Last month, a coalition of human rights groups filed a criminal complaint in Germany strongly claiming that high-ranking US civilian and military officials were engaged in war crimes in Iraq and at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The lawsuit requests a criminal investigation and prosecution against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and thirteen other high-ranking U.S. Officials for their roles in authorizing torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo.
The plaintiffs in the case are 11 Iraqi citizens who were held at Abu Ghraib prison and one Guantánamo detainee. The detainee from Guantánamo is Mohammad al-Qahtani, the Saudi national whom the US identified as the so-called “20th hijacker” and a would-be participant in the 9/11 hijackings. Just recently, senior investigators with the Defense Department’s Criminal Investigation Task Force (CITF) revealed the conditions al-Qahtani endured at Guantánamo, which was personally approved by Rumsfeld.
Mohammed al-Qahtani, detainee No. 063, was forced to wear a bra. He had a thong placed on his head. He was massaged by a female interrogator who straddled him like a lap dancer. He was told that his mother and sisters were whores. He was told that other detainees knew he was gay. He was forced to dance with a male interrogator. He was strip-searched in front of women. He was led on a leash and forced to perform dog tricks. He was doused with water. He was prevented from praying. He was forced to watch as an interrogator squatted over his Koran.
The formal complaint was filed by US-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the French-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Germany’s Republican Attorneys’ Association (RAV) and others, and all will be represented by Berlin Attorney Wolfgang Kaleck.
The complaint was filed in Germany because under a law, the Code of Crimes against International Law (CCIL), enacted in Germany, federal prosecutors are granted “universal jurisdiction” to investigate and prosecute war criminals regardless of the location of the defendant or plaintiff, the place where the crime was carried out, or the nationality of the persons involved. The German Code of Crimes against International Law was enacted soon after the Rome Statute was ratified which created the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2002; was one of the original countries who ratified the Rome Statute. The reasoning behind the CCIL is to fill the gaps left by the Statute of the International Criminal Court in dealing with countries that had not subscribed to the ICC. The ICC is the permanent tribunal established to indict war crimes, genocide and other crimes against humanity.
According to CCR, the complaint is similar to their previous complaint filed in November 2004 that was later dismissed by German prosecutors on the grounds that the United States was already pursuing its own investigations into these abuses. In bringing the recent complaint, the petitioners contend that the new case presents new evidence, along with new circumstances following the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense.
The passage of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 presents plaintiffs the evidence they needed to substantiate that the US was unwilling to indict any American involved in war crime activities. The Military Commissions Act, which happens to be signed by President George Bush on October 17, 2006, aims to provide immunity to US officials and military personnel by narrowing the grounds of criminal liability under the War Crimes Act; and by retroactively extending protection from criminal prosecutions related to detentions and interrogations back to September 11, 2001. The reason Rumsfeld is named, according to CCR, the moment Rumsfeld resigned on November 8, he could no longer claim the same immunity officials enjoy from international prosecution for war crimes because the Act only applies to people during the individual’s term of office
Rumsfeld’s resignation of November 8, 2006, means that he cannot claim either the functional or personal immunity of sovereign officials from international prosecution for war crimes. Functional immunity – related to acts performed in the exercise of a person’s official functions – does not, since the Nuremberg trials in 1945, apply to international crimes such as war crimes. As to personal immunity – covering officials’ private acts accomplished while in office – it only applies during the individual’s term of office.
Along with Rumsfeld, the new complaint further charges that former White House Counsel (and current Attorney General) Alberto Gonzalez, former CIA director George Tenet and other senior US officials and military officers are the legal architects of the Bush Administration’s practice of torture. Moreover, now that the “torture memos” have become known over the past two years, there is more than sufficient evidence to prove that the primary responsibility for the abusive treatment that the detainees endured and continue to endure at Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo and at other US facilities did reach all the way to the top.
It is amazing to see that out of all the major media in the US, Time obviously found this story relevant enough to write an exclusive about it. What is more amazing, in a nation that preaches to other countries about the fundamental importance of having a free press, the fact remains, the little news that we actually do get, either on TV or in newsprint, is mixed with propaganda and disinformation, so people have no idea who to trust and what to believe. How is it possible to establish an informed electorate, when it is corporate media who determines what is considered newsworthy? The ultimate winner in this game is not the public, but the elites who they protect.
What is the justification for not informing the public that both the White House and the Pentagon are silent on the pending situation, considering that in 2004, the case prompted an angry response immediately from the White House and the Pentagon?
It is important to address this issue because it is the press that gets to decide which events go on page one or on prime-time TV news and which events are ignored. And as of this writing, the news item that the press has overwhelmingly decided to make newsworthy is Britney Spears’ decision to go pantiless and her choice to hang out with Paris Hilton.
Could this explain why nobody is demanding an explanation from this Administration? It must be, considering that most people continue to cling desperately to the faith that their government is different and better than others and that it is incapable of committing such crimes. Such as this person who justified this US soldier’s action for brutally murdering a prostitute.
I just got this comment in regards to the post, “She Said No”:
Why did the woman take the $100 if not for sex? If she took the $100 for sex, and then didn’t carry through with the exchange, then what did she think would happen? This hero, sitting on the boarder with one of the most anti-American nations on earth just waiting to die in the defense of yellow people in South Korea, couldn’t call the cops to recoup his money. He hit the woman, the woman died — she was trying to rip him off, shit happens. She has a right to sell her body, he has a right to defend his property (his money). She shouldn’t have tried to rip people off.
It is this type of blind patriotism that created Nazi Germany and we can no longer make excuses for atrocities like these, while questioning the patriotism of anyone who raises unwanted questions. The blunt truth is, these atrocities were officially ordered and authorized by Donald Rumsfeld and carried out by the men and women who wear the military uniform of the United States of America. The same kind of atrocities that were committed through the notorious Operation Phoenix in Vietnam – the mission that terrorized the Vietnamese into submission by using “whatever means necessary.”
We can no longer stay silent; but must be skeptical, critical, even a little paranoid, regardless of the fact that it may tarnish America’s reputation has a symbol of “honor and integrity” because there is no honor and integrity in physical coercion, sexual humiliation, and pact rape of the men, women, and children incarcerated by the war criminals in charge of Abu Ghraib Prison. And not doing so will only continue our self-destruction in the eyes of world opinion.
For those who feel the need to continue living in the Matrix of lies told to us by this Administration, then consider what Major General Smedley Butler – who was awarded The Congressional Medal of Honor twice during his career – said about the role of the military in his 1935 book War is a Racket:
There isn’t a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its “finger men” to point out enemies, its “muscle men” to destroy enemies, its “brain men” to plan war preparations, and a “Big Boss” Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.
I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.
It is imperative that we, as American people, care about and know what our government is doing in our name. It is our solemn duty under the Declaration of Independence to punish those who seek to pacify the people through the use of violence, deception, and secrecy in order to advance its grand plans for the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few.
