Finally, someone does the right thing.
The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights has filed a criminal complaint against U.S. torture program architects and members of the Bush Administration. The organization has accused CIA director George Tenet and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of war crimes and they’ve called for a German prosecutor to conduct an immediate investigation.
It won’t go anywhere, I suspect. But we need more people to at least stand up and point at the criminals.
in accordance with international standards established by the USA they can send drones to kill Rummy and Tenet.
tsig:
Now now, let’s not be uncivilised. Extraordinary rendition (aka “kidnapping”) would be enough to start with.
This is good news. I was also surprised and delighted to see the NY Times Editorial Board calling for a criminal investigation the other day. I doubt this sort of public pressure will result in any prosecutions, but it might start shifting those poll numbers, and that would be something.
I assume that the full list of named defendants includes Bush and Cheney. It should. They shouldn’t get off the hook for being the top elected leaders. I also hope the list will include John Yoo and John Rizzo. The slimy lawyers who sat thousands of miles away and wrote excuses that strain the bounds of all reason to claim that this behavior was legal should be the first to be prosecuted, not forgotten as an afterthought as they’re counting on.
Not Dick Cheney? Or that asshole from the CIA who was on CBC going on about how he helped to set up the rendition program and thinks torture is peachy?
The delicious irony of Germany trying members of the U.S. Government for war crimes. ‘Nurinburg the Revenge’
It’s a nice gesture at least.
Maybe Bush & Cheney aren’t on the list in a futile attempt to slightly increase the probability of the charge going anywhere.
You’re talking about two different Germanies.
Hey, if Spain can arrest Pinochet…..
Ibis3 @5:
Ah yes, Michael Scheuer.
Thank you, Germany.
What about that guy whose administration fought to prevent this information from becoming public, and who shielded Bush, Cheney, and the other perpetrators from investigation–let alone prosecution–and who continues to hold admittedly innocent people prisoner at Guantanamo under conditions that Amnesty International deems to be torture? Have they indicted that guy yet? You know, what’s his name… rhymes with… I’ll Bomb Ya or something… What about him?
#9, Eamon Knight:
They’d have got him too, if it wasn’t for a bunch of fascist-friendly shits in the UK government. I suspect that the people involved in this case would be a lot more cautious about their foreign travel.
To our extremely fucking deep and abiding shame, yes.
(Incidentally, normally the death of any former PM gets either a) solemnly mourned by those that liked them, b) a few anodyne words from those who didn’t or c) met with silence even by those who most loathed and despised them. When Pinochet’s dear personal friend (among other things) Thatcher died, there was considerable open celebration in some parts of the UK and I saw not a few messages of relief and rejoicing painted on the walls around town.)
I emailed them a thank you note…
Vielen Danke, Deutschland!
btw. its:
info@ecchr.eu
Technically, Germany hasn’t done squat. This is more like the ACLU filing a complaint. Unless and until the courts take some action on the complaint, Germany hasn’t done this, one human rights organization in Germany has done it. The linked website is fairly deceptive on this, frankly. The Democracy Now source does a much better job of explaining it.
Still, thanks for somebody doing something, and I hope the courts will hear the case.
Amy Goodman interviewed a defense attorney named Martin Garbus on the story as well and I really strongly endorse one of his comments regarding Jay Bybee and John Yoo:
Hmmm. Why is this titled “Thank You, Germany”? According to its website, the organization is chaired by Michael Ratner*, an attorney from Cleveland, Ohio, who is also President Emeritus of the similar Center for Constitutional Rights here in the US. The ECCHR seems to be comprised of individuals from around the globe and is German only in that it is based in Berlin. It’s sort of like saying “Thank You, USA” for something the UN got right.
*Apparently his siblings are Ellen Ratner, a Harvard-educated LGBT woman who seems to always play the token liberal for conservative outlets like Fox News and the WND, and Bruce Ratner, the POS responsible for the Atlantic Yards landgrab in Brooklyn so he could build a purty new stadium for the basketball team he sold to the Russian oligarch for a fucktonne of money.
Lilith Velkor @ 6:
More like ‘Nurinburg the We Actually Learned Something’.
What someone needs to do is file a complaint with the ICC. If something should come of that, which I very much doubt, perhaps it would do better than the Nuremberg trials. A lot of mid-level and lower echelon Nazis and Fascists walked away without so much as a wrist slap. As noted here in another thread recently, quite a few Nazis worked for various German government agencies and businesses. I’ve run across the bios of numerous German military officers who were given life sentences or very long sentences but were freed during the 50s, often within a few years of their conviction.
@Lilith Velkor
As a German who has spent a lot of time in the US, I don’t see much irony in it either way. It’s not Germany vs. U.S. or U.S. versus Germany, it’s decent people everywhere vs. war criminals everywhere.
@David Marjanovic
I’m always confused about that – there’s this fringe right wing group who claim that the federal republic is illegitimate, but nevertheless it seems to be a mainstream view that the Reich still exists in some form.
Lilith Velkor, #6
It’s scrumptious payback for the delicious irony of the United States trying members of the Nazi government for trying to exterminate people of a certain ethnicity from their land. Sadly, it won’t work.
#23 Alex
I’m unaware of both ideas. From what I can tell, the official position is much like when you inherit the house from your parents – you may have a somewhat similar name, and live in the same place, and you pay back their mortgage, but you’re not the same person. (In the case of Germany, the relevant German legal term seems to be “Rechtsnachfolge” (successor in law?).)
As being a German the thank you gives me a warm feeling. Unfortunately, it comes too early. The German politics is not going a confrontation path when it comes to criticise US government politics. Our government is much too devote.
E.g. When Snowden showed how widely German law was broken by NSA our General Attorney Mr. Range did – nothing. Only when it was clear even chancellor Merkel’s mobile was spied on (Hey, what do a million people spied on count compared to our chancellor?) he did a fake investigation and in the end telling “no evidence found” (facepalm) – case closed.
I bet Germany will do nothing that could blame the US government even in the slightest way. Sorry! And, we (our government) are in fact too deeply involved in the abductions and collaboration with torturers.
And much worse: In October there was a poll published in Germany showing a third of our law students support death penalty and – about 50% approve torture as a legitimate method of investigation… That drives me crazy! What kind of horrible judges will be rising from them?