Congressmen have uncovered the outlines of a potentially far-reaching criminal conspiracy.

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/18/renditon-usa-georgebush


The torture time bomb
The Bush administration's approval of the abuse of detainees is a toxic legacy for the next US president

Philippe Sands
The Guardian, Saturday October 18 2008



As the US presidential election reaches a climax against the background of the financial crisis, another silent, dark, time bomb of an issue hangs over the two candidates: torture. For now, there seems to be a shared desire not to delve too deeply into the circumstances in which the Bush administration allowed the US military and the CIA to embrace abusive techniques of interrogation - including waterboarding, in the case of the CIA - which violate the Geneva conventions and the 1984 UN torture convention.

The torture issue's cancerous consequences go deep, and will cause headaches for the next president. New evidence has emerged in Congressional inquiries that throw more light on the extent to which early knowledge and approval of the abuse went to the highest levels. What does a country do when compelling evidence shows its leaders have authorised international crimes?

For three years I have followed a trail which leads unambiguously to the conclusion that the real bad eggs were not Lyndie England or others on the ground in Abu Ghraib, but the most senior officials in the White House, the Pentagon and the department of justice. Over recent months, Congress has been looking into the role of senior officials involved in the development of interrogation rules. These have attracted relatively scant attention; little by little, however, senators and congressmen have uncovered the outlines of a potentially far-reaching criminal conspiracy.

The first hearings were convened before the judiciary committee of the House of Representatives, at the instance of its chairman, Congressman John Conyers, apparently off the back of my book Torture Team. Parallel hearings have been held before the Senate armed services committee.

The evidence that has emerged is potentially devastating. It confirms, for instance, that the search for new interrogation techniques for use at Guantánamo began not with the local military but in the offices of Donald Rumsfeld and his chief lawyer, Jim Haynes. It shows that when the career military expressed objections on legal grounds, Haynes intervened to stop the normal process of review. And it shows a previously unknown interplay between the department of defence and the CIA: a visit to Guantánamo in September 2002 by the administration's most senior lawyers was followed days later by a senior CIA lawyer, to brief on the new techniques. "If someone dies while aggressive techniques are being used," he explained, "the backlash of attention would be severely detrimental."

[Ghost in the Machine]

1. Follow the roads to the front door of PNAC, they wanted to kill the ICC

January 2, 2001

MEMORANDUM TO: OPINION LEADERS


FROM: GARY SCHMITT


SUBJECT: International Criminal Court

On the last day of 2000, President Clinton signed the International Criminal Court convention, a treaty which the president himself admits is flawed and which he has no intention of submitting to the Senate for its ratification. The president did so, he said, in order to put the U.S. in a position to help correct the treaty’s imperfections. But the ICC accord is not just flawed -- it is fatally flawed -- and the best policy is for the U.S. to reject the treaty simply. Without America’s participation, the ICC will die on the vine.


More than two years ago, at the conclusion of the conference in Rome which finalized the treaty’s terms, we voiced our concern that the Clinton Administration would continue to try and fix the un-fixable. As we argued then, whatever the respectable motives behind the creation of the International Criminal Court, we should not let those blind us to the fact that the preservation of a decent world order depends chiefly on the exercise of American leadership. For both geo-political and constitutional reasons, we should not be in the business of delegating that leadership or compounding the difficulties of its exercise by creating unaccountable, supra-national bodies.


We also circulated at the time a statement on the ICC made by John Bolton, vice president of the American Enterprise Institute and a Project director, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (July 23, 1998). No major, substantive change has been made to the treaty’s terms since. Bolton’s statement still stands as a thorough and devastating critique of the proposed court. An edited version of that statement follows.

http://www.newamericancentury.org/global0201.htm

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Cheney & the PNAC gang are responsible for the destruction of our country. Bush is just a puppethead for the men behind the curtains. Just look at the PNACers in high places in the government & military on 9-11.

:hug: SLAD!

[seemslikeadream]

2. Brother you don't need to turn me away

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeiRe4Qp9Dw

The door slam loud and rows up a cloud of dust on us
Footsteps follow, down through the hollow sound, torn up

And you will go to Mykonos
With a vision of a gentle coast
And a sun to maybe dissipate
Shadows of the mess you made

How did any holes in the snow tipped pines, I find
Hatching from the seed of your thin mind, all night?

And you will go to Mykonos
With a vision of a gentle coast
And a sun to maybe dissipate
Shadows of the mess you made

Brother you don't need to turn me away
I was waiting down at the ancient gate

You go
Wherever you go today
You go today

I remember how they took you down
As the winter turned the meadow brown

You go
Wherever you go today
You go today

When I walking brother don't you forget
It ain't often you'll ever find a friend

You go
Wherever you go today
You go today


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gke4USY8EE