Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Laugh all you want, Georgie

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I don't think you realize just how pissed off the world community is...
In remarks that aired on German television last night, Manfred Nowak, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, urged the U.S. to pursue former President George W. Bush and defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld on charges that they authorized torture and other harsh interrogation techniques:
“Judicially speaking, the United States has a clear obligation” to bring proceedings against Bush and Rumsfeld. […] He noted Washington had ratified the UN convention on torture which required “all means, particularly penal law” to be used to bring proceedings against those violating it.

“We have all these documents that are now publicly available that prove that these methods of interrogation were intentionally ordered by Rumsfeld,” against detainees at the US prison facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Nowak said.

Indeed, a bipartisan Senate report released last month found that Rumsfeld “bore major responsibility” for abuses committed at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and other military detention centers. Just last week, a Bush administration official overseeing Gitmo trials said Rumsfeld approved the torture of one particular detainee. Bush himself said last year that he was aware of his advisers’ discussions on torture and recently admitted that he personally authorized waterboarding Kalid Sheik Muhammad.

Well, if the US can't bring the Bush administration to account, then we'll have to get somebody else to drag the neocons to the Hague. I'd really like to see Bush at the dock trying to explain things without Unka Dick by his side...

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't mind if he has Dick Cheney at his side, while both are on trial for crimes against humanity.

ellroon said...

I want to see George try to explain himself... without help.

mapaghimagsik said...

That would be *entirely too cool* in the justice kind of sense.

I'd need a national health care plan just to get the grin removed from my face.

ellroon said...

There would be a line around the block, Map....

Steve Bates said...

Maybe we could send them to Gitmo for trials by a military commission, while Gitmo and such commissions still exist. Then maybe ellroon could write a parody called "Sittin' in the dock at the Bay..."

ellroon said...

ERGHhahdwggg! The song is stuck in my brain!

Sittin' in the Dock of the Hague was close but at the Bay might work better...

Steve Bates said...

Oops; sorry. I'm getting old, ellroon... I forgot that I had inflicted one form of that one on you before. As compensation, at the very least, you'll get a link to your earlier work in my latest post about Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side, which I'm writing right now.

ellroon said...

Ooo, Off to read your review.