We shed no tears over the death of “Dick” Cheney, the U.S. Vice President who went gladly to the “dark side” of state-engineered torture in 2001, as the U.S. began a war of terror mostly aimed at the Middle East. We continue to mark the thousands of days the torture camp at Guantanamo Bay Cuba has remained open.
See journalist Andy Worthington’s report on global vigils to Close Guantanamo this month.
The Bush administration tortuouly twisted reality to claim it upheld the rule of law and maintained democracy. But we have a different set in power now, a set that doesn’t care about that facade. It’s worth reading a former Secretary of the Air Force, opining in The New York Times before Veterans Day on the illegitimacy of the American military’s airborne executions of (now 76) alleged “drug traffickers” in the oceans off South America. Whom Will Our Military Be Ordered to Execute Next?
Cheers to About Face, Veterans for Peace, RefuseFascism.org and others who protested the fascist in the White House and his military on Veteran’s Day this week. As they purge ranks of women, Trans and Black members, prepare to wage war on the world and on people in U.S. cities, and force loyalty to a fascist leader, it is so important for active duty and ex-military members to speak out.
News from WarCriminalsWatch.org
We are adding additional accused war criminals from the Trump Administration to our War Criminals Watch database. Here, for starters, is Mike Johnson.
Name: James Michael Johnson
Born: January 30, 1972 Shreveport, LA
Profession: Attorney
Trump Administration Position: Speaker, US House of Representatives
War Crime Charges:
- Violates War Powers Resolution by illegally refusing to hold votes on whether to halt wars, although resolutions in the House legally require votes on Venezuela and Iran.
- Voted twice to not prevent war on Venezuela.
- Supports resuming testing nuclear weapons: “The only way to maintain peace is to show strength.”
- “…deeply troubling that you…reward Hamas with statehood before they’ve returned every hostage. What message does that send to terrorists and tyrants? If you rape and murder and abduct innocent civilians and cause enough suffering among your own people.”
- Responsible for wars and every death, injury, traumatic impact, destruction, degree of global warming, and brutal influence that stems from those wars.
- Supports NDAA legislation to: expand U.S.-Israel military exercises and fund cooperative missile defense, abolish DEI bureaucracy and climate change programs as well as ban teaching, training, promotion of critical race theory and counter antisemitism by prohibiting sale of goods at commissaries and exchanges that boycott Israel.
Associations:
- 2018-2020: Attorney at First Liberty fundamentalist legal organization that litigated prominent anti-LGBTQ cases.
- 2019: Chairman of Republican Study Committee, largest congressional caucus, created national security task force.
- 2002-2010 Senior Counsel and spokesman for Alliance Defending Freedom, antiLGBTQ legal organization that overturned Roe v. Wade, seeks to restrict abortion pills, shut down abortion clinics.
Erik Prince has been on our list for a long time. It seems that he is connected to the development of ICE. “Led by Erik Prince, Trump ally and founder of the notorious mercenary firm Blackwater, the group proposed (among other ideas) that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) create a ‘skip tracing team’ that would send out private contractors to hunt down immigrants targeted for deportation, per reporting at the time by Politico. Now, there are indications ICE is carrying out those plans.” 
Read more here.