'WE HAVE ALL THE DOCs'-UN Special Rapporteur On Torture Calls on U.S. to PROSECUTE Bush & Rumsfeld.

[kpete]

U.N. special rapporteur on torture calls on U.S. to prosecute Bush and Rumsfeld.»

In remarks that aired on German television last night, Manfred Nowak, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, urged the U.S. to pursue former President George W. Bush and defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld on charges that they authorized torture and other harsh interrogation techniques:

“Judicially speaking, the United States has a clear obligation” to bring proceedings against Bush and Rumsfeld. <…> He noted Washington had ratified the UN convention on torture which required “all means, particularly penal law” to be used to bring proceedings against those violating it.

“We have all these documents that are now publicly available that prove that these methods of interrogation were intentionally ordered by Rumsfeld,” against detainees at the US prison facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Nowak said.

Indeed, a bipartisan Senate report released last month found that Rumsfeld “bore major responsibility” for abuses committed at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and other military detention center. Just last week, a Bush administration official overseeing Gitmo trials said Rumsfeld approved the torture of one particular detainee. Bush himself said last year that he was aware of his advisers’ discussions on torture and recently admitted that he personally authorized waterboarding Kalid Sheik Muhammad.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/01/21/un-bush-rumsfeld-to...

[pleah]

1. K&R

[pleah]

2. Sorry dupe, got warning and then double post.

[AzDar]

3. Sounds about right.

[DrDan]

4. so why would he not mention cheney as well . . .

did he not authorize torture also?

[Vincardog]

5. Add Darth Cheney to the list he confessed or bragged about it on the TVEE

[FatDave]

6. So either the Obama admin pursues prosecution or they are in defiance of the U.N.?

I figured we'd want to be in good with the U.N. after all these years. Couldn't we just turn Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Gonzalez over to U.N. prosecutors? "Here, you figure out what to do with them."

[bvar22]

7. the UN convention on torture

..."the UN convention on torture which required “all means, particularly penal law” to be used to bring proceedings against those violating it."

Is the UN Convention on Torture a treaty ?

If so, then our law REQUIRES our Justice Dept. to prosecute.
There is no wiggle room.

[spanone]

8. “Judicially speaking, the United States has a clear obligation”

[Lance_Boyle]

9. but politically speaking, it's too much of a hassle, and it might

make people think Obama is mean. So we can't do it. Signed, cheek-turner-in-chief Obama and the pathetic democratic "leadership."

[Kaleko]

10. The inernational community will have to force Obama to authorize prosecutions

by presenting airtight cases against the cabal. That way, Obama can stay above accusations of partisan vengefulness.

[Ani Yun Wiya]

11. Torture is illegal.

All those who ordered it or were involved in it should be brought up on charges; nationally and internationally.

This needs to be seen to, because if it is not, the new administration will not be off to a good start.

[robertpaulsen]

12. Kicked, recommended & bookmarked. Important stuff!

[ooglymoogly]

13. A tsunami of blood is rising and headed toward our shores

and none of us can dodge it....You cannot slaughter over a million fellow travelers on this planet and render many millions more lives asunder and not expect a sea of blood to come crashing down on our heads. The citizens of this planet, me included, will not forgive the actions of Little Boots so easily, nor us as a people for that matter, who allowed this boundless catastrophe to happen and paid for the slaughter. They will not let him take his little treasure of seashells and now, tired of playing rape pillage and plunder; Pirouette off into the sunset; All the while pretending to be just a bumbling, silly, harmless and hapless clown and victim of circumstance; He and his merry band of thugs is the crux, instigator and perpetrator of this holocaust and must at all cost be brought to justice and justly punished for any of us or this country, to ever hold our heads high again.

[slipslidingaway]

14. K&R n/t

[snot]

15. K & R'D.

[Raksha]

16. K & R