Welcome To Italy, Mr. Rumsfeld. You Are Hereby Under Arrest For War Crimes
With the drip drip of revelations that the decision to torture enemy combatants and other detainees in the so-called War on Terror began not with commanders and interrogators at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq but at the highest levels of the Bush administration, arguments that these insiders should and could be tried as war criminals have become more credible.
Just not tried in the U.S., of course.
As if we needed to be reminded that the White House has worked as hard to prevent these insiders from facing the consequences of their dirty deeds as they worked to rationalize the use of Nazi-like torture techniques, there is a provision in the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that would immunize them against prosecution.
But only in the U.S., of course.
Overseas is another matter, and any Geneva Conventions signatory nation has the right — indeed, the responsibility — to detain someone suspected or accused of violating Article 3 of the conventions.
Indeed, courts in Italy and Germany have issued warrants demanding the arrest of CIA operatives for kidnapping and torturing citizens and residents of their nations, although the warrants have not been executed for diplomatic reasons.
And an effort to prosecute former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld in France for the torture of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, the flagship accommodation in the Rumsfeld Gulag, has foundered because no court was willing to take on this hot potato.
But with every new revelation comes a flurry of articles suggesting that Bush administration big shots, present and former, might want to think twice before jetting off to Europe this summer for some sightseeing.
Please click here to read more at Kiko’s House, and here for an index of torture-related stories and links.
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8 Responses to “Welcome To Italy, Mr. Rumsfeld. You Are Hereby Under Arrest For War Crimes”
Those poor guys on the plane. Really, they should be flying in Business…or at least coach…with dinners, with real forks and knives.
After all, what do those crazed paranoid wingnuts think those poor souls would do…hijack a plane and fly it into a skyscraper?! Oh, the humanity…
This is a ideological issue, really. I believe, if one is to be just, one must pursue all war criminals and crimes against humanity in proportion to the offense.
Consider, for example, Shaun's broad thesis…that ultimately it is a matter of time…and Rummy & Co. will be brought to justice.
This begs the question: Where has this ever happened with someone on the Left accused of crimes against humanity?
Why is it that the Europeans…and Shaun, of course…focus all attention on the so-called crimes against humanity of Rummy and those on the Right…while completely ignoring those committed on the Left.
The Spanish judges so incensed by Pinochet and Rummy could easily be incensed by…say, the East German “shoot to kill” policy for people fleeing the Soviet bloc. They would not even have to leave Europe…or have a diplomatic crisis…to file an arrest warrant in those cases. Why have they not to date?
**Grasshoppers chirping**
What about Chinese crimes against humanity? Or those is Islamic countries with petrodollars?
How many former Soviet bloc torturers and killers are now happily…and safely…wandering the streets of countries that are now members of the EU?
They know that the Spanish judges…of the Left…and journalists like Shaun…also of the Left…will turn a blind eye to their crimes.
Marlowecan:
Lurking within your otherwise tiresome ad hominem attack is an intriguing question: What leftist regimes (as opposed to totalitarian Communist regimes) have been accused of war crimes or whose crimes leftists have turned a blind eye to?
Having given this considerable thought, I'm drawing a big fat blank.
This is from 2003:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0410-04…
firing on journalists…big damn heroes the lot of em.
Marlowecan,
What are we to make of the commenting humanity when even crimes are discussed in a partisan tit-for-tat manner? I'll trade you one waterboarding for two beheadings?
Even assuming that your argument using historical references to the SSR (which is falsely used as a parallel, btw) is correct, what does that have to do with current pactices and events? No one can justify what he does today because someone else did the same yesterday. That's something parents teach children before they go to kindergarden.
You could make significant war crimes arguments against Kennedy, LBJ, and Clinton.
“crazed paranoid wingnuts “
Including the mentally-and-morally-”challenged” leftist dwarfs on this site!
Let's bring them all before Judge Chomsky, right now! We already know the verdict.
“This is a ideological issue, really.”
Remember Germany and the idiotic claim of universal jurisdiction and prosecuting Rumsfeld and others for “war crimes”?
Same shit, same losers, different day.