Leaked Red Cross report sets up Bush team for international war-crimes trial

[Totally Committed]

History Will Not Absolve Us
Leaked Red Cross report sets up Bush team for international war-crimes trial

by Nat Hentoff , The Village Voice

If and when there's the equivalent of an international Nuremberg trial for the American perpetrators of crimes against humanity in Guantánamo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the CIA's secret prisons, there will be mounds of evidence available from documented international reports by human-rights organizations, including an arm of the European parliament—as well as such deeply footnoted books as Stephen Grey's Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program (St. Martin's Press) and Charlie Savage's just-published Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy (Little, Brown).

While the Democratic Congress has yet to begin a serious investigation into what many European legislators already know about American war crimes, a particularly telling report by the International Committee of the Red Cross has been leaked that would surely figure prominently in such a potential Nuremberg trial. The Red Cross itself is bound to public silence concerning the results of its human-rights probes of prisons around the world—or else governments wouldn't let them in.

But The New Yorker's Jane Mayer has sources who have seen accounts of the Red Cross interviews with inmates formerly held in CIA secret prisons. In "The Black Sites" (August 13, The New Yorker), Mayer also reveals the effect on our torturers of what they do—on the orders of the president—to "protect American values." She quotes a former CIA officer: "When you cross over that line of darkness, it's hard to come back. You lose your soul. You can do your best to justify it, but . . . you can't go back to that dark a place without it changing you."

Few average Americans have been changed, however, by what the CIA does in our name. Blame that on the tight official secrecy that continues over how the CIA extracts information. On July 20, the Bush administration issued a new executive order authorizing the CIA to continue using these techniques—without disclosing anything about them. If we, the people, are ultimately condemned by a world court for our complicity and silence in these war crimes, we can always try to echo those Germans who claimed not to know what Hitler and his enforcers were doing. But in Nazi Germany, people had no way of insisting on finding out what happened to their disappeared neighbors. We, however, have the right and the power to insist that Congress discover and reveal the details of the torture and other brutalities that the CIA has been inflicting in our name on terrorism suspects.

Entire article:

http://www.villagevoice.com/generic/show_print.php?id=77643&page=&issue=0735&printcde=MzU2NTAzMzA1MA==&refpage=L2FkbWluL2VkaXQvZWRpdC5waHA/aWQ9Nzc2NDMmaXNzdWU9MDczNSZzZWN0aW9uPW5ld3M=


More Nat Hentoff articles to check out:

Bush to CIA: 'Leave No Marks'
With no sign of torture on a prisoner, then it didn't happen, right?

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0734,hentoff,77589,2.html


Darfur Betrayed
China, naturally, supports a UN resolution with no teeth

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0733,hentoff,77521,2.html


'There Is No Law Here'
A funny thing happened on the way to monarchy: a rare Supreme Court take-back

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0729,hentoff,77238,6.html


Architect of Torture
The Berkeley professor who gave a president a license to (all but) kill


http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0728,hentoff,77169,6.html


TC

[insanad]

1. War Criminal, Let him and his family pay$$$$

http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?op...

The War In Iraq Costs SO FAR...

$456,172,238,408

Instead, we could have insured
273,157,028
children for one year.

Instead, we could have built
4,107,403
additional housing units.


Instead, we could have hired
7,905,524
additional public school teachers for one year.

Instead, we could have paid for
60,420,205
children to attend a year of Head Start.


Instead, we could have provided
22,114,244
students four-year scholarships at public universities.

SO FAR, and the counter is running with $4,100 for every American household;
$1,500 for every American;
$3,400 for every taxpayer;
$11 million per hour and;
$275 million per day.

Think what that amount of money could have done if we'd invested it in alternative energy sources. At $4,100 per household, we could have made solar, wind, or other natural and renewable sources of energy available to each home in America, making oil and coal nearly obsolete in the heating and cooling of our homes. If we'd spent that on our auto industries and created more fuel efficient, cleaner, or even electric transportation, think what that could do for our dependence on oil and the unstable countries we do business with.

I do sincerely hope that our nation will be able to hold George Bush and his cronies, and the companies he is in bed with accountable for this war and what it's cost all of us. I believe he should be held accountable for what has happened to Iraq, and on some part, the loss of lives of the Iraqi people. He is a war president as he always hoped, but he's also a war criminal and should be prosecuted as such. The money hurts now, but the loss of our military strength, the reputation and integrity of our nation, the loss of esteem of the nations of the world and so much more are the true legacy of George W. Bush. Death would be too good for this buffoon.

[Totally Committed]

2. Reparations... interesting thought.

I still want to see some accountability aside from $$$, though.

TC

[soothsayer]

3. I thought the US was immune from war crimes because we're not part of the

world court

[Totally Committed]

5. I thought so, too, but a friend of mine -- who is familiar with international law -- says

that that is set to come up again for a vote at the beginning of the next presidential term (2008 or 2009). If there is a Democratic President, that could be changed.

That's what I was told, anyway. It does explain why Bush has invested in a large tract of land in Paraguay -- a country with no extradition with the U.S. or The World Court.

TC

[cobalt1999]

13. IMO, no way does a US president ever agree to that.

The next president would be worried about it applying to themselves. The US is called on to provide muscle for many of UN actions, and situations like Kosovo. Thus, leaving any president open to potential charges.

I just don't see it.

[SpiralHawk]

4. "What, me torture? Smirk, smirk, smirk" - Commander AWOL

[Totally Committed]

6. kick

:kick:

TC

[Senator]

7. Failure To Impeach Makes DC Dems Complicit

Sorry, but we don't get to "make the rules" on this stuff.

Gov't officials are bound to report and act to stop suspected torture and war crimes. (And in this case is already been adjudicated by the USSC in Hamdan.)

With majority power came responsibility to act.

---

[paparush]

8. This Just In - Bush Designates Intl Red Cross as a Terruhist Organization

Fuel up the B-2's boyz!

[Totally Committed]

9. This was my first thought when I read this!

Wow.

TC

[Catchawave]

10. K & R

:patriot:

[killbotfactory]

11. kick

“I piss down the throats of these nazis.” -Hunter S. Thompson

[Amonester]

12. Kick and recommend,

There is no Justice when the rich can buy tickets to fly above the law.

[Bullet1987]

14. The Bush Family has been involved in what can be considered war crimes

for a long time now.