imprisonbush.com

Whatever happened to responsibility? Today, we find out: It’s been eaten alive by the Republican Party, in order to fuel their draconian grip on government.

News leaked out from our government today of yet another war crime by the American military in Iraq. 5 American soldiers in the Army conspired to follow an Iraqi woman home, kill her family, rape her, kill her, and then set her body on fire to cover up what they did. There’s no connection to an insurgent attack, no rationale of fighting for freedom. They just did what they wanted to do in Iraq, because there is no law there anymore.

Consider this: 5 soldiers with the US Army conspired together to commit this crime. There was none of that Army of One bullshit. This was a conspiracy. Are we supposed to believe that no one else knew about it? What else did these 5 do that we haven’t found out about yet? What other similar atrocities are being covered up?

The time was that we had a President who said “The Buck Stops Here”. That meant that the President accepted responsibility for what the government did under his leadership. George W. Bush, who has spent the last six years playing President, continues to evade responsibility. Under Bush’s watch, the world has watched the exposure of a seemingly non-stop series of war crimes.

Yet, President Bush always manages to say that somebody else is responsible for these crimes. Never him. It’s always somebody else who is responsible. Bush gives us nothing more than excuses, and his Republican followers mimic his crude campaign of blaming everybody else. They give excuse after excuse after excuse for these war crimes, and compound them by complaining about the people who dare to say that somebody above the rank of corporal must be held accountable for this pattern of war crimes.

So, how about it, Republicans? What excuses are you going to give for this latest war crime? Are you going to tell us that these rapists and murderers are just misunderstood?

It’s time for a return to responsibility. Start with impeaching George W. Bush. Continue by kicking the rest of these Republicans and their never-ending excuses out of government.

The next time you hear Grover Norquist, or someone from the group “Americans for Tax Reform,” speaking as though they had the interests of the American people at heart, remember this email:

“Can the tribes contribute $100,000 for the effort to bring state legislatures and those tribal leaders who have passed Bush resolutions to Washington?”…”When I have funding, I will ask Karl Rove for a date with the president. Karl has already said ‘yes’ in principle and knows you organized this last time and hope to this year,” Norquist email to Abramoff (Source: AP, 6/25/06).

The tribal leaders “donated” the $100,000 to Norquist’s “Americans for Tax Reform,” went to the white house, and met President Bush.

Now, to be fair, Norquist’s lawyer says the emails are misleading and may have been misinterpreted. Apparently, there is some ambiguity there. But you know, for the life of me, I just can not see it. The only meaning I see here is: Give me $100,000 and I’ll arrange a meeting with the president.

I mean, help me out here. What else could this mean?

Weeks ago, when the story of the collaboration of Verizon, Bellsouth and AT&T with the National Security Agency in creating a gigantic database to compile information for the government about who tens of millions of Americans are talking to in private telephone conversations, the Senate promised to hold hearings to investigate the matter. Later, after Vice President Cheney met with Senate Republicans demanding that the White House not be investigated, the Senate’s plans for hearings were dropped.

It is some small consolation, however, that the Senate was able to question Edward Whitacre, the CEO of AT&T, this week. The occasion was a hearing to review the proposed merger of AT&T with Bellsouth, to create the largest telephone company in the United States.

During this questioning, we got a small taste of what might have happened if the Senate had followed its duty to conduct oversight of the National Security Agency. Whitacre refused to provide an answer when Arlen Specter asked him whether AT&T has given records of Americans’ domestic telephone calls to the NSA, in violation of AT&T’s privacy policy. Whitacre only gave a nonsense response that did not answer the question.

Senator Specter responded by telling Whitacre, “I think that answer is contemptuous of this committee.”

If Senator Specter really believes that’s the case, that the CEO of AT&T held the United States Senate in contempt by refusing to provide answers to senators’ questions, then he ought to follow through. Senator Specter ought to have Edward Whitacre put in prison for contempt of Congress.

Whitacre was not the subject of a criminal prosecution. He was not under investigation. He did not invoke 5th Amendment protections against self-incrimination. He was asked for information that is relevant to the decision of whether AT&T and Bellsouth should be allowed to merge, and he refused to provide that information.

Senator Specter was right. Whitacre was in contempt of Congress. Now, if Senator Specter refuses to follow through and have Whitacre punished for that contempt, all Americans who believe in the rule of law must have contempt for Senator Specter.

Too much is at stake for the Senate to surrender its constitutional powers in deference to both the Executive Branch and gigantic corporations that refuse to honor the legal rights of the American people.

“As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.” We’ve heard that from President Bush, over and over again. “We’re making progress training an Iraqi army and police forces.”

Really? We’ve got a quarter million Iraqi soldiers and police officers trained. Why can’t they impose order?

Well, maybe because U.S. troops have actually been training the people who kill them. According to yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle, that’s exactly what happened to Spc. Patrick Ryan McCaffrey. It was McCaffrey’s job to train Iraqi soldiers. A few weeks before he died, he told his father that the very troops he was training had shot at him. Apparently, insurgents were offering $100.00 for every American an Iraqi soldier killed. McCaffrey reported this up the chain of command, and was promptly told “to keep his mouth shut.” A few weeks later, he was dead. That was June 22, 2004. Almost two years later, the Pentagon has finally admitted what McCaffrey’s parents knew all along: their own son had trained the men who killed him.

Can you win a war against local insurgents by giving local people uniforms and guns, and teaching them how to fight? Over and over again, Iraqi police and security forces have melted away, without bothering to return their weapons and uniforms. Now Iraq is awash in guns and uniforms, to the point where Iraq’s government has had to warn its own people not to comply with the orders of Iraqis in police or military uniforms, unless they are accompanied by Americans. Under those circumstances, how can Iraqi forces possibly “stand up” so that U.S. troops can “stand down?”

And why, exactly, did McCaffrey’s superiors tell him to keep his mouth shut when he provided them with information about insurgents infiltrating Iraqi security forces and using the weapons and the training they received to attack American troops? McCaffrey’s father Bob, I think, has as good an answer as any. “It underlies the lie of this whole situation in Iraq. It’s all to me a pack of lies.”

This week, seven Marines and a member of the US Navy were put into the brig at Camp Pendleton for killing of an unarmed civilian in Hamandiya, Iraq.

But, it isn’t just the US Marines who have taken part in massacres in Iraq. News came this week that three soldiers in the United States Army murdered three Iraqi prisoners of war, shooting them to death. The soldiers claimed that the prisoners were trying to escape, but that turned out to be a lie.

Such incidents are becoming so numerous that it stretches credibility to describe them as isolated. There is a larger pattern of war crimes that stems from the culture of vengeance encouraged by the Bush Administration in the effort to whip up pro-war sentiment. Responsibility for these crimes rests with the soldiers who commit them, but rises all the way up to the top, at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

George W. Bush has made a big show of talking about how conditions are improving in Baghdad, but a leaked memo from the US State Department shows that George W. Bush knew that Baghdad is getting worse, not better.

The memo contains reports from people working on the ground in Baghdad, and describes ethnic cleansing, kidnappings, abuse of women’s rights “not taken in Iran even at its most conservative”, belief that the United States “is punishing populations as Saddam did”, increased “militia-like” violence from Iraqi guards, and a general “visibly deteriorated” quality of life.

How bad have things gotten in Iraq? The memo describes children being threatened with severe punishment for playing in shorts outside, and men fearing attack just for wearing jeans.

Is this the freedom, security, and democracy that President Bush has sent 2,500 Americans to die for?

I guess I need these things explained to me, because none of this seems to make much sense any more.

Three “detainees” at Guantanamo committed suicide in an act of “asymmetrical warfare” against the United States.

OK, sure.

Now, it’s exactly this kind of sneaky asymmetrical terrorist attack that makes this a new kind of war. That’s the reason the we have had to abandon the Geneva Conventions on prisoner treatement, see?

Here’s the part I don’t understand:

By abandoning the Geneva Conventions, how are we protecting ourselves from terrorists who attack us by means of getting captured, enduring torture for four years, and then killing themselves?

Oh, but wait.

Some successful attacks by terrorists against America actually prove that we’re winning the war on terror. See, if we can get terrorists to attack our troops in Iraq, it means they’re not attacking Americans here. Maybe if we can get more terrorists to attack us by killing themselves in our illegal torture facilities, that also means they’re not attacking Americans on American soil.

So see, maybe it’s good news after all. Yeah, that’s it.

From the summary by United Press International of the most recent report on the torture of prisoners by American soldiers as a part of the so-called “war on terror”:

“Detainees were locked for up to seven days in cells so small that they couldn’t stand up or lie down.”

First of all, UPI, I don’t know what a detainee is. These people were prisoners of war, and entitled to protection under the Geneva Conventions. There is no internationally recognized legal status of “detainee.”

Secondly, I see from the article writted yesterday for Imprison Bush by Norm that the report claims that the abuses against prisoners were not deliberate.

How in the hell are we supposed to believe that American military prison guards could accidentally put prisoners of war in prison cells so small that neither standing up nor lying down are possible for seven days straight? That’s no accident. That’s purposeful torture of prisoners, and it is clearly illegal.

This report does nothing but detail how the American military is allowing war crimes to go unpunished. George W. Bush knows that this is going on. He’s the Commander In Chief. He is responsible for it. He is a part of this crime – just one more reason that Bush must be impeached and put in a prison cell of his own.