Thread: Obama / Holder Must Prosecute War Crimes or Guilty Themselve

Obama and Holder Must Prosecute War Crimes or Become Guilty of Them Themselves

Tue, 03/03/2009 - 17:35 — dlindorff

The dithering and ducking going on in the Obama White House and the Holder Justice Department over the crimes of the Bush administration are taking on a comic aspect.

On the one hand, we have President Obama assuring us that under his administration, there will be respect for the rule of law, and on the other hand we have this one-time constitutional law professor and his attorney general declaiming that there is no need for the appointment of a prosecutor to bring charges against the people in the last administration, in the CIA, in the National Security Agency and in the Defense Department and the military who clearly have broken the law in serious and felonious ways.

What gets silly is that America is either a nation of laws…or it isn’t. It is either a place where “nobody is above the lawâ€

On 1-20-09, Manfred Nowak, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, stated:
"The incoming American President Barack Obama is legally obligated to prosecute Bush and Rumsfeld because the US has ratified the UN Convention on Torture and has also recognized it as legally binding."

Also interesting is that on 2-27-09, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco rejected an attempt by the Obama administration to use the state secrets privilege to block a lawsuit concerning the Bush administration’s domestic surveillance program. Obama’s Justice Department, in legal arguments identical to those made by Bush administration officials, had sought an emergency stay and said national security would be at risk if the lawsuit proceeded.

Also, Martin Scheinin, a Finnish diplomat and UN special investigator for human rights, has concluded in a report scheduled for release Friday that foreign intelligence agents sent to question U.S.-held terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay had violated international human-rights laws.