Inspired by Iraqi woman’s quest for justice, Walker pens “Hope of Healing”

Considering lawlessness and a call to affirm
'NONE ABOVE LAW'

Minor edits for TIN by 

Carolyn Bennett

Sundus Shaker Saleh brings case against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, Wolfowitz for “war crimes”

Author
Alice Walker

For Iraqi Mother Sundus Shaker Saleh from Alice Walker with my love: “Hope of Healing”

In our despair that justice is slow / we sit with heads bowed / Wondering how even whether we will ever be healed

Perhaps it is a question only the ravaged, the violated seriously ask. /  And is that not now almost all of us?

… [H]ope is on the way.

As usual Hope is a woman herding her children around her / all she retains of who she was / as usual / except for her kids she has lost almost everything.

Hope is a woman who has lost her fear.

Women of Iraq

Along with her home, her employment, her parents, her olive trees, her grapes. / The peace of independence / the reassuring noises of ordinary neighbors

Hope rises. She always does / did we fail to notice this in all the stories / they’ve tried to suppress?  

Iraqi women activists

Hope rises  / and she puts on her same unfashionable threadbare coat and, penniless, she flings herself against the cold, polished, protective chain mail of the very powerful / the very rich – chain mail that mimics suspiciously silver coins and lizard skin - / and all she has to fight with is the reality of what was done to her; / to her country; her people; her children; her home.

 All she has as armor is what she has learned must never be done. / Not in the name of War and especially never in the name of Peace.

Hope is always the teacher with the toughest homework.

Our assignment: to grasp what has never been breathed in our stolen Empire on the hill: Without justice, we will never [heal]. [END] 

U.S. "shock and awe"
Crimes against Iraq and
its people
Commanders
must be
held accountable

Will our courage affirm, for all time:

No one in any class or kind, context or case of employment is ever above law?

In court papers filed August 22, 2013, Global Research reports, “the [Obama government’s] United States Department of Justice requested that George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and Paul Wolfowitz be granted procedural immunity in a case alleging that they planned and waged the Iraq War in violation of international law.

Plaintiff Sundus Shaker Saleh, an Iraqi single mother and refugee now living in Jordan, filed a complaint in March 2013 in San Francisco federal court alleging that the planning and waging of the war constituted a ‘crime of aggression’ against Iraq, a legal theory that was used by the Nuremberg Tribunal to convict Nazi war criminals after World War II.

‘The DOJ claims that in planning and waging the Iraq War, ex-President Bush and key members of his Administration were acting within the legitimate scope of their employment and are thus immune from suit,’ chief counsel Inder Comar of Comar Law said.

The ‘Westfall Act certification,’ submitted pursuant to the Westfall Act of 1988, permits the Attorney General, at his or her discretion, to substitute the United States as the defendant and essentially grant absolute immunity to government employees for actions taken within the scope of their employment.

In her lawsuit, Saleh alleges: 

Sundus Shaker Saleh (r)Attorney Inder Comar (l)

• Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz began planning the Iraq War in 1998 through their involvement with the ‘Project for the New American Century,’ a Washington DC non-profit that advocated for the military overthrow of Saddam Hussein. 

• Once they came to power, Saleh alleges that Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz convinced other Bush officials to invade Iraq by using 9/11 as an excuse to mislead and scare the American public into supporting a war. 

• Finally, she claims that the United States failed to obtain United Nations approval prior to the invasion, rendering the invasion illegal and an act of impermissible aggression.

Sources and notes

Global Research reports on August 22, 2013

“Obama DOJ Asks Court to Grant Immunity to George W. Bush For Iraq War” by Global Research News/Inder Comar, Global Research, August 22, 2013, War is a Crime, http://www.globalresearch.ca/obama-doj-asks-court-to-grant-immunity-to-george-w-bush-for-iraq-war/5346637

As Stop the War Coalition reports/posts on October 6

“MOTHER TAKES GEORGE BUSH TO COURT FOR WAR CRIMES AGAINST THE IRAQI PEOPLE: Iraqi mother Sundus Shaker Saleh is lead plaintiff in a lawsuit targeting for war crimes six key members of the Bush Administration: George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, and Paul Wolfowitz”  October 6, 2013 BY Alice Walker, http://www.stopwar.org.uk/news/alice-walker-s-poem-for-iraqi-mother-taking-george-w-bush-to-court-for-war-crimes

Sundus Shaker Saleh, an Iraqi single mother, is the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit targeting six key members of the Bush Administration: George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, and Paul Wolfowitz.

Sundus Shaker Saleh says the Iraq War was not conducted in self-defense, did not have the appropriate authorization by the United Nations, and therefore constituted a ‘crime of aggression’ under international law. The aim of the suit is to achieve justice for Iraqis, and to show that no one, not even the president of the United States, is above the law. 

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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World won’t stand by and let U.S. plunge Middle East into wider war: STWC

From Stop the War Coalition (UK) National Officer Chris Nineham’s 
“We won't stand by …”

Editing by Carolyn Bennett

 

Western powers’ massive aerial onslaught on Syria will drastically worsen the already dire situation that was aided, armed and abetted by foreign states. The rush to war must be stopped.

Unspeakable cruelty and consequence

The desperate refugee crisis shows how the country is riven (torn apart) by a civil war already stoked by outside intervention. The joint UN/Arab League representative to the country, Moqtar Lomani, said this past Monday that Syria was in danger of tearing itself apart along sectarian lines.

  

Threats of western intervention have already accelerated this process. Reports show that the number of people fleeing Damascus for Lebanon has risen by a factor of six since [U.S. President Barack] Obama last week made the decision to push for an attack.

How can a massive aerial onslaught by Western powers on Syria do anything but drastically worsen this situation?

 

The cruise missiles being primed for launch on U.S. ships and submarines are themselves deadly weapons.

 

An assault on a scale designed to ‘degrade’ [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad’s military will kill large numbers of innocents.

It can only further wrench apart the fault lines in Syria and across the region. There will be immediate retaliation from the regime, possibly from regional supporters; maybe from Russia.

Antiwar Movement NOW

Anti-war protests past and present helped create the conditions in which Members of the British Parliament felt they had to take a stand against [UK Prime Minister David] Cameron and [British Foreign Secretary William] Hague’s kneejerk warmongering. That vote in turn influenced the U.S. president to take his plans to the Congress.

Protests must now increase in intensity to send a message to Washington ─ that the world will not stand by and let the United States plunge the Middle East into a wider war.

  

Sources and notes

“We won't stand by. Obama’s war can be stopped” by Chris Nineham, Stop the War Coalition UK, September 3, 2013. http://stopwar.org.uk/news/we-won-t-stand-by-obama-s-war-can-be-stopped

CHRIS NINEHAM is one of the founding members, now one of the National Officers of the STOP THE WAR COALITION in the United Kingdom. He was one of the main organizers of the February 15, 2003 anti-war protest against the invasion on Iraq.; and he has written widely on the anti-war movement and the anti-capitalist movement as well as on the media, modernism and cultural theory.

Nineham was a leading member of Globalize Resistance, the anti-globalization network that mobilized thousands of protests in Genoa, Italy (2001) and elsewhere and he played an important role in the European and World Social Forums.

STOP THE WAR was founded in September 2001, in the weeks following the events of September 11, 2001, when U.S. President George W. Bush announced the ‘war on terror’.

Stop the War Coalition (UK) has since been dedicated to ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, bringing the troops home and forcing the British government to change its disastrous foreign policies. STWC has initiated many campaigns around these issues and are also committed to opposing sanctions and military attacks on Iran, supporting Palestinian rights, opposing racism and defending civil liberties. http://stopwar.org.uk/about 

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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