Do you think the Dems will go after him for war crimes? I don't see that as very likely. It's more likely that the terrorists he's been keeping in secret prisons without any representation will be allowed to tell the world exactly what "extreme interrogation techniques", i.e. torture, were used on them. This would reveal yet MORE lies from Bush, since he claims he doesn't torture.
Yes, for breaking the law. The SCOTUS decision is but a cumlmination of a long appeal process. The chimp has been breaking the law for a while now, on the very thin interpretation that terrorists are not enemy combatants, and therefore not subject to US law, nor the Geneva convention. The SCOTUS put an end to that one last month. So now the chimp is exposed and frantic to get the laws changed.
The whole thing is stupid. We should have laws that forbid torture, as we always have had, ...
We do..that's the point.
US Law on Torture
Title 18, Sec. 2340A(a) USC states that the penalty for the crime of torture is: “Whoever outside the United States commits or attempts to commit torture shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both, and if death results to any person from conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall be punished by death or imprisoned for any term of years or for life.”
Outside the United States includes the high seas, US aircraft, US ships, lands bought or leased by the US, and “...diplomatic, consular, military or other United States Government missions or entities in foreign States, including the buildings, parts of buildings, and land appurtenant or ancillary thereto or used for purposes of those missions or entities, irrespective of ownership.” (Title 18, Part I, Chapter 1, Sec.7)
Title 18, Sec. 2340A(a) USC states that those who conspire to commit this offense are subject to the same penalties.
Torture is defined under Title 18, Sec. 2340 USC - Definitions: “...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...” And “severe” is defined as
“...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...”
We are dealing with legal definitions and statutes, but the law is not statutes only. The law is also the opinion of courts and judges interpreting the statutes in relation to the facts of a particular case. There is plenty of wiggle room in these torture statutes, the principle one being the question of intent. Did the US military intend to cause “severe” pain or suffering according to the USC definition?
In light of what we already know of policy decisions at the highest levels in the White House and Pentagon, the aim and intent of the Bush government was to inflict suffering on anyone who seemed to have information about people who opposed the invasion of Iraq. If the abusers cannot be prosecuted over torture charges, then other charges would suffice, like assault and battery, or any other crimes involving abusive conduct. Those who authorized abuse, such as Rumsfeld and Bush, must be held accountable for their actions in a court of law. But the larger issue is one of morality. Bush cannot claim the moral high ground in this filthy descent into barbarism.
US Military holds Iraqis Hostage: Commits War Crimes
Kidnapping family members is a form of abuse and torture. Iraqi human rights groups say they have documented dozens of cases in which family members who were not accused of any crimes had been detained for weeks or even months and told that they would be released only when a wanted relative surrendered to US forces. “We have many cases of Americans going to a house looking for someone, and when they can’t find him, they take another family member in his place,” said Basem al-Rubaie, director of the Council of Legal Defense Care, a group of Iraqi lawyers that has been campaigning for prisoner rights. “This has been going on since the early days of the American occupation.”12
“It’s clearly an abuse of the powers of arrest, to arrest one person and say that you’re going to hold him until he gives information about somebody else, especially a close relative,” said John Quigley, an international law professor at Ohio State University. “Arrests are supposed to be based on suspicion that the person has committed some offense.”13
Human rights activists said the US military held dozens of Iraqis as bargaining chips to put pressure on their wanted relatives to surrender. These prisoners were not accused of any crimes, and experts say their detention violated the Geneva Conventions and other international laws. It made America look hypocritical.14
On kidnapping, Col. David Hogg, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division, said such methods were used to gather intelligence. On 23 July 2003 Hogg said his men seized the wife and daughter of an Iraqi lieutenant general. They left a note: “If you want your family released, turn yourself in.” Hogg claimed such tactics were justified because, “It’s an intelligence operation with detainees, and these people have info.” The kidnapping tactic worked well enough. On 25 July the wanted man appeared at the front gate of the US base and surrendered.15
However, holding innocent civilians hostage in order to force their relatives to surrender is a violation of Articles 31, 33, and 34 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, signed at Geneva, August 12, 1949, and ratified by the US Congress:
Art. 31. No physical or moral coercion shall be exercised against protected persons, in particular to obtain information from them or from third parties.
Art. 33. No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.
Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.
Art. 34. Taking hostages is prohibited.
Art. 4. Persons protected by the Convention are those who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals.
Art. 146. The High Contracting Parties undertake to enact any legislation necessary to provide effective penal sanctions for persons committing, or ordering to be committed, any of the grave breaches of the present Convention defined in the following Article....Each High Contracting Party shall be under the obligation to search for persons alleged to have committed, or to have ordered to be committed, such grave breaches, and shall bring such persons, regardless of their nationality, before its own courts...
Art. 147. Grave breaches to which the preceding Article relates shall be those involving any of the following acts, if committed against persons or property protected by the present Convention: . . . unlawful confinement of a protected person, [and] taking of hostages...
The United States, in the War Crimes Act of 1996, codified at Title 18, sec. 2441, of the United States Code, implements articles 146 and 147 to provide criminal penalties for “grave breaches” of the Fourth Geneva Convention:
Title 18, Sec. 2441, USC. War crimes.
(a) Offense. - Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.
(b) Circumstances. - The circumstances referred to in subsection (a) are that the person committing such war crime or the victim of such war crime is a member of the Armed Forces of the United States or a national of the United States (as defined in section 101 of the Immigration and Nationality Act).
(c) Definition. - As used in this section the term war crimes means any conduct -
(1) defined as a grave breach in any of the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party.
Thus, every member of the US military and every US national responsible for holding an Iraqi hostage in order to force his or her relative to surrender is guilty of a “grave breach” of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and of Title 18, sec. 2441, USC. Every such person (particularly commanders) should be prosecuted as a war criminal. They should know better. They do know better. What are they teaching these people at West Point?
An unnamed military official said “The coalition does not take hostages. Relatives who might have information about wanted persons are sometimes detained for questioning, and then they are released. There is no policy of holding people as bargaining chips.” The ICRC quoted military intelligence as saying that between “70 and 90 percent” of the nearly 8,000 Iraqis detained by occupation forces had been arrested “by mistake.” In some cases, the report found, US troops continued to hold people for several months after they had been cleared of any wrongdoing. (see Bazzi, op cit)
Yet again, the Chicago Tribune (among others) reported in April 2004 about Sgt. Samuel Provance’s account of a prisoner’s son in an attempt to get the father to talk. Americans at Abu Ghraib stripped the boy naked, threw him in the back of an open truck, and drove him around in public spattered with mud and filth. The boy was displayed to the father, who then agreed to tell the Americans anything they wanted. Provance’s account echoed concerns raised by the ICRC, which had received reports that interrogators in Abu Ghraib were threatening reprisals against detainee's family members. Provance had been deemed a credible witness by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba.
The US also ratified (1994) the United Nations Convention Against Torture. |
