Law and Disorder July 28, 2008

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Updates:

• Ex-Guantánamo Detainees Effectively Disappeared After Transfer To Algeria Nearly Two Weeks Ago
• CCR Executive Director Vincent Warren Denounces Mukasey Scheme to Have Congress Delay Habeas Hearings
  
• Creepy ‘camera head’ project a reaction to Seattle surveillance cameras
• Pakistan: Pakistan’s New Government Must Reveal Truth about Enforced Disappearances.
• USA: 9/11 defendants warned on lack of access to classified information and other disadvantages of self-representation
• Second Arrest Attempt On Karl Rove In Iowa Leads To 4 Arrests.

House Judiciary Committee Hears Impeachment Resolution.

For nearly eight years, President Bush and Vice President Cheney have manipulated and lied to the U.S., and not without the help of Congress and the mainstream media. Here on Law and Disorder we’ve been with listeners during 4 of those 8 years, chronicling the injustices of the “global war on terror.” Now, in this late stage of the Bush/Cheney administration, Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich is pushing for impeachment. Last week the house voted 238 to 180 to send a single article of impeachment to the Judiciary Committee. The same committee that stopped Kucinich’s impeachment effort is allowing a hearing on Bush’s reasoning for taking the country to war in Iraq. In Kucinich’s words it is quote “deceiving Congress with fabricated threats of Iraq WMDs to fraudulently obtain support for an authorization of the use of military force against Iraq.” Kucinich: citizen petition.

If this article of impeachment is tabled, Kucinich says he would then begin to propose other articles. There are 35 articles of impeachment, among them are:

• Misleading Congress and the American People About Threats from Iran, and Supporting Terrorist Organizations Within Iran, With the Goal of Overthrowing the Iranian Government
• Falsifying Accounts of US Troop Deaths and Injuries for Political Purposes,
• Illegal Detention: Detaining Indefinitely And Without Charge Persons Both U.S. Citizens and Foreign Captives, 4. Violation of the Posse Comitatus Act,
• Rendition: Kidnapping People and Taking Them Against Their Will to “Black Sites” Located in Other Nations, Including Nations Known to Practice Torture

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers Jr. told Congressional Quarterly, “We’re not doing impeachment, but he can talk about it.” Kucinich says holding George W. Bush and Dick Cheney accountable now, could prevent an attack on Iran.

1. Conyers Tries To Kill Impeachment Hearings Before They Start.
2. Impeachment Hearing? – Do Not Accuse, Do Not Name Names, Do Not Say Impeach.
3. CSPAN Coverage: Watch Impeachment Hearings.

Guest – Ohio Congressman, Dennis J. Kucinich

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The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder.

Members of the Bush administration may soon be questioning if they will be prosecuted for war crimes. George W. Bush and other senior officials have enjoyed years of immunity from criminal lawsuits but, once out of office, they can be held accountable.

Bugliosi: Will U.S. State Attorney Generals and District Attorneys do the right thing?

In his latest book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, Vincent Bugliosi lays out the legal framework of a meticulously researched case that puts George W. Bush on trial in an American courtroom for the murder of nearly 4,000 American soldiers fighting the war in Iraq.

One strategy in The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder is to establish jurisdiction in the cases for Attorney Generals in each state and also the approximately 900 district attorneys in the counties of those states. Bugliosi says it’s not unreasonable to believe that at least one prosecutor will be courageous enough to step up. Bugliois says, one of the key pieces of evidence to prosecute George W. Bush is the Manning Memo from January 31, 2003.

Manning Memo: In March 2003, Bush said that if Saddam Hussein did not give up his weapons of mass destruction, Iraq would face war. But earlier, in a January 31 closed-door meeting, Bush told his British buddy Tony Blair that the attack would take place even if no WMDs were found. Indeed, George and Tony candidly conceded that the discovery of such weapons was unlikely. This deliberate deception is revealed in a confidential five-page memo written by David Manning, Blair’s top foreign-policy advisor, who was at the meeting. Manning records that both Bush and Blair were uptight that the WMDs were not going to be found, so George W offered another fabrication to give them an excuse to attack. He suggested that the U.S. would paint one of our own surveillance planes in the colors of the United Nations and fly it over Iraq, hoping that Saddam would be provoked into shooting it down. Then the U.S. and Brits could invade, claiming that they were retaliating for Saddam’s attack on the UN.

Bugliosi: Points To Consider

• While young soldiers age 18, 19, who never had a chance to live out their dreams, were getting blown to pieces in Iraq. Bush was having a lot of fun and enjoying life to the very fullest.
• George Bush took 908 days off / about 36 percent of his presidency.
• Juxtaposing Hussein with 9/11 – then saying later Hussein was involved in a terrorist relationship with Al-Qaeda. Al Qaeda was trained in Iraq in making bombs and poison.
• You have troops over there in Iraq fighting thinking that its payback time … so you have this grotesque spectacle.
• The white paper that congress saw never had the intelligences of the 16 US agencies, that Hussein was not an imminent threat. Opinons were changed into facts while dissenting opinions deleted.

Guest – Vincent Bugliosi, former prosecutor and bestselling author of many books including The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder.

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