Tag: war crimes

by Jason Leopold, April 20, 2009

   Newly released US government documents, detailing how Bush administration officials punched legalistic holes in the Geneva Conventions’ protections of war captives, stand in stark contrast to the outrage some of the same officials expressed in the first week of the Iraq war when Iraqi TV interviewed several captured American soldiers.

   “If there is somebody captured,” President George W. Bush told reporters on March 23, 2003, “I expect those people to be treated humanely. If not, the people who mistreat the prisoners will be treated as war criminals.”

   Then, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, President George W. Bush, and other administration officials orchestrated a chorus of outrage, citing those TV scenes as proof of the Iraq’s government contempt for international law in general and the Geneva Conventions in particular.

   “It is a blatant violation of the Geneva Convention to humiliate and abuse prisoners of war or to harm them in any way. As President Bush said yesterday, those who harm POWs will be found and punished as war criminals,” Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said on March 24, 2003.

   That same day, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told the BBC that “the Geneva Convention is very clear on the rules for treating prisoners.. They’re not supposed to be tortured or abused; they’re not supposed to be intimidated; they’re not supposed to be made public displays of humiliation or insult, and we’re going to be in a position to hold those Iraqi officials who are mistreating our prisoners accountable, and they’ve got to stop.”

   At a March 25, 2003, press briefing about progress in the US-led invasion, Secretary Rumsfeld said, “This war is an act of self-defense, to be sure, but it is also an act of humanity…. In recent days, the world has witnessed further evidence of their [Iraqi] brutality and their disregard for the laws of war. Their treatment of coalition POWs is a violation of the Geneva Conventions.”

Read the whole article here:

http://www.antemedius.com/content/bush-administrations-stunning-geneva-hypocrisy

While the example of the Nuremberg Trials is used often these days to describe what prosecutions might look like, few seem to remember that the prosecution of war criminals after World War II was much larger and took place over a longer period of time than most people realize. This is important when one considers the context of President Obama’s granting of immunity to lower-level CIA interrogators (if they acted in “good faith” upon “authoritative” legal advice).

What even a cursory examination of historical precedent demonstrates is that after World War II prosecution of war criminals and accessories to war crimes were not limited to the famous Nuremberg 22 high-level Nazis, nor the few hundred or so prosecuted through the Nuremberg tribunals, but thousands of accused throughout Europe.

What follows is a brief lesson in how these prosecutions occurred, who was involved, and where and when they took place. It may surprise you that the United States, for instance, has an Office of Special Investigations (OSI) at the US Department of Justice. Its mission was to hunt down war criminals and bring them to justice. Established only in 1979, the OSI has a sterling record:

Sam Stein weighs in on Obama’s pre-approved, bipartisan-tested, generic excuse for not enforcing the law against BushCo criminals . . .

Asked for the first time to respond to the likelihood that Spanish prosecutors will target officials in the Bush administration for sanctioning torture at Guantanamo Bay, Barack Obama stressed, once again, that he prefers to look forward, not backward.  “I’m a strong believer that it’s important to look forward and not backwards, and to remind ourselves that we do have very real security threats out there,” said Obama.

I think it’s important to remind ourselves, Mr. President, that war criminals are still running around loose all over Washington D.C.  Their smug faces can still be seen on national television, they’re writing op-eds in the fucking Wall Street Journal, they’re getting million dollar book deals and are still wined and dined at Georgetown cocktail parties, while the victims of their war crimes can’t look forward to anything ever again because they’re dead, or are still in Gitmo, or have been shattered physically and psychologically by American torturers acting upon the orders of an American president and vice president, who paid American lawyers to tell them it was legal to violate the law, the Constitution, and the Geneva Conventions.

“Legal cover”, bought and paid for . . .

with 30 pieces of silver.

You want to focus on the very real threats “out there”, Mr. President?   I’m just a nobody who worked his ass off to help get you elected, but I think you need to focus on the very real threats to the Constitution and American democracy that are staring us all in the face right here in the United States.  Those very real threats are not “out there” in Afghanistan or Pakistan, they’re right here in America, entrenched in the CIA, the NSA and the Pentagon, they’re in those Wall Street banks you keep bailing out, they’re in the leadership and rank and file of that mindless cult of subversion, racism, and corporate fraud that used to be the Republican Party.

Welcome to the sixth of the Dog’s letter writing campaign series. The Dog usually posts these on Monday’s but his Step Dad was having major heart surgery and the Dog could not focus very well yesterday (he is fine BTW). The basic premise here is to, on a weekly basis; write a letter to the President, the Attorney General, the nine Justices of the Supreme Court, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid, urging them to investigate the apparent State Sponsored Torture program of the Bush Administration. In order to get their attention, every week the Dog writes from a different perspective about the issue, so that on the off chance that they read more than one of these letters it is clear that it is not the same thing over and over. This series also offers the reader the chance to write their own letter or cut and paste the Dog’s letter and send it in. The more people that we have sending weekly letters the higher chance that we will be heard on this issue, so if you could take the time to send this along it would be greatly appreciated.

This will be the shortest essay evah!  Just had to interrupt your current “program” with this news!

A quick call to Sen. Schumer’s office might be in order!  Yes?

h/t David Swanson

Welcome to the fifth of the Dog’s letter writing campaign series. The basic premise here is to, on a weekly basis; write a letter to the President, the Attorney General, the nine Justices of the Supreme Court, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid, urging them to investigate the apparent State Sponsored Torture program of the Bush Administration. In order to get their attention, every week the Dog writes from a different perspective about the issue, so that on the off chance that they read more than one of these letters it is clear that it is not the same thing over and over. This series also offers the reader the chance to write their own letter or cut and paste the Dog’s letter and send it in. The more people that we have sending weekly letters the higher chance that we will be heard on this issue, so if you could take the time to send this along it would be greatly appreciated.  

Do you want action on the issue of the Bush Administrations apparent State Sponsored Torture program? It is an easy enough question, but you should consider it. Not, do you think it will happen or should happen, but do you want it to happen? Knowing the answer to this question can inform your next steps, so even if you think you know take a couple of minutes and really think about it.

Cross Posted At Square State

* Note: Cross posted at GOS and Antemedius

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Senator Leahy has posted a statement on his website, which states, in part, that he is still actively pursuing the “Truth Commission” idea.

So, I guess somebody is listening?

For those here who have been active in pressuring the Obama administration to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Bush administration War Crimes, (or if you’re even passingly interested in seeing some accountability at all for the grave misdeeds of Bush, Cheney, Feith, Addington, Yoo, et al), there’s some very bad news that seems to have flitted under the collective radar.

~more after the fold~