Confessions of Bush and Netanyahu

Published in Samidoon
(Palestine) on 16 November 2010
by Abdullah Al Ash (link to originallink to original)
Translated from by Brian Jones. Edited by Sam Carter.
The subject this article deals with is very dangerous. It discusses the logic of criminals across countries and throughout history. All of these criminal leaders have alleged that they committed their crimes in defense of the homeland and its security — even defended their systems, as long as the country is this system in their view. And therefore, the security of the country became security for the system and an allusion to all of its connotations. In democratic systems, homeland security is security for the system because the regime seeks refuge in the laws and dignifies the laws that placed them as representatives. And the leader of the democratic country cannot justify his crimes, whatever the justifications were that drove them. History has been filled with these bizarre patterns. The most recent are examples in the democratic state of the difference in the meaning of democracy and its significance in all of them, and we mean by this America and Israel.

In Washington, the memoirs of former President George W. Bush were published recently. Their most forbidding contents about terrorism are that he encouraged methods of torturing the suspect by any means, including water boarding. The president justified this in that he wanted to extract confessions from the terrorists, and that torturing them protects the country and acts as a deterrent against them, regardless of the moral and legal considerations of this practice and its condemnation by human rights organizations. By the same logic, Bush justified the military tribunals, the Guantanamo Bay prison and the widespread secret prisons, including those in democratic Western Europe.

There are two aspects of this confession. The first is Bush and his ideology of U.S. national interests — this being a matter for future generations — even though everyone in my country wants to defend his homeland from dangers in the same way. As for the second aspect, it is the moral and criminal one. For there is no doubt that this confession provides for the prosecution of former President Bush in front of the international and national criminal courts, for it is unacceptable from a legal point of view — even in the guise of an emergency recourse, to torture the accused and to abuse human rights, even if it is later proven that he is guilty — since torture ignores the basic principle of legality according to which a person remains innocent until his charge is proven in a court of justice. All evidence extracted through torture is invalid, no matter the gravity of the offense attributed to the suspect.

In the past, Pinochet, the former president of Chile, rationalized his crimes against his people and foreigners by claiming he was defending national interests, just as Milosevic, the former president of Yugoslavia, justified his transgressions against the Muslims in that he was intent on national unity and shielding security threats. And it is understood that the Nazi crimes against the Jews and others had been rationalized as defending the higher German interests in a time of war, according to what motivated those suspected and tried at the court of Nuremberg.

Opposite Bush in the United States, there is Netanyahu in Israel, who is publicly proud of the massacre of the martyrs of the Freedom Fleet. He also considers their murder an appropriate penalty for their aggression against Israel because Israel views the effort to rescue the residents of Gaza from the effects of the unjust blockade imposed upon them a challenge to Israel and a conspiracy against her security demanding the imposition of an embargo. This is because there exists the assumption that all Gazans are terrorists, and that the blockade is one of the security measures for fighting terrorism that the world takes a hypocritical stand in favor of; on the one hand condemning it and demanding that it be raised, and on the other hand feigning blindness toward the embargo, just as it overlooked Israel’s crime against the activities of the Freedom Fleet and its innocent citizen volunteers. Israel sat comfortably while the countries of the West and Washington answered her favorably in deeming every critique of Israel and her criminal policies anti-Semitism. Yet a French Senate member was accused of anti-Semitism because she denied the crime of genocide in Gaza. So what is the international legal position regarding these crimes?

There is no doubt that international law criminalizes acts of torture, aggression, deliberate killing and blockades leading to genocide and the injury of citizens in any form from any faction, and thus Netanyahu’s confessions and impudence with these crimes is verifiable evidence that he committed them.

Perfectly similar to Bush’s confessions in his memoirs, the fact that both of them are in democratic countries with laws of accountability and punishment does not ward off their transgressions. Both men put forth worse and worse excuses for the same sin.

Therefore, human rights organizations demanded Bush’s subpoena for judgment in front of the American courts, just as we demand that Netanyahu and others be called before the international court since the Israeli judiciary is part of the Zionist project’s bundle.

These examples present important lessons. The first is that it is impossible to justify these crimes and that the sanctity of homeland defense cannot cover up their hideousness. The second lesson is that democratic systems are not enough to prevent the perpetration of these crimes, but they do enjoy a judiciary framework able to hold them accountable.

In this instance, the Israeli judiciary is alone, without the rest of the regular states, in complying with the justification of Israeli crimes, while this court cannot imagine how the American judiciary accepts the rationalization of crimes of torture, which Bush committed solely out of his zeal and ardor for the homeland.


د. عبدالله الأشعل


القضية التى يعالجها هذا المقال بالغة الخطر، وهى تناقش منطق المجرمين عبر الدول والتاريخ. فقد تذرع كل المجرمين القادة بأنهم ارتكبوا جرائمهم دفاعاً عن الوطن وأمنه وحتى دفاعاً عن نظامهم مادام الوطن هو هذا النظام فى رأيهم، ولذلك صار أمن الدولة هو أمن النظام وصار رمزاً لكل هذه المعانى. فى النظم الديمقراطية يكون أمن الوطن هو أمن النظام لأن النظام يحتمى بالقانون ويحترم القانون الذى وضعه ممثلو الوطن، ولايستطيع حاكم فى دولة ديمقراطية أن يبرر جرائمه مهما ساق من مبررات. وقد حفل التاريخ بهذه النماذج الشاذة، وأحدثها نماذج فى دولة ديمقراطية على اختلاف فى معنى الديمقراطية ومغزاها فى كليهما ونعنى بها أميركا وإسرائيل.


ففى واشنطن، صدرت مذكرات الرئيس بوش مؤخرا وأخطر ما تضمنته حول الإرهاب أن الرئيس كان يشجع على سبل تعذيب المتهمين بكل السبل ومنها الإيهام بالغرق، وبرر الرئيس ذلك بأنه كان يريد أن ينتزع الاعتراف من الإرهابيين وتعذيبهم حماية لوطنه وردعا لهم بقطع النظر عن الجوانب الأخلاقية والقانونية لهذا العمل وإدانة منظمات حقوق الإنسان له .وبنفس المنطق برر بوش المحاكم العسكرية ومعتقل جوانتانامو والسجون السرية المنشرة فى كل مكان ومنها أوربا الغربية الديمقراطية. ولهذا الاعتراف وجهان: الأول يتعلق ببوش ورؤيته للمصلحة الوطنية للولايات المتحدة، وهو أمر لاخلاف على أن كل وطنى يود أن يحمى بلاده من المخاطر. أما الوجه الثانى فهو الجانب الأخلاقى والجنائى، إذ لا شبهة فى أن هذا الاعتراف يتيح مقاضاة الرئيس بوش أمام المحاكم الجنائية الدولية والوطنية، لأنه لا يقبل من الناحية القانونية الدفع بحالة الضرورة الملجئة التى دفعت بوش إلى الأمر بالتعذيب وانتهاك حقوق الإنسان حتى لو ثبت بعد ذلك أنه مذنب، ولأنه تجاهل المبدأ الأساسى للمشروعية القانونية وبموجبه يظل الإنسان بريئاً حتى تثبت إدانته فى محاكمة عادلة ويبطل كل دليل يتم انتزاعه عن طريق التعذيب مهما كانت فداحة الجرم المطلوب نسبته إلى المتهم.


فقد سبق أن برر الرئيس بينوشيه رئيس شيلى الأسبق جرائمه ضد شعبه والأجانب بأنه يهدف إلى المحافظة على مصالح البلاد، كما برر ميلوسوفيتش رئيس يوغوسلافيا السابق جرائمه ضد المسلمين بأنه حرص على وحدة البلاد ودفع للمخاطر الأمنية. والمعلوم أن جرائم النازى ضد اليهود وغيرهم قد بررت بالدفاع عن المصالح العليا لألمانيا فى زمن الحرب حسبما دفع المتهمون الذين تمت محاكمتهم فى محاكم نورمبرج.


يقابل بوش فى الولايات المتحدة، نتانياهو فى إسرائيل، الذى يعتز علناً بمذبحة شهداء أسطول الحرية، كما يعتبر قتلهم جزاءاً وفاقاً لعدوانهم على إسرائيل، لأن إسرائيل تعتبر السعى لانقاذ سكان غزة من آثار الحصار الظالم المفروض عليهم تحدياً لإسرائيل وتآمر على أمنها يتطلب فرض الحصار على افتراض أن غزة كلها من الإرهابيين، وأن الحصار من الاجراءات الأمنية لمناهضة الإرهاب الذى وقف العالم إزاءه موقفاً منافقاً، فهو من ناحية يدينه ويطالب برفعه، وهو من ناحية أخرى يغمض الطرف عنه كما أغمض الطرف عن جريمة إسرائيل ضد نشطاء أسطول الحرية من المدنيين المتطوعين الأبرياء. وقد توسعت إسرائيل وتجاوبت معها دول غربية وواشنطن باعتبار كل نقد لإسرائيل وسياساتها الاجرامية معاداة للسامية، بل اتهمت عضو مجلس الشيوخ الفرنسى بمعاداة السامية لأنها أنكرت جريمة الإبادة فى غزة. فما هو موقف القانون الدولى من هذه الجرائم؟


لاشك أن القانون الدولى يجرم أفعال التعذيب والعدوان والقتل العمد والحصار المؤدى إلى الإبادة والمس بالمدنيين بأى شكل ومن أى فصيل، ولذلك فإن اعترافات نتانياهو واعتزازه بهذه الجرائم دليل أكيد على ارتكابه الجرائم.


تماماً مثل اعترافات بوش فى مذكراته، ولايدفع هذا الجرم عنهما أن كليهما فى نظم ديمقراطية حيث قواعد المحاسبة والعقاب، وأن كليهما ساق عذرا أسوأ وأقبح من الذنب نفسه.


ولذلك طالبت منظمات حقوق الإنسان بتقديم الرئيس بوش للمحاكمة أمام المحاكم الأميركية، كما نطالب بتقديم نتانياهو وغيره أمام القضاء الدولى لأن القضاء الإسرائيلى هو جزء من حزمة المشروع الصهيونى.


هذه الأمثلة تقدم دروساً هامة فى مقدمتها أن الجرائم لا يمكن تبريرها وأن الدافع الوطنى لا يمكن أن تطغى قدسيته على بشاعة هذه الجرائم.


والدرس الثانى هو أن النظم الديمقراطية ليست كافية لمنع ارتكاب هذه الجرائم ولكنها تتمتع بنظام قضائى يمكن أن يحاسب عليها.


وفى هذه الحالة تنفرد إسرائيل دون سائر الدول العادية حيث انضم القضاء إلى تبرير جرائم إسرائيل بينما لا يتصور أن يقبل القاضى الأميركى تبرير جرائم التعذيب التى ارتكبها بوش لمجرد حماسته وغيرته الوطنية.
This post appeared on the front page as a direct link to the original article with the above link .

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2 COMMENTS

  1. Everything about Israel is going badly from Day-1. Its founding father dismissed God from swearing in ceremony. Allegiance to the state was sworn in a symbolic “Rock of Israel.” Said David Ben-Gurion to the horror of the Rabbis: “God had not done enough for Jews to deserve this credit.” There is a blunt warning in the Quran to the radical and arrogant Jews that if they revert to highhandedness and become overbearing again after the destruction of the Second Temple, God would revert with identical chastisement, i.e. with utter destruction. Jewish history is a saga of Judaism’s umpteen iniquities in a continuous chain of four thousand years. One reason for Zionists to getting rid of God might be to circumvent the edict of ‘exile.’ What really boggles one’s mind is that the Arabs became so blind that they didn’t read the weaning to Israel in the Quran and became as agitated as to hitting their heads against the wall in their conflict with Israel. And what is even more surprising is that America, too, ignored this manifest blasphemy of David Ben-Gurion. Judaism has been subjected to scourges from heavens for its iniquities. But in this instance the way the Zionists publicly insulted God right into the holy land it is fraught with a peril that cannot be imagined. You may forget about the cynical Bush and the stubborn Netanyahu for their guilt of criminal acts. The more worrisome seems the danger looming over America for its blatant share in the tragedy of Palestinians by American blind support to Israel. No one would deny that it is the collective crime of both Israel and America in the desecration of holy land. Poor Barrack Obama has lost half of his term in office being deceived by the dominant Jewish media and the so-called strong Jewish American lobby. Even as late as now both mainstreams political parties in America are being played against each other by a doomed Israel. America might have a very meager chance of bowing down in devout devotion to God for repentance and to seek grace and mercy from the benevolent God in whose name they still believe and have retained a semblance of the Puritans’ blood in their veins. In light of Quran’s teachings the present sufferings of Americans in their dwindling economy and joblessness could be a warning from heavens to turn to God in same devotion as did the Puritan migrants to the New World. Jews find themselves in a quandary in rapidly deteriorating fate of Israel. The world at large might plunge into anarchy should America gets caught in the fallout of heaven’s wrath on Israel. The only silver lining lies in President Obama to get activist in his outreach to the Muslim world after repentance to God and saving America from God’s anger for its past wrong-doings. And for the Muslim world the time has come to pull its ostrich like neck out of the desert sand and join forces with America in its resurgence from obscurity. Let the Arab rulers read the writing on the wall that in today’s world it is the people who are the sovereign rulers. It is here that America can make a fresh beginning with a better awareness and respect for the ethos of Islamic culture.