On Friday, while former Defense Sec. Donald Rumsfeld
was visiting France, human rights groups based there
and in the United States filed complaints against him,
charging him with approving torture:
The French complaint accuses Mr. Rumsfeld of authorizing
torture at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and at the Abu Ghraib prison
in Iraq, and says it violated the Convention Against Torture,
which came into force in 1987.
As part of their complaint, the groups submitted 11 pages
of written testimony from Janis Karpinski, the highest-ranking
officer to be punished in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.
She was demoted to colonel from brigadier general and lost
command of her military police unit.
She contended that the abuses at the prison had started after
the appearance of Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who was sent by
Mr. Rumsfeld to assist military intelligence interrogators.
French prosecutors were said to have the power to pursue
the case while Rumsfeld was in the country.
One source cites unconfirmed reports that Rumsfeld was abruptly
whisked away from a breakfast meeting on Friday in order to
avoid his arrest:
U.S. embassy officials whisked Rumsfeld away yesterday
from a breakfast meeting in Paris organized by the Foreign
Policy magazine after human rights groups filed a criminal
complaint against the man who spearheaded President George
W. Bush’s “war on terror” for six years.
Under international law, authorities in France are
obliged to open an investigation when a complaint is made
while the alleged torturer is on French soil.
The report said Rumsfeld fled to Germany because similar
charges were dismissed against him there in the spring.
The German court ruled that Rumsfeld’s criminality was
an internal matter for the United States.
Is it not clear that the rule of law applies to
some people but not to others?
Where Rumsfeld had the power to put people in prison
without due process of law, when he is the subject
of a complaint himself, he flees the country
like a common criminal.
Actually, Rumpsmelt has committed
crimes right here in the USA.
We signed treaties that outlaw torture,
among other crimes he also committed.
Those treaties are also US laws.
That makes him a US criminal as well
as an international criminal.
His ill gotten war profiteering assets
are also subject to confiscation, no matter
where in the world they are hidden.
Accountability, hah!
There goes the US moral superiority.
Too bad Americans haven’t filed a complaint on American soil.
I’d like to see Rumsfeld a fugitive for the rest of his life.
I hope he likes his new bug out home on
the Bush/Cheney estate in Paraguay.
Don’t try this at home or anywhere else folks.
If you are a regular Joe, the U.S. embassy officials
will hand you over, not whisk you away, no matter
how outrageous the charges filed against you in a
foreign country and no matter how much they know its false.
Trust me on this one.
Go France…
