Powerful War Criminals are Free to Ruin US

Excellent discussion about the hypocracy which is inherent in world diplomacy. Coming from an insider of the Bush/Regan/Bush (early on he bailed from W) years, it's even more powerful than if one of us "lefties" wrote it. My only critique is when he sites the "enablers" and forgot to mention Signore Berlusconi, who dreams of being the next Il Duce.
Little War Criminals Get Punished,
Big Ones Don’t
By Paul Craig Roberts
16/07/08 "ICH" -- - National Public Radio has been spending much news time on Darfur in Western Sudan where a great deal of human suffering and death are occurring. The military conflict has been brought on in part by climate change, according to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Drought is forcing nomads in search of water into areas occupied by other claimants. No doubt the conflict is tribal and racial as well. The entire catastrophe is overseen by a government with few resources other than bullets.
Now an International Criminal Court prosecutor wants to bring charges against Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, for crimes against humanity and war crimes.
I have no sympathy for people who make others suffer. Nevertheless, I wonder at the International Criminal Court’s pick from the assortment of war criminals? Why al-Bashir?
Is it because Sudan is a powerless state, and the International Criminal Court hasn’t the courage to name George W. Bush and Tony Blair as war criminals?
[...] President Bush claims that the enormous destruction and death he has brought to Iraq and Afghanistan are necessary in order for Americans to be safe. If we are accepting excuses this feeble, Milosovic passed muster with his excuse that as the head of state he was obliged to try to preserve the state’s territorial integrity. Is al-Bashir supposed to accept secession in the Sudan, something that Lincoln would not accept from the Confederacy? How long would al-Bashir last if he partitioned Sudan?
Last October the Atlanta Journal-Constitution had a photo on its front page above the fold of an elderly man with mikes shoved in his face. Paul Henss, 85 years old, is being deported from the US, where he has lived for 53 years, because Eli Rosenbaum, director the the US State Department’s Nazi-hunting bureaucracy, declared him a war criminal for training guard dogs used at German concentration camps. Henss was 22 years old when World War II ended.
A kid who trained guard dogs is being deported as a war criminal, but the head of state who launched two wars of naked aggression, resulting in the deaths of more than 1.2 million people, and who has the entire world on edge awaiting his third war of aggression, this time against Iran, is received respectfully by foreign governments. Corporations and trade associations will pay him $100,000 per speech when he leaves office. He will make millions of dollars more from memoirs written by a ghostwriter.
Does no one see the paradox of deporting Henss while leaving the war criminal in the White House?
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, an assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury during the Reagan Administration, is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20294.htm
Photo by John Amis
Paul Henss, left, takes reporters questions as wife Else stands at his side at their home Monday, Oct. 1, 2007 in Lawrenceville, Ga. Federal authorities have begun deportation proceedings against the 85 year-old Paul Henss, who they say served as a Nazi guard and trained and handled attack dogs at the Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps.
“I am not a war criminal,” he told a throng of reporters. “I was 19 years old … Everyone was with the Hitler Youth.” [my bold]
"We were all just doing what we believed was right...." This could be the neocon/neoliberal defense.

Nazis in the White House

The story about the Buses involvement with the Nazi Party isn't new, but still needs to be spread far and wide. Here is an abridged version of Robert Parry's report on our First Family Nazis:
The Bushes and Hitler's Appeasement
By Robert Parry May 18, 2008
The irony of George W. Bush going before the Knesset and mocking the late Sen. William Borah for expressing surprise at Adolf Hitler’s 1939 invasion of Poland is that Bush’s own family played a much bigger role assisting the Nazis.
[...] The archival evidence is now clear that Prescott Bush, the president’s grandfather, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from and collaborated with key financial backers of Nazi Germany.
That business relationship continued after Hitler invaded Poland in 1939 and even after Germany declared war on the United States following Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941. It stopped only when the U.S. government seized assets of Bush-connected companies in late 1942 under the “Trading with the Enemy Act.”
[...] One can trace the origins of this story back more than a century to the emergence of Samuel Bush, George W. Bush’s great-grandfather, as a key manager for a set of powerful American business families, including the Rockefellers and the Harrimans. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Bush Family Chronicles: The Patriarchs.”]
That chapter took an important turn in 1919 when investment banker George Herbert Walker teamed up with Averell Harriman, scion to a railroad fortune, to found a new investment banking firm, W.A. Harriman Company.
[...] In 1921, Walker’s favorite daughter, Dorothy, married Samuel Bush’s son Prescott, a Yale graduate and a member of the school’s exclusive Skull and Bones society.[...]
Three years later, Dorothy gave birth to George Herbert Walker Bush in Milton, Massachusetts.
Lifted by the financial boom of the 1920s, Prescott and Dorothy Bush were on the rise. By 1926, George Herbert Walker had brought his son-in-law in on a piece of the Harriman action, hiring him as a vice president in the Harriman banking firm.
[...] By the mid-Thirties, Prescott Bush had become a managing partner at the merged firm of Brown Brothers Harriman. The archival records also show that Brown Brothers Harriman served as the U.S. financial service arm for German industrialist Fritz Thyssen, an early funder of the Nazi Party. [my bold]
Thyssen, an admirer of Adolf Hitler since the 1920s, joined the Nazi Party in 1931 when it was still a fringe organization. He helped bail the struggling party out with financial help, even providing its headquarters building in Munich.
Meanwhile, Averell Harriman had launched the Hamburg-Amerika line of steamships to facilitate the bank’s dealings with Germany, and made Prescott Bush a director. The ships delivered fuel, steel, coal, gold and money to Germany as Hitler was consolidating his power and building his war machine.
Other evidence shows that Prescott Bush served as the director of the Union Banking Corp. of New York, which represented Thyssen’s interests in the United States and was owned by a Thyssen-controlled bank in the Netherlands.
[...] In 1941, Thyssen had a falling out with Hitler and fled to France where he was captured. Much of Thyssen’s empire went under the direct control of the Nazis, but even that did not shatter the business ties that existed with Prescott Bush and Harriman’s bank.
It wasn’t until August 1942 that newspaper stories disclosed the secretive ties between Union Banking Corp. and Nazi Germany.
After an investigation, the U.S. government seized the property of the Hamburg-Amerika line and moved against affiliates of the Union Banking Corp. In November 1942, the government seized the assets of the Silesian-American Corp. [For more details, see an investigative report by the U.K. Guardian, Sept. 25, 2004.]
[...] For most public figures, allegations of trading with the enemy would have been a political kiss of death, but the disclosures barely left a lipstick smudge on Averell Harriman, Prescott Bush and other business associates implicated in the Nazi business dealings.
[...] Indeed, the quick dissipation of the Nazi financial scandal was only a portent of the Bush family’s future. Unlike politicians of lower classes, the Bushes seemed to travel in a bubble impervious to accusations of impropriety, since the Eastern Establishment doesn’t like to think badly of its own. [For details, see Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege.]
To this day – as President Bush showed by mocking the long-forgotten Sen. Borah and then wielding the Nazi “appeasement” club against Barack Obama and other Democrats – the assumption remains that the bubble will continue to protect the Bush family name.
However, the evidence from dusty archives suggests that the Bush family went way beyond appeasement of Adolf Hitler to aiding and abetting the Nazis.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/051808.html#When:03:50PM
Lots more can be found by just googling any of the above names. A good place to start is the chapter, Bush Crime Family Tree, on the blog, Project for the Old American Century: http://www.oldamericancentury.org/bushco/bush_crime_family.htm

What Are They Fighting For?

The ever wonderful Chris Floyd points out the decrepitude of "rules of engagement" during war.
Shoot, Kill, Lie, Repeat: America's New Moral Universe
Written by Chris Floyd Friday, 09 May 2008
Tell me that this doesn't sound like something out of a history of Nazi tactics in World War II:

The rules [of engagement]t explicitly allowed the killing of unarmed Iraqis under certain circumstances...Specifically, the snipers were allowed to shoot unarmed people running away from explosions or firefights....Of course, it's not unusual for innocent people to run from explosions.
Didier, who has since been promoted to captain, said that "if that individual makes contact with you and then breaks contact of their own accord and disarms themselves while they are breaking contact, they are still an engageable target because they are not wounded, nor did they surrender." He explained, "They are only breaking contact so that they can engage coalition forces at a later time." In court, Sgt. Anthony Murphy, one of the snipers who was responsible for a questionable kill, testified that he interpreted this order about breaking contact so they can engage at a later time as: "Engage fleeing local nationals without weapons."

In other words, if an innocent, unarmed Iraqi runs away to seek safety from a suicide bombing, a missile attack or a gunfight — which any human being would instinctively do — then he is fair game to be killed by an American sniper.
The excerpt above comes from a story in Salon.com, "Killing by the Numbers," about an "elite" U.S. sniper squad that murdered a captured, unarmed civilian in cold blood. A more detailed excerpt follows below, but I'd like to deal briefly with one ancillary aspect first.
The story expands to talk more generally about the sniper program in Iraq, and is careful — overly careful — to emphasize that the snipers responsible for so many "questionable kills" are operating in very stressful conditions: sleep-deprived, sweltering in deadly heat, surrounded by potential "hostiles," at constant risk of attack. All true, of course, but it prompts this simple question: What the hell are they doing there in the first place? Why are they squatting and sweltering in "hides" in a foreign land, looking to kill people who never attacked the United States?
Yes, it is entirely understandable that a soldier subjected to nerve-wracking, physically tormenting conditions might fail to act with reason, patience, judgement and prudence. But is this supposed to be some kind of excuse for crimes committed within the context of a larger crime: a war of aggression, the military invasion and occupation of a foreign country without any provocation? Surely many of the Nazi atrocities were committed by men under unbearable mental and physical strain as well. So what? Were they absolved of their crimes? And more importantly — were their leaders absolved for instigating the larger crime that engendered these atrocities?
For as the story also shows, the "questionable kills" by American snipers derive largely from the murderous "rules of engagement" they are given by their superiors — and by the anxiety of their officers to produce big "kill numbers" to appease the bloodlust — and PR needs — of the thugs in the White House and their "counterinsurgency genius," David Petraeus. [...]
A detailed recount of another two other incidences follow, but I'd rather return to the theme that people suffer in war, all people, soldiers and citizens alike.
[...] It goes without saying that the officers who put these men in this situation — not to mention the civilian "leaders" in Washington who instigated the mass murder in Iraq — suffered not the slightest adverse consequence of this crime, for which they bear the primary responsibility.
[...] When even the scapegoats escape justice, what possible hope can there be that the perpetrators and abettors of the Nazi-like war crime in Iraq will ever pay the price — or even suffer the slightest trouble — for their monstrous outrage?
http://atlanticfreepress.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3898&Itemid=81
Bravo, Chris, and write on, please!

Bush's Paraguay Haven May Vanish, Thanks to Presidente Lugo

Here's a hopeful item. Even though we probably won't see Bush's butt behind bars before 2050, at least his life could be made a bit more difficult, con grazie to Paraguay's new Presidente Lugo!
The Bush Family's Bad Latin Real Estate Investment
Written by Dave Lindorff, Saturday, 03 May 2008
Back in late 2006, it was widely reported in the Latin American media that President Bush, or perhaps his old man, had bought a 100,000-acre farm in a remote area of Paraguay.
What struck people at the time was the choice of country. Paraguay, of course, has gained a certain Club Med status among the world's villains and criminal elements as the place to go when the law's on your tail. The country, ruled for six decades by the dictatorial and fascist Colorado Party of Gen. Alfredo Stroesser, an almost cartoon charicature of a Latin American dictator, has no extradition treaty with any nation.
That's why it has long harbored aging Nazis, bank robbers, and a string of ousted or retired Latin American dictators and their assistants over the years.
Given that President Bush, once he leaves office on January 20, 2009, will no longer have the diplomatic immunity conferred upon heads of state, or the Constitutional protection against indictment by domestic prosecutors, it makes sense that he would be looking for a safe haven from the long arm of the law.
Only trouble is, Paraguay may not be such a safe haven fr long.
Last month, a former Roman Catholic Bishop with leftist, populist tendencies, Fernando Lugo, surprised almost everyone in Paraguay, and no doubt President Bush, by winning the national presidential election, ousting the Colorado Party for the first time in 61 years. There is talk that among other things, Lugo is thinking of returning Paraguay to the community of nations, by signing some of those extradition agreements.
If he does that Bush may be stuck having to hide behind his rump squad of Secret Service agents down at the Crawford Ranch, hoping they can keep the process servers from Brattleboro and Marlboro, VT, with their war crimes arrest warrants, at bay.
http://atlanticfreepress.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3842&Itemid=81

Benedict's Coming Out Party (Go, USA!)

I’m so fed up reading about the Dalai Lama loving Nazis. It seems to be enough to put a photo of him in between any two photos of horrific events and claim he was an accessory, loved it, participated with glee, even. That's guilt by association, not fact. Know what is a fact? The Dalai Lama advised supermodel Elle MacPherson to keep her cool and not sue Heidi Klum, according to what she said in Sports Illustrated. So does that make him a fashionista? Or perhaps it makes Elle MacPherson a Nazi lover!
On the other hand, Sunday morning’s The McLaughlin Group spent a major chunk of time chewing the cud around Pope Benedict XVI (aka Joseph Alois Ratzinger)’s impending NY trip. The pundits focused upon what impact his visit will have on the Pennsylvania primary, because 75% of the state is Catholic. They were also impressed that he seems to be anti-war, pro-environment, against the death penalty, but not one word was said about his position that a woman has "roles inscribed in her own biology." Keep those knees squeezed, girls! But what if your biology is screwed up and you're a man trapped in a woman's body, etc.? What's your role then?
Wikipedia has this enlightening factoid about his other holiness: "In his capacity as Prefect, Ratzinger also penned a controversial letter to all Catholic bishops, declaring that confidential details of Church investigations into accusations made against priests of certain serious ecclesiastical crimes, including sexual abuse, were subject to the pontifical secret and could not, on pain of excommunication, be revealed."
Well, isn't that special! This pope is going to come to the USA, prance around in his red Gucci shoes and not be held accountable for supporting sexual abuse of children? His sickening hypocrisy and perversion must not be ignored.

Race Crimes in America

Do you think you can choke down the turkey this Thanksgiving? I mean, with what is going on with our citizens? Here's an update on Jena 6:
Judge denies release of Jena teen
2 teen youths accused of displaying nooses in Alexandria
September 22, 2007, From Staff and Wire Reports

A judge denied a request Friday to release a teenager whose arrest in the beating of a white classmate sparked this week's civil rights protest in Jena … (Previous Judge) Mauffray set a high bail for Bell — $90,000 — prior to (Bell's) conviction...

But there's more in this article: we’ve got nooses in nearby Alexandria …

Jeremiah Munsen, 18, of Colfax, who was driving the truck, was charged with one count each of driving while intoxicated, inciting to riot and contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile, according to the police report.,,, Munsen was being held in the Rapides Parish Jail in lieu of a bond of $1,670.

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070922/NEWS03/709220339/1062/NEWS03
Munsen was guilty because he was driving drunk and admitted he made the nooses. All the evidence on Bell is heresay, but he's ALREADY been incarcerated for 13 months because his bail is so high. Disgusting.

From an other paper we have this lovely companion story:
Roanoke neo-Nazi condemns Jena Six
William A. White posted the youths' addresses on a Web site that calls for lynching the group. By Laurence Hammack

As thousands of people rallied in Jena, La., for six black youths charged with assaulting a white classmate, the FBI was monitoring a neo-Nazi activist in Roanoke who posted their names and addresses on a Web site that proclaimed: "Lynch the Jena 6.

"http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/132845