Left Corner

In Left Corner you will find information about important campaigns, appeals and calls for action. Your support is encouraged. If you want to publicise your cause here, please send an outline of no more than 1,000 words to: leftcorner@stateofnature.org.

Contents:

1. Bush Crimes Commission: Bush Administration Guilty of Crimes Against Humanity

2. Protest against the 2005 Nobel Prize in Economics

3. Release Muhsin al-Khafaji: Close the US/UK prison camps in Iraq

BUSH ADMINISTRATION GUILTY OF CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY SAYS COMMISSION OF INQUIRY; ACTIVIST CONFRONTS RUMSFELD WITH VERDICT, SAYS "STEP DOWN!"

February 2, 2006

Today the Bush Administration was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity for invading Iraq, instituting torture and indefinite detention, attacking efforts to control global warming and for deliberately failing to prevent devastation and loss of life during Hurricane Katrina.

These findings were released at the National Press Club by the International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration. The full text of can be found at www.bushcommission.org.

Shortly after the findings were released, activist Heather Hurwitz confronted Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with the Commission's verdict during his press luncheon. Hurwitz, of World Can't Wait--Drive Out the Bush Regime, declared Rumsfeld and The Bush Administration were guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity and that thousands were gathering Saturday, February 4th in Washington to demand that they step down. (www.worldcantwait.net)

Ms. Hurwitz was quickly removed by security personnel. After she was led away, Rumsfeld joked, "We'll count her as undecided." When informed of Rumsfeld's comment, Hurwitz said, "war crimes and crimes against humanity are not joking matters. Rumsfeld's attitude typifies this administration's brazen immorality and lawlessness, and this is why it must step down."

Earlier, at the Commission's press conference, Ajamu Sankofa, Executive Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility-NY and one of the panel of jurists, stated "The historical significance of this tribunal is that American citizens, civil society, is demonstrating courage to stand up and speak its definition of the truth against a wholly orchestrated system of deliberate deceptions."

"This commission is attempting to change the level of discourse," said Abdeen Jabara, another panelist and former President of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. "We want people to understand Iraq is not simply a war of choice but an actual war of aggression from which flow certain legal consequences. Torture is often reported as 'abuse' rather than torture. So we need to change the way these items are talked about for people to face the fact of what this government is doing."

"The Commission is incredibly important for the future of the United States and really the world, because it's the people of America that are speaking to these very serious indictments," said panel member Ann Wright, a former US diplomat and retired US Army Reserve Colonel. Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern added, "Our German fore-bearers in the 1930s sat around, blamed their rulers, said 'maybe everything's going to be alright.' That is something we cannot do. I do not want my grandchildren asking me years from now, 'why didn't you do something to stop all this?'"

Brig. General Janis Karpinski, former UK Ambassador Craig Murray, and former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, were among the 44 witnesses presenting testimony at the Commission's two sessions. The Commission will later issue detailed findings, accompanied by full documentation.

www.bushcommission.org

Protest against the 2005 Nobel Prize in Economics

Every person, including a Nobel Prize laureate, is entitled of course to his/her political views, but in this case professors Robert J. Aumann from Israel and Thomas Schelling from the US got the prize explicitly for their alleged contribution to a better understanding of conflicts and cooperation and implicitly for helping to solve conflicts.

I and all the numerous signatories and many others who didn't sign the petition are not aware of any positive contribution of these two mathematicians to peace, on the contrary, we are aware of their disastrous contribution to war, militarism, oppression and discrimination.

Their political views and analysis were directly honored as an integral part of their scientific work. Aumann himself emphasized the point that unlike other Nobel Prize laureates [e.g., Harold Pinter] he considers himself an expert on war and peace and that he got the prize exactly for that.

It has to be admitted, Professor Robert J. Aumann looks like a very charming Jewish Santa Claus. In the age of efficient power point presentations his almost unreadable handwritten confused representation at Stockholm on December 8 appeared rather refreshing even if at times difficult to follow. Luckily, thanks to modern technology, one can watch the lecture over the Internet and easily replay the passages where one lost the train of thought of the lecturer (nobelprize.org/economics/laureates/2005/aumann-lecture-hi.ram).

I have to admit that I very much like dialectic, even in its Jewish version of ‘Pilpul’ (www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=318&letter=P). Suddenly, everything becomes its opposite.

Something very intelligent becomes very foolish and a charming old man becomes a monster who even succeeds in twisting the beautiful peaceful call of the prophet Isaiah to turn swords into plowshares to sound like a declaration of war.

Hence, disarmament does not further peace, armament does.

Those who want "peace now" will not get it, only those who do not want it at all, or not now, will get it now.

That means that if a new movement is found, calling itself "No Peace Now" it will get peace now, and the old and known "Peace Now" movement will get (actually it has already got) war now. The problem is with the 'nowism'.

Professor Aumann is a religious person and he, for sure, believes that the Messiah will come, but not now. If he demands the Messiah to come now, s/he will never come.

According to his dialectic, Professor Robert J. Aumann is actually a peace activist, though his recipe for peace is rather a guideline for war. He propagates in scientific terms the policy of the carrot and stick as the surest way to achieve peace, or is it war? I have to admit I'm getting confused myself.

The child from Hans Christian Andersen's fairytale would have claimed that "the emperor is naked." But this child was not well informed. He knew nothing about game theory and he would have never gotten a Nobel Prize.

But, of course, Professor Aumann is an honourable and intelligent man, as Shakespeare would say. He can even convince the convinced that for the 30 to 40 years, at every moment, that there were US bombers in the air carrying nukes, the world was still a safer place. Though any moment some plane could have crashed or some crazy person could have shot it down, etc., etc. But the world is a safer place with A-bombs than without them. Laughing is actually crying in other words. War is peace and peace is war.

The following email and petition were sent to The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences:

The following response was received:

This doesn't answer the objections at all. The reasoning for awarding the Nobel Prize to Professors Aumann and Schelling is known. What is unknown is their positive contribution to understanding and solving conflicts. We invite you to send your own letters to the Academy of Sciences asking them for some further explanation.

Contact The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences via their website: www.kva.se/KVA_Root/index_eng.asp.

Sent to SoN by Shraga Elam,
Israeli journalist winner of the Australian Gold Walkley Award for excellent journalism 2004,
Zurich/Switzerland (a country with the strongest armies in the world - the banks).

Release Muhsin al-Khafaji
Close the US/UK prison camps in Iraq

For more than two years, Iraqi writer Muhsin al-Khafaji has been held without charge or trial in the US-run prison, Camp Bucca in southern Iraq. Family and friends say he is in poor health, and fear that he will not survive the notoriously bad conditions in the prison camp.

When last visited by friends in January 2004, he told them that he had no idea why he had been arrested. During his last interrogation in September 2003 he signed a statement provided by the camp authorities, promising not to sue them for damages after his release.

According to Amnesty International around 9,000 detainees are held at Camp Bucca. Two Palestinian students, who were released from the camp in August 2005 told the human rights watchdog that they suffered humiliation and torture at Camp Bucca including being forced to stand for hours in the heat of the sun. According to the Washington Post, the average length of incarceration at the Camp is one year. A recent report by the United Nations mission in Iraq expressed deep concern that nearly 12,000 Iraqis are being held by the occupying forces.

Human rights groups across the Arab world are calling for the release of Muhsin al-Khafaji and for the closure of the occupiers’ prison camps in Iraq.

What you can do:

Write letters of protest

Prime Minister, Republic of Iraq
c/o HE Dr Salah al Shaikhly
Iraqi Embassy
169 Knightsbridge, London
SW7 1DW
Fax: 020 7589 3356
Email: lonemb@iraqmofa.net

and to:
Donald Rumsfeld
Secretary of Defense
Office of the Secretary
The Pentagon
Washington
DC 20301
USA
Fax: +1 703 697 8339
Email: send appeals via the US Department of Defense website: www.defenselink.mil/faq/comment.html

Send a copy to Tony Blair’s Special Envoy to Iraq
Ann Clwyd MP
Prime Ministers’ Special Envoy to Iraq on Human Rights
House of Commons
London SW1A 0AA
Email: clwyda@parliament.uk

Pass a resolution in your trade union branch or community group

• condemning the detention of Muhsin al-Khafaji and thousands of other Iraqis without charge or trial by the occupying forces
• calling on the US and UK governments to release them without delay.

Contact us for more information: release_muhsinallkhafaji@yahoo.co.uk

Sent to SoN by Haifa Zangana.