No Immunity For War Crimes

There is no immunity for war crimes.

If Saddam Hussein had his legislators, and courts, rule that his gassing of the Kurds was meaningless, he was still liable.

If what has happened at Abu Ghraib, at various detention camps, and elsewhere constitutes war crimes, then George W. Bush is still liable. Personally liable.

It doesn't matter how many laws he passes claiming that he isn't liable. It doesn't matter what Congress says about the Geneva Convention not counting, or re-interpreting it to make torture legal.

There is no immunity for war crimes.

Right now, in Baghdad, the United States is putting Saddam Hussein on trial for his life over war crimes, when Hussein's entire government – including its legislature and judicial branch – had long ago said he was innocent.

So how can there be immunity for war crimes?

War crimes are like the murders of Lady Macbeth. They don 't wash out. Ever. There is no immunity for war crimes.

What happened in Abu Ghraib was a war crime. What the United States is doing in Iraq right now, probably a war crime. What Bush did with his secret detention centers in Europe and elsewhere, a war crime.

You cannot prosecute a war crime in the country where the leader ruled. If the leader's people are still there, some chief judge will claim him innocent. Exclude them, limit the trial to the man's enemies, and you have a show trial, not a real trial. The only way to prosecute a war crime is before a designated international tribunal, like the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

No matter what George W. Bush and his party try to do, that doesn't change. If he is guilty of war crimes he will go to The Hague. The only hope is to steal this election, steal the next election, and steal every election until all the Bushes are dead of old age.

Can they do it? Only by making you and I and every other American guilty of war crimes.

Comments

[bdunbar]

The only hope is to steal this election, steal the next election, and steal every election until all the Bushes are dead of old age.

Ah - the solution in a Democracy when you think the other guy has cheated is to .. break the rules.

That's not Democracy. It's not a Republic - it's disorganized chaos until the center fails to hold and the entire thing falls apart like a motor with a locked bearing.

You can have that if you want - but it's no solution and it's nothing I want to be a part of.

[Phil Karn]

bdunbar, I think *maybe* you misunderstood what he was saying. I read it to mean that the *Bushes* would continue to steal elections until they were all dead from old age, to protect themselves from any war crimes prosecutions through the immunity of their offices. Note the recent reporting on the German war crime complaint against Donald Rumsfeld that points out that he loses his immunity when he leaves office.

Perhaps Dana can clarify what he meant.

[facebook]

very important for everybody.