for War Crimes, An End to Bush-Era Politics
George W. Bush: 'I'm Done With Politics, GOP Fundraising And Appearing On TV'
Former President George W. Bush told C-Span this weekend that he has
no plans to play any role in politics in the coming years. The
refreshingly frank and candid interview drew a stark contrast from
other former presidents (cough..Clinton) who seemed eager to stay in
the public eye after serving two terms in office. "I don't want to go
out and campaign for candidates," adding "I don't want to be viewed as
a perpetual money-raiser."
Writing for the Daily News, Aliyah Shahid reports
The 64-year-old noted the irony that he was on television.
"In spite of the fact that I'm now on TV, I don't want to be on TV",
said Bush who has largely remained out of the public eye since his
presidency ended.
Bush released a memoir, "Decision Points," last November.
"I don't want to be on these talk shows, giving my opinion, second
guessing the current President. I think it's bad for the country,
frankly, to have a former president criticize his successor."
Bush's predecessor, Bill Clinton, has been an active campaigner and
fundraiser for the Democrats. Clinton has largely avoided direct
criticism of Bush.
In the mean time, the 43rd President would like to stay out of the limelight.
C Span Video and More:
An End to Bush-Era Politics
Published: January 31, 2011
Every White House since the days of President Jimmy Carter has had a
political affairs office to assess the effects of policy on voters and
make sure that presidents are aware of the nation's political
temperature. The office has grown in power alarmingly with each
presidency, but the most recent Bush administration became so consumed
with Republican politics that it crossed a legal red line, according
to a new federal investigative report.
The report, by the federal Office of Special Counsel, found that the
Bush White House routinely violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits
most federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity.
It depicts the Bush Office of Political Affairs, run by Karl Rove, as
virtually indistinguishable from the Republican Party. And it makes a
strong case that the office — shut down by the Obama administration
last week just before the report came out — can no longer co-exist
with the law.
Under Mr. Rove, scores of executive branch employees, including
cabinet secretaries, were put to work helping Republican Congressional
candidates. The report cites several memos to high-ranking cabinet
department officials ordering them to attend meetings about the 2006
midterm elections. At the meetings, government officials were told to
think of ways to shape federal policies to help Republican candidates
and were strongly urged to volunteer on individual races. Officials at
the Department of Health and Human Services were ordered to show up at
a political meeting with "your pompoms on."
There were scores of these briefings, most during the workday and
attended by employees on taxpayer-financed salaries. "In light of the
content of the PowerPoint slides and the testimony of many witnesses,
these briefings created an environment aimed at assisting Republican
candidates, constituting political activity within the meaning of the
Hatch Act," the report says.
The White House even tracked the personal time of high-ranking
appointees to see who was volunteering for campaign work and how much.
Overt political travel was often classified by the White House as
government business and paid for by the Treasury.
The Office of Special Counsel does not have the power to discipline
former government employees, and it is not clear that any law
enforcement agency will look into prosecution. But the message of the
report is clear to this administration and those in the future.
The Office of Political Affairs should be abolished, as a House
committee recommended in 2008. There is nothing wrong with having
White House officials assess the political atmosphere and enact
policies with an eye on re-election, but the Hatch Act should be
revised to explicitly prohibit officials from working on their party's
political campaigns while drawing government salaries.
The report did not examine policy under President Obama, though it
noted that only one federal agency has rules to prevent spending
taxpayer money on political travel.
More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/opinion/01tue2.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Bush War Crimes: European Activists Call For Bush To Be Tried For Torture
Now that former U.S. president George W. Bush is an ordinary citizen
again, many legal and human rights activists in Europe are demanding
that he and high-ranking members of his government be brought before
justice for crimes against humanity committed in the so-called war on
terror.
"Judicial clarification of the crimes against international law the
former U.S. government committed is one of the most delicate issues
that the new U.S. president Barack Obama will have to deal with,"
Wolfgang Kaleck, general secretary of the European Centre for Human
and Constitutional Rights told IPS.
U.S. justice will have to "deal with the turpitudes committed by the
Bush government," says Kaleck, who has already tried unsuccessfully to
sue the former U.S. authorities in European courts. "And, furthermore,
the U.S. government will have to pay compensation to the innocent
people who were victims of these crimes."
Kaleck and other legal experts consider Bush and his highest-ranking
officials responsible for crimes against humanity, such as torture.
Many agree that the evidence against the U.S. government is
overwhelming. U.S. officials have admitted some crimes such as
waterboarding, where a victim is tied up and water is poured into the
air passages. Also, human rights activists have gathered testimonies
by innocent victims of torture, especially some prisoners at the
Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
In an interview with the German public television network ZDF,
Austrian human rights lawyer Manfred Nowak, UN special rapporteur on
torture, said that numerous cases of torture ordered by U.S. officials
and perpetrated by U.S. authorities are well documented.
"We possess all the evidence which proves that the torture methods
used in interrogation by the U.S. government were explicitly ordered
by former U.S. defence minister Donald Rumsfeld," Nowak told ZDF.
"Obviously, these orders were given with the highest U.S. authorities'
knowledge."
Story continues below
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"George W. Bush is without doubt responsible for crimes such as
torture," says Dietmar Herz, professor of political science at the
university of Erfurt, 235 km southwest of Berlin.
"According to the U.S. constitution, the U.S. president is responsible
for all actions carried out by the executive," Herz told IPS.
"Therefore, George W. Bush is responsible for the torture methods used
by U.S. authorities, such as waterboarding."
International justice against crimes against humanity began in 1945,
with the Nuremberg trials against Nazi criminals, says Kaleck. Leading
prosecutor Robert Jackson said at the opening of the trials in October
1945 that "we are able to do away with...tyranny and violence and
aggression by those in power against the rights of (the) people...only
when we make all men answerable to the law."
But since then this promise has been fulfilled only in exceptional
cases, Kaleck said.
"Crimes against humanity have been repeatedly committed ever since,
but very few people have been brought before international courts for
these crimes," he said, adding that this impunity is particularly
obvious for leaders of the Allied countries (such as the U.S., France
and Britain), who had organised the Nuremberg trials.
Nobody was ever judged for crimes against humanity committed in
Algeria by France, in Vietnam and Latin America by the U.S., in
Afghanistan by the Soviet Union and in Chechnya by Russia.
Only in the 1990s, after the Yugoslav wars of secession, the Rwanda
genocide, and civil wars in countries such as Liberia and Sierra Leone
were state criminals captured, judged and convicted.
"The creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2002 in The
Hague in the Netherlands marks a turning point in the prosecution of
state officials accused of crimes such as genocide, crimes against
humanity or of war," Kaleck added.
But prosecution for crimes of war or for crimes against humanity
continues to be highly selective. So far, only perpetrators from weak
or failed states from south-eastern Europe, or from the south,
especially Africa, have been brought to court. In a case such as that
of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, Britain acted as an
accomplice to protect him.
Over the last couple of years, human rights activists and some
national courts in Europe have been fighting these arbitrary ways.
They are appealing for, and in some cases even applying, a universal
jurisdiction of national courts.
The Spanish judiciary has opened cases against Latin American
dictators such as Guatemalan general Efraín Ríos Montt, who ruled the
Central American country between 1982 and 1983, and Argentinean
military officers involved in kidnapping and killing civilians.
More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/02/bush-war-crimes-european_n_163074.html
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Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
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