Posted on 01/26/2009 10:44:37 PM PST by neverhome
In a recent article posted at truthout.org, Phillip Butler makes a case for the arrest of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld for crimes against the U.S. Constitution. Butler is a veteran military pilot and was a POW in Vietnam for 2,855 days. Since his repatriation in 1973, he has earned a PhD in Sociology and according to his author bio, "he mentors business and organization leaders and is a community activist."
His article is well-written and thorough, using the Third Geneva Convention and its rules regarding the interrogation of POWs as the basis for his assertions. In the article, Butler accuses the Bush Administration of "gross attempts to institutionalize torture." In addition to being well-written, the article is also gravely out of step with the times.
(Excerpt) Read more at alanburkhart.blogspot.com ...
Excellent pic! I could use a good flame thrower - lots of kudzu behind the house.
This guy that writes that Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld should be tried is a kook!
* Marc Ash : truthout’s original Executive Director
SEPTEMBER 10, 2001 Monday : (ONE DAY BEFOR 9/11 ATTACKS, TRUTHOUT.COM DOMAIN IS REGISTERED)
I don’t think of him as a kook. He seems sincere enough and he’s an intelligent man. But badly misguided. And, prosecuting Bush would add fuel to the Muslim fire. They’d be emboldened to do more. In fact, I wish I’d thought of that fact when I was writing the thing. I might sneak it in tomorrow. Too tired tonight.
I wish GWB had thought before trying to pussyfoot around.
Interesting how it was registered just before 9/11...
...And was run by managing editor W R Pitt, a coauthor of the zany former UNSCOM Iraqi WMD inspector Scott Ritter, the guy who saw a children's prison in Iraq but didn't want it to make news because the discovery would give the regime change folks more ammo. That would be bad for the people who were overly fond of the oil for food program.
Then, if not POWs, they are treated as civilians, under the Fourth Convention. Before punishment, they have the right to "a regularly constituted court."
Commentary to the Fourth Geneva Convention:
"[e]very person in enemy hands must have some status under international law: he is either a prisoner of war and, as such, covered by the Third Convention, a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention, or again, a member of the medical personnel of the armed forces who is covered by the First Convention. There is no intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can be outside the law. We feel that this is a satisfactory solution – not only satisfying to the mind, but also, and above all, satisfactory from the humanitarian point of view." --Commentary: IV Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War
This group is an affiliate of the Institute for Global Communications (IGC), which is in turn a project of the Tides Center [see Tereeza Heinz Kerry].
Veterans for Peace is associated with John Kerry, who as we know was in bed with the North Vietnamese.
Its president is a coordinator for VVAW, the group with which Kerry was once associated.
Veterans for Peace has links to the regime Fidel Castro, and some of its members visit Cuba regularly.
Veterans for Peace works with a "charity" called "LifeUSA," formerly IRA-USA, also Life for Relief and Development, an Iraqi charity based in Detroit, or more specifically, Southfield, MI. Life is a group to which al-Hanooti belongs; he's also pres of a group called FAAIR, which is thought to funnel money to Hamas. LifeUSA was formed to oppose sanctions on Iraq; its offices were raided in Iraq for helping the insurgency against US troops.
Hanooti was also involved in a Washington DC "Muslim Day on the Hill" event with the Education for Peace in Iraq Center [EPIC is the group before which spoke Joe Wilson, former tea-swilling yellowcake uranium inquiring Ambassador involved in the Niger flap ; he's the hubby of the CIA's infamous Valerie Plame.] Also attending the event and speaking were Sami al Arian [see Palestinian Islamic Jihad} and Congressman Bonior.
Vets for Peace was involved in forming the groups "Bring Them Home Now" and "Military Families Speak Out"; the latter is affiliated with National Peace and Justice Center, and one of its founders was or is a bigwig with the AFL-CIO.
Veterans for Peace is also a United Nations NGO.
Veterans for Peace is also known for publishing an article by Bill Burkett [of CBS's Texas Air National Guard forgeries fame]- Burkett's article accused Bush of sending him to Panama as retaliation for refusal to alter Bush's records, an accusation he had to back down on because it was just stupid.
Veteans for Peace is working with the ACLU on the Gitmo issue.
DECEMBER 2002 : (M HANOOTI RECEIVES HIS PAYOFF FOR WORKING AS AN IRAQI AGENT— See BAGHDAD TRIO, OIL FOR FOOD SCANDAL / OIL VOUCHERS SCANDAL) Mr. Hanooti is suspected of having gone to work for the Iraqis in 1999 or 2000, specifically by publicizing efforts in the United States to lift international economic sanctions on Iraq. As part of that effort, the indictment said, he organized the October 2002 visit and accompanied the three lawmakers to Iraq.
In December 2002, the indictment said, the Iraqi government secretly arranged to allocate two million barrels of oil to Mr. Hanooti; he then turned over the rights to the oil to a company incorporated in Cyprus for an amount of money that was not identified in the court papers.-——— 38 posted on 03/27/2008 9:36:14 PM PDT by kcvl | To 1
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Al-Hanooti assigned his oil allocation to Laru Ltd., a company based in Cyprus, the indictment alleges. The indictment does not say what compensation he allegedly received, although it does detail tens of thousands of dollars in other payments Al-Hanooti allegedly received from the Iraqi government.-——37 posted on 03/27/2008 9:30:24 PM PDT by kcvl
*******
Muthanna Al-Hanooti is a Michigan charity worker charged with being an Iraqi spy and setting up a meeting for three United States lawmakers in Iraq at the request of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2002. Hanooti, while working for Life for Relief and Development, a charity providing humanitarian aid to Iraq’s, was said to have been paid for setting up the meeting for the lawmakers with two million barrels of oil.
Hanooti worked for Life for Relief from 1999-2006
The indictment against Muthanna Hanooti said Iraq’s foreign intelligence service funneled $34,000 through the Islamic charity Life for Relief and Development to pay delegation expenses.
34 posted on 03/27/2008 9:18:12 PM PDT by kcvl
"They’d be emboldened to do more."
I adopted that word and concept right after zeroselection (intentional typo), and history is proving it true.
From the office of the president elects' daily pressers to date .. it has boldly strutted on the world stage and just dared our enemies to do us harm.
Burkhart’s rebuttal to Butler was dead on.
I recently had a conversation with a young friend on the subject of Gitmo. She was happy that he was closing it down, and that we should never have used any kind of torture to obtain information. I gave her a lot of slack because she had just turned 23 and doesn’t yet have much experience in the Real World.
She mentioned the Geneva Convention. I explained Article 4. She told me that at least it would make us look better in the eyes of the world. I asked her how many countries in the world did not use torture far worse than water boarding. She thought about it a minute and agreed with me. When we discussed Obama’s $ 850 Billion “stimulus” package she now doesn’t think much of it either.
She may become a convert if we keep talking now and then.
Phillip Butler, just another brainwashed infiltrator. Poor guy.
The Geneva convention applies to UNIFORMED combatants. These civilian clad scum only have the same status as SPIES.
But, the premise is that we (western nations) must stop allowing ourselves to be hamstrung by rules that do not allow us to act with sufficient violence to turn the tide. To defeat Radical Islam, we must cast aside our notions of proper and humane conduct and become as violent as they are.
I do NOT suggest we intentionally harm the innocent, but we absolutely must treat *these* enemy combatants like the savages they are. This isn’t a war between the US and France, or Germany and Spain. It’s a war between the powers of good and evil, and “Good” is losing the fight.
We’re using 16-oz boxing gloves. They’re using brass knuckles. We can’t expect to win while we try to make nice with the enemy.
He is a left wing kook! Just like those kooks that think that we flew those Airplanes into the Towers on 9/11/2001!
I have an occasionally embarrassing liberal friend who’s a card-toting member of 911 Truth. Some of the stuff he comes up with sounds no better than the UFO abductees or the “I saw Elvis” crowd.
I don’t think Butler fits that mold. He seems a basically sensible guy. But he’s either following his own mistaken convictions or he’s been led astray by the Left.
Either way, his kind of rhetoric is damaging, and his way of thinking is part of why we’re now being subjected to the vagaries of a gov’t run by a pack of brainless liberals.
The inmates are running the asylum.
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