De rechtbank

Weet even geen zinnige reactie te geven, want ben het eens dat een rechter zich hierover zal moeten uitlaten en ook, dat als Pienter niet mee wil werken, dat dit dan verplicht moet worden.
Maar ga je dan niet uit van een ideaal rechtssysteem?
(als we het voorbeeld van de heer Pienter even uitbreiden naar een land/regering dat zich niet aan bepaalde regels(?) houdt).

Ik heb niet al je artikelen in deze serie gelezen overigens.

helena,
als je geen zinnige reactie weet te geven, hou dan je mond en ga strijken en eten maken

@ Mihai – "Omdat we een overlevingsinstinct hebben willen we geweldspiralen voorkomen"

Dat zegt de 21ste eeuwer in een geglobaliseerde wereld. Historisch gezien is het overlevingsinstinct gebonden aan de eigen groep of stam, dus de strijd om te overleven. Dus juist de reden van geweldsspiralen. Dat het nu anders zou liggen is niet vanzelfsprekend, welk moraaltje je ook bedenkt van ‘mutual dependency’.

Het hele verhaal van jou wat je zou mogen afdwingen is inderdaad nogal vanuit een niet-bestaande hemel gedacht. Ja hoor mag best, maar wie of wat dwingt het af ? Al met al blijft je relaas dus staan in de ouderwetse metafysica. ( het hemeldenken).

Overigens loopt je hele onderneming hier op dit blog steeds spaak , omdat je vergeet dat er ook nog zoiets is als ‘mutual responsesiveness’ , oftewel eens de reacties goed lezen en er een beleefd en uitgewerkt antwoord op geven.

Het dwingen wat jij wilt, zit al in je beroerd reageren, dus mensen voelen vooral de dwang die je wilt uitoefenen, helaas zijn we inmiddels nogal vrij om daar niet in mee te gaan, dus einde project, of dat nou een argument is of niet.

Jij lijkt te denken dat argumenten kunnen dwingen , maar dat kan alleen maar feitelijke macht, die daarvoor ook argumenten gebruikt, maar daar is echter wel heel wat meer voor nodig , bv. aantrekkingskracht, vrijheid, twijfel, communicatie etc.

Dus jouw ongebreidelde droom van het ware en niet- relatieve opleggen, is niet meer dan dat. Niet voor niets heb je onsterfelijkheid en de hemel nodig voor je gelijk, de meeste mensen hebben dat echter niet nodig.

@iris kijkt

Kijk naar je reactie van 19-04-2010 21:17. Het is een reeks beweringen. Wat ik daaruit zou moeten concluderen weet ik niet. Ik kan ook roepen ‘de hemel is blauw’, ‘het gras is groen’, maar dat is onvoldoende. Ik moet ook zeggen wat ik daaruit wil concluderen, waarom het relevant is voor het argument. Het is niet evident waarom het relevant zou zijn wat je daar zegt. Niet iedereen is in je hoofd om te weten wat jij zou concluderen of wat je veronderstelt.

@ Mihai – Dat we geweldsspiralen willen voorkomen is ook een bewering, die niet eens zonder meer klopt.Heeft niets te maken met een onzin-ding als de hemel is groen. Gigantisch geweld en moord komen ook voort uit het overlevingsinstinct nl. , net zo makkelijk aantoonbaar. Ik spreek jouw basis-stelling niet tegen, maar geef aan dat het niet zo absoluut is als je denkt, met die relativering kun je niet omgaan in je premisse-schema’s.Daarbinnen past niet het verschijnsel van de nuancering blijkbaar.

Ten tweede is de vraag hoe jij, wat je hier denkt, meent te kunnen afdwingen of opleggen. Je hebt de macht niet daartoe, dus draait het om de macht. Zonder die macht is het niet meer dan wat argumenten. Met die macht maar hopen dat het ook nog eens wat argumenten blijven en niet alleen maar macht. Macht heef vaak een hekel aan argumenten nl. , maar argumenten hebben vaak geen macht. Hele premisse gedoe komt daarmee in het luchtledige te hangen, zeg maar de hemel.

@Robert

==De rest zou je kunnen zien al NA-DENKEN==

Kan jij dat zien? De inwoners van de Derde Wereld geloven dat het Westen grote misdaden tegen hen pleegt, precies zoals dhr. Pienter tegen jou. Tegelijkertijd bestaat er geen internationale rechtbank waar zij het Westen kunnen aanklagen. Sterker nog het Wester verzet zich voortdurend tegen het idee om individuen toegang te geven tot internationale rechtbanken en zodanig landen aan te klagen. En blijkbaar verbaast niemand zich in het Westen hoe dat kan. Er is dus geen NA-DENKEN.

Quote Mihai Mijn stelling is dat jij volstrekt vrij bent om dhr. Pienter voor een rechter te slepen, desnoods met dwang, zoals geweld.

Dat is precies wat mr.Bush met de massamoordenaar Saddam Hoessein gedaan heeft.

Er is allang zo’n internationale rechtbank, maar Saddam Hoessein durfde het niet aan.
Evenals Bin Laden. Bloeddorstige dictatoriale types hebben het nl. niet zo op rechtspraak.

Het is overigens opvallend dat je onder het mom van objectivering jouw zeer uitgesproken subjectieve meningen, mn tav de VS, probeert op te leggen en door te drukken.
Als ik van mening ben dat Irak nu een vrije en democratische staat aan het worden is, dankzij het Amerikaanse ingrijpen, – maar ook dankzij bv de Engelsen onder Blair, zal ik jou dat nooit als mening opdringen of opleggen, maar ik hoop natuurlijk wel dat je eens serieus op argumenten ingaat.

Je opmerking dat Irak nu een slavenstaat is en dat er meer doden zullen gaan vallen dan onder Saddam,vind ik donaldduckiserend. Of geloof je dat serieus?

Dan wordt argumenteren nogal lastig, want dan hebben we te maken met iemand die ziende blind is.

Daar zijn overigens hele goede inrichtingen voor.

@PARTOUT

==Het is overigens opvallend dat je onder het mom van objectivering jouw zeer uitgesproken subjectieve meningen, mn tav de VS, probeert op te leggen en door te drukken.==

Het is overigens opvallend dat je onder het mom van objectivering jouw zeer uitgesproken subjectieve meningen, mn tav de VS, probeert op te leggen en door te drukken. Met B52’s

Quote Mihai Mijn stelling is dat jij volstrekt vrij bent om dhr. Pienter voor een rechter te slepen, desnoods met dwang, zoals geweld.

Nogmaals, Mr.Bush hield zich exact aan de regels van Mihai.
Dus je hele voorstel rammelt als een gek. Denk er nu eens een keer echt goed over na, en dan komen we samen tot de conclusie dat je de VN en de Veiligheidsraad een juridische status dient te verlenen als het om conflicten gaat, dwz dat men legitiem macht moet kunnen uitoefenen om die conflicten op te lossen, c.q.gepast geweld te gebruiken.
De Yanks hebben overigens tot het laatste moment geprobeerd zoveel mogelijk vanuit een juridische dekking lidstaten mee te krijgen om Saddam aan te pakken die – eigen richting- zijn volk aan het uitroeien was.
De verdeelheid was echter te groot.
Dan komt de issue van de EIGEN morele verantwoordelijkheid om de hoek kijken.
Bush en Blair hebben die genomen.
Sommige zo gruwelijke zaken kun je nl niet laten passeren zonder in actie te komen.

@PARTOUT

==Nogmaals, Mr.Bush hield zich exact aan de regels van Mihai.==

En er bestaan mensen die daarover anders denken. Het is precies zoals het geval met dhr. Pienter. Hij en zijn verdedigers (jij) zegt dat hij zich precies aan de regels houdt. Waarom zou dhr. Pienter het laatste woord hebben?

@PARTOUT

Wat is het adres van de rechtbank waar de moeder van een Pakistaans kind, vermoord door Obama met een drone, kan gaan en Obama of Amerika aanklagen?

Waar kan een Palestijn Israel aanklagen?

@Maria

Nu heb je een argument om het strafprocesrecht te veranderen. De trauma veroorzaakt aan Lucia B. kan haar leven verkorten. Ook is zij beroofd van vrijheid, wat haar leven voor zeven jaar ondraagbaar maakte.

En als iemand Bush wil aanklagen? Waar kan hij dan terecht?

In ieder geval niet bij de Internationale strafhof.

Maar de ICJ dan wel? :

"In het verleden hebben landen als de Verenigde Staten, Iran en Israël uitspraken van het hof genegeerd zonder daarvan noemenswaardige nadelige consequenties te hebben ondervonden. De VS deden in 1986 bijvoorbeeld niets nadat het hof Nicaragua in het gelijk had gesteld. Nicaragua had geklaagd over het feit dat de inlichtingendienst CIA illegaal mijnen had gelegd in zijn havens om de Sandinistische rebellen te steunen. Iran weigerde in 1980 het verzoek van het hof Amerikanen vrij te laten die in de overvallen Amerikaanse ambassade in Teheran in gijzeling waren genomen. Recentelijk, in 2004, bepaalde het Internationaal Gerechtshof dat de zogenoemde veiligheidsmuur die Israël bouwt op de Westelijke Jordaanoever in strijd met het internationale recht is en daarom afgebroken moet worden. Tot op de dag van vandaag gaat de bouw echter gewoon door.

Indien een land zich niet bij het vonnis van het hof neerlegt, kan het benadeelde land bij de Veiligheidsraad aankloppen om gehoorzaamheid af te dwingen. Wanneer een van de permanente lidstaten van die raad – die vetorecht hebben – echter op enigerlei wijze bij het conflict betrokken is, blijkt dat meestal onmogelijk."

Ik herhaal:"Wanneer een van de permanente lidstaten van die raad – die vetorecht hebben – echter op enigerlei wijze bij het conflict betrokken is, blijkt dat meestal onmogelijk"

Wil iemand nog een blikje rechtvaardigheid opentrekken? Dank u.

======= Wat is er tegen een militair goed georganiseerd vredesleger, thats the question! ======

Daar heb ik op tegen dat het woord alleen al een contradictio in terminis is!!!! Net als "onze vredesmissies" zeker???? Nazi-zendingen zijn het!!

An.

@PARTOUT

==Wat is er tegen een militair goed georganiseerd vredesleger, thats the question! ==

Niets, zolang de machtigen via rechtbanken tot het respecteren van internationaal recht gedwongen kunnen worden. Trouwens, het VN-verdrag voorziet voor zo’n leger, maar het is niet van de grond gekomen.

@Reggie

We komen er wel. We zien een steeds versnellende toename van internationaal recht, zelfs Balkenende stelde een nieuwe rechtbank voor. Ten tweede, mochten de machtigen zich verzetten, technologie werkt in het voordeel van de machtelozen. Amerika heeft triljoenen verloren na 11 september en als ze niet leert om zich aan internationaal recht te schikken, komt er een volgende 11 september totdat men zich aan het internationaal recht schikt of zichzelf ten gronde richt. Hetzelfde geldt voor de Russen, Chinezen, Saudi’s en wie zich als machtige wil ontpompen.

@An

Dat is juist de truc. Het VN is ook oorspronkelijk bedacht om imperia in leven te houden en heeft geresulteerd in het ondergaang van kolonialisme, ontstaan van mensenrechten en versterking van internationaal recht. Een nieuwe rechtbank zal uiteindelijk leiden tot binding voor de machtigen.

Was the U.N. really founded on a lofty democratic ideal?
Posted By Colum Lynch Monday, January 25, 2010 – 11:05 AM Share

In a new book, historian Mark Mazower takes a whack at the prevailing perception of the U.N.’s founding fathers as a band of far-sighted idealists seeking to mold a truly universal institution out of the ruins of World War II.

In No Enchanted Palace, published by Princeton University Press, Mazower argues that the principle architects of the U.N. Charter were bent on using the new international institution to preserve the last vestiges of the British imperial order, which had been shattered by WWII.

The British historian and diplomatic adviser Charles Webster epitomizes the cynicism of a waning colonial power straining to preserve its empire, Mazower writes. In one diary entry, Webster describes the U.N. as "an Alliance of the Great Powers embedded in a universal organization." He dismisses a provision of the U.N. Charter that would allow colonial powers to unload their former colonies, then called mandates.

"We have allowed our mandates to go under the new control but for rest the matter remains exactly as before except that there is a sort of machinery if states desire to put their colonial territories under it," Webster wrote. "We have no such intention and I’m sure no other power has."

After decades of scholarly neglect of the United Nations, which had been marginalized by the Cold War, a new generation of academics have turned their attention to the organization since George H.W. Bush declared a "new world order," Mazower writes. But he says a "shocked intellectual reaction" to his son’s foreign policy has prompted scholars to embellish the democratic ideals that formed the U.N. in order to defend the strain of American internationalism in the 1940s.

Mazower’s book provides a good counterpoint to Stephen C. Schlesinger’s 2003 The Act of Creation: The Founding of the United Nations, published by Westview, which highlights the idealism of American leaders, like President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, that placed the U.N. at the center of the post-war order. One of the heroes in Schlesinger’s book is Republican Sen. Arthur Vandenberg, a one-time isolationist who helped ensure bipartisan congressional support for the international organization.

Mazower examines the darker side of the U.N.’s creation, highlighting a handful of influential figures who participated in drafting the U.N. Charter, principally Jan Smuts, the late South African prime minister, who wrote the key section of the lofty preamble to the charter, which promotes equal rights for individuals and states and commits U.N. members to "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war."

Smuts, who had played a role in the ill-fated League of Nations, saw the United Nations as a means of cementing Britain’s relationship between the United States, and preserving the British-led Commonwealth. His ultimate goal was to ensure white rule in South Africa and beyond. In June, 1945, immediately after the U.N. was created at a conference in San Francisco, Smuts returned to South Africa to push for the annexation of the former Germany colony, South-West Africa, now known as Namibia.

"He was convinced of white racial superiority and believed international organizations should ensure that white leadership of the world continued," Mazower writes. "South Africa," he adds later in the book, "had expansionism hardwired into its constitution."

"The whole area of East Africa," Smuts wrote in the 1920s, could "be made into a great European state or system of states during the next three or four generations." In 1929 he called for "one great African dominion stretching unbroken throughout Africa." What was needed was " a resolute white policy" so that there would emerge "a white state in time more important than Australia … a chain of white states which will in the end become one from the [South African] Union to Kenya."

Mazower argues that the U.N. was even less progressive than its predecessor, the League of Nations, placing national sovereignty above the rights of individuals, particularly minority groups. The big power veto, which was introduced at the insistence of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, continues to be a source of intense irritation to the rest of the world.

Ultimately, Mazower turns out to be a fan of the United Nations. He concludes that the U.N. charter was a progressive document that ended up thwarting the aims of some of its key founders, and helped pave the way to the era of decolonization.

The turning point came in 1946, when Smuts tried and failed to secure support in the U.N. General Assembly for its plans to annex South-West Africa. Later that year, Jawaharlal Nehru, the leader of an Indian transitional government that had not yet gained independence, went to the 54-member U.N. General Assembly to complain that a new South Africa law restricting voting and residence rights for Indian laborers was incompatible with the U.N. Charter. Despite resistance from the U.S., Britain, and South Africa, the measure passed.

It was, Mazower writes, "a reminder to the British that they were no longer the sole arbiters even of India’s destiny, let alone that of the empire as a whole."

An heeft zeker een foto van Saddam Hoessein boven d’r bed hangen?

Wij zijn allemaal tegen oorlog An, maar helaas maakt een kleine minderheid van gewelddadige fascisten dankbaar gebruik van die naïviteit.

All over the world zijn er tal van regionale conflicten die vaak uitlopen op genocide en die kun je slechts met harde hand voorkomen. Ik heb het over gepast geweld, let wel.
Zie Screbenica: overste Karremans: do not shoot the pianoplayer..
Ja zo kan ik ook de vrede handhaven, als er onder je grote neus incl hangsnor duizenden moslims afgeknald worden en je doet dan net of die neus bloedt..
Ik blaim trouwens meer de echte verantwoordelijken: Voorhoeve, Van Mierlo, Wim Kok, die het overigens op Voorhoeve na verdomden om een behoorlijk excuus te maken aan de moeders van S>

Gek dat je de echte monsters zoals Karadzic nooit eens noemt.
Kun je trouwens de eerste vijf jaar eens een grondige studie doen naar bijv. het islamitische fascisme, frau Antje, want dit deuntje kennen we nu wel van jou.
Geldt trouwens ook voor Mihai.
VERENIGDE NATIES is iets geheel anders dan een anti VS smartlapje afdraaien voor een zelf in elkaar geknutselde rechtbank, gaap-gaap.

@Partout

Veterans from Wikileaks Unit
Apologize to Iraqis,
Question U.S. Leadership

ETHAN McCORD, JOSH STIEBER, via Laura Taylor, [email protected]
Stieber and McCord are former soldiers of the company documented in the video recently released by Wikileaks (Bravo Company 2-16), which shows U.S. soldiers killing civilians including a Reuters photographer and then shooting at people in a van attempting to rescue the wounded. See: http://wikileaks.org

AN OPEN LETTER OF RECONCILIATION & RESPONSIBILITY TO THE IRAQI PEOPLE
From Current and Former Members of the U.S. Military

Peace be with you.

To all of those who were injured or lost loved ones during the July 2007 Baghdad shootings depicted in the “Collateral Murder” Wikileaks video:

We write to you, your family, and your community with awareness that our words and actions can never restore your losses.

We are both soldiers who occupied your neighborhood for 14 months. Ethan McCord pulled your daughter and son from the van, and when doing so, saw the faces of his own children back home. Josh Stieber was in the same company but was not there that day, though he contributed to the your pain, and the pain of your community on many other occasions.

There is no bringing back all that was lost. What we seek is to learn from our mistakes and do everything we can to tell others of our experiences and how the people of the United States need to realize we have done and are doing to you and the people of your country. We humbly ask you what we can do to begin to repair the damage we caused.

We have been speaking to whoever will listen, telling them that what was shown in the Wikileaks video only begins to depict the suffering we have created. From our own experiences, and the experiences of other veterans we have talked to, we know that the acts depicted in this video are everyday occurrences of this war: this is the nature of how U.S.-led wars are carried out in this region.

We acknowledge our part in the deaths and injuries of your loved ones as we tell Americans what we were trained to do and what we carried out in the name of "god and country". The soldier in the video said that your husband shouldn’t have brought your children to battle, but we are acknowledging our responsibility for bringing the battle to your neighborhood, and to your family. We did unto you what we would not want done to us.

More and more Americans are taking responsibility for what was done in our name. Though we have acted with cold hearts far too many times, we have not forgotten our actions towards you. Our heavy hearts still hold hope that we can restore inside our country the acknowledgment of your humanity, that we were taught to deny.

Our government may ignore you, concerned more with its public image. It has also ignored many veterans who have returned physically injured or mentally troubled by what they saw and did in your country. But the time is long overdue that we say that the value of our nation’s leaders no longer represent us. Our secretary of defense may say the U.S. won’t lose its reputation over this, but we stand and say that our reputation’s importance pales in comparison to our common humanity.

We have asked our fellow veterans and service-members, as well as civilians both in the United States and abroad, to sign in support of this letter, and to offer their names as a testimony to our common humanity, to distance ourselves from the destructive policies of our nation’s leaders, and to extend our hands to you.

With such pain, friendship might be too much to ask. Please accept our apology, our sorrow, our care, and our dedication to change from the inside out. We are doing what we can to speak out against the wars and military policies responsible for what happened to you and your loved ones. Our hearts are open to hearing how we can take any steps to support you through the pain that we have caused.

Solemnly and Sincerely,
Josh Stieber, former specialist, U.S. Army
Ethan McCord, former specialist, U.S. Army

Gek dat Partout nooit Bush of Obama of Balkenende achter de tailles wil krijgen, slechts de officiële vijanden.

======= Mihai Martoiu Ticu 20-04-2010 16:59
Gek dat Partout nooit Bush of Obama of Balkenende achter de tailles wil krijgen, slechts de ======

Partout is ook een westers monster, daarom!

An.

@An

Partout is de filosoof van anderman’s dood.

@Reggie

Als je me je hotmail adress opstuurt kan ik je uitnodigen voor mijn gedeelde skydrive map, waar ik regelmatig van dit soort artikelen plaats en boeken zoals het onderstaande:

Vine, D. (2008). Island of shame : the secret history of the U.S. military base on Diego Garcia. Princeton University Press

The American military base on the island of Diego Garcia is one of the most strategically important and secretive U.S. military installations outside the United States. Located near the remote center of the Indian Ocean and accessible only by military transport, the base was a little-known launch pad for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and may house a top-secret CIA prison where terror suspects are interrogated and tortured. But Diego Garcia harbors another dirty secret, one that has been kept from most of the world–until now.

Island of Shame is the first major book to reveal the shocking truth of how the United States conspired with Britain to forcibly expel Diego Garcia’s indigenous people–the Chagossians–and deport them to slums in Mauritius and the Seychelles, where most live in dire poverty to this day. Drawing on interviews with Washington insiders, military strategists, and exiled islanders, as well as hundreds of declassified documents, David Vine exposes the secret history of Diego Garcia. He chronicles the Chagossians’ dramatic, unfolding story as they struggle to survive in exile and fight to return to their homeland. Tracing U.S. foreign policy from the Cold War to the war on terror, Vine shows how the United States has forged a new and pervasive kind of empire that is quietly dominating the planet with hundreds of overseas military bases.

Island of Shame is an unforgettable exposé of the human costs of empire and a must-read for anyone concerned about U.S. foreign policy and its consequences.The author will donate all royalties from the sale of this book to the Chagossians.

@Mihai,

Heb je een bericht verstuurd. Bedankt alvast.

Bush Insider Reveals Guantanamo Deception:
Hundreds of Innocents Jailed

By Bill Quigley

April 20, 2010 Colonel Lawrence B. Wilkerson, Chief of Staff to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, provided shocking new testimony from inside the Bush Administration that hundreds of the men jailed at Guantanamo were innocent, the top people in the Bush Administration knew full well they were innocent, and that information was kept from the public.

Wilkerson said President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld “indefinitely detained the innocent for political reasons” and many in the administration knew it. The wrongfully held prisoners were not released because of political maneuverings aimed in part to cover up the mistakes of the administration.

Colonel Wilkerson, who served in the U.S. Army for over thirty years, signed a sworn declaration for an Oregon federal court case stating that he found out in August 2002 that the US knew that many of the prisoners at Guantanamo were not enemy combatants. Wilkerson also discussed this in a revealing and critical article on Guantanamo for the Washington Note.

How did Colonel Wilkerson first learn about the innocents in Guantanamo? In August 2002, Wilkerson, who had been working closely with Colin Powell for years, was appointed Chief of Staff to the Secretary of State. In that position, Wilkerson started attending daily classified briefings involving 50 or more senior State Department officials where Guantanamo was often discussed.

It soon became clear to him and other State Department personnel “that many of the prisoners detained at Guantanamo had been taken into custody without regard to whether they were truly enemy combatants, or in fact whether many of them were enemies at all.”

How was it possible that hundreds of Guantanamo prisoners were innocent? Wilkerson said it all started at the beginning, mostly because U.S. forces did not capture most of the people who were sent to Guantanamo. The people who ended up in Guantanamo, said Wilkerson, were mostly turned over to the US by Afghan warlords and others who received bounties of up to $5000 per head for each person they turned in. The majority of the 742 detainees “had never seen a U.S. soldier in the process of their initial detention.”

Military officers told Wilkerson that “many detainees were turned over for the wrong reasons, particularly for bounties and other incentives.” The U.S. knew “that the likelihood was high that some of the Guantanamo detainees had been turned in to U.S. forces in order to settle local scores, for tribal reasons, or just as a method of making money.”

As a consequence, said Wilkerson “there was no real method of knowing why the prisoner had been detained in the first place.”

Wilkerson wrote that the American people have no idea of the “utter incompetence of the battlefield vetting in Afghanistan during the initial stages…Simply stated, no meaningful attempt at discrimination was made in-country by competent officials, civilian or military, as to who we were transporting to Cuba for detention and interrogation.”

Why was there utter incompetence in the battlefield vetting? “This was a factor of having too few troops in the combat zone, the troops and civilians who were there having too few people trained and skilled in such vetting, and the incredible pressure coming down from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and others to ‘just get the bastards to the interrogators.’” As a result, Wilkerson’s statement continues, “there was no meaningful way to determine whether they were terrorists, Taliban, or simply innocent civilians picked up on a very confused battlefield or in the territory of another state such as Pakistan.”

In addition, the statement points out “a separate but related problem was that often absolutely no evidence relating to the detainee was turned over, so there was no real method of knowing why the prisoner had been detained in the first place.”

“The initial group of 742 detainees had not been detained under the processes I was used to as a military officer,” Wilkerson said. “It was becoming more and more clear that many of the men were innocent, or at a minimum their guilt was impossible to determine let alone prove in any court of law, civilian or military. If there was any evidence, the chain of protecting it had been completely ignored.”

Several in the U.S. leadership became aware of this early on and knew “of the reality that many of the detainees were innocent of any substantial wrongdoing, had little intelligence value, and should be immediately released,” wrote Wilkerson.

So why did the Bush Administration not release the men from prison once it was discovered that they were not guilty? Why continue to keep innocent men in prison?

“To have admitted this reality would have been a black mark on their leadership from virtually day one of the so-called War on Terror and these leaders already had black marks enough: the dead in a field in Pennsylvania, in the ashes of the Pentagon, and in the ruins of the World Trade Towers,” wrote Wilkerson.

“They were not about to admit to their further errors at Guantanamo Bay. Better to claim everyone there was a hardcore terrorist, was of enduring intelligence value, and would return to jihad if released,” according to Wilkerson. “I am very sorry to say that I believe there were uniformed military who aided and abetted these falsehoods, even at the highest levels of our armed forces.”

The refusal to let the detainees go, even those who were likely innocent, was based on several political factors. If the US released them to another country and that country found them innocent, it would make the US look bad, said Wilkerson. “Another concern was that the detention efforts at Guantanamo would be revealed as the incredibly confused operation that they were. Such results were not acceptable to the Administration and would have been severely detrimental to the leadership at the Department of Defense.”

At the Department of Defense, Secretary Rumsfeld, “just refused to let detainees go” said Wilkerson.

“Another part of the political dilemma originated in the Office of Vice President Richard B. Cheney,” according to Wilkerson, “whose position could be summed up as ‘the end justifies the means’, and who had absolutely no concern that the vast majority of Guantanamo detainees were innocent, or that there was a lack of useable evidence for the great majority of them. If hundreds of innocent individuals had to suffer in order to detain a handful of hardcore terrorists, so be it.”

President Bush was involved in all of the decisions about the men in Guantanamo according to reports from Secretary Powell to Wilkerson. “My own view,” said Wilkerson “is that it was easy for Vice President Cheney to run circles around President Bush bureaucratically because Cheney had the network within the government to do so. Moreover, by exploiting what Secretary Powell called the President’s ‘cowboy instincts,’ Vice President Cheney could more often than not gain the President’s acquiescence.”

Despite the widespread knowledge inside the Bush administration that the US continued to indefinitely detain the innocent at Guantanamo, for years the US government continued to publicly say the opposite – that people at Guantanamo were terrorists.

After these disclosures from deep within the Bush Administration, the newest issue now before the people of the U.S. is not just whether the Bush Administration was wrong about Guantanamo but whether it was also consistently deceitful in holding hundreds of innocent men in prison to cover up their own mistakes.

Why is Colonel Wilkerson disclosing this now? He provided a sworn statement to assist the International Human Rights Clinic at Willamette University College of Law in Oregon and the Federal Public Defender who are suing US officials for the wrongful detention and torture of Adel Hassan Hamad. Hamad was a humanitarian aid worker from Sudan working in Pakistan when he was kidnapped from his apartment, tortured and shipped to Guantanamo where he was held for five years before being released.

At the end of his nine page sworn statement, Wilkerson explains his personal reasons for disclosing this damning information. “I have made a personal choice to come forward and discuss the abuses that occurred because knowledge that I served an Administration that tortured and abused those it detained at the facilities at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere and indefinitely detained the innocent for political reasons has marked a low point in my professional career and I wish to make the record clear on what occurred. I am also extremely concerned that the Armed Forces of the United States, where I spent 31 years of my professional life, were deeply involved in these tragic mistakes.”

Wilkerson concluded his article on Guantanamo by issuing a challenge. “When – and if – the truths about the detainees at Guantanamo Bay will be revealed in the way they should be, or Congress will step up and shoulder some of the blame, or the new Obama administration will have the courage to follow through substantially on its campaign promises with respect to GITMO, torture and the like, remains indeed to be seen.”

The U.S. rightly criticizes Iran and China for wrongfully imprisoning people. So what are we as a nation going to do now that an insider from the Bush Administration has courageously revealed the truth and the cover up about U.S. politicians wrongfully imprisoning hundreds and not releasing them even when they knew they were innocent? Our response will tell much about our national commitment to justice for all.

Bill is Legal Director at the Center for Constitutional Rights and professor of law at Loyola University New Orleans.