War Criminals

Vanity Fair has a lengthy article on the torture memos and the chain of responsibility for torture at US facilities, particularly Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Excerpt:

We reviewed the definition of torture, as set out in the 1984 Convention, which is binding on 145 countries, including the United States. Torture includes “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person.”

[...]

This total ban was reinforced in 1984 with the adoption of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which criminalizes torture and complicity in torture.

[...]

The fingerprints of the most senior lawyers in the administration were all over the design and implementation of the abusive interrogation policies. Addington, Bybee, Gonzales, Haynes, and Yoo became, in effect, a torture team of lawyers, freeing the administration from the constraints of all international rules prohibiting abuse.

[...]

[Jim] Haynes, as Rumsfeld’s general counsel, was the most senior lawyer in the Pentagon, a position he would retain until a month ago, when he resigned—“returning to private life,” as a press release stated.

  Vanity Fair

More secret memos to emerge. And resignations should not put these people outside the reach of war crimes trials. Which we’ll never see happen, of course. At least as long as they stay in the U.S., and maybe the UK.

In my efforts to get to the heart of this story, and its possible consequences, I visited a judge and a prosecutor in a major European city, and guided them through all the materials pertaining to the Guantánamo case. The judge and prosecutor were particularly struck by the immunity from prosecution provided by the Military Commissions Act. “That is very stupid,” said the prosecutor, explaining that it would make it much easier for investigators outside the United States to argue that possible war crimes would never be addressed by the justice system in the home country—one of the trip wires enabling foreign courts to intervene.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.