War Criminals Watch's blog

By Tom Turnipseed

From CommonDreams.org | Original Article

Successful professionals enjoy their work. The Obama administration has picked a successful and happy warrior in Marine Corps Gen. James N. Mattis to head the US Central Command. The command includes all US forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, the entire Middle East and Central Asia. Mattis has gloated that it is "fun to shoot some people" and "have a plan to kill everybody you meet".

Killing is the key to success in military actions. Killing enough insurgents by invading and occupying US forces enables the winners to subdue and subjugate the survivors. The real winners in the Middle East are the US based corporations who seek to exploit the resources of energy and mineral rich countries like Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran.....

Read more at:
http://warcriminalswatch.org/index.php/news/40-recent-news/584-7-13-10-k...

Join weekly protests against the militarization of youth. Every Wednesday: 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm Protest & Flyering outside Army Recruiters 143 Chambers Street @ West Broadway Bring your own sign, or use those provided. 866-973-4463 for more information.
Check out the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miUfJ87sulg

Go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TsbQxdCDBQ
to see a demonstration of the Waterboarding Torture tactic used by the United States Government. For more
information goto www.worldcantwait.org and www.warcriminalswatch.org

Watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG-QI9FsuS0 to hear Hester Einsentein discuss why she has signed the "Crimes Are Crimes No Matter Who Commits Them" statement put out buy World Can't Wait. For more information go to www.worldcantwait.org and warcriminalswatch.org

HEY ACTIVIST VIDEOGRAPHERS - SEND US YOUR VIDEOS

War Criminals Watch is having an exciting contest – we’ll post all appropriate videos on WarCriminalsWatch.org in September with the top four and winner specially highlighted.

And, if cartoons or comic strips are your thing, we are accepting that genre of entry as well!

We are in the midst of an absolutely horrendous oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. At the same time, our major concern has been war criminals – who also happen to have a tremendous interest in oil. Well, well, what do you know?

You can find some facts we have collected about a few of these culprits at www.warcriminalswatch.org. Use your creativity and produce a five-minute or shorter video on one or more of these planetary criminals.

* George W. Bush
* Richard Cheney
* Robert Gates
* William J. Haynes
* Condoleeza Rice
* And more

Posters of some of the above are also available.

By Glenn Greenwald

From Salon.com | Original Article

On June 6, Kevin Poulsen and Kim Zetter of Wired reported that a 22-year-old U.S. Army Private in Iraq, Bradley Manning, had been detained after he "boasted" in an Internet chat -- with convicted computer hacker Adrian Lamo -- of leaking to WikiLeaks the now famous Apache Helicopter attack video, a yet-to-be-published video of a civilian-killing air attack in Afghanistan, and "hundreds of thousands of classified State Department records." Lamo, who holds himself out as a "journalist" and told Manning he was one, acted instead as government informant, notifying federal authorities of what Manning allegedly told him, and then proceeded to question Manning for days as he met with federal agents, leading to Manning's detention.

he US Army has Bradley Manning in custody, in a prison in Kuwait, reportedly without access to legal counsel. The Army says he's responsible for leaking the video footage which was named "Collateral Murder" and sent around the world by wikileaks.org. They will likely court martial him.

Needless to say, the soldiers in the video -- not to mention the commanders who trained the troops for and ordered the massacre -- are under no arrest, no scrutiny, not even investigation?

World Can't Wait has projected "Collateral Murder" onto buildings and before large groups of people and high school classrooms. Every instance, even among those who "know" how bad the US occupation is, brought renewed outrage and dedication to end the wars. It's impossible to overestimate the role of courageous people in the military who blow the whistle, and of principled media like wikileaks.org that get the truth out to the public.

What is Obama Doing at Bagram? (Part 1) Torture and the "Black Prison

By Andy Worthington

For eight and a half years, the US prison at Bagram airbase has been the site of a disturbing number of experiments in detention and interrogation, where murders have taken place, the Geneva Conventions have been shredded and the encroachment of the US courts — unlike at Guantánamo — has been thoroughly resisted.

In the last few months, there have been a few improvements — hearings, releases, even the promise of imminent trials — but behind this veneer of respectability, the US government’s unilateral reworking of the Geneva Conventions continues unabated, and evidence has recently surfaced of a secret prison within Bagram, where a torture program that could have been lifted straight from the Bush administration’s rule book is still underway.

What is Obama Doing at Bagram (Part 2).

By Andy Worthington

by Kenneth J. Theisen

On June 7th Amnestey International (AI) released a report and of a U.S.-manufactured cruise missile that carried cluster munitions.

The remnants of the cruise missile pictured in the AI report are what was on the ground after a savage December 17, 2009 strike on an alleged ‘terrorist” training camp in Yemen. The attack killed 55 people, including 14 women and 21 children.

For more on this story go to:

http://warcriminalswatch.org/index.php/news/40-recent-news/543-6-9-10-mu...

Yoo and Card will be appearing in a Panel Discussion at 5pm, June 15 about Shakespeaer's Henry V in a free event at Boston's Cutler Majestic Theater.The panel will be preceded by a reading of excerpts from Henry V by numerous Republican figures.

For more information go to:

http://warcriminalswatch.org/index.php/wcw-events/details/377-yoo-in-bos...

Download your posters at:

http://warcriminalswatch.org/index.php/downloadable-materials/173-poster...

Post you reports, photos,and videos on war criminals watch Facebook page.

Bring your Friends,Banners and Signs to these War Criminals' Appearances. Send your photos and commentaries to our email address so we may publish them.
warcriminalswatch@worldcantwait.com

Karl Rove additional major speaking appearances in June. On the 17th in Chicago and on the 24th he'll be at a resort in Cabazon CA.

Andrew Card will be honored by Common Cause on June 12th in Boston.

John Yoo and Andrew Card will be part of a Federalist Shakespearean Spectacle in Boston on June 15th.

George W. Bush will be hitting the speaking circuit as well. On June 2nd he'll be in Grand Rapids MI, on the 7th in Houston TX and on the 24th in New Orleans.

Condoleeza Rice will be presenting at a conference in DC on the 7th and 8th, in Anaheim CA on the 24th and keynoting at a conference in New Orleans remembering Hurricane Katrina from 6/28-7-6.

Army Leak Suspect Is Turned In, by Ex-Hacker

By Elisabeth Bumiller

From The New York Times

WASHINGTON — It was only last month that a 22-year-old Army intelligence analyst in Iraq, Specialist Bradley Manning, reached out to a former computer hacker who apparently seemed like a kindred soul.

In a single intense week in late May, Specialist Manning and the former hacker, Adrian Lamo, traded instant messages about what Mr. Lamo described as Specialist Manning’s personal troubles with the military.

But over the course of those exchanges, Mr. Lamo said in a telephone interview on Monday, Specialist Manning also took credit for leaking a classified, explosive video of an American helicopter attack in Baghdad that left 12 people dead, including two employees of the Reuters news agency, which the Web site Wikileaks.org posted in April.

6-7-10 NYT Editorial: Doctors Who Aid Torture

From The New York Times

Disturbing new questions have been raised about the role of doctors and other medical professionals in helping the Central Intelligence Agency subject terrorism suspects to harsh treatment, abuse and torture.

The Red Cross previously documented, from interviews with “high-value” prisoners, that medical personnel helped facilitate abuses in the C.I.A.’s “enhanced interrogation program” during the Bush administration. Now Physicians for Human Rights has suggested that the medical professionals may also have violated national and international laws setting limits on what research can be performed on humans.

To read the full report, Evidence of Human Subject Research & Evaluation in the "Enhanced" Interrogation Program - A White Paper by Physicians for Human Rights, go to:
http://phtorturepapers.org/panel-1

Follow directions to download a PDF version of the report

Physicians for Human Rights Issued the Press Release Denouncing the Horrendous Breach of Ethics and Morality.

A broad coalition of human rights, health, and religious groups filed a formal complaint today with the US Department of Health and Human Services Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) against the Central Intelligence Agency. This action is in response to new revelations by Physicians for Human Rights that the CIA allegedly engaged in illegal human subject research and experimentation on detainees as part of Bush-era interrogation practices. The CIA has denied the allegations and has refused to investigate evidence of experimentation presented by Physicians for Human Rights in a report entitled Experiments in Torture: Evidence of Human Subject Research and Experimentation in the “Enhanced” Interrogation Program. The report is available at http://phrtorturepapers.org/?p=430

The following groups have joined the OHRP complaint so far:

Flotilla Passengers Huwaida Arraf of Free Gaza Movement and Retired Army Col. Ann Wright Respond to Israeli Claims on Deadly Assault

From Democracy Now.

Interview with Ann Wright at website below, starts at 34:05 marker on the video

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/3/huwaida

By Ray McGovern

From World Can't Wait

Casualty figures are still arriving in the wake of Israel’s Sunday night-Monday morning commando attack on an unarmed flotilla trying to bring relief supplies to the 1.5 million Palestinians crowded into Gaza.

Already, at least nine civilian passengers aboard the ships are reported killed, and dozens wounded.

Yet, seldom has an act of aggression been so well advertised in advance. Israel had made clear that it would use force to prevent the ships from reaching Gaza and heard no stern protest from President Obama, who apparently could not overcome his fear of Israel’s legendary political clout.

Earlier this year, Obama did criticize Israel’s continued settlement of Palestinian areas and Netanyahu’s resistance to hold meaningful peace talks, but the President has failed to back up his words with firm action or resolve.

By Robert Parry

From Consortiumnews.com | Original Article

Hawks in the United States and Israel appear set on “regime change” in Iran, pursuing a game plan similar to the run-up to war in Iraq, ratcheting up tensions while frustrating opportunities for a peaceful settlement.

In the latest example, the New York Times on Tuesday published a leaked account of an order signed by U.S. Central Command chief, Gen. David Petraeus, expanding “clandestine military activity in an effort to disrupt militant groups to counter threats in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and other countries in the region.”

In most of those countries, the secret U.S. military operations would be intended to help U.S. allies combat anti-government militants. However, in Iran, the goal would be to make contact with opposition forces, according to the Times article by Mark Mazzetti.

By Andy Worthington
From Andy Worthington

On Friday, the Court of Appeals in Washington D.C. delivered a genuinely disturbing ruling regarding prisoners in the US prison at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan.

This ruling has turned the clock back to the darkest days of the Bush administration, before prisoners seized in the “War on Terror” had any recourse to justice if they claimed they had been seized by mistake.

Ruling in the case of three foreign prisoners — Redha al-Najar, a Tunisian seized in Karachi, Pakistan in 2002, Amin al-Bakri, a Yemeni gemstone dealer seized in Bangkok, Thailand in 2003, and Fadi al-Maqaleh, a Yemeni seized in 2004 — who were seized outside Afghanistan and transferred to Bagram via a number of secret CIA prisons, the Court of Appeals reversed a ruling last March by District Judge John D. Bates, granting the men the right to ask a US court why they were being held.

By Stephen Soldz

From Counterpunch | Original Article

A recent pair of articles by Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic has shed new light upon activities in the secret so-called “black jail” on the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Among other aspects, these new revelations suggest that psychologists may be playing a major role inside the facility, raising questions about the reasons for American Psychological Association (APA) lobbying activities in support of the agency that Ambinder reports is running the detention center.

In recent months the Washington Post, New York Times, and BBC reported on a secret prison on fringes of the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Referred to by former prisoners as the “black jail,” this institution is reportedly a site where prisoner abuse is regular and systematic. The BBC reported that all nine former prisoners they interviewed:

told consistent stories of being held in isolation in cold cells where a light is on all day and night.

By Orpheus Reed and Larry Everest

From World Can't Wait

When you stick your finger into one of the orange-brown or black, asphalt-smelling globs of oil now washing into the wetlands where the Mississippi Delta meets the Gulf of Mexico, it just gloms on and sticks. It's hard to get off. You see it stuck to the stalks of the roso-cane reeds, which hold the wetlands in place.

Then you start thinking about what happens when a fish, a bird, or some other creature gets caught in this toxic stew. And you think about how these pools are only the first, small waves of oil from the exploded wellhead of British Petroleum's "Deepwater Horizon." And you just can't take it.

By Kevin Gosztola

From Gosztola Blog
The New York Times' Mark Mazzetti reports Gen. David H. Petraeus has signed a "secret directive" that orders a "broad expansion of clandestine military activity in an effort to disrupt militant groups or counter threats in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and other countries in the region."

According to Mazzetti, the directive was signed in September and would send "small teams of American troops" to "both friendly and hostile nations in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa to gather intelligence and build ties with local forces." More importantly, "the order also permits reconnaissance that could pave the way for possible military strikes in Iran if tensions over its nuclear ambitions escalate."

By Andy Worthington

President Obama’s hopes of closing Guantánamo, which were already gravely wounded by his inability to meet his self-imposed deadline of a year for the prison’s closure, now appear to have been killed off by lawmakers in Congress.

Although the House Armed Services Committee was happy to authorize, by 59 votes to 0, a budget of over $700 billion for war ($567 billion for “defense spending” and $159 billion for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq) for the fiscal year beginning in October, lawmakers unanimously saw through — and turned down — a fraction of this budget for what the administration had labeled a “transfer fund” — money intended to close Guantánamo and buy a new prison in Illinois for prisoners designated for trials or for indefinite detention without charge or trial.

By Nikolas Kozloff

From Buzzflash

Judging from the oily history of the last ten years, reining in BP could prove politically daunting. A company with incredible economic might, BP has enjoyed privileged access to the inner rungs of Washington power. Only by ridding the political system of insider money can we hope to avert future oil disasters like the devastating spill which hit the Gulf of Mexico last week.

The perversion of U.S. democracy to serve oil interests like BP went into high gear under former Vice President Dick Cheney. Dallas-based Halliburton, where Cheney worked prior to the 2000 election, made equipment and chemicals used in oil drilling, and sold to producers including BP.

Criminals Karl Rove, Andrew Card, John Yoo, George W. Bush, Condoleeza Rice and Dick Cheney may be in appearing in your city soon. Check out their schedule, bring your banners and signs. Send us your commentaries, photos and videos and we will post it on our Facebook

Check out the dates, times, and cities at: http://warcriminalswatch.org/index.php/take-action/95-war-criminal-appea...

No habeas rights at the U.S. military prison at Bagram airbase outside of Kabul, Afghanistan. This is reported as a major victory for the Obama Adminstration.
http://warcriminalswatch.org/index.php/news/40-recent-news/521-5-21-10-n...

War Criminals Watch Recommended reading online: "The People v. Bush" by Charlotte Dennett - one lawyer's campaign to bring Bush to justice and the national grassroots movements she encounters along the way.

http://books.google.com/books?id=S1jUt_7vQIoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=cha...

Kandahar Death Squads. May 2010 In a bold new offensive, US and NATO forces are turning to Afghan militias for help. More feared than the Taliban, and wearing the weapons and impunity of the US army - have they created a monster? Check it out at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UL5OrU-G5sY