Montana Northern Star*

11 Jan '08--THE NUREMBERG PRINCIPLES

You be 'The Decider'. Did Bush/Cheney violate the Nuremberg Principles? They one of the cornerstones of international law, propagated and promulgated in large part by the United States in the aftermath of World War II. People scoff at the idea Bush/Cheney violated international law or acknowledge they have no idea what international law even is. Here it is, printed below. You decide.

Principle I Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment.

Principle II The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law.

Principle III The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.

Principle IV The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.

Principle V Any person charged with a crime under international law has the right to a fair trial on the facts and law.

Principle VI The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law: (a) Crimes against peace: (i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances; (ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i). (b) War Crimes: Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation of slave labor or for any other purpose of the civilian population of or in occupied territory; murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the Seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity. (c) Crimes against humanity: Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime.

Principle VII Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law.

You might like to check the reference source Wikipedia-Nuremberg Principles for authenticity. Take a look at the following hotlinked subjects on the site listed under the subhead See Also: "Command Responsibility"--particularly the subsection near the bottom titled 'The war on Terror';See Also "International Criminal Court" and lastly "Good Germans".

You be 'The Decider', make up your own mind. Did Bush/Cheney violate the Nuremberg Principles? Are you going to hold them accountable if they did? Should they be held accountable? Presumably you are living here, in America. This is your country. Isn't it? Or is it 'theirs'? You decide. This is not about punishing Bush/Cheney. It's about preventing them from doing any more horrific damage than they already have. And it's about providing accountability. It's about enforcing the rule of law. Nothing more, nothing less.

Wearing orange on Fridays signals a global change of consciousness. No more war. No more free pass for Bush/Cheney and their administration. No more lies. No more wanna-be king. No more pretending as chief executive you believe in enforcing the laws and demanding accountability while the only laws that are enforced are those that apply to the 'little people'.

Take a trip around the world. Use your tv. Look in the backgrounds. Notice all the people wearing orange? It's not a coincidence. We are on the verge of breathtaking, almost unimaginable breakthroughs in many technologies, ideas and attitudes globally. It is the paradigm change talked about by quantum physicists that have tuned into the fact not everything can be quantified, that consciousness is the determinant factor in the universe. It is nothingless than the passing away of the smokestack industries and their social and political institutions. This Old Guard is not going to pass away quietly. They are kicking, screaming, tyrannizing (to the extent we permit them) and doing all kinds of other 'stuff' on their way. Check this out. It's the YouTube video 'Monty Python Meets Star Wars'. (Perfect title for these characters, isn't it?) See if you don't see Bush/Cheney and their Republican supporters collectively starring as 'The Old Guard'.

But the change is in the wind. It is the wind. And everything else; the tides, the economies, the politics...the collective consciousness of our planet. That's what it will take, for this change to manifest, a change of consiousness. It's slow. It is sure. It's not 'coming soon'. It's here. It is the 'good' part of globalization.

So wearing orange is about this change of consciousness and participating in it. It's about global Solidarity, joining in the global family of people, participating in the change that is happening right now. To roughly paraphrase Mahatma Ghandi's statement 'be the change you would like to see'--Imagine the world you want. Now live it. Decide. Celebrate. Sing. Dance. Laugh. Join in a sea of orange.

Note: The idea for publishing the Nuremberg Principles came from Paul Stephens' weekly email newsletter. If you would like to receive Paul's epistles email him at Paul Stephens and ask to be put on his mailing list.

2 Aug '07--OKAY, SO HONEST MEN AND WOMEN AGREE BUSH & CHENEY HAVE COMMITTED IMPEACHABLE OFFENSES. NOW WHAT? WHAT CAN WE DO IF CONGRESS WON'T GET OFF THE DIME?

Consider the coyote. Yes, the coyote. Prairie dweller, long time resident and ultimate survivor. Coyote is shot at wherever he goes, poisoned when shooting fails, hunted from the air and snow machines...and still you hear that howl when you're out on the prairie.

At first, often, all you hear is one lonely song dog, "Yip, yip yoooo". Calling to others, maybe, maybe just to him/herself. Another call. Then an answer in the distance. Pretty soon you hear a few calls and answers and it's obvious they are getting closer to one another. Then you hear yips and yowls, sometimes some scrapping; it is contact. Primal. A bit later you hear the howl of the pack, together now. Then magically, distant, you hear the answering song of another pack. Then up the river you hear the same. Another!

It changes everything, you know, everything you recognize, it changes who and just what you are when across the spaces comes that howl. As humans it puts us in touch with our most ancient roots. The night is changed, you are changed and charged with a totally different energy. It is the howl that does it.

We have to be the coyotes, the song dogs, in this instance. One calls, then another, then still another...'til it flows down the Missouri River to North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Missouri, down the Mississippi further to New Orleans and out into the Gulf Stream. Up the tributaries; up the Ohio, over to the Potomac; up to New York and down the Hudson--let the howl carry over the Divide to Missoula, Lewiston and Portland, out into the Humboldt current and along the West Coast...until it finally reverberates in Congress and is heard around the world. It is the Howl for Justice.

Howl for Justice! Demand Bush/Cheney be impeached, a simple matter of justice, wherever you are. In the boardrooms, in the bar rooms, in the bedrooms, on the streetcorners, grocery stores and mountain tops...pick up the howl. (Please do copy, paste and display the graphic 'Howl for Justice' anywhere you like...your t-shirt, hat, posters...wherever and whatever, just don't sell it, it's copyrighted, but free only. Thanks to Jim Parker for the top Howl with the moon.)

And there's one more thing. Every Friday, from now until the impeachment process begins wear the color orange--orange anything, hats, shirts, shoelaces, underwear...as a sign of Solidarity. A variety of websites announced beginning Friday, July 27th, people would begin wearing orange on Fridays to show this solidarity. Take a look at them for the reasons; it's basic Solidarity and it has a good, strong foundation that has occurred in the rest of the world. We can pick up the lead from them. Google 'orange protest' or the like and you'll find the thinking. So wear your orange, from now 'til impeachment. And wherever you go Howl for Justice.

THE BUSH WAR AND WHAT'S IT'S DONE TO OUR COUNTRY-Have you had enough yet?--The Impeachment process revisited.

14 July 2007: A year and a half later--how many more deaths and depravities have occurred as a result of the Bush War? Last night on Bill Moyers Journal, PBS television, Moyers interviewed two men, Tough Talk On Impeachment The Nation's John Nichols and Constitutional scholar Bruce Fein. Fein wrote the first article of impeachment against President Bill Clinton. In the interview Moyers asks Fein why did he do that, didn't he find the so-called 'crime'-Clinton lying about extra marital sex-to be rather trivial? Fein replies the act itself may have been trivial but the perjury and denial of wrongdoing, wherein Clinton put himself above the law, was not. It was, and is, and should be an impeachable offense.

And therein is the gist of the rest of the interview. The interviewees state definitively Bush and Cheney have put themselves above the law, time after time, deplorable instance following instance, and they must be impeached. Bush and Cheney see themselves as above the law and act accordingly; to hell with Congress, the Constitution and the people, of this country and anywhere else on the globe. Fein and Nichols make the case it is not enough to placidly sit by for the next year and a half, awaiting a new President, wring our hands hopefully and wish upon a star that these problems and the perpetrators will simply go away. The next president, whoever it might be, will inherit the excessive power Bush/Cheney has created. And will likely use, and abuse, it. Power is very rarely given up by executives. So goes the course of nations. History proves this to be the case. History also proves out when the people of a country are willing to become subjects, rather than participating citizens, tyranny reigns and the country disintegrates from within.

If you read on you will see an earlier call for impeachment dated 1 March 2006. It stands; the crimes have increased in number and frequency. I'm not going to reiterate them here. It is enough these two-Bush/Cheney-have usurped the power of Congress, thumbed their collective noses at international and domestic laws, and subverted the Constitution. For all this malignant power to pass on to the next executive, whoever it is, means we lose our democracy and our freedom, sooner or later.

No man nor woman is above the law in this country. No one. Not Bush. Not Cheney, nor their followers. Unless we allow it.

Now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of their country. Tell everyone you know. Shout it from the mountain tops and the steet corners. Insist the law be enforced and applied to Bush/Cheney. Demand the law be enforced or kiss your country and your freedoms good-bye.

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THE BUSH WAR AND WHAT'S IT'S DONE TO OUR COUNTRY-Have you had enough yet?

by William Marsik

1 March 2006: Every day I read the daily paper and wonder what new hardship or heartache the NeoCons and their followers under George W. Bush's leadership are attempting to foist onto us in the name of their 'free market' jingoism or their catch-all fear mongering of 'stopping terror'. I wonder with great sadness 'what next?' What will they try to take from the poor, the elderly, our children and their heritage?

Yesterday a front page article in the local paper reported an attempt to cut back the commodities-read 'food'-poor people receive. The people are already poor, they need the food. Yet, this is part of the Bush proposed budget cuts. Last week Dr. Mark McClellan, the brother of Scott McClellan, the spokesman for the Bush administration, was in Great Falls trying to explain the changes and charges for prescription drugs under Medicaid. The meeting was obfuscation defined. A month or so ago the Bush administration rushed Vice President Dick Cheney back to the U.S. from an overseas trip to break a tie vote in the Senate, and in the process pass a bill that raised the cap on college student loan interest rates. This, by an administration that touts itself as 'pro education'. What an abysmal joke on us, the American public and our kids, who will someday have to try and repay those loans. These are but a few tastes from the NeoCon menu.

There's more, a great deal more. There is an entire litany of transgressions, one after the other--lies, deceits, intimidation, self interest, manipulation, corruption, violations of American and international law, murky interpretations of the Constitution and extravagant claims of executive wartime powers...Guantanamo and it's torture/cruelty, Valerie Plame, the invasion of Iraq, Abu Ghraib prison, domestic warrantless spying on Americans...it goes on. And on, and on.

Did you ever really imagine that at the beginnning of the 21st Century the United States would be running an off-shore prison that incarcerates people without a trial? And keeps them there, despite the outcry from the global community? Or that we would have people in our government who would advocate torture? Tell me, did you ever think we would, as a people, entertain the thought of, or argue among ourselves, that torture in any form, for any reason is acceptable, and debate the techniques that might be legally used? Did you? (See the Jane Mayer story hotlinked at the bottom of this page.) Did you ever imagine the President of the United States would admit he violated the law regarding warrantless spying on American citizens on American soil and when questioned about it use his own attorney general (one of the principal architects and advocates of our Guantanamo interrogation policy) to insist warrantless spying is acceptable, it falls under some imprecise description of a president's wartime powers? End of the story, we have no further comment--go away with your impertinent questions, is the standard Bush administration message to the American people regarding most of these matters.

Is this the America you visualized when you were a kid sitting, maybe a little bored, mind wandering, but cognizent of the stream of data about liberty and freedom and it's position in American and global history your high school civics teacher was trying to drum into you? Is this the stuff that gives you the tingles when you stand for the Star Spangled Banner and salute our flag--a war engaged under false pretenses, illegal detainment of foreign nationals, torture and/or cruelty tolerated and advocated by the Bush administration, abrogation of international law, domestic warrantless spying on American citizens?

The United States of America is our country. It belongs to the people; we are responsible for it. It is what we make of it--or don't. It is what we allow our leaders to make of it--or not. Our country is what we are, it defines our essence as people, individually and collectively. American freedom embodies what generations of countless people have fought and died for and bequeathed to us in the process, and it is what we will bequeath to our children. Or it is what we will not bequeath to them.

It is time for the people of America to stand up and say, "No more, Mr. Bush." Begin the impeachment proceedings. He has broken the domestic espionage law and admitted it. It is an impeachable offense. No person is above the law. That most certainly includes the President of the United States. Let us live up to our obligations. We are a nation of people governed by law. Or are we? I have no doubt America will prevail one more time, and the watching world will rejoice and say "Against great odds, the Americans have lived up to their own promises, upheld their own laws and those of the international community. They remain a beacon of freedom and a government of law, by, for and of the people."

The Remedy-The American citizens prevail. Stopping Terrorism

It will be enough to let the law take its course and determine what is to be done with President Bush, Vice President Cheney and their coterie of advisors who have coached and urged them along this pathway of repeatedly ignoring and outright violating the law. There is a format for allegations of law breaking at this top level, it is the impeachment process. The process itself can answer the allegations and determine the results. That is not for us to say or determine, it is the responsibility and duty of Congress to initiate and implement the impeachment process and we will leave it in their trust, while we hold them accountable.

America and its people have historically shown the capacity to share with the world our aid and our expertise. It has made us a great nation. We are great 'doers'; builders and innovators. We can build marvel houses, roads, factories, electrical systems, streets, schools (see our Education page), bridges, dams--infrastructure, achievement and development that boggles the mind in concept, scale and execution.

If we deliver on our promises to Afghanistan and Iraq, the countries of our latest military incursions, and help them construct not only the idea of democracy, but help reconstruct the tangible base of societal infrastructue; schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, dams, electrical generation and delivery systems ...there is no end to the possibilities and projects--we will stop terrorism. The people of those countries, and others, will say to themselves and to those among them who would cause us harm, "These are good people. They have helped us in many ways. They are making our lives and those of our children better. Do not harm them." And they will, by their own hand and means, stop the terrorists.

That is the way that to stop terrorism. It is the only lasting way, by extending the hand of friendship, tolerance and help. Pure aggression fosters only more aggression. There has been enough aggression. There has been enough war. There is a time for war, and a time for peace. There is a time to keep the remainder of our promises to the Afghan and Iraqi people. That time is now. As importantly, it is time for America to redefine and reinforce our own understanding of the promises we make to ourselves about who and what it is we truly are and what we will be.

If we expect others to uphold their laws and act as democracies, we need need to uphold our own laws and to be the democracy we want others to emulate. In this instance upholding law requires the impeachment of George W. Bush for breaking international and U.S. domestic law, and at the same time, ridding our country of the relentless NeoCon ideologues and restoring the will and rule of the people. That is what a democracy is and does; the people rule the country. We need to determine and demonstrate our good will, our generosity and understanding of other peoples by what we do, not just what we say we will do, or say what we are. This all begins with upholding our own laws and that means holding to account those who break the law, President of the United States notwithstanding. That is the starting point.

Quite interestingly, as Lewis H. Lapham points out in his well documented and footnoted March 2006, Harper's magazine article, The Case for Impeachment, Why we can no longer afford George W. Bush, it is up to the President's own Republican party to begin the impeachment proceedings since they control both bodies of Congress and the Judiciary committee. The Republicans will have to choose between serving their party and serving their country. That is their choice. May they serve their country. It is our duty as citizens to insist they do so.

--Marsik writes Montana Northern Star*

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Here are a couple of cross references you might find useful or noteworthy: The first, is an article by Garrison Keillor, author and host of 'A Prairie Home Companion' What To Do When The Emperor Has No Clothes. It first appeared in the Chicago Tribune on March 1, 2006. The second, an article from the New Yorker, published February 20, 2006, Annals of the Pentagon: The Memo: How an internal effort to ban the abuse and torture of detainees was thwarted. by Jane Mayer. Here is an excerpt from Ms. Mayer's article:

Mora thinks that the media has focussed too narrowly on allegations of U.S.-sanctioned torture. As he sees it, the authorization of cruelty is equally pernicious. “To my mind, there’s no moral or practical distinction,” he told me. “If cruelty is no longer declared unlawful, but instead is applied as a matter of policy, it alters the fundamental relationship of man to government. It destroys the whole notion of individual rights. The Constitution recognizes that man has an inherent right, not bestowed by the state or laws, to personal dignity, including the right to be free of cruelty. It applies to all human beings, not just in America—even those designated as ‘unlawful enemy combatants.’ If you make this exception, the whole Constitution crumbles. It’s a transformative issue.”

And lastly, an excerpt from Garrison Keillor's article:

Our adventure in Iraq, at a cost of billions, has brought that country to the verge of civil war while earning us more enemies than ever before. And tax money earmarked for security is being dumped into pork-barrel projects anywhere somebody wants their own SWAT team. Detonation of a nuclear bomb within our borders--pick any big city--is a real possibility, as much so now as five years ago. Meanwhile, many Democrats have conceded the very subject of security and positioned themselves as Guardians of Our Forests and Benefactors of Waifs and Owls, neglecting the most basic job of government, which is to defend this country. The peaceful lagoon that is the White House is designed for the comfort of a vulnerable man. Perfectly understandable, but not what is needed now. The U.S. Constitution provides a simple, ultimate way to hold him to account for war crimes and the failure to attend to the country's defense. Impeach him and let the Senate hear the evidence.

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