Wednesday, November 16, 2005



A warning for America's torturers

Philippe Sands, international law expert and author of Lawless World, has a simple warning for members of the Bush Administration involved in crafting or implementing America's policies of rendition, torture, and black prisons: don't travel. Because if they do, they may find themselves in the same situation as former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet - arrested in a foreign country, awaiting extradition to Spain or some other country with universal jurisdiction for war crimes, on charges of complicity in crimes of torture. Henry Kissinger is already in this situation, and both Donald Rumsfeld and Lt General Ricardo Sanchez are under investigation in Germany. But as the truth about these policies comes out, the net will widen - to include policymakers in the White House, the Pentagon, the CIA and State Department, as well as the field commanders and soldiers who carried out the orders, the CIA operatives who abducted the victims, and the pilots who flew the planes. If their name is in any document, or if they can be identified in any other way, they will face the risk of arrest, extradition, trial and punishment, for the rest of their lives. America may refuse to clean up its own act; the next administration (or the one after that) may refuse to investigate and try these criminals. But the world will not forget, and if America refuses to do its duty in prosecuting those responsible for torture, we will do it for them.

9 comments:

Just wait until they are out of government. Until then we will kiss their asses like we do with any leader of a nation.

Posted by Genius : 11/17/2005 07:37:00 AM

Genius,

You mean "until then they will travel on diplomatic passports".

I think US past-presidents and ex-veeps get diplomatic passports forever. But Rumsfield's not going to be an ex-elected leader, he's just the hired help.

Posted by Icehawk : 11/17/2005 08:52:00 AM

I hate to be a cynic, but here is what is actually going to happen: The Bush administration will go, there will be a huge scandal over this Iraq war that will see the compliant US media turn like jackels on the now out of power and powerless Bushites, and many senior officials of this administration tried and/or let off with a slap with a wet bus ticket (but the scandal will have destroyed their credibility and the last vestiges of credibility of the United States with it).
One poor bugger middling official will carry the can for them all and get a gigantic sentence as a catharis for the Amercan conscience.

As part of the above process, whatever administration is running Washington will bully the rest of the world into promising not to prosecute the likes of Rumsfeld and co, on the basis that the US will react in a very hostile manner to such an unfriendly act as arresting Rummy and on the basis of US sovereign immunity - the irony of which will be completely lost to right wing bloggers.

Posted by Anonymous : 11/17/2005 09:11:00 AM

Couldn't have said it better myself Anon.

Posted by Anonymous : 11/19/2005 10:04:00 AM

You have to be revolted by the sick irony of an ostensibly Christian president being the commander in chief of a government agency that crucifies people.

Pontius Pilate, thy spirit lives, because I'd pay money that Bush will wash his hands of this.

This really is evil.

Posted by Muerk : 11/24/2005 06:10:00 PM

Thank you for caring about the victims of this horrible torture. You site was linked by

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/11/23/235058/9

http://www.CagePrisoner.com
is a UK based site with many ideas on how you can help stop the torture.

I have a wordpad file devoted to the names of victims for prayer cards.
Kuwaiti 12's Families Elated by Decision
Supreme Court agrees to hear the appeals of the young detainees, whose struggling relatives have

spent $2 million trying to win their release.
24/10/2003

06/04/2005

By Angela Woodall
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL

Washington, DC, Apr. 5 (UPI) -- Terrorist suspects detained in the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, get lower standards of treatment than serial killers, said an attorney for 12 Kuwaiti men
being held at the detention facility.

Kristine Huskey, the attorney, said detainees at Guantanamo were being held without charges and
denied a fair trial. She called the situation a "legal black hole."

The Geneva Conventions, which governs the treatment of prisoners of war, are supposed to prevent a "legal void" like Guantanamo, she said.

==
Anthony Arend, a Georgetown University professor of international law, said the Convention should
spell out how non-traditional fighters are classified and treated, as well as how long they can be detained. He suggested adding a convention that would deal with these issues.

For example, the Conventions allow prisoners to be held until the end of a conflict. But, said Arend, the war on terror will probably never end.

"So how long can we hold them?" he asked.

Posted by Tate : 11/24/2005 08:43:00 PM

RESTORE HABEAS CORPUS. NO MATTER WHAT THEY SAY, WHAT MATTERS IS WHAT WE SAY!

They have a petition here also:

http://www.millionphonemarch.com/habeas.htm

With virtually no advance notice the Republican majority in the Senate approved a last minute amendment to the Defense Authorization Act to deny U.S. courts jurisdiction to examine the legality of detainee detention in Guantanamo and elsewhere.

They did this in defiance of the not yet completely packed Supreme Court (another reason to reject
Alito), whose authority they would annul.

This is all despite the well-known FACT that many scooped up into these hell holes of torture are
not terrorists at all, some even having been sold for bounty. Senator Bingaman immediately
responded with a proposed corrective amendment (S.AMDT.2517) to restore jurisdiction. Is our
government telling us that there is no possible way any of those people can be convicted of a crime, by even an American jury, if they were to have a fair trial?

We also know that our own military attorneys were fired for protesting because the tribunals already established were such miscarriages of justice.

http://katrinafemacamps.blogspot.com/

Posted by Tate : 11/24/2005 08:49:00 PM

US War Criminal's - from "B" for Bush to "R" for Rumsfeld and on to "W" for "Ratboy" Wolfowitz:
If you read the papers you will find that the thugs and murderers of Apartheid Israel are currently doing very little traveling to the EU where recently (Heathrow Airport - London) an IDF retired IDF general was forced to return to Isrel in the same El AL airplane he had arrived in as the Israeli Embassy had alerted him to an outstanding arrest warrant that was waitiing for him at the gate.

And so it appears that the ICC has its eyes open for mwembers of the US/Israel "Evil Twins" of Murder, Inc., (Middle East Division) and their tendency to go out in the world and expect to be respected because they are Americans.

Bubba, those days are over. You are now a resident of "The Rogue Nation" that picks up enemies "by the thousands" on the hour as we speak.

Crime doesn't pay - rmeber that America!

TheAZCowBoy
Tombstone, AZ.

Posted by David S. : 4/23/2006 04:23:00 PM

The end is near Senor Bush. Soon the Iranian's will teach you, Apartheid Ysriol and and your NeoCon "mafia" that "Even a mouse will bite" and the proof in the pudding will be Tel Aviv as the latest (and deepest) harbour in the world: KA-BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

TheAZCowBoy
Tombstone, AZ

Posted by David S. : 4/23/2006 04:27:00 PM