Mr. Mukasey, Indict Bush And Cheney

(8 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Just received this via email from David Swanson.

National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance (www.iraqpledge.org)

Contact:  Joy First 608 239-4327 [email protected] or Max Obuszewski [email protected]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   November 7, 2008

CITIZENS WILLING TO RISK ARREST TO BRING INDICTMENT OF BUSH AND CHENEY

WHO:  The National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance (NCNR) is a nationwide network of individuals and organizations committed to peace and justice, utilizing the nonviolent practices and disciplines of Gandhi and King through nonviolent civil resistance.

WHAT:  Gathering at the Department of Justice to request a meeting.  In September, members of NCNR sent a letter to Attorney General Mukasey, asking to meet with him to discuss the indictment of Bush and Cheney for war crimes.  Attorney General Muaksey has not responded (See the letter below).

WHEN:  At noon on November 10, 2008, members of the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance will go to the Department of Justice in Washington, DC with a copy of the letter and again ask for a meeting with Attorney General Mukasey to discuss indicting Bush and Cheney for war crimes.  If they are refused, some members of the group will be moved by conscience to risk arrest.

WHERE:  DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, 950 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, DC.  

WE WILL BE MEETING ON THE CONSTITUTION AVENUE SIDE OF THE BUILDING AT NOON.

WHY:  Obama has won the election, and now more than ever we need to continue our work calling for peace and justice.  We must continue to demand that the new president ends the occupation of Iraq and does not escalate military action in Afghanistan.  We also must call for justice and demand that Bush and others in his administration be held accountable for the deaths of over a million innocent people from Iraq, from Afghanistan, and almost 4,200 US soldiers.  

In April 2008, Obama said that as president he would indeed ask his new Attorney General and his deputies to “immediately review the information that’s already there” and determine if an inquiry is warranted.  It is the responsibility of citizens to make sure this happens.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, appointed by President Truman to be the Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Tribunals following World War II, stated, “let me make clear that while this law is first applied against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a useful purpose it must condemn aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment.”

We take this action knowing that we are doing what we are called to do, knowing that we are doing the only thing we can do as our leaders have continued to disobey the laws of the United States and to trample on and shred the U.S. Constitution for the last 8 years.

It is time, no matter who becomes our next president, to bring the criminals of the Bush regime to justice.  We, the people, have the power and we can restore justice.

LETTER TO ATTORNEY GENERAL MUKASEY

National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance

325 East 25th Street

Baltimore, MD 21218

September 24, 2008

Attorney General Michael Mukasey

United States Department of Justice

950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, D.C. 20530

Dear Hon. Mukasey:

I am writing on behalf of the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance.  We are concerned citizens who tried to prevent the illegal invasion of Iraq.  While we were unsuccessful, we have been devoting much time and energy to convince Congress to end the occupation.  Over time we discovered that the Bush-Cheney administration may have engaged in illegal behavior leading up to the war and afterwards.

NCNR members would like to meet with you to discuss the indictment of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney.  We are quite flexible and would arrange our schedules to meet with a DOJ representative at a selected date and time.  Our group would be small, and it would include someone who was directly affected by the illegal invasion of Iraq.  Note there is an urgency to this matter.

At the meeting we would hope to discuss several examples of what we perceive to be illegal behavior on the part of the Bush administration.  For example, the administration made false claims about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein in order to build a public case for war.  This manipulation of pre-war intelligence included a claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction which could threaten the United States.  Intelligence was also manufactured to claim a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.

It is our understanding, though, that on October 1, 2002, the CIA provided Bush with its National Intelligence Estimate, a consensus opinion of all sixteen US intelligence agencies. On page 8, it clearly states Hussein was not an imminent threat to the security of this country.

After the invasion of Iraq, the resulting calamity has left more than 4,000 members of the U.S. military dead, thousands more wounded, hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis and the wholesale destruction of a country. It can be argued that the architects of this war had a criminal state of mind.

Moreover, the invasion seems to have violated numerous U.S. and international laws, including but not limited to USC 2441 (War Crimes Act of 1996), the Geneva Conventions, the Nuremberg Tribunal Charter, the U.N. Charter and Resolutions, the Laws and Customs of War on Land.   We also believe U.S. law was violated through widespread wiretapping of the phone calls and emails of U.S. citizens without a warrant. The violations continued with the authorization to torture thousands of captives, resulting in dozens of deaths, and to hide prisoners in order to deny them due process.  

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, appointed by President Truman to be the Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Tribunals following World War II, stated, “_let me make clear that while this law is first applied against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a useful purpose it must condemn aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment.” Thus we have a Nuremberg obligation to try to hold our government officials accountable.  

Also there is a well-established law in our jurisprudence which places an affirmative duty on all of us to expose any treasonous or criminal act which comes to our attention. Failure to do so is defined as “misprision.” As good citizens, we are writing to you out of duty, knowing that if felonies have been committed we are to inform a magistrate. Silently to observe the commission of a felony, without using any endeavors to apprehend the offender, is a misprision.

We look forward to your response and the scheduling of a meeting.  In this country, there is the belief no person is above the law. So Bush and Cheney should be indicted, accused of the serious violations of the law which we enumerated above.

In peace,

Max Obuszewski

National Campaign for nonviolent Resistance

410-366-1637

Mobuszewski at verizon.net

Maria Allwine

Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore

Jean Athey

PeaceAction Montgomery [County, Maryland]

Dr. Lawrence Egbert

Chesapeake [Maryland] Physicians for Social Responsibility

Joy First

Madison [Wisconsin] Pledge of Resistance

Don Muller

Sitkans [Alaska] for Peace and Justice

John Oliver

Baltimore Phil Berrigan Memorial Chapter #105 Veterans for Peace

Janie M. Stein

Salina, Kansas  People for Peace

Brother Henry Werner

Tent of Abraham, Baltimore