Truth is a laughable film which may become a camp classic and stars the eternally vain former cover boy Robert Redford who at least had the sense to get a better toupee for this film (what happened to the road kill he sported on his head in Captain America: Winter Soldier?) but whose vanity still got the best of him. (If you don't get it, the 79-year-old actor insists upon being a sassy golden blond in Truth -- despite the fact that Dan Rather was gray going back to at least 1992 and the film's set in 2004.) Illustration was used at Third for "Robert Redford's new role." Francis A. Boyle is an attorney and a professor of international law. He's also the author of many books including, most recently, United Ireland, Human Rights and International Law. Below he offers his reaction to Truth:
By
now you have probably seen PR for the new movie “Truth” that presents a
sympathetic portrayal by Robert Redford of Dan Rather and his story
about Bush’s military
service. Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejia was the first GI Resister to
Bush’s criminal war of aggression against Iraq. S.S. Mejia was in
combat in Iraq. He would capture insurgents, and then turn them over for
interrogation, only to see them tortured. As a matter
of good faith and conscience, he refused to do it anymore and was
court-martialed for desertion, facing 2 years for his act of courage,
integrity and principle. Just before his court-martial opened at Fort
Stewart GA, S.S. Mejia accepted an offer to appear
with Dan Rather on 60 Minutes in order to explain to the American
People why he could no longer aid and abet torture by others in Iraq.
But when S.S. Mejia got on 60 Minutes, Chickenhawk Dan Rather
viciously ambushed him, accusing him of being a traitor
and a coward. It was sleaze-ball journalism of the worst type by a
scumbag journalist of the first rank. It was clearly an attempt by
Rather to poison the jury pool for S.S. Mejia’s court-martial. Just as I
was flying down to Ft. Stewart to help defend S.S.
Mejia, the Abu Ghraib Torture Scandal broke to national headlines. We
knew all about it from S.S. Mejia who refused to have anything more to
do with it. After a Kangaroo Court-Martial Proceeding, S.S. Mejia got 8
months, which was more than many of the
torturers, most of whom got off scot free. We then got S.S. Mejia
adopted a Prisoner of Conscience by Amnesty International. In other
words, Dan Rather maliciously inflicted outright character
assassination in front of Millions of Americans upon an Amnesty
International Prisoner of Conscience. And that is because Dan Rather
has no conscience! He got what he deserved.
Francis A. Boyle
Professor of Law
LeVine:
In my own research on war crimes committed by US forces in Iraq. I
counted at least two-dozen classes of offenses systematically committed
by the Occupation administration and US or
US-allied military forces in the invasion and subsequent period of CPA
(Coalition Provisional Authority) rule. This includes violations of
articles and 17, 18, 33, and 147 of the Geneva Convention covering the
killing, hostage-taking and torturing of civilians
Boyle:
As I just argued at Fort Stewart Georgia in the court martial
proceedings for Sgt. Camilo Mejia for desertion, the accountability here
goes directly up the chain of command under the
terms of the US Army Field Manual 27-10. Specifically, paragraph 501
makes clear that commanders who have ordered or knew or should have
known about war crimes and failed to stop it are themselves guilty of
war crimes. If you look then at the public record,
it is clear that Gens. Sanchez and Miller ordered war crimes and both
should be relieved of command immediately: abuse of prisoners in
violation of the Geneva Conventions. As for General Abizaid, the overall
commander of US forces in Southwest Asia, he admitted
in his Senate hearings that he should have known about the war crimes
at Abu Ghraib, so basically he's already incriminated himself under the
rules of the US Army Field Manual 27-10 In addition, above Abizaid you
have Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz. Again my reading
of the public record including the Taguba and Red Cross reports is that
they either knew or should have known about all these war crimes.
Indeed, if you read the ICRC report, - and as I testified under oath and
under cross-examination (and was not contradicted)
at the Mejia court-martial proceedings, - the widespread and systematic
nature of these abuses rise to the level of crimes against humanity,
going all the way up through the chain of command. Culpability also
extends to Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence
General William G. Boykin and Defense Undersecretary Stephen Cambone,
who reports directly to Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith. And
through this line it appears to me that Rumsfeld is culpable, because he
was at Abu Ghraib last fall. Indeed, Sy Hersch's
New Yorker article on Abu Ghraib claims with good substantiation that
he was totally aware and even signed off on the use of techniques which
are clearly torture. Rumsfeld was given a tour by Brig. General Janet
Karpinski, who was supposed to be in charge
of the prison-although she said nothing when she was prohibited from
accessing certain areas of it-and so she's also accountable. It's
important to understand that the Geneva Conventions, the Hague
Regulations of 1907, the U.S. Army Field Manual, all mandate
that a criminal investigation be opened. And how President Bush, as
Commander in Chief would be accountable under Field Manual 27-10
precisely because he is Commander in Chief of the US armed forces under
the US Constitution. We know the White House knows
this because if you read White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales's memo,
he specifically tries to exempt the US from the Geneva Conventions for
Guantanamo and Afghanistan. You can see that Gonzalez was afraid of Bush
and others being held directly accountable.
Moreover, because Powell dissented, we know there was a debate about
this, so Bush had to have been aware of the implications of what was
being done, which is also backed up by the memos from Ashcroft. These
memos have been unearthed by Newsweek. So ultimately
what we have here are people at the highest levels of the chain of
command guilty of ordering or not preventing torture, which is both an
international crime against the Geneva Conventions and the Torture
Convention and a domestic crime as well. What we have
then is a conspiracy among the aforementioned individuals to commit war
crimes and crimes against humanity. Let me add one more thing that's
very important to remember: The principles set forth in 27-10 of
personal criminal accountability for war crimes goes
back to the Nuremburg Charter, Judgments and Principles derived from
the post-World War II trials of Nazi war criminals. Similar principles
of criminal accountability were applied by the United States to the
Japanese Imperial War criminals.
LeVine: In fact, President Bush has compared the war on terror to the war against the Nazis.
Boyle:
Then we have even more reason to bring this to people's attention: The
Nuremburg Principles were in fact originally the idea of the US
Government which then orchestrated the prosecutions
in Nuremburg. People need to understand the pedigree and heritage here.
These are very grave offenses which the US government a generation ago
prosecuted and executed Nazis for committing. And Japanese war criminals
too.
LeVine: How can any of the people you mentioned be prosecuted?
Boyle:
The military could do it, or the Dept. of Justice, which would have
default power to do so if the military didn't. But for this of course
we'd need a special prosecutor and that law
has been allowed to lapse. Attorney General Ashcroft, who is clearly
part of the criminal conspiracy, would never push a war crimes
investigations against his colleagues or President Bush.
Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign IL 61820 USA
francis a. boyle
