UN Human Rights Chief Calls for Prosecution of Torture Architects

German defendants at Nuremberg trials

The full executive summary of the Senate torture report can be found here (NOTE: many names and details are redacted).  Not surprisingly, some at the United Nations want the architects of the torture program prosecuted.  The Guardian has details:

The UN special rapporteur on counter terrorism and human rights, Ben Emmerson, has released a statement saying “It is now time to take action” and “The individuals responsible for the criminal conspiracy revealed in today’s report must be brought to justice.” The statement reads in part:

The summary of the report which was released this afternoon confirms what the international community has long believed - that there was a clear policy orchestrated at a high level within the Bush administration to commit systematic crimes and gross violations of international human rights law. The identities of the perpetrators, and many other details, have been redacted in the published summary report but are known to the Select Committee and to those who provided the Committee with information on the programme. It is now time to take action. 

The individuals responsible for the criminal conspiracy revealed in today’s report must be brought to justice, and must face criminal penalties commensurate with the gravity of their crimes. The fact that the policies revealed in this report were authorised at a high level within the US Government provides no excuse whatsoever. Indeed, it reinforces the need for criminal accountability. 

International law prohibits the granting of immunities to public officials who have engaged in acts of torture. This applies not only to the actual perpetrators but also to those senior officials within the US Government who devised, planned and authorised these crimes. As a matter of international law, the US is legally obliged to bring those responsible to justice.

Note: under international law and treaties to which the United States is a signatory, Barack Obama has NO legal authority to either (i) refuse to prosecute the offenders or (ii) grant pardons to such criminals. 

If one looks at the Nuremberg trials, here is what happened to Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the highest ranking SS leader to be tried at Nuremberg.  -  Hanged 16 October 1946.

Counterterroriam Czar: Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld All Committed War Crimes

War Crimes Trial - Nuremberg

I have long argued that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney - who is a real dick - and Donald Rumsfeld committed war crimes and knowingly violated the Geneva Conventions.  Roughly 70 years ago, the United States and its allies tried - and in some cases executed - German and Japanese military and political leaders who committed similar breaches of the Geneva Convention and/or authorized the use of torture.  Now, George W. Bush’s own former top counter terrorism czar has said that he is convinced that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld all committed war crimes during the Iraq war. If America wants to be taken seriously on the issue of human rights and the rule of law, there is no option but to put these three heinous men on trial.  Sadly, Barack Obama was too weak kneed to push for this back in 2009.  As a result we continue to see Cheney, a Darth Vader clone if there ever was one, spewing lies and bullshit on news shows.  The man should be behind bars - if not dead from execution for the war crimes he masterminded and authorized.   Here are highlights from The Raw Story:

President George W. Bush’s former top counterterrorism official said this week that he is convinced that Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld all committed war crimes during the Iraq war. 

In an interview that will air in full next week, Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman asked former National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism Richard Clarke if “President Bush should be brought up on war crimes [charges], and Vice President Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, for the attack on Iraq.”

“I think things that they authorized probably fall within the area of war crimes,” Clarke agreed. “Whether that would be productive or not, I think, is a discussion we could all have.”

“But we have established procedures now with the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where people who take actions as serving presidents or prime ministers of countries have been indicted and have been tried. So the precedent is there to do that sort of thing,” he pointed out. “And I think we need to ask ourselves whether or not it would be useful to do that in the case of members of the Bush administration.”

“It’s clear that things that the Bush administration did — in my mind, at least, it’s clear that some of the things they did were war crimes.”

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, has also said that he would be willing to testify in a war crimes trial against Bush administration officials.

Cheney in particular strikes me as one of the most amoral individuals one might encounter.  Sadly, Bush is an idiot who I suspect Cheney manipulated like a empty headed puppet.  He should NEVER have been president. Everyday that Cheney walks free without facing a trial for his misdeeds  is an insult to the Americans he sent to their deaths not to mention the thousands and thousands of Iraqis tortured or needlessly killed in a war that had no justification.  Thankfully, at least one nation has convicted them in absentia for war crimes.