Arrest Defense Secretary Rumsfeld For Violation of...

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Author: Anonymous User

Started: March 9, 2006, 2:12:44 am

Target: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld

Category: Government & Politics

Supporters:

Goal:

100,000

Goal Progress:

Status

Active

Quoted Material from "60 Minutes" on CBS, Aired Sunday 5 March, 2006. Piece conducted by Scott Pelley.

Sworn into his position in 2001, Rumsfeld initially took the 'War on Terror' to the enemy. However, in doing so, he has systematically violated the Geneva Convention codes set out after the Nazi War Trial at Nuremberg after World War II. He has also been named in association with Soldiers like Willie Brand from Cincinnati, Ohio who've been convicted of assault and maiming in relation to unlawful deaths of two prisoners, Dilawar and Habibullah, who "were found dead in their cells, hanging from their chains, within days of each other at the Bagram Collection Point in Afghanistan. They had been shackled by their wrists to the ceiling and severely beaten—one had been “pulpified” by blows, according to a medical examiner—by American soldiers The Bagram facility was a clearinghouse for prisoners captured in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere, and by all accounts a hell-hole."

Most importantly, as Brand accounts, Rumsfeld was directly aware of these deaths and ordered other tortures and murders, protested by Collin Powell, in Cuba, Iraq, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan (as we know now). In defense of Brand, the soldier complains that he and other men and women in uniform are being sent to prison for operations devised by Rumsfeld and others in the Bush cabinet.

According to retired Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, "the army chose to ignore the Geneva Conventions when it issued new rules for interrogation in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“That essentially says to the troops at the bottom of the rung that you have a new game,” the retired colonel told the CBS news program. “You can use the methods that aren’t in accordance with Geneva. You can use methods that are other than when you’ve been taught, trained and told you could use. That . . . is an invitation, a license to go beyond that, especially when you’re also putting on them tremendous pressure to produce intelligence.”

Before Dilawar died, US interrogators had ascertained that he was innocent. The taxi driver had been arrested only because, according to “60 Minutes”, he was at the wrong place at the wrong time.

“And so we killed an innocent man, and that’s something else that got me as I went through this, got me very concerned as to not just what we are doing to perhaps Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda-like terrorists or even insurgents when we come to Iraq, but what we’re doing to innocents,” commented Wilkerson.

Remarkably, he made known that as the Abu Ghraib torture scandal was breaking, Powell “raise[d] his voice” in anger in a phone call to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

“And he essentially said, ‘Don [Rumsfeld], don’t you know what you’re doing to our credibility around the world, don’t you know what you’re doing to our image?’” reported the former Powell aide."

WE THE SIGNEES CALL FOR THE IMMEDIATE DISMISSAL OF DONALD RUMSFELD FROM THE POSITION OF SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, REPLACED, AND ARRESTED FOR CONSPIRACY TO MURDER DILAWAR AND WILLINGLY VIOLATING GENEVA CONVENTION 3, RELATIVE TO TREATMENT OF THE IMPRISONED DURING WAR (GENEVA, 12 AUGUST 1949), ARTICLES A, B, C, E, F, H.

ARTICLE A: "A. ' Willful killing '. -- "Willful killing" would appear to cover faults of omission. Of course, the omission must have been willful and intended to cause death. Persons who gave instructions for the food [p.627] rations of prisoners of war to be reduced to such a point that deficiency diseases causing death occurred would be held responsible. In the same way, any putting to death as a reprisal would certainly come within the definition of willful killing, since reprisals are forbidden by Article 13 .
On the other hand, cases in which prisoners of war are killed as a result of acts of war -- for example the bombardment of a hospital -- are perhaps in a different category; the question is left open."

ARTICLE B: "B. ' Torture '. -- The word torture refers here especially to the infliction of suffering on a person in order to obtain from that person, or from another person, confessions or information. Since judicial torture was abolished at the end of the XVIIIth century, this notion has disappeared from national penal codes. It is to be deplored that in fact, usually under special legislation, resort is still sometimes had to this odious practice. It is nevertheless important that practices which are authorized or tolerated by special legislation should not lead to any revival of judicial torture which was abolished a long time ago. If necessary, the national legislation should forbid any such practices (1)."

ARTICLE C: "C. ' Inhuman treatment '. -- The Convention provides, in Article 13 , that prisoners of war must always be treated with humanity. The sort of treatment covered here would therefore be whatever is contrary to that general rule. It could not mean, it seems, solely treatment constituting an attack on physical integrity or health; the aim of the Convention is certainly to grant prisoners of war in enemy hands a protection which will preserve their human dignity and prevent their being brought down to the level of animals. Certain measures, for example, which might cut prisoners of war off completely from the outside world and in particular from their families, or which would cause great injury to their human dignity, should be considered as inhuman treatment."

ARTICLE E: "E. ' Willfully causing great suffering '. -- This refers to suffering inflicted as a punishment, in revenge or for some other motive, perhaps out of pure sadism, as apart from suffering which is the result of torture or biological experiments. In view of the fact that suffering in this case does not seem, to judge by the phrase which follows, to imply injury to body or health, it may be wondered if this is not a special offense not dealt with by national legislation. Since the Conventions do not specify that only physical suffering is meant, it can quite legitimately be held to cover moral suffering also."

ARTICLE F: "F. ' Serious injury to body or health '. -- This is a concept quite normally encountered in penal codes, which usually take as a criterion of seriousness the length of time the victim is incapacitated for work."

ARTICLE H: "H. ' Willfully depriving a prisoner of war of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed in this Convention '. -- It is the Convention itself in many Articles which specifies the conditions in which prisoners of war may be tried before the courts. In other words, the breach mentioned here can be split into a number of different offenses, for example: making a prisoner of war appear before an exceptional court without notifying the Protecting Power, without defending counsel, etc."

THIS PETITION IS DIRECTED TO THE ICRC (INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS, RED CROSS, THE HAGUE AND THE WHITE HOUSE.

WANTING A MAN WHO HELPED IN UNLAWFUL DEATHS PAY FOR HIS CRIME (IF INDEED FOUND GUILTY) IS NOT UN-AMERICAN...IT IS THE VERY DEFINITION OF AMERICAN JUSTICE AND FREEDOM TO THE FIRST AND MOST BASIC OF ALL HUMAN FREEDOMS: THE RIGHT TO LIVE.

VALID E-MAILS ONLY. NO VITRIOL. NO PARTISAN FEELINGS, THIS IS AN ISSUE OF ALL HUMANITY, NOT DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS, LABOUR OR CONSERVATIVE, ETC.

SIGN IF YOU WANT TO BE HEARD. SPEAK OUT, STOP ANY ILLEGAL PROCESSES COMMITTED BY THE MAJOR BELLIGERENTS IN THE 'WAR ON TERROR' WHO ARE THE U.K. AND THE UNITED STATES AS WELL AS THE NEWLY FORMED IRAQI GOVERNMENT.

addressed to www.icrc.org, www.whitehouse.org, www.redcross.org, biz@bsd.denhaag.nl, vlusser.gva@icrc.org

ICRC headquarters in Geneva

Postal address
International Committee of the Red Cross
19 avenue de la Paix
CH 1202 Geneva

Fax
ICRC general: ++ 41 (22) 733 20 57
Production, Marketing, Distribution Division: ++ 41 (22) 730 27 68

Phone
++ 41 (22) 734 60 01

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Phone Numbers

Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461

Tanya Ware said 04/18/06, 11:19 pm (verified)

We, the People, have been issued a clear directive by six concurring American Generals: "Rumsfeld must go." Consequently, it is towards this objective that we work. And We, The People, will not fail to achieve this objective. I support this petition for the immediate removal of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld from office.