Lawsuit Against George W. Bush Et Al for Iraq War Crimes, Dismissed By California Court of Appeals

Law Allows all Government Employees to Commit Break International Laws and “Commit Heinous Acts”

A federal appeals court has rejected an Iraqi woman’s lawsuit holding the George W. Bush administration accountable for their war of aggression against the nation of Iraq.

The key passage from the article from the San Francisco Chronicle:

“Without deciding whether the war was legal, the US Court of Appeals in San Francisco said a 1988 law shields federal employees at all levels for suits for actions they performed in service to the government, even if they violated US or international law.

“‘ The actions that (Bush administration officials) took in connection with the Iraq War were part of their official duties’, Judge Susan Graber said in the 3-0 ruling, released Friday.

“In upholding a federal judge’s dismissal of the suit, she said that the 1988 law, known as the Westfall Act, ‘covered even heinous acts’, such as federal marshals’ fatal beating of a shackled prisoner.”

The article is presented below, in its entirety.

Here is additional information on the Westfall Act, which not surprisingly, is a product of the Reagan-Bush era.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/2679

https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Westfall_Act

Any individual can commit atrocities of any magnitude, if they are government employees, and do so with absolute immunity from law suits.

Let that sink in for a moment.

The political criminal in America enjoys the power to corrupt absolutely.

http://www.sfchronicle.com/nation/article/Appeals-court-rejects-woman-s-suit-over-Iraq-War-10929853.php

Appeals court rejects woman’s suit over Iraq War

By Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle

February 13, 2017

A federal appeals court in San Francisco has rejected a woman’s attempt to hold former President George W. Bush and his top officials to account for their alleged “war of aggression” in her native Iraq, saying federal employees can’t be sued for carrying out their job duties.

Sundus Shaker Saleh, who fled with four of her children when the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003 and is now a refugee abroad, filed the suit in San Francisco in 2013 against Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration officials. Saying the war was based on fabricated claims of weapons of mass destruction and violated international law, she sought damages on behalf of all innocent Iraqi civilians who suffered harm.

Without deciding whether the war was legal, the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco said a 1988 law shields federal employees at all levels from suits for actions they performed in service to the government, even if they violated U.S. or international law.

“The actions that (Bush administration officials) took in connection with the Iraq War were part of their official duties,” Judge Susan Graber said in the 3-0 ruling, released Friday.

In upholding a federal judge’s dismissal of the suit, she said the 1988 law, known as the Westfall Act, “covered even heinous acts,” such as federal marshals’ fatal beating of a shackled prisoner.

The law allows a federal official to be sued for actions based on personal motives, Graber said, “if, for instance, he used the leverage of his office to benefit a spouse’s business.” It also allows Saleh to sue the U.S. government rather than individual defendants. But her lawyer, Inder Comar of San Francisco, said Monday that a suit against the government would be futile because the Supreme Court has barred damages for injuries suffered in foreign countries.

ICTY Exonerates Slobodan Milosevic for War Crimes

This decision comes ten years after Milosevic was assassinated in the ICTY prison. He was poisoned.

The ICTY is complicit  in his death.

The distinguished judges are not only responsible for the death of Slobodan Milosevic, they are responsible for “legalizing” an illegal invasion of a sovereign country as well as covering up the most heinous crimes committed by US-NATO against the former Republic of Yugoslavia.   

At the outset of Milosevic’s defense, the ICTY denied him the fundamental right of self defense and appointed two bogus British amicus curiae. The latter were appointed without the consent of the defendant.

Milosevic was also denied medical treatment while in detention.

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research Editor, August 3, 2016 

*        *       *

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague has determined that the late Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic was not responsible for war crimes committed during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

In a stunning ruling, the trial chamber that convicted former Bosnian-Serb president Radovan Karadzic of war crimes and sentenced him to 40 years in prison, unanimously concluded that Slobodan Milosevic was not part of a “joint criminal enterprise” to victimize Muslims and Croats during the Bosnian war.

The March 24th Karadzic judgment states that “the Chamber is not satisfied that there was sufficient evidence presented in this case to find that Slobodan Milosevic agreed with the common plan” to permanently remove Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats from Bosnian Serb claimed territory.

The Karadzic trial chamber found that “the relationship between Milosevic and the Accused had deteriorated beginning in 1992; by 1994, they no longer agreed on a course of action to be taken. Furthermore, beginning as early as March 1992, there was apparent discord between the Accused and Milosevic in meetings with international representatives, during which Milosevic and other Serbian leaders openly criticised Bosnian Serb leaders of committing ‘crimes against humanity’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ and the war for their own purposes.”

The judges noted that Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic both favored the preservation of Yugoslavia and that Milosevic was initially supportive, but that their views diverged over time. The judgment states that “from 1990 and into mid-1991, the political objective of the Accused and the Bosnian Serb leadership was to preserve Yugoslavia and to prevent the separation or independence of BiH, which would result in a separation of Bosnian Serbs from Serbia; the Chamber notes that Slobodan Milosevic endorsed this objective and spoke against the independence of BiH.”

The Chamber found that “the declaration of sovereignty by the SRBiH Assembly in the absence of the Bosnian Serb delegates on 15 October 1991, escalated the situation,” but that Milosevic was not on board with the establishment of Republika Srpska in response. The judgment says that “Slobodan Milosevic was attempting to take a more cautious approach”

‘Western media part of political elite, will never report Syrian massacre by US-led forces’

Media in the US and Britain are not independent; they are part of the political elite in Washington and London, and their responsibility is to guide policy makers and shape public opinion, says Marcus Papadopoulos, publisher and editor of Politics First.

Syria has appealed to the UN, claiming that 45 civilians were killed and 50 injured in US-led airstrikes outside the city of Manbij near Aleppo on Thursday. Following the strike, US Central Command (CENTCOM) admitted the airstrikes “may have resulted in civilian casualties,” but did not provide a figure, pending an investigation.

CENTCOM said the aerial strike had been aimed at hitting ISIS forces concentrated in Manjib. Meanwhile, Western media has been quiet about the alleged strikes that reportedly killed dozens of civilians.

RT: Why do you think the western media is staying silent on the story, despite the large loss of civilian life?

Marcus Papadopoulos: It’s very important for people to understand the relationship between Western governments and Western media. Media outlets in America and Britain are not independent; they are very much a part of the political elite in Washington and London. Their responsibility, their job, their duty is to guide policy makers in America and Britain, to influence them and then to gather domestic support behind American and British foreign policy objectives wherever they are in the world.

Why has Western media barely reported on American strikes against civilians in Syria? Well, it’s very simple. Western media is there to do the PR job of the British and American governments. They are there to project America and Britain as beacons of civilization, as the protectors, the guardians of human rights and democracy… It is therefore no surprise that they are not going to cover what was a blatant massacre by the American air force of civilians in Syria.

Children’s Hospital Bombed in Syria Amidst Massive Civilian Casualties from US Air Strikes

By Matt Agorist

On Monday of last week, airstrikes, led by US coalition forces, killed 21 innocent civilians in Manbij’s northern Hazawneh quarter in Syria. On the following Tuesday, additional strikes in the region killed 56 more, including multiple children.

Prior to the strikes last week, more than 100 civilians have already been killed in Manbij in only a short time by US bombs — nearly half of them children.

On Friday, another tragic air strike hit the Save the Children-supported maternity hospital in Idlib. This hospital serves over 1,300 women and performs over 300 deliveries each month.

Save the Children said the strike hit the front of the hospital building, at a time when two operations were under way and a woman was in labor, according to Al Jazeera.

“Several babies were injured when their incubators crashed to the floor, and a woman who was six months pregnant had her leg severed,” Save the Children said in a statement.

“Two other women have shrapnel wounds to the stomach and a number of patients and staff have suffered light injuries.”

Also on Friday, immediately following the strikes on the hospital, more details surfaced on at least 28 civilians who have reportedly been killed and several wounded in US-led air strikes on the suburbs of Manbij, slightly northeast of Idlib.

Friday’s state-sponsored murder of civilians comes only one day after the US-led coalition announced it had enough evidence of civilian casualties from its attacks on the same area last week to launch a formal investigation.

Save the Children posted the following short video immediately after the attack on the hospital.

HOSPITAL BOMBING : Footage from the ground in the immediate aftermath, hospital served over 1000 people #Syria pic.twitter.com/rotqcAeXKQ

— SavetheChildren News (@SaveUKNews) July 29, 2016

“The bomb hit the entrance to the hospital, which is the biggest in the area, serving over 1,300 women monthly,” a spokeswoman for the charity told Al Jazeera on Friday.

Following Scathing Report, Israel Considering Leaving UN Human Rights Council

Op-Ed by Sydney Barakat
July 2, 2015

(ANTIMEDIA) Just days after the U.N. released its “Report of the Independent Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—during a closed meeting of Israeli officials— remarked that “Israel is considering whether or not to stay in the Human Rights Council in light of the recent UN Gaza report.”

Flight or fight? It appears that because the report took a critical stance in questioning Israel’s motives and actions during last summer’s 51-day-bombardment of Gaza and the West Bank, Netanyahu is more willing to bow out altogether than to confront the issues detailed in the report head-on.

Some crucial findings: Since Operation Protective Edge, Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have maintained the same assertion— that Israel did everything in its power to avoid hitting Palestinian civilians and that it went above and beyond the standards of international humanitarian law. The U.N, report contradicts that very claim and others—in its principal findings and conclusions.

It states, “In Gaza, as Palestinians struggled to find ways to save their own lives and those of their families, they were confronted with intense attacks, with no way of knowing which locations would be hit and which might be considered safe.” Additionally, “Regarding precautions, the Israel Defense Forces stated repeatedly that its measures were more stringent than those required by international humanitarian law.[1] In many incidents, however, the weapons used, the timing of attacks, and the fact that the targets were located in densely populated areas indicate that the Israel Defense Forces may not have done everything feasible to avoid or limit civilian casualties.” And finally, “The limited effectiveness of the above-mentioned precautionary measures must have become abundantly clear in the early days of the operation, given that many buildings were destroyed, together with their inhabitants. The apparent lack of steps to re-examine these measures in the light of the mounting civilian toll suggests that Israel did not comply with its obligation to take all feasible precautions before the attacks.”

PressTV-Erdogan: 1915 Armenian killings no ‘genocide’

The Turkish president, meanwhile, defended the present-day treatment of Armenians in Turkey, saying, “There are 100,000 Armenians who are either Turkish citizens or not citizens in my country. Have they been submitted to any different treatment?”

He added that the Armenians in his country “benefit from all kinds of opportunities,” and Turkey does not deport them as, he said, “they are guests in our country.”

The issue was brought to the limelight on April 12, when in controversial remarks during a Sunday solemn mass in Saint Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis used the word “genocide” to describe the massacre. The pontiff said the incident was the “first genocide of the 20th century.”

Ankara was quick in responding to the remarks. The Turkish Foreign Ministry recalled its ambassador to the Vatican for consultation amid the worsening diplomatic row over the issue.

Davutoglu: Pope joined “an evil front”

Meanwhile, Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said during an event in Ankara on Wednesday that the Pope has joined “an evil front” plotting against Turkey.

via PressTV-Erdogan: 1915 killings no ‘genocide’.