Friday, January 23, 2009

UN Calls On The U.S. To Prosecute Bush Co.

I don't know how President Obama and his administration can overlook a call from the United Nations to investigate and prosecute members of the Bush Administration for torture. Kinda makes that whole "we just want to look forward" look moot at this point. What will happen if this pronouncements keep coming from around the globe? Will we ever get our reputation back as a morally upstanding country if we do not prosecute wrong doing by those in power? I don't see how we can. If we are supposed to believe that no one is above the law, its time for us to start proving it.

From RawStory:

The UN's special torture rapporteur called on the US Tuesday to pursue former president George W. Bush and defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld for torture and bad treatment of Guantanamo prisoners.

"Judicially speaking, the United States has a clear obligation" to bring proceedings against Bush and Rumsfeld, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak said, in remarks to be broadcast on Germany's ZDF television Tuesday evening.

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.

"But obviously the highest authorities in the United States were aware of this," added Nowak, who authored a UN investigation report on the Guantanamo prison.


That last line is particularly damning. It pretty much casts a cloud over the leadership in Congress in that it is saying because they knew and know what happened, there shouldn't be any question that an investigation SHOULD be forthcoming. If it isn't the spotlight won't be just on Bush Co, it will also shift to the people who enabled them. Dangerous ground if you ask me.

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