Sam Bahour: The World is Knocking on Israel's Door: "July 20, 2004 | 14 to 1 Against the Wall | By SAM BAHOUR
When The Hague speaks, the world listens, especially when a threat to international peace is involved. At least this was the case until the International Court of Justice took aim at Israel.
At issue was the Israeli government's building of a separation wall on occupied Palestinian lands in the West Bank, which, in essence, has caged Palestinian communities into ghettos reminiscent of the Jewish ghettos in Europe during World War II. ...
...
On 9 July 2004, the International Court of Justice issued its Advisory Opinion, as requested by the UN General Assembly. The Court's opinion stated the following, with American Justice Thomas Buergenthal being the constant dissenting vote,
By fourteen votes to one,
"The construction of the wall being built by Israel, the occupying Power, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem, and its associated régime, are contrary to international law"
By fourteen votes to one,
"Israel is under an obligation to terminate its breaches of international law; it is under an obligation to cease forthwith the works of construction of the wall being built in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem, to dismantle forthwith the structure therein situated, and to repeal or render ineffective forthwith all legislative and regulatory acts relating thereto."
By fourteen votes to one,
"Israel is under an obligation to make reparation for all damage caused by the construction of the wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem"
By thirteen votes to two,
"All States are under an obligation not to recognize the illegal situation resulting from the construction of the wall and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by such construction; all States parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949 have in addition the obligation, while respecting the United Nations Charter and international law, to ensure compliance by Israel with international humanitarian law as embodied in that Convention"
By fourteen votes to one,
"The United Nations, and especially the General Assembly and the Security Council, should consider what further action is required to bring to an end the illegal situation resulting from the construction of the wall and the associated régime, taking due account of the present Advisory Opinion."
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
Torturing Children: 106 cases: Photographic and videotape evidence ... with New yorker, Washington Post, Congress and White House
t r u t h o u t - William Rivers Pitt | Torturing Children: "Perspective | Tuesday 20 July 2004
The biggest story of the Iraq war is not about missing weapons of mass destruction, or about deep-cover CIA officers getting their covers blown by vengeful White House agents, or even about 896 dead American soldiers. These have been covered to one degree or another, and then summarily dismissed, by the American mainstream news media. The biggest story of the Iraq war has not enjoyed any coverage in America, though it has been exploding across the international news media for several weeks now.
The biggest story of the Iraq war is about the torture of Iraqi children.
...
The report also outlined eyewitness testimony of the abuse of these children. Staff Sergeant Samuel Provance, who was stationed at Abu Ghraib, said that interrogating officers had gotten their hands on a 15 or 16 year old girl. Military police only stopped the interrogation when the girl was half undressed. A separate incident described a 16 year old being soaked with water, driven through the cold, smeared with mud, and then presented before his weeping father, who was also a prisoner.
Seymour Hersh, the New Yorker reporter who first broke the story of torture at Abu Ghraib, recently spoke at an ACLU convention. He has seen the pictures and the videotapes the American media has not yet shown. "The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling, and the worst part is the soundtrack, of the boys shrieking," said Hersh. "And this is your government at war."
Hersh described the prison scene as, "a series of massive crimes, criminal activity by the president and the vice president, by this administration anyway," and that there has been, "a massive amount of criminal wrongdoing that was covered up at the highest command out there, and higher."
...
In it, U.S. News says, "The abuses took place, the files show, in a chaotic and dangerous environment made even more so by the constant pressure from Washington to squeeze intelligence from detainees. Riots, prisoner escapes, shootings, corrupt Iraqi guards, unsanitary conditions, rampant sexual misbehavior, bug-infested food, prisoner beatings and humiliations, and almost-daily mortar shellings from Iraqi insurgents--according to the annex to General Taguba's report, that pretty much sums up life at Abu Ghraib." According to coalition intelligence officers cited in a Red Cross report from last May, between 70% to 90% of Iraqi detainees held in these prisons were arrested "by mistake." That means they were innocent.
...
... Photographic and videotape evidence of this torture is currently in the hands of the New Yorker, the Washington Post, the U.S. Congress and the White House. It must be released.
...
... Those pictures are out there, and they show the rape and torture of children. The international media is reporting on it. Coalition ally Norway may be preparing to flee Iraq because of the allegations regarding these children.
Where is the American news media? Where are the pictures? Who is responsible for this abomination? Torturing children in the name of freedom? Is this what we have become?
The biggest story of the Iraq war is not about missing weapons of mass destruction, or about deep-cover CIA officers getting their covers blown by vengeful White House agents, or even about 896 dead American soldiers. These have been covered to one degree or another, and then summarily dismissed, by the American mainstream news media. The biggest story of the Iraq war has not enjoyed any coverage in America, though it has been exploding across the international news media for several weeks now.
The biggest story of the Iraq war is about the torture of Iraqi children.
...
The report also outlined eyewitness testimony of the abuse of these children. Staff Sergeant Samuel Provance, who was stationed at Abu Ghraib, said that interrogating officers had gotten their hands on a 15 or 16 year old girl. Military police only stopped the interrogation when the girl was half undressed. A separate incident described a 16 year old being soaked with water, driven through the cold, smeared with mud, and then presented before his weeping father, who was also a prisoner.
Seymour Hersh, the New Yorker reporter who first broke the story of torture at Abu Ghraib, recently spoke at an ACLU convention. He has seen the pictures and the videotapes the American media has not yet shown. "The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling, and the worst part is the soundtrack, of the boys shrieking," said Hersh. "And this is your government at war."
Hersh described the prison scene as, "a series of massive crimes, criminal activity by the president and the vice president, by this administration anyway," and that there has been, "a massive amount of criminal wrongdoing that was covered up at the highest command out there, and higher."
...
In it, U.S. News says, "The abuses took place, the files show, in a chaotic and dangerous environment made even more so by the constant pressure from Washington to squeeze intelligence from detainees. Riots, prisoner escapes, shootings, corrupt Iraqi guards, unsanitary conditions, rampant sexual misbehavior, bug-infested food, prisoner beatings and humiliations, and almost-daily mortar shellings from Iraqi insurgents--according to the annex to General Taguba's report, that pretty much sums up life at Abu Ghraib." According to coalition intelligence officers cited in a Red Cross report from last May, between 70% to 90% of Iraqi detainees held in these prisons were arrested "by mistake." That means they were innocent.
...
... Photographic and videotape evidence of this torture is currently in the hands of the New Yorker, the Washington Post, the U.S. Congress and the White House. It must be released.
...
... Those pictures are out there, and they show the rape and torture of children. The international media is reporting on it. Coalition ally Norway may be preparing to flee Iraq because of the allegations regarding these children.
Where is the American news media? Where are the pictures? Who is responsible for this abomination? Torturing children in the name of freedom? Is this what we have become?
rosecutors Seen Dropping Charges Against 9/11 Suspect: cannot use evidence suspected of coming from US torture ...
Prosecutors Seen Dropping Charges Against 9/11 Suspect | Germany | Deutsche Welle | 8.07.2004: "07.18.2004 | Prosecutors Seen Dropping Charges Against 9/11 Suspect
The most serious charges facing the only person ever to be convicted for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks are reportedly to be dropped because German prosecutors are concerned some US evidence may have come from torture.
According to the British paper The Observer, German authorities will no longer try to put Mounir el Motassadeq, a Moroccan living in the northern port city of Hamburg, behind bars for aiding al Qaeda terrorists before they crashed hijacked airplanes into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington in 2001.
...
And that's where the trouble for prosecutors starts, since German courts cannot accept evidence if it is thought to come under duress or torture. A senior German intelligence official reportedly told The Observer that the inability to prove the testimony was admissible would make it worthless. ...
The most serious charges facing the only person ever to be convicted for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks are reportedly to be dropped because German prosecutors are concerned some US evidence may have come from torture.
According to the British paper The Observer, German authorities will no longer try to put Mounir el Motassadeq, a Moroccan living in the northern port city of Hamburg, behind bars for aiding al Qaeda terrorists before they crashed hijacked airplanes into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington in 2001.
...
And that's where the trouble for prosecutors starts, since German courts cannot accept evidence if it is thought to come under duress or torture. A senior German intelligence official reportedly told The Observer that the inability to prove the testimony was admissible would make it worthless. ...