The 109th Congress, led by Republican Senators McCain, Warner, and Graham and with the acquiescence of many Democrats, is poised to legalize torture, trials with secret evidence, and annulment of the right of habeas corpus. The measure also protects administration officials from prosecution for war crimes. If this measure becomes law, its name will live in infamy.


Earlier this month The Nation.com exposed this stealth attack that the Bush administration was secretly planning against the rule of law. The reasons we gave to save the War Crimes Act are even more pertinent today.

The US War Crimes Act of 1996 makes it a felony to commit grave violations of the Geneva Conventions. The Washington Post recently reported that the Bush administration is quietly circulating draft legislation to eliminate crucial parts of the War Crimes Act. Observers on The Hill say the Administration plans to slip it through Congress this fall while there still is a guaranteed Republican majority--perhaps as part of the military appropriations bill, the proposals for Guantánamo tribunals or a new catch-all "anti-terrorism" package. Why are they doing it, and how can they be stopped?



The War in Iraq

What the Bush Administration Won't Tell You About The War in Iraq
The United States has thoroughly destabilized the Middle East by invading Iraq. The task of the occupying forces is no longer confined to fighting a Sunni insurrection; they have to contain an incipient civil war. The country has divided along sectarian lines and each faction has established a fighting capacity.



Now the situation in the Middle East is dire. Iran threatens to become a nuclear power. The low-grade civil war in Iraq threatens to broaden into a regional conflict. We are facing a clash of civilizations and/or armed sectarian conflict. And all this in a region that is responsible for the bulk of the world’s oil supply.



Something is fundamentally wrong with President Bush’s contention that he has made us safer at home by taking the war on terror abroad. There are many more people willing to sacrifice their lives to kill Americans than there were on 9/11.



The Bush administration shows no awareness of the contradictions in its policies or of the negative consequences.



On November 14 a group of lawyers and other experts came before the German federal prosecutor in Berlin and asked him to open a criminal investigation targeting George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales and other key Bush Administration figures for war crimes. The recent passage of the Military Commissions Act provides a central argument for the legal action, under the doctrine of universal jurisdiction: It demonstrates the intent of the Bush Administration to immunize itself legally from prosecution in the United States, even for the most serious crimes.



The initiating Rumsfeld action was announced at a conference in New York City in late October titled "Is Universal Jurisdiction an Effective Tool?" The doctrine allows domestic courts to prosecute international crimes regardless of where the crime was committed, the nationality of the perpetrator or the nationality of the victim. It is reserved for only the most heinous offenses: genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, including torture. A number of countries around the world have enacted universal jurisdiction statutes; even the United States allows it for certain terrorist offenses and torture.



Many of the participants in the New York conference were human rights lawyers who have been expanding the use of universal jurisdiction since it was employed against former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. In a recent case brought in Spain, for example, Argentine Adolfo Scilingo was tried and found guilty of crimes against humanity he committed in Argentina and sentenced to serve a 640-year prison term [see Geoff Pingree and Lisa Abend, "Spanish Justice," October 9]. The decision was made to try to prosecute Rumsfeld in Germany because its laws facilitate the use of universal jurisdiction.



The conference was sponsored by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), which is bringing the case against Rumsfeld, and by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), a network of 141 national human rights organizations founded in 1922.



An earlier case against Rumsfeld was brought two years ago in Germany by CCR on behalf of four Iraqi victims of Abu Ghraib, drawing largely on documents and photos that revealed abuse at the prison. As the case was being considered, a security conference loomed in Munich. Rumsfeld, who could have been served papers or even arrested, refused to attend unless the case was dismissed. It was dismissed February 10; Rumsfeld flew to Germany the next day.



The reason the prosecutor gave for the dismissal was that there was "no reason to believe that the accused would not be prosecuted in the United States"--notwithstanding powerful evidence that the officials who controlled prosecution were themselves part of the conspiracy to commit war crimes. The new complaint is based on the failure of US authorities to investigate and prosecute high-level officials.



The case draws on a powerful new argument. The Military Commissions Act of 2006, which the President promoted and recently signed into law, provides retroactive immunity for civilians who violated the War Crimes Act, including officials of the Bush Administration. Such an attempt to provide immunity for their crimes, it was argued, is in itself evidence of an effort to block prosecution of those crimes. Indeed, according to Scott Horton, chair of the International Law Committee of the New York City Bar Association, when Yugoslavia sought to immunize senior government officials, the United States declared the act itself to be evidence of such a conspiracy.



The 109th Congress, led by Republican Senators McCain, Warner, and Graham and with the acquiescence of many Democrats, is poised to legalize torture, trials with secret evidence, and annulment of the right of habeas corpus. The measure also protects administration officials from prosecution for war crimes. If this measure becomes law, its name will live in infamy. If successful in its attempts to negate applicable American Law to avoid prosecution for War Crimes in The United States, an act of continued American ignorance and arrogance, that success will in no way negate international law and jurisdiction in these matters. It will only serve to bolster the Bush Administration’s argument before the American people that: “They cannot do this to us.”



The new case has introduced other important elements as well. Lawyers who served as advocates, architects and enablers of prisoner abuse policies, like Alberto Gonzales and John Yoo, have been added as defendants in the new War Crimes Charging documents filed in these cases. Abuse in Guantánamo has been added to that in Abu Ghraib. The complaint will present new evidence showing responsibility for torture and prisoner abuse at the highest levels of the chain of command.



Wolfgang Kaleck, a German human rights lawyer who is bringing the case in cooperation with CCR, FIDH and other groups, told the conference in New York that he is often asked, do you really expect Rumsfeld to be arrested for war crimes? His answer is that he doesn't expect it immediately. "But we make it possible that someday soon Rumsfeld, followed by all others named will be arrested," the likelihood has increased exponentially as of today”, he says. According to Kaleck, the German government regularly receives calls from potential high-level visitors asking, "Are there any complaints against me?"



Antoine Bernard, FIDH executive director, says that although there have been few convictions so far based on universal jurisdiction, "now fear is not just on the side of the victims but also of the torturers." And that, supporters argue, will have a deterrent effect on government officials who contemplate using torture. Bush has openly advocated, sanctioned and admitted to the authorization of terrorist acts of torture in open defiance of The Geneva Conventions. This will not be dismissed simply because George W. Bush and his subordinates are Americans, somehow with standing above the laws of this planet.

That day is over. They are common criminals, guilty of bestial crimes against humanity, admitted and paraded with unprecedented arrogance that can longer be tolerated by humanity, and cannot go unpunished by the highest legal tribunals of this world. They are guilty, subject to arrest, prosecution and imposition of sentence that can and mostly assuredly will include in several instances, the imposition of the Death Penalty.”



Peter Weiss, vice president of both CCR and FIDH and an elder statesman of international human rights law, notes that it took fifty years to get the Supreme Court's Brown decision outlawing school segregation, but during all that time people kept bringing cases that eventually changed the legal system's fundamental position. "New norms have been constituted to deal with the reality on the ground," he said. " Those norms are now extant applicable reality, practical, enforceable law.



There is an expectation around the world that George W. Bush and his subordinates will be brought to the same justice as the United States has demanded in every War Crimes proceeding since World War II. The actions of the Bush administration reflect the knowledge of that fact, even while that administration seeks to immunize itself against arrest, prosecution and punishment by statute and attempts to appeal to the inherent American opinion of exclusivity from International Law and rational standards of decency and Christian principles of simply right and wrong.



That arrogant contempt, which holds the remainder of the world as naively inferior, will be the shocking undoing of the criminal class of The American White House. America is no longer the respected arbiter of international standards of law and morality. The Bush administration has forfeited that stature in the eyes of the world. No longer viewed with respect, America is perceived as an aggressor nation whose leadership comprises a significant number of amoral criminals who continue to believe that if they can perpetuate the American attitude that an American government can never be held accountable for its actions by anyone or anything but the American voter and American Institutions, that they will be immune from arrest, transport to an International Court on foreign soil, subject to trial as any other War Criminals of the past, convicted, sentenced, imprisoned and/or executed, as the case may be, or simply put; the American belief that it cannot happen will be their shield from arrest and prosecution. That is not today’s reality anywhere but in America.”

A decision by the German High Court is expected by year’s end and identical filings will be made at The Hague next week. It is expected that a minimum of thirty-four additional nations will join in The Geneva Convention War Crimes charges filings and the call for a full substantive hearing at the United Nations early in 2007.



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ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENTOFPRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSHANDVICE PRESIDENT RICHARD B. CHENEY,SECRETARY OF STATE CONDOLEEZZA RICE,SECRETARY OF DEFENSE DONALD H. RUMSFELD, ANDATTORNEY GENERAL ALBERTO GONZALES
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. - - ARTICLE II, SECTION 4 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have committed violations and subversions of the Constitution of the United States of America in an attempt to carry out with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes and deprivations of the civil rights of the people of the United States and other nations, by assuming powers of an imperial executive unaccountable to law and usurping powers of the Congress, the Judiciary and those reserved to the people of the United States, by the following acts:
1) Seizing power to wage wars of aggression in defiance of the U.S. Constitution, the U.N. Charter and the rule of law; carrying out a massive assault on and occupation of Iraq, a country that was not threatening the United States, resulting in the death and maiming of over one hundred thousand Iraqis, and thousands of U.S. G.I.s.
2) Lying to the people of the U.S., to Congress, and to the U.N., providing false and deceptive rationales for war.
3) Authorizing, ordering and condoning direct attacks on civilians, civilian facilities and locations where civilian casualties were unavoidable.
4) Instituting a secret and illegal wiretapping and spying operation against the people of the United States through the National Security Agency.
5) Threatening the independence and sovereignty of Iraq by belligerently changing its government by force and assaulting Iraq in a war of aggression.
6) Authorizing, ordering and condoning assassinations, summary executions, kidnappings, secret and other illegal detentions of individuals, torture and physical and psychological coercion of prisoners to obtain false statements concerning acts and intentions of governments and individuals and violating within the United States, and by authorizing U.S. forces and agents elsewhere, the rights of individuals under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
7) Making, ordering and condoning false statements and propaganda about the conduct of foreign governments and individuals and acts by U.S. government personnel; manipulating the media and foreign governments with false information; concealing information vital to public discussion and informed judgment concerning acts, intentions and possession, or efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction in order to falsely create a climate of fear and destroy opposition to U.S. wars of aggression and first strike attacks.
8) Violations and subversions of the Charter of the United Nations and international law, both a part of the "Supreme Law of the land" under Article VI, paragraph 2, of the Constitution, in an attempt to commit with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes in wars and threats of aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq and others and usurping powers of the United Nations and the peoples of its nations by bribery, coercion and other corrupt acts and by rejecting treaties, committing treaty violations, and frustrating compliance with treaties in order to destroy any means by which international law and institutions can prevent, affect, or adjudicate the exercise of U.S. military and economic power against the international community.
9) Acting to strip United States citizens of their constitutional and human rights, ordering indefinite detention of citizens, without access to counsel, without charge, and without opportunity to appear before a civil judicial officer to challenge the detention, based solely on the discretionary designation by the Executive of a citizen as an "enemy combatant."
10) Ordering indefinite detention of non-citizens in the United States and elsewhere, and without charge, at the discretionary designation of the Attorney General or the Secretary of Defense.
11) Ordering and authorizing the Attorney General to override judicial orders of release of detainees under INS jurisdiction, even where the judicial officer after full hearing determines a detainee is wrongfully held by the government.
12) Authorizing secret military tribunals and summary execution of persons who are not citizens who are designated solely at the discretion of the Executive who acts as indicting official, prosecutor and as the only avenue of appellate relief.
13) Refusing to provide public disclosure of the identities and locations of persons who have been arrested, detained and imprisoned by the U.S. government in the United States, including in response to Congressional inquiry.
14) Use of secret arrests of persons within the United States and elsewhere and denial of the right to public trials.
15) Authorizing the monitoring of confidential attorney-client privileged communications by the government, even in the absence of a court order and even where an incarcerated person has not been charged with a crime.
16) Ordering and authorizing the seizure of assets of persons in the United States, prior to hearing or trial, for lawful or innocent association with any entity that at the discretionary designation of the Executive has been deemed "terrorist."
17) Engaging in criminal neglect in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, depriving thousands of people in Louisiana, Mississippi and other Gulf States of urgently needed support, causing mass suffering and unnecessary loss of life.
18) Institutionalization of racial and religious profiling and authorization of domestic spying by federal law enforcement on persons based on their engagement in noncriminal religious and political activity.
19) Refusal to provide information and records necessary and appropriate for the constitutional right of legislative oversight of executive functions.20) Rejecting treaties protective of peace and human rights and abrogation of the obligations of the United States under, and withdrawal from, international treaties and obligations without consent of the legislative branch, and including termination of the ABM treaty between the United States and Russia, and rescission of the authorizing signature from the Treaty of Rome which served as the basis for the International Criminal Court.