Key leaders of the new Democratic Beyond investigations, there will of its origins. majority have pledged to open investigations. undoubtedly be efforts to strengthen the barriers • Congressional interest in restoring the War - TAKE HOPE IN 2007 - Incoming Senate Judiciary Committee chair to war crimes through legislation. Senator Chris Crimes Act has been substantially strengthened Patrick Leahy recently wrote in a letter to Dodd of Connecticut, a presidential candidate by the Supreme Court's forthright stand in the 2006: A Year of Living Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, "The and the son of a Nuremberg prosecutor, has Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case. Dangerously photographs and reports of prisoner abuse in introduced legislation restoring portions of the • The Senate Judiciary Committee's expected Jeremy Brecher & Brendan Smith Iraq, Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere that have War Crimes Act that were gutted by the Military investigation of "rendition" will rely on the The Nation Magazine, 12/19/06 emerged during the past two years depict an Commissions Act. work of European human rights "plane spotters" interrogation and detention system operating who uncovered the CIA's phantom jets secretly he year 2006 will be remembered as contrary to U.S. law and the Geneva Civil Society landing and taking off at their countries' one in which the American people Conventions." The American people deserve Human rights groups, from the Center for airports. and the world rose up to challenge "detailed and accurate information about the Constitutional Rights to the ACLU, have led the As the new year unfolds, there are no Tthe criminal actions and deceit of the role of the Bush Administration in developing way in challenging the legality of Bush guarantees that the Bush Administration will Bush Administration. the interrogation policies and practices that have Administration actions. Hundreds of lawyers be held accountable for its abuse of executive Despite massive evidence that top engendered such deep criticism and concern at from major corporate firms have joined the power or for the war crimes it has committed. Administration officials have been complicit in home and around the world." He has just defense of the Guantánamo captives. Religious Its war in Iraq will almost certainly continue, systematic violations of national and announced that he will establish a new Human groups have formed a National Religious despite the clear disapproval of the American international law through aggressive war, Rights and the Law Subcommittee to be headed Campaign Against Torture; an affiliated group people. But the forces of accountability are illegal occupation, rendition and detention of by Dick Durbin--memorable for his vigorous in Connecticut called Reclaiming the Prophetic assembling. Whether and when they will terror suspects without trial, secret prisons and hearing room confrontation with Alberto Voice successfully projected the issue of pierce the Bush Administration's shield torture, so far they have not been held Gonzales over torture at Abu Ghraib. prisoner abuse at Guantánamo and elsewhere depends primarily on how vigorously the accountable. Incoming Senate majority leader Harry Reid into the Congressional elections--even putting public demands it. Now a diverse array of forces is contesting told the New York Times that "the first order of up billboards on major highways identifying Bush Administration impunity for war crimes business" when Democrats take over in January those in the state's Congressional delegation ACTION: and trying to reassert the rule of law over the will be to reinvigorate Congressional scrutiny of who had voted to "allow torture" through the 1. Live in hope. Join your efforts to one of the executive branch. Each is operating in different the executive branch, with a focus on Iraq. He Military Commissions Act. efforts mentioned above. For more info on how th arenas and pursuing different kinds of told Bob Geiger, "We're going to find out how Some on the left have long called for to do so, contact 8 Day Center. accountability – from public shaming and intelligence was manipulated, taking us to war. prosecution of top US officials for war crimes, 2. For further info to issues mentioned in this political disempower- ment to international We have to look back to be able to look and charges that "war crimes are high crimes" article see the links at http://www.zmag.org/ isolation and even criminal prosecution. While forward." have been part of the campaign to impeach Bush content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=11688 all of these initiatives have been reported in the Senator Jay Rockefeller has promised to and Cheney. Similar calls are also now heard press, their convergence is one of the great complete the Senate Intelligence Committee's from the right. The libertarian Cato Institute underreported stories of 2006. For example: stalled investigation of the political misuse of report, "Power Surge: The Constitutional Record •A court in Italy will decide in January whether intelligence in the lead-up to the Iraq War. of George W. Bush," warns that we now have "a Local Contact: to try twenty-six suspected American Senator Carl Levin says he plans to investigate president who can launch wars at will, and who intelligence agents for abducting an Egyptian "extraordinary rendition." cannot be restrained from ordering the cleric off the streets of Milan. On the House side, Representative Dennis commission of war crimes, should he choose to • The US Supreme Court issued key decisions Kucinich, likely chair of the Government do so." that declared Administration actions in Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Each of these initiatives is occurring in a Guantánamo in violation of national and Emerging Threats, and International Relations, different arena, with its own protagonists, international law. has called for hearings on Iraq. The election, he strategies, targets and timetables. But striking • A US Army lieutenant refused to go to Iraq told Truthdig.com's Joshua Scheer, does not end synergies are emerging: th on the grounds that the war is illegal under US "the questions about those who led us into war • The suits against Rumsfeld and other 8 Day Center for Justice and international law and made plans to use his based on lies." When the people elected policymakers would not have been possible 312-641-5151 [email protected] court-martial to "put the war on trial." Democrats "they also voted for accountability." without the ACLU Freedom of Information Act www.8thdaycenter.org • An international team of lawyers brought a Kucinich, now a candidate for President, is not suits that revealed the role of top officials in criminal complaint in a German court alleging afraid to raise such painful issues as US setting the rules for Guantánamo and Abu that former Defense Secretary Donald responsibility for civilian deaths in Iraq; he Ghraib. Rumsfeld and eleven other top US government recently held a briefing with the authors of the • The 2005 leak in Britain of the Downing Street officials are guilty of war crimes. Lancet study that estimated 650,000 deaths Memo promoted American disillusionment with • Senator Patrick Leahy, incoming Senate under the occupation. the war and the public support for investigations Judiciary Committee chairman, said he will issue subpoenas if necessary to secure Bush crimes. The complaint utilized the recent international crime as well." It means that the government must obey the Administration documents that may have passage of the US Military Commissions Act For the first time since Vietnam, active-duty provisions of the Geneva Conventions – such authorized torture. as evidence that the Bush Administration military personnel have organized to oppose a as the ban on cruel and degrading treatment Here are some of the arenas in which intended to immunize itself from any war that they are fighting via the Appeal for and the obligation of an occupying power to accountability for Bush Administration war possibility of prosecution, even for the most Redress campaign. protect civilians. crimes is being pursued: heinous crimes. Some lower-level military personnel have The Bush Administration has vigorously Devastating testimony to an official British begun refusing to serve in Iraq on grounds that fought the Hamdan decision and its Foreign Governments inquiry from Carne Ross, Britain's key the war there violates national and international consequences. It tried to virtually nullify it The exposure of foreign governments' role in negotiator at the UN, recently released after law. Lieut. Ehren Watada, for example, with provisions slipped into the Military Bush Administration "war on terror" abuses efforts by the Foreign Office to suppress it, defends his refusal to go to Iraq on the grounds Commissions Act of 2006. It is now using has led to condemnation and legal action both reveal that the government knew that there that the Administration's invasion and those provisions to resist in court even the most against US intelligence operations and the were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq occupation was "manifestly illegal." At the minimal protections for its captives, such as governments that may have participated in and that the invasion of Iraq was illegal. Prime press conference announcing his decision, he the right to talk with their lawyers. their clandestine activities. Minister Tony Blair has yielded to pressure to said it "violates our democratic system of Interpretation of the Hamdan decision and the The German Parliament