Tag: investigate

Please support Torture Awareness Day

Simulposted at Daily Kos

Medical reports corroborated the detainee’s account, stating that the detainee had a broken nose, fractured leg, and scars on his stomach. In addition, soldiers confirmed that Task Force 20 interrogators wearing civilian clothing had interrogated the detainee. However, after initially reporting the abuse, the detainee said that he was forced by an American soldier to sign a statement denouncing the claims or else be kept in detention indefinitely. He agreed.

    An investigator who reviewed the signed statement concluded that “[t]his statement, alone, is a prima facie indication of threats.” However, despite the medical report and testimony from other soldiers, the criminal file was ultimately closed on the grounds that the investigation had “failed to prove or disprove” the offenses.

ACLU.org

    Does anything stand against the American concept of the rule of law more than this?

Crossposted at http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

“If certain acts and violations of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them. We are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.”

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of The United States

Robert H. Jackson

    Justice Jackson was asked by President Truman to represent The United States in establishing the process for trying German war criminals after Germany’s surrender in World War II. The above quote was made by him in 1945 during the negotiations of The London Charter of The International Military Tribunal (IMT) which established the legal justifications and basis for the trials. He later acted as the Chief Prosecutor for the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials (IMT) of the major war criminals.

blavier.newsvine.com

    Sorry if I got your hopes up, but the point I want to make is the fact that we did this before, in worse times, and we must do it again. We must bring War Criminals to Justice. Just because the War Criminals hide behind our own flag does not make things any different.

    To shrink from condemning and punishing atrocity is, however tacitly, to condone evil.

   At the time, President Harry Truman faced many issues that required much of his attention. Fresh from his appointment to the Presidency after the tragic passing of President Franklin Delanor Roosevelt, Harry Truman still faced issues outside of a nation’s involvement in war crimes. There was insurgent violence in the still occupied Germany, where remnants of a minority within the region continue to attack American occupying forces on a daily basis for a while.

    There was also the issue of Nuclear Proliferation. As the sole nuclear power America faced an entire world that sought their own Weapons of Mass Destruction.

    In 1945 the economy was still a big issue. After having just climbed out of the first Great Depression the economy was very much a priority back then, as it still is right now.

   There were many important issues at stake during 1945 that could have taken precedent over the investigation and prosecution of War Crimes. None of those issues stopped us from doing the right thing then, and we should do the right thing now.

     Which President was really palling around with terrorists?

Via Kos himself, from back in May 17, 2004

RIGGS BANK FINED FOR LAX OVERSIGHT OF SAUDI MONEY, WHICH MIGHT HAVE GONE TO TERRORISTS

According to the 5/14/04 New York Times, Federal regulators fined the Riggs National Corporation, the parent company of Riggs Bank, $25 million yesterday for “failing to report suspicious activity, the largest penalty ever assessed against a domestic bank in connection with money laundering. The fine stems from Riggs’s failure over at least the last two years to actively monitor suspect financial transfers through Saudi Arabian accounts held by the bank.” The 5/14/04 Wall Street Journal reported that of particular concern, Riggs failed to monitor “tens of millions of dollars in cash withdrawals from accounts related to the Saudi Arabian embassy,” including “suspicious incidents involving dozens of sequentially numbered cashier’s checks and international drafts written by Saudi officials, including Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan.” According to the 4/18/04 Washington Post, Saudi Prince Bandar’s wife, Princess Haifa al-Faisal, “may have used a Riggs account to donate money to a charity that then gave some of it to the Sept. 11 terrorists.” According to the Washington Post, federal regulators “called Riggs actions a “‘willful, systemic’ violation of anti-money-laundering law.” Riggs officials have “acknowledged years of deficiencies in reporting to law enforcement hundreds of millions of dollars in suspicious financial transactions by foreign customers, particularly those connected with the embassies of Saudi Arabia.”

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

     In Federal Insurance Co. v. Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia, a suit filed by several insurance companies who sought to recover over $300 billion for losses incurred by the 9/11 attacks, the following men are named as defendants.

   Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, president of SHC, who was warned in 2000 of his organization’s ties to al Qaeda;

   Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, the designated successor to King Abdullah, who received warnings as early as 1994 that some Muslim charitable groups were fronts for al Qaeda;

   Prince Naif bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, who as Saudi Minister of the Interior monitors and controls the charities operating in Saudi Arabia;

   Prince Turki al-Faisal bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, who was the director of the Kingdom’s Department of General Intelligence (“DGI”) until August 2001; and

   Prince Mohamed al Faisal al Saud, who unlike the other princes named is not a government official but a bank manager alleged to have knowingly provided material sponsorship to international terrorism.

cbs2chicago.com

    When the crown prince and successor to the throne of Saudi Arabia is warned back in 1994 that charities his family supports are funneling money to terrorist organizations, and then those groups attack America, you would think that somebody in the executive branch would find that interesting.

    But not Bush/Cheney. They spent every minute between the Inauguration and 9/10/2001 trying to find a way to attack Iraq. Defending America from terrorism was not very interesting until after the attack had already occurred.

    This is not the only evidence that the royal family and absolute rulers of Saudi Arabia directly aided Al Qaeda before and up to the attacks against America on September 11th. This evidence is well documented, and yet it went ignored.

    Why was this evidence ignored? I will not speculate on that point, rather, here is more evidence. You may decide for yourself.