I don't often write diaries. I tend to lurk. I know this diary is going to be considered "illegal" and a bunch of people are going to ask me to delete it, but this is something i feel everyone needs to know. One of my favorite tweeters, @GottaLaff posted an article on her website that proves, once and for all, that Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld (at least) are war criminals and should be prosecuted thusly. I'll provide the article after the jump.
this is taken (with the author's explicit consent) from The Political Carnival I very, very strongly advise everyone to click through, read it, and then click through all of the links provided on the bottom of the article. I'll try to figure out how to edit those in after I post.
Tell me if you've heard this one before. Oh wait, you have, because it's exactly what I've been writing about for months regarding Lt. Col. Barry Wingard's client Fayiz al-Kandari.
The difference is, now Colin Powell's former aide Larry Wilkerson is saying it, right out loud:
George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld covered up that hundreds of innocent men were sent to the Guantánamo Bay prison camp because they feared that releasing them would harm the push for war in Iraq and the broader War on Terror, according to a new document obtained by The Times.
The accusations were made by Lawrence Wilkerson, a top aide to Colin Powell, the former Republican Secretary of State, in a signed declaration to support a lawsuit filed by a Guantánamo detainee. It is the first time that such allegations have been made by a senior member of the Bush Administration.
Of course, the Obama administration would rather not look back, only forward. I have a feeling that may change one day soon, the way evidence has been mounting against BushCo. If they ignore this information, then we have a real problem.
Wilkerson's recounting of what happened is nearly identical to Fayiz's story:
[T]he majority of detainees — children as young as 12 and men as old as 93, he said — never saw a US soldier when they were captured. He said that many were turned over by Afghans and Pakistanis for up to $5,000. Little or no evidence was produced as to why they had been taken.
Bingo.
Cheney, Rumsfeld, and even Bush himself were in on it, per Wilkerson. Re: Cheney...
“He had absolutely no concern that the vast majority of Guantánamo detainees were innocent ... If hundreds of innocent individuals had to suffer in order to detain a handful of hardcore terrorists, so be it.”
He alleged that for Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld “innocent people languishing in Guantánamo for years was justified by the broader War on Terror and the small number of terrorists who were responsible for the September 11 attacks”.
Just. Go. Read.
****
All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes one specific to only Fayiz al-Kandari's story here. Here are audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.
Lt. Col. Barry Wingard is a military attorney who represents Fayiz Al-Kandari in the Military Commission process and in no way represents the opinions of his home state. When not on active duty, Colonel Wingard is a public defender in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.
If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.
Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.
More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.
H/t: Tosfm
i very, very grateful that there are journalists still pursuing the war crimes committed by our previous administration, even if the current administration is content with turning the page.