Supreme Court: Bush Administration Has Committed War Crimes

Originally posted by tom goose
the soldiers did not start any wars, they should not be punished and made to feel humiliated because of some political agenda, Right?

They aren't held accountable either, at least not by anyone but themselves...
"We will hold ourselves accountable for our actions,"
Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV
Iraq's political spectrum called Wednesday for a review of the US-drafted law that prevents prosecution of coalition forces...
Just exactly who is to be held accountable for our actions over there if not our leadership or soldiery?

I'm sorry, but if while I was in the military, I was told that I could be "held accountable" by the country I'm being sent to conduct combat, I would have gone AWOL. I think it's pretty safe to say every military in the world has the same rule.

Originally posted by dgtempe

Originally posted by WestPoint23
Yet another misleading and false title based upon a personal piece which is taken up and touted as fact by some, ah, why must these things keep occurring?

The Supreme Court justices are speaking and "seeing" for the people. They know this is no regular administration and they need to be stopped.

You've got to be kidding me, I mean come on. The SCOTUS are speaking and seeing for the people?!? HAHAHAHAHA, thier imminent domain ruling was one of the most blatent Anti-American rulings the courts have seen in decades. Who's intrests did they have in mind that day? The people? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[edit on 5-7-2006 by WithoutEqual]

I am so glad i make ya laugh. You know what i mean. Sometimes things dont come out right. Just because the Supremes are supreme, doesnt mean they do not interact with the public and cant think for themselves. All this- and they are all Bush-fearing honorable men and women. Go figure!

If the man, Pres Bush, falls victim to congressional impeachment, this ruling will allow for a United States Justice Department investigation and potential charges after President Bush leaves Office.

Dallas

Dg
He pretty much has covered all his bases. Since nothing was done to stop him in the very beginning, there have been laws enacted that he knew would specifically protect him down the road from all of this. I know this was handled all wrong and even though Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, more people have died as a result of this unneccesary then probably Husseins entire reign in power. I fully support the Afghanistan war bu Iraq was not a necessaity and we have wasted billions of dollars that could have went towards thing we americans need. The missing money in Iraq alone should have warranted his removal from office since he is the commander in chief.


Pie

There are people who don't want to listen to the facts huh?...

Shall we take a look, again....., at what the Geneva Convention says who is a prisoner of war?.....

Article 4

A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:

1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.

2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:

(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;

(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;

(c) That of carrying arms openly;

(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

3. Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power.

4. Persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members thereof, such as civilian members of military aircraft crews, war correspondents, supply contractors, members of labour units or of services responsible for the welfare of the armed forces, provided that they have received authorization from the armed forces which they accompany, who shall provide them for that purpose with an identity card similar to the annexed model.

5. Members of crews, including masters, pilots and apprentices, of the merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft of the Parties to the conflict, who do not benefit by more favourable treatment under any other provisions of international law.

www.unhchr.ch...


Yep, it does appear that some people don't want to "listen to the facts"...and if anyone from the supreme court decided to claim that the administration is criminal because it didn't treat enemy combatants as prisoners of war, perhaps it is time for them to read the Geneva Convention instead of them "believing what they want to believe"....

Those two links, provided in the original post, are obviously nothing more than propaganda intended for people who don't want to listen to the facts....

I am pretty sure that you have read the above at least once DG, because I have posted this several times in the past, even when you were part of such a discussion group, so tell me, why is it that you don't want to listen and accept the facts on what is written about prisoners of war in the Geneva Convention?


BTW DG, why is it that you are believing the word from the same man who asked castro's best friend, Chavez, to help him "find their truth about 9/11"?.....

[edit on 6-7-2006 by Muaddib]

Muaddib,

Sure, this is what it says now- We got their backs. They got their backs.

Its all good. Nobody gets hurt. How are ya, cuz?

Lets see a little smile.....

Dgtempe that isn't what the SCOTUS said in their recent decision. They said that even though the detainees scheduled for trial by Military Tribunals were not soldiers in the classic understanding of that word, they should be treated in accordance with the Laws Of War and specifically the 3rd Geneva Convention unless there had been a specific legal finding that they were not prisoners of war. In other words, they could not be charged with the crime of Conspiracy because such a crime does not apply to people captured in combat.

The Bush Administration has held that these people were "Illegal Combatants" since they did not meet the requirements to be called soldiers--either uniformed or otherwise. SCOTUS dismissed that argument by stating that they should still be treated as if they were prisoners of war absent some specific legal finding that they were not. The Congress of the U.S. is already working on such a legal finding just so the many legal protections pertaining to prisoners of war will not have to be applied to these people. They will be tried either as civilians or as something else yet to be defined, but in all probability their trials will now take place using Courts Marshall proceedings.

Should the Bush Administration continue on and try these people under a Military Tribunal in defiance of the SCOTUS decision and absent some legal finding that the detainees are not prisoners of war, then, and only then could Bush, Et. Al, be potentially charged as War Criminals.

[edit on 7-7-2006 by Astronomer70]

Originally posted by dgtempe
Muaddib,

Sure, this is what it says now-

We got their backs. They got their backs.

Its all good. Nobody gets hurt. How are ya, cuz?

Lets see a little smile.....

DG....that is the document as it was adopted at the Geneva Convention on August 12 1949...

The United States, or any other country, can not change at will what was written during the Geneva Convention....

That is what the document has said since 1942 about who is, and who is not a prisoner of war.

I have a few questions and observations to make about this issue.

1)First of all, the ICRC has this to say about international humanitarian law during a time of war:

International humanitarian law: the essential rules
Captured combatants and civilians who find themselves under the authority of the adverse party are entitled to respect for their lives, their dignity, their personal rights and their political, religious and other convictions. They must be protected against all acts of violence or reprisal. They are entitled to exchange news with their families and receive aid. They must enjoy basic judicial guarantees.

The "unlawful combatants" in Guantanamo are captured. They could be also considered "civilians" because they are not tied to any nation's army. As both, they are entitled to be treated humanely, to converse with lawyers and their families. Although this does not have anything to do with the Third Convention, it does point out that they should be allowed to have due process of law.

Both foreign nationals and American citizens held indefinitely in Guantanamo were treated with abuse, lack of contact with their legal counsel and neglect while incarcerated there. They were subjected to justice dealt by the POTUS and not a court of law. And that would mean the application of military tribunals.

If anything, they are considered "captured" and "unlawful combatants". That means the detainees should be respected by international law, at least.

Looking past the Third Convention, don't you think that Mr. Bush and his administration are in violation of these basic rights of international humanitarian law?

2)This is another question that I have: can someone point out a law which defines "unlawful combants" so that it will be clear?

Because terrorists are organized into cells. They follow a specific leader. They wage war on a specific ideal. The only thing is that terrorists do not belong to a specific country. That makes defining who would be considered as combatants nebulous to say the least.

In a "real" war would soldiers from opposing sides consider each other illegal? Or would the countries consider the opposing army illegal?

Just a question so that I can see this issue clearly.

3)This is interesting about the Third Convention:

First, it lists the 192 countries (state parties or signatories) which ratified the Third Convention as of 1949. The United States was one:

United States of America 12.08.1949 02.08.1955

These are some of the countries that also signed the GC. Some of the detainees come from these countries:

Afghanistan
Iran (Islamic Rep.of)
Iraq
Pakistan
Sudan
Syrian Arab Republic
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
Yemen
Saudi Arabia

If these "unlawful combatants" came from nations which also ratified the Third Convention and the U.S. "tortured" these "unlawful combatants" in Gitmo and other detainee camps, wouldn't this help the case that the U.S. violated the Third Convention? America and the countries in question did sign the treaty, didn't they?

Or is it more complex than this?


Second, it lists the document of the U.S. on what it will do and won't according to that ratification (until lately):

United States of America

4)Here are some exerpts from various sources about the U.S. and its unwillingness to comply with the GC:

Think Progress:

Frist and Torture: What Did He Know and When Did He Know It?

Time magazine yesterday revealed new allegations of systematic abuse of Iraqi detainees made by a “decorated former Captain in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division.” For months, the Captain says, U.S. soldiers were directed “to conduct daily beatings of prisoners prior to questioning.” In one instance, “a soldier allegedly broke a detainee’s leg with a metal bat.” Other prisoners had “their faces and eyes exposed to burning chemicals.”
[...]
On July 27, the same month the Captain came forward, Sen. Frist single-handedly derailed a bipartisan effort — led by Sen. McCain — to clarify rules for the treatment of enemy prisoners at U.S. prison camps. In what news reports at the time described as an “unusual move,” Frist “simply pulled the bill from consideration” before it could be debated.

This is from the L.A. Times, July 1, 2006:

Congress Tackles the Guantanamo Challenge
The White House has argued that the president's inherent authority as commander in chief — along with Congress' 2001 authorization to use military force against terrorists — grant him extensive powers to decide how to conduct the war on terrorism, including how to treat detainees and what kinds of surveillance are necessary.

This is from the Harford Courant:

Strengthen Interrogation Policy

The original language was designed to conform with the minimum Geneva Convention protections against cruelty and torture.

But the Bush administration has, since 2002, suspended portions of those requirements, contending that they are too restrictive and that the special nature of terrorism - its mobility and capacity to strike at civilian targets anywhere in the world - justifies the use of harsher treatment.

Among the questionable techniques reportedly employed by American interrogators to elicit information are sexual humiliation, the use of dogs to intimidate prisoners, sleep deprivation and "water-boarding," which involves strapping a prisoner to a board and dousing him or her with water to simulate drowning. Such methods are ineffective because prisoners will say whatever they think the interrogators want to hear to stop the abuse.

What the U.S. said about their policy concerning the GC as told by Newsweek:

How Terror Led America Toward Torture

* Jan. 22, 2002: In a memo to the White House and Pentagon, the Justice Dept. says Geneva would not apply to "the detention conditions of al Qaeda prisoners" and "customary international law has no binding legal effect on either the President or the military because it is not federal law as recognized by the U.S. Constitution."

* Jan. 25, 2002: The then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales advises President Bush that portions of the Geneva Conventions are "quaint" and "obsolete" and that adherence would restrict U.S. interrogation methods in this "new kind of war."

* Feb. 7, 2002: Echoing Rumsfeld, Bush issues a directive asserting that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to Qaeda suspects captured in Afghanistan and that neither they nor the Taliban would be eligible for POW status. "Our values as a nation," he writes, "call for us to treat detainees humanely, including those who are not legally entitled to such treatment."

* Aug. 1, 2002: A Justice Dept. memo narrowly defines "torture" under U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions as limited to abuses causing physical pain "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death."

Just FYI on how to think about this situation from different views.














[edit on 8-7-2006 by ceci2006]

The questions you ask and the issues you present are not trivial. Fundamentally there are two bodies of legal proceedings normally in force in the U.S. One is the normal civilian jurisprudence just about everyone is familiar with and the other is military courts martials. A third system has been used in the past and that system is Special Military Tribunals; however, there has always been a specific action taken by the U.S. Congress to invoke such tribunals. The differences between the three systems are many and diverse, ranging from whether or not the persons being tried are entitled to see the evidence against themselves, to whether or not there is an avenue of appeal and even to the types of offenses that can be tried. What is really needed just now is either a new expanded definition of combatants (that specifically covers people such as are being detained for trial at Gitmo) from the Hague or the U.N., or a specific determination by the U.S. Congress as to how these people are to be handled under U.S. law. Depending upon which way this goes, the formal rules of the 3rd Geneva Convention could be deemed applicable or not applicable to these detainees.

Make no mistake about the fact that they will be tried eventually. Whether as civilians, combatants, or something else. How they should be treated in the interim and what crimes they can be tried for are really what is being determined. In no case; however, should inhumane treatment or torture be permitted since that would be a violation of existing U.S. law.

[edit on 8-7-2006 by Astronomer70]

And I found this out about the U.S. and the I.C.C.

Here is a legal opinion by Paul W. Kahn in 2003 of why the U.S. opposes the ICC:

Why the U.S. Is So Opposed

The opposition of the United States to the International Criminal Court appears as either a puzzle or an embarrassment to many of the nation's traditional supporters. A puzzle, because it is not at all obvious why the United States should feel so threatened by this new court. Supporters of the Court point out that there are ample provisions in the Rome Statute designed to protect a mature democracy's capacity to engage in legal self-regulation and self-policing. To raise the specter of an irresponsible prosecutor before the ICC, or of other nations manipulating the Court's jurisdiction for anti-American political purposes, is to create a straw man.

An embarrassment, because the United States appears to be exempting itself from rules of the game that it believes should apply to others. This is singularly inappropriate when the game involves allegations of crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes. The US claim for special status undermines the very idea of the rule of law as a single, principled normative order to which all are bound. Even worse, it may undermine the great international effort of the last century to subject the use of force to the rule of law. For the United States to take this position is particularly embarrassing, since it, more than any other modern nation-state, has held itself out as committed to and constituted by the rule of law.

And this comes from the BCC in 2004:

US war crimes immunity bid fails

The US has given up trying to win its soldiers immunity from prosecution at the new International Criminal Court.

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan had warned the Security Council not to renew the measure, partly because of the prisoner abuse scandal.

Washington withdrew its resolution after it became clear it would not get the required support.

For the last two years it had secured special status for US troops, arguing they could face malicious prosecutions.

So, according to this news, the U.S. has given up its immunity from being prosecuted by the ICC.



Btw, thank you very much for the explanation Astronomer70. You helped me see this issue a little clearer about what's at stake.

[edit on 8-7-2006 by ceci2006]

As usual ceci2006 you do good research for your comments. I have always thought it was "out of character" for the U.S. to hold itself aloof from the ICC. We currently have agreements with both Afghanistan and Iraq exempting U.S. soldiers from the laws of their countries and I see nothing wrong with those agreements. In my personal opinion such agreements are necessary whenever one country has soldiers fighting in another country. The ICC though is a different matter and I see no valid reason to exempt U.S. citizens from falling under their rules. Although if a case is ever brought against a U.S. citizen for crimes the U.S. feels are politically motivated, it would create one hell of a problem.

Originally quoted by Astronomer70
As usual ceci2006 you do good research for your comments.

Thank you very much for your nice words. For issues that I am concerned with, I do the extra research to understand more about the subject matter.

I have always thought it was "out of character" for the U.S. to hold itself aloof from the ICC.

My perception of this matter is that the U.S., like other countries, should not be exempt from being tried in the ICC. The International Criminal Court is there to try matters that breach international law. In my point of view, that means if the U.S. is susceptible to breaking the law internationally, it should be tried like any other nation.

We currently have agreements with both Afghanistan and Iraq exempting U.S. soldiers from the laws of their countries and I see nothing wrong with those agreements.

I find something very wrong with those agreements. For example, with the crimes against civilians in Iraq by our soldiers, who will try them? The Iraqi courts? Or the military? Or should crimes committed on foregin soil be tried by foreign courts? There is a very definite problem with where the trial will be held and where those committing the crimes would be incarcerated.

I see those agreements as a cop out and a get out jail free card for the occupying power who commits heinous acts in the "occupied country". Just imagine if Germany had those same agreements. They would get away with a lot, especially in Poland.

In my personal opinion such agreements are necessary whenever one country has soldiers fighting in another country. The ICC though is a different matter and I see no valid reason to exempt U.S. citizens from falling under their rules. Although if a case is ever brought against a U.S. citizen for crimes the U.S. feels are politically motivated, it would create one hell of a problem.

This I agree with. The ICC is a different matter. But, since the U.S. is a superpower, any crime committed by an American citizen to be tried in the ICC is going to cause problems with foreign diplomacy--especially if the judges represent countries who get aid from the U.S. And if the U.S. does have feelings of political motivation, they would take it out on the U.N.--especially with John Bolton as an ambassador. Mr. Bolton is not especially happy with the way the U.N. is run. He would probably lead the charge.




[edit on 12-7-2006 by ceci2006]

Originally posted by ceci2006
the U.S. "tortured" these "unlawful combatants" in Gitmo and other detainee camps

No we didn't. A half dozen men were barked by dogs while naked. This is not
appropriate but it is not torture. Gitmo 'torture' eh? ... best food they ever
had; best medical care they ever had; religion appropriate meals and US tax payer
provided Korans and prayer items and even a muslim chaplain. Definately not too
bad considering they are all murderers and terrorists and considering what they
do to our people and the civilians in Iraq.

Time magazine ..

paritsan left wing

L.A. Times ..

partisan left wing in a blue state of consumers.

Harford Courant ...

I was born and raised in Connecticut. It doesn't get much more
blatently left wing than the Hartford Courant. Blue state consumers.

Newsweek ...

hairy edge radical left wing.

Originally posted by Muaddib
if anyone from the supreme court decided to claim that the administration is criminal because it didn't treat enemy combatants as prisoners of war, perhaps it is time for them to read the Geneva Convention instead of them "believing what they want to believe"....

Yep. Very good post Muaddib. If I had a WATS left .. you'd get one.

FACT - the Supreme Court DID NOT say that Bush & Co had committed war
crimes.

FACT - the Genevea Convention itself is VERY clear on who is an enemy
combatant and who is a prisoner of war.

FACT - even though the murderers and terrorists in GITMO don't deserve Geneva
Convention status, they are getting proper treatment according to that
convention. BETTER than what the Geneva Convention calls for!!

Sorry folks ... but ya'll who hate Bush 43 will have to look elsewhere for your 'get rid of Bush' ticket. This just isn't it.

Whatever you say. Thanks for contributing.

Ceci2006

I find something very wrong with those agreements. For example, with the crimes against civilians in Iraq by our soldiers, who will try them? The Iraqi courts? Or the military? Or should crimes committed on foregin soil be tried by foreign courts? There is a very definite problem with where the trial will be held and where those committing the crimes would be incarcerated.

I see those agreements as a cop out and a get out jail free card for the occupying power who commits heinous acts in the "occupied country". Just imagine if Germany had those same agreements. They would get away with a lot, especially in Poland.

Answer to the question: The U.S. will try them either in civil courts or in court martials. Our track record in this regard is very good. Crimes are not being committed by our troops and going unpunished if we find out about them. However, let's take an example of a crime/judicial situation in, Saudi Arabia (I don't know that this has ever come up, but it could, quite easily). Let's say a U.S. serviceman is caught stealing something for example. According to Saudi law, he would/could lose his hand/hands if tried by the Saudi's. That punishment would be considered extreme by U.S. standards. The point to be made here is that we have servicemen/women in countries all around the world and judicial proceedings & punishments vary tremendously from country to country. It simply would not be fair to permit uneven judgements for similar crimes; therefore, our troops are subject to U.S. law (for the most part). Sometimes we do release troops for trial by foreign countries, but not often. Mostly, our troops are held to stricter standards than usually apply in the country they are doing duty in.