A Case for International War Crimes Tribunals »
Posted By Spadecaller 6 months, 2 weeks ago in Political NewsTo try individuals accused of crimes against humanity an international war crimes tribunal is indispensable. Recent revelations about the alleged war crimes committed by members of the Bush administration have energized public and world opinion in support of hearings to address crimes of war. Notwithstanding the atrocious nature of the crimes that individuals commit, including waterboarding, sleep deprivation, stress positions, sexual exploitation, electrocution, mutilation, unjustified detention, murder, and rape, it has become common practice to provide the accused an opportunity to explain his or her actions before the victims and their families, in addition to the media. Based on agreed-upon international standards of acceptable human behavior, international tribunals offer the best closure for individuals and nations to move beyond the tragedy and trauma that these crimes create. Before a society can begin the peace-building process of reconciliation, crimes that have exceeded the acceptable parameters of war behavior need to be addressed.
Read Full Story at spadecaller.net »
537 Views Share Story 45 Comments Report
Submitted By:
Spadecaller
Welcome to my profile. About me: I'm an artist of several kinds; from bull to painting. I don't spare too many words. Most ...
Other Related Articles:
RSS Join the Discussion
+ Add CommentComments So Far: 45 (view all)
-
78%
Spadecaller6 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Recent memoranda discovered during the Bush administration revealed that the White House had received assurance from legal counsel that there was little possibility of an existing tribunal that would enforce the laws regarding war crimes and illegal torture. Without an established and permanent war crimes court, war criminals may feel emboldened to commit crimes.
Reply
Has the time come to create a tribunal and to bring war criminals up for trial? What do you think?-
50%
hyperbola6 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
We will see if Obama is serious about joining the world's democracies and abandoning our military imperialism when we see if he signs the US up to the international criminal court.
Reply
There is no question that we have a boatload of criminals that need trials. This article provides a good list of them and provides Obama a good opportunity to show whether he will really enforce the american constitution.
The torture trail starts and ends in the White House
...This disclosure comes after the Senate Armed Services Committee’s detailed report, which debunks almost all the claims that Bush Administration officials have thrown up to put investigators off the trail of the torture policy. The claim that the decision to introduce torture was done to accommodate interrogators who were frustrated by their inability to get results, for instance, is belied by the fact that the White House was busy pursuing torture techniques and authority to introduce them before any prisoners had yet been taken....
But each of these disclosures points again to a great mass of potential evidence remaining securely hidden. Colin Powell himself has repeatedly noted that the National Security Council was the center of activity with respect to the introduction of torture and that it carefully documents its internal processes with minutes and records. He urged those pursuing the issue to press for full disclosure of these materials. His guidance (which is remarkable among other things because he will himself be at the center of the inquiry) is revealed by the Holder memorandum to be spot-on....
President Obama and several of his senior advisors are now plainly concerned about the torture issue and the momentum it has achieved. ... We know now that the White House considers it politically “inconvenient” to do this. So the big open question is whether we have an attorney general who enforces the law, or a Democratic version of Alberto Gonzales. That will become apparent soon enough.
http://www.propeller.com/story/2009/04/26/the-tort... -
0%
hyperbola6 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Of coures Spade, the other group that has richly earned international criminal trials over the past 60 years are the zionists in Palestine. You do support trials for them as well don't you?
Reply
Investigating Israeli War Crimes in Gaza
... Amnesty International accused Israel of war crimes and called on the UN Security Council to impose an arms embargo. ...
...Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHRI) and the Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS) compiled detailed evidence of war crimes in a lengthy report...
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va=... -
33%
Endoscopy6 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Another Spadecaller idiocy. What is the Federal law regarding torture? Is waterboarding considered torture according to the US law?
Reply
Here is the Federal law foolish libs. Notice that there is no pain associated with waterboarding and the “severe mental pain or suffering” does not qualify either. Congress in 2002 approved these methods but now they have amnesia. Democrats are lying about this for political advantage as well as Obama hurting our interrogation of terrorists by releasing those documents. It was done to only three men and the information obtained saved an attack on LA that could have killed thousands. Spadecaller wishes that those thousands were killed instead. What a bloodthirsty guy.
---------------------------------------------
US Code TITLE 18, PART I, CHAPTER 113C
2340. Definitions
As used in this chapter—
(1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;
(2) “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from—
(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
(C) the threat of imminent death; or
(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality; and
(3) “United States” means the several States of the United States, the District of Columbia, and the commonwealths, territories, and possessions of the United States.
---------------------------------------------
-
-
-
60%
AndyJ2156 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
It must have been difficult for Specter to remain in THE TORTURE-APPROVING PARTY, as it should be for anyone with a conscience!!!
Reply
THE GOP IS THE PARTY THAT CLAIMS TO HAVE CHRISTIAN "FAMILY VALUES," but promoted the TORTURE OF PRISONERS, in violation of international law, according to THE INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS.
There are many sources for that fact. Here’s one:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/16/terror/m...
And still, they try to deny that it happened or otherwise “cover” for it.
(The GOP is also the party of the ORIGINAL BANKING BAILOUT signed by Bush, and the party of sex offenders Larry Craig and Mark Foley, graft expert Ted Stevens, convicted dirty trickster and burglar G. Gordon Liddy, lobbyist and GOP bribery expert Jack Abramoff, etc., etc.)
REPUBLICANS: THE PARTY OF FAMILY VALUES, BANKER BAILOUTS, CONVICTED FELONS, COVER-UPS AND TORTURE!
*** All or any part of this comment
*** may be copied, re-posted, etc.
*** No copyright is claimed on it. -
80%
Spadecaller6 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Thanks Charlson
Reply
I also thought that the ICC would be a reliable source for all nations. Regrettably, the Court has become a battle ground between law and politics.
Regrettably, the USA did not sign up to the ICC statute. Hardly surprising, considering Bush's strategies during the “war on terror” not to mention decades of dubious interventions from Latin America to Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Added to this are the Bilateral Immunity Agreements (BIA’s) that the US has made with a number of countries which prohibit the surrender to the ICC of a very broad spectrum of persons associated with the US, even cutting off aid from countries which refuse to enter into these agreements.
An international tribunal that is held above politics needs to be established, in my honest opinion.-
33%
Endoscopy6 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Explain to me why it is the Bush administration that is guilty of torture.
Reply
1. As I posted above the fact that waterboarding is not torture under the federal law.
2. The Bush administration had all of congress briefed on the methods to be used in 2002.
Only 1 disagreed with them. The rest agreed or asked if harsher methods could be used.
This means that the Bush administration sought and got the consent of congress. So are we supposed to have hearings by the people who endorsed this? Conflict of interest. Silly libs ignore what the law is and what congress did.
So Spadecaller who should be tried. Those who suggested the idea of those who endorsed it? Especially silly when you realize that according to the law I posted above it was all legal. Silly libs.
-
-
86%
berkeley6 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
in general, the ICC is still a good idea, but the first choice for bush/cheney is for our own DOJ to do the right thing.
Reply
the law is clear. the actions are documented. the paper trail leads to bush.
any prosecutor would drool for a case like this. except of course for political pressure, blackmail, murder-threats, and financial ruin.
this will be obama's biggest test and unless public pressure and congress both demand action, i suspect it will be covered up in a commission that will take years and only get a few underlings. -
100%
dailyblueberry6 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
"safeguard the world from repressive regimes and from leaders who use their power to obscure their crimes against humanity"
Reply
If this is your end theory, Spade, those other regimes will have had to have shown current change based on our current "judicial" actions. Iran continues to blindfold the UN. North Korea continues to blackmail the international community. Russian plays nice, while at the same time, shutting down opposite opinion. Sweden continues to forcibly make their people talk with that accent....:0) Humor introduced to break the ice.
Is "Safeguard"ing really your end theory?
I'm willing to admit I could be wrong in this area, because I have not fully thought out the ramifications of "not prosecuting" those who ordered the torture. Here are a few thoughts, though, as to why I would be against an international court prosecuting American citizens. One...prosecution would be another level of government intervention that will not fully satisfy you or anyone else in the country. Two....we don't have the patience for a (x)year trial period, and a (x)year appeal period. Three....we care little about the actual enforcement of any judicial sentence. Four...international opinion or influence, without proof that each international influence has not committed the exact crimes should have no weight on sentencing practices on American sentences.
Just some thoughts.-
86%
Spadecaller6 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Why are the war crimes committed by other nations actionable and not those committed by the U.S.?
Reply
Are you advocating that the United States and its leaders should be held above the international laws that all other nations are obligated to respect?
We have seen a Congress that has remained silent, a corporate owned media that failed to challenge the Bush administration's call for an unnecessary war in Iraq, and a judicial system that was coerced in supporting unconstitutional and illegal torture.
Where are the people of the United States and the world to turn when a powerful nation like the U.S. becomes untouchable?
Who do the abused victims turn to -- those innocent detainees that were imprisoned for years as the result of a poverty stricken Pakistani's unscrupulous quest for a bounty?
-
-
50%
KISA452a6 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
The failure in your logic is that you would believe the outcome of such a kangaroo court. I would be much more inclined (although not effectively) to believe a US court on this issue. I would never be willing to believe the outcome of such an international court unless it agreed with my prior thoughts. As would most on the other side of this issue. It will not help, it is not trustworthy, it is not a realistic alternative. Maybe in an intellectual fantasy world, but not in real life.
Reply
Maybe we could get Chavez and Castro to sit on it to give it legitmacy?-
50%
hyperbola6 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Well, Venezuela certainly has committed far fewer cirmes against humanity than the US. Let's not forget that the cheney/wolfowitz/rumsfeld crowd started their crimes against humanity already in the 1970s in Indonesia, continued them in Iran/Iraq as well as central america in the 1980s and doubled them in the last 8 years.
Reply
Crimes Against Humanity From Ford to Saddam
Now that both Gerald Ford and Saddam Hussein are dead and buried, the question of how they will be remembered here in the United States arises....
...If we do not limit our analysis of Ford to his role as a U.S. "statesman," and instead examine his behavior through an internationalist lens similar to that employed to judge Saddam Hussein and concerned with crimes against humanity, we find that Ford, too, was responsible for mass murder-in East Timor. The responsibility goes further than Ford's now-well-known giving to Indonesia the proverbial green light to invade. What the green light metaphor obscures is just how decisive Ford's authorization was, and how his complicity with Indonesia's crimes continued throughout his brief White House occupancy.
On Dec. 6, 1975, Ford and Henry Kissinger...
http://www.counterpunch.org/nevins01062007.html
and, of course, we shouldn't forget the serial crimes against humanity we have supported throughout latin america, starting with Kissinger's support of death squads in Argentina. -
-
-
100%
FrankHummel6 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
The Damage Has Already Been Done-
Reply
To all the foolish folk who argue that "laying out the details" of the whole torture obscenity will do this country no good, because it would "expose" ALL of "our" interrogation methods, and that public trials would "cement hatred of the U.S. for generations to come", asking "What, really, would we gain as a nation?":
I submit that you people who would represent the whole business to each other and yourselves in such a manner HAVE ALREADY MISSED THE BOAT!
The "damage" which you decry HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE, AND QUITE A LONG TIME AGO NOW ALREADY! It can be neither "done" NOR UN"done" by the people of THIS miscreant nation facing up to its MISdeeds!
And indeed, the damage has actually BEEN done by those who COMMMITTED the "actions" which are now the "subject" of the "debate" --- NOT BY THOSE WHO "EXPOSE" THEM! The people who have been the OBJECTS of those "actions", and ALSO a great many other UNINVOLVED observers, are ALREADY WELL AWARE OF THEM! It is, after all, only POLLYANNAS OVER HERE who have been "kept in the dark" (or maybe more accurately, in most cases HAVE DELIBERATELY CHOSEN TO "HIDE" "in the dark"!) --- who are "at risk" of being "influenced" in consequence of the "disclosure" of what HAVE LONG BEEN ACTUAL REALITIES! -
100%
Tcaros6 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
The Republicans want to "cover-up" for Bush. That is why they are saying to move on.
Reply
I've written letters to Senator Feinstein today to press for prosecution of those who authorized and those in the intelligence world who commmitted the crimes.
We need to investigate the intelligence agencies and put people in jail, absolutely. -
-
-
100%
Georgia506 months, 2 weeks ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
I look forward to seeing Nancy Pelosi hoisted by her own petard. Of course we all know that when liberal filth lies move forward, it's assumed that liberal filth are innocent and only conservatives may be considered guilty.
Reply
And in this case, the issue is treating terrorists not quite as badly as our own US military personnel undergoing intensive E and E training.
Yes...liberals ARE that stupid.
Add a Comment
Sign In With Your Propeller Account
Please keep your comments relevant to this story.
To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.