Call for a National “Bush Crimes Day” September 19
The Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by
the Bush Administration will release its final verdict on Wednesday,
September 13, 2006.
The final verdict will address the five indictments dealing with the
Bush administration’s wars of aggression, illegal detention and
torture, destruction of the global environment through global warming,
imposition of abstinence-only on AIDS prevention programs in the Third
World, and the abandonment of New Orleans before, during and after
Hurricane Katrina.
On September 13, the verdict will be formally served on the White House and the Department of Justice, read over the radio across the country, and released in printed form for national distribution.
Following the release of the verdict, the Commission is calling a national “Bush Crimes Day” on Tuesday, September 19.
Inspired by the verdict of the Bush Crimes Commission, campuses and
communities across the country will organize public events – demonstrations, student walk-outs, teach-ins, street-theatre, art exhibits – that draw attention to acts of the Bush
administration that, by their scope and nature, shock the conscience of
humankind — and bring to the fore our moral and political
responsibility to bring these horrific crimes to a halt!
* * *
The release of the verdict fulfils a primary responsibility of this
tribunal to deliver findings of fact and a verdict on the central
question before the commission: “whether George W. Bush and his
administration have committed crimes against humanity.” The final
verdict and the national Bush Crimes Day continue the Commission’s
mission “to frame and fuel a discussion that is urgently needed in the
United States: Is the administration of George W. Bush guilty of war
crimes and crimes against humanity?”
The Bush administration’s war crimes and crimes against humanity are
now mounting on an even wider scale — with new, even more monstrous,
crimes looming. Despite almost universal condemnation, the Bush regime
promoted Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, the occupations of Iraq and
Afghanistan continue to wreak havoc on these countries, shocking crimes
by U.S. soldiers against civilians continue to come to light, and
torture continues in both public and secret locations around the world.
The administration is attempting to grant itself immunity — by
rewriting US law — to commit flagrant violations of Article 3 of the
Geneva Conventions. The administration is aggressively beating the
drums of war on Iran, which would bring catastrophic consequences to
the Middle East and humanity.
At this moment in history, society desperately needs to hear the
testimony of Scott Ritter at the Commission on the complete lies of the
Bush administration in making the case for war in Iraq, the testimony
of Brigadier General Janis Karpinski establishing the chain of command
from the torture chambers of Abu Ghraib to the highest offices of the
land, and eye-witness testimony from journalists in the killing fields
of Iraq to the survivors from the flooded Lower Ninth Ward in New
Orleans. This is what we aim to bring people in the next few weeks as
we expand and intensify the discussion on Bush’s war crimes and crimes
against humanity.
Society also desperately needs the moral clarity of Craig Murray,
the former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, who declared at the
commission hearings, “I would personally rather die than have anyone
tortured to save my life.”
The need for this tribunal arose from the real and horrendous crimes
being committed, and the historical, moral and political responsibility
of people of conscience to sit in judgment of this administration: to
inquire and assess whether this administration has committed crimes
that do in fact rise to the level of crimes against humanity, and to
act in a meaningful and commensurate manner, on that knowledge of
reality, to bring these crimes to a halt.
As the 2002 Not In Our Name Statement of Conscience (www.nion.us),
the sponsoring organization of the Bush Commission, stated: “We believe
that people of conscience must take responsibility for what their own
governments do — we must first of all oppose the injustice that is
done in our own name.”
Join us at the White House on September 13; join us across the nation on September 19!