Who signed and why? Watch video.Read why more than 2,000 people have signed this statement already. More comments here.Sign Crimes Are Crimes – No Matter Who Does Them
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Why donate to publish this statement?
Miller Francis, former writer for Rolling Stone, sent this quote from Bertolt Brecht to explain why he donated:
"Nowadays, anyone who wishes to combat lies and ignorance and to write the truth must overcome at least five difficulties. He must have the courage to write the truth when truth is everywhere opposed; the keenness to recognize it, although it is everywhere concealed; the skill to manipulate it as a weapon; the judgment to select those in whose hands it will be effective; and the cunning to spread the truth among such persons."
Crimes Are Crimes – No Matter Who Does Them
Intro October 2010: On the ninth anniversary of America’s longest war, the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq remain bloody, employing more contractors, while drones rain death upon Pakistan.
In the months since this statement was written, US courts have ruled that innocents who have been tortured may not sue, while the Obama administration defends those who directed that torture be used.
When leaking evidence of war crimes is criminalized, remaining silent is a crime.
It has become common knowledge that Barack Obama has openly ordered the assassination of an American citizen, Anwar al-Aulaki. Without trial or other judicial proceeding, the administration has simply put him on the to-be-killed list.*
Whistleblowers in the military leaked a video showing U.S. troops firing on an unarmed party of Iraqis in 2007, including two journalists, and then firing on those who attempted to rescue them, including two children. As ugly as this video of the killing of 12 Iraqis was, the chatter recorded from the helicopter cockpit was even more monstrous. The Pentagon says that there would be no charges against these soldiers; and the media absolves them of blame. “They were under stress,” the story goes; “Our brave men and women must be supported.” Meanwhile, those who leaked and publicized the video came under government surveillance and are targeted as “national security” threats.
The Pentagon acknowledged, after denials, a massacre near the city of Gardez, Afghanistan, on February 12, 2010. 5 people were killed, including two pregnant women, leaving 16 children motherless. The U.S. military first said the two men killed were insurgents, and the women, victims of a family “honor killing,” but the Afghan government accepts the eyewitness reports that U.S. Special Forces killed the men, (a police officer and lawyer) and the women, and then dug their own bullets out of the women’s bodies to destroy evidence. Top U.S. military officials have now admitted that U.S. soldiers killed the family in their house.
Just weeks earlier, a story broken in Harper’s by Scott Horton carried news that three supposed suicides of detainees in Guantánamo in 2006 were not suicides, but possible homicides carried out by American personnel. This passed almost without comment.**
In some respects, this is worse than Bush. First, because Obama has claimed the right to assassinate American citizens whom he suspects of “terrorism,” merely on the grounds of his own suspicion or that of the CIA, something Bush never claimed publicly. Second, Obama says that the government can detain you indefinitely, even if you have been exonerated in a trial, and he has publicly floated the idea of “preventive detention." Third, the Obama administration, in expanding the use of unmanned drone attacks, argues that the U.S. has the authority under international law to use such lethal force and extrajudicial killing in sovereign countries with which it is not at war.
Such measures by Bush were widely considered by liberals and progressives to be outrages and were roundly, and correctly, protested. But those acts which may have been construed (wishfully or not) as anomalies under the Bush regime, have now been consecrated into “standard operating procedure” by Obama, who claims, as did Bush, executive privilege and state secrecy in defending the crime of aggressive war.
Unsurprisingly, the Obama administration has refused to prosecute any members of the Bush regime who are responsible for war crimes, including some who admitted to waterboarding and other forms of torture, thereby making their actions acceptable for him or any future president, Democrat or Republican.
End the complicity of silence.
* On 9/24/10 the Justice Department asserted that “state secrets” bar any examination of Obama’s order.
** On 9/29/10 a U.S. federal court dismissed a suit by the victims’ families on grounds of “national security.”
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War crimes are crimes that need to be prosecuted in The Hague. They will once the full truth comes out.
Muslims are peaceful people and only fight those who fight them for their Religion. Just like anyone else would do. They aren’t supposed to fight according to their teachings. Just like Christians. Look at the atrocities the Christians have done against those who do not think like them! The Indigenous peoples all over the world.
There are good and bad amongst us all!
Obama was going to close Guatanamo, why is it still being used? He was going to do so many “good” things, but I haven’t seen any of his promises. He is becoming as bad as Bush was.
The Republicans are following in Hitler’s footsteps. Take away the people’s rights of freedom.
American People, it’s time to stand up for yourselves as the Obama government isn’t going to do it for you! I can see that now! I can only do so much, but daren’t come to America. I can support you from here and do as much as I can, by signing petitions and being your friend. I believe in Freedom. You have to fight for that once more like they did in the War of Independence. This time it’s Independence of Terror.
Terror brought to you by the Republicans and Corporations. They are your enemy now. First and above all. The corporations own both parties. There are only a few good Democrats left. Democrats who are willing to stand up against the Republicans. They were against this war Bush started. I stand alone, I’m sorry, I can only advice you.
Look at what Hitler did and look at what’s happening in your country?
Don’t stand for it any longer and gather against the tyranny. You did it during the Vietnam War! You can do it again.
A President who stands behind torture is as good as he is torturing the people himself. People who are willing to stand up and tell you the truth. They end up in Guatanamo Bay, maybe dead themselves. Do you stand for such tyranny? As long as you don’t do anything yourselves you are the same as the person who lashes the whip!
http://www.jordanshoes-discount.com
hadi says:
hai, who are you… what are you serving. i\’m in indonesia and i\’m a christian. in indonesia, christianity is got pressure so hard. why you speaking as moslem is good. if you understand about moslem, you will be undesire with that. believe me. what your faith?? if you humanism, thinking so real and so wide, not too short only on your mind.
Dear Hadi, [Hadi replied to me about my post above and has value in his words.]
Thank you, my new Indonesian friend. I have empathy for you and your experience of religious persecution in your country. I pray that you can use nonviolence and love to overcome the extremism, the irreligious, the counter-religious. Pray that they will see themselves; pray do we that they will take up Gandhian/ M.L. King path of nonviolence to solve the injustice that they face.
The Quaker Friends likely best describes my Christian associates and my approach to peace and justice. My Christian mentor of economics, who now lives in Chile again, Howard Richards is a Catholic who taught Global Peace Studies at Earlham (Quaker) College.
Gandhi, M.L. King, all of the Catholic worker/ martyrs, liberation theology all speak to me. I now attend the United Church of Christ (Barrack Obama’s progressive activist fellowship) in Simi Valley, California.
That said, I am an eclectic, a lover of all faiths, ethical traditions, cosmologies, which includes much of humanism, including Marxist humanism. Each faith and philosophy is like a musical genre, a song form. I gained the most universal view that one can imagine; for that I am ever grateful.
Theology, religion, philosophy, music and other art all art that create invaluable tools for political liberation.
Hadi, please explain: you wrote: “if you understand about moslem” (moslems or Islam), you will be undesire with that.
Oh, your view is that if I knew Islam as lived by most Moslems, then I will not defend themWrong, I understand that self-determination: the rights of the oppressed means seeing the mitigating circumstance of nationalism and religious extremism as temporary defensive steps must be understood and overlooked.
Please explain more about what you have written: “if you humanism, thinking so real and so wide, not too short only on your mind. Please explain more about all that you have written here to me — Your thoughts and insights about a special place (Indonesia) have much value for me. Thank you again Hadi, please keep in touch.
hai, who are you… what are you serving. i\\\\\\\’m in indonesia and i\\\\\\\’m a christian. in indonesia, christianity is got pressure so hard. why you speaking as moslem is good. if you understand about moslem, you will be undesire with that. believe me. what your faith?? if you humanism, thinking so real and so wide, not too short only on your mind.
If liberals thought Bush was Hitler, who does that make Obama, Donitz? War crimes are war crimes no matter who is president! A war crime is a war crime is a war crime is a war crime is a war crime is a war crime is a war crime is a war crime is a war crime is a war crime. A war criminal is a war criminal is a war criminal is a war criminal is a war criminal is a war criminal is a war criminal.
I didn’t vote for Obama. He was appointed as president by the elite because they knew he wasn’t a threat to their agenda, quite the contrary, he is the ultimate Manchurian candidate. He was put in place in order to placate the masses and further the imperialist’s globalist’s agendas. He is a criminal and should be prosecuted along with his predecessors.
Prosecute the warmongers for their war crimes, crimes against humanity. But if you do, then the Obama Administration must stop the illegal, immoral torture of warmongering that it perpetuates. The Obama Administration is in a mess of its own making from now on.
Urge President Obama to slash the funding of the bloated, often ineffectual and counterproductive so-called Defense Department with its insatiable budget. Urge him to shift those wasted funds to the Energy Department and, thus, begin the rapid retrofit of our energy infrastructure. Defense spending and its games of war gambling for a few greedy corporations is a gross, unethical polluter; it must be reigned in if we are to meet the climate goals President Obama has set for us as the nation that causes the most global warming per capita.
The red herring is that our use of torture as illegal and ineffectual interrogation distracts us from the grim fact that much of U.S. foreign policy, which includes economic policies, is itself based on torture, although for purposes other than false confessions. The red herring of torture diverts us from the fact that central to U.S. foreign and domestic policy, past, present and future is the clearing the land for the acquisition of resources and growth of markets for our corporate clients. What was “shock and awe” if not a torturous policy upon a nation known as a “basket case” with little or no connection to the actors and events of 9/11? The U.S. exports arms and terror better than any imperialist state in history. Other countries and entities learn from and mimic the US, e.g., the Pentagon’s School of the Americas teaches terror, torture, and deadly force with the goal of ethnic cleansing. The literal torture performed by or on behalf of the U.S. in sordid places, perceived or otherwise, is a sideshow: a distraction. Ask anyone living in a country tabled for U.S. and allied demolition; they will tell you that the threat of violence alone is torturous and that they feel terrified.
Islam is peace and love for all people don’t beleive liars
Stop the illegal and immoral invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Stop the threats to Iran and drone attacks on Pakistan. What happened to promises of change? What is “The good war” – how is any war good?
Change is overdue. Where is it? Do we need to revolt?
The need for revolution to acquire the productive forces for the use of humanity instead of for the profit of a tiny handful asserts itself again and again as long overdue. REVCOM.US
Obama and the Democrats follow lockstep behind the Republicans as they drag the nation further to the right. Obama leapfrogs the process and sets a new precedent. This will free future conservatives to go further yet. Welcome to the official launch of the Police State.