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Judith Miller’s Blame-Shifting Memoir

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Judy Miller 409By Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Source: Consortium News

U.S. intelligence veterans recall the real story of how New York Times reporter Judith Miller disgraced herself and her profession by helping to mislead Americans into the disastrous war in Iraq. They challenge the slick, self-aggrandizing rewrite of history in her new memoir.

MEMORANDUM FOR: Americans Malnourished on the Truth About Iraq

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: A New “Miller’s Tale” (with apologies to Geoffrey Chaucer)

On April 3, former New York Times journalist Judith Miller published an article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “The Iraq War and Stubborn Myths: Officials Didn’t Lie, and I Wasn’t Fed a Line.” If this sounds a bit defensive, Miller has tons to be defensive about.

In the article, Miller claims, “false narratives [about what she did as a New York Times reporter] deserve, at last, to be retired.” The article appears to be the initial salvo in a major attempt at self-rehabilitation and, coincidentally, comes just as her new book, The Story: A Reporter’s Journey, is to be published today.

In reviewing Miller’s book, her “mainstream media” friends are not likely to mention the stunning conclusion reached recently by the Nobel Prize-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and other respected groups that the Iraq War, for which she was lead drum majorette, killed one million people. One might think that, in such circumstances – and with bedlam reigning in Iraq and the wider neighborhood – a decent respect for the opinions of mankind, so to speak, might prompt Miller to keep her head down for a while more.

In all candor, after more than a dozen years, we are tired of exposing the lies spread by Judith Miller and had thought we were finished. We have not seen her new book, but we cannot in good conscience leave her WSJ article without comment from those of us who have closely followed U.S. policy and actions in Iraq.

Miller’s Tale in the WSJ begins with a vintage Miller-style reductio ad absurdum: “I took America to war in Iraq. It was all me.” Since one of us, former UN inspector Scott Ritter, has historical experience and technical expertise that just won’t quit, we asked him to draft a few paragraphs keyed to Miller’s latest tale. He shared the following critique:

Miller’s Revisionist History

“Judith Miller did not take America to war in Iraq. Even a journalist with an ego the size of Ms. Miller’s cannot presume to usurp the war power authorities of the President of the United States, or even the now-dormant Constitutional prerogatives of Congress. What she is guilty of, however, is being a bad journalist.

“She can try to hide this fact by wrapping herself in a collective Pulitzer Prize, or citing past achievements like authoring best-selling books. But this is like former Secretary of State Colin Powell trying to remind people about his past as the National Security Advisor for President Reagan or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

“At the end of the day Mr. Powell will be judged not on his previous achievements, but rather on his biggest failure – his appearance before the United Nations Security Council touting an illusory Iraqi weapons-of-mass-destruction threat as being worthy of war. In this same vein, Judith Miller will be judged by her authoring stories for the ‘newspaper of record’ that were questionably sourced and very often misleading. One needs only to examine Ms. Miller’s role while embedded in U.S. Army Mobile Exploitation Team Alpha, hunting for weapons of mass destruction during the 2003 invasion, for this point to be illustrated.

“Miller may not have singlehandedly taken America and the world to war, but she certainly played a pivotal role in building the public case for the attack on Iraq based upon shoddy reporting that even her editor at the New York Times has since discredited – including over reliance on a single-source of easy virtue and questionable credibility – Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress. The fact that she chose to keep this ‘source’ anonymous underscores the journalistic malfeasance at play in her reporting.

“Chalabi had been discredited by the State Department and CIA as a reliable source of information on Iraq long before Judith Miller started using him to underpin her front-page ‘scoops’ for the New York Times. She knew this, and yet chose to use him nonetheless, knowing that then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was fully as eager to don the swindlers’ magic suit of clothes, as was the king in Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale. In Ms. Miller’s tale, the fairy-tale clothes came with a WMD label and no washing instructions.

“Ms. Miller’s self-described ‘newsworthy claims’ of pre-war weapons of mass destruction stories often were – as we now know (and many of us knew at the time) – handouts from the hawks in the Bush administration and fundamentally wrong.

“Like her early reporting on Iraq, Ms. Miller’s re-working of history to disguise her malfeasance/misfeasance as a reporter does not bear close scrutiny. Her errors of integrity are hers and hers alone, and will forever mar her reputation as a journalist, no matter how hard she tries to spin the facts and revise a history that is highly inconvenient to her. Of course, worst of all, her flaws were consequential – almost 4,500 U.S. troops and 1,000,000 Iraqis dead.”

Relying on the Mistakes of Others

In her WSJ article, Miller protests that “relying on the mistakes of others and errors of judgment are not the same as lying.” It is almost as though she is saying that if Ahmed Chalabi told her that, in Iraq, the sun rises in the west, and she duly reported it, that would not be “the same as lying.”

Miller appears to have worked out some kind of an accommodation with George W. Bush and others who planned and conducted what the post-World War II Nuremburg Tribunal called the “supreme international crime,” a war of aggression. She takes strong issue with what she calls “the enduring, pernicious accusation that the Bush administration fabricated WMD intelligence to take the country to war.”

Does she not know, even now, that there is abundant proof that this is exactly what took place? Has she not read the Downing Street Memorandum based on what CIA Director George Tenet told the head of British Intelligence at CIA headquarters on July 20, 2002; i. e., that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy” of making war for “regime change” in Iraq?

Does she not know, even at this late date, that the “intelligence” served up to “justify” attacking Iraq was NOT “mistaken,” but outright fraud, in which Bush had the full cooperation of Tenet and his deputy John McLaughlin? Is she unaware that the Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence at the time, Carl Ford, has said, on the record, that Tenet and McLaughlin were “not just wrong, they lied … they should have been shot” for their lies about WMD? (See Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War by Michael Isikoff and David Corn.)

Blame Blix

Miller’s tale about Hans Blix in her WSJ article shows she has lost none of her edge for disingenuousness: “One could argue … that Hans Blix, the former chief of the international inspectors, bears some responsibility,” writes Miller. She cherry-picks what Blix said in January 2003 about “many proscribed weapons and items,” including 1,000 tons of chemical agent, were still “not accounted for.”

Yes, Blix said that on Jan. 27, 2003. But Blix also included this that same day in his written report to his UN superiors, something the New York Times, for some reason, did not include in its report:

“Iraq has on the whole cooperated rather well so far with UNMOVIC in this field. The most important point to make is that access has been provided to all sites we have wanted to inspect and with one exception it has been prompt. We have further had great help in building up the infrastructure of our office in Baghdad and the field office in Mosul. Arrangements and services for our plane and our helicopters have been good. The environment has been workable.

“Our inspections have included universities, military bases, presidential sites and private residences. Inspections have also taken place on Fridays, the Muslim day of rest, on Christmas day and New Years day. These inspections have been conducted in the same manner as all other inspections.” [See “Steve M.” writing (appropriately) for “Crooks and Liars” as he corrected the record.]

Yes, there was some resistance by Iraq up to that point. Blix said so. However, on Jan. 30, 2003, Blix made it abundantly clear, in an interview published in The New York Times, that nothing he’d seen at the time justified war. (The byline was Judith Miller and Julia Preston.)

The Miller-Preston report said: “Mr. Blix said he continued to endorse disarmament through peaceful means. ‘I think it would be terrible if this comes to an end by armed force, and I wish for this process of disarmament through the peaceful avenue of inspections,’ he said. …

“Mr. Blix took issue with what he said were Secretary of State Colin L. Powell’s claims that the inspectors had found that Iraqi officials were hiding and moving illicit materials within and outside of Iraq to prevent their discovery. He said that the inspectors had reported no such incidents. …

“He further disputed the Bush administration’s allegations that his inspection agency might have been penetrated by Iraqi agents, and that sensitive information might have been leaked to Baghdad, compromising the inspections. Finally, he said, he had seen no persuasive indications of Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda, which Mr. Bush also mentioned in his speech. ‘There are other states where there appear to be stronger links,’ such as Afghanistan, Mr. Blix said, noting that he had no intelligence reports on this issue.”

Although she co-authored that New York Times report of Jan. 30, 2003, Judith Miller remembers what seems convenient to remember. Her acumen at cherry picking may be an occupational hazard occasioned by spending too much time with Chalabi, Rumsfeld and other professional Pentagon pickers.

Moreover, Blix’s February 2003 report showed that, for the most part, Iraq was cooperating and the process was working well:

“Since we arrived in Iraq, we have conducted more than 400 inspections covering more than 300 sites. All inspections were performed without notice, and access was almost always provided promptly. In no case have we seen convincing evidence that the Iraqi side knew in advance that the inspectors were coming. …

“The inspections have taken place throughout Iraq at industrial sites, ammunition depots, research centres, universities, presidential sites, mobile laboratories, private houses, missile production facilities, military camps and agricultural sites. …

“In my 27 January update to the Council, I said that it seemed from our experience that Iraq had decided in principle to provide cooperation on process, most importantly prompt access to all sites and assistance to UNMOVIC in the establishment of the necessary infrastructure. This impression remains, and we note that access to sites has so far been without problems, including those that had never been declared or inspected, as well as to Presidential sites and private residences. …

“The presentation of intelligence information by the US Secretary of State suggested that Iraq had prepared for inspections by cleaning up sites and removing evidence of proscribed weapons programmes.

“I would like to comment only on one case, which we are familiar with, namely, the trucks identified by analysts as being for chemical decontamination at a munitions depot. This was a declared site, and it was certainly one of the sites Iraq would have expected us to inspect.

“We have noted that the two satellite images of the site were taken several weeks apart. The reported movement of munitions at the site could just as easily have been a routine activity as a movement of proscribed munitions in anticipation of imminent inspection.”

Blix made it clear that he needed more time, but the Bush administration had other plans. In other words, the war wasn’t Blix’s fault, as Judy Miller suggests. The fault lay elsewhere.

When Blix retired at the end of June 2004, he politely suggested to the “prestigious” Council on Foreign Relations in New York the possibility that Baghdad had actually destroyed its weapons of mass destruction after the first Gulf War in 1991 (as Saddam Hussein’s son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, who had been in charge of the WMD and rocket programs assured his debriefers when he defected in 1995). Blix then allowed himself an undiplomatic jibe:

“It is sort of fascinating that you can have 100 per cent certainty about weapons of mass destruction and zero certainty of about where they are.”

For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

William Binney, former Technical Director, National Security Agency (ret.)

Thomas Drake, former Senior Executive, NSA

Daniel Ellsberg, former State and Defense Department official, associate VIPS

Frank Grevil, former Maj., Army Intelligence, Denmark, associate VIPS

Katharine Gun, former analyst, GCHQ (the NSA equivalent in the UK), associate VIPS

Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC, Iraq & Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan, associate VIPS

Brady Kiesling, former Political Counseler, U.S. Embassy, Athens, resigned in protest before the attack on Iraq, associate VIPS.

Karen Kwiatkowski, former Lt. Col., US Air Force (ret.), at Office of Secretary of Defense watching the manufacture of lies on Iraq, 2001-2003.

Annie Machon, former officer, MI5 (the CIA equivalent in the UK), associate VIPS

David MacMichael, former Capt., USMC & senior analyst, National Intelligence Council (ret.)

Ray McGovern, former Capt., Army Infantry/Intelligence & CIA presidential briefer (ret.)

Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East, National Intelligence Council (ret.)

Todd E. Pierce, Maj., former U.S. Army Judge Advocate (ret.)

Scott Ritter, former Maj., USMC, former UN Weapon Inspector, Iraq

Coleen Rowley, Division Council & Special Agent, FBI (ret.)

Greg Thielmann, former Office Director for Strategic, Proliferation, and Military Affairs in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research

Peter Van Buren, former diplomat, Department of State, associate VIPS

Ann Wright, Col., US Army (ret.) & US diplomat (resigned in March, 2003 in opposition to the war on Iraq)

Who’s the “Low Life Scum:” Kissinger or CODEPINK?

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By Medea Benjamin

Source: Information Clearing House

A very angry Senator John McCain denounced CodePink activists as “low-life scum” for holding up signs reading “Arrest Kissinger for War Crimes” and dangling handcuffs next to Henry Kissinger’s head during a Senate hearing on January 29. McCain called the demonstration “disgraceful, outrageous and despicable,” accused the protesters of “physically intimidating” Kissinger and apologized profusely to his friend for this “deeply troubling incident.”

But if Senator McCain was really concerned about physical intimidation, perhaps he should have conjured up the memory of the gentle Chilean singer/songwriter Victor Jara. After Kissinger facilitated the September 11, 1973 coup against Salvador Allende that brought the ruthless Augusto Pinochet to power, Victor Jara and 5,000 others were rounded up in Chile’s National Stadium. Jara’s hands were smashed and his nails torn off; the sadistic guards then ordered him to play his guitar. Jara was later found dumped on the street, his dead body riddled with gunshot wounds and signs of torture.

Despite warnings by senior US officials that thousands of Chileans were being tortured and slaughtered, then Secretary of State Kissinger told Pinochet, “You did a great service to the West in overthrowing Allende.”

Rather than calling peaceful protesters “despicable,” perhaps Senator McCain should have used that term to describe Kissinger’s role in the brutal 1975 Indonesian invasion of East Timor, which took place just hours after Kissinger and President Ford visited Indonesia. They had given the Indonesian strongman the US green light—and the weapons—for an invasion that led to a 25-year occupation in which over 100,000 soldiers and civilians were killed or starved to death. The UN’s Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor (CAVR) stated that U.S. “political and military support were fundamental to the Indonesian invasion and occupation” of East Timor.

If McCain could stomach it, he could have read the report by the UN Commission on Human Rights describing the horrific consequences of that invasion. It includes gang rape of female detainees following periods of prolonged sexual torture; placing women in tanks of water for prolonged periods, including submerging their heads, before being raped; the use of snakes to instill terror during sexual torture; and the mutilation of women’s sexual organs, including insertion of batteries into vaginas and burning nipples and genitals with cigarettes. Talk about physical intimidation, Senator McCain!

You might think that McCain, who suffered tremendously in Vietnam, might be more sensitive to Kissinger’s role in prolonging that war. From 1969 through 1973, it was Kissinger, along with President Nixon, who oversaw the slaughter in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos—killing perhaps one million during this period. He gave the order for the secret bombing of Cambodia. Kissinger is heard on tape saying, “[Nixon] wants a massive bombing campaign in Cambodia. He doesn’t want to hear anything about it. It’s an order, to be done. Anything that flies or anything that moves.”

Senator McCain could have taken the easy route by simply reading the meticulously researched book by the late Christopher Hitchens, The Trial of Henry Kissinger. Writing as a prosecutor before an international court of law, Hitchens skewers Kissinger for ordering or sanctioning the destruction of civilian populations, the assassination of “unfriendly” politicians and the kidnapping and disappearance of soldiers, journalists and clerics who got in his way. He holds Kissinger responsible for war crimes that range from the deliberate mass killings of civilian populations in Indochina, to collusion in mass murder and assassination in Bangladesh, the overthrow of the democratically elected government in Chile, and the incitement and enabling of genocide in East Timor.

McCain could have also perused the warrant issued by French Judge Roger Le Loire to have Kissinger appear before his court. When the French served Kissinger with summons in 2001 at the Ritz Hotel in Paris, Kissinger fled the country. More indictments followed from Spain, Argentina, Uruguay—even a civil suit in Washington DC.

Hitchens was disgusted by the way Henry Kissinger was treated as a respected statesman. He would have been appalled by Senator McCain’s obsequious attitude. “Kissinger should have the door shut in his face by every decent person and should be shamed, ostracized, and excluded,” Hitchens said. “No more dinners in his honor; no more respectful audiences for his absurdly overpriced public appearances; no more smirking photographs with hostesses and celebrities; no more soliciting of his worthless opinions by sycophantic editors and producers.”

Rather than fawning on him, Hitchens suggested, “why don’t you arrest him?”

Hitchens’ words were lost on Senator McCain, who preferred fawning to accountability. That’s where CodePink comes in. If we can’t get Kissinger before a court of law, at least we can show—with words and banners—that there are Americans who remember, Americans who empathize with the man’s many victims, Americans who have a conscience.

While McCain called us disgraceful, what is really disgraceful is the Senate calling in a tired old war criminal to testify about “Global Challenges and the U.S. National Security Strategy.” After horribly tragic failed wars, not just in Vietnam but over the last decade in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s time for the US leaders like John McCain to bring in fresh faces and fresh ideas. We owe it to the next generation that will be cleaning up the bloody legacy left behind by Kissinger for years to come.

 

Obama’s Reaction to the Senate Report: Torture is Good

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By Chris Floyd

Source: Empire Burlesque

A truncated version of the Senate investigation into the CIA’s Terror War torture regime has finally been released. Even in its limited form, it details an operation of vile depravity, one which would plunge a civilized nation into a profound crisis of conscience and spark a deep and anguished debate on how best to transform a system of government — and a national ethos — that could lead to such putrid crimes. It would also occasion a wide-ranging effort to subject the originators, perpetrators and accomplices of the torture program to the full measure of legal punishment they deserve.

Needless to say, nothing like that is going to happen in America. Indeed, even before the report was released, the New York Times — the standard-bearer and shaper of “decent” liberal thought for the nation — was splashing an opinion piece on the front page of its website, demanding that we “Pardon Bush and Those Who Tortured.” This was the very first “think piece” pushed by the Times on the morning of the report’s release.

I’m sure that by the end of the day, the dust will have already settled into the usual ruts. The Hard Right — and its pork-laden publicists — will denounce the investigation and continue to champion torture, as they have done in the weeks running up to the release. The somewhat Softer Right that constitutes the “liberal” wing of the ruling Imperial Party (and its outriders in the “progressive” media) will wring their hands for a bit — as they did during the multitude of previous revelations about systematic torture, White House death squads, Stasi-surpassing surveillance programs, war profiteering, military aggression and so on. Then they will return to what is always their main business at hand: making sure that someone from their faction of the Imperial Party is in the driver’s seat of the murderous War-and-Fear Machine that has now entirely engulfed American society.

Speaking of the Machine, what has been the reaction of the current driver, the belaurelled prince of progressivism, Barack Obama? He sent out the present head of the CIA, John Brennan, an “Obama confidant,” as the Guardian notes, to … defend the use of torture.

You see, one of the main points of the report was that the abominable practices ordered at the highest levels of the American government and used far more widely than previously admitted were not even effective. This, of course, is the most damning criticism one can make of the soul-drained technocrats who staff the Empire. Morality and humanity be damned; the real problem was that torture didn’t work. It produced reams of garbage and falsehood from hapless victims who, like torture victims the world over, from time immemorial, simply regurgitated what they thought their tormentors wanted to hear.

So in the end, the torture regime was not only ineffective, it was counterproductive: this is the report’s conclusion. But it is this that the Technocrat-in-Chief cannot bear. And so he sent his confidant Brennan out to refute this heinous charge. Brennan actually got up in public and said, openly, that torture did work and that it’s a good thing:

“Our review indicates that interrogations of detainees on whom EITs were used did produce intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists, and save lives. The intelligence gained from the program was critical to our understanding of al-Qaida and continues to inform our counterterrorism efforts to this day,” Brennan said.

“EIT” is, of course, the technocratic euphemism for the systematic brutalization of helpless, captive human beings by wretched cowards armed with the power of the state. Brennan — Obama’s confidant — says, in the name of the president, that torture “saved lives.” What’s more, he admits that Obama is still using the fruits of the torture program to “inform our counterterrorism efforts to this day.”

Let’s say this again: the conclusion of the Barack Obama administration is that the use of torture is a good thing, and that it is still “informing” its Terror War operations “to this day.”

One of the chief objections mouthed by the torture champions opposed to the release of the report was that public exposure of these crimes would rouse anger and anti-American feeling around the world. This was always a specious argument, of course; the people targeted by Washington’s Terror War have always known full well what is being done to them and theirs. This latest report will merely be another confirmation, another tranche of evidence to add to the mountain of war crime and atrocity they have experienced.

No, it is not the report itself, but the reaction of the American establishment — particularly the Obama Administration itself — that will be the true scandal, a new outrageous slap in the face. A door opens up on a sickening chamber of horrors …. and all that Obama can say is that torture is good; yea, it is even salvific, it saves lives, it is good and effective and necessary and we need it.

Torture is good. That is Barack Obama’s takeaway from the Senate report. It is astounding — or would be astounding, if we were not living in an age given over to state terror and elite rapine.

 

Back From the Abyss

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Since June 4, Stephen Lendman’s blog has been without updates and his last post indicated he’s been having serious health problems. But just yesterday he returned with an account of his struggle to regain his health and like a true fighter, he devotes more than half of his new post to condemning Israeli war crimes.

Back from the Abyss

By Stephan Lendman

Source: SteveLendmanBlog

I’ve been ill and unable to do what I love best for 2 months. Yesterday, August 6, I came home for the first time since hospitalized on June 4.

At the time, I posted a brief message on my blog site. I expected a few days of treatment. Then home to resume my writing and media work.

Things didn’t turn out that way. I owe my friends, colleagues and readers an explanation.

Multiple problems developed. One rather serious one. Thankfully they were resolved. But it took time – 2 weeks at Northwestern Memorial Hospital followed by 6 weeks at Warren Barr rehab facility.

The experience was life changing. I wondered at times if I’d ever be me again. I still have lots of recovery to go as an outpatient.

I worked very hard with good therapy people helping me daily. I’m deeply grateful to them for taking me from a very low point to going home yesterday.

It never felt so good to walk through my front door. I began emailing friends and colleagues to explain. More emailing coming.

Wonderful responses came. Means so much to this old guy – age 80 in mid-August. Still with so much I want to do – articles, media work and another book or 2 – maybe more as able.

I’ll slowly get back to what I love best. My health, of course, is top priority. Later this morning I have hours of treatment at Northwestern Mem. Hosp and weekly after that for 2 months followed by monthly treatment for a year.

I’m working with wonderful doctors. Some personal friends. They know what I do. They want me back in full swing. Will take time. I’m very patient.

Writing et al will come as able. Important not to overdue it. Yet what i love best is therapeutic – for the mind, soul and body. I’m fully committed to return to a much full health as possible – my top priority.

My great thanks to everyone now wishing me well. I was offline, unconnected with no email addresses so unable to communicate until now.

Physically for a good while I wasn’t in good shape enough to do it.

Now I’m back. My output won’t be my customary 2 articles a day. I’ll do what I can as health and strength permits.

Words can’t explain how wonderful it feels and how deeply grateful i am to be back from a very low point – mostly dependent on others to being near independent again now.

I can do things now we otherwise take for granted – my personal hygiene, cooking, laundry, all chores in my apartment, walk on the street with a walker, ride the bus, take a cab down, shop nearby and more.

Each day begins with an exercise regimen. It’s crucial to my recovery and ability to regain full health and vigor.

It gives me the energy to do my daily tasks. A day at a time I hope will make me fully me again – the me I largely took for granted. Never again.

While absent I couldn’t write on vital issues I’d have focused on daily – Israel’s genocidal, cold, calculated, premeditated aggression, mass murder and destruction of Gaza.

It was and remains one of history’s greatest crimes of war, against humanity, and genocide.

Israel remains unaccountable as always. Cairo talks will achieve nothing for the Palestinians. Israeli agreements when made aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.

They’re systematically and repeatedly violated. Expect nothing different this time.

The Gaza war was much more than against Hamas. It was against millions of Palestinian non-combatant men, women, children, infants, the elderly and infirm. It’s genocide writ large.

It’s supported by Washington with billions of dollars of annual aid, weapons, Security Council vetoes and more.

The international community yawns and lets Israel get away with unspeakable crimes with impunity.

The pattern repeated large and smaller scale since the 1947-48 war taking a horrific toll on the entire Palestinian population.

Expect more of the same ahead. Expect Palestine’s liberating struggle to continue with virtually no help from the international community.

Expect more Israeli initiated mass much and destruction. Expect multiple daily pre-dawn Israeli West Bank incursions, terrorizing Palestinian families.

Expect many more political prisoners in Israel’s gulag. Expect torture, targeted assassinations and land theft to continue unabated.

Expect justice systematically denied as always. Expect Palestinians largely on their own in their struggle for dignity and proper treatment never afforded.

Expect Israeli crimes of war, against humanity and slow-motion genocide to continue unabated.

Expect Hamas and other resistance groups to be unjustly blamed for repeated Israeli crimes – like premeditated shelling UN refuges, civilian neighborhoods, hospitals, schools, mosques, power and other vital infrastructure and more.

Israel is a lawless, rogue, racist, apartheid terror state – uncountable for horrific crimes repeatedly.

Palestinian suffering is beyond words to explain properly. When will it end? How? No time soon for sure.

How many more Palestinians will die unjustly? How many more will have Israeli shells, bombs and missiles dismember their bodies?

How many more families will lose loved ones? How many more communities will be destroyed? How many more orphaned Palestinian children will be on their own?

How many more parents will lose their offspring, homes and all their possessions?

How much longer will injustice prevail? When, if ever, will Israel be held accountable?

When, if ever, will US tax dollars stop funding Israel’s out-of-control killing machine.

Future articles will have much more to say – written as health permits.

And much to say about the war in Ukraine – the democratic freedom fighting struggle against lawless, illegitimate US installed fascism.

Much to say about these and other important issues ahead as health and strength permits.

It’s wonderful being back doing what I love best.

 

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. 

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. 

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs. 

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour 

“Crimes against Peace”: Historic Class Action Law Suit against George W. Bush

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The case for Aggressive War against George W. Bush and his Administration.

By Inder Comar

Source: GlobalResearch.ca

On March 13, 2013, my client, an Iraqi single mother and refugee now living in Jordan, filed a class action lawsuit against George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz in a federal court in California.

 She alleges that these six defendants planned and waged the Iraq War in violation of international law by waging a “war of aggression,” as defined by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, more than sixty years ago. (The current complaint can be found here). 

At the Nuremberg Trials, American chief prosecutor and associate justice of the US Supreme Court Robert H. Jackson focused his prosecution on the planning and execution of the various wars committed by the Third Reich. Jackson aimed to show that German leaders committed “crimes against peace,” and specifically, that they “planned, prepared, initiated wars of aggression, which were also wars in violation of international treaties, agreements, or assurances.”

For Jackson, the Nuremberg Trials were a high watermark of legalism. In his report regarding the negotiations of the treaty that would set up the Nuremberg Tribunal, Jackson wrote that the Tribunal “ushers international law into a new era where it is in accord with the common sense of mankind that a war of deliberate and unprovoked attack deserves universal condemnation and its authors condign penalties.” He concluded, “all who have shared in this work have been united and inspired in the belief that at long last the law is now unequivocal in classifying armed aggression as an international crime instead of a national right.”

The Nuremberg Tribunal agreed with Jackson. In its famous judgment in 1946, the Tribunal wrote,

“War is essentially an evil thing . . . to initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

The case against Bush is based on the conduct of members of the administration prior to coming into office as well as conduct taking place on and after 9/11. Years before their appointment to the Bush Administration, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz were vocal advocates of a militant neoconservative ideology that called for the United States to use its armed forces in the Middle East and elsewhere.

They openly chronicled their desire for aggressive wars through a non-profit called The Project for the New American Century (or PNAC). In 1998, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz would personally sign a letter to then-President Clinton, urging the president to implement a “strategy for removing Saddam’s regime from power,” which included a “willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing.”

On 9/11, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz openly pressed for the United States to invade Iraq, even though intelligence at the time confirmed that it was al Qaeda, and not Saddam, that was responsible. Richard Clarke, former National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection and Counter-terrorism, famously told President Bush that attacking Iraq for 9/11 would be like invading Mexico after Pearl Harbor.

We now know that the Bush Administration began a concerted effort to scare and mislead the American public in order to obtain support for the Iraq War. As alleged in the complaint, this included the famous phrase that “the smoking gun could not be a mushroom cloud,” which was used repeatedly by Administration officials on news shows as a way of equating non-action with the vaporization of a United States city. The Administration used bogus and false intelligence to make the case for weapons of mass destruction, and also falsely linked al Qaeda to Iraq, despite the fact that there has never been any evidence of any operational linkages between the two. These were not simple mistakes: this was an intentional campaign by Administration officials to use faulty data to garner support for a war.

The crime of aggression was completed when these officials failed to secure proper authorization for the war. So concerned with their invasion, the Administration dismissed any need for a formal Security Council mandate. Today, Kofi Annan, an official Dutch inquiry, the Costa Rican Supreme Court, a former law lord from the House of Lords (Lord Steyn) and a former chief prosecutor from the Nuremberg Trials (Benjamin Ferencz) have all concluded the Iraq War was illegal under international law.

After months of briefing, the Northern District of California will issue its order any day as to whether it will recognize the crime of aggression, and whether my client may pursue a civil case against the Bush-era defendants based on that crime. In August of last year, the Obama Department of Justice requested that the district court immunize Bush and his high officials from civil charges on the basis that they were acting “within the scope of their authority.” This issue also remains pending before the court, but it should be noted that both Nuremberg, as well as the more recent Pinochet decision, reject the idea of immunity for leaders when they step outside the appropriate scope of their authority.

We need your support and attention to this case. We cannot let the crime of aggression disappear into history; indeed, even the International Criminal Court has now provided its own definition for aggression, with jurisdiction for this crime being enabled after 2017. We must affirm Jackson’s belief that, “law is not only to govern the conduct of little men, but that even rulers are, as Lord Chief Justice Coke put it to King James, under God and the law.”

For most of the post-war period, this notion — that leaders must be held accountable for their decisions to go to war — has gathered dust. This must change, or else the legacy of Nuremberg, and its foundation for the post-war international legal regime, will be tossed aside in favor of the state of anarchic international relations that led to the Second World War itself. It is time to fulfill Jackson’s dream of a global order governed by law, not war. And it is time for accountability over the Iraq War and for the millions of people who lost their lives or who were affected by it.

Inder Comar is counsel of record for Sundus Shaker Saleh in her case against members of the Bush Administration. The case is Saleh v. Bush, Case No. 3:13-cv-1124 JST (N.D. Cal. March 13, 2013). The firm is providing case updates at witnessiraq.com and is representing Saleh pro bono.

Jeh Johnson Confirmed as Secretary of Homeland Security

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Yesterday the Senate voted in Jeh Johnson as DHS Secretary, the position formerly held by Janet Napolitano. Many of us may remember Jeh Johnson as the Obama administration lawyer who claimed his bosses had the right to detain alleged terrorists even if they were acquitted by a civilian court. He also declared the president has the right to execute alleged terrorists (including U.S. citizens) through drone strikes and that if Martin Luther King were alive today he’d support the War on Terror.

Shortly after the confirmation, Obama released the following statement:

I am pleased the Senate has confirmed Jeh Johnson as our next Secretary of Homeland Security with broad bipartisan support. In Jeh, our dedicated homeland security professionals will have a strong leader with a deep understanding of the threats we face and a proven ability to work across agencies and complex organizations to keep America secure. Jeh has been a critical member of my national security team, and he helped to shape some of our most successful national security policies and strategies. As Secretary of Homeland Security, Jeh will play a leading role in our efforts to protect the homeland against terrorist attacks, adapt to changing threats, stay prepared for natural disasters, strengthen our border security, and make our immigration system fairer – while upholding the values, civil liberties, and laws that make America great. I look forward to Jeh’s counsel and sound judgment for years to come.

In other words, Jeh is a proven “yes man”, a loyal defender of government war crimes who’d be more than happy to bring such policies home to use against anyone who opposes them.

Prior to his work with the Obama administration, Johnson was a civil and criminal trial lawyer who made millions defending corporations such as Citigroup and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco. Like countless others, it seems he bought his way into government. According to Mick Meaney of RINF:

He was a heavy-weight fundraiser for Obama, raising more than $200,000 during Obama‘s first campaign for office, according to USA Today reported in 2009. During the 2008 race, Obama‘s campaign website listed Johnson as a member of his national finance committee. Federal records show that Johnson has personally contributed over $100,000 to Democratic groups and candidates, including influential senators such as Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin and James Clyburn.

While some of Johnson’s critics call him a political crony with little expertise needed to oversee a 240,000-employee department, what’s obviously more important to the Obama administration is to have someone in place to rubber-stamp morally and legally dubious policies to be used against U.S. citizens. As the nation’s economy and infrastructure continues to collapse, the Department of Homeland Security will play a major role in suppressing growing domestic unrest and/or rebellion.

Obama Picks Terrorist War Criminal To Head Department Of Homeland Security

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October 19, 2013

Source: Lee Rogers, Blacklisted News

Barack Obama has nominated Jeh Johnson to head the Department of Homeland Security.  Johnson is actually a perfect choice for the Washington DC war criminals considering his prior track record.  Since 2009 he has worked in the Department of Defense as their general counsel.  In this role he has provided the legal justification for the Obama regime’s foreign military interventions including drone strikes that have killed numerous civilians.  Johnson has also claimed that the Obama regime has the legal authority to kill American citizens if they take up arms with Al-Qaeda.  Through these and other ridiculous legal assertions, Johnson has proven that he himself is a terrorist war criminal.  Considering that the American economy is edging closer and closer to a total collapse they will need someone in charge of Homeland Security who is not afraid to give orders to kill Americans.  Johnson as a terrorist war criminal will fit very nicely into this role.

According to a recent Washington Post article, Johnson was responsible for the prior legal review and approval of all military operations executed by the Obama regime.  This makes Johnson an incredibly evil man.  The Obama regime has been responsible for a number of war crimes including the authorization of drone strikes that have killed many civilians.  Even women and children have been killed by some of these strikes.  It is also worth noting that the Obama regime launched an unprovoked attack against the sovereign nation of Libya which by the standards set after World War II is a war crime.  Of course they almost did the same thing in Syria until it became clear that such an operation had no real support domestically or amongst the international community.  It is hard to believe that anyone could possibly find an appropriate legal justification for such horrible atrocities but apparently if you are a criminal like Johnson this comes easy.

It is no secret that Al-Qaeda is just a brand name used to describe proxy forces of Islamic fanatics run and managed by the United States.  These forces are either used to destabilize foreign governments as we have seen with Libya and Syria or they are used as an excuse for foreign military intervention.  In a sense there is no group officially named Al-Qaeda and any group labeled as such is manufactured for the purpose of expanding American influence.  As stated previously, Johnson believes that the federal government has the authority to kill American citizens if they align themselves with Al-Qaeda.  In other words, if the Obama regime says you are with Al-Qaeda, Johnson believes they have the right to kill you.  Even though the Obama regime runs Al-Qaeda, the legal framework supported by Johnson gives them the ability to link their domestic enemies with Al-Qaeda to justify killing them.  The entire thing is such a sick joke that it defies any sort of rational comprehension.

Previously there has been numerous propaganda stories planted in the corporate press talking about the so-called emergence of a domestic white Al-Qaeda threat.  As the American public becomes increasingly upset with the Obama regime’s criminal policies, we will likely see this type of disinformation revisited.  Obama’s political opponents will be labeled as terrorists.  In fact we have already started to see some of this.  During the recent debt ceiling and government shutdown fiasco some of Obama’s cronies labeled certain Republicans and Tea Party members as such.

The further things get out of control domestically, the more important Johnson’s role could become.  He could eventually be in charge of putting down any sort of domestic rebellion that will inevitably occur as we see America fall further and further into an economic abyss.  His track record at the Pentagon suggests that he will have no problem authorizing deadly force to kill Americans who pose any sort of threat to the Obama regime.  After all, they will just label these people as domestic terrorists.  Under former Department of Homeland Security head Janet Napolitano, the agency purchased all sorts of goodies to wage war against the American people including armored vehicles and billions of bullets.  There is a very good possibility that once Johnson’s nomination is confirmed that he could be the one to ordering the deployment of these assets against regular Americans.

Johnson has even made the ridiculous claim that Martin Luther King would have supported military intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq.  King was staunchly anti-war and strongly opposed the Vietnam War throughout the 1960s.  This type of blatant historical revisionism says all we need to know about this man’s credibility.  He will lie, fabricate or do whatever it takes to legally justify the Obama regime’s criminal policies.

So there you have it.  The Obama regime’s future head of the Department of Homeland Security is nothing more than a terrorist war criminal.  There’s no question that this man is evil and because of that it is pretty much assured that he will have no problem getting approved through the Congressional nomination process.