Evidence

US Accused of War Crimes Over Torture Methods

The use of torture by the US Government in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in New York on September 11, 2001 has come under increasing criticism.

In 1863 at the height of the US civil war, president Abraham Lincoln set the principles for interrogation of prisoners with a famous instruction "military necessity does not admit of cruelty".

It took the September 11 attacks to change those principles and Vice-President Dick Cheney said the US would now have to work through the dark side.

In response, government lawyers drew up the so-called torture memos that would ultimately unleash the abuses at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib and at a host of secret CIA "black sites".

Was Bush Involved in U.S. Attorney Scandal? Depends on Whom You Ask
President Bush Still Dogged By Questions Over What He Knew and When
By EMMA SCHWARTZ and JUSTIN ROOD | ABCNews.com

It may be the Bush-era version of "What did he know, and when did he know it?", the famous question that dogged Nixon through the Watergate break-in scandal.

Before the court of public opinion, White House spokespeople have long maintained President Bush had no involvement in the firing of nine U.S. Attorneys, the central decision that mushroomed into one of the biggest scandals in eight years of the Bush administration.

My fellow Americans:

Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor.

This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.

Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.

Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of the Nation.

Bush, Cheney deserve impeachment
By BRANDON SACK | Independent Florida Alligator

Given their Nixon–esque polling numbers, it’s safe to say that President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are not exactly the most popular pair to grace 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. In fact, only about 25 percent of people think our feckless leader is doing a good job. Incidentally, the same percentage of people predicted that the second coming of Jesus would occur in 2007. I’ve got a hunch that there’s a lot of overlap in those two groups.

But while it may make us feel smart and savvy to point out Bush’s failures, it doesn’t do anything to set this country on the right course.

Did Washington waste millions on faulty voting machines?
By Greg Gordon | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding that have gone to upgrade the nation's voting machines since 2003 were used to purchase touch-screen systems that many states are now scrapping because of concerns about their security and reliability.

State governments in Alaska, California, Florida, Iowa, Maryland, Tennessee and New Mexico have decided to replace their touch-screen electronic machines. While some states have completed the switch, others won't finish replacing the machines until 2010. Nationwide, the federal government spent $1.2 billion on new voting machines between 2003 and 2007.

In 2000, James Baker famously said "Machines are neither Republicans nor Democrats and therefore can never be consciously or even unconsciously biased." In less than 3 minutes, Stephen Spoonamore debunks Baker's propaganda, and explains that every American must recognize that election fraud isn't a partisan issue; it's a fascist issue. Spoonamore raises two fundamental issues: What was the will of the voter? Was that the way the votes were really cast?

The Secret Deal For Iraq's Oil
By Jason Leopold | The Public Record

Four months before the United States invaded Iraq, the Department of Defense was secretly working with Vice President Dick Cheney's old company, Halliburton Corp., on a secret deal that would give the world's second largest oil services company total control over Iraq's oil fields, according to interviews with Halliburton's most senior executives.

Previously undisclosed Halliburton documents obtained by The Public Record confirm that controlling the world's second largest oil reserves was a top priority for the Bush administration. Additionally, the deal between the Department of Defense and Halliburton unit Kellogg, Brown & Root to operate Iraq's oil industry saved Halliburton from imminent bankruptcy.

After Ron Suskind Reveals Bush Admin Ordered Iraq-9/11 Fakery, House Judiciary Chair John Conyers Opens Congressional Probe, Part 2"
Interview by Amy Goodman | DemocracyNOW.org
Video & Audio Links

Out Damned Blot: A Letter to Colin Powell
By Ray McGovern

August 15, 2008

Dear Colin,

You have said you regret the “blot” on your record caused by your parroting spurious intelligence at the U.N. to justify war on Iraq. On the chance you may not have noticed, I write to point out that you now have a unique opportunity to do some rehab on your reputation.

If you were blindsided, well, here’s an opportunity to try to wipe off some of the blot. There is no need for you to end up like Lady Macbeth, wandering around aimlessly muttering, Out damned spot...or blot.

Tomgram: Six Questions about the Anthrax Case
By Tom Engelhardt | TomDispatch.com

September 10th: The day before our world changed, a day to change the world!

Dear Friends,

On August 1st, I delivered to Speaker Nancy Pelosi a petition bearing the names of over 100,000 Americans that, like us, feel that the President must be held accountable for abusing executive power and disregarding his Constitutional obligations.

Your voices have been heard and your support continues to send a powerful message to lawmakers. That is why I call on you again to help us in a new effort to deliver 1 Million signatures to Speaker Pelosi on September 10, 2008. Sign the impeachment petition online at www.Kucinich.us .

by Linda Milazzo

Last Monday evening, in the plush environs of Los Angeles' American Jewish University, a dedicated group of pro-peace, Pro-Constitution patriots "booked" Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. No, I don't mean "booked" as in charged her with a crime and jailed her. In this scenario, "booked" is more akin to "punked" - in which case we surprised Madam Pelosi by revising her new book, and then forced her to read our revisions. Tuh-Dah!!

It happened like this:

Madam Speaker of the House Pelosi, second in line to the Presidency, appeared at a book signing for her ironically titled new tome, "Know Your Power." Since Madam Pelosi has not used her power as Speaker to hold impeachment hearings against George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, as prescribed by Article 1 Section 2 of the Constitution, we pro-Constitution patriots held her to task. We took her new book and scrawled our personalized imperatives and questions within it. I wrote "Honor Your Oath" on side-by side blank pages in the book and "Debate Cindy Sheehan" on the blank side of the book jacket. See below:

U.S. May Ease Police Spy Rules
By Spencer S. Hsu and Carrie Johnson | WashingtonPost.com

The Justice Department has proposed a new domestic spying measure that would make it easier for state and local police to collect intelligence about Americans, share the sensitive data with federal agencies and retain it for at least 10 years.

The proposed changes would revise the federal government's rules for police intelligence-gathering for the first time since 1993 and would apply to any of the nation's 18,000 state and local police agencies that receive roughly $1.6 billion each year in federal grants.

Conyers Calls Committee Back from Summer Recess to Investigate Suskind Allegations
by Ralph Lopez | OpEdNews.com

"The 110th Congress isn’t over. We’re starting our work, and then we’re doing it in a period where the Congress is in recess. I’m calling everybody back." -- John Conyers on DemocracyNow, Aug.14,2008

Velvet Revolution's Segment 5 in the Stephen Spoonamore's Diebold vote tampering expose series is brief, and loaded. Computer code wizard Stephen Spoonamore describes just one way that Americans' votes can be manipulated, and cast fraudulently for another candidate. Although a Diebold official claimed that a common programming fix called a patch was a "clock function," when Stephen examined the code, he found that it is actually a "comparator," one way that electronic voting can be compromised.

Installation of the "clock function" was important enough to be hand delivered, just two days before the election. Chambliss' son, Bo, is a registered lobbyist for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. He is also a member of the Capitol Club, which "maintains a membership of only one hundred from the greater Washington, D.C. area and beyond." Their sponsors include: Vineyard Vines, Anheuser-Busch, Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, National Beer Wholesalers Association, Red Bull, Rolls-Royce North America, Mercedes-Benz, Moet & Chandon, Buscadores Tequila, and Beretta.

In the 2002 election Stephen mentions, Max Cleland, an incumbent, decorated Vietnam veteran triple amputee, was "beaten" by Saxby Chambliss, after Chambliss used campaign ads pairing Cleland with Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona said of one ad, "[I]t's worse than disgraceful, it's reprehensible;" Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska said the ads were "beyond offensive to me.

The Two Faces of Diebold - Stunning Document Surfaces to Show That America's #1 Voting Machine Manufacturer Hides Security and Operation Flaws from The State of Maryland and the Country
By Rebecca Abraham | HuffingtonPost.com | November 2, 2006

In September, 2003 Linda Lamone, the Administrator of Maryland's State Board of Elections and President of the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) hands over a critical study on the security of the Diebold Election Systems machines that count all of Maryland's votes.