Hard Right Calls for Bush to Stand Trial for War Crimes

[LondonAmerican]

http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/cgi-bin/hardright.cgi/2004/06/11/NO_LAW_AFTER_9_11

Could be of interest for people here: Thomas Fleming at the paleo-con magazine _Chronicles_ calls for Bush to stand trial for War Crimes.

NO LAW AFTER 9/11


Who is responsible for the abuse and torture of prisoners in Iraq? How widespread are the abuses? Are we dealing with a few bad apples or with a systemic problem? Sean Baker, a military prison guard stationed at Guantanamo, can offer an important insight. Baker was told to put on an orange jumpsuit and pose as a prisoner refusing to get out from under his bunk. When his colleagues, who were not told it was a training exercise, entered the cell they proceeded to choke and beat the bejesus out of him. Baker, who now suffers from brain damage, was given a medical discharge, but US Army spokespersons refuse to acknowledge that his seizures and headaches were directly caused by the beating he received, though they now belatedly concede that a man whose head has been banged repeatedly against a concrete floor might have problems.

...

The fantastic arguments and imaginary scenarios used by the Bush administration and its cheerleaders are clear evidence of their dishonesty. What they are really saying is that America has turned a corner and now rejects the Geneva Convention and every other moral or legal restraint on the U.S. government. Such was clearly the intention of the 50 page legal memo drawn up for the President by Department of Justice lawyers. John Ashcroft’s equivocal and confused testimony to a Senate committee, combined with his refusal to turn over the memorandum, are a clear indication that the actions of this administration are not those of the American republic: They are the actions of a rogue state. Dick Durbin and Patrick Leahy are threatening to charge the Attorney General with contempt of Congress. That would be a good beginning, but sooner or later there will be a call for a war-crimes tribunal. Perhaps when the Milosevic trial is over, the prosecutors will have time on their hands for Ashcroft and Rumsfeld.