`Defence lawyers for Saddam Hussein Wednesday distributed copies of a lawsuit against President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair for destroying Iraq.
The suit accuses Bush and Blair of committing war crimes by using weapons of mass destruction and internationally-banned weapons including enriched uranium and phosphoric and cluster bombs against unarmed Iraqi civilians, notably in Baghdad, Fallujah, Ramadi, al-Kaem and Anbar. [..]
The suit also accuses the U.S. president and British prime minister of torturing Iraqi prisoners, destroying Iraq’s cultural heritage with the aim of eliminating an ancient civilization, and inciting internal strife.
Bush and Blair were also accused of polluting Iraq’s air, waters and environment.’
`Former ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray has harnessed the Internet in his long-running feud with the UK Government. A forthcoming book covering his time as ambassador is currently being blocked by the Foreign Office, which has demanded he remove references to two documents from the book and his web site. Murray has responded by publishing the documents in full there, and by encouraging bloggers to disseminate the documents as widely as possible.
The documents consist of a Foreign & Commonwealth Office legal opinion concerning evidence that may have been obtained by torture, and several letters sent by Murray to the FCO during his time as ambassador. These letters state that the use of torture is routine in Uzbekistan, that US policy there (which the UK supports) is focussed on oil, gas and hegemony rather than democracy or freedom, and that by knowingly receiving evidence obtained through torture the UK is in breach of the UN Convention on Torture. “With Tony Blair and Jack Straw cornered on extraordinary rendition,” says Murray, “the UK Government is particularly anxious to suppress all evidence of our complicity in obtaining intelligence extracted by foreign torturers.”‘
Or you can read the actual confidential letters from Uzbekistan themselves.
`This series provides the facts and law to illuminate and add depth to the torture debate—not to persuade you to support or oppose it, but to help you formulate your own views on where the acceptable boundaries may lie. We’ve tried to separate facts from analysis, using principally the primary documents made available through government reports, leaks, or Freedom of Information Act requests. The aim is to inform the national conversation about the way America acts in the war against terror.’
Some of the legal memos are scary:
- `The president has the authority to decide that Geneva does not apply.’
- `The war on terror is a “new kind of war” … “in my judgment this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions requiring that captured enemy be afforded such things as commissary privileges, scrip (i.e., advances of monthly pay) athletic uniforms and scientific instruments.”‘
‘For the first time, American soldiers who personally tortured Iraqi prisoners have come forward to give testimony to human rights organisations about crimes they committed.
Three soldiers — a captain and two sergeants — from the 82nd Airborne Division stationed at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Mercury near Fallujah in Iraq have told Human Rights Watch how prisoners were tortured both as a form of stress relief and as a way of breaking them for interrogation sessions. [..]
The 82nd Airborne soldiers at FOB Mercury earned the nickname “The Murderous Maniacs” from local Iraqis and took the moniker as a badge of honour.
The soldiers referred to their Iraqi captives as PUCs — persons under control — and used the expressions “fucking a PUC” and “smoking a PUC” to refer respectively to torture and forced physical exertion.’
‘Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Thursday he has not decided whether to attend an international security conference next week in Germany, where he might be subject to arrest on a war-crimes complaint. [..]
He conceded in response to questions at a press conference that one problem was the jurisdiction of a German court over a 160-page criminal complaint filed Nov. 30 with the federal prosecutor’s office in Germany accusing him of war crimes in connection with detainee abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.’
I hope he goes, and I hope the Germans put him in jail and get prostitutes to menstruate on him. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, afterall.
‘Australian Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib was tied to the ground while a prostitute menstruated on him after he failed to co-operate with interrogators, his lawyer said yesterday.
Interrogators also told the Sydney man they had killed his family and superimposed animals’ heads on photos of his wife and children, Mr Habib’s lawyer Steven Hopper said yesterday.’
I wonder how many menstrating prostitutes the US Government keeps on its payroll. Because you never know when you’ll need one.
[shrug] Cunts.
`An executive jet is being used by the American intelligence agencies to fly terrorist suspects to countries that routinely use torture in their prisons. [..]
Countries with poor human rights records to which the Americans have delivered prisoners include Egypt, Syria and Uzbekistan, according to the files. The logs have prompted allegations from critics that the agency is using such regimes to carry out “torture by proxy” — a charge denied by the American government. [..]
Witnesses described seeing the prisoners handed to US agents whose faces were masked by hoods. The clothes of the handcuffed prisoners were cut off and they were dressed in nappies covered by orange overalls before being forcibly given sedatives by suppository.’
‘His medical records pointed out that he arrived at the clinic in a hysterical situation, due to the cruelty of the torture he went through. “I remember that at a time while I was being forced to drink the urine, I told the soldier to shoot me because I didn’t care anymore.”‘
