Posted on 11/14/2006 9:28:22 AM PST by Jay777
Bad news for the Center for Constitutional Rights. Germany will not pursue their war crime charges.
Germany's federal prosecutor will not pursue a criminal complaint accusing US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld of war crimes in Iraq.Even though a German law requires German prosecutors to investigate allegations of war crimes even if they are not committed by Germans or in Germans, German Federal Prosecutor Kay Nehm said US authorities bore the initial responsibility to do so.
He added that his office could only act if US officials failed to do so, but said this was not the case. A US organization called Center for Constitutional Rights had filed the complained against Rumsfeld and other high-ranking officials in Germany for the role they played in torture and abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.
Nice to see some good German common sense. Does this mean it is over? Not quite. CCR has immediately put up an action alert!
(Excerpt) Read more at stoptheaclu.com ...
Guess they found the "horses head" in their bed...
"A US organization called Center for Constitutional Rights had filed the complained [sic] against Rumsfeld ... "
Socialist bastards.
Shoot, I wanted to see the Germans take it up. I wanted to see what an idiot judge thought he could do.
CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS (CCR)
666 Broadway, 7th Floor
New York, NY
10012
Phone :212-614-6464
Fax :212-614-6499
URL: http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/home.asp
Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)'s Visual Map
*
Founded by pro-Castro radicals
* Opposes post-9/11 anti-terrorism laws
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) was co-founded in November 1966 by the radical attorneys Morton Stavis, Ben Smith, Arthur Kinoy, and William Kunstler, longtime members of the Communist and radical left. (Kinoy and Kuntsler were well known for their pro-Castro politics.) CCR characterizes itself as an organization that "uses litigation proactively to advance the law in a positive direction, to guarantee the rights of those with the fewest protections and least access to legal resources."
CCR is a core member of the open borders lobby, which seeks to effectively initiate an era of mass, unchecked immigration. In 2002, the Center filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of illegal alien detainees, seeking punitive damages and a declaratory judgment that the detentions were unconstitutional and violated customary international law.
Since 9/11, CCR has focused its efforts heavily on reining in the U.S. government's newly implemented anti-terrorism measures, which the Center depicts as having "seriously undermined civil liberties, the checks and balances that are essential to the structure of our democratic government, and indeed, democracy itself." "Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the government's actions," explains CCR, "has been its attack on the Bill of Rights, the very cornerstone of our American democracy."
CCR was a signatory to a March 17, 2003 letter exhorting members of the U.S. Congress to oppose the Domestic Security Enhancement Act, also known as "Patriot Act II," which was then under consideration. The letter asserted that the new legislation "fail[ed] to respect our time-honored liberties," and "contain[ed] a multitude of new and sweeping law enforcement and intelligence gathering powers
that would severely dilute, if not undermine, many basic constitutional rights." In addition, CCR supports the California-based Coalition for Civil Liberties, which tries to influence city councils to pass resolutions creating "Civil Liberties Safe Zones"; that is, to be non-compliant with the provisions of the Patriot Act.
On January 17, 2006, CCR filed a lawsuit against President George W. Bush, the head of the National Security Agency (NSA), and the heads of the other major security agencies, "challenging NSA's surveillance of persons within the United States." (The NSA program targeted communications between persons in the United States and persons abroad where one party was suspected of having connections to terrorism.)
When law-enforcement agencies attempted, in the wake of 9/11, to conduct voluntary interviews with several thousand Middle Eastern men who were in the United States on temporary visas, CCR denounced such "racial profiling"; it issued this same complaint in response to the government's detention of hundreds of non-citizens from the Middle East for possible terrorist connections. When Attorney General Ashcroft warned in 2002 that visa violators would henceforth be arrested, CCR characterized his comments as "chilling." When new regulations permitted the FBI, CIA, and INS to share information about possible terrorist plots with one another, CCR lamented such assaults on "our privacy."
CCR's views on the political and psychological roots of anti-American terrorism were summarized in March 2002 by the organization's President, Michael Ratner, who said: "If the U.S. government truly wants its people to be safer and wants terrorist threats to diminish, it must make fundamental changes in its foreign policies ... particularly its unqualified support for Israel, and its embargo of Iraq, its bombing of Afghanistan, and its actions in Saudi Arabia. [These] continue to anger people throughout the region, and to fertilize the ground where terrorists of the future will take root." Condemning America's post-9/11 "aggression" against Afghanistan, Ratner suggested that as an alternative to war, the U.S. ought to "treat the attacks on September 11 as a crime against humanity, establish a UN tribunal, extradite the suspects, or if that fails, capture them with a UN force, and try them."
CCR has been a strong supporter of radical attorney Lynne Stewart, who in February 2005 was convicted on charges that she had illegally "facilitated and concealed communications" between her client, the incarcerated "blind sheik" Omar Abdel Rahman, and members of his Egyptian terrorist organization, the Islamic Group, which has ties to al Qaeda. CCR called Stewart's indictment in 2004 "an attack on attorneys who defend controversial figures, and an attempt to deprive these clients of the zealous representation that may be required."
In March 2005, CCR joined with the parents of deceased anti-Israel activist Rachel Corrie (the International Solidarity Movement volunteer who was accidentally crushed to death while trying to obstruct the path of a bulldozer that was engaged in anti-terror operations by Israeli Defense Force soldiers in Gaza) in filing a federal lawsuit against Caterpillar Inc., the Illinois-based manufacturer of the bulldozers used for such purposes by the IDF. Arguing that Caterpillar had violated international and state laws by providing the IDF with this machinery, CCR sued the company, marking the first time that American citizens had filed suit against a U.S. corporation for alleged misdeeds in a foreign country.
CCR only defends clients whose political views it supports, among the more notable of whom was Tom Hayden. Other CCR clients have included members of the Black Liberation Movement, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Students for a Democratic Society, Women's Strike for Peace, the Communist Party, the Black Panther Party, the Chicago Seven, and the Catonsville Nine. The organization has also taken up the cause of Leonard Peltier, an American Indian rights activist who was convicted of murdering two FBI agents in 1975, a crime for which he is currently serving a life sentence in prison.
Regarding international matters, CCR has argued in court that: the Vietnam War was unconstitutional and criminal; bombing North Vietnam was illegal; the Nuremberg war crimes laws should have been applied to Americans involved in the Vietnam War; the American military should have been restrained from fighting in Cambodia; fighting the Communist onslaught in Vietnam was wrong; and the U.S. Navy should not be permitted to use the Puerto Rican island of Vieques for bombing exercises. In addition, the Center attacked America's anti-Communist foreign policies concerning El Salvador, Nicaragua, Chile, Cuba, and elsewhere in Central and South America.
Characterizing President Bush as a political leader who is "out of control" and engaged in the "reckless abuse of power," CCR in 2006 produced a book titled Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush. This screed accused Bush of "illegally spying on U.S. citizens, lying to the American people about the Iraq war, seizing undue executive power, and sending people to be tortured overseas." CCR exhorted likeminded people to sign its online impeachment petition.
A member organization of the Abolition 2000 and United For Peace and Justice anti-war coalitions, CCR is supported, in part, by donations from the Ford Foundation, the JEHT Foundation, the Samuel Rubin Foundation, the Scherman Foundation, the Open Society Institute, the Public Welfare Foundation, the New World Foundation, the Stewart R. Mott Charitable Trust, the Tides Foundation, and the Vanguard Public Foundation.
http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6148
That's so nice of them. Perhaps now we'll have a reason to assist Germany when their cities are being burned by the Islamic hoard.
I am so relieved.
(sarcasm off)
WE ARE DOOMED! This is only the beginning.
"Well listen to me, my kraut-mick friend. I'm gonna make so much trouble for you, you won't know what hit you."
I wonder when the "Center for Constitutional Rights" is going to file a complaint in Germany against the muslim beasts in Iraq who are setting off bombs and KIDNAPPING, TORTURING, and MURDERING civilians in Iraq?
This was also a topic on LGF. But it suddenly disappeared! I wonder why?
Hey, is it possible to sue orgs like the ACLU and CCR for false advertising or something, due to their incredibly innacurate names?
Poor Andrew Sullivan. He, or whatever, was really counting on this. It will take a lot of effort on his boyfriends' part to get his panties out of a wad when he hears the news.
Hmm, how appropriate!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.