Dennis Kucinich

“ It's illegal to threaten aggressive war against another nation.
Iran has no ability to attack us, and they do not have the intention to attack the United States. We are at a moment in human history where we have to make a decision whether we are going to go deeper into war or whether we are going to take a stand on behalf of peace. ”

“ Furthermore, in the eyes of the rest of the world, the President has made the US, once a model of respect for Human Rights and respect for the rule of law, into a state where international law is neither respected nor upheld. ”

“ King championed the rights of the poor and advocated for social and economic justice for women and for the protection and rights of gay men and lesbian women. She marched in protest against racial discrimination across the South and was arrested for protesting apartheid in South Africa.
Mr. Speaker and Colleagues, please join me in honor, recognition and memory of Coretta Scott King, whose life mission on behalf of human rights has served to raise the collective conscience of the entire world into the promise of universal freedom from oppression. ”

“ By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.’’ President Bush’s State of the Union Address, January 29, 2002. ”

“ Saddam Hussein’s regime is a grave and gathering danger. To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence. To assume this regime’s good faith is to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble. And this is a risk we must not take.’’ Address of President Bush to the United Nations General Assembly, September 12, 2002.
(4) ‘‘ [N] o terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people than the regime of Saddam Hussein and Iraq.’’ Statement of Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to Congress, September 19, 2002. ”

“ Even after the National Intelligence Estimate was released to Congress and the American people, the president stated that he did not believe anything had changed and suggested that he and members of his administration would continue to argue that Iran should be seen as posing a threat to the United States. He did this despite the fact that United States intelligence agencies had clearly and officially stated that this was not the case.
Evidence suggests that the Bush Administration’s attempts to portray Iran as a threat are part of a broader U.S. policy toward Iran. ”

“ The Bush Administration has chosen not to apply the Uniform Code of Military Justice or United States law to mercenaries and other contractors employed by the United States government in Iraq.
Operating free of Iraqi or U.S. law, mercenaries have killed many Iraqi civilians in a manner that observers have described as aggression and not as self-defense. Many U.S. contractors have also alleged that they have been the victims of aggression (in several cases of rape) by their fellow contract employees in Iraq. ”

“ C. The 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause guarantees that no minority group will suffer disparate treatment in a federal, state, or local election in stating that: ‘‘No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law ”

“ Prior to his election as Vice President, Dick Cheney, then-CEO of Halliburton, in a speech at the Institute of Petroleum in 1999 demonstrated a keen awareness of the sensitive economic and geopolitical role of Middle East oil resources saying: ‘‘By 2010, we will need on the order of an additional 50 million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? Governments and national oil companies are obviously controlling about 90 percent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business. ”

“ While engaging in an invasion and occupation of choice, not fought in self-defense, and not launched in accordance with any timetable other than the President’s choosing, President Bush sent U.S. troops into danger without providing them with armor. ”

“ Detainees in US custody in Iraq and Guantanamo have, in violation of the Geneva Conventions, been hidden from and denied visits by the International Red Cross organization, while thousands of others in Iraq, Guantanamo, Afghanistan, ships in foreign off-shore sites, and an unknown number of so-called ‘‘black sites’’ around the world have been denied any opportunity to challenge their detentions. ”

“ These interpretations are as much a part of this country’s surveillance law as the statute itself. Without access to them, it is impossible for Congress or the public to have an informed debate on matters that deeply affect the privacy and civil liberties of all Americans . . .
‘‘The Administration’s shroud of secrecy extends to agency rules and executive pronouncements, such as Executive Orders, that carry the force of law. ”

“ Despite the Posse Comitatus Act’s intent, and in contravention of the law, President Bush:
(a) has used military forces for law enforcement purposes on U.S. border patrol;
(b) has established a program to use military personnel for surveillance and information on criminal activities;
(c) is using military espionage equipment to collect intelligence information for law enforcement use on civilians within the United States; and
(d) employs active duty military personnel in surveillance agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) . ”

“ This effort to redefine torture by calling certain practices simply ‘‘enhanced interrogation techniques’’ flies in the face of the Third Geneva Convention Relating to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, which states that ‘‘No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. ”

“ Under the direction of President George Bush the United States has engaged in collective punishment of Iraqi civilian populations, including but not limited to blocking roads, cutting electricity and water, destroying fuel stations, planting bombs in farm fields, demolishing houses, and plowing over orchards. ”

“ In March 2001, President Bush announced the U.S. would not be pursuing ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, an international effort to reduce greenhouse gasses. The United States is the only industrialized nation that has failed to ratify the accord.
2. In March of 2008, Representative Henry Waxman wrote to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson: ‘‘In August 2003, the Bush Administration denied a petition to regulate CO2 emissions from motor vehicles by deciding that CO2 was not a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. ”

“ Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.’’
Torture is further prohibited by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the paramount international human rights statement adopted unanimously by the United Nations General Assembly, including the United States, in 1948. ”

“ There is no intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can be outside the law.’’ Although the state is obligated to repatriate Prisoners of War as soon as hostilities cease, the ICRC’s commentary on the 1949 Conventions states that prisoners should not be repatriated where there are serious reasons for fearing that repatriating the individual would be contrary to general principles of established international law for the protection of human beings. ”

“ A dictator who has used weapons of mass destruction on his own people must not be allowed to produce or possess those weapons. We will not permit Saddam Hussein to blackmail and/or terrorize nations which love freedom.’’ Speech by President Bush to Prague Atlantic Student Summit, November 20, 2002. ”