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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