Tuesday, November 14, 2006

War Crimes? Get Real, Leftists!


A lawsuit in Germany will seek a criminal prosecution of the outgoing Defense Secretary and other U.S. officials for their alleged role in abuses at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo



Here’s what Fuse Action has to say:
Monday, November 13, 2006

War Crimes Suit Filed in Germany Against Rumsfeld, Janis Karpinski to Testify, Plaintiff's Suit Category: News and Politics
Tuesday, November 14th, 2006War Crimes Suit Filed in Germany Against Rumsfeld, Other Top U.S. Officials Over Prisoner Torture
Attorneys with the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a war crimes lawsuit today in Germany against outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and other high-ranking U.S. officials, for their role in the torture of prisoners in Iraq and Guantanamo. We go to Berlin to speak with CCR president Michael Ratner. [includes rush transcript]
The Center for Constitutional Rights filed a criminal complaint in Germany today against outgoing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The complaint requests that the German Federal Prosecutor open an investigation - and ultimately, a criminal prosecution - looking into the responsibility of high-ranking U.S. officials for authorizing war crimes in the name of the so-called "War on Terror."
Former White House Counsel and current Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez and former CIA Director George Tenet, are also charged in the complaint. The suit is being brought on behalf of a dozen torture victims - 11 Iraqi citizens who were held at Abu Ghraib prison and one Guantánamo detainee. The plaintiffs claim they were victims of electric shock, severe beatings, sleep and food deprivation and sexual abuse. The complaint filed today is related to a 2004 complaint that was dismissed. This new complaint is filed under new circumstances including the recent resignation of Donald Rumsfeld. Germany"s laws on torture and war crimes permit the prosecution of suspected war criminals wherever they may be found.
Michael Ratner, the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. He joins us from Berlin, Germany.



Ms Huffington has a few words to say, as you might imagine:

Civil rights activists filed suit Tuesday asking German prosecutors to open a war crimes investigation of outgoing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and a host of other U.S. officials for their alleged roles in abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo Bay.
The 220-page document was sent to federal prosecutors by U.S. and German attorneys under a German law that allows the prosecution of war crimes regardless of where they were committed. It alleges that Rumsfeld personally ordered and condoned torture.
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Also from the blogosphere comes this take

A coalition of human rights groups has filed a criminal lawsuit against former US secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld in Germany, accusing him of war crimes. A first attempt to prosecute him in 2004 failed, but the activists feel they have a better chance this time -- and they have a powerful witness on their side.(...) The coalition, led by the New York-based civil rights group Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), filed a criminal complaint against Rumsfeld on Tuesday at the Federal Prosecutor's Office in Karlsruhe, Germany. The complaint calls on the prosecutor to investigate whether high-ranking US officials authorized war crimes in the context of the war on terror. The complaint is being brought on behalf of 12 alleged torture victims, 11 of whom are Iraqi citizens who were held at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. The twelfth man is Guantanamo detainee Mohammed al-Qahtani, a Saudi citizen identified by the US as a would-be participant in the 9/11 attacks and held at Guantanamo since January 2006. After al-Qahtani did not respond to normal questioning, he was allegedly subjected to a regime of aggressive interrogation techniques, approved by Rumsfeld and known as the "First Special Interrogation Plan,"
This is sort of like kids playing at being grownups, isn't it.
It must be nice for these people who have all this time on their hands.
It would be nice if they had come out aginst, say, Saddam, or Sadr, or Khomeini, or Arafat, etc.
Michael Blackburn

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