This is so not news: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed says he lied under torture

REPORT: Key Terror Detainee Acknowledged ‘I Make Up Stories’ In Response To Torture

Don't get me wrong. I appreciate any attention paid to this subject. I'm just saying it's something that we've known for years.

Back in 2007 when the Pentagon released the transcript of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's confession it was widely acknowledged that KSM seemed to have confessed to anything and everything and that it simply defied belief. Everyone from The Onion to Time Magazine ridiculed the confession at the time.

We even made a joke on this very blog that there was a local connection in KSM's confession:

2 Political Junkies has just learned from several unnamed sources that after some additional waterboarding questioning, terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has just confessed to being responsible for putting all those City of Pittsburgh-owned images on the Ravenstahl Campaign website.

And, yes, torture and waterboarding were also mentioned in some of the reports at the time -- maybe because we knew as far back as 2006 that the Bush-Cheney Administration was torturing suspects.

I remind you that we knew this because Dick admitted to it way back then.

So, while this news is important it isn't really new.

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This post has been brought to you by the Department of Things We Already Know But Keep Forgetting.
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Bush In Canada

A group called Lawyers Against The War (or LAW) has sent a letter to the RCMP (or Royal Canadian Mounted Police) requesting an investigation of George W. Bush for war crimes.

The letter they sent can be found here.

They charge that:

- George W. Bush, former President of the United States and Commander is Chief of the Armed Forces, is inadmissible to Canada under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA), section 35(1)(a) because of overwhelming evidence that he has ‘committed, outside Canada, torture and other offences referred to in sections 4 to 7 of the Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Act (CAHWC); and,

- the George W. Bush Administration has engaged in “systematic or gross human rights violations, or a war crime or a crime against humanity within the meaning of subsections 6(3) to (5) of the CAHWC.

Here's that section of the IRPA. And this is how the CAHWC subsections 6(3) to (5) defines crimes against humanity:

...means murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, imprisonment, torture, sexual violence, persecution or any other inhumane act or omission that is committed against any civilian population or any identifiable group and that, at the time and in the place of its commission, constitutes a crime against humanity according to customary international law or conventional international law or by virtue of its being criminal according to the general principles of law recognized by the community of nations, whether or not it constitutes a contravention of the law in force at the time and in the place of its commission.

And they ask that the RCMP:

- begin an investigation of George W. Bush for aiding, abetting and counseling torture between November 13, 2001 and November 2008 at Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba, Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Bagram prison in Afghanistan and other places; and,

- advise the Prime Minister, Attorney General of Canada and Ministers of Immigration and Public Safety that the George W. Bush administration is a “ government that has engaged in torture and other war crimes and crimes against humanity and therefore G.W. Bush, as former President, is also inadmissible under section 35(1)(b) of the IRPA.

Here's the letter they sent to Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper in late February.

The only thing standing in the way of Canadian Justice?

The Canadian government:

Canadian government officials have chosen to ignore a request to bar George W. Bush from entering Canada, but the issue is not going to go away, according to the lawyers’ group that first raised it.

Lawyers Against the War’s (LAW) Gail Davidson said Sunday that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Attorney General Rob Nicholson have been formally notified of their legal obligations under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

She told them in a March 11 letter there is “overwhelming evidence that (Bush) has committed, outside Canada, torture and other offences” referred to in Canada’s Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, and said LAW can provide the evidence.

Harper and other government officials were also told that the act states “if there are reasonable grounds to believe a person has been complicit in any of these crimes, entry to Canada must be denied.”

However, neither Harper nor any other Ministers responded to last month’s request from the group.

It's not like they haven't banned other folks from entering Canada. If you're arrested in the US for protesting the war that's killed 4,000 American troops and countless Iraqis, you're banned from Canada.

But if you start that war (and commit war crimes, too boot) you're in.

‘Katrina Kids’ Sing ‘Congress, Bush and FEMA…Have Come to Rebuild Us’ at White House Egg Roll

From Think Progress:

Today at the White House Easter Egg Roll, dozens of children “from the stricken Gulf Coast region serenaded First Lady Laura Bush with a song praising the beleaguered Federal Emergency Management Agency.” To the tune of “Hey Look Me Over,” the kids from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama sang:

“Our country’s stood beside us
People have sent us aid.
Katrina could not stop us, our hopes will never fade.
Congress, Bush and FEMA
People across our land
Together have come to rebuild us and we join them hand-in-hand!”

A poster commemorating this event is available at the White House Gift Shop/FEMA Gift Shop:


(Click on image for larger version)
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Katrina Aftermath: The Pictures That Bush (Rove) Will Not Let YOU See

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