Revolution #62, September 24 2006

 

Bush Crimes Commission Delivers Verdict

National “Bush Crimes Day” September 19-21, 2006 The International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration called for three days of activities to disseminate the “guilty” verdicts recently rendered by the Commission. Their call states: “The Bush regime’s actions cry out for resounding calls of conscience by the many, many people across the country who do not want these acts carried out in our names.” Below are some selected events. Visit bushcommission.org for more information: Berkeley UC Berkeley, 8:00 a.m.—Sept. 19, Boalt Hall: Protests will gather outside of the building of Professor John Yoo’s class. John Yoo is one of the main legal architects of Bush’s torture policies. Atlanta Georgia State University, 12:00 p.m.—Sept. 19. A speak-out in the campus courtyard with students wearing orange jumpsuits to dramatize torture at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Georgia Perimeter College, 12:30 p.m.—Sept. 19. A speak-out against Bush Crimes behind the Student Center on campus, near the Campus Green, followed by a showing of the just-released Bush Crimes Commission DVD in the Student Center. Chicago Columbia College, Tuesday, September 19. The Columbia College Chapter of World Can’t Wait—Drive out the Bush Regime is calling on students and faculty to post signs saying “Bush: Guilty of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity” in dorm and office windows. Signs available for pick up at a table in front of the 623 S. Wabash building (Hokin Hall), from 11:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. Then on Thursday, September 21, at 2:30 p.m. at 1104 S. Wabash, on the first floor, there will be a showing of the Bush Crimes Commission DVD. New York City Tuesday, September 19 at 8:30 a.m. at 39th and 7th Ave—protest George W. Bush’s speech at the United Nations. Also, September 20, gather for a speak-out against Bush crimes at 12:00 p.m. on the steps in the middle of Columbia University’s Morningside Heights campus (located between Broadway and Amsterdam, at 116th street). Seattle 12:00 p.m., Sept. 19. Speak-out against crimes committed by the Bush Regime with street theatre to dramatize the effects of torture and the denial of reproductive rights for women, at Westlake Center, near the fountain.

On September 13, the International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration delivered its verdict to the White House. George W. Bush and his administration were found guilty on all five counts: wars of aggression; illegal detention and torture; suppression of science and catastrophic policies on global warming; potentially genocidal abstinence-only policies imposed on HIV/AIDS prevention programs in the Third World; and the abandonment of New Orleans before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina.

At noon on September 13, a delegation headed by Ray McGovern, a 27-year veteran of the CIA and a founder of the group Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity; and Ann Wright, a retired U.S. Army Reserve Colonel and former diplomat who resigned in protest of the Iraq war, delivered the verdict to the White House gates.

The verdicts were a product of extensive hearings and expert and eyewitness testimony, including five days of public hearings in New York City in October 2004 and January 2005. The 45 expert and first-hand witnesses included former commander of Abu Ghraib prison Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski; former British ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray; former UN official Denis Halliday; former UN arms inspector Scott Ritter; Guantanamo prisoners’ lawyer Barbara Olshansky; and survivors of Hurricane Katrina. The verdicts, which were released in PDF form on bushcommission.org, comprised 51 pages of testimony, and findings.

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Now available at bushcommission.org:

Two DVDs containing testimony and evidence on the crimes committed by the Bush Administration

DVD One contains recordings of testimony by experts on four of the five areas of indictment: illegal detention and torture; suppression of science and catastrophic policies on global warming; potentially genocidal abstinence-only policies imposed on HIV/AIDS prevention programs in the Third World; and the abandonment of New Orleans before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina.

DVD Two is a recording of a joint program with the World Can’t Wait! Drive Out the Bush Regime and the Bush Crimes Commission, held at UC Berkeley in May 2006; it includes testimony from Brig. Gen. Karpinski, former Ambassador Craig Murray; Daniel Ellsberg; and Larry Everest. From bushcommission.org: “The testimony on this DVD stands as a compelling moral condemnation of this regime. We know that it is the most demented, lawless, contemptible of human life, and egregiously evil government in the history of the Republic—Here is proof.”

Each DVD is available at bushcommission.org for $20 including shipping; they can also be ordered by mail: Make checks out to Not In Our Name and mail to Not In Our Name, 305 West Broadway #199, NY, NY 10013.

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