Posted on March 29, 2014 by WashingtonsBlog
We Can Still Prosecute …
Many argue that the statute of
limitations on Bush and Cheney’s crimes of lying us into the Iraq war and
torture have all run … so it is too late to prosecute them.
However, the United States War
Crimes Act of 1996, a federal statute set forth at 18 U.S.C. §
2441, makes it a federal crime for any U.S. national, whether
military or civilian, to violate the Geneva Convention by engaging in murder,
torture, or inhuman treatment.
The statute applies not only to
those who carry out the acts, but also to those who ORDER IT, know about it, or fail to take steps to stop it.
The statute applies to everyone, no matter how high and mighty.
18 U.S.C. § 2441 has no
statute of limitations, which means that a war crimes complaint can be
filed at any time.
The penalty may be life imprisonment
or — if a single prisoner dies due to torture — death. Given that there
are numerous, documented cases of prisoners being tortured to death by U.S.
soldiers in both Iraq and Afghanistan, that means that the death penalty would
be appropriate for anyone found guilty of carrying out, ordering,
or sanctioning such conduct.
The Military Commissions Act of 2006
limited the applicability of the War Crimes Act, but still made the following unlawful:
torture, cruel or inhumane treatment, murder, mutilation or maiming,
intentionally causing serious bodily harm, rape, sexual assault or abuse.
War Crimes By the Bush Administration
Here’s an overview of war crimes by
the Bush administration:
- The use of depleted uranium, which can cause cancer and birth defects for decades (see this, this, this, this, this and this)
- The Pentagon sent one of the main US creators of the death squads in El Salvador into Iraq to set up paramilitary death squads and torture centers
We’ll go into more detail on torture
below.
Yes, It Was Torture
Yes, Waterboarding IS Torture
- President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, Malcolm Nance (an advisor on terrorism to the US departments of Homeland Security, Special Operations and Intelligence), Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples (the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency) and many other interrogation experts and high-level politicians say that waterboarding is torture
- The United States has always considered waterboarding to be a crime of torture, including when the Japanese did it in WWII (and see this)
- Everyone claiming waterboarding is not torture has changed their tune as soon as they were exposed to even a small dose of it themselves. See this, this and this
Not Just Waterboarding
- “The Sexual Humiliation Of Iraqi Prisoners…Was Not An Invention Of Maverick Guards, But Part Of A SYSTEM Of Ill-Treatment And Degradation”
Children, Too
People Died While Being Tortured
The ACLU wrote in 2005:
The American Civil Liberties Union
today made public an analysis of new and previously released autopsy and death
reports of detainees held in U.S. facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, many of
whom died while being interrogated. The documents show that detainees were
hooded, gagged, strangled, beaten with blunt objects, subjected to sleep
deprivation and to hot and cold environmental conditions.
“”There is no question that U.S.
interrogations have resulted in deaths,”" said Anthony D. Romero,
Executive Director of the ACLU. “”High-ranking officials who knew about
the torture and sat on their hands and those who created and endorsed these
policies must be held accountable.
Should We Prosecute? Yes:
- United Nation’s Report Condemns The United States For Human Rights Violations, Including Blocking Prosecution Of Those Responsible For Torture
U.S. Officials Launched a Systematic Program of Torture Using
Specialized Techniques Which Produce False Confessions … to Justify the
Iraq War
But Are They Guilty of War Crimes?
The Nuremberg Tribunal which
convicted and sentenced Nazis leaders to death conceived of wars of aggression
– i.e. wars not launched in self-defense – defined the
following as “crimes against peace”, or war crimes:
(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war
of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or
assurances;
(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the
accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i)
The Tribunal considered wars of
aggression to be the ultimate war crime, which encompassed
all other crimes:
To initiate a war of aggression,
therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international
crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself
the accumulated evil of the whole.
Judgment of October 1, 1946,
International Military Tribunal Judgment and Sentence, 22 IMTTRIALS, supra note
7, at 498, reprinted in 41 AM. J. INT’LL. 172, 186 (1947).
Given that Iraq had no connection
with 9/11 and possessed no weapons of mass destruction, the Iraq war was a
crime of aggression and – under the standards by which Nazi leaders were
convicted by the Nuremberg Tribunal – the American leaders who lied us into
that war are guilty of war crimes.
Benjamin Ferencz, a former chief
prosecutor for the Nuremberg Trials, declared:
A prima facie case can be made that
the United States is guilty of the supreme crime against humanity — that being
an illegal war of aggression against a sovereign nation.
War Crimes By the Obama Administration
The Obama administration has ordered
numerous indiscriminate drone strikes. They are war
crimes (more here and here). (They also create more terrorists.)
Torture is also apparently
continuing under Obama. See this and this.
Note: We’re writing less on
Obama than Bush solely because the statute of limitations for Obama’s
crimes are not an issue at this point.
-------------
-------------
RELATED NEWS
Bush
Was a Total Disaster ... Obama Is WORSE Washington's Blog February 14, 2013
Is
Nobel Peace Prize Winner Obama More Brutal than Bush ... Washington's Blog March 30, 2011
"The
Lack of Opposition to Obama's Kill List Policy Is a Natio Washington's Blog, March 7, 2013
=========
=========
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario