Sandra Finley

Sep 232011
 

This is what we are all about!

You make my heart pump proud.   

Job well done – many thanks to Gail, Blake, Don, Derrick, Darren (and all those helping behind the scenes) on behalf of many people in many countries, including the U.S. and Canada.

 Click on the video at the top of the page:  http://www.creativetechnology.org/  

Now, let’s help!   spread the word, help get people out.  Make the great work of Gail et al pay off:

Dick Cheney’s scheduled appearance, Vancouver, Mon Sept 26, 5:30pm, Book Club, 915 W Hastings at Hornby  

From: Blake MacLeod
Sent: Friday, September 23, 2011 9:47 AM

Subject: URGENT – Press Conference Today!

Here is the announcement for the press conference, and the letter to Government & RCMP et al from Gail Davidson of Lawyers Against the War:

Friday, September 23, 2011

Civil society responds to Dick Cheney’s scheduled Vancouver appearance

‘Laws against war crimes must be enforced’

What: Press conference by civil society and local politicians regarding Dick Cheney’s upcoming visit to Vancouver.

(Click on http://www.creativetechnology.org/  )

 Who: Statements will be made by Vancouver-Kingsway Member of Parliament Don Davies, Immigration Critic for the Official Opposition, Gail Davidson of Lawyers Against War, and Derrick O’Keefe of the StopWar Coalition and the Canadian Peace Alliance, as well as other spokespeople for civil society groups.

 Why: Former U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney has chosen Vancouver as the first stop outside of the United States for his ongoing book tour. Local anti-war and human rights activists, and other civil society groups, have organized to demand that the Canadian government, in accordance with both Canadian and international law, arrest Cheney for war crimes including authorizing torture. 

 “Canada has very clear laws against war crimes, and is a signatory to myriad international treaties and conventions pertaining to the laws of war, and this is why we are demanding that the Canadian government take action to arrest Dick Cheney when he enters Canada next Monday, September 26 in Vancouver,” said Gail Davidson of Lawyers Against War. “Cheney is responsible for helping launch an illegal war on Iraq and for authorizing torture – Canada’s laws against war crimes must be enforced in this case,” said Davidson.

Cheney is to be hosted by ‘Le Bon Mot’ book club, which has an event scheduled for the evening of Sept. 26 at the Vancouver Club. The StopWar Coalition has called for a protest outside the event (915 W. Hastings, at Hornby), beginning at 5:30p.m. on the 26th.

— 30 —

 Media Contacts

Derrick O’Keefe: 604.803.6927

Gail Davidson: 604-738-0338

Please note too that Sandra Finley is very much involved in this. 

Best regards,

 Blake MacLeod

Vancouver

Cell: 1 604 328 7331

Board Member – World Federalist Movement – Canada, Vancouver Branch

and a bunch of other stuff…

 = = = = = = = = = =

 http://www.straight.com/article-469436/vancouver/dick-cheney-must-be-barred-entry-canada-vancouver-mp-don-davies-says

By Carlito Pablo, September 23, 2011

Finally, an elected Canadian politician has the balls to take on Dick.

In a calm and measured voice, Vancouver Kingsway MP Don Davies today (September 23) declared that former U.S. vice president Dick Cheney should be barred from entering Canada.

Davies was speaking at a news conference held at the W2 Media Café in downtown Vancouver, which saw peace activist Derrick O’Keefe, lawyer Gail Davidson, and global peace advocate Blake MacLeod deliver statements about Cheney’s Monday (September 26) speaking engagement at the Vancouver Club.

The federal NDP’s immigration critic outlined the case why Cheney should not be allowed to waltz into town based on the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

Davies cited Section 35 of this law, which states in part that a foreign national is inadmissible for entry into Canada if the person is “a prescribed senior official in the service of a government that, in the opinion of the Minister, engages or has engaged in terrorism, systematic or gross human rights violations, or genocide, a war crime or a crime against humanity within the meaning of subsections 6(3) to (5) of the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act”.

A lawyer, Davies also cited Section 36 of IRPA that provides in part that a person is also inadmissible if the individual was responsible for “an act outside Canada that is an offence in the place where it was committed and that, if committed in Canada, would constitute an offence under an Act of Parliament punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment of at least 10 years”.

Davies said that he wrote Conservative Immigration Minister Jason Kenney today to remind the federal government that it has the responsibility to “uphold the law”.

According to Davies, the former American vice president has openly and unapologetically admitted that he did not stop acts of torture perpetrated against perceived enemies of the U.S.

Davies said that he considers practices like waterboarding, or simulated drowning, and sleep deprivation as acts of torture.

“Torture is a serious crime. It is a war crime. It is a crime against humanity,” said Davies, who was enthusiastically applauded after delivering his statement.

Sep 232011
 
Will Dick Cheney be arrested in Vancouver?

Linda Solomon  Posted: Sep 23rd, 2011

  • First Sarah Palin, now Dick Cheney. Vancouver’s Bon Mot Club’s Monday speaker is considered a criminal by many.

Torture, Haliburton, the War on Terrorism, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

What kind of welcome does Cheney deserve? Appaluse, or arrest?

The former Vice President under the Bush Administration brings his book tour to the exclusive group’s Vancouver Club event and activist groups are organizing protests, while an SFU professor has even written the mayor, demanding he direct the police chief to arrest Cheney when he arrives in the city.

Cheney is on tour to  promote his book In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir at the Bon Mot Club

Sponsored by the Globe and Mail, Sauder School of Business, the Bon Mot Club is hosted by Leah Costello, the Fraser Institute’s savvy, leggy blonde spokesperson for the controversial Fraser Institute school report card.      

“Think of it as a TED conference or IdeaCity but just down the street with your own friends, colleagues, and clients,” Costello writes on the Bon Mot Club’s website.  “We’ll send you the featured book in advance—and whether you read it or not, everyone is encouraged to partcipate in a lively discussion with the author and the guests.”

Last time I wrote about the Bon Mot Club, Sarah Palin was the featured speaker. So here comes Dick Cheney.

Jodie Evans cofounder of the U.S. anti-war group CodePink, explained on Fox News’s America  Live why she attempted to do a “citizen’s arrest” of  Cheney last September 7th at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda California. 

Evans  sat politely through Cheney’s book reading and then, when it was nearly over disrupted the event.  Evans stood up brandishing an arrest warrant,  called out that she was making a citizens arrest.  Codepink reported:

Referring to Cheney as an international war criminal, Evans explained how he had undermined the U.S. economy and it’s standing in the international community, made it’s citizens less safe, and left a million people dead in his wake.

“You brag about caring about soldiers,” Evans responded to Cheney’s speech, “but there are hundreds of thousands of casualties.”

“You are guilty of conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud the United States, for false information leading to the War in Iraq. You are guilty of treason, sedition, and subversive activities including, but not limited to submitting and fomenting false information leading to the War in Iraq, illegal detainment and torture of prisoners in Guantanamo and elsewhere, and other fraudulent acts leading to the deaths of more than 4,000 U.S. military personnel as well as approximately 300,000 Iraqi civilians. And you are guilty of felony murder… You have the right to remain silent.”

Cheney said nothing until Evans and CODEPINK member Sharon Tipton were being dragged out by security. Proving his allergy to the truth, Cheney referred to the facts as “play-time.”

Dick Cheney has openly advocated torture, including describing himself as a “big supporter” of waterboarding. He was inside the Nixon Library peddling his book “In My Time”.

Both Evans and Tipton called out Cheney on the lies and criminal acts that have killed so many Iraqis, Afghans and Americans.

Cheney said nothing until Evans and a fellow activist were dragged out by security. Later, Evans said she wished all Americans should call for Cheney’s arrest.

Vancouverites respond to Dick Cheney’s visit

That was California and this is Vancouver. What will happen here?

A number of local anti-war groups are calling Cheney a war criminal and asking the Canadian government to stop Cheney from entering Canada.

SFU professor Donald Grayston sent this letter to Mayor Gregor Robertson.

Mr Mayor: I am disappointed that you will not emulate the mayor of London in regard to his warning to war criminal George W. Bush. A worse war criminal, Dick Cheney, will be in Vancouver on Monday. I urge you to relocate your spine and ask Chief Chu to arrest him for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The election is coming, and many of us will remember your response.
Sincerely
Don Grayston

Voting resident of Vancouver

Vancouver lawyer Gail Davidson has called for Cheney’s arrest.  The Georgia Straight reports that:

The cofounder of the international group Lawyers Against the War wants the government of Canada either to bar the former U.S. vice president from entering the country or, if he’s allowed in, to arrest and prosecute him for torture, war offences, and crimes against humanity. And if Canada isn’t keen on punishing the ex–vice president to former president George W. Bush, Davidson argues, then it should extradite Cheney to a country that is willing and able to prosecute him.

Sep 212011
 

http://www.amnesty.ca/iwriteforjustice/take_action.php?actionid=772&type=Internal 

EXCERPT:

. . .   US authorities prefer to “leave the past where it is.” No one in a leadership role has ever been held accountable, let alone investigated.

On September 21, 2011, Amnesty International submitted a 30-page memorandum accompanied by nearly 5,000 pages of supporting material to Canadian authorities. It outlined a substantial case for former US President George W Bush’s legal responsibility for a series of human rights violations – including torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading-treatment and enforced disappearances  — connected to the CIA’s secret detention program between 2002 and 2009 and US military custody in Guantánamo, Afghanistan and Iraq.

While President, George W. Bush authorized the use of a number of “enhanced interrogation techniques” against detainees held in the secret CIA program. He publicly admitted authorizing the use of “waterboarding” against specific individuals – a practice which was later confirmed.

Former US President George W. Bush is scheduled to speak at a public event in Surrey, BC on October 20, 2011.

Canada has been a leader in efforts to strengthen the international justice system. It’s time to demonstrate that when it comes to accountability for human rights violations, no one and no country is above international law.   . . .

Sep 202011
 

 

 

— On Tue, 9/20/11, Susan Lindauer <slindauer2008@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: Susan Lindauer <slindauer2008@yahoo.com>
Subject: Welcome to Boston, Mr. Rumsfeld. You are Under Arrest.
To: “fplamb@gmail.com” <fplamb@gmail.com>
Received: Tuesday, September 20, 2011, 5:24 PM

Extremely Important article— I ask all friends to post this everywhere & distribute as widely as possible.

Welcome to Boston, Mr. Rumsfeld. You Are Under Arrest

Posted on September 20, 2011 by coto2admin| 1 Comment

By Ralph Lopez
Daily KOS

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been stripped of legal immunity for acts of torture against US citizens authorized while he was in office.

The 7th Circuit made the ruling in the case of two American contractors who were tortured by the US military in Iraq after uncovering a smuggling ring within an Iraqi security company.  The company was under contract to the Department of Defense.   The company was assisting Iraqi insurgent groups in the “mass acquisition” of American weapons.  The ruling comes as Rumsfeld begins his book tour with a visit to Boston on Monday, September 26, and as new, uncensored photos of Abu Ghraib spark fresh outrage across Internet.  Awareness is growing that Bush-era crimes went far beyond mere waterboarding.

Torture Room, Abu Ghraib

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told reporters in 2004 of photos withheld by the Defense Department from Abu Ghraib, “The American public needs to understand, we’re talking about rape and murder here… We’re not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience. We’re talking about rape and murder and some very serious charges.”  And journalist Seymour Hersh says: “boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has.”

Rumsfeld resigned days before a criminal complaint was filed in Germany in which the American general who commanded the military police battalion at Abu Ghraib had promised to testify.  General Janis Karpinski in an interview with Salon.com was asked: “Do you feel like Rumsfeld is at the heart of all of this and should be held completely accountable for what happened [at Abu Ghraib]?”

Karpinski answered: “Yes, absolutely.”  In the criminal complaint filed in Germany against Rumsfeld, Karpinski submitted 17 pages of testimony and offered to appear before the German prosecutor as a witness.  Congressman Kendrick Meek of Florida, who participated in the hearings on Abu Ghraib, said of Rumsfeld: “There was no way Rumsfeld didn’t know what was going on. He’s a guy who wants to know everything.”

And Major General Antonio Taguba, who led the official Army investigation into Abu Ghraib, said in his report:

“there is no longer any doubt as to whether the [Bush] administration has committed war crimes. The only question is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.”

Abu Ghraib Prisoner Smeared with Feces

Amazingly, the two American contractors in the 7th Circuit decision were known by the military to be working undercover for the FBI, to whom they had reported witnessing the sale of U.S government munitions to Iraqi rebel groups.  The FBI in Iraq had vouched for Vance and Ertel numerous times before they nevertheless disappeared into military custody.  They were held at Camp Cropper in Iraq where the two were tortured, one for 97 days, and the other for six weeks.

In a puzzling and incriminating move, Camp Cropper base commander General John Gardner ordered Nathan Ertel released on May 17, 2006, while keeping Donald Vance in detention for another two months of torture.  By ordering the release of one man but not the other, Gardner revealed awareness of the situation but prolonged it at the same time.

It is unlikely that Gardner could act alone in a situation as sensitive as the illegal detention and torture of two Americans confirmed by the FBI to be working undercover in the national interest, to prevent American weapons and munitions from reaching the hands of insurgents, for the sole purpose of using them to kill American troops.  Vance and Ertel suggest he was acting on orders from the highest political level.

The forms of torture employed against the Americans included “techniques” which crop up frequently in descriptions of Iraqi and Afghan prisoner abuse at Bagram, Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib.  They included “walling,” where the head is slammed repeatedly into a concrete wall, sleep deprivation to the point of psychosis by use of round-the-clock bright lights and harsh music at ear-splitting volume, in total isolation, for days, weeks or months at a time, and intolerable cold.

The 7th Circuit ruling is the latest in a growing number of legal actions involving hundreds of former prisoners and torture victims filed in courts around the world.  Criminal complaints have been filed against Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials in Germany, France, and Spain.  Former President Bush recently curbed travel to Switzerland due to fear of arrest following criminal complaints lodged in Geneva.  “He’s avoiding the handcuffs,” Reed Brody, counsel for Human Rights Watch, told Reuters.

And the Mayor of London threatened Bush with arrest for war crimes earlier this year should he ever set foot in his city, saying that were he to land in London to “flog his memoirs,” that “the real trouble — from the Bush point of view — is that he might never see Texas again.”

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Chief-of-Staff Col. Lawrence Wilkerson surmised on MSNBC earlier this year that soon, Saudi Arabia and Israel will be “the only two countries Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest will travel to.”

Abu Ghraib: Dog Bites

What would seem to make Rumsfeld’s situation more precarious is the number of credible former officials and military officers who seem to be eager to testify against him, such as Col. Wilkerson and General Janis Karpinsky.

In a signed declaration in support of torture plaintiffs in a civil suit naming Rumsfeld in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, Col. Wilkerson, one of Rumsfeld’s most vociferous critics,  stated: “I am willing to testify in person regarding the  content of this declaration, should that be necessary.”  That declaration, among other things, affirmed that a documentary on the chilling murder of a 22-year-old Afghan farmer and taxi driver in Afghanistan was “accurate.”  Wilkerson said earlier this year that in that case, and in the case of another murder at Bagram at about the same time, “authorization for the abuse went to the very top of the United States government.”

Dilawar

The young farmer’s name was Dilawar.  The New York Times reported on May 20, 2005:

“Four days before [his death,] on the eve of the Muslim holiday of Id al-Fitr, Mr. Dilawar set out from his tiny village of Yakubi in a prized new possession, a used Toyota sedan that his family bought for him a few weeks earlier to drive as a taxi.On the day that he disappeared, Mr. Dilawar’s mother had asked him to gather his three sisters from their nearby villages and bring them home for the holiday. However, he needed gas money and decided instead to drive to the provincial capital, Khost, about 45 minutes away, to look for fares.”

Dilawar’s misfortune was to drive past the gate of an American base which had been hit by a rocket attack that morning.  Dilawar and his fares were arrested at a checkpoint by a warlord, who was later suspected of mounting the rocket attack himself, and then turning over randam captures like Dilawar in order to win trust.

The UK Guardian reports:

“Guards at Bagram routinely kneed prisoners in their thighs — a blow called a ‘peroneal strike’… Whenever a guard did this to Dilawar, he would cry out, ‘Allah! Allah!’ Some guards apparently found this amusing, and would strike him repeatedly to show off the behavior to buddies. One military policeman told investigators, ‘Everybody heard him cry out and thought it was funny. … It went on over a 24-hour period, and I would think that it was over 100 strikes.’”

Dilawar was shackled from the ceiling much of the time, with his feet barely able to touch the ground.  On the last day of his life, after 4 days at Bagram, an interpreter who was present said his legs were bouncing uncontrollably as he sat in a plastic chair. He had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days.

The New York Times reported that on the last day of his life, four days after he was arrested:

“Mr. Dilawar asked for a drink of water, and one of the two interrogators, Specialist Joshua R. Claus, 21, picked up a large plastic bottle. But first he punched a hole in the bottom, the interpreter said, so as the prisoner fumbled weakly with the cap, the water poured out over his orange prison scrubs. The soldier then grabbed the bottle back and began squirting the water forcefully into Mr. Dilawar’s face. “Come on, drink!” the interpreter said Specialist Claus had shouted, as the prisoner gagged on the spray. “Drink!”

At the interrogators’ behest, a guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling.

“‘Leave him up,’ one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying.”

The next time the prison medic saw Dilawar a few hours later, he was dead, his head lolled to one side and his body beginning to stiffen.  A coroner would testify that his legs “had basically been pulpified.” The Army coroner, Maj. Elizabeth Rouse, said: “I’ve seen similar injuries in an individual run over by a bus.” She testified that had he lived, Dilawar’s legs would have had to be amputated.

Despite the military’s false statement that Dilawar’s death was the result of “natural causes,” Maj. Rouse marked the death certificate as a “homicide” and arranged for the certificate to be delivered to the family.  The military was forced to retract the statement when a reporter for the New York Times, Carlotta Gall, tracked down Dilawar’s family in Afghanistan and was given a folded piece of paper by Dilawar’s brother.  It was the death certificate, which he couldn’t read, because it was in English.

The practice of forcing prisoners to stand for long periods of time, links Dilawar’s treatment to a memo which bears Rumsfeld’s own handwriting on that particular subject.  Obtained through a Freedom of Information Act Request, the memo may show how fairly benign-sounding authorizations for clear circumventions of the Geneva Conventions may have translated into gruesome practice on the battlefield.

The memo, which addresses keeping prisoners “standing” for up to four hours, is annotated with a note initialed by Rumfeld reading: “I stand for 8–10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?”  Not mentioned in writing anywhere is anything about accomplishing this by chaining prisoners to the ceiling.  There is evidence that, unable to support his weight on tiptoe for the days on end he was chained to the ceiling, Dilawars arms dislocated, and they flapped around uselessly when he was taken down for interrogation.  The National Catholic Reporter writes, “They flapped like a bird’s broken wings.”

Contradicting, on the record, a February 2003 statement by Rumfeld’s top commander in Afghnanistan at the time, General Daniel McNeill, that “we are not chaining people to the ceilings,” is Spc. Willie Brand, the only soldier disciplined in the death of Dilawar, with a reduction in rank.  Told of McNeill’s statement, Brand told Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes: “Well, he’s lying.”  Brand said of his punishment: “I didn’t understand how they could do this after they had trained you to do this stuff and they turn around and say you’ve been bad.”

Exhibit: A sketch by Sgt. Thomas V. Curtis, a former Reserve M.P. sergeant, showing how Dilawar was chained to the ceiling of his cell

Exhibit: Dilawar Death Certificate marked “homicide”

Exhibit: Rumsfeld Memo: “I stand 8-10 hours a day.  Why only 4 hours?”

Dilawar’s daughter and her grandfather

Binyam, Genital-Slicing

Binyam Mohamed was seized by the Pakistani Forces in April 2002 and turned over to the Americans for a $5,000 bounty.  He was held for more than five years without charge or trial in Bagram Air Force Base, Guantánamo Bay, and third country “black” sites.

In his diary he describes being flown by a US government plane to a prison in Morocco. He writes:

“They cut off my clothes with some kind of doctor’s scalpel. I was naked. I tried to put on a brave face. But maybe I was going to be raped. Maybe they’d electrocute me. Maybe castrate me…One of them took my penis in his hand and began to make cuts. He did it once, and they stood still for maybe a minute, watching my reaction. I was in agony. They must have done this 20 to 30 times, in maybe two hours. There was blood all over. ‘I told you I was going to teach you who’s the man,’ [one] eventually said.

“They cut all over my private parts. One of them said it would be better just to cut it off, as I would only breed terrorists. I asked for a doctor.

“I was in Morocco for 18 months. Once they began this, they would do it to me about once a month. One time I asked a guard: ‘What’s the point of this? I’ve got nothing I can say to them. I’ve told them everything I possibly could.’

“‘As far as I know, it’s just to degrade you. So when you leave here, you’ll have these scars and you’ll never forget. So you’ll always fear doing anything but what the US wants.’

“Later, when a US airplane picked me up the following January, a female MP took pictures. She was one of the few Americans who ever showed me any sympathy. When she saw the injuries I had she gasped. They treated me and took more photos when I was in Kabul. Someone told me this was ‘to show Washington it’s healing.’”

The obvious question for any prosecutor in Binyam’s case is: Who does “Washington” refer to?  Rumfeld?  Cheney?  Is it not in the national interest to uncover these most depraved of sadists at the highest level?  US Judge Gladys Kessler, in her findings on Binyam made in relation to a Guantanamo prisoner’s petition, found Binyam exceedingly credible.  She wrote:

“His genitals were mutilated. He was deprived of sleep and food. He was summarily transported from one foreign prison to another. Captors held him in stress positions for days at a time. He was forced to listen to piercingly loud music and the screams of other prisoners while locked in a pitch-black cell. All the while, he was forced to inculpate himself and others in plots to imperil Americans. The government does not dispute this evidence.”

Obama: Torturers’ Last Defense

The prospect of Rumsfeld in a courtroom cannot possibly be relished by the Obama administration, which has now cast itself as the last and staunchest defender of the embattled former officials, including John Yoo, Alberto Gonzalez, Judge Jay Bybee, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, and others.  The administration employed an unprecedented twisting of arms in order to keep evidence in a lawsuit which Binyam had filed in the UK suppressed, threatening an end of cooperation between the British MI5 and the CIA.  This even though the British judges whose hand was forced puzzled that the evidence contained “no disclosure of sensitive intelligence matters.”  The judges suggested another reason for the secrecy requested by the Obama administration, that it might be “politically embarrassing.”

The Obama Justice Department’s active involvement in seeking the dismissal of the cases is by choice, as the statutory obligation of the US Attorney General to defend cases against public officials ends the day they leave office.  Indeed, the real significance of recent court decisions, the one by the 7th Circuit and yet another against Rumsfeld in a DC federal court, may be the clarification the common misconception that high officials are forever immune for crimes committed while in office, in the name of the state.  The misconception persists despite just a moment of thought telling one that if this were true, Hermann Goering, Augusto Pinochet, and Charles Taylor would never have been arrested, for they were all in office at the time they ordered atrocities, and they all invoked national security.

Judge Kessler’s findings point to yet another even more alarming aspect of the Bush-era crimes for which Rumsfeld is now being pursued for his part.  And that is the emerging evidence that the tortures perpetrated were not designed to protect national security at all, but to obtain false confessions in order to score propaganda points for the War on terror.


Andy Worthington writes that:

“As it happens, one of the confessions that was tortured out of Binyam is so ludicrous that it was soon dropped…The US authorities insisted that Padilla and Binyam had dinner with various high-up members of al-Qaeda the night before Padilla was to fly off to America. According to their theory the dinner party had to have been on the evening of 3 April in Karachi … Binyam was  meant to have dined with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah, Sheikh al-Libi, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Jose Padilla. What made the scenario ‘absurd,’ as [Binyam’s lawyer] pointed out, was that ‘two of the conspirators were already in U.S. custody at the time — Abu Zubaydah was seized six days before, on 28 March 2002, and al-Libi had been held since November 2001.’”

The charges against Binyam were dropped, after the prosecutor, Lieutenant Colonel Darrel Vandeveld, resigned. He told the BBC later that he had concerns at the repeated suppression of evidence that could prove prisoners’ innocence.

The litany of tortures alleged against Rumsfeld in the military prisons he ran could go on for some time.  The new photographic images from Abu Ghraib make it hard to conceive of how the methods of torture and dehumanization could have possibly served a national purpose.

The approved use of attack dogs, sexual humiliation, forced masturbation, and treatments which plumb the depths of human depravity are either documented in Rumsfeld’s own memos, or credibly reported on.


The UK Guardian writes:

“The sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison was not an invention of maverick guards, but part of a system of ill-treatment and degradation used by special forces soldiers that is now being disseminated among ordinary troops and contractors who do not know what they are doing, according to British military sources. The techniques devised in the system, called R2I – resistance to interrogation – match the crude exploitation and abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad.

“One former British special forces officer who returned last week from Iraq, said: ‘It was clear from discussions with US private contractors in Iraq that the prison guards were using R2I techniques, but they didn’t know what they were doing.’”

Torture Now Aimed at Americans, Programs Designed to Obtain False Confessions, Not Intelligence

The worst of the worst is that Rumsfeld’s logic strikes directly at the foundations of our democracy and the legitimacy of the War on Terror.  The torture methods studied and adopted by the Bush administration were not new, but adopted from the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape program (SERE) which is taught to elite military units.  The program was developed during the Cold War, in response to North Korean, Chinese, and Soviet Bloc torture methods.  But the aim of those methods was never to obtain intelligence, but to elicit false confessions.  The Bush administration asked the military to “reverse engineer” the methods, i.e. figure out how to break down resistance to false confessions.

In the 2008 Senate Armed Services Committee report which indicted high-level Bush administration officials, including Rumsfeld, as bearing major responsibility for the torture at Abu Gharib, Guantanamo, and Bagram, the Committee said:

“SERE instructors explained “Biderman’s Principles” – which were based on coercive methods used by the Chinese Communist dictatorship to elicit false confessions from U.S. POWs during the Korean War – and left with GTMO personnel a chart of those coercive techniques.”

The Biderman Principles were based on the work of Air Force Psychiatrist Albert Biderman, who wrote the landmark “Communist Attempts to Elecit False Confessions from Air Force Prisoners of War,” on which SERE resistance was based.  Biderman wrote:

“The experiences of American Air Force prisoners of war in Korea who were pressured for false confessions, enabled us to compile an outline of methods of eliciting compliance, not much different, it turned out, from those reported by persons held by Communists of other nations.  I have prepared a chart showing a condensed version of this outline.”

The chart is a how-to for communist torturers interested only in false confessions for propaganda purposes, not intelligence.  It was the manual for, in Biderman’s words, “brainwashing.”  In the reference for Principle Number 7, “Degradation,” the chart explains:

“Makes Costs of Resistance Appear More Damaging to Self-Esteem than Capitulation; Reduces Prisoner to “Animal Level…Personal Hygiene Prevented; Filthy, Infested Surroundings; Demeaning Punishments; Insults and Taunts; Denial of Privacy”

Appallingly, this could explain that even photos such as those of feces-smeared prisoners at Abu Ghraib might not, as we would hope, be only the individual work of particularly demented guards, but part of systematic degradation authorized at the highest levels.

Exhibit: Abu Ghraib, Female POW

This could go far toward explaining why the Bush administration seemed so tone-deaf to intelligence professionals, including legendary CIA Director William Colby, who essentially told them they were doing it all wrong.  A startling level of consensus existed within the intelligence community that the way to produce good intelligence was to gain the trust of prisoners and to prove everything they had been told by their recruiters, about the cruelty and degeneracy of America, to be wrong.

But why would the administration care about what worked to produce intelligence, if the goal was never intelligence in the first place?  What the Ponzi scheme of either innocent men or low-level operatives incriminating each other  DID accomplish, was produce a framework of rapid successes and trophies in the new War on Terror.

And now, American contractors Vance and Ertel show, unless there are prosecutions, the law has effectively changed and they can do it to Americans. Jane Mayer in the New Yorker describes a new regime for prisoners which has become coldly methodical, quoting a report issued by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, titled “Secret Detentions and Illegal Transfers of Detainees.”  In the report on the CIA paramilitary Special Activities Division detainees were “taken to their cells by strong people who wore black outfits, masks that covered their whole faces, and dark visors over their eyes.”

Mayer writes that a former member of a C.I.A. transport team has described the “takeout” of prisoners as:

“a carefully choreographed twenty-minute routine, during which a suspect was hog-tied, stripped naked, photographed, hooded, sedated with anal suppositories, placed in diapers, and transported by plane to a secret location.”

A person involved in the Council of Europe inquiry, referring to cavity searches and the frequent use of suppositories, likened the treatment to “sodomy.” He said, “It was used to absolutely strip the detainee of any dignity. It breaks down someone’s sense of impenetrability.”

Of course we have seen these images before, in the trial balloon treatment of Jose Padilla, the first American citizen arrested and declared “enemy combatant” in the first undeclared war without end.  The designation placed Padilla outside of his Bill of Rights as an American citizen even though he was arrested on American soil.  Padilla was kept in isolation and tortured for nearly 4 years before being released to a civilian trial, at which point according to his lawyer he was useless in his own defense, and exhibited fear and mistrust of everyone, complete docility, and a range of nervous facial tics.

Jose Padilla in Military Custody

He was convicted by a Miami jury and sentenced to 17 more years.  As of this writing, and meriting it’s own outrage, on Sept. 19, an appeals court threw out Padilla’s sentence as “too lenient” and has sent it back for review.

Rumsfeld’s avuncular “golly-gee, gee-whiz” performances in public are legendary.  Randall M. Schmidt, the Air Force Lieutenant General appointed by the Army to investigate abuses at Guantanamo, and who recommended holding Rumsfeld protege and close associate General Geoffrey Miller “accountable” as the commander of Guantanamo, watched Rumfeld’s performance before a House Committee with some interest. “He was going, ‘My God! Did I authorize putting a bra and underwear on this guy’s head and telling him all his buddies knew he was a homosexual?’”

But General Taguba said of Rumsfeld: “Rummy did what we called ‘case law’ policy — verbal and not in writing. What he’s really saying is that if this decision comes back to haunt me I’ll deny it.”


Taguba went on: “Rumsfeld is very perceptive and has a mind like a steel trap. There’s no way he’s suffering from C.R.S.—Can’t Remember Shit.”

Miller was the general deployed by Rumfeld to “Gitmo-ize” Abu Ghraib in 2003 after Rumfeld had determined they were being too “soft” on prisoners.  He said famously in one memo “you have to treat them like dogs.”  General Karpinski questioned the fall of Charles Graner and Lyndie England as the main focus of low-level “bad apple” abuse in the Abu Ghraib investigations.  “Did Lyndie England deploy with a dog leash?” she asks.

Exhibit: Dog deployed at Abu Ghraib, mentally-ill prisoner

Abu Ghraib prisoner in “restraint” chair, screaming “Allah!!”

Rumfeld’s worry now is the doctrine of Universal Jurisdiction, as well as ordinary common law.  The veil of immunity stripped in civil cases would seem to free the hand of any prosecutor who determines there is sufficient evidence that a crime has been committed based on available evidence.  A grand jury’s bar for opening a prosecution is minimal.  It has been said “a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich.”  Rumsfeld, and the evidence against him, would certainly seem to pass this test.

The name Dilawar translates to English roughly as “Braveheart.”  Let us pray he had one to endure the manner of his death.  But the more spiritual may believe that somehow it had a purpose, to shock the world and begin the toppling of unimaginable evil among us.  Dilawar represented the poorest of the poor and most powerless, wanting only to pick up his three sisters, as his mother had told him to, for the holiday.  The question now is whether Americans will finally draw a line, as the case against Rumsfeld falls into place and becomes legally bulletproof.  Andy Worthington noted that the case for prosecutors became rock solid when Susan Crawford, senior Pentagon official overseeing the Military Commissions at Guantánamo — told Bob Woodward that the Bush administration had “met the legal definition of torture.”

As Rumsfeld continues his book tour and people like Dilawar are remembered, it is not beyond the pale that an ambitious prosecutor, whether local, state, or federal, might sense the advantage.  It is perhaps unlikely, but not inconceivable, that upon landing at Logan International Airport on Wed., Sept. 21st, or similarly anywhere he travels thereafter, Rumsfeld could be greeted with the words such as:

“Welcome to Boston, Mr. Secretary.  You are under arrest.”

Massachusetts District Attorneys Who Can Indict Rumsfeld, Please Email them this post and call them.SAMPLE INDICTMENT TEXT, BASED ON GERMAN CRIMINAL COMPLAINT

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley:
email:  ago@state.ma.us

One Ashburton Place
Boston, MA 02108 -1518
Phone: (617) 727-2200

Here is the contact info for members of the Boston City Council, which could pass a resolution directing the Police Commissioner to arrest Rumsfeld on sight (google Brattleboro Resolution, George W. Bush):
http://www.cityofboston.gov/…

And Gov. Duval Patrick has an obligation to order the state police to do the same: CONTACT FORM

Local District Attorneys
Berkshire County: District Attorney David F. Capeless
Elected November 2006
OFFICE ADDRESS:     P.O. Box 973
888 Purchase Street
New Bedford, MA 02741
PHONE:     (508) 997-0711
FAX:     (508) 997-0396
INTERNET ADDRESS:     http://www.bristolda.com

Bristol County     District Attorney C. Samuel Sutter
Appointed March 2004
Elected November 2004
OFFICE ADDRESS:     7 North Street
P.O. Box 1969
Pittsfield, MA 01202-1969
PHONE:     (413) 443-5951
FAX:     (413) 499-6349
Internet Address:     http://www.mass.gov/…

Cape & Islands     District Attorney Michael O’Keefe
Elected November 2002
OFFICE ADDRESS:     P.O.Box 455
3231 Main Street
Barnstable, MA 02630
PHONE:     (508) 362-8113
FAX:     (508) 362-8221
INTERNET ADDRESS:     http://www.mass.gov/…

Essex County: District Attorney Jonathan W. Blodgett
Elected November 2002
OFFICE ADDRESS:     Ten Federal Street
Salem, MA 01970
PHONE:     (978) 745-6610
FAX:     (978) 741-4971
INTERNET ADDRESS:     http://www.mass.gov/…

Hampden     District Attorney Mark Mastroianni
Elected 2010
OFFICE ADDRESS:     Hall of Justice
50 State Street
Springfield, MA 01103
PHONE:     (413) 747-1000
FAX:     (413) 781-4745

Middlesex County: District Attorney Gerard T. Leone, Jr.
Elected November 2006
OFFICE ADDRESS:     15 Commonwealth Avenue
Woburn, MA 01801
PHONE:     (781) 897-8300
FAX:     ((781) 897-8301
INTERNET ADDRESS:     http://www.middlesexda.com

Norfolk     District Attorney Michael Morrissey

Elected 2010
OFFICE ADDRESS:     45 Shawmut Ave.
Canton, MA 02021
PHONE:     (781) 830-4800
FAX:     (781) 830-4801
INTERNET ADDRESS:     http://www.mass.gov/…

Northwestern     District Attorney David Sullivan
Elected 2010
HAMPSHIRE OFFICE ADDRESS:     One Gleason Plaza
Northampton, MA 01060
PHONE:     (413) 586-9225
FAX:     (413) 584-3635

FRANKLIN OFFICE ADDRESS:     13 Conway Street
Greenfield, MA 01301
PHONE:     (413) 774-3186
FAX:     (413) 773-3278
WEBSITE:
Northwestern     http://www.mass.gov/…

Plymouth     District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz
Appointed November 2001
Elected November 2002
OFFICE ADDRESS:     32 Belmont Street
Brockton, MA 02303
PHONE:     (508) 584-8120
FAX:     (508) 586-3578
INTERNET ADDRESS:     http://www.mass.gov/…

Suffolk County:     District Attorney Daniel F. Conley
Appointed January 2002
Elected November 2002
OFFICE ADDRESS:     One Bulfinch Place
Boston, MA 02114
PHONE:     (617) 619-4000
FAX:     (617) 619-4009
INTERNET ADDRESS:     http://www.mass.gov/…

Worcester     District Attorney Joseph D. Early, Jr.
Elected November 2006
OFFICE ADDRESS:     Courthouse – Room 220
2 Main Street
Worcester, MA 01608
PHONE:     (508) 755-8601
FAX:     (508) 831-9899
INTERNET ADDRESS:     http://www.worcesterda.com

Sep 162011
 

Dear Councillor Hunt, 

I left a phone message for some Councillors, spoke with Councillor Bose, and THEN received the news:  Bush’s Toronto appearance cancelled  (the Toronto Star).  

 The cancellation of Bush’s Toronto visit happened because:

–        Three young people and a professor stood up and said “no”. 

–        An employee resigned over it.

I ask you to stand with Canadians.    It is easy enough to cancel Bush’s visit to Surrey/Vancouver.   I presume that you only need a majority vote of Council.

People in Canada DO care about morality and about the rule of law.   

 We DO care that people responsible for an illegal war of aggression , for the deaths of more than a million people, for the absolute destruction of a society, its homes, hospitals, schools, museums, infrastructure, and environment should get off scot-free.  And worse yet, be feted and congratulated and celebrated.    

 If an American administration did to us in Canada what they did to Iraq, I cannot in honesty know that I would not hate the Bush Administration.  If I then saw the citizens of other countries welcoming and enriching the source of the destruction of my world,  would I not loathe those people, too?     

An illegal war, injustice of any kind, creates hatred that lasts for centuries.  The stories are handed down.  

We seem to have lost our moral compass.  People in Toronto have taken a step toward reclaiming it.  In February 2011, the people in Switzerland caused Bush to cancel a speaking engagement in Geneva, for fear that he would be arrested. 

Please, let us celebrate the people of Surrey for helping to re-establish who we are.   Bush’s visit needs to be cancelled.  

 Sincerely,

Sandra Finley

 What is my interest?:   Bush came to Saskatoon (my home) in 2009.  I researched the law and the evidence against Bush.  There is no doubt that he needs to be tried for war crimes.  Please see my blog  (www.sandrafinley.ca ).  There is a chronology of the work that is being done around the world to see that Bush is brought to justice. 

Please call if you have questions.  I am happy to provide assistance, if I can, 306  373  8078 .

Sep 152011
 

This is so amazing!     Bush’s Toronto appearance cancelled  !  

The cancellation happened because:

–        Young people and a professor stood up and said “no”. 

–        An employee resigned over it.

Too cool!

NOW!  We have to get Bush stopped in Surrey (October 20th).

Earlier we circulated   2011-08-01   The Swiss caused Geo Bush to cancel his visit to Geneva.  Can we do the same?  Bush speaking in Surrey, B.C. (Vancouver) Thursday, October 20th, 2011.)

Darn right we can do what the Swiss did!   Torontonians already did it.   Now for B.C..

Yesterday I started phoning Surrey City Councillors (Contact info:  http://www.surrey.ca/city-government/2999.aspx).   

The conversation with Councillor Bob Bose was great.   I sent him the link to the information we have collected, the on-going work in Canada, the U.S., and Europe to get Bush arrested and tried at the International Criminal Court. 

We talked about people in the Vancouver area who would want to be involved in the work to get Bush arrested when he arrives in Vancouver.   I was happy that I called the Councillor;  I met another remarkable Canadian.

If YOU know anyone in Surrey,  please let them know about the effort.   The Municipal Election is in November.   Electors may want to think twice about voting for Mayor Dianne Watts who is one of the people behind bringing Bush to Surrey.

Gail Davidson, a major driver in the effort to uphold the rule of law, writes:

Please step up your opposition to Bush’s scheduled visit to Surrey BC on October 20th.

The September 20th visit was apparently cancelled in response to student opposition.   

TAKE ACTION:

Insist that Bush be barred from Canada as an accused war criminal or arrested on his arrival in accordance with the law.

Send LAW”s letter (click on  our letter ) outlining Canada’s legal duty to ensure that George W. Bush, being a person suspected on reasonable grounds of torture and other grave crimes, will not receive safe haven from prosecution for torture (and other crimes) in Canada, to your MP and MLA.

Click on:   Email Addresses for Canadian MP’s 

We’re on a roll!!

Sep 152011
 

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/University+Calgary+research+accounts+used+fund+anti+Kyoto+Protocol+campaign/5405627/story.html

By Mike Desouza, Postmedia News September 15, 2011
A pair of “research” accounts at the University of Calgary, funded mainly by the oil and gas industry, were used for a sophisticated international political campaign that involved high-priced consultants, lobbying, wining, dining and travel with the goal of casting doubt on climate change science, newly released accounting records have revealed.

The records showed that the strategy was crafted by professional firms, in collaboration with well-known climate change skeptics in Canada and abroad, allowing donors to earn tax receipts by channelling their money through the university.

All of the activities and $507,975 in spending were organized by the Friends of Science, an anti-Kyoto Protocol group founded by retired oil industry workers and academics who are skeptical about peer-reviewed research linking human activity to global warming observed in recent decades.

“Shouldn’t the science of climate change be on the agenda for [the UN climate conference]?” asked a pair of ads that appeared in the Montreal Gazette on Nov. 28 and Nov 29, 2005, inviting the public to a Friends of Science threeday event outside of the first international meeting of parties to the Kyoto Protocol, where climate skeptics proceeded to attack Liberal government environmental policies at the start of a federal election campaign.

The two ads – worth $2,070 – and about $4,000 in travel costs to the event in Montreal for an Alberta-based communications consultant (earning $100 an hour) and an academic, were purchased through accounts set up in the fall of 2004 following a request by University of Calgary political science professor Barry Cooper, according to the records, released to Postmedia News by the university under orders from Frank Work, the information and privacy commissioner of Alberta.

“I don’t know about [whether we were there] to disrupt the conference. We were there to present our views,” said Douglas Leahey, president of the Friends of Science up until June 2011.

“We think that the conference should have presented both views, not just one of a propaganda exercise … This was part of our research activities to find out what the other side was doing and how we were interacting with them.”

Cooper was proposing to produce a DVD that would analyze debates about climate change science and policies in partnership with the Friends of Science, with a $175,000 donation from Talisman Energy, an Alberta-based oil and gas company, to kick-start their efforts.

Cooper declined to comment on “explicit details,” but said that all money was used to produce the DVD and “publicize its existence.”

“There was a debate going on at the time about (whether humans were causing global warming) and it was not being discussed outside a tiny cadre of climatologists,” Cooper said in an email.

“Happily, that is no longer the case. Moreover, I viewed this issue and I still view this issue as a public policy matter more than a scientific one. How else would a political scientist be expected to view such matters?”

The project recruited APCO Worldwide, a public relations firm that produced a detailed budget and “strategic” communications plan, to coordinate “letters from experts” in support of the video, obtain media coverage in Canada, the U.S. and possibly Europe, and publish opinion pieces in mainstream newspapers to promote the product.

The university paid nearly $250,000 to APCO Worldwide, Morten Paulsen Consulting and Fleishman-Hillard Canada, where Paulsen also worked as a senior vice-president, before shutting down the accounts in 2007 after an audit that determined some activities were political in nature.

The university initially declined to release detailed invoices and records following a 2008 request under provincial freedom of information legislation and told the commissioner’s office during a recent inquiry that releasing the details was not in the public interest.

The university has also billed Postmedia News $415 for processing the request for information, arguing that waiving the fees in their entirety was also “not in the public interest.”

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