Nuremberg Set a Valid Precedent for Iraq War Trials

[mitty14u2]

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/27/nuremberg-set-a-valid-precedent-for-iraq-war-trials/

Weekend Edition
December 27-29, 2013

As the number of deaths continues unabated in Iraq –the worst since 2008- so do calls for the prosecution of those that led both the United States and Great Britain into war, George W. Bush and Tony Blair. In December alone there were 44 deaths in just one day, over 766 for the whole month and over 9,200 civilian deaths in the whole year. If Nuremberg Principles were applied, both Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair would have probably been condemned for their role in the Iraq war.

The Nuremberg Principles, a set of guidelines established after World War II to try Nazi Party members, were developed to determine what constitutes a war crime. The principles can also be applied today when considering the conditions that led to the Iraq war and, in the process, to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, many of them children, and to the devastation of a country’s infrastructure.

In January 2003, a group of American law professors warned President George W. Bush that he and senior officials of his government could be prosecuted for war crimes if their military tactics violated international humanitarian law. The group, led by the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, sent similar warnings to British Prime Minister Tony Blair and to Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/27/nuremberg-set-a-valid-precedent-for-iraq-war-trials/

[mitty14u2]

1. Kuala Lumpur - It's official; George W Bush is a war criminal.

Kuala Lumpur - It's official; George W Bush is a war criminal. Sun, 13 May 2012

In what is the first ever conviction of its kind anywhere in the world, the former US President and seven key members of his administration were yesterday (Fri) found guilty of war crimes.

Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their legal advisers Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo were tried in absentia in Malaysia.

The trial held in Kuala Lumpur heard harrowing witness accounts from victims of torture who suffered at the hands of US soldiers and contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

They included testimony from British man Moazzam Begg, an ex-Guantanamo detainee and Iraqi woman Jameelah Abbas Hameedi who was tortured in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.

At the end of the week-long hearing, the five-panel tribunal unanimously delivered guilty verdicts against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their key legal advisors who were all convicted as war criminals for torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment.

http://www.sott.net/article/245390-Bush-Cheney-and-Rumsfeld-Convicted-of-War-Crimes-in-Absentia

[Ranchemp.]

2. And I'm sure that as soon as Kuala Lumpur issues an

extradition request, the DoJ will immediately dispatch a team of U.S. Marshals to take him into custody and escort him to a plane for the flight to Kuala Lumpur.
Oh, and , just in case it's needed.

[freshwest]

3. I had a very long post I was going to make but you jumped in. I wasn't sure if I should post it. n/t

[DrDebug]

4. Victor's Justice

The Nuremburg Principles apply to the losers and not to the winners.

Do you remember Henry Kissinger?

But an even better example is Egon Krenz. That's a person whom everybody has forgotten about, even though he was the person who opened of the Berlin Wall. I remember an interview where he said that that night he received a furious phone call from West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, because he dared to open the gates without Kohl's consent. During the reunification talks he made an agreement with both Kohl and Gorbachov that no former officials from East Germany were to be prosecuted.

That promise was immediately broken and he was sentenced to 6 1/2 years for killing 4 German citizens even though he was just the officer in charge and didn't even order the shooting.

That's victor's justice for you