War Crimes, etc.
[updated 11.11.2004]
 

Mass Murder in Iraq

Peer-reviewed scientific study finds Iraq invasion/occupation caused more than 100,000 deaths. Most victims were women and children, and most deaths were caused by U.S. air strikes. The risk of violent death in Iraq has increased 58 times since the invasion.

Read the study here:  Roberts, et al. (2004) Mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: cluster sample survey
Lancet commentary here:  Horton (2004) The war in Iraq: civilian casualties, political responsibilities  

Massacre of Civilians

 

"Abundant eyewitness testimony backed up by television footage indicates the helicopters fired directly at the crowd, at least most of whose members were clearly unarmed."  Motive for Haifa Street Helicopter Massacre Remains a Mystery. New Standard, 9.14.04

"Two men were dragging away an unconscious boy who had lost the lower half of one leg. A pool of blood and a creamy liquid formed beneath the stump on the pavement. His other leg was badly gashed."  He's just sleeping, I kept telling myself. Guardian, 9.14.04

Child Rape

"'Between January and May of this year, we've registered 107 children, during 19 visits in 6 different detention locations,' said Red Cross representative Florian Westphal in the report."  Torturing Children. Truthout Editorial, 7.20.04

"Michigan-based attorney Shereef Akeel ... has documented abuse dating from July 2003 to as recently as last month, when an Iraqi boy just fifteen years old says his captors at an American facility raped him. 'He was told to go on all fours naked and was sodomized from behind... He said they made him dance and he was crying.'"  American Lawyer Finds New Evidence of Recent Torture in Iraq. New Standard,  9.4.04

"And basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children, in cases that have been [video] recorded, the boys were sodomized, with the cameras rolling, and the worst above all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking. That your government has, and they’re in total terror it’s going to come out."  Seymour Hersh. ACLU Keynote Speech, 7.15.04

Torture

       

All the publicly available Iraq torture pictures are posted at The Memory Hole.

"Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo said, 'If you can't detain them indefinitely, you sure don't want them in America.'"  Plan Would Let U.S. Deport Suspects To Nations That Might Torture Them. Washington Post, 9.29.04

"American legal investigators have discovered evidence of abuse, torture and rape throughout the US-run prison system in Iraq. ... 'Nobody talks about it. All everyone talks about is Abu Ghraib because of the pictures,' said Alomari. 'But in these other places, there’s tons of acts of torture, abuse, rape.'"   Abuse, Torture and Rape Reported at Unlisted U.S.-run Prisons in Iraq. New Standard, 9.23.04

"Yasir Rubaii Saeed al-Qutaji describes how loud western music was played and cold water poured over his body; he said he was also threatened with sexual abuse."  US troops face new torture claims. Guardian, 9.14.04

"6. (S) I find that the intentional abuse of detainees by military police personnel included the following acts:  a. (S) Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet; ... l. (S) Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee; ... m. (S) Taking photographs of dead Iraqi detainees."  (2004) Taguba Report

"As we learned from France's battle for Algiers in the 1950s, Argentina's dirty war in the 1970s, and Britain's Northern Ireland conflict in the 1970s, a nation that harbors torture in defiance of its democratic principles pays a terrible price."  The Hidden History of CIA Torture: America's Road to Abu Ghraib. Alfred W. McCoy. ZNet, 9.10.04  

Here you can read the KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation manual and other materials related to CIA and US Military Intelligence interrogation practices:  Prisoner Abuse: Patterns from the Past. National Security Archive, 5.12.2004

"It gives its practitioners a drug-like rush. But it leaves a legacy of destruction that takes generations to undo. First of two parts."  Torture's dark allure. Darius Rejali. Salon, 6.18.04

"The French military's use of torture in Algeria is often cited as a success story. But the real story is more complex. Second of two parts."  Does torture work? Darius Rejali. Salon, 6.21.04

Conspiracy to Commit Torture - Conspiracy to Evade Prosecution for War Crimes

White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales's memo to Bush advises that "Your determination [not to apply Geneva conventions to certain prisoners] would create a reasonable basis in law that (the War Crimes Act) does not apply which would provide a solid defense to any future prosecution." (2002 - Jan) Gonzales - Geneva Conventions - Memo to President

Secretary Powell's response:  (2002 - Jan) Powell - Comment on Gonzales - Memo to President 

This Department of Justice memo was written by Jay S. Bybee, who Bush later appointed to a lifetime Federal Judgeship. The memo contains various legal justifications for the torture of prisoners:  (2002 - Aug) DOJ - Torture Memo

Pentagon torture report:  (2003 - March) Pentagon - Detainee Interrogations in the Global War on Terror - Torture Report

Home Invasion and Kidnapping

"Arresting authorities entered houses usually after dark, breaking down doors.... Sometimes they arrested all adult males present in a house, including elderly, handicapped or sick people. ... Treatment often included pushing people around, insulting, taking aim with rifles, punching and kicking and striking with rifles. ...between 70 percent and 90 percent of the persons deprived of their liberty in Iraq had been arrested by mistake...." (2004 - Feb) Iraq Red Cross Report

Murder

This man died under torture in the shower room at Abu Ghraib. His wife and son don't think it's as funny as the soldier in the picture does.

   

Criminal Negligence

This is what Bush knew on Aug. 6, 2001: 
Presidential Daily Briefing 8-6-01

As usual, he had a nice long vacation ahead of him:
Bush Gave No Sign of Worry In August 2001, Washington Post, 4.11.04
President spends 40% of time out of the office, Guardian, 4.12.04 

Deception to Incite War

Administration lies about Iraq: now in a searchable database!
Iraq on the Record: The Bush Administration's Public Statements on Iraq

Accessory to Mass Murder

 

Rumsfeld, in his capacity as a US envoy appointed by Reagan, meeting Saddam Hussein in 1983. The US actively supported Iraqi use of chemical weapons against Iranians and Kurds. Some inconvenient facts (with source documents and the video) can be found here:  Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein: The U.S. Tilts toward Iraq, 1980-1984. National Security Archive, 2.25.03

Conspiracy to Expand US Empire

Here are some of their plans for the world:
(2000) Rebuilding America's Defenses
(2002) National Security Strategy

Apocalypse

It's happening right now:  Global Warming: Early Warning Signs

Antarctic Glaciers Quicken Pace to Sea; Warming Is Cited. New York Times, 9.24.04

Reported recently:  Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us. Observer, 2.22.04

Read the actual report:  (2003) An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security

Don't worry, the Administration is working on this (from the Union of Concerned Scientists):  (2004) Scientific Integrity in Policymaking: An Investigation into the Bush Administration’s Misuse of Science
 

RNC-NYC Crimes
(Illegal arrests, abusive detention, political repression)

[updated 11.11.2004]

Over half a million (500,002) people marched against the criminal regime and their convention in occupied New York City!

   
   

Legal resources for detainees

National Lawyers Guild 
New York City People's Law Collective
New York Civil Liberties Union.
 
Lists/groups for detainees

RNC Defense List (by the NYC People's Law Collective)
RNC Arrests (a Yahoo group)

Videos

I appear in this video. At the very end, you can see me being arrested, cuffed, and led into the street behind the car. I'm wearing a porkpie hat, a yellow/white t-shirt and a black bag over my shoulder.  The 16th Street Uprising  By Mike Hall. 8.31.04

Here are several videos, including short videos from inside Pier 57 ("Let us go!") and a longer video of the 16th St. mass arrest. Erik and I do not appear in this video. That is because we walked on the opposite sidewalk from the photographer and behind him. 2004 RNC in NYC: Audio, video, and images: Video/Audio. By Emmanuel Goldstein. 8.31.2004  

Pictures

Pictures (and video) from inside Pier 57, at the invaluable Memory Hole. Photos and Videos From Inside New York's Pier 57 Detention Center. By Jacob Richards and Connie Murillo. 8.31.04

Here are more pictures from inside Pier 57; also there are pictures of the 16th St. mass arrest. 2004 RNC in NYC: Audio, video, and images: Pier 57. By Emmanuel Goldstein. 8.31.2004  
 
This is the text of 6 signs that were hanging near the south side of the big pen at Pier 57 (first posted here); they were under or around a sign that read "Raw Chemical Storage Area."  If anyone knows what these signs mean, please email me or otherwise make the information public.

Sign 1:  "XHP 222 special 69-10-3400"
Sign 2:  "anti-freeze"
Sign 3:  "15w-40 69-12-2186"
Sign 4:  "transynd 69-12-0555"
Sign 5:  "soap 70-17-1503"
Sign 6:  "ZEP drying agent 70-25-0100"

   

Behold the grime of 19 hours in Pier 57! These were taken immediately after my release at about 10:15am on Thursday 9.2.04. The stain on the inside of my t-shirt (available  here) is where I had wiped my face (there were no sinks or soap at P57). Please note that the white stuff on the back of my elbows is psoriasis, a pre-existing condition that has nothing to do with my detention. I bagged my clothes as evidence; do this if you were held at P57.



Detainee accounts

[First draft 9.3.04] Here is my first account of what happened to me during the Republican National Convention in New York. There are three basic points that we (the detainees) would like to be emphasized when you repeat this story to other people and/or the media:

1.  Illegal, indiscriminate mass arrests that swept up many non-lawbreaking onlookers (like me) and also totally random bystanders;
2.  Inhumane conditions at the Pier 57 facility;
3.  Deliberate slowdown of due process in order to detain protesters as long as possible, in violation of 3 court orders (the city was finally held in contempt of court and fined by a State Supreme Court Justice).

 Later I will have a more detailed statement available here with supporting evidence including more photos. For now here are the basics of my experience, in the framework of points 1-3 above. 

1.  I was illegally arrested in an indiscriminate mass sweep on 16th St. at Union Square East, at about 7:00pm on August 31. Erik Henrikson and I were walking, and later standing, on the sidewalk observing a demonstration march (the band was the Infernal Noise Brigade and they were great). We broke no laws. No dispersal order was given by the police and we were not allowed to disperse. The police simply set up two lines on either end of 16th St. and arrested everyone who happened to be on the block.  

[Movements from Union Sq. to 16th St.  9.4.04] We followed the march from the SE corner of Union Sq. and crossed the intersection where Union Square E. (USE) meets 14th St. [map] We were in the very back of the crowd. We walked on the east sidewalk on USE (in front of the Toys-R-Us) and saw the crowd turn east onto E. 16th St (16). We turned with them, onto the south sidewalk of 16. We went about 2/3 of the way down 16. [map] After we saw the first police line on Irving Plaza (IP), we retreated and tried to leave the scene at USE. The cops were herding us west on 16 from IP, yelling "MOVE, MOVE." By the time we got another 1/3 back toward USE (just past the parking garage) the crowd in front of us had encountered the next police line at USE and we had to stop, about in front of the loading dock (closed with a metal shutter).

When the cops started violently grabbing  people from the packed sidewalk for arrest, we were trapped by the panicked crowd. The people around us were cowering from the attacking police. The cops seemed to target members of the bands, and also people who looked 'punk' or 'anarchist'. I couldn't tell if all the targets were resisting arrest or if they were just being violently grabbed and forced to the pavement for arrest, but the police were very aggressive. I saw a trombone get smashed and then violently kicked to pieces by the police. Suddenly, two rows of helmeted officers holding batons had us in a cross-section of the sidewalk crowd, about 4-6 people deep, trapped between the wall and a parked car. They told us to sit, be calm, let them arrest people, and that "everyone's going home." After the cops had cuffed all the band members and other grab targets, the remaining crowds of people were totally compliant. That's when they started arresting everyone. Erik and I never left the sidewalk until the cops ordered us into the street for cuffing, in small groups of about 5 people.    

       

[First draft 9.3.04] 1b-2a.  The police used hard plastic 'zipper' cuffs that dig deeply into the wrists and pull the shoulders back and down. I was initially cuffed too tightly (my right hand went numb, it was very painful) and had to complain for nearly an hour before I was re-cuffed. I witnessed several people cuffed even more tightly than me who were in excruciating pain and were begging to be re-cuffed. Although every police officer was carrying a dozen cuffs, very few of them had the tool needed to cut the plastic. I spent 4 consecutive hours in the cuffs (2 hours during the mass arrests and bus transport; then 2 more hours during initial processing at Pier 57 while were in the facility and under the total control of nearly 100 police). This caused severe pain in my right shoulder and both wrists.

2.  I was held for a total of 19 hours inside Pier 57 at W. 15th St.; this cavernous warehouse/garage was used as bus depot for many years. Inside were 8-10 smaller cages (10-foot-high wire fences with coils of razor wire on the top) where they kept 20-40 people at time. The smaller cages had benches, but there were always too many people in the cages so not everyone could sit on them. Sometimes there were so many people in the small cages that there wasn't room for everyone to lie on the floor. I was moved around into four of the small cages before they put all of the males (200-300) into a large cage with no benches. I was filthy from lying on the floor, which was covered with oil, chemicals and dirt. There was a sign indicating that this area was a "Chemical Storage Area," and other signs indicating where different types of chemicals should be stored, e.g. "Anti-freeze." (Conditions at Pier 57, a.k.a. "Guantanamo on the Hudson" are described in a New Standard article here.)

       

2b-3a. We were re-cuffed for the transfer to Central Booking in Lower Manhattan, and put in an NYPD Corrections bus (I was in an individual cage on the bus). We drove downtown quickly, with a police escort. On arrival, they let us wait in the sweltering bus for about half an hour, then marched us upstairs and into an initial holding cell inside CB. We were kept in our painful cuffs until our complaints in the holding cell drew a superior officer who uncuffed us (the 3 cops outside the cell just mocked us while talking, reading the New York Post, and playing with a cell phone). I spent 2 more consecutive hours in the cuffs (1 hour in transport, 1 hour in the holding cell). 

3.  After about 1 hour of processing (photos, fingerprints, more searches) we were put in several blocks of holding cells with phones. (I was held for about 24 hours before being allowed to make a phone call; it was longer for others.) I spent another 14 hours in a small cell with 20-30 people. These cells had benches, but there were too many people for us all to sit on them. At certain times there were again so many people that not everyone could lie down. At about 9:00am my name was finally called and I got taken upstairs to see a lawyer. (I was held for about 38 hours without being told my rights, hearing the charges against me, or being able to speak with a lawyer.) I was charged with 2 counts of Disorderly Conduct (one for blocking the street; one for blocking the sidewalk) and 1 count of Parading Without a Permit. All charges are Violations (the category below a Misdemeanor), equivalent to a traffic ticket. The prosecutors offered us all Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal, which means the charges are automatically dropped if you are not arrested in 6 months. I took it and was released at about 10:00 am on Thursday September 3. I spent over 39 hours in detention.  

3b.  Detainees who live in NY could have received a Desk Arraignment Ticket, which allows you to appear in front of judge for arraignment at a later time. But since the city was determined to hold us for as long as possible, we were forced to wait and be arraigned before a judge. Erik was released at about 4:00pm on Thursday; he was detained for 45 hours. Other detainees were held longer. The National Lawyers Guild filed a Writ of Habeas Corpus on our behalf; a State Supreme Justice held the city in Contempt of Court after 3 court orders to release us were ignored.

Please be aware that there is very little coverage of this event in the corporate (a.k.a. 'mainstream') mass media. Most of those reports that do appear are filled with inaccuracies and often repeat, without any investigation or critical comment, blatant lies from city officials. Police Commissioner Kelly and other NYPD spokespeople are being quoted as saying that Pier 57 processing took an average of 2 hours and no one was held there more than 8 hours. This is simply a lie. Mayor Bloomberg is being quoted as saying that Pier 57 is "not supposed to be Club Med" but is "safe and clean." The former statement is reprehensible; the latter is a lie. The Mayor is also saying that soy sandwiches were served to vegetarians. This is a lie. I witnessed many vegetarians and vegans who were given only baloney or cheese; I never saw or heard of any soy sandwiches during my entire detention.

Please speak to others about this incident, including the media if possible.

[Other detainee accounts]
http://www.2600.com/rnc2004/
http://www.latinosporlapaz.org/
http://www.eddie.com/blog/
http://static-ephemera.net/archives/2004_09.html#002555
http://www.notinourname.net/rnc/pre-crime.htm

Independent media

New Standard:
9.19.04  Activists Arrested During GOP Convention Testify Against City, Police
9.6.04  Lawyers Guild, NYCLU Collecting Information on infamous Pier 57 jail
9.3.04  Arrestees, Lawyers, Medics Condemn Conditions of RNC Protest Detention: Peaceful demonstrators, bystanders held up to 24 hours in hazardous facility
8.31.04  Civil Disobedience Turns to Rebellion in Face of Police Repression: Planned and Spontaneous Protests Swarmed by Cops Well Into the Night

NYC IndyMedia:
9.22.04  RNC Arrests: Preemptive Strikes Hit Home
9.22.04  Pier 57: 'Not Club Med,' says Bloomberg
9.10.04  One Hearing, Three Headlines: NYC Media Drops Ball on RNC Arestee Case
9.3.04  The crusty punkazation of the movement
9.3.04 S3 Wrap Up: Jail Crisis

ZNet:
9.9.04  The New York Model: Indymedia and the Text Message Jihad
9.7.04  The Rise of the Homeland Security State: Fortress Big Apple, Revisited
9.2.04  Arrest-happy cops on the prowl: Even “polite” protestors and apolitical pedestrians are fair game in RNC round-up
9.2.04  Arrested at Ground Zero

Less-corporate media

Salon (view the 'Day Pass' ad to read the whole article):
9.3.04  They fought the law and the law won: Anti-Bush protesters were tough and resilient all week. But in the end it was the NYPD and City Hall with the upper hand

Village Voice:
9.21.04  Convention Detention
9.7.04  The Honor Roll
9.7.04 The Waiting Game
9.3.04  City May Have to Pay Protesters

Corporate media

New York Times (requires registration; these articles will be archived, so read them while they're free):
9.22.04  Judge Allows City More Time to Explain Protesters' Detention
9.17.04  City Arrest Tactics, Used on Protesters, Face Test in Court
9.16.04  Council Subpoenas Threatened Over Mass Arrests of Protesters
9.11.04  City Faces Hearing on Paying a Protester Fine
9.10.04  Judge Keeps City on Notice Over Convention Protest Arrests 
9.6.04  A Setback for the City of Tolerance
9.4.04  Editorial: The Police and the Protests
9.3.04  Facing Fine, City Frees Hundreds of Detainees
9.2.04  Lawyers Flood the Courts, but Demonstrators Trickle In
8.31.04  Demonstrators Held at Pier 57 Complain of Conditions and Long Waits
AP:  GOP Convention Detainees Describe Lockup

Boston Globe
9.19.04  Editorial: NYPD Blues 

Newsday
9.16.04  Dangerous lockup: Facility that housed arrested protesters cited by independent reports as having asbestos, safety risk

Guardian (UK):
9.4.04  Judge fines city of New York and orders release of jailed protesters: Judge releases protesters

Washington Post (requires registration):
9.20.04  Arrests at GOP Convention Are Criticized: Many in N.Y. Released Without Facing Charges
9.3.04  Judge Orders Demonstrators Freed: Jurist Holds City in Contempt of Court, Saying Dozens of People Were Held Without Charges