
Article XV
Providing Immunity from Prosecution for Criminal Contractors in Iraq
Article XVI
Reckless Misspending and Waste of U.S. Tax Dollars in Connection With Iraq and US Contractors
Article XVII
Illegal Detention: Detaining Indefinitely And Without Charge Persons Both U.S. Citizens and Foreign
Captives
Article XVIII
Torture: Secretly Authorizing, and Encouraging the Use of Torture Against Captives in Afghanistan,
Iraq, and Other Places, as a Matter of Official Policy
Article XIX
Rendition: Kidnapping People and Taking Them Against Their Will to “Black Sites” Located in Other
Nations, Including Nations Known to Practice Torture
Article XX
Imprisoning Children
Article XXI
Misleading Congress and the American People About Threats from Iran, and Supporting Terrorist
Organizations Within Iran, With the Goal of Overthrowing the Iranian Government
Article XXII
Creating Secret Laws
Article XXIII
Violation of the Posse Comitatus Act
Article XXIV
Spying on American Citizens, Without a Court-Ordered Warrant, in Violation of the Law and the
Fourth Amendment
Article XXV
Directing Telecommunications Companies to Create an Illegal and Unconstitutional Database of the
Private Telephone Numbers and Emails of American Citizens
Article XXVI
Announcing the Intent to Violate Laws with Signing Statements
Article XXVII
Failing to Comply with Congressional Subpoenas and Instructing Former Employees Not to Comply
Article XXVIII
Tampering with Free and Fair Elections, Corruption of the Administration of Justice
Article XXIX
Conspiracy to Violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965
Article XXX
Misleading Congress and the American People in an Attempt to Destroy Medicare
Article XXXI
Katrina: Failure to Plan for the Predicted Disaster of Hurricane Katrina, Failure to Respond to a Civil
Emergency
Article XXXII
Misleading Congress and the American People, Systematically Undermining Efforts to Address Global
Climate Change
Article XXXIII
Repeatedly Ignored and Failed to Respond to High Level Intelligence Warnings of Planned Terrorist
Attacks in the US, Prior to 911.
Article XXXIV
Obstruction of the Investigation into the Attacks of September 11, 2001
Article XXXV
Endangering the Health of 911 First Responders

Continued . . .

Axis of Logic, June 9, 2008 By Gary Wilson

The Bush White House used propaganda and lies to justify its war on Iraq. The big media did not question this, but instead cheered it on. So says former White House press secretary Scott McClellan, a key propagandist for the war.

In a just released book, “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception,” McClellan confirms what many have known for some time and what Workers World has reported since before the war on Iraq was launched. There have been other, more detailed accounts about the lies, but none from someone inside the White House.

The reason for McClellan’s book detailing how the White House has repeatedly lied is unknown. He was the official press secretary who put those lies into words. He could be set up to be the fall guy for those crimes, if there were a war crimes hearing. That might be motive enough for writing the book.

The media’s response to the book was at first muted, though the book was available in bookstores for about a week. Then the politico.com Web site gave a summary of the most damning contents and that report spread like wildfire around the Internet.

The New York Times gave more space to reporting on reactions to the book than the book itself. One Times report said that “surprisingly, some prominent journalists have agreed” with McClellan’s assertion that “the national news media” were “complicit enablers” of Bush’s push for war on Iraq. The Times reporter was apparently not surprised by McClellan’s assertion. After all, the New York Times played a key role in promoting the war. The Times reporter was surprised, however, that Katie Couric, anchor of CBS Evening News, and Brian Williams of NBC Nightly News both publicly agreed with McClellan.

Continued . . .

The Moral Rot of Imperialism

By ROBERT FANTINA

That most useless of all organizations, the U.S. Congress, finally released a report stating that President George Bush built the case for war through exaggerations, shading the truth and ignoring any intelligence he didn’t like. If this comes as a surprise to anyone it can only be a result of their being comatose for the last five years, and only awakening today and reading the report.

The hapless Senate couldn’t even get this information out before Scott McClellan, Mr. Bush’s former press secretary, wrote a book basically saying the same thing. It took a Senate ‘study’ to confirm facts that the world has known now for years: Mr. Bush knew that there were no weapons of mass destruction; no link between Saddam Hussein and the September 11 attacks in the United States, and no threat from Iraq to the United States. The Senate report omits pointing out one fact that he did not: Iraq is an oil-rich nation.

How, one wonders, will Congress react? This is the Democratic-Party controlled Congress, the one that was elected in 2006 with a mandate to end the war. The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, has stated that impeachment is, in her words, off the table, and at this point in Mr. Bush’s reign of terror that is probably a reasonable decision. However, it is only timing now that makes it so; such was not the case when she first came to power.

So what could the reaction be? The U.S. Senate has determined that the President of the United States used lies, scare tactics and chicanery to start a completely unnecessary war (what exactly constitutes a ‘necessary’ war is the topic for another discussion). The war has caused the deaths of over 4,000 Americans, and an estimated 1,000,000 Iraqi men, women and children; tens of thousands more have been maimed. It has cost billions upon billions of U.S. dollars at the same time that 47,000,000 Americans are without health care, 10% of the U.S. home-owning population is in danger of foreclosure and unemployment continues to increase. As the U.S. economy implodes, the money drain of Iraq continues.

Might there not be some response from Congress besides a few indignant statements? Is there any possibility that, even after Mr. Bush leaves office, some Congressional investigation into his behavior might be initiated? Is the concept of a president committing a crime and then being held accountable for it so foreign to Congress that it cannot fathom fulfilling its Constitutional duties? What about others at the highest levels of government that colluded with Mr. Bush to start the war? Are they to be allowed to retire from public life, write books and live off the proceeds of their crimes?

Continued . . .

By George Bisharat | Los Angeles Times, June 9, 2008

Anew buzzword is arising from the network of Israeli think tanks and security-oriented academic departments bent on instigating a U.S. attack on Iran: “national suicide.” The term describes a supposed Arab Muslim tradition of politically motivated suicide at the national, not just individual, level. Arab Muslim regimes have purportedly launched ruinous wars they could not have reasonably hoped to win, condemning their nations to destruction.

The notion of an “irrational” and thus untrustworthy Iranian regime has already been widely discussed in the U.S. It is regularly invoked by Sen. John McCain on the stump. The term “national suicide” advances the notion and gives it a patina of academic respectability.

Israeli jurist and former Knesset member Amnon Rubinstein recently editorialized on “national suicide” in the Jerusalem Post. Citing Israeli army Lt. Col. Ari Bar Yossef, Rubinstein offered Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat and the Taliban in Afghanistan as exemplars of this new construct. Hussein could have avoided overthrow by giving U.N. arms inspectors free rein to search his country. Arafat, after the failure of the Camp David peace talks, could have continued negotiating but resorted to violence. Finally, the Taliban could have given up Osama bin Laden to the U.S. but instead invited self-destruction. All this because, per Rubinstein, these leaders prefer dying to “negotiating with infidels.”

“National suicide” will soon be an incantation by neoconservative and other pro-Israeli pundits and politicians on the “bomb Iran” bandwagon. Its strategic implications are clear: We can’t trust irrational regimes because they are not deterred by threat of annihilation. Therefore, extraordinary actions — such as preemptive attack — may be not only justified but necessary. It further shifts moral responsibility to the victim. In the “national suicide” formulation, it is the martyr that chooses death, while the actual killers are merely the instrument by which the suicide — or, as the case may be, the destruction of a country — is carried out.

Continued . . .

Khaleej Times, June 9, 2008

(AFP)

TEHERAN – Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Monday warned Iraq’s visiting prime minister against signing an agreement with the United States keeping foreign troops in the country beyond 2008.

The continued presence of US troops was Iraq’s “fundamental problem,” Khamenei told Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, expressing confidence that Iran’s western neighbour would dash the “dreams” of the United States.

The meeting — on the final day of Maliki’s third visit to Teheran as prime minister — came amid alarm in Iran over the mooted Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) pact between Baghdad and Washington.

“The most fundamental problem of Iraq is the presence of the foreign forces,” Khamenei told Maliki in comments reported by state television.

“We are certain that the Iraqi people will pass the difficult circumstances and reach the status they deserve. For sure, the American dreams will not materialise.”

Washington and Baghdad are in negotiations aimed at signing the deal by the end of July to cover the presence of foreign troops beyond 2008 when the current UN mandate expires.

Iraqi media reports have said the United States is seeking to keep as many as 50 bases indefinitely — suggestions that have alarmed Washington’s arch enemy Iran. US officials have denied having such plans.

Supporters of radical Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr — said to be studying in Iran — have opposed the pact and Maliki has toughened his position since reaching an agreement in principle with US President George W. Bush last November.

Continued . . .

By Leila Fadel | McClatchy Newspapers, June 9, 2008

BAGHDAD -Iraqi lawmakers say the United States is demanding 58 bases as part of a proposed “status of forces” agreement that will allow U.S. troops to remain in the country indefinitely.

Leading members of the two ruling Shiite parties said in a series of interviews the Iraqi government rejected this proposal along with another U.S. demand that would have effectively handed over to the United States the power to determine if a hostile act from another country is aggression against Iraq. Lawmakers said they fear this power would drag Iraq into a war between the United States and Iran.

“The points that were put forth by the Americans were more abominable than the occupation,” said Jalal al Din al Saghir, a leading lawmaker from the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. “We were occupied by order of the Security Council,” he said, referring to the 2004 Resolution mandating a U.S. military occupation in Iraq at the head of an international coalition. “But now we are being asked to sign for our own occupation. That is why we have absolutely refused all that we have seen so far.”

Other conditions sought by the United States include control over Iraqi air space up to 30,000 feet and immunity from prosecution for U.S. troops and private military contractors. The agreement would run indefinitely but be subject to cancellation with two years notice from either side, lawmakers said.

“It would impair Iraqi sovereignty,” said Ali al Adeeb a leading member of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s Dawa party of the proposed accord. “The Americans insist so far that is they who define what is an aggression on Iraq and what is democracy inside Iraq… if we come under aggression we should define it and ask for help.”

Continued . . .

Every Iraqi is considered a potential threat by the U.S. military, so every Iraqi is a potential target–that is the logic of occupation that leads inevitably to massacres and war crimes.

Socialist Worker, June 10, 2008

Editorial

Every Iraqi is viewed as a potential threat by the U.S. military (Ahmad Al-Rubaye | AFP)

IN NOVEMBER 2005, U.S. soldiers went on a three-hour shooting spree in Haditha, just west of Baghdad. They attacked a taxi and shot the passengers, including women and children, at point-blank range, and they swept through homes. By the end of the assault, 24 people were dead.

Nine-year-old Eman Waleed described the scene as the Marines came to her family’s house. “First, they went into my father’s room, where he was reading the Koran,” she told Time magazine, “and we heard shots.” Then they entered the living room. “I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in the head,” Eman said. “Then they killed my granny.”

The adults tried to shield the children and were killed while doing so. “We were lying there, bleeding, and it hurt so much,” said Eman. “Afterward, some Iraqi soldiers came. They carried us in their arms. I was crying, shouting, ‘Why did you do this to our family?’ And one Iraqi soldier tells me, ‘We didn’t do it. The Americans did.'”

Two-and-a-half years after this horror, Lt. Andrew Grayson became the sixth U.S. soldier cleared of any wrongdoing at Haditha; he was found not guilty of all charges last week by a military court. Not a single solider has pled guilty or been convicted on any charge related to the rampage.

When they are uncovered, incidents like Haditha are painted by the military, the government and the media as aberrations in an otherwise benevolent occupation. The individual soldiers responsible for the violence, we’re assured, will be punished.

Continued . . .

US interrogators of terrorist suspects were instructed to destroy handwritten notes that might have exposed harsh or even illegal questioning methods at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a lawyer for one of the prisoners said.

Navy Lieutenant Commander Bill Kuebler said in a statement sent to reporters on Sunday he considers the notes crucial to the defence of his client, Canadian Omar Khadr, during his upcoming murder trial by a special military tribunal at the US naval base.

Kuebler said the instructions were handed down to interrogators from the United States Department of Defence as part of a standard operating procedure or “SOP” directive that he obtained from prosecutors last week.

If they were carried out, US interrogators may have “routinely destroyed evidence” that might have been used to defend the Khadr and other prisoners, Kuebler charged.

“If handwritten notes were destroyed in accordance with the SOP, the government intentionally deprived Omar’s lawyers of key evidence with which to challenge the reliability” of alleged confessions made to military interrogators, Kuebler said.

He cited in particular one passage of the directive to military interrogators stating that “this mission has legal and political issues that may lead to interrogators being called to testify.”

“Keeping the number of documents with interrogation information to a minimum can minimise certain legal issues,” the policy statement said, according to Kuebler.

Khadr, 21, a Canadian, is the youngest prisoner held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The son of a suspected al-Qaeda financier, he is accused of being an enemy combatant in Afghanistan, where he was arrested as a 15-year-old in 2002 on suspicion of links to al-Qaeda and of killing a US soldier.

Since then, Khadr has been held at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, and faces an upcoming US military commission on terrorism charges.

The controversial military tribunals were established by US President George Bush at the end of 2001 to deal with “war on terror” suspects.