January 10, 2006 at the White House Gates:
Delegation Delivers Indictments Charging
Bush with Crimes Against Humanity
Revolution #031, January 22, 2006, posted at revcom.us
On Tuesday, January 10, the Bush administration was served with five indictments charging crimes against humanity. With
purpose and determination, a delegation from the Bush Crimes Commission went up to the White House gates to deliver the indictments.
The delegation included former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, authors William Blum and Larry Everest, and members of After Downing
Street, Code Pink, Democracy Rising, Progressive Democrats of America, Spirit House, and World Can't Wait--Drive Out the Bush
Regime!
On January 20-22 in New York City, the International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity by the Bush Administration
will convene its final tribunal session to present witnesses, experts, and documentary evidence on the five indictments. Witnesses
include Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinksi (the former Army Reserve brigadier general who was in charge of Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib
prison and who says the torture of detainees was ordered by higher-ups); Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan;
Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector; Dahr Jamail, a journalist who has reported extensively from Iraq, and many others.
(Go online to bushcommission.org for updates and details.)
It is highly significant when people like Janis Karpinski speak out against the Bush regime. Her witness testimony at the
Tribunal will be a major event that nobody will want to miss.
"We delivered those indictments because we're not going to be obedient Germans," Ray McGovern told Revolution. "Back in
the '30s they hunkered down and hoped that Hitler and the Nazis would just go away. They didn't do the kind of thing we did
in D.C. on Tuesday, and what we'll continue to do. Unlawful wiretapping and spying, Iraq and the torture and detentions, and
on and on. This can't go down unopposed, and I do wonder about the number of months we still have before they try to come
after us for what we're doing."
White House personnel refused to take the indictment papers from the delegation, on grounds of "security." When the delegates
explained that the envelope containing the indictments was open so that the contents could easily be checked, the White House
personnel said, "We're not authorized to accept any material for the president from the public."
Moments later, a police hazardous materials (hazmat) squad showed up in a large van. An officer got out, put on white gloves,
gingerly approached the envelope with the indictments (which had been propped up at the White House gates), and placed it
carefully in a plastic bag. As a member of the delegation told the press, "To a government that commits crimes against humanity,
the truth is hazmat."
Mike Hersh, a member of Progressive Democrats of America and After Downing Street, said at the press conference: "When
I was a child, I watched the Watergate hearings on television. I heard testimony about an administration run amok, wiretapping
and spying, arrogantly abusing the power 'we the people' entrusted to it, and lying about it all. Many of us thought that
the Nixon gang reached the zenith of presidential corruption, but we were sadly mistaken.
"Today, in that building over there [the White House], sit men and women who not only believe they're above the law, but
who openly arrogate to themselves powers and prerogatives which would make a monarch blush. When Bush spoke to America about
the outrage of illegal spying, it wasn't to condemn the lawbreakers, it was to rage against the truth-tellers who exposed
his administration's reckless lawlessness."
The indictments, which were also sent by certified mail to the White House and mailed and hand-delivered to the Justice
Department, allege war crimes and crimes against humanity by the Bush administration in relation to five areas:
1) Wars of Aggression, with particular reference to Iraq and Afghanistan;
2) Torture and Indefinite Detention;
3) Destruction of the Global Environment;
4) Attacks on Global Public Health and Reproductive Rights;
5) Knowing Failure to Protect Life During Hurricane Katrina.
The Bush Crimes Commission held the first session of the tribunal last October. The final session of Jan. 20-22 takes place
at a critical time. As Larry Everest wrote last week in Revolution:
"There is a particular urgency to the Commission's work now. Questioning, distrust, and anger over actions by the Bush
regime have grown by leaps and bounds... This Commission of Inquiry is an instrumentality of world humanity and an imperative
of conscience. It can become a vehicle for the millions looking for clarity and voice, can change the terms of debate, and
can deliver a powerful and urgently needed 'j'accuse' ('I accuse') right in Bush's brave new 'homeland.'"
Source: rwor.org
