Clipmarks | War crimes Clips

USA Running out of Money to build roads/bridges

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 22:54:16 GMT

clipped by: citizenbfk
clipper's remarks: I realize economic issues don't have the drama of war but the way Wall Street & Congress has recently transferred TRILLIONS of dollars of debt to the government is astounding.

Wall St. & Congress have risked as much taxpayers money that could have paid for 16 years of *@#$%-over Iraq.

Now we can't pay to build or repair our own roads and bridges.

Be sure to notice the clear statement: "Until Friday the White House has been hostile to it." (i.e. hostile to the approval of money for roads and bridges,) --- because already Bush is trying to blame it on the Democrats.

For God's sake, could there be anything more basic to provide for a nation?

Bridges are collapsing. New Orleans is still not rebuilt three years later. Joblessness hits a 5-year high. Wall St. transfers trillions of dollars of bad debt to the government, we're guilty of torture and other war crimes, we've murdered maybe half-a-million Iraqi who had nothing to do with 9/11 or WMD's. bin Laden is still alive an

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Federal Highway Fund Running Out of Money

WASHINGTON — An important account in the federal Highway Trust Fund will run out of money this month, which could hamper completion of road and bridge construction projects across the country, Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters said on Friday.

In July, the House passed a bill that would use $8 billion of general federal revenue — from income and other taxes, not the dedicated motor fuel tax — to finance highway projects. The measure has not gained much traction in the Senate, and until Friday the White House had been hostile to it. But Ms. Peters said on Friday that the administration now endorses the measure, because “immediate action” is required to ensure that the states do not suffer.

Tags: bridges, wall_st., bush

Extraordinary rendition: An Australian's story

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 21:37:32 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: "Most of his fingernails were missing and he regularly bled from the nose, mouth, and ears while he slept."

Clip Source: www.atimes.com

Mamdouh Habib, an Australian citizen, was living in Sydney with his wife and four children when he took a trip alone to Pakistan

When Habib boarded a bus for the Islamabad airport to return home, Pakistani police seized him

After 15 days in the Pakistani prison, Habib was transferred to

United States agents who flew him to Cairo. When he arrived, Omar Solaimon, chief of Egyptian security, informed him that Egypt receives US$10 million for every confessed terrorist they hand over to the US.

during his five months in Egypt, "there was no interrogation, only torture". His skin was burned with cigarettes, and he was threatened with dogs, beaten, and repeatedly shocked with a stun gun.

American agents sent Habib to Guantanamo Bay. Three British detainees

Most of his fingernails were missing and he regularly bled from the nose, mouth, and ears while he slept.

Rather than have

testimony on the torture

US officials decided to send him back to Sydney in January 2005

Tags: rendition, war on terror, war crimes

Bush Seeks New Congressional War on Terror Declaration

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:47:06 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: Another attempt by the Bushistas to keep us on a permanent war footing and economy. The War Profiteers no doubt will love this and may have even written it. (I expect Congress to kiss the Preznut's ass again on this) Corporate war crimes are the norm.

Clip Source: www.democracynow.org

The New York Times is reporting President Bush is seeking Congress to explicitly acknowledge that the nation remains engaged in an armed conflict with al-Qaeda, the Taliban and associated organizations. The measure carries significant legal and public policy implications for Bush, and potentially his successor. It would allow them to claim the approval of Congress to use the tools of war, including detention, interrogation and surveillance, against the enemy. Some lawmakers are concerned that the administration’s effort to declare anew a war footing is an eleventh-hour maneuver to reestablish its broad interpretation of the president’s wartime powers, even in the face of challenges from the Supreme Court and Congress. It is uncertain whether Congress will take the administration up on its request.

No one in "murrika mourns for the "Collaterals"

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 05:40:28 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: In the spirit of Dr. King, I too have a dream. I have a vision of a Truth Commission in the United States that will create a process of accountability for the war crimes and human rights violations committed by the Bush administration during these past eight years. I see a campaign that will enable our citizens to eventually cast a vote for the principles of the Hague and Geneva Conventions that protect the rights of prisoners of war and of civilian populations. I see a growing movement of citizens empowered to bring Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and others into a process of justice for their commissioning of illegal wiretapping, torturing prisoners, and killing innocent civilians.

Clip Source: www.commondreams.org

During this season of electoral politics in the United States, I find it very challenging to keep a focus on the critical task of healing the wounds of our nation. Barack Obama is certainly one of the best orators I've heard in a long time. For me, he is the hands down choice for president over McCain . However, amidst the fanfare and celebration of the Democratic Convention, my heart was deeply troubled and my soul was crying out on behalf of the civilian casualties of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. These innocent victims are deemed to be 'collateral damage.' Last week, newscasts reported that ninety civilians died in Afghanistan due to American bombings--sixty of them were children. We heard this information sandwiched in between the roar and celebration of the Convention without a moment to pause in mourning.

there was not one word by him that might have indicated the need of our nation to repent for the killing of hundred of thousands of innocent civilians

torching of georgia

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 12:37:22 GMT

clipped by: silvanaraihane

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Pictures 'show Georgia torching'

Satellite images have confirmed that ethnic Georgian villages inside South Ossetia have been deliberately burned, US-based Human Rights Watch says.

It said analysis by UN experts showed the damage "was caused by intentional burning and not armed combat".

The group said this was evidence of war crimes and urged Russia to prosecute those responsible.

The satellite images show active fires in five ethnic Georgian villages around the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, on on 10, 12, 13, 17, 19 and 22 August - well after active hostilities ended in the area on 10 August, Human Rights Watch said.

"The images strongly indicate that the majority of the destruction in five of the villages - Tamarasheni, Kekhvi, Kvemo Achabeti, Zemo Achabeti, and Kurta - was caused by intentional burning.

Russian prosecutors have announced they are opening criminal cases into the deaths of 133 civilians who they say were killed by Georgian forces.

Waterboarding Is Here To Stay

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 03:28:43 GMT

clipped by: klippety
clipper's remarks: Mukasey sounds just like Alberto Gonzo. Wishy washy....

Clip Source: thinkprogress.org

Graham ‘Heartened’ By Mukasey’s Waterboarding Dodge: ‘He Did Himself Some Good’»

On CBS’ Face The Nation this past Sunday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) commented on Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey’s refusal to classify waterboarding as torture, saying that he is “convinced” the technique “is clearly illegal under domestic and international law.”

“I hope he will give a direct answer to that question” and “embrace” the view that it is torture, said Graham:

I am urging him that he needs to come forward. … I don’t think you have to have a lot of knowledge about the law to understand this technique violates Geneva Convention common article three, the War Crimes statutes, and many other statutes that are in place. So I do hope that he will embrace that.

Karadzic brings Humor in The Court

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 00:34:57 GMT

clipped by: Imnclady
clipper's remarks: Twelve and a half years ago, when the corpses in these mass graves were still fresh, the arrest of Radovan Karadzic might have made a difference. True, the world knew even then that the so-called president of the breakaway Serb region of Bosnia and Herzegovina was more the foreman than the architect of the worst massacres in Europe since World War II: the siege of Sarajevo, which killed at least 10,000 people, and the slaughter at Srebrenica, which killed more than 7,000 men, some of whose bodies had filled the site at Glogova. It was former Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic, who died in jail in 2006, who had hatched and orchestrated the overall plan for the ethnic cleansing and violent division of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Clip Source: www.time.com

"Not Guilty" Plea Entered for Karadzic

Radovan Karadzic at The Hague.

VALERIE KUYPERS / EPA

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic appeared before judges at the Yugoslav war crimes Tribunal and refused to plead to the 11 charges against him, just as he had four weeks ago in his first appearance at the Hague court.

"I'm deeply convinced this court is representing itself falsely as a court of the international community, when it is in fact a court of NATO whose aim is to liquidate me,"

Karadzic, who is representing himself,

When Karadzic refused to enter them, Judge Bonomy — bound by the rules of the court — did it for him: not guilty on all 11 counts. "In other words," clarified Judge Bonomy, "your plea is one of not guilty to the indictment as a whole

"May I hold you to your word?" asked Karadzic.

"Which word?" replied the judge.

"That I'm not guilty."

"We shall see in due course," said Bonomy.

charges against him

genocide

1995 Srebrenica massacre

setting up notoriously brutal detention camps

Tags: genocide, court, crime, leadership, nato

OSCE find Georgia at fault

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 14:48:34 GMT

clipped by: carlhayman

Clip Source: www.monstersandcritics.com

Spiegel: OSCE observers fault Georgians in conflict

Hamburg - European observers have faulted Georgia in this month's Caucasus conflict, saying it made elaborate plans to seize South Ossetia, according to the German news magazine Der Spiegel on Saturday.

In a report to appear in its Monday edition, it said officials of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) had said acts by the Georgian government had contributed to the outbreak of the crisis with Russia.

Spiegel said OSCE military observers in the Caucasus had described preparations by Georgia to move into South Ossetia.

The onslaught had begun before Russian armoured vehicles entered a southbound tunnel under the Caucasus Mountains to South Ossetia.

It said the OSCE report also described suspected war crimes by the Georgians, including the Georgians ordering attacks on sleeping South Ossetian civilians.

Georgia breaks ties with Russia

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:01:52 GMT

clipped by: tommy2balmy
clipper's remarks: Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said Moscow regretted Tbilisi's decision.

"The possible end of diplomatic relations with Georgia is not the choice of Moscow, and Tbilisi will have to bear the entire responsibility," the state-controlled Tass news agency reported him as saying.

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Georgia has decided to cut diplomatic ties with Russia, days after Moscow recognised the independence of Georgia's two breakaway regions.

Moscow said the decision "will not help bilateral relations" between the two nations - who had a brief war this month over South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Reports claim Russia intends to deepen its involvement with the two regions.

Meanwhile, a rights group has said UN satellite images prove ethnic Georgian villages in South Ossetia were torched.

Human Rights Watch says the pictures of five villages near the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, are "compelling evidence of war crimes and grave human rights abuses".

The organisation called on the Russian government to prosecute those responsible.

Georgia had already announced that it would scale back staffing at its Moscow embassy, and that its ambassador - who was withdrawn last month - would not be returning.

But the foreign ministry now says all of its diplomats will return from the Moscow embassy by Saturday.

Tags: russian-georgian war, russia, georgia

Murder's You Can Feel Sorry For

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 04:48:43 GMT

clipped by: Imnclady
clipper's remarks: The experience turned the young Americans not only into professional documentary makers but gave direction to their lives. Their direction is to bring attention to this human disaster, hoping that the attention will force governments to apply pressure to resolve the conflict and free the children.

You can also make a difference in the lives of these children.

But you are going to have to watch the film first.

Clip Source: www.freedocumentaries.org

INVISIBLE CHILDREN

Discover a war which few have heard of; a war in which the rebels are ruthless murderers of civilians yet are hard to hate. This is because they are only children.

In the spring of 2003, three young Americans traveled to Africa in search of such as story. What they found was a tragedy that disgusted and inspired them. A story where children are weapons and children are the victims. The "Invisible Children: Rough Cut" film exposes the effects of a 20 year-long war on the children of Northern Uganda. These children live in fear of abduction by rebel soldiers, and are being forced to fight as a part of violent army.

"Invisible Children: Rough Cut" film exposes

innocent children enslaved and turned into ruthless murderers only to escape as paranoid refugees.

Tags: children, american, african, murder, crimes

The Massacre that Haunts the Pentagon

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 04:29:34 GMT

clipped by: Imnclady
clipper's remarks: given the Taliban's horrific record, the prisoners had it coming.

Newsweek concluded that there was enough evidence to justify a "fully-fledged criminal investigation".

"Politics is the art of the possible,"

The Pentagon has so far declined to answer several tricky questions, among them, were US soldiers present when the containers were first opened at Shiberghan prison?

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Afghan massacre haunts Pentagon

Luke Harding in Dasht-i-Leili
The Guardian,
Saturday September 14 2002

The dead are not hard to find. Turn left into the desert after the town of Shiberghan and they lie all around - some in shallow graves, others protruding from the sand.

The clothes they wore are still there: decaying black turbans, charred shoes, a prayer cap, even a set of rusted car keys. In the nine months since they were buried the sun has bleached their bones white. But the jaws, femurs and ribs scattered across the desert are unmistakably human. We found teeth, thick black human hair and bits of skull.

an operation masterminded by US special forces.

"It was awful. They crammed us into sealed shipping containers," a 24-year-old survivor, Irfan Azgar Ali, told the Guardian.

"We had no water for 20 hours. We banged on the side of the container. There was no air and it was very hot.

By the time we arrived in Shiberghan, only 10 of us were still alive."

2,000-3,000 of the 8,000 prisoners

Tags: murder, pentagon, congress, politics, war, crimes, military, usa

US Media Hiding Film from Americans

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 03:24:33 GMT

clipped by: Imnclady
clipper's remarks: This film is very controversial as it alleges American war crimes in Afghanistan. The producer in an interview claims that the Pentagon, State Department and US media have done their best to keep this film from Americans. Two of the Afghan witnesses interviewed in this film have since been murdered.

I'm going to watch some of this...just wanted to hurry up and clip to post for everyone.

Clip Source: www.freedocumentaries.org

"Afghan Massacre" has outraged human rights groups and international human rights lawyers. They are calling for investigation into whether U.S. Special Forces are guilty of war crimes.

The film tells the story of thousands of prisoners who surrendered to the U.S. military's Afghan allies after the siege of Kunduz. According to eyewitnesses, some three thousand of the prisoners were forced into sealed containers and loaded onto trucks for transport to Sheberghan prison. Eyewitnesses say when the prisoners began shouting for air, U.S.-allied Afghan soldiers fired directly into the truck, killing many of them.

These witnesses say US Special Forces re-directed the containers carrying the living and dead into the desert and stood by as survivors of the ordeal were shot and buried. Now, up to three thousand bodies lie buried in a mass grave.

footage of CIA officer Mike Spann interrogating American Taliban prisoner John Walker Lindh, just hours before Spann was killed

Tags: military, afghanistan, murder, movie, video, human rights.

Law and Order in the virtual universes

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:26:25 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: i think it is interesting the way a community is being built.

from the article: "In 2006, Linden Lab, the creator of Second Life, canceled Marc Bragg's account for violating the world's policies on real estate deals. Bragg sued Linden, saying he legally owned the content he created in Second Life, including land and businesses. The suit was eventually settled, and Bragg's avatar was restored.

Authorities also have intervened in crimes committed in online worlds. In the Netherlands, for example, a teenager was arrested for stealing more than $5,000 worth of virtual furniture in a world called Habbo.

"This is such a nascent area when it comes to the law," said Sean F. Kane, a partner in the law firm Drakeford & Kane. "If a certain world allows you to be a thief, is it a crime or just an aspect of the game? Should real-world law apply?"

there is much thinking to do, involved...

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Virtual Worlds Get Real About Punishment

In the online community Cellufun, troublemakers found guilty by other users get their virtual alter egos placed behind bars. (Cary Torkelson)

Virtual worlds have often been called the digital equivalent of the Wild West, where animated alter egos can live in a fantasy frontier. But in some of these universes, a sheriff has come to town.

Slipping a four-letter word into an instant message now could land a user in a virtual timeout. Repeated attempts to make friends with an uninterested character could result in a loss of blogging privileges. And if convicted of starting a "flame war," or an exchange of hostile messages, a user may endure the ultimate punishment -- permanent exile.

A virtual world for mobile devices, called Cellufun, has established a courthouse, where rule-breakers are indicted by their peers

Some worlds have devised their own versions of jail, where boredom is the punishment

VZones, created the Void

holding cell

Tags: virtual, social networking, laws

International Criminal Court and Russia

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 04:10:20 GMT

clipped by: bmeuppls
clipper's remarks: No teeth... like everything else the UN sponsors.

Cont...

(Russia apparently will help ethnic Russian citizens of Georgia file claims with the ICC. Russia itself has no power to ask the ICC to act, but Georgians do. Sneaky!)

Meanwhile, here’s a question for the weekend. Suppose Georgia had been a member of NATO when Russia invaded its territory earlier this month. Would NATO military forces have honored the treaty obligation and launched a military response even though no one in the west thinks that Georgia is worth World War III? If not, would NATO have been revealed as a meaningless institution? Or should we assume that Russia would not have attacked Georgia in the first place for fear of provoking a military response from NATO?

Clip Source: volokh.com

Now although Russia is not a member of the ICC, in theory the ICC has jurisdiction over Russia, to the extent that it committed international crimes on the territory of a member – namely, Georgia. Suppose then that credible evidence shows that Russians committed atrocities, maybe on the orders of generals or, who knows, Vladimir Putin himself. Then it is the duty of other ICC members – Italy, say – to arrest Vladimir Putin while he’s sunning himself on vacation in Capri and hand him over to the Hague. Good luck, one can only say – and take a Geiger counter along next time you go out for tea! Maybe the prosecutor will rediscover the merits of political sensitivity.

Was McCain Actually Tortured?

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 09:04:33 GMT

clipped by: dulios

Clip Source: andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com

Does Bush Believe McCain Was Tortured?

The torture that was deployed against McCain emerges in all the various accounts. It involved sleep deprivation, the withholding of medical treatment, stress positions, long-time standing, and beating. Sound familiar?

According to the Bush administration's definition of torture, McCain was therefore not tortured.

Cheney denies that McCain was tortured; as does Bush. So do John Yoo and David Addington and George Tenet.

No war crimes were committed against McCain. And the techniques used are, according to the president, tools to extract accurate information. And so the false confessions that McCain was forced to make were, according to the logic of the Bush administration, as accurate as the "intelligence" we have procured from "interrogating" terror suspects. Feel safer?

Now the kicker: in the Military Commissions Act, McCain acquiesced to the use of these techniques against terror suspects by the CIA. And so the tortured became the enabler of torture.

Tags: torture, war crimes