Is a new 9/11 investigation necessary?

[Grateful for Hope]

If anyone can think of more categories before the 1/hr limit, please post!

[hack89]

1. How do you have an impartial investigation?

Are you implying no government involvement? Who chooses the investigators? Congress?

This is an honest question - we hear much about the need for another investigation but very few details on how exactly to do it.

[Diane_nyc]

3. Maybe change "impartial" to "an investigation without conflicts of interest such as Zelikow's"? nt

[Grateful for Hope]

4. will do .. thanks!

[hack89]

11. Someone has to pick the investigators.

who will choose?

[Diane_nyc]

12. Picking the commissioners ....

For a continuation of the 9/11 Commission, as I http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=211181&mesg_id=211186">suggested here, the commissioners would have to be chosen by Congress. If Obama wins, perhaps this might be feasible.

Another alternative would be local referenda in New York City and Washington, DC, such as the New York City 9/11 ballot initiative, which would set up local commissions with pre-picked commissioners, named in the referendum. However, a problem with the New York City 9/11 ballot initiative is that there wasn't sufficient public debate, in advance of launching the petition drive, on who the commissioners would be. Such preceding public debate would be necessary, in my opinion, in order to avoid unpleasant surprises later, and also to ensure enough publicity to get enough signatures in a timely fashion in the first place.

[Diane_nyc]

5. I think we need a new commission to continue the work of the 9/11 Commission ...

... and with maybe some of the same people as there were on the earlier commission, for the sake of continuity and to avoid reinventing wheels, but without any people with close ties to the Bush administration (such as Zelikow) or to the Clinton administration, and without any ties to possibly relevant foreigners (such as the bin Laden family) or to any possibly relevant foreign governments (such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan).

[Grateful for Hope]

8. This is why I am calling for international

n/t

[Diane_nyc]

9. How do you propose that this international investigation be set up?

How would its commissioners and staff be selected, and by whom?

And what kind of teeth could it have, and how? For example, under what jurisdiction, if any, could it have subpoena power?

[hack89]

10. Why would you expect an international investigation to be impartial?

We have a lot of enemies now in the world - how to you prevent them from using this investigation to their own purposes?

[Grateful for Hope]

45. We have made a lot of enemies

by the very acts we have engaged in SINCE 9/11.

The leadership of countries world-wide should be involved in this investigation.

[hack89]

58. Why do you think they will be impartial?

What governments specifically should be part of the investigation.

[Diane_nyc]

2. Suggested further alternatives to add to poll if you still can

I would suggest splitting this choice:

YES: We need to have an impartial investigation.

into the following two:

1) YES: We need to have an impartial investigation, but it should be confined to investigating unpreparedness and incompetence.

2) YES: We need to have an impartial investigation, and it should be open to calling witnesses who claim full-fledged foreknowledge, such as http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=182140&mesg_id=182140">Patty Casazza's alleged whistleblowers.

[Grateful for Hope]

6. This one, Diane, is for further polls.

I think.

[Diane_nyc]

7. I guess so, given that people have already started voting. nt

[Rosa Luxemburg]

13. unfinshed business

[Grateful for Hope]

14. The lack of response here

is very telling.

[Diane_nyc]

15. Not necessarily. It's Friday night, after all. There will probably be more response by Monday. nt

[seemslikeadream]

16. YES: We need an international investigation

Just like an international investigation into torture

[Grateful for Hope]

17. Exactly, SLaD n/t

[hack89]

18. No international body has the power to conduct such an investigation

how do you propose it be done?

[seemslikeadream]

23. Bugliosi might try georgie in Spain ***WARNING CONTAINS MANY WORDS****

Manning memo proves Bush is guilty of murder


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/6/1/95844/55255/169/526647

Manning memo proves Bush is guilty of murder
by Christian Dem in NC
Sun Jun 01, 2008 at 09:15:49 AM PDT
When I first heard that Vincent Bugliosi was coming out with a new book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, I was skeptical. Granted, there is now a mountain of evidence as high as K2 that this president deliberately lied to us and our elected representatives about the evidence supporting war. For that, he should have been impeached ten times over. However, it took only one piece of evidence out of the avalanche of documentation outlined by Bugliosi to convince me that impeachment is no longer sufficient, and that this president must be tried for murder.

Bugliosi refers to a meeting Bush held on January 31, 2003 with Tony Blair and six of Bush and Blair's top aides to discuss the Iraq issue. According to a memo summarizing the meeting that was written by David Manning (then Blair's foreign policy adviser and later British ambassador to Washington), Bush actually indicated that he was willing to provoke a confrontation with Saddam. This summary has never been disputed by the White House.

Christian Dem in NC's diary :: ::
Among the ways Bush proposed to provoke a confrontation was to paint U2s to look like UN airplanes. The theory was that if Saddam tried to fire on them, it would justify military action. I have to say that in reading this, a chill went down my spine. The image I immediately got was of how Hitler started World War II--with a purported violation of the German border by Poland. SS men disguised as Polish soldiers were to stage a phony attack on a German radio station located right on the border, and leave drugged concentration camp inmates dying as "casualties."

This Manning memo got limited play in the press--it was mentioned only in passing in an NYT front-page story in March 2006. However, even without the plans to use U2 aircraft disguised in UN colors, the memo is absolutely damning and proves that the invasion of Iraq is a criminal act.

But behind closed doors, the president was certain that war was inevitable. During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, he made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written by Mr. Blair's top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The New York Times.

"Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning," David Manning, Mr. Blair's chief foreign policy adviser at the time, wrote in the memo that summarized the discussion between Mr. Bush, Mr. Blair and six of their top aides.

"The start date for the military campaign was now penciled in for 10 March," Mr. Manning wrote, paraphrasing the president. "This was when the bombing would begin." (emphasis mine)

It's one thing for a president to mislead his own people about a threat to the nation. But if Bugliosi and this NYT story are to be believed, then the invasion of Iraq is an American war of aggression, and all of the deaths of the American soldiers up to this point amount at the very least to second-degree murder. As Bugliosi puts it in his book:




Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi talks about his book, "The Prosecution Of George W. Bush for Murder"

Stephanie Miller Show
http://www.stephaniemiller.com/files/mp3/2008_0609_bugliosi.mp3


http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/1644

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Vincent Bugliosi


(Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from the book The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder by Vincent Bugliosi)

How has George Bush reacted to the hell he created in Iraq, to the thousands of lives that have been lost in the war, and to the enormous and endless suffering that the survivors of the victims -- their loved ones -- have had to endure?

I've always felt that impressions are very important in life, and other than "first impressions," they are usually right. Why? Because impressions, we know, are formed over a period of time. They are the accumulation of many words and incidents, many or most of which one has forgotten, but which are nonetheless assimilated into the observer's subconscious and thus make their mark. In other words, you forgot the incident, but it added to the impression. "How do you feel about David? Do you feel he's an honest person?" "Yeah, I do." "Why do you say that about him? Can you give me any examples that would cause you to say he's honest?" "No, not really, at least not off the top of my head. But I've known David for over ten years, and my sense is that he's an honest person."

I have a very distinct impression that with the exception of a vagrant tear that may have fallen if he was swept up, in the moment, at an emotional public ceremony for American soldiers who have died in the war, George Bush hasn't suffered at all over the monumental suffering, death, and horror he has caused by plunging this nation into the darkness of the Iraq war, probably never losing a wink of sleep over it. Sure, we often hear from Bush administration sources, or his family, or from Bush himself, about how much he suffers over the loss of American lives in Iraq. But that dog won't run. How do we just about know this is nonsense? Not only because the words he has uttered could never have escaped from his lips if he were suffering, but because no matter how many American soldiers have died on a given day in Iraq (averaging well over two every day), he is always seen with a big smile on his face that same day or the next, and is in good spirits. How would that be possible if he was suffering? For example, the November 3, 2003, morning New York Times front-page headline story was that the previous day in Fallouja, Iraq, insurgents "shot down an American helicopter just outside the city in a bold assault that killed 16 soldiers and wounded 20 others. It was the deadliest attack on American troops since the United States invaded Iraq in March." Yet later in that same day when Bush arrived for a fund-raiser in Birmingham, Alabama, he was smiling broadly, and Mike Allen of the Washington Post wrote that "the President appeared to be in a fabulous mood." This is merely one of hundreds of such observations made about Bush while the brutal war continued in Iraq.

And even when Bush is off camera, we have consistently heard from those who have observed him up close how much he seems to be enjoying himself. When Bush gave up his miles of running several times a week because of knee problems, he took up biking. "He's turned into a bike maniac," said Mark McKinnon in March of 2005, right in the middle of the war. McKinnon, a biking friend of Bush's who was Bush's chief media strategist in his 2004 reelection campaign, also told the New York Times's Elisabeth Bumiller about Bush: "He's as calm and relaxed and confident and happy as I've ever seen him." Happy? Under the horrible circumstances of the war, where Bush's own soldiers are dying violent deaths, how is that even possible?

[hack89]

27. Obama will never let that happen

he would never let that particular precedent be set. And Spain would never antagonize America like that - they have too much to lose.

[seemslikeadream]

37. Obama will never let that happen

He has no power in this matter

And there is the path of one or more of the states attorney generals doing it

[hack89]

56. You really think that? OK.

[seemslikeadream]

79. Yes and so does Vincent Bugliosi

I'll use only a couple of words here, my proof is down thread

[HamdenRice]

28. And your oracular pronunciation is based on what?

Do you have anything to back this up?

[hack89]

30. Perhaps I was hasty in assuming

that those that support an international investigation hadn't thought out all the details. Let me lay out my concerns in some questions - I am certainly willing to be educated on the matter.

1. What international treaty or portion of the UN charter allows unilateral international investigations of a countries domestic crimes, scandals or terrorist incidents?

2. What treaty compels the US government to cooperate with and share national security secrets with such a international investigation?

3. What historic examples exist of the UN going to a country and investigating domestic issues against that country's will?

I just can't see it happening - there doesn't appear to be a legal mechanism for it to work and as a practical matter I don't see the US government cooperating at all. And I can't see the UN wanting to touch it with a 10 foot pole - it would set a dangerous precedent for all the despots at the UN. There is a reason why non-interference in domestic sovereignty is a fiercely held position in the UN.

[HamdenRice]

71. There is no polite way to say this, but these are very, very silly propositions

1. What international treaty or portion of the UN charter allows unilateral international investigations of a countries domestic crimes, scandals or terrorist incidents?

First of all, this makes absolutely no sense on its face. How could an investigation be "international" and "unilateral" at the same time? Your sentence is the equivalent of writing, "the pianist played Brahms on his piano ever so gently with his sledgehammer." How can you directly contradict yourself and expect anyone to know what you are asking? I have no idea what the fuck you are trying to say here, or what is the thought process in your mind in asking this question. Perhaps you could clarify it.

If I can guess at the substance of what you are trying to say, you seem to believe that there are no legal provisions for the carrying out of international or transnational criminal or civil investigations. But almost every time a plane crashes anywhere in the world, U.S. government officials from the NTSB are invited in to help investigate. Do you remember the FBI investigating the embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya? Have you ever heard of the international forensic anthropologists uncovering mass graves in El Salvador under the auspices of the Organization of American States to identify victims and the methods of their killings? Ever heard of Interpol? Ever heard of international law suits -- e.g., when a Frenchman is injured in New York, sues and gets discovery through American courts?

National governments engage in multilateral criminal and civil investigations all the time. They do so pursuant to a wide variety of bilateral and multilateral agreements, as well as on the basis of ad hoc arrangements or agreements.

Your premise, in other words, is bizarrely counterfactual or uninformed.

2. What treaty compels the US government to cooperate with and share national security secrets with such a international investigation?

See my answer to 1 above. But I should add that we are all assuming that this is during an Obama administration. I'm assuming that they wouldn't have to be "compelled" and that any transnational investigation would take place concurrently with new domestic investigations -- congressional hearings, a Justice Department investigation, and perhaps a New York Attorney General investigation.

3. What historic examples exist of the UN going to a country and investigating domestic issues against that country's will?

Your straw men are proliferating beyond control. Who said it would be the UN? British, German, French and other nationals were killed on 9/11, and their governments have the authority to carry out criminal investigations on behalf of their victims if there is probable cause that the 9/11 Commission was a white wash that did not fully identify those responsible.

Sometimes, however, UN or other multilateral organizations have investigated crimes. Have you ever heard of the international team of forensic anthropologists who investigated the massacres in El Salvador? The international teams that investigated the Rwanda genocide?

If Scotland Yard wants to investigate the murder of British citizens on 9/11, who is going to stop them? Your questions make absolutely no sense whatsoever.

[hack89]

74. Do you deliberately go out of your way to misconstrue arguments

or do you simply don't understand them?

I am not talking about cooperative investigations and information sharing - your post is irrelevant to the point I am making. The US government will never allow an international investigation into it's role in 911. Foreign countries can investigate all they want - in their own countries. They have no power to compel the US government to cooperate.

911 will never be investigated again - outside of the internet fantasy world that the truth movement has constructed, the US public has moved on and it is not important to them. They will expect Obama and congress to fix the economy and end the war - and Obama and Pelosi are smart enough not to piss off the folks that put them in office.

[seemslikeadream]

32. just his words

no links


YOU MUST BELIEVE

[hack89]

33. Go to my post 30 and answer my questions if you can.

I am willing to be educated on the matter.

[seemslikeadream]

34. Did I say UN? I'm sorry if I did

I never meant to say the UN should investigate

[Grateful for Hope]

35. You didn't say "UN" SLaD. n.t

[seemslikeadream]

38. I just went back and loooked, I don't even see UN being brought up

only by hack, typical tactic

[Grateful for Hope]

39. Yup.

Seems that some people have trouble thinking outside the box.

[seemslikeadream]

41. I suppose he was confused by all those words!

Let's give him the benifit of the doubt, you know how they don't like too many words, seems to confuse them ;)

[Grateful for Hope]

43. I noticed that.

Particularly if the "words" do not agree with their preconceived notions...then, it becomes very useful (according to them) to attack the messenger's use of those "words".

This forum has become very educational indeed.

[hack89]

53. I asked for a international treaty or UN charter section

so tell me - what international organizations other then the UN has the legal authority to investigate the US government?

[hack89]

57. What other international organizations have the power to investigate other nations?

I assumed the UN is the only such organization - since I appear to be mistaken, can you tell me the other ones with that power?

[SidDithers]

48. I believe hack said...

"international treaty OR portion of the UN charter". So, if it's not the UN, what international treaty allows one country to unilaterally investigate the crimes of another? Or is there some other international body which could conduct this international investigation?

Is there anything in international law which allows for what you're proposing?

Sorry there aren't lotsa words in this post. I guess I'm from the school of "why say something in 6400 words when you can say it in fewer than 100".

Sid

[seemslikeadream]

50. No you seem to be from the school of talking out of your........

[SidDithers]

55. So, no answer as to who might conduct...

this international investigation?

Sid

[SDuderstadt]

59. SLAD is from the...

"why say it in less than 100 words when you can say it in 6400 words?" school.

Now, watch. I'll bet SLAD will come back and say something like, "it was only 6345 words! I counted them!". I have never met such a one-step thinker.

[SidDithers]

60. I'd be happy if slad came back to answer the question...

about which international agreement or agency has the ability to conduct an investigation into 9/11, that would satisfy the truth movement.

She could even go ALL CAPS with the answer, or post it in a the form of an animated gif.

Sid

[SDuderstadt]

62. That would be great...

I just hope she doesn't respond with one of her trademark incoherent, ponderously long replies.

[Ghost in the Machine]

61. SDude is from the "stalk, harrass & never say anything intelligent" school

He graduated with top honors....

[SidDithers]

63. Correct me if I'm wrong...

but if slad feels she's being stalked, all she has to do is put the alleged stalker on ignore, and the problem goes away.

We all have the ability to control our own DU experience, don't we?

Sid

[Ghost in the Machine]

64. Some of us have thicker skins and choose not to use the ignore function..

but on the same token, SDude has the option of putting her on ignore so isn't so bothered by her posts, right?

[SidDithers]

65. Sure, he could do that...

If he were bothered by her posts.

Sid

[Ghost in the Machine]

66. Well, he's complained about the *length* of her posts, he's complained about the *content*

of her posts, and now he's complained about her *replying* to her own posts. I'd say he was bothered by her posts, wouldn't you?

[SidDithers]

67. You'd have to ask him...nt

Sid

[SDuderstadt]

68. Ask me what?

It's obvious the poster is talking about me and it has to be _____, because he's the only one I have on ignore. I don't think he's ever clicked to it.

[SidDithers]

69. Sent you a pm...nt

Sid

[Ghost in the Machine]

70. Oh, I've clicked to it, I just don't care. I'll still respond to your stupidity

The fact that you ignore me because I've proven you wrong too many times doesn't bother me one bit. It just shows your true character..

[seemslikeadream]

75. and they have the nerve to say I'm too emotionally attached

LARED (1000+ posts) Sat Jun-21-08 10:04 PM
Response to Reply #5
6. You must be overjoyed to dedicate an entire thread to this
occasion. Just food for thought but perhaps you are too emotionally attached to DU and need a break.

[Ghost in the Machine]

77. Unintended Irony is one of the great parts of DU, IMHO....

How is it to have your own fan club??


:hi:

[hack89]

52. So what interantional organizations have the ability

to investigate the US government? I am simply asking what this international investigation is going to look like.

[LARED]

19. Why would anyone want an international investigation?

Other than allowing every third world chief Assclown a voice in tearing down American what purpose would it serve?

[seemslikeadream]

21. Philippe Sands ***WARNING CONTAINS LOTSA WORDS***

Edited to warn SD not to read this, it will just make him crazy


Sorry LARED I edited to put up a warning

Senate Armed Service Cmte. Hearing on Aggressive Interrogation Techniques: Panels Two & Three (June 17, 2008)
How did waterboarding come to be used on detainees in U.S. custody? The Senate Armed Service Cmte. asks military advisors and officials, including former DOD General Counsel William Haynes, to detail the debate over aggressive interrogation techniques.
Washington, DC : 4 hr. 10 min.


M$M is going to have to report this someday, I wonder how the masses will react.



Bush Administration Torture Trail

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080617/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/detainees_treatment


Military lawyers objected to harsher interrogation


Military lawyers warned against the harsh detainee interrogation techniques approved by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in 2002, contending in separate memos weeks before Rumsfeld's endorsement that they could be illegal, a Senate panel has found.

The investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee also has confirmed that senior administration officials, including the Pentagon's then-general counsel William "Jim" Haynes, sought information on a program involving military psychologists early on to devise the more aggressive methods — which included the use of dogs, making a detainee stand for long periods of time and forced nudity, according to officials familiar with the findings.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the information has not been formally released. Details, including the names of the service lawyers who objected to the interrogation techniques, were to be discussed at an open committee hearing Tuesday.

Rumsfeld's December 2002 approval of the aggressive interrogation techniques and later objections by military lawyers have been widely reported. But the November protests by service lawyers had not, and the interest by Pentagon civilians in military psychologists has surfaced only piecemeal.









This is what Philippe Sands was talking about at the hearing

There seems to be a direct connection between torture at Guantanamo and the beginning of 24

Individuals were watching and influenced by the TV program 24

TV show had many friends at Guantanamo.

Three weeks after the beginning of 2nd season of 24 the torture began.


Philippe Sands

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUICm1VH-rQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j38GxxE2CBY


The Green Light: Attorney Philippe Sands Follows the Bush Administration Torture Trail

A new exposé in Vanity Fair by British attorney Philippe Sands reveals new details about how attorney John Yoo and other high-ranking administration lawyers helped design and implement the interrogation policies seen at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and secret CIA prisons. According to Vanity Fair, then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and other top officials personally visited Guantanamo in 2002, discussed interrogation techniques and witnessed interrogations. Sands joins us in our firehouse studio.



Philippe Sands: Guantanamo Bay and Interrogation Rules
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPAGNNsrwUw



Jimmy Carter: Talks George Bush & war crimes at Hay Festival
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrWBY2hO6vA

When pressed by Philippe Sands...on Bush's recent admission that he had authorized interrogation procedures widely seen as amounting to torture, Carter replied that he was sure Bush would be able to live a peaceful, 'productive life - in our country'" after he leaves the White House. Sands later said that he had "understood that to be 'clear confirmation' that, while Bush would face no challenge in his own country, 'what happened outside the country was another matter entirely.'


Phillipe Sands Discusses Torture and U.S. Policy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S6IU755uFM

On Bill Moyers Journal, human rights lawyer Phillipe Sands discusses his new book on how the U.S. came to abandon the Geneva Convention and accept torture. Sands says Bush administration officials are unwilling to accept responsibility for their actions.



Rep. Mike Pence: Guantanamo Bay and Interrogation Rules
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTla3-JZhnM

Philippe Sands attempts to enlighten Rep. Pence as to why torture is wrong during his appearance before the House Judiciary Constitution, Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Subcmte. hearing on Guantanamo Bay and Interrogation Rules


Rep.John Conyers: Guantanamo Bay and Interrogation Rules
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFLCNypjK6k

Philippe Sands responds to Rep. Conyers question as to what avenues of inquiry the committee should undertake and expounds upon his testimony before the House Judiciary Constitution, Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Subcmte. hearing on Guantanamo Bay and Interrogation Rules.



Addington was the leader of the pack, went to Guantanamo himself




Rep.Artur Davis: Guantanamo Bay and Interrogation Rules
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sst5vMpOFx4

David Rivkin tries to claim that the IRA was a different threat but Rep.Davis throws his flawed logic back in his face. Philippe Sands also pointedly rebukes Rivkin assertions. Discussion of Presidental pardons to exonerate torture policies employed is hypothetically touched on. From hearing by House Judiciary Constitution, Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Subcmte. on Guantanamo Bay and Interrogation Rules.



Rep.Issa & Rep.Ellison: Guantanamo Bay Interrogation Rules
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQKZ5WaTWdA

Philippe Sands responds to the slick and sly Rep.Issa and details his thoughts further upon question by Rep. Ellison during hearing by House Judiciary Constitution, Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Subcmte. on Guantanamo Bay and Interrogation Rules.


Rumsfeld’s Memo and the Betrayal of American Values.
http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/politicsphilosophya...


Philippe Sands's Torture Team exposes the American conspiracy to tear up the Geneva Convention after the attacks of 9/11, says Rafael Behr

Sunday May 4, 2008
The Observer

Torture Team: Deception, Cruelty and the Compromise of Law
by Philippe Sands

Only a psychopath inflicts systematic brutality on another man in cold blood; a psychopath or a soldier obeying orders. Many of the military interrogators based at the US detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in late 2002 were young, barely out of their teens. They were led to believe that what they were doing was not only legal, but patriotic. They tortured and thought it was virtuous.


How did that happen? How did a state, conceived in awe of The Rights of Man, make psychopaths of its children? Who gave the orders? That is the essence of Philippe Sands's inquiry in Torture Team: Deception, Cruelty and the Compromise of Law. Meticulously, soberly, astonishingly, he finds the answer in testimony from some of the most senior figures in the US establishment. Sands is a barrister and a law professor. If he were a journalist, he would never have gained access to, nor elicited such extraordinary candour from his interviewees. And, as an expert in international law, Sands doesn't use the word 'torture' lightly. He sets out to establish whether or not the treatment of Guantánamo detainees meets international legal criteria to merit indictment as a war crime. Apparently it does.
In the hands of a more polemic writer, that point alone could be sharpened over hundreds of pages and thrust into a rhetorical effigy of George W Bush. But for Sands, proving that the crime was committed is auxiliary to telling another story. Torture Team is about the jurisprudence of moral corruption.

The process started in the months after 9/11. There was widespread expectation of further attacks and a belief that Taliban and al-Qaeda members captured in Afghanistan could furnish the intelligence to prevent them. A recurrent theme, discussed in legal journals and dramatised in popular culture, was the 'ticking bomb scenario': an atrocity is imminent; in custody is a man who knows about it, but he won't talk. Would not torture be justified if thousands of lives were at stake? As time went on, the administration grew frustrated with the poor intelligence yield in the 'war on terror'. Donald Rumsfeld, in particular, seems to have heard bombs ticking in the obdurate silence of the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay.

One such prisoner was Mohammed al-Qahtani. He was alleged to be an accomplice in the 9/11 plot, a hardcore terrorist. He seemed immune to the established army interrogation techniques, which complied with the Geneva Conventions. So al-Qahtani was made the guinea pig for a new set of techniques. They included the use of 'stress positions', sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, pushing, prodding, forced nudity, exploitation of phobias, simulated drowning.

The first step down the legal path for the state to sanction such behaviour was to declare that the Guantánamo detainees were not covered by the Geneva Conventions. Without Geneva, the only restraint on interrogators was a verbal undertaking by the President that detainees should be treated 'humanely'. That aspiration was formally abandoned, according to Sands, on 2 December 2002, when Donald Rumsfeld signed the 'Haynes memo'. This was a request sent by William Haynes, the general counsel at the Pentagon, for approval of specific coercive techniques, most of which were practised on al-Qahtani. Non-stop. For 54 days.

Washington was by no means unanimous in its acceptance of the new direction. To get their way, lawyers in the defence and justice departments had to short circuit the military chain of command and sideline senior military and intelligence officers. The soldiers and spooks tended to be much more wary of aggressive interrogation than the politicians, not out of compassion for the detainees, but because they knew a mundane truth about torture: it doesn't work. Sleep deprivation alone is sufficient to compromise intelligence gathering. 'If you do it for a week,' one FBI lawyer tells Sands, 'you're gonna come out with a guy on the other end who doesn't know what he's talking about.' Crucially, the initial decision to abandon Geneva was announced by the President. For army lawyers - men and women in uniform - to dispute the legal opinion of the commander-in-chief would be insubordination, practically treason.

The fact that prized American values were being jettisoned in the 'war on terror' did not go unnoticed on the ground at Guantánamo and inside the Pentagon. There was a furious backlash. The Haynes memo was rescinded, on 15 January 2003. In June 2006, the Supreme Court restored Geneva Convention rights to all US detainees. So, while Torture Team can be read as the story of a democratic system in aberrance, it can also be read as an account of the system working. Going wrong, but correcting itself.

That would be the quintessentially American way to look at it. But the power of such unwavering self-belief, the idea of the nation not just as a group of people but as an intrinsically virtuous endeavour, is partly to blame for the ethical meltdown chronicled in Torture Team. Combined with the shock of 9/11, it gave the political elite a sense of moral sureness that came to resemble radical revolutionary ideology: all means were justified when the end goal was defeating terror; the expedient logic of the 'ticking bomb scenario'.

But the scenario is an illusion, a sado-political fantasy, an intellectual contrivance to coax the anxious mind into legitimising brutality. Like an optical illusion, it presents the possibility of torture as something complex and paradoxical - ethical cruelty. But in reality, it is something quite ordinary. It is a crime.


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-30721333004901...

On May 6th the American Strategy Program hosted an event with Philippe Sands, Professor of International Law at University College London and Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff for Colon Powell. Mr. Sands was in DC to testify to the House Judiciary Committee about the findings in his new book, Torture Team, which examines the legal implications of the Bush administration's policy of torture. Col. Wilkerson was on hand for commentary on the subject. The event was moderated by Patrick Doherty, deputy director of the American Strategy program.




http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/8/torture_team_briti...

AMY GOODMAN: The House Judiciary Committee is preparing to hold a series of hearings examining the Bush administration’s role in authorizing the illegal torture of prisoners in US custody at Guantanamo and elsewhere. On Tuesday, Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers subpoenaed Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, David Addington, to testify at a hearing scheduled for June 26th.


Three other former Bush administration officials have already agreed to testify: former Attorney General John Ashcroft, former Justice Department attorney John Yoo and former Pentagon official Douglas Feith. Over the past month, more evidence has emerged tying high-ranking Bush administration officials to the use of torture.


In April, ABC News reported Vice President Cheney, former National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft all discussed and approved how top al-Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the CIA.


President Bush has also confirmed he was aware of these meetings. In an interview with ABC News, Bush said, “We started to connect the dots, in order to protect the American people. And yes, I’m aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved.”


Today, we’re joined by British attorney and author, Philippe Sands. He is the author of the new book Torture Team: Rumsfeld’s Memo and the Betrayal of American Values. On Tuesday, Philippe Sands testified before the House Judiciary Sub-Committee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.


Welcome to Democracy Now!


PHILIPPE SANDS: It’s great to be back, Amy.


AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. Talk about the Conyers subpoena of Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, David Addington.


PHILIPPE SANDS: Sure. Well, if you remember, we talked about a month ago, after a piece I had written for Vanity Fair came out. That piece, I’m told by Congressman Conyers, catalyzed his committee into focusing on the role of the lawyers, and they began the process of setting up hearings. Yesterday was the first hearing. They’ve issued letters of invitation to all of the lawyers that I’ve written about and several other individuals. All, I understand, have agreed to come voluntarily, with one exception, and that’s Mr. Addington, who was the Vice President’s lawyer at the time, now his chief of staff. He has indicated, however, in a letter of the 1st of May, that if subpoenaed, he would attend, and it is likely that he will now attend next month.


AMY GOODMAN: And what did you raise in your testimony before the congressional subcommittee?


PHILIPPE SANDS: Well, I think—I raised a number of issues, but the heart of this story is that the administration has spun a narrative that this was a bottom-up thing, they were simply reacting to requests from people on the ground. And what I’ve discovered, and what was the center of the gravity of what I said to the subcommittee, is that’s a false narrative. It came from the top down. A crime was committed in relation to the detainee that I’m looking at. The Geneva Conventions were violated. He was abused. He was probably, almost certainly, tortured in violation of international law. But the biggest story may well be the cover-up, the spin, that this came from the bottom up, when in fact it was top-down. And that seemed to have resonated with the committee.


AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about this ABC News revelation about this Principals Committee, all the names that I just gave—you know, Condoleezza Rice, Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, George Tenet, Attorney General John Ashcroft—first time senior White House officials linked to an explicit group authorizing the CIA interrogation program, one top official recounting Ashcroft was the lone cabinet member to raise doubts? The official quoted Ashcroft as saying, “Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly.”


PHILIPPE SANDS: I think it’s a very important revelation. Of course, it deals not with the military interrogations that I focused on, but with the CIA interrogations, but they went hand-in-hand, and it’s plain that they were all part and parcel of a decision taken at the top. It confirms my investigation, as a consequence; it’s namely that this came straight from the top.


The significance, of course, of this is that there seems to be a question as to whether the people immediately below the principals knew about this. I was in conversation, for example, a couple of days ago with Colin Powell’s former chief of staff, who expressed—


AMY GOODMAN: Lawrence Wilkerson?


PHILIPPE SANDS: Larry Wilkerson, who—I asked him, “Were you aware of this?” He said, “Absolutely not.” I asked him, “Did you have any inkling that this was going on? Do you think it could have happened?” And he expressed some considerable surprise. But if the President of the United States says a meeting happened, he knew about it, he approved it, it becomes, I think, a very, very big story, because you’ve got confirmation from the main man, so to speak.


AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the missing records of Mohammed al-Qahtani.


PHILIPPE SANDS: Well, I discovered in the course of meeting—I went around America, was treated with great hospitality and friendship. I spoke to everyone in the decision-making process, from the lawyers down at the bottom, Major General Dunlavey, who was the combatant commander at Guantanamo at the time, and his lawyer Diane Beaver, right up to Jim Haynes, who wrote the memorandum, the famous memorandum in which Mr. Rumsfeld scrolled, “Why is standing limited to four hours? I stand for eight to ten hours a day.”


AMY GOODMAN: Wait, explain that memo. It’s also the cover of your book.


PHILIPPE SANDS: It is the cover.


AMY GOODMAN: You’ve got the handwritten note of Donald Rumsfeld. First you see his signature, and then you see this note, “I stand for eight to ten hours a day. Why four hours?”


PHILIPPE SANDS: It’s become iconic. What Mr. Rumsfeld did was he authorized fifteen techniques of interrogation, but he wrote at the bottom of the document, “I stand for eight to ten hours a day. Why is standing limited to four hours?”


That’s been interpreted a number of ways. Was he signaling to the interrogators that the Secretary of Defense was willing for them to go further? Or was it just a jocular comment? I discussed that with a lot of people.


One of the people I met with on a couple of occasions, lengthy conversations, was Mike Dunlavey, the head of interrogations. And right at the end of one of the conversations, he mentioned to me that he had made efforts to go back to get hold of all the documentation to check the computers, to check the record of what had happened, and that there had been, he discovered, what he called a SNAFU, and everything had been lost.


And I think it will be for others now to follow up as to whether the interrogation materials relating to al-Qahtani have suffered the same fate as the interrogation materials of the CIA that, as we now know, were destroyed.


AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers?


PHILIPPE SANDS: I had one lengthy and fascinating conversation with General Myers. I thought he was a decent man of integrity, but out of his depth. And on two issues, I was staggered, so staggered, in fact, that when I came home to London from my trip to the United States, I told my wife what I discovered in conversation with him, which I’m about to share with you, and she was disbelieving—she listened to the tapes—and said absolutely.


There were two points. Firstly, as everyone knows, the President took a decision that none of the detainees at Guantanamo would have any rights under the Geneva Conventions. It seems that General Myers was unaware of that. He was under the impression they had decided that Geneva would apply. So that was a fairly staggering discovery. But it was as nothing compared to the discovery, as we went through the techniques of interrogation one by one, that he had thought that these came out of the US Field Manual guide for interrogations. They were all prohibited. And as we went down the list, his jaw literally dropped. So I got the sense that the most powerful military man in the United States, indeed probably in the world, was blissfully unaware of what had been decided.


AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Philippe Sands. His book is Torture Team—it is just out this week—Rumsfeld’s Memo and the Betrayal of American Values.


I want to ask you about Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s recent statement that the torture of prisoners does not violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Scalia’s comment came during an interview with Lesley Stahl on CBS’s 60 Minutes.


JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA: I don’t like torture. I’m—although defining it is going to be a nice trick. But, I mean, who’s in favor of it? Nobody. And we have a law against torture. But if the—everything that is hateful and odious is not covered by some provision of the Constitution.


LESLEY STAHL: If someone’s in custody, as in Abu Ghraib, and they are brutalized by a law enforcement person, if you listen to the expression, “cruel and unusual punishment,” doesn’t that apply?


JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA: No, no.


LESLEY STAHL: Cruel and unusual punishment?


JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA: To the contrary. You think—you think that you would—has anybody ever referred to torture as punishment? I don’t think so.


LESLEY STAHL: Well, I think if you’re in custody and you have a policeman who’s taken you into custody—


JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA: And you say he’s punishing you?


LESLEY STAHL: Sure.


JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA: What’s he punishing you for? You punish somebody—


LESLEY STAHL: Well, because he assumes you, one, either committed a crime—


JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA: No, no.


LESLEY STAHL: —or that you know something that he wants to know.


JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA: Ah, it’s the latter. And when he’s—when he’s—when he’s hurting you in order to get information from you—


LESLEY STAHL: Yeah?


JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA: —you don’t say he’s punishing you. What’s he punishing you for? He’s trying to extract—


LESLEY STAHL: Because he thinks you’re a terrorist, and he’s going to beat the you-know-what out of you.


JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA: Anyway, that’s my view. And it happens to be correct.



AMY GOODMAN: Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, being questioned by 60 Minutes’s Lesley Stahl. Philippe Sands?


PHILIPPE SANDS: I’m not an expert on US constitutional law. I’ll talk about what I know, which is international law. The US is a party to all of those conventions that prohibit torture. That is a shocking statement by a serving justice, who I know is very partial to the television program 24, along with his colleague Clarence Thomas. It’s—


AMY GOODMAN: Explain 24.


PHILIPPE SANDS: 24 is a television program in which the use of torture is essentially rejoiced in as a technique for producing meaningful information. It had an effect down at Guantanamo. One of the things I discovered in my conversations was that people watched it, people were influenced by it, probably apparently as Antonin Scalia is.


But that is a shocking statement. And I put it in these terms. If he’s going to express that view, that the United States president is free to authorize torture, then why isn’t the Iranian president free to authorize torture against American nationals? Why isn’t the Egyptian president free to organize—authorize torture? The logic of the argument is really surprising and, frankly, outrageous.


AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you, Philippe Sands, about the possibility of US officials being charged with war crimes. You were quoted in a New York Times piece on Tuesday: “Mr. Sands, a British law professor, said two foreign prosecutors, whom he did not name, asked him for the materials on which his book Torture Team was based. ‘If the US doesn’t address this,’ he said, ‘other countries will.’"


PHILIPPE SANDS: That’s an accurate account, and I describe, in one of the concluding chapters of the book, conversations I had with a European prosecutor and a European judge. And the committee was very interested in that, in relation to a question they asked me and the other witnesses giving testimony: “What should this committee do?” And the answer that I gave was, “Look, it’s not for me to make recommendations on precisely what you do and don’t do, but what needs to happen is the United States needs to get involved in an accounting process. The committee needs to establish the facts. And if the United States doesn’t, others will do it.” And I have no doubt, no doubt whatsoever, that investigations will take place, if they’re not already taking place, and that some of these individuals, if they travel outside the United States, will face a very real threat of investigation.


AMY GOODMAN: And the legality of what President Bush said, or the implications of it, when he said to ABC News, “We started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people. Yes, I’m aware our national security team met on this issue, and I approved”?


PHILIPPE SANDS: Well, it appears to be an admission that the President of the United States authorized torture, that he authorized waterboarding. The convention prohibiting torture, the Geneva Conventions are absolutely clear: there are no circumstances in which torture is permitted. And if the account is accurate, the President is, in effect, owning up to the fact that he has committed a war crime. And under the torture convention, there is an obligation to investigate any person who has committed a war crime. So it was a very surprising admission. I wonder if it was fully thought through. If it’s accurate, it is deeply disturbing.


AMY GOODMAN: Philippe Sands, you talked in your testimony before Congress about torture and what Britain learned in its fight with the IRA, with the Irish Republican Army.


PHILIPPE SANDS: In many ways, that was actually the most interesting exchange that I had, because I had it with some seemingly very sensible Republican congressmen, who were very interested and came up and talked to me about that afterwards. What I shared was that the experience of Brits across the political spectrum—it’s not a left-right issue, as I explained—derives from the experience we had in the early 1970s, in which the United Kingdom moved to aggressive interrogation. And they used pretty much the same techniques of interrogation: hooding, stress, humiliation. And it backfired terribly. On all military accounts, it extended the conflict by between fifteen and twenty years, because it creates such resentment in the community that is associated with the people who are being abused that it served to generate further opposition and people moving to violence. So basically the message is: it doesn’t work. And no one in the United Kingdom, literally no one from any of the main political parties or across the political spectrum will in any circumstances support what has been apparently authorized by the President in this country.


AMY GOODMAN: Philippe Sands, I wanted to ask you about a report out of Associated Press. A Kuwaiti freed from Guantanamo Bay carried out a suicide car bombing recently in Iraq—the US military said this on Wednesday, confirming what’s believed to be the first such attack by a former detainee at Guantanamo. Tom Wilner, al-Ajmi’s American lawyer, said incarceration at Guantanamo may have turned the Kuwaiti into a terrorist. Wilner said, quote, “I don’t know whether the experience of being kept down there in isolation radicalized him.”


PHILIPPE SANDS: I read that report, and I was—this morning—and I was disturbed by that report. I mean, I find that the whole system that has been created at Guantanamo is abhorrent. It doesn’t meet minimum international standards. It sends out a terrible signal to the rest of the world. Most of the people, I think, being held at Guantanamo are really not seriously problematic people. But undoubtedly, there are some problematic people, and steps do need to be taken in order to protect countries like the United States and the United Kingdom.
<P.That said, I immediately, reading the article, asked myself the question: is this individual someone who fell into that small category of persons who was, as Donald Rumsfeld put it, a seriously bad person? We don’t know that. And there is the possibility that the treatment that he was subjected to gave rise to an IRA type of situation, that it so enraged him, that it so enraged his community, that it essentially politicized him and energized him. Of course, we don’t know the facts, and I think we need to find out a lot more about the facts before expressing a final view.


AMY GOODMAN: You live in Britain. Your book is Torture Team, though, about the United States and international law. The people involved that you’re talking about go across the gamut, now a number out of office. You have John Yoo, for example, who’s a law professor at University of California, Berkeley. You have Douglas Feith, who’s now teaching at Georgetown. What are your thoughts about this?


PHILIPPE SANDS: John Yoo’s dean at Berkeley has been subject to intense criticism for not firing him, and indeed there was even an op-ed, an opinion, an editorial, in the New York Times, saying he basically shouldn’t be teaching there anymore. Dean Edley wrote an interesting letter, in which he said, look, there’s freedom of expression, that includes freedom of views, and under the rules at Berkeley, you can only fire someone if they’ve been convicted in a court of law of committing a criminal offense. And John Yoo has not been convicted of committing a criminal offense. And in our system, you are innocent until proven guilty.


I’ve laid out the reasons why I believe John Yoo has participated in authorizing torture, and that exposes him to investigation. But I entirely accept that until he is actually condemned by a court of law, he is perfectly entitled to carry on peddling views, even if I violently and fundamentally disagree with those views.


As regards Doug Feith, I spent time with him. He’s an entertaining character, but he’s a scary character. I’ve read his book, 900 pages on war and decision, five pages devoted to the issue of interrogations. And you read that book, and you have no idea that this man was deeply involved in the decisions that I write about. It’s spin. It’s whitewash. There’s a failure to accept responsibility. And that, I think, is what is going to cause them in difficulty, because it’s essentially a cover-up.


AMY GOODMAN: We invited Douglas Feith on the show, but we didn’t get a response. Can you talk about the significance of the 1947 case, United States of America v. Josef Altstoetter?


PHILIPPE SANDS: It ‘s a delicate case. It’s one of the cases known as the Justice Cases, the only time that lawyers have ever been convicted of international crimes for carrying out their professional activities.


AMY GOODMAN: Lawyers?


PHILIPPE SANDS: Lawyers. The focus was on lawyers. I included reference to that case in my book, because I found it ironic that the theory that lawyers could cross a line and be investigated, prosecuted, and convicted for committing international crimes was a theory that was drawn up by the United States military itself, and then we come full-circle sixty years on, and we find that, with Mr. Rumsfeld’s hand, abuse is authorized and permitted by the US military in plain violation of international rules, but also in plain violation of President Lincoln’s disposition, going back to 1863, that the US doesn’t do cruelty.


But the case is an important one. It’s not a bang-on point, and I’m absolutely not drawing analogies. I’m not saying that these lawyers are equivalent to those lawyers or this regime is equivalent to that regime. What I’m interested in is the circumstance, in when does a lawyer cross a line into criminality?


And coming back to an earlier question that you raised, the European judge and the European prosecutor that I met, when I laid out all the materials for them, they came back with a most startling conclusion. They said, “Philippe, the bottom line of it is, there is no distinction between the man or woman who interrogates and the man or woman who authorizes by law an abusive interrogation. They are both subject to investigation. They are both subject to prosecution.” And I think that’s the way the law has gone, and it’s a law that is right, and it is a law that the United States has helped put in place.


AMY GOODMAN: What were you most surprised by in your research for Torture Team?


PHILIPPE SANDS: I was most surprised by the total failure of the upper echelons to accept responsibility for the errors that they have made. If I had met these people, if I had met Doug Feith and Jim Haynes, and they had said to me, “Look, we faced in September 2002 a situation in which we felt another attack was coming. We had someone who we felt had information. We authorized techniques of interrogation that were aggressive. They may or may not have crossed the line into torture. With the benefit of hindsight, we realize we fell into error. We made a mistake. We accept responsibility for that, and we need to learn not to do that again”—that shocked me, and it equally shocked me that they then sought to push the blame of responsibility onto people like Mike Dunlavey and Diane Beaver, people who were doing decent service for the US military and who were unfairly scapegoated. So at the end of the day, it’s not only the crime; it’s the abject failure of individual responsibility to take full account for what they have done. I find that really shocking.


AMY GOODMAN: Philippe Sands, I want to thank you for being with us. His book is Torture Team: Rumsfeld’s Memo and the Betrayal of American Values.


http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/10/sands-everyone-in-uk-agrees-waterboarding-is-torture-in-all-circumstances /

Sands: Everyone in UK agrees waterboarding ‘is torture in all circumstances.’

Sands: Everyone in UK agrees waterboarding ‘is torture in all circumstances.’
Testifying today before the Senate Judiciary Committee, British international law professor Philippe Sands said that waterboarding is “torture in all circumstances”:

There’s no one I can think of in the United Kingdom who would not immediately conclude that the use of waterboarding, which is creating the misperception of suffocation, is torture in all circumstances.

In his book Torture Team, released in May, Sands wrote that the “architects of torture” in the Bush administration have refused to acknowledge that they were “complicit in the commission of a crime.”




http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=3373309
War crime charges; can't say you weren't warned, Tony!
Posted by LynnTheDem on Sun Jun-01-08 11:13 PM

October 19, 2005;
British Law lord damns "illegal Iraq war'

One of Britain’s most senior judges last night accused ministers of producing “half-baked” criminal justice reforms and then blaming judges for the failings of the system. Lord Steyn, a law lord, also launched a scathing attack on ministers over the Iraq war, accusing them of “scraping the bottom of the legal barrel” to justify their case.

He said it was a “fairytale” to suggest that the Iraq war did not make London a “more dangerous place”.

Lord Steyn echoed the views of Lord Alexander of Weedon, QC, his predecessor at Justice, with a robust attack on the legality of the Iraq war. Lord Alexander’s view that the war was illegal “reflected the overwhelming view of international lawyers and was undoubtedly correct”.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1832270,00.html

British military chief reveals new legal fears over Iraq war

The man who led Britain's armed forces into Iraq has said that Tony Blair and the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, will join British soldiers in the dock if the military are ever prosecuted for war crimes in Iraq.

In a remarkably frank interview that goes to the heart of the political row over the Attorney General's legal advice, Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, the former Chief of the Defence Staff, said he did not have full legal cover from prosecution at the International Criminal Court.

'If my soldiers went to jail and I did, some other people would go with me,' said Boyce.

Pressed by The Observer on whether he meant the Prime Minister and the Attorney General, Boyce replied: 'Too bloody right.'
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,1474276,00.html

Mr. Lord Goldsmith admitting regime change would be ILLEGAL;
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=457242005

"The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, warned less than two weeks before the invasion of Iraq that military action could be ruled illegal. The government was so concerned that it might be prosecuted it set up a team of lawyers to prepare for legal action in an international court."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2005/feb/23/uk.iraq3


A few others warned you, too, Tony. But you weren't listening;

War on Iraq was illegal, say world's top lawyers

-Professor Philippe Sands QC Director of the Centre on International Courts and Tribunals, University College London

-Professor Robert Black QC Professor of Scots law, Edinburgh University, and architect of the Lockerbie trial in The Hague

-Professor Sean Murphy Associate professor of law at George Washington University, Washington DC

-Professor Vaughan Lowe Chichele Professor of Public International Law, All Souls College, Oxford

-Professor James Crawford Whewell Professor of International Law, Jesus College, Cambridge

-Professor Mary Kaldor Professor of global governance, London School of Economics
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/law/2003/0525warillegal.htm


Canadian law professors declare US-led war illegal

The US-led coalition’s war against Iraq is illegal, declared 31 Canadian professors of international law at 15 law faculties.

A US attack “would be a fundamental breach of international law and would seriously threaten the integrity of the international legal order that has been in place since the end of the Second World War,”
http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2003/msg01357.html

Australian legal experts declare an invasion of Iraq a war crime

Forty-three Australian experts in international law and human rights legislation have issued a declaration that an invasion of Iraq will be an open breach of international law and a crime against humanity...

...the indictment of the German Nazi leaders at the 1945-1949 Nuremberg War Crimes Trials was precisely for carrying out preemptive military strikes against neighbouring countries. They were tried and convicted of “planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances”.
http://law.anu.edu.au/cipl/Media/Waging%20war%20crimes%20Feb03.pdf


Iraq War Illegal, Lawyers Say

Most experts in international law say they are not convinced either by the argument that military action against Iraq is authorized by earlier U.N. resolutions nor that the U.N. Charter allows self-defense against a perceived future threat.
http://middleeastinfo.org/article2270.html

Even your partner in crime, Tony...

Jack Straw admits case for war in Iraq is weak
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9126.htm

No Tony, you can't say you weren't warned...so I bet this didn't come as a shock;

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3334737

You and your war criminal pal John Howard; decieing your own people, sending your own people to kill & be killed in a "supreme crime" war of aggression, making your nations & your people very much less safe. Was lockstepping with the bush regime truly worth all that plus your souls?

[LARED]

22. Do you expect me to real all 6400 words to find out why you

posted those stories in response to my post?

[seemslikeadream]

24. what purpose would it serve?

A mass murderer would have his day



not too many words for you?

[LARED]

26. I was just trying to figure out what you were saying without

having to wade through 6400 words that in a post that does not even seem to related to my post.

[Grateful for Hope]

36. How ethnocentric of you

and, how revealing.

[LARED]

51. There is nothing ethnocentric about pointing out that the third world is

filled to the brim with assclowns leaders that would love nothing better than to embarrass the US.

If you going to advocate an international investigation, don’t you think it should be about something other than a ridiculous fantasy that 9/11 was an inside job.

[Grateful for Hope]

94. You have no idea what I think

Ane, as far as "ridiculous fantacies" go, the OCT is about the biggest, most ridiculous fantasy I have ever heard.

Funny you should be concerned about "assclown" leaders considering under whose watch 9/11 occurred.

[balantz]

20. I see a growing interest in the public eye

to see to it that a real and proper investigation is carried out and the real perpetrators found out and brought to justice.

[Bassman66]

25. A new investigation is required

I would like to see ALL of the Jersey Girls questions answered, I think they should be a big part of any new investigation. It should not be deemed complete until at least all of their questions have been answered.

I would like to see the people with information about foreknowledge subpoenaed.

I would like ANYONE from the White House to be questioned, no obstruction, no wheeling and dealing like the last one.

I would like to see Bush and Chaney called to give evidendence under oath and called seperately.

No behind doors anything.

No limited access to documents without notes.

This has to be clean and seen to be clean.

It's time to wash the dirty linen in public.

[HamdenRice]

29. Crimes of this magnitude merit international and national investigations

Contrary to the oracular ramblings of certain OCTers, various international or foreign authorities would have jurisdiction to investigate on various grounds.

For example, foreign nationals were killed on 9/11 and therefore their governments have the right to carry out homicide investigations.

In addition to a new domestic criminal invetigation, after 2009, the House and Senate should refer new congressional investigations to appropriate committees.

[hack89]

31. They would not have the power to conduct the investigation you want

for example, what power does a foreign country have to compel the CIA, FBI, DOD or any other US government agency to cooperate or provide access to evidence? Are you telling me that the truth can be found without investigating the US government itself? You really think any country is going to challenge the US government directly without suffering severe repercussions from us?

The UN has no power to investigate 911.

Obama will not let it happen - unless you really believe all planning and preparation for 911 took place in the 8 months after Bush took office. At a minimum the plotters infiltrated the Clinton administration and set up everything under his nose. I think the Democrats would not want to draw attention to that embarrassing fact.

[seemslikeadream]

40. WHO EVER SAID THEY WANTED THE UN TO INVESTAGATE THIS?

[hack89]

54. Thats fine - what other international organization are you thinking about

I simply want to know what an international investigation would look like and what authority you think they have. Just tell me your ideas.

[Ghost in the Machine]

42. Ummmm

"Obama will not let it happen - unless you really believe all planning and preparation for 911 took place in the 8 months after Bush took office. At a minimum the plotters infiltrated the Clinton administration and set up everything under his nose. I think the Democrats would not want to draw attention to that embarrassing fact."

No, the plotting and planning went on at neocon think tanks... AE, PNAC... that's how they were able to set it in motion so fast once the coup of 2000 was completed. Do you honestly believe they wrote the USAPATRIOT Act in a month?? Think about it a little bit....


Ghost

[seemslikeadream]

44. Involve the Democratic leadership in 1X worth of illegal activity...

:hi:


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3497613&mesg_id=3497982


Junkdrawer (1000+ posts) Sat Jun-21-08 05:03 PM
Response to Reply #6
7. The MO of this administration seems to be...
Involve the Democratic leadership in 1X worth of illegal activity...

Commit 30X worth of illegal activity...

Watch as they cover your ass on that 30X so that their 1X never sees the light of day.

[Ghost in the Machine]

46. That sums it up nicely, doesn't it?

:hi:

I wish we could rec a reply here.. that reply deserves some recs

[Bassman66]

47. PNAC, CIA, I don't see the difference...

do you?

A Bush is a Bush.

Like it matters who is elected.

Stuff happens behind the scenes regardless.

[Ghost in the Machine]

49. Those working behind the curtains need to be exposed, IMHO...

One thing I'll agree with Bush about is when he says "there are extemists out there who want to do great harm to America". I just disagree about *who* they are...

[HamdenRice]

72. I'll repost this

because you asked basically the same questions twice. But first, let me say in response to your idea that the U.S. government would never share national security intelligence with a foreign government, have you ever heard of NATO? Do you think that the U.S. shares intelligence with the U.K., France, Germany or Australia? Is it really inconceivable to you that if Scotland Yard opened an investigation of the murder of British citizens in the WTC, that an Obama administration would use the obstructionist tactics of the Bush administration? Have you ever heard of the Lockerbie disaster? Do you know who "helped" (cough, cough) Scotland Yard in that investigation? Have you ever heard of the legal process of "discovery"? Ever heard of FOIA?

And if Dennis Kucinich get's his investigation after January 2009, a foreign or transnational investigation could largely rely on the evidence produced by congressional committees.

Here is my response to your questions in the other sub-thread:

1. What international treaty or portion of the UN charter allows unilateral international investigations of a countries domestic crimes, scandals or terrorist incidents?

First of all, this makes absolutely no sense on its face. How could an investigation be "international" and "unilateral" at the same time? Your sentence is the equivalent of writing, "the pianist played Brahms on his piano ever so gently with his sledgehammer." How can you directly contradict yourself and expect anyone to know what you are asking? I have no idea what the fuck you are trying to say here, or what is the thought process in your mind in asking this question. Perhaps you could clarify it.

If I can guess at the substance of what you are trying to say, you seem to believe that there are no legal provisions for the carrying out of international or transnational criminal or civil investigations. But almost every time a plane crashes anywhere in the world, U.S. government officials from the NTSB are invited in to help investigate. Do you remember the FBI investigating the embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya? Have you ever heard of the international forensic anthropologists uncovering mass graves in El Salvador under the auspices of the Organization of American States to identify victims and the methods of their killings? Ever heard of Interpol? Ever heard of international law suits -- e.g., when a Frenchman is injured in New York, sues and gets discovery through American courts?

National governments engage in multilateral criminal and civil investigations all the time. They do so pursuant to a wide variety of bilateral and multilateral agreements, as well as on the basis of ad hoc arrangements or agreements.

Your premise, in other words, is bizarrely counterfactual or uninformed.

2. What treaty compels the US government to cooperate with and share national security secrets with such a international investigation?

See my answer to 1 above. But I should add that we are all assuming that this is during an Obama administration. I'm assuming that they wouldn't have to be "compelled" and that any transnational investigation would take place concurrently with new domestic investigations -- congressional hearings, a Justice Department investigation, and perhaps a New York Attorney General investigation.

3. What historic examples exist of the UN going to a country and investigating domestic issues against that country's will?

Your straw men are proliferating beyond control. Who said it would be the UN? British, German, French and other nationals were killed on 9/11, and their governments have the authority to carry out criminal investigations on behalf of their victims if there is probable cause that the 9/11 Commission was a white wash that did not fully identify those responsible.

Sometimes, however, UN or other multilateral organizations have investigated crimes. Have you ever heard of the international team of forensic anthropologists who investigated the massacres in El Salvador? The international teams that investigated the Rwanda genocide?

If Scotland Yard wants to investigate the murder of British citizens on 9/11, who is going to stop them? Your questions make absolutely no sense whatsoever.

[hack89]

73. I guess you don't get it

Every example you give involves cooperation on the part of the US government. I understand that cooperative international police work happens all the time. That is not what we are talking about - there is no way the US government will allow an international body investigate its role in 911. You are delusional if you think that the US government will admit that it's own investigation was flawed and that it needs foreign countries to investigate. You are equally delusional if you think that the US government will grant access to type of information needed to find the "truth".


We share intelligence on a limited basis with NATO or other countries - are you familiar with the security caveat NOFORN? It means "no foreign" and that is the basic classification of most US intelligence. Data is very carefully vetted before it is released to NATO. And once again, it is cooperative. Foreign investigators cannot come here and demand information. I can certainly see us denying Scotland Yard classified information.


Never said Scotland yard or any other police force can't investigate the murder of one of its citizens. I said that Scotland yard cannot come to America and demand unfettered access to US citizens and US government agencies. Foreign countries can investigate 911 all they want in their own countries - they just can't compel US cooperation.


I think you are wrong about Obama changing things. I don't see anymore 911 investigations - Congress doesn't have the stomach for them and Obama has more important things to do in his first 100 days like fixing the economy and ending the war. Considering he has made no mention of it in his campaign I don't see where you get your optimism from. As far as I know, Obama supports the OCT. He and Nancy Pelosi have not indicated any desire to investigate Bush - Kucinich will not get his investigation as he is irrelevant to the process.

[HamdenRice]

76. As a former staffer to an international fact finding commission in a hostile country, ...

I can tell you, you absolutely don't know what you are talking about. The commission was mostly drawn from the U.S., with American and European staffers. We did a lot of research in the U.S. and then sent delegations to do fact finding missions in the target country. We talked to hundreds of people and those who were afraid to talk frankly there were brought over here. Even though the government disapproved, individual officials (as high as cabinet level) even decided to talk to the commission. Why do you think this is impossible?

Let's say the European Parliament or European Human Rights Commission decides to investigate 9/11. They would appoint several high profile commissioners, probably eminent parliamentarians and perhaps a retired investigative judge or two, then hire staff.

They would do as much research as possible from Europe. Then they would start writing letters to people in the U.S. they would want to interview. Then they would come over here and start talking to people -- everyone from Dennis Kucinich to David Ray Griffin, to the Jersey Girls to Daniel Hopsicker, to first responders and police officials. A huge number of people would voluntarily want to talk to them. Those people would give them other names, and the commission would hold formal and informal hearings and panels. They would compile evidence. They would ask for assistance from local NGOs with FOIA requests. They might even have a nominal wrongful death lawsuit by a European victim so that they could use American courts for legal discovery process.

Now even if the federal government under an Obama administration didn't like this, what do you suppose they could do? Not grant visas? Buy up all the hotel rooms and conference rooms in New York? Throw potential witnesses in Guantanamo? Steal their laptops?

Of course not. You keep saying that the U.S. would never let this happen but you don't provide one shred of argument or evidence for how this could be prevented -- other than your counterfactual oracular pronouncements.

This kind of thing happens all the time, and I can only conclude that you simply are unaware of how international criminal investigations, fact finding commissions, and other such processes work.

[hack89]

78. Well, it all sounds wonderful

But it will never happen in real life. Europe doesn't care about reopening 911 - their experiences with Islamic terrorism has done nothing to persuade them that AQ was not capable and willing to pull off 911. And they have no desire to antagonize the US by accusing it of complicity in 911 - they have nothing to gain from it.

And that's the bottom line: nobody cares. Bush will leave office and Europe will say good riddance and try to reestablish good relationships with Obama. Because that is what they really want - an America they can trust and respect, an American that is part of the world community again. And you don't start such a relationship by poking a sharp stick in Obama's and America's eye.

[seemslikeadream]

80. Because that is what they really want ?

no that is not what they want, they want george bush to be accountable for his war crimes, at the very least.

[hack89]

81. I don't see that desire on the part of European governments

can you link to some recent statements from any European leaders to that affect?

[seemslikeadream]

82. Philippe Sands testified before Congress and said that very thing

It's in my post above I guess you didn't read it. There's a reason I use words.

[hack89]

83. I was actually looking for a quote from a leader or policy maker

not an activist lawyer. And it would be nice if you could demonstrate a ground swell of more than one.

[seemslikeadream]

84. It's really too bad you do not read my posts Philippe Sands is NO activist lawyer!!!

It would be a good idea to know about something before you open your mouth

[hack89]

92. I googled him and went to his company's web site

he is a lawyer - a eminent one but a lawyer non-the-less. So show me where his point of few reflects that to the UK government concerning an investigation of Bush.

[seemslikeadream]

85. Here's your "activist" lawyer

:eyes:

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/laws/academics/profiles/index.shtml?sands
PHILIPPE SANDS
Professor of Law

contact details:
phone: [phone] | internal: x24758
email: [e-mail]
secretary: Kate Barber
[phone] | internal: x24556
Print version




Profile
Philippe Sands joined the Faculty in January 2002. He is Professor of Law and Director of the Centre on International Courts and Tribunals in the Faculty, and a key member of staff in the Centre for Law and the Environment. His teaching areas include public international law, the settlement of international disputes (including arbitration), and environmental and natural resources law.

Philippe is a regular commentator on the BBC and CNN and writes frequently for leading newspapers. hHe is frequently invited to lecture around the world, and in recent years has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Toronto (2005), the University of Melbourne (2005) and the Universite de Paris I (Sorbonne) (2006, 2007). He has previously held academic positions at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies, Kings College London and , University of Cambridge and was a Global Professor of Law at New York University from 1995-2003. He was co-founder of FIELD (Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development), and established the programmes on Climate Change and Sustainable Development. He is a member of the Advisory Boards of the European Journal of International Law and Review of European Community and International Environmental Law (Blackwell Press). In 2007 he served as a judge for the Guardian First Book Prize award.

As a practicing barrister he has extensive experience litigating cases before the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes, and the European Court of Justice. He frequently advises governments, international organisations, NGOs and the private sector on aspects of international law. In 2003 he was appointed a Queen's Counsel. He has been appointed to lists of arbitrators maintained by ICSID and the PCA.

Research
Professor Sands is directs the Project on International Courts and Tribunals (www.pict-pcti.org). The project has the following aims and objectives:
- to facilitate access to and transparency in the work of international courts and tribunals;
- to enhance the effectiveness of international courts and tribunals;
- to promote greater knowledge about international courts and tribunals; and
- to promote international peace through international justice and rule of law.

The project is doing research into policy, legal and operational, issues in the administration of international justice in the twenty-first century, such as the composition and independence of the international bench. In 2006 the Centre for International Courts and Tribunals was awarded an AHRC grant of £250,000 to examine the appointment of international judges.

Publications

Torture Team: Cruelty, Deception and the Compromise of Law (Penguin, May 2008) http://www.penguincatalogue.co.uk/lo/press/title.html?catalogueId=217&imprintId=390&titleId=4428 [br />Lawless World: America and the Making and Breaking of Global Rules (Penguin, 2005) (translated into Arabic (2006) and Farsi (2007), Chinese translation forthcoming(2008))..
Documents in International Environmental Law, Cambridge University Press, 2004 (edited with Paolo Galizzi)
From Nuremberg to The Hague: The Future of International Criminal Justice, Cambridge University Press, 2003 (editor)
Principles of International Environmental Law, Second Edition, Cambridge University Press, 2003
Justice for Crimes Against Humanity, Hart Publishing, 2003 (edited with Mark Lattimer)
Bowett's Law of International Institutions, Sweet & Maxwell, 5th edition, 2001 (co-author with Pierre Klein, Universite Libre de Bruxelles)
Environmental Law, The Economy and Sustainable Development (co-edited with Richard Stewart and Richard Revesz) Cambridge University Press, 2000
The Manual of International Courts and Tribunals (with Shany and Mackenzie), Butterworths, 1999
The International Court of Justice and Nuclear Weapons (collection of essays edited with Laurence Boisson de Chazournes, Cambridge University Press, 1999)
Principles of International Environmental Law, Manchester University Press, 1995 (Vols. I, II and III); 2nd edition to be published by Cambridge University Press in 2003.
Greening International Law (editor), Earthscan, 1993
Chernobyl: Law and Communication, 340 pp. (Grotius Publications/Cambridge University Press) 1988.
Plus articles on international, environmental and natural resources law.
Links

Guardian Comment is Free, Weblog, at http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/philippe_sands/
Op-Ed, San Francisco Chronicle, 13 November 2005 (Policymakers on torture take note -- remember Pinochet), at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/11/13/INGUPFLGKJ1.DTL
Debate with Professor John Yoo, World Affairs Council of Northern California, 31 October 2005 (America is Undermining Global Legal Order ... Or Not?), at http://wacsf.vportal.net/?fileid=4131
Public Lecture

JUSTICE International Rule of Law Lecture
Professor Philippe Sands QC, of University College, London and Matrix
Chambers, "Extraordinary Rendition: complicity and its consequences"
Monday 15 May 2006.
Download Draft Text

[hack89]

89. Isaw his resume - very impressive.

but somewhat irrelevant if his views do not reflect British or EU policy concerning opening an investigation of 911. I can show you many eminent Americans that are calling for impeachment of Bush for example - I don't see that happening anytime soon, do you?

For all you know, Sands is another Chomsky - a brilliant voice in the wilderness with no actual influence on government policy.

[seemslikeadream]

91. Law School to Plan Bush War Crimes Prosecution

Start with torture then maybe 9/11

Press Release: Massachusetts School Of Law

17/06/08 "ICH" -- - A conference to plan the prosecution of President Bush and other high administration officials for war crimes will be held September 13-14 at the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover .

"This is not intended to be a mere discussion of violations of law that have occurred," said convener Lawrence Velvel, dean and cofounder of the school. "It is, rather, intended to be a planning conference at which plans will be laid and necessary organizational structures set up, to pursue the guilty as long as necessary and, if need be, to the ends of the Earth."

"We must try to hold Bush administration leaders accountable in courts of justice," Velvel said. "And we must insist on appropriate punishments, including, if guilt is found, the hangings visited upon top German and Japanese war-criminals in the 1940s."

Velvel said past practice has been to allow U.S. officials responsible for war crimes in Viet Nam and elsewhere to enjoy immunity from prosecution upon leaving office. "President Johnson retired to his Texas ranch and his Defense Secretary Robert McNamara was named to head the World Bank; Richard Nixon retired to San Clemente and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was allowed to grow richer and richer," Velvel said.

He noted in the years since the prosecution and punishment of German and Japanese leaders after World War Two those nation's leaders changed their countries' aggressor cultures. One cannot discount contributory cause and effect here, he said.

"For Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and John Yoo to spend years in jail or go to the gallows for their crimes would be a powerful lesson to future American leaders," Velvel said.

The conference will take up such issues as the nature of domestic and international crimes committed; which high-level Bush officials, including Federal judges and Members of Congress, are chargeable with war crimes; which foreign and domestic tribunals can be used to prosecute them; and the setting up of an umbrella coordinating committee with representatives of legal groups concerned about the war crimes such as the Center for Constitutional Rights, ACLU, National Lawyers Guild, among others.

The Massachusetts School of Law at Andover was established in 1988 to provide an affordable, quality legal education to minorities, immigrants and students from low-income households that might otherwise be denied the opportunity to obtain a legal education and practice law. Its founder, Dean Velvel, has been honored by the National Law Journal and cited in various publications for his contributions to the reform of legal education.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20118.htm

[hack89]

93. So what?

you just proved my point. There are groups that want to prosecute Bush even in America - no way is it reflective of what Congress plans to do.

[HamdenRice]

86. Philippe Sands

Philippe Sands is actually a former colleague of mine. I used to know him quite well. He's a very nice guy in addition to all of his accomplishments and very committed to certain projects (but not all projects) he undertakes. Perhaps his most disarming characteristic when I knew him was that he looked very "boyish."

But trust me, he has the intellectual capacity and resources to pursue war crimes actions against this gang, and I suspect that if he truly commits to it, he will exhaust all procedures to see it to its logical conclusions.

[HamdenRice]

87. And this is based on ...

what?

Of all the posters who post down here, I have to say that you are the most notable for never providing any evidence for your certain, oracular, but counterfactual pronouncements.

[hack89]

88. A firm grip on political reality perhaps?

The fact that no European country is pushing to investigate 911? the fact that congress has no desire to reopen the investigation of 911?

Time will tell - lets bookmark this thread and get back together in a year or so to see who is right.

[HamdenRice]

90. Do you at least now agree ...

that there would be no obstacles if hypothetically a multilateral international organization like the EU decided to investigate? Do you withdraw your contention that the U.S. could somehow prevent it from happening?

As for your new contention that they simply won't, I find it perplexing considering what Europeans are saying even about Blair's potential liability for his role in the Iraq war. The Europeans seem to be working themselves into a prosecuting mode, and when they do, they will look for root causes of the war.

[hack89]

95. There would be many obstacles

There is no doubt that they could organize and research in Europe - we have no control over that. They can certainly talk to all the truthers they want to (I suspect they will be lining up.) But fire fighters and first responders? No way - they are all government employees of some sort or the other. I can certainly see the City of New York forbidding their employees from cooperating - you really think they will cooperate with an inquiry that suggests that they played a role in the execution or cover up of 911? As for the Federal government? Forget it. The US government will simply forbid any government employee to cooperate and that would be the end of it - without the DOD, FBI, CIA or NIST any investigation will turn into a farce - a truther circus so to speak. The EU has no power here - all they would accomplish is a humiliating rebuff.

And the US government could most definitely ban the commission from setting up hearings in America - they can forbid entry to anyone they want to for any reason they want.

You seem to be discounting the political aspect - this is not a cut and dried crime investigation whereby a foreign entity can come to America and investigate the American government. It would ignite a political firestorm of unimaginable violence. Congress and the public would explode - there is no way that they would accept such foreign interference.

[dailykoff]

96. Yes, but I've just about given up hope of any official one.

By now it's pretty clear that the US govt is not going to investigate its own crime, Obama or no, and nobody's going to stage an international trial, so it's pretty much up to us. :shrug:

[Diane_nyc]

97. Looks like most of us do see the need for a new investigation, 30 YES vs. 6 NO

As of now, it appears that the vast majority of us do see the need for a new investigation. As of now, the poll results are:

• NO: The 9/11 Commission did a good job. (1 votes, 3%)


• NO: It won't do any good. Our entire government is corrupt. (0 votes, 0%)


• NO: The US has better things to spend it's tax dollars on. (5 votes, 14%)


• YES: We need an investigation without conflicts of interest such as Zelikow's" (17 votes, 47%)


• YES: We need an international investigation. (13 votes, 36%)

For a total of 6 "NO" votes and 30 "YES" votes.