Friday, January 28, 2005

Vote 'No' on Gonzales

Rumsfeld won't visit Germany - supposedly because the German government refused to quash a lawsuit against Rummy:

Due to Germany’s refusal to halt a law suit against him, United States Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he will not take part at the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, in February, according to Expatica.

The lawsuit, filed by the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights in December with the Federal German Prosecutor’s Office, accuses Rumsfeld of war crimes and torture in connection with detainee abuses at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison.

Listen, this war crimes/torture travesty goes all the way up to Gonzales, and probably up to President Bush.

I heard Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights this morning on Democracy Now!, and he was pretty convincing. Check out why Gonzales is in over his head:

My view is we're reaching a point in this lawsuit in Germany where something is going to give. We're filing major new papers, actually, today and Monday. One of them, of course, names Alberto Gonzales now as an additional defendant in the case. His testimony is one that really they could have put into a war crimes trial in Germany and said, “You're convicted.” Someone told me this incredible story about Germany and what happened with torture. One of the key people, Keitel, who got a death sentence in Germany was the man who scrawled on a memo to the high command about Russian soldiers that said, “Geneva Conventions? Obsolete rubbish.” Remember the word that Gonzales used to describe Geneva, “obsolete”. And when they sentenced Keitel to death, what they said was one of the reasons we're giving you the death penalty is for basically saying the Geneva Conventions are obsolete. So this is a very serious issue in Germany.

Note that Gonzales has been or will shortly be added to the list of defendants in the lawsuit. Gonzales is in deep shit, and rightfully so. He will soon be officially accused of war crimes, with most of the rest of the Bushies. Our Congress should not be confirming war criminals, nor those officially charged with war crimes.

Gonzales deserves a fair trial - war crimes trial, that is. Rummy and Bush and the rest of them deserve fair trials also, and I hope they're all convicted and sentenced as harshly as the law allows.

UPDATE: Gonzales added as defendant.

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