Vincent Bugliosi: "You shouldn't have any difficulty making a criminal referral to the Department of Justice to commence a criminal investigation of the Bush administration to determine whether first degree murder charges should be brought against certain members of this administration and I hereby strongly urge you to do so."
"Whether Republican or Democrat, all Americans should be absolutely outraged over what the Bush administration has done. How dare they do what they did. How dare they."
"Believe it or not I do not say in this book, where I am asking George W. Bush to be prosecuted for murder, that he lied about weapons of mass destruction. Actually he did lie about weapons of mass destruction but that is not why I'm saying that he should be prosecuted for murder...
The issue is not whether Hussein had weapons of mass destruction... the only issue is whether a nation that has weapons of mass destruction is an imminent threat to the security of this country. That is the only issue. And 16 US intelligence agencies in this previous classified document, including the CIA, all said, unanimously, that Hussein was not an imminent threat to the security of this country...
These 16 US agencies thought that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and they still said [Saddam Hussein] was not an imminent threat to the security of this country."
On Wednesday, famed Charles Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi spoke to a packed and enthusiastic crowd of more than 350 Angelinos about his new book, “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder.” While Bugliosi’s talk will eventually appear on C-SPAN, you can view it first in its entirety below…
Part 1 (19:45)
In my book, “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder,” I present evidence that proves beyond all reasonable doubt that George Bush took this nation to war on a lie, under false pretenses, and therefore under the law is guilty of murder for the deaths of over 4,000 young American soldiers who died so far in this war.
Bugliosi began the evening by explaining to the Los Angeles audience that George W. Bush is guilty of murder, according to the law, if he brought the country to war under false pretenses. And Bugliosi emphasized the legal aspect of the case in order to fend off likely attackers:
So although Bush supporters can argue that Bush should not be prosecuted because they don’t think he did anything wrong, they cannot legitimately say that he should not be prosecuted if he has done what I say he did. To say that is to admit that you have no respect for our American system of justice and democracy and that you would prefer that presidents have the same rights as tyrannical dictators like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Saddam Hussein.
Bugliosi had a similar answer for those who simply believe it is impossible to prosecute Bush for murder:
There’s this sense out there among many that prosecuting Bush for murder can’t be done. Which is the equivalent of saying what - that he is above the law. That ordinary laws simply don’t apply to him.
Bugliosi also had some special words for the American Right Wing which has expressed its disapproval with his book:
The third group of people responding to my book is the nation’s right wing. And they of course have contempt for me and my book. But whatever contempt they have for me, I can assure them and I can assure you I have much much much more contempt for them. There are no more repugnant, hypocritical and un-American – and that’s the word I want to emphasize – un-American people in our society today than the right wing.
Bugliosi, however, made clear that this book was not political for him and even said he would have written the same book had Bush been a Democrat. So fair is Bugliosi that he even offers up some mitigating evidence for Bush and his co-conspirators:
And there is one thing that I should probably say in partial defense of these people that goes in mitigation, arguably reduces their moral culpability. And what I’m talking about is that many of these people are incredibly stupid. And they make up for their stupidity by being extremely ignorant. And when you combine stupidity with ignorance that’s a toxic combination.
Finally, Part 1 ends with the law:
If a conspirator, or anyone for that matter, deliberately sets in motion a chain of events which he knows will cause – that’s the key word – cause a third party innocent agent to commit an act, the defendant is criminally responsible for that act. Bush, in invading Iraq, caused Iraqis to kill American soldiers in much the same fashion that a person causes a gun to fire a bullet that kills someone by pulling the trigger.
Part 2 (17:54)
Part 2 begins with Bugliosi explaining the only way Bush might be innocent of murder:
Bush can only wash his hands of culpability if he did not take this nation to war under false pretenses. If he did, which the evidence overwhelmingly shows, he is criminally responsible for the deaths of all those American soldiers who have died fighting his war in Iraq.
The main issue would be whether or not George Bush went to war, as he always claimed, in self-defense – the so-called pre-emptive strike. Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, alleged as so, therefore he was an imminent threat to the security of this country so Bush had to strike first in self-defense. If the war was not in self-defense but one that the prosecutor can prove Bush took us to under false pretenses than all of the killings of American soldiers in Iraq become unlawful killings and therefore murder.
While Bugliosi's animus was mostly reserved for Bush and his co-conspirators, he did find time to also criticize Ken Starr, The New York Times and the Supreme Court:
I seem to be getting more angry and acerbic and caustic and that’s because I am always in a state of rage. How can I help but be -- the monstrous, grotesque, obscene Ken Starr almost destroyed the Clinton presidency over absolutely nothing while being totally and completely supported and funded by the federal government. They funded his seven year, seventy million dollar effort, the federal government. And the so-called liberal media, The New York Times savaged Clinton on a day to day basis, supported this monstrous, grotesque, obscene figure – one of the most reprehensible figures in American history – Ken Starr.
The US Supreme Court 2000, stopping the recount in Florida which was specifically authorized by Florida law, taking the election away from the American people and appointing George Bush president, one of the biggest crimes in American history.
The heart of Part 2, however, is reserved for Bugliosi's evidence against George W. Bush. And first on the list was Bush's lies to the country that were contrary to the National Intelligence Estimate:
In George Bush’s first speech to the nation on Hussein and Iraq, October 7, 2002 in Cincinnati, Ohio, Bush told Americans that Saddam Hussein was a great danger to this nation either by his attacking us with the so-called weapons of mass destruction or by giving these weapons to a terrorist group to attack us. And Bush said that this attack could happen, ‘on any given day,’ meaning what, that the threat was imminent.
The only big problem for George Bush is that on October the first, six days earlier, the CIA sent Bush its 2002 National Intelligence Estimate – a classified top secret report that represented the consensus opinion of all 16 US federal intelligence agencies on the issue of whether or not Hussein was an imminent threat to the security of this country and on page 8 of that 91 page report it clearly and unequivocally says – and by the way what I’m about to tell you to my knowledge has never been said or never been written or never appeared in any major newspaper or magazine in America – page 8 clearly says that Hussein was not an imminent threat to the security of this country. That he would only be a threat if he feared we were about to attack him.
So we know then, not think but know, that when George Bush told the nation on the evening of October 7th, Cincinnati, Ohio, that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to the security of this country, he was telling millions of unsuspecting Americans the exact opposite of what his own CIA was telling him. Now if we had nothing else at all, and there is so much more, that alone shows what, that George Bush took this nation to war on a terrible terrible lie. Therefore all the killings in Iraq became unlawful killings and murder.
But it gets worse! In fact, it gets evil, perverse, sick and criminal:
But it gets worse. It gets worse. October 4th, three days later, Bush and his people had the CIA release an unclassified summary version of the October 1st classified report so that this October 4th unclassified version could be released to the American public and to Congress. This unclassified version came to be known as the White Paper. And in this White Paper that was shown to the American people and to Congress, in which contained the opinion of 16 US intelligence agencies that Hussein was not an imminent threat to the security of this country, that conclusion was completely deleted, completely eliminated. Every single one of these all important words, the most important conclusion in that classified document, was completely deleted from the White Paper. And the question I have of you, is how evil, how perverse, how sick, how criminal can George Bush and his people be?
The next piece of ever damning evidence, according to Bugliosi, is the January 31, 2003, Manning Memo written by Tony Blair's chief foreign policy advisor after a top level meeting in the Oval Office less than two months before the invasion.
He says that George Bush was so worried about the failure of the UN inspectors to find weapons of mass destruction that Bush started to talk about three ways to ‘provoke a confrontation’ with Saddam Hussein. One of which he said was to fly U2 reconnaissance aircraft over Iraq falsely painted in United Nations colors and he said if Saddam fires on those planes it would be a violation of UN resolutions and therefore justify our going to war. So here is George Bush telling Americans, telling the world, that Hussein is an imminent threat to the security of this country, but behind closed doors this very small human being was talking about how to provoke Hussein into a war.
Part 3 (15:50)
Part 3 begins with another piece of evidence against Bush. Mainly, how Bush responded to the ever positive testimony of chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix on March 7, 2003, by throwing him and his team out of the country and quickly invading Iraq. Blix had told the UN Security Counsel that the inspectors were getting proactive cooperation from Saddam Hussein and that their investigation would be completed in a few months:
Blix and his people became Bush’s biggest adversaries because if Blix and his people confirm that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that would rob Bush of his main argument for war – a war that he wanted to fight at all costs.
The bulk of Part 3, however, does not concentrate on evidence of Bush's guilt but rather Bush's state of mind. Bugliosi takes great offense to the fact that Bush has often described his days as perfect and that he proclaims himself to be so happy:
Even if George Bush was only guilty of making an innocent mistake in taking this nation to war in Iraq, not murder as I firmly believe, with all of the death, horror and suffering he has caused, what type of a monstrous individual is it who could be happy with his life? What type of a human monster is George Bush?
If I ever killed one person in my life, even accidentally – a car accident – I’d never have another perfect day as long as I lived. George Bush is responsible for the horrible deaths of thousands of human beings and he is talking about having a perfect day. Bush’s plans to have a perfect day right in the middle of all the death and horror in Iraq goes so far beyond acceptable human conduct that no moral telescope can discern its shape, form and nature.
Bugliosi concludes by telling the audience that he will not rest or be satisfied until George W. Bush is prosecuted for first degree murder:
I don’t like to see anyone get away with murder, even one murder. [O.J.] Simpson got away with two murders and I got so angry that I wrote a book - Outrage, the Five Reasons O.J. Simpson got away with murder. If I can get so angry about someone getting away with one or two murders you can imagine how I feel about George Bush who has gotten away with over 100,000 murders and has been smiling and enjoying himself throughout the whole period. It may sound presumptuous of me but I can tell you that while I may not succeed, I’m not going to be satisfied until I see George Bush in an American courtroom being prosecuted for first degree murder.
The first degree murder of over 4,000 American soldiers:
If justice means anything at all in America, if we are not going to forget about those 4,000 young American soldiers who came back from Bush’s war in a box, I say we have no choice but to bring murder charges against the son of privilege from Crawford, Texas.
Problem: Thousands of soldiers are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and brain injuries that will cost billions of dollars to treat over the lives of the soldiers.
Solution: Discharge these soldiers claiming that they had pre-existing mental illnesses or are guilty of misconduct in order to get rid of "problem" soldiers quickly and without the treatment and benefits to which they are entitled.
Dr. William F. Pepper is an internationally acclaimed lawyer who defended James Earl Ray in a 1999 civil trial (supported by Martin Luther King's family) where the jury found Ray not responsible for the MLK assassination. Now Pepper is defending Sirhan Sirhan for the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, a case he says is “an easier one than the assassination of Martin King and the innocence of James Earl Ray”.
Last Wednesday Pepper spoke about all of his projects, including 9/11 truth and prosecuting the Bush administration for war crimes, to a packed celebrity filled house in Los Angeles. Among those in attendance were Ed Asner, Gina Belafonte, Judd Nelson and 9/11 author Professor David Ray Griffin. Videos of his talk follow below...
Part 1 (6:21) - Introduction
In Part 1 Pepper talks about his background, childhood and motivation. He also speaks about the time he spent in Cuba playing baseball where he got to know Fidel Castro. According to Pepper, Castro foresaw much of what is happening in the United States today:
“When, in that massive country to the north, the masses of the people ever understand what it is that their ruling class has done to them and is doing to them, there will be such a torrent of opposition. They will rise like never before and then there will be the world’s greatest social revolution, the American second revolution.”
The video concludes with Pepper explaining how he came to work for Robert F. Kennedy and Martin King:
Part 2 (5:36) - Martin Luther King, Jr. Assassination/James Earl Ray Innocence
“Took me ten years to convince myself that [James Earl Ray] was an absolute patsy” - Dr. William Pepper
In Part 2 Pepper begins with the Martin King assassination and explains how he became involved with James Earl Ray's defense some nine years later. He also goes into detail about the 30 day civil trial against Loyd Jowers, et al, where a jury found Ray not responsible for King's assassination after listening to 70 witnesses under oath.
Pepper believes that Ray's civil trial should serve as a template for getting out the truth in a wide range of cover-ups including the Robert F. Kennedy assassination and 9/11. He thinks using the courts is an effective way to get the truth into the public record despite the efforts by the mainstream media to prevent its dissemination to the public.
Part 3 (9:56) - Robert F. Kennedy Assassination/Sirhan Sirhan Innocence
“I found from just a preliminary examination of the record that [the Sirhan Sirhan case] on the law, on the facts of the case, was an easier one than the assassination of Martin King and the innocence of James Earl Ray” - Dr. William Pepper
In the first half of Part 3 Pepper details the startling evidence that necessitates a second shooter in the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. For starters the medical examiner states that Kennedy was shot four times from the rear including one shot about an inch behind his right ear which conflicts with all the witness testimony that Sirhan was always three to five feet in front of the likely Democratic presidential nominee.
Secondly, the analysis of audio recordings from the assassination with formerly unavailable new technology has led to the determination that 13 shots were fired at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Sirhan's gun only held 8 bullets. In other words:
“There had to be a second shooter there” - Dr. William Pepper
In the second half of Part 3 Pepper details the efforts taken by the prison and the Department of Corrections to prevent his legal team from psychoanalyzing Sirhan Sirhan.
Part 4 (4:59) - Robert F. Kennedy Assassination (Continued)
In Part 4 Pepper continues the RFK assassination discussion and his efforts to clear Sirhan Sirhan whom he says is innocent:
“The problem we face is if we get our client clearly innocent of the killing of Bob Kennedy – which he is, clearly innocent of that killing – he has five other counts of attempted murder” - Dr. William Pepper
In addition to the belief in Sirhan's innocence Pepper believes the case is important because it is representative of a larger problem facing the country:
“Each of the things I’m talking about are symptomatic of a pervasive sickness in this country. This is not the country we were all led to believe it was or should have been. This is what has emerged because we have had a small group of criminals grab power over a period of time following the orders of the people in the shadows who really do dominate life and justice and the injustices that exist in the society.” - Dr. William Pepper
Part 5 (8:36) - 9/11
“The 9/11 matter is, in my lifetime, the most traumatic assault on democracy and the safety of this Republic.” - Dr. William Pepper
Part 5 is dedicated to finding out the truth about 9/11. Pepper supports two different ways for accomplishing this goal. First, he backs an effort to create a new commission to investigate 9/11 by New York state referendum. Volunteers are currently trying to get the necessary 30,000 signatures from registered New York voters to get the measure on the ballot.
The second approach is to once again file a lawsuit in the courts. Pepper is leading this effort on behalf of the Jersey Girls and plans to sue, among others, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who is widely believed to have sent $100,000 to lead 9/11 hijacker, Mohammed Atta.
Part 6 (8:03) - War Crimes
“I’m determined that what I saw in Vietnam and what is happening in Iraq will not go unpunished. Absolutely determined that that’s the case. What that means is this entire gang of war criminals in Washington are going to have to be prosecuted” - Dr. William Pepper
Part 6 covers what Pepper believes is his most important project -- the prosecution of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, David Addington, Doug Feith and Richard Pearl, et al, for war crimes.
Pepper plans to accomplish this monumental task by following the precedent set in the case of Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet. In that case, a Spanish judge issued an international arrest warrant for Pinochet whose charges including 94 counts of torture.
Ultimately Pepper hopes for a conviction in absentia of the American war criminals which would prevent the guilty from ever stepping foot outside of the United States.
NOTE: To order a DVD of the night's entire programming, which includes a lively Q & A session with Dr. William Pepper and a talk by Professor David Ray Griffin on new 9/11 evidence, please contact Kathleen at quantumysticKFR@gmail.com to request a copy.
3) Convert them to Christianity - not quite check, but working on it.
The post also goes covers the thousands of Iraqis that took to the streets to protest "enduring" American bases. Apparently the Iraqis are not so gung ho about us Americans staying for a 100 years.
* Bush decided by February 2002, at the latest, that he was going to remove Saddam by hook or by crook. (Yes, we reported thatat the time).
* White House officials, led by Dick Cheney, began making the case for war in August 2002, inspeechesand reports that not only were wrong, but also wentwell beyondwhat the available intelligence saidat that time,and contained outright fantasies and falsehoods.Indeed, some of thatmaterialwas never vetted with the intelligence agencies before it was peddled to the public.
*Dissenters,or even those who voiced worry about where the policy was going, were ignored, excluded or punished. (Note: See Gen. Eric Shinseki, Paul O'Neill, Joseph Wilson and all of the State Department 's Arab specialists and much of its intelligence bureau).
* The Bush administration didn't even want to produce the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs that's justly received so much criticism since. The White House thought it was unneeded. It actuallywas demanded by Congressand slapped together in a matter of weeks before the congressional votes to authorize war on Iraq.
* The October 2002 NIE was flawed, no doubt. But it contained dissents questioning the extent of Saddam's WMD programs, dissents that were buried in the report.Doubts and dissentswere then stripped from the publicly released, unclassified version of the NIE.
* The core of the administration's case for war was not just that Saddam was developing WMDs, but also that, unchecked, he might give them to terrorists to attack the United States.Remember smoking guns and mushroom clouds?Inconveniently, the CIA had determined just theopposite: Saddam would attack the United States onlyif he concluded a U.S. attack on him was unavoidable.He'd give WMD to Islamist terrorists only "as a last chance to exact revenge."
* The Bush administration relied heavily on an Iraqi exile, Ahmed Chalabi,who had been found to be untrustworthy by the State Department and the CIA.Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congresswere given millions, and produced "defectors" whose tales of WMD sites and terrorist training were false, fanciful and bogus. But the information was fed directly to senior officials and included in official White Housedocuments.
* It all culminated in aspeech by Secretary of State Colin Powell to the U.N. Security Councilin February 2003 making the case against Saddam. Virtually every major allegation Powell made turned out later to be wrong. It would have been even worse had not Powell and his team thrown out even more shaky "intelligence" that Cheney's office repeatedly tried to stuff into the speech.
* The Bush administration tried to link Saddam to al Qaida and, by implication, to the 9/11 attacks. Officialsrepeatedly pushed the CIAfor information on such links, anda separate intel shopwas set up under Defense Under Secretary Douglas Feith to find "proof" of such ties. Neither the CIA nor anyone else ever found anything resembling an operational relationship between Saddam and al Qaida.
* An exhaustive review of Saddam Hussein's regime's own documents,released in March 2008, found no operational relationship between Saddam and al Qaida.
* The Bush administrationfailed to plan for the rebuilding of postwar Iraq, as we were perhaps the first to report. The White House ignored stacks of intelligence reports, some now available in partially unclassified form, warning before the war about the possibilities for insurgency, ethnic warfare, social chaos and the like.
We could go on, but the rest, as they say, is history.
Last Thursday Keith Olbermann began an excellent conversation with George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley about Karl Rove being subpoenaed by the House Judiciary Committee by stating:
“Joe Wilson's dream of watching Karl Rove frog marched out of the White House in handcuffs is long since gone. But a new dream has been born tonight. What about a Turdblossom perp walk out of the front door of Fix news.”
Later that night I asked Ambassador Joe Wilson to comment on Olbermann's statement and the Karl Rove subpoena. While Ambassador Wilson was unsure whether or not Congress will be able to get to Rove, he was certainly supportive of the effort:
“Whether they will actually be able to get to Karl I don't know. But it's great to keep the pressure on him. It forces him back on defense. It's amazing to me the extent to which these guys have operated with absolute impunity, absolute disregard for American law and American jurisprudence.”
Ambassador Wilson also gave a superb talk Thursday night covering all aspects of his ordeal with the Bush administration:
"A Day at the Beach with Heroes of Peace" was a special live KPFK/Pacifica broadcast that took place at Arlington West in Santa Monica on Sunday. The top video is a short mashup (5:45) I made of some of the event highlights and videos of most of the speakers follow.
Bhc explains the curious arrangement between the Department of Defense and its contractors:
Since contractors are not covered by the VA, they had to buy insurance for their employees. These employees would be in Iraq, and this did not sit well with the insurance companies. Nonetheless, the insurance was bought, but because it was too expensive, the US government paid the premiums for the contractor. But it gets worse.
Or better, depending upon one's perspective. There existed some “fine print” in those insurance policies, explicitly stating that injuries due to “hostile action” would not be covered. Hardly appropriate insurance for any American going to Iraq, let alone those jackasses from Blackwater. And so the US government stepped in to spare the struggling defense contractor from those onerous insurance premiums. Hmmm, maybe that free market ain't so great.
Ahh, but it is! Because that free market can somehow convince the government to pay for the free market insurance for the free market contractor. And that demonstrates just how awesome the free market is; getting the taxpayer to pay for what would normally be considered the costs of doing business. Because it's all about the short term.
So, what we have here is the US government outsourcing to private mercenary contractors, paying their insurance premiums for coverage that doesn't exist. And then the US government will pay for the treatment of those injured and maimed contractors because the insurance they paid for Blackwater security guards in Iraq does not cover injuries due to “hostile actions.” That is what is called, “externalizing costs.” That's efficient.
The NY Times public editor explains why the paper of record failed to cover last month's Winter Soldier hearings:
Dear Reader,
Thank you for writing about the Winter Soldier event in Maryland last month and its lack of coverage by the Times.
My assistant checked with various editors at the Times to see if there was any discussion about covering the Winter Soldier meeting. The editor in the Washington bureau who oversees national security coverage said he had not been aware of the group or its meeting. The Times normally has three Pentagon reporters. The meeting fell within their area of coverage, and one of them probably would have been assigned had editors chosen to staff the event. But one is on book leave, one was traveling with the secretary of defense, and one was in Iraq covering the war. The Times also did not cover an announcement the following day by Vets for Freedom, a group supporting the war and claiming more than 13 times the membership of Iraq Veterans Against the War, the group which organized Winter Soldier.
One group was emphasizing what it charged were war crimes, war profiteering and war mismanagement. The other group was protesting what it charged was the failure of the media to report more fully on signs of progress in Iraq, such as rebuilt schools and infrastructure.
News organizations like the Times, with its own substantial investment in independent reporting from Iraq tend to prefer their own on-scene accounts of the war, rather than relying on charges and counter-charges at home by organizations with strongly held political viewpoints about the war.
Sincerely,
Clark Hoyt
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting covers this unbelievable letter in full but it is worth highlighting the absurdity of the statement that the Times was unaware of the hearings. The Times D.C. bureau received three press releases about Winter Soldier, 150 Times staffers were also sent press releases, Democracy Now covered the hearings in full and the progressive blogosphere devoted much space to the hearings. And we are asked to believe that the Times didn't know about it? Wow!
Clearly the Times would rather the public believe that it is merely inept, grossly uninformed and unprofessional rather than simply doing the bidding for the pro-war political elite.
Below is the Winter Soldier testimony of Jon Michael Turner. See Hot Potato Mash's entire coverage (14 videos) of this heartbreaking event here.
UPDATE: Check out Winter Soldier: Rules of the Game by Bhc for a comprehensive look at Winter Soldier and the corporate media and how they relate to the first rule of fight club.
Verdict's Dan Abrams illustrates in the video above (1:33) that General David Petraeus offered the same old propaganda today that the Bush administration has been pushing since 2003.
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” - Joseph Goebbels
“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.” - Joseph Goebbels
Glenn Greenwald explains these numbers and how the pro-war political establishment continuously lies by saying that Americans only want out of Iraq once “victory” is achieved.
