Germany recently arrested and charged an alleged former Nazi with running a death camp in the 1940s.
Cambodia is putting on trial senior Khmer Rouge members for torture committed in the 1970s.
A Peruvian court convicted and sentenced to a quarter century in jail its former president Alberto Fujimori for widespread human rights abuses in the 1990s.
The United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone is currently trying former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor for hideous war crimes and crimes against humanity also committed in the 1990s.
If these entities can hold to account former heads of state for human rights abuses committed decades ago, then why can't US officials prosecute those who authorized secret torture sites, torture more generally and any of the other violations of American and international law okayed only a few years ago by the US government during the so-called war on terror?
Sadly, some in power and their apologists are more concerned with 'not giving the Republicans any ammo' than re-establishing America's respect for civilized values and the rule of law.
Third world countries and the supposedly incompetent UN are mature and decent enough to apply justice and the rule of law. Certainly the self-described Greatest Nation on Earth and Leader of the Free World can hold itself to at least a high a standard.
5 comments:
That case against John Demjanjuk for war crimes is anything but justice. There's been a witch hunt against this guy for decades without any proof that he did anything. Sounds like guilty Germans looking for a scapegoat to give a showtrial to.
The Demjanjuk case is hardly open and shut. The accusations against him have been going on since the late 1970s (when first brought up by a Ukrainian Communist party paper in New York that was funded by Moscow), and he already spent about 10 years in prison, solitary confinement, and death row in Israel for allegedly being Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka... then new facts came to light, after the 1991 fall of the USSR, proving his innocence. He was released by the Israelis, and to top it off, it was later proven, and public announced by a US judge, that US government prosecutors knowingly withheld evidence that would have cleared him years ago.
The group that is accusing him now accused him years ago of being at Treblinka. In short, "We were utterly convinced he was at camp a, but since we failed to get him on that charge, we are now utterly convinced he was *really, really* at camps, b, c and d." I could go on about the case, but for now I shall yield the floor.
I am not saying I am entirely sure of his innocence on these new charges- just trying to show that this case is more complex than it seems to be.
Mark and Luke,
My citation of the above cases was not intended to opine on the people in question (although my loathing and detestation of Charles Taylor is no secret).
It was to point out that if people can be put on trial for acts allegedly committed decades ago, then we Americans shouldn't be afraid to put high ranking people on trial for what happened only a few years ago.
Brian, I understand your point and fully agree with it. What caught my attention was the use of the terms "former Nazi" and "running a death camp."
Mark, I tried not to state a presumption of guilt in the original entry but I re-worded it accordingly.
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