|
|
home / subscribe / donate / tower / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events
|
CHINA'S GREAT LEAP BACKWARDS Peter Kwong gives us the "New China" without illusions: from the "millionaires' fair" in Shanghai, with $60,000 diamond-studded dog leashes to one of the most savagely repressed working class and peasantry on the planet. How China's leaders swapped Marx and Mao for Milton Friedman. Alexander Cockburn on What's wrong with the U.S. left. They're sitting in darkened rooms weaving conspiracy fantasies about 9/11; they're blogging; they're confusing a medium with a movement; they're not doing enough to stop the war in Iraq. John Ross takes us along the stormy trail of the Mexican election. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! |
|
Today's Stories July 14 / 15, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Ramzy Baroud July 13, 2006 Rev. William
Alberts Ramzi Kysia Rep. John P. Murtha Radford / Santos Stan Cox Saul Landau José
Pertierra Website of
the Day
July 12, 2006 John Ross John Stauber Robert Boston Wayne S. Smith John Graham Kevin Prosen Jonathan Cook Website of
the Day
July 11, 2006 Dave Lindorff Dave Zirin Mokhiber / Weissman Amira Hass Clare Hanrahan Brian Cloughey Felice Pace Raed Jarrar Website of the Day
July 10, 2006 Paul Craig
Roberts Uri Avnery Roger Burbach Ron Jacobs Joshua Frank Missy Comley Beattie Alexander Cockburn
Stephen Green Paul Craig
Roberts Greg Moses Ralph Nader Laura Carlsen Conn Hallinan John Chuckman Fred Gardner Dr. Tod Mikuriya Pierre Tristam Lucinda Marshall David Swanson Heather Gray Dave Zirin
/ John Cox Mark Engler Michael Lettieri Ron Jacobs Jamal Juma' Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement
July 7, 2006 John Ross July 6, 2006 Nick Dearden John Stanton Ralph Nader Laray Polk Saul Landau Joshua Frank William S. Lind Adelman / Lindorff Jonathan Cook Website of
the Day
Mike Whitney Saul Landau Ramzy Baroud Missy Comley Beattie Arthur Neslen Vincent Maruffi Paul Cantor Paul D. Johnson David Price
Col. Dan Smith Chris Floyd Marjorie Cohn James Brooks Medea Benjamin Matt Reichel Elisa Salasin Rick Wilhelm Paul Craig
Roberts Website of the Day
July 3, 2006 Robert Bryce Dr. Bouthaina Shaban Julia Olmstead Dave Lindorff Andres Gomez Alan Singer Alexander Cockburn
Paul Craig
Roberts Stephen T.
Banko Daniel Cassidy Fawzia Afzal-Khan Jeff Taylor John Ross Greg Moses Laura Carlsen Justin E.H.
Smith Brian Cloughley Anthony Papa Mike Ferner Jerry Tucker Jane Goodall / Rick Asselta Phyllis Pollack Poets' Basement
June 30, 2006 Marjorie Cohn Heather Williams Burbach / Cantor Nick Dearden Michael J.
Smith Brian Concannon Virginia Tilley
Bill Quigley Ron Jacobs Paul Craig
Roberts June 28, 2006 Jorge Mariscal Greg Moses Mark Weisbrot Ramzy Baroud Dave Lindorff William S.
Lind Mike Ferner Zoltan Grossman
Marjorie Cohn Benjamin /
Jarrar William Hughes Doug Giebel Uri Avnery Alexander Cockburn
June 26, 2006 Don Santina Ralph Nader Dave Lindorff Rafael Rodriguez-Cruz Evelyn Pringle Jonathan Cook
June 23, 2006 Youmans / Erakat Dave Lindorff Ron Jacobs Col. Dan Smith
June 22, 2006 Marjorie Cohn Winslow T.
Wheeler Tanya Reinhart Mike Marqusee William Blum
Subscribe Online
|
Bastille
Day Weekend Edition The Bush Swingers?They Broke the Law and People DiedBy DAVE LINDORFF A five-member majority of the U.S. Supreme Court has declared, in the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld ruling handed down late last month, that President Bush and his administration were in violation of the Third Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Now let's think about that for a moment. If a judge said that you had broken the state law against driving over the speed of 65 miles per hour, that would mean you were being declared a ""speeder," right? Similarly, if a judge or jury found that you had violated the law against using a gun to threaten someone on the street and to take his wallet, you were being called an armed robber. If a judge said that you had planned out and then killed someone you didn't like, you were being called a first-degree murderer. So what were the justices doing when they said that Bush had violated the Third Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War? They were calling him a war criminal. It's pretty clear really. The president has responded by going to Congress in an effort to get the compliant Republicans and probably some cowed or fawning Democrats (like embattled Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, no doubt), to retroactively declare that the captives at Guantanamo are exempt from the protections of the Geneva Convention, but that doesn't change the fact that as of today, and in the eyes of the world, he is a war criminal, and has been declared such by the nation's highest court. What should happen, of course, at this point, is that someone--the Attorney General, or perhaps special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald--should move to indict those who have perpetrated this heinous and shameful crime against humanity, and against the people of the United States. That would mean indictments on war crimes charges of Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Former AG John Ashcroft, former National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, former White House Counsel and now AG Alberto Gonzales, former terrorism prosecutor and now Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, and President and Commander in Chief George Bush, the Decider. Of course, because the president is protected against indictment while in office, his indictment would have to be served after he leaves office. At the same time, there should be a bill of impeachment submitted to the House immediately demanding the impeachment of the president on war crimes charges. Instead of entertaining discussions on how to do an end run around the Geneva Conventions, Congress should be initiating impeachment proceedings to restore America's sorry reputation abroad on this issue. The American government is quick to call for war crimes charges against the likes of Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic or Pol Pot, but when it comes to the criminals in our own government, we change the channel. This would be an easy hearing. No need to subpoena lots of low-ranking people and grill them about what the president was "really" up to. We know. He was brazenly asserting the right of a dictator: to shove aside the nation's Constitution, and the international treaties his predecessors had negotiated and signed, and to simply ignore the rule of law, declaring that people captured in Afghanistan or Iraq, or kidnapped by U.S. forces in other countries abroad, as part of the bogus "war" on terror, would not have even the minimal rights and protections afforded by the Geneva Conventions. The House Judiciary could just call in Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote quite clearly in his opinion in Hamdan, that the president was in violation of provisions of the Third Geneva Convention. At that point, the president could be tried in the Senate, where, if the Senators were honest, they'd have to agree that he was a war criminal, and remove him from the White House. Then he could be added to his indicted cabinet officers, and they could all face war crimes charges together. I'm not in favor of the death penalty, so I don't think Rumsfeld, Rice, Chertoff & Co. should face capital punishment for their role in this gross crime. But as for Bush and his legal lackey, Alberto Gonzales, I could make an exception. Bush, after all, oversaw and approved the execution of a record 152 people on Texas's death row while serving as governor of that benighted state. Gonzales, as Gov. Bush's legal counsel, had the job of looking over the clemency petitions of most of those men and women, and in only one case was clemency recommended and granted. The blood of all those people, many or most of whom were never afforded fair trials under Texas' notoriously shoddy and biased legal system, which has allowed poor defendants in capital cases to have lawyers who slept or drank their way through their trials, is on Bush's and Gonzales' hands. Gonzales, in a memo to the
president which my co-author Barbara Olshansky and I include
in the appendix of our new book, The Case for Impeachment, pointedly
warned Bush that at some future date, he and his advisers could
face prosecution for war crimes on grounds of the torture of
detainees which he was approving at Guantanamo Bay. Gonzales
further noted that where death of captives occurred, the punishment
could be death. Knowing that, I say,if a court were to determine
that Bush and Gonzales are liable for deaths in Guantanamo or
elsewhere where POW's have been illegally held and tortured at
the president's direction, they probably should get a taste of
their own deadly medicine, as is called for in the Geneva Conventions,
and in the U.S. Criminal Code, into which those Conventions as
were incorporated by act of Congress.
|
from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann  Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair          Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.                    |
