Posted on 12/06/2004 3:57:38 PM PST by AMBIVILANCEkilledTHEcat
Alleging responsibility for war crimes and torture at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, a human rights group has filed a criminal complaint in Germany against US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top US officials.
The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and Berlin's Republican Lawyers' Association said they and five Iraqi citizens mistreated by US soldiers were seeking a probe by German federal prosecutors of leading US policymakers.
They said they had chosen Germany because of its Code of Crimes Against International Law, introduced in 2002, which grants German courts universal jurisdiction in cases involving war crimes or crimes against humanity.
It also makes military or civilian commanders who fail to prevent their subordinates from committing such acts liable.
"No other place to go"
"We filed these cases here because there is simply no other place to go," CCR vice president Peter Weiss said in a statement, adding that the US Congress had "failed" to seriously investigate the abuses. "It is clear that the US government is not willing to open an investigation into these allegations against these officials."
The Center for Constitutional Rights noted that while several US soldiers were facing court martial for the abuse and sexual humiliation of prisoners at the US-run Abu Ghraib detention center in Iraq, their superiors looked set to escape discipline.
The complaint names Rumsfeld, former CIA director George Tenet, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Steven Cambone, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, Brigadier General Janis L. Karpinski and other military officers who served in Iraq.
Five victims part of the case
"From Donald Rumsfeld on down, the political and military leaders in charge of Iraq policy must be investigated and held accountable," CCR president Michael Ratner said in a statement issued in Frankfurt, Germany.
The CCR said that the five Iraqis it was representing had been victims of mistreatment including electric shock, severe beatings, sleep and food deprivation and sexual abuse.
It noted that Sanchez and other officers involved in the case were based in Germany. Germany's federal prosecutor now has to decide whether the case warrants further investigation.
DW staff/AFP (win)
He has already been zotted. Go to his profile page. LOL
Yes, where is your concern for the victims of beheadings, rape, adn other crimes commited by the terrorists?
Of course you don't care and I don't beleive you are an American.
Here we have more from the progressives and radical left. They will be the ruin of the Democratic party one way of the other.
If they answer sometimes the mods let us play with them for a bit.
Well, I'll merely add my anecdotal evidence to that of your brother-in-law, without questioning his experience.
I also served in Germany. What impressed me, was the wide-spread (I did not meet enough people to claim it was universal) desire for PEACE. They welcomed me in their homes, knowing I was a member of the American Armed Forces. Their desire was for peace. They had "die Nase voll vom Krieg". They had more than enough war.
I worked with a LOT of Germans, and foreign-national labor units, in a depot. (K-town). These labor units were formed after the war from refugees of the Eastern countries. They would at times discuss their wartime experiences: there was no justification of war crimes. Going on recons for maintenance sites for exercises, the Germans were "universally" helpful. Several told me of their (positive) war-time experiences as American POWs. I never heard a kind word uttered about Hitler, or Nazis, or justifying the Holocaust, etc. . . .
Maybe I hung out with different Germans than your brother-in-law! ;)
Holocaust denial, revisionism, whatever, is basically illegal in Germany. This is not exactly healthy, from an intellectual point-of-view. There could be some resentment of the sheer PC-controlled nature of the issue. The absence of the ability to discuss the situation and its extent. (Personally, I don't get involved in the extent of it; whatever the extent, it was more than bad enough). In any case, I myself never met anyone who denied the Holocaust. I am quite sure the students are taught it all in school, and a German young man who posts here sometimes says the same.
My concern at the time (mid-80s), was not that the Germans were going to be militaristic again, but that the sheer war-weariness from the memory of war, and desire for peace, would mitigate against legitimate defense. Fortunately, Reagan was able to overcome that and get the missles fielded in Europe. That was no small undertaking, and we all should be grateful for Reagan's skill and determination.
Thanks for your input to the discussion.
Good Lord, WHAT in heaven's are you TALKING about??!!
Thanks. That is a quote we would not have heard on the nightly news!
I think he says to send him a Freepmail and he will let you know.
Dang. Came in post-zot.
Gee! maybe I can sue Russia and all the rest of the communists for starving all my Ukrainian and Polish ancestors, and reclaim lost land and wealth as well!
Maybe Iraqi's can sue your useless butt for ignoring their plight while Saddam was stuffing their familly into mass graves.
Take off you twit.
The Germans overseeing human rights trials OH YEAH; the had a lot of experience before and during WW 2 on that subject.
[Special distribution Freepmail to a select few]
We often think about things like the PRC's secret agents or outright Al Qaida cells, fomenting sabotage and terror on our soil. Among the typical useful idiots such as MoveOn are also, very likely, various plants. Now here is something wierder than any of that. Check this guy out:
http://www.academicfreespeech.com/los_pochari.html
http://www.islamonline.net/livedialogue/english/Guestcv.asp?hGuestID=Ztyih4
http://www.alb-net.com/pipermail/alb-club/Week-of-Mon-20030811/016282.html
http://www.islamonline.org/livedialogue/english/Browse.asp?hGuestID=mqX9op
Here are some interesting points about him:
* Believes the USA (post Islamization / Communization / Nazification) will unite with Russia (post all of the above) against - Israel!
* Hangs out with the Albanian and Pakistani communities in the Bay Area
* Yet, has weasled his way into the National Republican Congressional Committee and Lord knows where else. He has been an attendee at military strategy conferences. Infiltrator? Quite possibly.
* He preaches simulataneously to classical Islamofascists, to pan Arabists, and, to the various Red-brown convergence groups, world wide.
Possibly he's just a misguided soul, another California wierdo. Or perhaps he's something far more dangerous. The thing that stood out to me, was the obvious uncritical acceptance of him into an adjunct to the RNCC. It is obvious to me that he was accepted based solely on his public stances on tax issues and on his own pedigree as a "Republican businessman." No one checked out his double life, as an Islamic provacateur, borderline (perhaps I am being too nice) anti Semite and underminer of the official US policy in the WOT. How many VIPs have ended up with their info in his Palm Pilot and how far might a smear, based on his nasty, nasty views on several topics, stretch, into the GOP and into the military?
God Bless America,
GOP_1900AD
Good point! Only Seattle-based mods slip out for a latte.
Bye!He's dead, Jim!
He's dead, Jim.
(Click here or on the pic).
Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my Viking Kitty/ZOT ping list!. . .don't be shy.
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