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Iraqi Genocide - From Paul Craig Roberts

American troops in Iraq have killed more civilians than insurgents. The U.S. has fallen for every bit of disinformation fed to it by al Qaeda personnel posing as "informants" and by Sunnis setting up Shi'ites and Shi'ites setting up Sunnis. As a result, American bombs and missiles have blown up weddings, funerals, kids playing soccer, and people shopping in bazaars and sleeping in their homes.

Not to be outdone, Bush's private Waffen SS known as Blackwater Security has taken to gunning Iraqi civilians down in the streets. How do Blackwater killers escape the "unlawful combatant" designation? One can only marvel at the insouciance of the U.S. Congress to the current Iraqi Genocide while condemning Turkey for one that happened 90 years ago. Every member of the Bush Regime is busily at work denouncing Iran for causing instability in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has invaded two countries, throwing them into total chaos, while beating the drums for war with Iran and conspiring with Israel to invade Lebanon and to attack Syria.


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Bush Will Be Impeached If He Attacks Iran - From Senator Joe Biden
11 dec  |  I don't think we went to war [in Iraq] because of oil, but the only thing I can fit together with Cheney and his gang is that they're smarter than they're acting. They went to war in the hope they would be able to do two things. One, have a government that sat on a whole bunch of oil that still exists in the world that would be indebted to us. Two, have permanent military bases in Iraq to dominate that part of the world to be able to control oil. Not to steal it for American oil companies, but to be able to control the pricing, control the access of it, a very Machiavellian view. There's nothing idealistic about Cheney.

I don't know what President Bush thinks, but I think he's bought hook, line and sinker the Cheney rationale that the only way for us to be able to be dominant in the 21st century is to use our overwhelming power in the face of the moral disapprobation of the rest of the world, threaten the rest of the world, and that's how we avoid war in the future...

[As for Iran] the president has no constitutional authority to take this nation to war against a country of 70 million people, unless we're attacked or unless there is proof that we are about to be attacked. And if he does, I would move to impeach him... I don't say it lightly. I say it because they should understand that what they were threatening, what they were saying... what we were about to do would be the most disastrous thing that could be done at this moment in our history. . . read more

The Hague Awaits - From 'The Alchemist'
4 oct  |  Yesterday, Australian Environment Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, warned that local councils could face huge liability costs if they did not identify threats to their communities of climate change. Such risks included negligence claims for breaching their duty of care. All well and good, but local councils are minor players in this catastrophe. It is Turnbull's boss, Prime Minister John Howard, who brushed aside the evidence of climate change for over a decade and so breached his duty of care for the nation. Reason enough to bring an action against Howard for negligence.

In the years to come, the PM's legal advisors will be working round the clock. It is now widely accepted that the invasion of Iraq was illegal and that over a million civilians have died. Even Foreign Minister Downer has admitted the country is a bloodbath (he helped turn on the tap). According to Oxfam, almost half of Iraq's population suffer from "absolute poverty". Four million citizens have been displaced. Child malnutrition rates have soared. As occupiers of Iraq, both Howard and Bush have breached their duty of care for its citizens. Could future prosecutions be on the cards? Both for environmental neglect and crimes against humanity. . . read more

John Howard and War Crimes - From Binoy Kampark
27 jun  |  The International Criminal Court, active since 2002, is getting busier, though much of its activity still remains buried in preparatory paperwork. It has begun fielding petitions on a growing list of war criminal suspects with some regularity. The first sign that more work would be coming its way came in March 2003 when the invasion of Iraq took place. The war crimes dossiers in the hands of activists and non-government groups began thickening...

The candidates as potential bench warmers for the Hague dock are of course, President George W. Bush, and ex-Prime Ministers Tony Blair (Britain) and John Howard (Australia), an Anglo-centric, some might even say Anglospheric cabal that is now receiving the attention of innovative jurists and enterprising activists.

The latest update in the prosecution machine lies in a brief compiled by activists based in Australia on the subject of charging John Howard with an assortment of crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC. This should not come as a surprise to Howard. As early as March 20, 2003, he was put on notice by 41 affiliates of the Victorian Peace Network, acting through the Australian firm Slater and Gordon, that government ministers would, in the event of an invasion of Iraq, be ‘investigated and, if appropriate, prosecuted for being complicit in excessive and unjustifiable loss of civilian lives and devastation of non-military infrastructure'. [More] . . read more

The pointless battle against binge drinking
5 may  |  By Stephen Myles

Since the days of Alexander the Great, binge drinking has been a very popular past time - leading to him apparently killing a friend and burning down Persepolis while drunk.

Those are some Great shoes to fill.

Yet, governments, schools and the media have repeatedly tried to teach us of binge drinking's dangers. 

Dartmouth University has taken the lead, instigating a new nationwide policy to curb heavy drinking by their students.

Pour me another glass.

Binge drinking is defined as "the consumption of five or more drinks in a row by men — or four or more drinks in a row by women — at least once in the previous 2 weeks. Heavy binge drinking includes three or more such episodes in 2 weeks."

Seems I don't know anyone who isn't a heavy binge drinker.

Do you think this definition should be changed or should we change people's attitudes? Or should you follow HPD's no fools guide to drinking a lot but not dying?  . . read more

Articles of Impeachment - From Dennis Kucinich
13 nov  |  In his conduct while Vice President of the United States, Richard B. Cheney, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office... and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of the U.S. Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests...

[Cheney has] purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States about an alleged relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda in order to justify the use of the U.S. Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests... [He] has openly threatened aggression against the Republic of Iran absent any real threat to the United States, and done so with the United States proven capability to carry out such threats, thus undermining the national security of the United States...

The Vice President's deception upon the citizens and Congress of the United States that enabled the failed U.S. invasion of Iraq forcibly altered the rules of diplomacy such that the Vice President's recent belligerent actions towards Iran are destabilizing and counterproductive to the national security of the U.S. In all of this, Vice President Cheney has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as Vice President, and subversive of constitutional government, to the prejudice of the cause of law and justice and the manifest injury of the people of the United States [and] by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office. . . read more

Resisting the Drums of War
8 sep  |  Examining how the Bush administration promoted the misguided war in Iraq by targeting five core concerns - vulnerability, injustice, distrust, superiority, and helplessness. The continuing occupation of Iraq - and an attack on Iran - will be sold in much the same way. . . read more
Bush Grants Himself Immunity to War Crimes
22 sep  |  The U.S. Congress has just passed a bill from President Bush redefining treatment of detainees. Buried insides the legislation is a provision that will pardon Bush and his entire administration from any possible war crimes they committed after September 11, 2001. . . read more
Could Bush Face Death Row? - From John F. Miglio
3 jun  |  Vincent Bugliosi, the L.A. district attorney who became famous for successfully trying Charles Manson for murder and subsequently writing the best-seller, Helter Skelter, has written an explosive new book that not only lights a fuse under our criminal justice system but challenges the next attorney general of the U.S. to blow the Bush administration to smithereens... Bugliosi - who has never been accused of mincing his words (or being an advocate for liberal causes) - makes a thorough and compelling case against Bush and his inner circle of advisors, who helped him sell the war in Iraq to the American public.

The major premise of Bugliosi's case against Bush is that the former Texas governor, who unapologetically executed more death row inmates than any other governor in the country (and joked about killing one of them), intentionally lied and deceived the American public while he was president about the reasons for going to war in Iraq, which has caused the deaths of over 4,000 U.S. service men and women and over a 100,000 Iraqis.

But how can Bush be prosecuted and convicted of murder if he personally did not kill anyone? Bugliosi asks, and then answers his own question: "...it is not necessary for a criminal defendant to have physically committed a murder to be guilty of it. For example, I convicted Charles Manson of the seven Tate-La Bianca murders even though he himself did not participate in any of the killings, nor was he present at the time."

Interesting comparison. Bush and Manson - two twisted sociopaths who revel in death and destruction. But Bugliosi goes further: "I was able to obtain this conviction because of the vicarious liability rule of conspiracy, which provides that each member of a conspiracy is criminally responsible for all crimes committed by his coconspirators... Necessarily, (Bush) conspired with certain members of his inner circle, co-conspirators like Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice." [More]

Related: Will John Howard be tried for war crimes? . . read more

The Rudd Delusion - From Antony Loewenstein
22 nov  |  The Federal election will be a contest between a social and economic conservative (John Howard) and a marginally less social and economic conservative (Kevin Rudd). Those so-called progressives, such as Robert Manne, hoping that a Rudd victory would usher in a period of more reflective foreign policy and the ability to say "no" to Washington, are kidding themselves... The Labor Party is not the utopia imagined by people like Manne, but rather a business that may tinker around the edges of domestic policy, but maintain an essentially U.S.-focused outlook. The key question facing a newly elected Rudd Government (or a re-elected Howard one) is a possible US or Israeli-led strike on Iran...

A Rudd Government would likely sanction a U.S.-led strike against Iran. Perhaps covertly, but Rudd has offered no assurances that he believes the Bush Administration should not be trusted over its Iran policy. Besides, arguing against the Iraq invasion is a luxury that Rudd would never indulge in power. Not unlike Howard and a host of past Labor Prime Ministers, Washington’s call is one that Australian leaders find impossible to resist...

A likely Rudd Government may be forced to make a decision on this matter within months of assuming office. Silence is not an option. If Rudd, like Howard, joins America in an unprovoked attack against a Middle Eastern nation, he will be as worthy of contempt as our current prime minister.  . . read more

Europe's Hypocrisy - From Brendan Cooney
30 jul  |  It seems strange for European leaders to be celebrating the capture of a war criminal, Radovan Karadzic, so soon after they were shaking hands with another, who so far has not had to go through the trouble of growing out his hair and selling new-age medicine. "This is a historic moment," German Chancellor Andrea Merkel said of the arrest of the Serbian, whose body count is thought to be upwards of 10,000. "The victims must know: massive human rights violations will not go unpunished."

Two weeks earlier she had "a very interesting exchange of view" with George Bush, whose body count is thought to be upwards of half a million and counting. There was no mention of reassurances for his victims. The Karadzic seizure "underscored Serbia's European calling," Merkel said, just a fortnight after she had a greater criminal by the right hand and let him get away.

But wait a minute, you say. Karadzic killed systematically. He targeted innocent people. He killed people because of their ethnicity. Shouldn't this be factored into our judgment of him? Maybe. Or maybe killing civilians is killing civilians. Maybe the fact that you don't do body counts, that you slaughtered so many people so indiscriminately that there is no way to precisely tabulate the number, should be weighed as well. Whether having people lined up before shooting them should carry a different moral valence from dropping bombs on them is a consideration that might be brought up at the International Criminal Court of the United Nations. [More] . . read more

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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY!
"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." -- Ronald Reagan (1986)