PINKtank » Cheney

Ten Reasons to Move Cheney’s Book to the Crime Section

Medea — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 13:51:29 +0000

By Medea Benjamin

Former Vice President Dick Cheney was given a multi-million contract to write a book about his political career. According to Cheney’s media hype, the book, called In My Time, will have “heads exploding all over Washington.” The Darth Vader of the Bush administration offers no apologies and feels no remorse. But peace activists around the country are stealthily gearing up to visit bookstores, grab a stack of books, and deposit them where they belong—the Crime Section.

Here are ten of Cheney’s many offenses to inspire you to move Cheney’s book, and to insert these bookmarks explaining why the author of In My Time should be “doin’ time.”

1. Cheney lied; Iraqis and U.S. soldiers died. As Vice President, Cheney lied about (nonexistent) weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein’s (nonexistent) ties to the 9/11 attack as a way to justify a war with a country that never attacked us. Thanks to Cheney and company, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and over 4,000 American soldiers perished in a war that should never have been fought.

2. Committing War Crimes in Iraq. During the course of the Iraq war, the Bush/Cheney administration violated the Geneva Conventions by targeting civilians, journalists, hospitals, and ambulances, and using illegal weapons, including white phosphorous, depleted uranium, and a new type of napalm.

3. War profiteering. U.S. taxpayers shelled out about three trillion dollars for the Bush/Cheney wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—a major factor in our nation’s present economic meltdown. But Cheney and his cronies at Halliburton made out like bandits, getting billions in contracts for everything from feeding troops in Iraq to constructing the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan to building the infamous Guantanamo prison. Cheney was CEO of Halliburton from 1995-2000, leaving for the VP position with a $20 million retirement package, plus millions in stock options and deferred salary. Before the Iraq War began, Halliburton was 19th on the U.S. Army’s list of top contractors; with Cheney’s help, by 2003 it was number one—increasing the value of Cheney’s stocks by over 3,000%.

4. Violating basic rights. Cheney shares responsibility for holding thousands of prisoners without charges and without the fundamental right to the writ of habeas corpus, and for keeping prisoners hidden from the International Committee of the Red Cross. He sanctioned kidnapping people and simply rendering them to secret overseas prisons. His authorization of the arbitrary detention of Americans, legal residents, and non-Americans–without due process, without charges, and without access to counsel–was in gross violation of U.S. and international law. A fan of indefinite detention in Guantanamo, Cheney writes in his book that he has been “happy to note” that President Obama failed to honor his pledge to close the Guantánamo prison.

5. Advocating torture. Cheney was a prime mover behind the Bush administration’s decision to violate the Geneva Conventions and the U.N. Convention Against Torture and to break with decades of past practice by the U.S. military by supporting “enhanced interrogation techniques.” This led to hundreds of documented cases in Iraq and Afghanistan of abuse, torture and homicide. The torture included the practice known as “water-boarding,” a form of simulated drowning. After World War II, Japanese soldiers were tried and convicted of war crimes in US courts for water-boarding. The sanctioning of abuses from the top trickled down, as the whole world saw in the photos from Abu Ghraib, becoming a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda and sullying the reputation of our nation.

6. Trying to prolong the Afghan war. Not content with the damage he caused as VP, Cheney continues to encourage more grist for the war machine. In his book he criticizes President Obama’s decision to withdraw, by September 2012, the 33,000 additional troops Obama sent to Afghanistan in 2009. He has also cautioned Obama not to pull out all the troops from Afghanistan at the planned date of 2014. “I don’t think we need to run for the exits,” he told Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace.

7. Abusing executive privilege: Cheney used executive privilege to refuse to comply with over a dozen Congressional subpoenas related to improper firing of Federal attorneys, torture, election violations and exposing—for political retribution–the identity of Valerie Plame, a covert CIA operative working on sensitive WMD proliferation.

8. Spying on us. Cheney was the mastermind behind the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program that spied on thousands, perhaps millions of American citizens on American soil. This massive government interference with personal phone calls and emails was in violation of FISA (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act), the Federal Telecommunications Act, and 4th Amendment of the Constitution.

9. Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran. When Cheney was CEO of Halliburton, the company skirted the law against investing in Iran by using a phony offshore subsidiary. Once VP, however, Cheney advocated bombing Iran. “I was probably a bigger advocate of military action than any of my colleagues,” Cheney said in response to questions about whether the Bush administration should have launched a pre-emptive attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities prior to handing over the White House to Barack Obama. Cheney thinks Obama is too soft on Iran, and has said that the only way for diplomacy with Iran to work is if Obama also threatens to bomb the country. Negotiations are “bound to fail unless we are perceived as very credible” in threatening military action against Iran, he said. It seems that wars with Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, plus drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen, are not enough to satisfy Cheney’s war addiction. But wait, there’s more….

10. Favored bombing Syria—and North Korea—instead of negotiating. One of the key anecdotes in Cheney’s memoir is his recollection of a session with the National Security Council in 2007, when he advised Bush to bomb a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor site. “After I finished,” he writes, “the president asked, ‘Does anyone here agree with the vice president?’ Not a single hand went up around the room.” Luckily, Cheney’s advice was dismissed in favor of a diplomatic approach (although the Israelis bombed the site in September 2007). As for North Korea, in his book, Cheney calls former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice naive for trying to forge a nuclear weapons agreement with North Korea.

Enough? Since President Obama is not interested in holding Cheney accountable, the least we can do is show our disgust by dumping his books in the Crime section and inserting this bookmark. And if you happen to be lucky and catch one of Cheney’s book signings, bring along a pair of handcuffs.

Medea Benjamin is cofounder of the human rights group Global Exchange and the peace group CODEPINK.

Open Letter on Accountability

Dana — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 21:37:32 +0000

GROUPS REQUEST SPECIAL PROSECUTOR FOR BUSH, CHENEY
For Immediate Release
February 24, 2009
Contact: David Swanson david@davidswanson.org

Statement on Prosecution of Former High Officials

We urge Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a non-partisan independent Special Counsel to immediately commence a prosecutorial investigation into the most serious alleged crimes of former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Richard B. Cheney, the attorneys formerly employed by the Department of Justice whose memos sought to justify torture, and other former top officials of the Bush Administration.

Our laws, and treaties that under Article VI of our Constitution are the supreme law of the land, require the prosecution of crimes that strong evidence suggests these individuals have committed. Both the former president and the former vice president have confessed to authorizing a torture procedure that is illegal under our law and treaty obligations. The former president has confessed to violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

We see no need for these prosecutions to be extraordinarily lengthy or costly, and no need to wait for the recommendations of a panel or “truth” commission when substantial evidence of the crimes is already in the public domain. We believe the most effective investigation can be conducted by a prosecutor, and we believe such an investigation should begin immediately.

Drafted by The Robert Jackson Steering Committee

http://afterdowningstreet.org/robertjackson

Signed By:

Center for Constitutional Rights

http://ccrjustice.org

The National Lawyers Guild

http://nlg.org

American Freedom Campaign Action Fund

http://americanfreedomcampaign.org

High Road for Human Rights Advocacy Project

http://www.highroadforhumanrights.org

After Downing Street

http://afterdowningstreet.org

Democrats.com

http://democrats.com

Gold Star Families for Peace

http://cindysheehansoapbox.com

Ann Wright, retired US Army Reserve Colonel and US diplomat

http://voicesofconscience.com

Delaware Valley Veterans for America

http://delvalvets4america.org

Voters for Peace

http://votersforpeace.us

Wisconsin Impeachment / Bring Our Troops Home Coalition

http://impeachwi.com

Backbone Campaign

http://backbonecampaign.org

CODE PINK: Women for Peace

http://codepink4peace.org

Velvet Revolution

http://velvetrevolution.us

Justice Through Music

http://jtmp.org

Progressive Democrats of America

http://pdamerica.org

Brad Blog

http://bradblog.com

Cities for Peace

http://citiesforpeace.org

National Accountability Network

Northeast Impeachment Coalition

http://neimpeach.org

Republicans for Impeachment

http://republicansforimpeachment.com

Op Ed News

http://opednews.com

Marcus Raskin, cofounder of Institute for Policy Studies, member of editorial board of The Nation, member of the special staff of the National Security Council in Kennedy Administration

The Progressive

http://progressive.org

Peace Team

http://peaceteam.net

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

http://afterdowningstreet.org/vips

Defending Dissent Foundation

http://defendingdissent.org

Grassroots America

http://grassrootsamerica4us.org

Media Freedom Foundation/Project Censored

http://projectcensored.org

Peace Action

http://peace-action.org

Grandmothers Against the War

http://grandmothersagainstthewar.org

World Can’t Wait

http://worldcantwait.net

United for Peace and Justice

http://unitedforpeace.org

Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space

http://space4peace.org

War Crimes Times

http://warcrimestimes.org

Veterans for Peace 099

http://veteransforpeace.org

Veterans for Peace 26

http://veteransforpeace.org

Veterans for Peace

http://veteransforpeace.org

Naomi Wolf, author of “End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot,” and “Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries”

Iraq Veterans Against the War

http://ivaw.org

Daniel Ellsberg, Truth-Telling Project

http://ellsberg.net

Peter McLaren, Professor, University of California, Los Angeles

Smirking Chimp

http://www.smirkingchimp.com

Glenn Greenwald

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald

People for Peace & Justice/St. Augustine, FL

http://www.staugppj.org

Indict Bush Now

http://www.IndictBushNow.org

Society of American Law Teachers – SALT

http://www.saltlaw.org

Organizations and individuals can add their names to this statement at http://prosecutebushcheney.org