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US War Criminals

This lawyer, acting in his legally-privileged position of White House Counsel, wrote a memo declaring Geneva Conventions for treatment of prisoners quaint and obsolete. George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and their subordinates used this memo, and others like it, for legitimizing and legalizing their actions. Unfortunately, the level of error in these legal memos is so high, it makes the lawyers themselves guilty of war crimes. What if doctors prescribed arsenic to relieve high blood pressure? What these lawyers did is like that, so wrong, the law assumes these lawyers wanted to abuse their position to facilitate violations of international law.

Someday yet, we may see these criminals brought to justice in United States Federal court, indicted by grand juries comprised of ordinary Americans.
November 11, 2010
By Dan Allen



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US war criminals, President George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Condolezza Rice, Colin Powell, others

GW Bush's admission he authorized water boarding puts burden on United States government to prosecute.
Amnesty International says the United States government is obligated under international law to prosecute former president George W. Bush following his admission to authorizing the waterboarding torture technique. Writing in his new memoir Decision Points, Bush says he first granted the CIA permission to waterboard self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. In a statement, Amnesty International said, "Under international law, anyone involved in torture must be brought to justice, and that does not exclude [Bush]. If his admission is substantiated, the U.S. has the obligation to prosecute him."

US Supreme Court, Regarding War Crimes[ 1 ]
"The majority opinion, reaffirming the 'minimal protection' offered by Common Article 3, was written by Justice John Paul Stevens. One of the Justices went even further: Common Article 3 was part of the law of war and of a treaty that the US had ratified. 'By Act of Congress,' Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote pointedly, 'violations of Common Article 3 are considered 'war crimes', punishable as federal offences, when committed by or against United States nationals and military personnel.'

"Justice Kennedy's remark put the issue of war crimes on the American political agenda. Individuals who had contributed to a violation of Common Article 3 would know that they were at risk of criminal investigation and prosecution. Even more ominously, it underscored the risk of being investigated outside the US.

"Parties to the international Torture Convention are required to investigate any person who is alleged to have committed torture. If appropriate, they must then prosecute - or extradite the person to a place where he will be prosecuted. The Torture Convention is also more explicit than Geneva in that it criminalises any act that constitutes complicity or participation in torture. Complicity or participation could certainly be extended not only to the politicians and but also the lawyers involved in the condoning of the 18 techniques. After all, the scheme applied to al-Qahtani was devised by lawyers, reviewed by lawyers, overseen by lawyers."

Norton-Taylor writes in the Guardian: "The lawyers, all political appointees, who pushed through the interrogation techniques were Alberto Gonzales, [Cheney legal counsel] David Addington and [Pentagon general counsel] William Haynes. Also involved were Doug Feith, Rumsfeld's under-secretary for policy, and [Justice Department officials] Jay Bybee and John Yoo. . . .

"Larry Wilkerson, a former army officer and chief of staff to Colin Powell, US secretary of state at the time, told the Guardian: 'Haynes, Feith, Yoo, Bybee, Gonzales and -- at the apex-- Addington, should never travel outside the US, except perhaps to Saudi Arabia and Israel. They broke the law; they violated their professional ethical code. In future, some government may build the case necessary to prosecute them in a foreign court, or in an international court.'"

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    POLITICS
co-edited by RIGHTEOUS REGINA THE REPUBLICAN and DAN ALLEN

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