Spanish Court Orders Investigation for 6 Bush-Era Officials
Put forth on March 30, 2009 by XicanoPwr
Posted in Alberto Gonzales, George Bush, Human Rights, International Criminal Court, War Crimes
Generally, truth commissions are bodies established to research and report on human rights abuses over a certain period of time in a particular country or in relation to a particular conflict. I recently post that Sen Patrick Leahy has been trying to create one. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely to become reality.
However, according to news reports over the weekend, the Spanish Court has taken the first steps toward opening a criminal investigation into allegations that six former high-level Bush administration officials.
The judge who ordered the inquiry is Baltasar Garzon, best known for his crusade for the arrest of the Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet. Garzon said that it was “highly probable” that the case would go forward and that it could lead to arrest warrants, according to The New York Times.
Those named in the complaint include former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; chief of staff and legal adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, David Addington; former Justice Department lawyer, John Yoo; Mr. Yoo’s former boss at the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, Jay S. Bybee; former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Douglas Feith, and Department of Defense counsel, William J. Haynes.
Spain is not the country seeking to go after Bush Administration for war crimes. Last week, The Washington Independent reported that the United Kingdom plans to investigate US role for torture of Binyam Mohamed, the Ethiopian who was tortured as part of the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program.
The Obama administration has argued that he is more “interested in looking forward than I am in looking backwards;” yet, he also acknowledged “there are clear instances of wrongdoing people should be prosecuted just like ordinary citizens.” One does have to wonder if the reason the Obama administration is stalling is to allow other counties have the first crack at these war criminals.
However, I think time for this Administration to stop this line of thinking and we must stop giving these war criminals a pass just to protect our imagine.
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This is the blog of Edmundo "XicanoPwr" Rocha, a social worker, an activist, freelance writer and founder and editor of The Sanctuary. My interests include: immigration reform, critical race theory and it's interaction with equality/inequality and freedom/oppression as they relate to the experiences of people of color in the Americas.
Para Justicia y Libertad is a Latino-centered political blog focusing on the humanistic perspective of politics, history, and society as they relate to the Latina/o community throughout Texas and the United States.
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Boye is dirtier than Yoo and Gonzales combined. All they did was advise the president.
Boye spent 8 years in a Spanish prison for aiding terrorists.
If anyone should face trial it should be Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice and if they ever do face charges it will be hard not to prosecute Bush as well.
This torture, I do not know if it is water boarding or what form it took. But let’s assume that it was indeed torture and that it did indeed happen. After 911, it could be accepted as “the fog of war.”
Spain is afraid of another Madrid style bombing.
I think this prosecution (if the investigation leads to prosecution) plays right into the hands of terrorists.
And with a new president as green as the one we have it doesn’t look good.
It’s going to be interesting to see if this goes anywhere. It seems that other countries have an easier time taking this kind of thing on. It reminds me of Oliver North being banned from Costa Rica for his drug distribution activities.
I don’t know very much about this subject, but it could be considered exciting that this prosecution took far less time than pinochet’s… on the otehr hand, perhaps there was this sort of thing against people workin (g under ( or advising?) pinochet closer to the time of his actual crimes…
I take it these people will be tried in absentia.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-04-13/the-bush-six-to-be-indicted/
To me it’s all moot. But at least it’s Spain’s money and not ours.
Anyway, what if rendition is judged to be illegal? Will Obama then face a Spanish court?
I guess we won’t to see them get publicly dragged through the proverbial the town square. The fact that the Obama Administration has no interest going after these thugs is equivalent to President Ford pardoning Richard Nixon. And like the past, as time passes and this nation moves forward, the Bush-Cheney-Gonzalez scandal will be just a distant memory, just like Iran-Contra and Watergate.
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