The Guantánamo “Suicides” - Will Obama Hold Them to Account?

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apogee

climber

Jan 19, 2010 - 09:17pm PT

"When half the nation votes for the left candidate and half votes for the right, it's really hard to tell what "the people" want."

Sadly, it's worth remembering that a good turnout is only about 50% of registered voters, which means that the 'half' you refer to is far less representative of the people's interests and will.

What this country desperately needs is a third party. A truly progressive party instead of the Extremist Repugs and the wanna-be-Repub-Dems.

Klimmer

Mountain climber

San Diego

Topic Author's Reply - Jan 19, 2010 - 10:08pm PT

ICC Complaint Filed Against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Tenet, Rice, Gonzales
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7508680

INTERNATIONAL ARREST WARRANTS REQUESTED

Professor Francis A. Boyle of the University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign, U.S.A. has filed a Complaint with the Prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (I.C.C.) in The Hague against U.S. citizens George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Condoleezza Rice, and Alberto Gonzales (the “Accused”) for their criminal policy and practice of “extraordinary rendition” perpetrated upon about 100 human beings. This term is really their euphemism for the enforced disappearance of persons and their consequent torture. This criminal policy and practice by the Accused constitute Crimes against Humanity in violation of the Rome Statute establishing the I.C.C.

The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute. Nevertheless the Accused have ordered and been responsible for the commission of I.C.C. statutory crimes within the respective territories of many I.C.C. member states, including several in Europe. Consequently, the I.C.C. has jurisdiction to prosecute the Accused for their I.C.C. statutory crimes under Rome Statute article 12(2)(a) that affords the I.C.C. jurisdiction to prosecute for I.C.C. statutory crimes committed in I.C.C. member states.

The Complaint requests (1) that the I.C.C. Prosecutor open an investigation of the Accused on his own accord under Rome Statute article 15(1); and (2) that the I.C.C. Prosecutor also formally “submit to the Pre-Trial Chamber a request for authorization of an investigation” of the Accused under Rome Statute article 15(3).

For similar reasons, the Highest Level Officials of the Obama administration risk the filing of a follow-up Complaint with the I.C.C. if they do not immediately terminate the Accused’s criminal policy and practice of “extraordinary rendition,” which the Obama administration has continued to implement.

The Complaint concludes with a request that the I.C.C. Prosecutor obtain International Arrest Warrants for the Accused from the I.C.C. in accordance with Rome Statute articles 58(1)(a), 58(1)(b)(i), 58(1)(b)(ii), and 58(1)(b)(iii).

In order to demonstrate your support for this Complaint you can contact the I.C.C. Prosecutor by letter, fax, or email as indicated below.

Francis A. Boyle
Professor of International Law
Law Building
504 East Pennsylvania Avenue
Champaign, Illinois 61820
Phone: 217-333-7954
Fax: 217-244-1478

The Honorable Luis Moreno-Ocampo
Office of the Prosecutor
International Criminal Court
Post Office Box 19519
2500 CM, The Hague
The Netherlands
Fax No.: 31-70-515-8555
Email: OTP.InformationDesk@icc-cpi.int

January 19, 2010

Dear Sir:

Please accept my personal compliments. I have the honor hereby to file with you and the International Criminal Court this Complaint against U.S. citizens George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Condoleezza Rice , and Alberto Gonzales (hereinafter referred to as the “Accused”) for their criminal policy and practice of “extraordinary rendition.” This term is really a euphemism for the enforced disappearances of persons, their torture, severe deprivation of their liberty, their violent sexual abuse, and other inhumane acts perpetrated upon these Victims. The Accused have inflicted this criminal policy and practice of “extraordinary rendition” upon about one hundred (100) human beings, almost all of whom are Muslims/Arabs/Asians and People of Color. I doubt very seriously that the Accused would have inflicted these criminal practices upon 100 White Judeo-Christian men.

The Accused’s criminal policy and practice of “extraordinary rendition” are both “widespread” and “systematic” within the meaning of Rome Statute article 7(1). Therefore the Accused have committed numerous “Crimes against Humanity” in flagrant and repeated and longstanding violation of Rome Statute articles 5(1)(b), 7(1)(a), 7(1)(e), 7(1)(f), 7(1)(g), 7(1)(h), 7(1)(i), and 7(1)(k). Furthermore, the Accused’s Rome Statute Crimes Against Humanity of enforced disappearances of persons constitutes ongoing criminal activity that continues even as of today.

The United States is not a contracting party to the Rome Statute. Nevertheless, the Accused ordered and were responsible for the commission of these I.C.C. statutory crimes on, in, and over the respective territories of several I.C.C. member states, including many located in Europe. Therefore, the I.C.C. has jurisdiction over the Accused for their I.C.C. statutory crimes in accordance with Rome Statute article 12(2)(a), which provides as follows:

Article 12

Preconditions to the Exercise of Jurisdiction

…

2. In the case of article 13, paragraph (a) or (c), the Court may exercise its jurisdiction if one or more of the following States are Parties to this Statute or have accepted the jurisdiction of the Court in accordance with paragraph 3:

(a) The State on the territory of which the conduct in question occurred …

So the fact that United States is not a contracting party to the Rome Statute is no bar to the I.C.C.’s prosecution of the Accused because they have ordered and been responsible for the commission of Rome Statute Crimes against Humanity on, in, and over the respective territories of several I.C.C. member states.

Consequently, I hereby respectfully request that the Court exercise its jurisdiction over the Accused for these Crimes against Humanity in accordance with Rome Statute article 13(c), which provides as follows:

Article 13

Exercise of Jurisdiction

The Court may exercise its jurisdiction with respect to a crime referred to in article 5 in accordance with the provisions of this Statute if:

…

(c) The Prosecutor has initiated an investigation in respect of such a crime in accordance with article 15.

Pursuant to Rome Statute article 13(c), I hereby respectfully request that you initiate an investigation proprio motu against the Accused in accordance with Rome Statute article 15(1): “The Prosecutor may initiate investigations proprio motu on the basis of information on crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court.” My detailed Complaint against the Accused constitutes the sufficient “information” required by article 15(1).

Furthermore, I respectfully submit that this Complaint by itself constitutes “a reasonable basis to proceed with an investigation” under Rome Statute article 15(3). Hence, I also respectfully request that you formally “submit to the Pre-Trial Chamber a request for authorization of an investigation” of the Accused under Rome Statute article 15(3) at this time. Please inform me at your earliest convenience about the status and disposition of my two requests set forth immediately above.

Based upon your extensive human rights work in Argentina, you know full well from direct personal experience the terrors and the horrors of enforced disappearances of persons and their consequent torture. According to reputable news media sources here in the United States, about 100 human beings have been subjected to enforced disappearances and subsequent torture by the Accused. We still have no accounting for these Victims. In other words, many of these Victims of enforced disappearances and torture by the Accused could still be alive today. Their very lives are at stake right now as we communicate. You could very well save some of their lives by publicly stating that you are opening an investigation of my Complaint.

As for those Victims of enforced disappearances by the Accused who have died, your opening an investigation of my Complaint is the only means by which we might be able to obtain some explanation and accounting for their whereabouts and the location of their remains in order to communicate this critical information to their next-of-kin and loved-ones. Based upon your extensive experience combating enforced disappearances of persons and their consequent torture in Argentina, you know full well how important that objective is. The next-of-kin, loved-ones, and friends of “disappeared” human beings can never benefit from psychological “closure” unless and until there is an accounting for the fates, if not the remains, of the Victims. In part that is precisely why the Accused’s enforced disappearances of about 100 human beings constitutes ongoing criminal activity that continues as of today and will continue until the fates of all their Victims have been officially determined by you opening an investigation into my Complaint.

Let us mutually suppose that during the so-called “dirty war” in Argentina the International Criminal Court had been in existence. I submit that as an Argentinean human rights lawyer you would have moved heaven and earth and done everything in your power to get the I.C.C. and its Prosecutor to assume jurisdiction over the Argentine Junta in order to terminate and prosecute their enforced disappearances and torture of your fellow Argentinean citizens. I would have done the same. Unfortunately, the I.C.C. did not exist during those darkest of days for the Argentine Republic when we could have so acted. But today as the I.C.C. Prosecutor, you have both the opportunity and the legal power to do something to rectify this mass and total human rights annihilation, and to resolve and to terminate and to prosecute the “widespread” and “systematic” policy and practice of enforced disappearances and consequent torture of about 100 human beings by the Accused.

Unfortunately, the new Obama administration in the United States has made it perfectly clear by means of public statements by President Obama and his Attorney General Eric Holder that they are not going to open any criminal investigation of any of the Accused for these aforementioned Crimes against Humanity. Hence an I.C.C. “case” against the Accused is “admissible” under Rome Statute article 1(complementarity) and article 17. As of right now you and the I.C.C. Judges are the only people in the entire world who can bring some degree of Justice, Closure, and Healing into this dire, tragic, and deplorable situation for the lives and well-being of about one hundred “disappeared” and tortured human beings as well as for their loved-ones and next-of-kin, who are also Victims of the Accused’s Crimes against Humanity. On behalf of them all, as a fellow human rights lawyer I implore you to open an investigation into my Complaint and to issue a public statement to that effect.

Also, most regretfully, the new Obama administration has publicly stated that it will continue the Accused’s policy and practice of "extraordinary rendition," which is really their euphemism for enforced disappearances of human beings and consequent torture by other States. Hence the Highest Level Officials of the Obama administration fully intend to commit their own Crimes against Humanity under the I.C.C. Rome Statute – unless you stop them! Your opening an investigation of my Complaint will undoubtedly deter the Obama administration from engaging in any more “extraordinary renditions” -- enforced disappearances of human beings and having them tortured by other States. Indeed your opening of an investigation into my Complaint might encourage the Obama administration to terminate its criminal “extraordinary rendition” program immediately and thoroughly by means of issuing a public statement to that effect. In other words, your opening an investigation of my Complaint could very well save the lives of a large number of additional human beings who otherwise will be subjected by the Obama administration to the Rome Statute Crimes against Humanity of enforced disappearances of persons and their consequent torture by other States, inter alia.

The lives and well-being of countless human beings are now at risk, hanging in the balance, waiting for you to act promptly, effectively, and immediately to save them from becoming Victims of Rome Statute Crimes against Humanity perpetrated by the Highest Level Officials of the Obama administration as successors-in-law to the Accused by opening an investigation of my Complaint. Otherwise, I shall be forced to file with you and the I.C.C. a follow-up Complaint against the Highest Level Officials of the Obama administration. I certainly hope it will not come to that. Please make it so.

Finally, for reasons more fully explained in the Conclusion to my Complaint, I respectfully request that you obtain I.C.C. arrest warrants for the Accused in accordance with Rome Statute articles 58(1)(a), article 58(1)(b)(i), article 58(1)(b)(ii), and article 58(1)(b)(iii). The sooner, the better for all humankind.

I respectfully request that you schedule a meeting with me at our earliest mutual convenience in order to discuss this Complaint. I look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.

This transmission letter is an integral part of my Complaint against the Accused and is hereby incorporated by reference into the attached Complaint dated as of today as well.

Please accept, Sir, the assurance of my highest consideration.

Francis A. Boyle
Professor of International Law

Thank you Professor Francis A. Boyle!

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has." -- Margaret Mead

Klimmer

Mountain climber

San Diego

Topic Author's Reply - Jan 20, 2010 - 02:32pm PT

Bush, Cheney and gang had better take the prosecutor seriously
Posted by rabs on Wed Jan-20-10 02:03 AM

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=printer_friendly&forum=389&topic_id=7508680&mesg_id=7516490

http://www.nysun.com/pics/6011.jpg
Luis Moreno-Ocampo has acquired the reputation of "Global Lawman against War Crimes."

"I deeply hope that the horrors humanity has suffered during the 20th century will serve us as a painful lesson, and that the creation of the International Criminal Court will help us to prevent those atrocities from being repeated in the future."

Statement made by Luis Moreno-Ocampo on the occasion of his election as first Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court by the Assembly of States Parties in New York on 22 April 2003.

---------------

On 21 April 2003, the Assemby of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, meeting in its second resumed first session, unanimously elected Mr. Luis Moreno-Ocampo of Argentina as first Prosecutor of the Court. Between 1984-92, as a Prosecutor in Argentina, Mr. Moreno-Ocampo was involved in precedent-setting prosecutions of top military commanders for mass killings and other large-scale human rights abuses.

He was the Assistant Prosecutor in the “Military Junta” trial against Army commanders accused of masterminding the “dirty war”, and other cases of human rights violations by the Argentine military. Mr. Moreno-Ocampo was the Prosecutor in charge of the extradition from the United States of former Argentine General Carlos Guillermo Suárez Mason, and in the investigation and prosecution of guerrilla leaders and of those responsible for two military rebellions in Argentina. He also took part in the case against Army commanders accused of malpractice during the Malvinas/Falklands war, as well as in dozens of major cases of corruption.

More
http://www.icc-cpi.int/Menus/ICC/Structure+of+the+Court/Office+of+the+Prosecutor/Biographies/The+Prosecutor.htm

-----------------

Moreno-Ocampo is also investigating war crimes by the murderous, U.S.-backed Uribe regime in Colombia.

Klimmer

Mountain climber

San Diego

Topic Author's Reply - Jan 20, 2010 - 03:54pm PT

There are 110 states (countries) that have ratified and are members of the ICC. The USA has not, and is not. But the members include many of our allies including the UK!

http://www.icc-cpi.int/Menus/ASP/states+parties/

dirtbag

climber

Jan 21, 2010 - 12:58pm PT

For once I agree with Klimmer. This really needs a close, hard look and some serious questions asked and answered:

http://www.slate.com/id/2241948/

Klimmer

Mountain climber

San Diego

Topic Author's Reply - Jan 21, 2010 - 01:42pm PT

Keith Olbermann has been talking about it . . .

Had the author who broke the story in the Harper's article on this week.

Tonight, Thursday, 1/21/10 . . .

"Gitmo whistleblower Army Staff Sergeant Joseph Hickman will appear exclusively on Countdown (w/ Keith Olbermann, MSNBC), Thursday 1/21 @ 8p.m."

I'll be watching.

Klimmer

Mountain climber

San Diego

Topic Author's Reply - Jan 21, 2010 - 02:04pm PT

Dirtbag,

Thanks for posting that article. Written well and it gives many other sources to follow. Thanks.

dirtbag

climber

Jan 21, 2010 - 02:20pm PT

r u kidding me!!!!! FOr craps sake when r u gonna wake up and smell the bacon??? All this CONCERN over prisoners that would soon blow you and your familys to alllah hell....

If we don't follow our own laws and morals then we are no better.

apogee

climber

Jan 21, 2010 - 02:34pm PT

Honestly, I still have greater concern about other legal citizens doing some whacked-out shite than I am concerned about the risk of a terrorist attack. Every time I see another tea party in the media, and some of the posts here on ST, that fear is confirmed.

Ghost

climber

A long way from where I started

Jan 21, 2010 - 02:37pm PT

All this CONCERN over prisoners that would soon blow you and your familys to alllah hell....

Yeah, and if any of them deny they want to blow you and your family up, then just torture them till they admit it! No need to waste time with trials or any other legal bullsh#t, just put the screws to them, and they'll admit they're terrorists soon enough.

As would you, if you were tortured.

Klimmer

Mountain climber

San Diego

Topic Author's Reply - Jan 21, 2010 - 02:51pm PT

Ghost,

So true. With torture, you can get anyone to admit anything. That is why the Neo-con Rethugs have adopted it. They can make up all the false evidence they need for 9-11 or any false-flag black op when ever they want it.

Confessions under torture are worthless. Everyone has a breaking point. Some hold out longer than others, but in the end the confessions are worthless.

We will say anything and admit to anything just to make the pain stop.

John Moosie

climber

Beautiful California

Jan 21, 2010 - 02:54pm PT

All this CONCERN over prisoners that would soon blow you and your familys to alllah hell.

The link dirtbag put up says that the three who supposedly committed suicide were proven to have no links to terrorism and two of them were slated to be released.

Matt

Trad climber

primordial soup

Jan 21, 2010 - 08:39pm PT

jeez ron-

did you skip all the classes in school that related to personal integrity, honor, rule of law, international law, uniform rules of military justice, etc.?

what?
you killed that baseball fan?
ok you're right, he was rooting for an out of town team, and he was not caucasian, so who the hell cares...

Matt

Trad climber

primordial soup

Jan 21, 2010 - 08:47pm PT

guess if they're white folk you aren't interested if they are breakin laws and killin innocent people?

good on ya ron ol buddy, let's go have a miller lite together sometime soon...

tom woods

Gym climber

Bishop, CA

Jan 21, 2010 - 09:17pm PT

//"When was the last time the people had any real influence over the actions of our leaders?"

When half the nation votes for the left candidate and half votes for the right, it's really hard to tell what "the people" want. Should the government do what the left 50% want or what the right 50% want? They want different things so it's a 50/50 chance that the government will not do what YOU want.

Even if the people hand influence, it would only be 50% of the people and the other 50% would be pissed off. Just like they are now.//

The fifty fifty split isn't the problem. There is no fifty fifty split. There is far more diverse set of views out there. There are anarchists on the right and the left as you head to the extremes.

The problem is that there is only two parties to choose from and the "democrats" are not even a party, they are just "not republicans."

It's a false choice. Do you think that all the different views that even this little forum produces can be summmed up as one of two things?

Chaz

Trad climber

greater Boss Angeles area

Jan 21, 2010 - 09:30pm PT

There are more than two parties.

Go look at the 2008 ballot. Well over a dozen parties ran a candidate for President.

Parties like the Green Party, Libertarian Party, Natural Law Party, Peace and Freedom Party, Party of Socialism & Liberation (I'm not making that up), Reform Party, Prohibition Party (I'm not making that up), Socialist Party, Socialist Worker's Party, American Independent Party, Constitution Party, and The Boston Tea Party (I'm not making that up) ALL ran a candidate for President in 2008.

http://www.politics1.com/p2008.htm

Sounds to me like something for everybody.

They just didn't draw any votes.

Matt

Trad climber

primordial soup

Jan 22, 2010 - 04:29am PT

rox,
did you READ those articles?
i am guessing not.
go read the VF piece.

dirtbag

climber

Jan 22, 2010 - 10:48am PT

Your ready to go hang OURS for killing theirs......I suppose you all would think the same of all those on death row through out the country.... The military has a LARGE JOB ahead...second guessing the efforts that are keeping you safe is akin to looking a gift horse in the mouth....

If you read the Slate article I linked (and numerous other sources) many military folks want nothing to do with torture or illegal killings.

And, as that article points out, a few of those prisoners were deemed to be not a threat and scheduled for release.

Finally, if you feel any person at Guatanamo should be killed on the whim of prison folks, then at least get the law changed. Trusting the state to determine who should be killed without any independent oversight (i.e., Courts) and to make up the law or disregard on the law on the spot, purportedly for our safety, is EXACTLY how dictatorships take hold. (They always clamp down in the name of safety: see Iran for a recent example.) It's understandable that battles can occasionally blur the lines between right and wrong, but this is not the heat of battle.

Following the law is extremely important: especially for the government. It's ironic that so called law and order/minimalist government conservative types don't understand this.

I never asked these folks to do that for me!