UN torture investigator: Obama has broken International law
Published: April 18, 2009
Updated 7 months ago
UN official suggests US courts can still try accused torturers
The United Nation’s top torture investigator has suggested it is illegal under International law for President Barack Obama to announce that the United States government has no intention of prosecuting low-level CIA officers who carried out torture sanctioned by the Bush Administration.
President Barack Obama’s release on Thursday of four Bush administration memos sanctioning torture has been widely praised. However, word that government will go so far as to offer a fully-paid legal defense for agents who applied torture techniques to terror war prisoners has triggered loud criticism.
“Like all other contracting states to the UN convention against torture, the US has committed to conduct criminal investigations of torture and to bring all persons to court against whom there is sound evidence,” Manfred Nowak, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on torture, told Austrian weekly paper Der Standard.
“They are party to the convention and the convention is very, very clear,” Nowak told the paper. “The fact that you carried out an order doesn’t relieve you of your responsibility.”
“In a brief telephone interview with The Associated Press, Manfred Nowak [...] said the United States had committed itself under the U.N. Convention against Torture to make torture a crime and to prosecute those suspected of engaging in it,” reported the San Francisco Chronicle.
“Nowak, who said he would soon travel to Washington for meetings with officials, also called for a comprehensive independent investigation into the matter and added it was important to compensate the victims,” the paper continued.
“Nowak said he did not think the president would not go so far as to issue an amnesty law for CIA operatives. Therefore US courts could still try torture suspects,” reported Earth Times.
“President Obama deserves credit for rejecting arguments that official disclosure of these ‘enhanced’ interrogation techniques would set a dangerous precedent,” opined the LA Times on Saturday. “But he continues to hedge about whether the CIA might once again be freed from the standards of conduct imposed on interrogators for the military. Indignation over these shameful documents should convince the president that a double standard for interrogation is intolerable.”
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Barack Obama graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1991. Is it possible he’s forgotten what “law” is in the last 18 years?
This behavior of our 44th president is beyond ridiculous.
And frankly, it doesn’t matter what he does; the frothing, traitorous, seditious fucks on the right are going to loudly condemn him, whatever he does, so he MIGHT AS WELL GET IT RIGHT.
Damn this illegal bullshit.
It also violates federal constitutional law because once a treaty is made, such as the Geneva Conventions, it becomes the law of the United States:
“This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.”
(Link).
The whole defense argument at the Nuremberg trials was that the defendants should not be found guilty of crimes committed by the Nazis under the command of Hitler because they were simply following orders. However, the prosecutor argued successfully refuted the defendants’ argument.
The prosecutor argued that if not for the complicity of the defendants, regardless of how minor their role may have been in aiding the Nazis, Hitler would not have been able to rise to power as absolute dictator, and thus the atrocities committed by the Nazi party and their leader would never have occurred. (Hitler and the Nazi party did not come into power overnight. It took well over 10 years. Hitler’s success was due entirely to the complicity of 100s of people paving the way for the Nazis in their quest to rule ze world.)
This is all a matter of public record, so it is interesting that the “they were only following orders” BS is now being asserted as a defense after being so thoroughly debunked at the Nuremberg trials. This leads me to suspect that Obama’s strategy is that (for reasons as yet unknown) he is playing his cards in such a way as to create a public outcry that puts him in the position of having no other choice but to pursue justice. And I think he wants that pressure to not only come from the American people, but the world at large. He didn’t just release those memos to the American people–he released them to the entire world community.
So, let’s make sure we the people do our part and really put the pressure on Obama to appoint a special prosecutor. Obama can talk about “looking forward” all he wants, but until the guilty are held accountable for their crimes against humanity, the people will not be able to “move forward” until their demands for justice are satisfied.
Giving Obama the benefit of the doubt… maybe he wants lower officials to feel free to come forward in some future prosecution, of which he does not intend to be a part.
It does not matter in the end if Obama’s regime will not prosecute. The US is a signatory to the UN charter on torture, and is responsible in International Court for its perpetrators. If they will not prosecute, penalties can be imposed by international law, including product restrictions and fines. We’ll see how long Microsoft tolerates blockage of Windows in Africa and Asia before they force Obama to turn over the perps.
Sadly those clamoring for prosecution are the exact ones who said the UN is no longer relevant, has no control over the happenings of the United States or that the Geneva Conventions did not relate when capturing people on the battlefield and holding them since they “did not wear the uniform of a country’s army”. You can not have it both ways in ignoring them when convenient and then quoting them and being in agreement with them when it suits you. The time for taking care of this was when it was happening and that was not done.
myopiniononly
“The time for taking care of this was when it was happening and that was not done.”
wtf?
Since when? If a mass murderer, serial killer or rapist is caught, Dennis Rader (BTK) for example, years after committing their crimes, do we not hold them accountable? Germans are still being hunted down and prosecuted for lesser crimes than torture that took place almost seventy years ago. The lower level CIA agents should be given some degree of leniency for their testimony against Bush, Cheney, Yoo, Rumsfeld et al. This is what would happen in a just world. Doing everything in his power to prevent prosecution makes Obama an accessory after the fact to torture.
The full U.N. Convention Against Torture:
http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cat.html
Article 4
1. Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law. The same shall apply to an attempt to commit torture and to an act by any person which constitutes complicity or participation in torture.
2. Each State Party shall make these offences punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account their grave nature.
I do not see any room for not prosecuting those that have committed, ordered or provided justification for torture.
I see only three options for Obama at this point.
1. Prosecute all those that committed, ordered or justified torture.
2. Let another signatory to the Convention Against Torture prosecute.
3. Back out of the Convention Against Torture.
Obama’s choice is not an option if the U.S is to be seen as a nation of laws.
Just another Sick Chapter being open in yet another sick administration, the last real president was JFK and the one before was Mckinley. With the internet this becomes obvious with a little homework.
The more I read these kinds of articles, the more I wonder whether people even know about the Geneva Conventions. Maybe if we taught youth about IHL (international humanitarian law) in schools there wouldn’t be so much confusion.
There’s a petition out now– Protect the Vulnerable in War: Teach the Geneva Conventions– found at http://bit.ly/RCpetition
Sign the Petition! Perhaps our future leaders will have less issues understanding what is legal & right if they’ve been brought up to respect IHL.