February, 01 2017, 02:30pm EDT
350.org on Senate Confirmation of ExxonMobil's Rex Tillerson as US Secretary of State
With spotlight on #ExxonKnew, Tillerson’s nomination most controversial and highly opposed in US history
WASHINGTON
Today, the US Senate voted 56-43 in favor of recent former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson to be the next Secretary of State.
In response, Bill McKibben, 350.org co-founder issued the following statement:
"For years much of America's foreign policy was formulated to benefit the oil industry. Now it's being formulated by the oil industry. There's no disguising the influence any more, which should make it easier to understand and to resist."
May Boeve, 350.org Executive Director said:
"A vote for Rex Tillerson is a vote for climate disaster. Negotiating oil deals with human-rights abusing heads of state does not qualify you to lead international diplomacy. The fight against Tillerson's nomination revealed just how much fossil fuel industry money has corrupted Congress. In the face of this corruption, we all must come together to fight for the renewable energy revolution and an economy that works for all of us."
Rex Tillerson's nomination was one of the most controversial and highly opposed in US history. Following Monday's cloture vote, Democrats took to the Senate floor for 30 hours of debate, expressing intense concerns around Tillerson's role in ExxonMobil's climate cover-up, his refusal to take a position on the unconstitutional Muslim Ban, and his close ties to countries such as Russia and Saudi Arabia with recognized human rights abusers in power.
Former vice presidential candidate Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) used his time on the floor to shine a spotlight on Rex Tillerson's role in ExxonMobil's decades-long and ongoing campaign to deceive the public about climate change and block action at every level. At Tillerson's Committee hearing on January 11, the oil mogul danced around Sen. Kaine's questions on all that Exxon knew about climate change.
Recent reports on ExxonMobil's financials, where Tillerson spent his entire career, illustrate that Tillerson left ExxonMobil in far worse condition than when he took over. The corporation is currently under investigation by the attorney generals of Massachusetts and New York, as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In the less than two weeks of this new presidency, there has been an unprecedented outpouring of global resistance to Trump's corrupt regime: from millions participating in Women's Marches around the world, to tens of thousands at airports protesting Trump's Muslim Ban.
Groups will continue to demonstrate creative and cunning tactics in holding Rex Tillerson accountable in anticipation of foreign policy that prioritizes Big Oil at the expense of people and planet. Throughout the first 100 days of the Trump presidency, the People's Climate Movement is organizing actions across the country that will culminate with a People's Climate Mobilization on April 29 in Washington, DC.
350 is building a future that's just, prosperous, equitable and safe from the effects of the climate crisis. We're an international movement of ordinary people working to end the age of fossil fuels and build a world of community-led renewable energy for all.
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"Meanwhile, the U.S. government STILL hasn't provided compensation or other redress to people tortured by U.S. troops in Iraq," said one observer. "These three men are the lucky few."
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Two decades after they were tortured by U.S. military contractors at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, three Iraqi victims are finally getting their day in court Monday as a federal court in Virginia takes up a case they brought during the George W. Bush administration.
The case being heard in the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Al Shimari v. CACI, was first filed in 2008 under the Alien Tort Statute—which allows non-U.S. citizens to sue for human rights abuses committed abroad—by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) on behalf of three Iraqis. The men suffered torture directed and perpetrated by employees of CACI, a Virginia-based professional services and information technology firm hired in 2003 by the Bush administration as translators and interrogators in Iraq during the illegal U.S.-led invasion and occupation.
"This lawsuit is a critical step towards justice for these three men who will finally have their day in court."
Plaintiffs Suhail Al Shimari, Asa'ad Zuba'e, and Salah Al-Ejaili accuse CACI of conspiring to commit war crimes including torture at Abu Ghraib, where the men suffered broken bones, electric shocks, sexual abuse, extreme temperatures, and death threats at the hands of their U.S. interrogators.
"This lawsuit is a critical step towards justice for these three men who will finally have their day in court. But they are the lucky few," Sarah Sanbar, an Iraq researcher at Human Rights Watch, wrote on Monday. "For the hundreds of other survivors still suffering from past abuses, their chances of justice remain slim."
"The U.S. government should do the right thing: Take responsibility for their abuses, offer an apology, and open an avenue to redress that has been denied them for too many years," Sanbar added.
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A May 2004 report by Maj. Gen. Anthony Taguba concluded that the majority of Abu Ghraib prisoners—the Red Cross said 70-90%— were innocent. In addition to thousands of men and boys, some women and girls were also jailed there as bargaining chips meant to induce wanted insurgents to surrender. Some of them said they were raped or sexually abused by their American captors; lesser-known Abu Ghraib photos show women being forced to expose their private parts. Some female detainees were reportedly murdered by their own relatives in so-called "honor killings" after their release.
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Bush's successor, former President Barack Obama, promised to investigate—and if warranted, to prosecute—the Bush-era officials responsible for the torture that had become synonymous with the War on Terror. Instead, the Obama administration protected them from prosecution.
In 2013, L3 Technologies agreed to pay $5.28 million to 71 former Abu Ghraib detainees who were subjected to sexual assault and humiliation, rape threats, electrical shocks, mock executions, brutal beatings, and other abuse.
The following year, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court ruling prohibiting Abu Ghraib torture victims from suing U.S. companies implicated in their abuse. But the court later reversed itself, finding the case had sufficient ties to the United States to be heard in an American court. The suit was later dismissed under the political question doctrine, which prevents courts from ruling on issues determined to be essentially political.
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"This is a historic trial that we hope will deliver some measure of justice and healing for what President Bush rightly deemed disgraceful conduct that dishonored the United States and its values," CCR senior attorney Katherine Gallagher toldThe Guardian on Monday.
"In many ways, this case may be seen as setting a precedent for holding contractors accountable for human rights violations should they happen in other contexts, too," she added.
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