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Guatanamo

Open Thread: ICC and War Crimes Edition

No wonder the Bush Administration has worked so hard to distance itself from the Geneva Conventions and Republicans in general appear to loathe the very thought of the United States ever joining the International Criminal Court (ICC):

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The ICC "shall apply equally to all persons without any distinction based on official capacity. In particular, official capacity as a head of state... shall in no case exempt a person from criminal responsibility," it says.

        -- Article 27 of the Rome Treaty
          per the AFP website.

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It's pretty much a common consensus world-wide -- and among any reality-based people within the U.S. -- that the United States has committed war crimes in pursuit of the GWoT and particularly in Iraq.

"Says who?"

Several findings definitely lead that way:

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GreyHawk's picture

Darkness Falls on American Justice: Abu Ghraib Officer Claims Probe Was Incomplete

Via Federal News Radio (hat-tip to JRichards for the heads-up):

January 11, 2008 - 6:33am -- By BEN NUCKOLS
Associated Press Writer

BALTIMORE (AP) - The revelation that the Army threw out the conviction of the only officer court-martialed in the Abu Ghraib scandal renewed outrage from human rights advocates who complained that not enough military and civilian leaders were held accountable for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners.

Those critics found an unlikely ally in the officer himself, Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, whose conviction on a minor charge of disobeying an order was dismissed this week, leaving him with only an administrative reprimand.

Jordan told The Associated Press on Thursday he believes many officers and enlisted soldiers did not face adequate scrutiny in the investigation that led to convictions against 11 soldiers, none with a rank higher than staff sergeant.

He said the probe was "not complete" and that a link between abusive interrogations at Abu Ghraib and in military prisons at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan was not adequately established.

Under the logic of the Bush League, failure and incompetence gets rewarded -- people fail upward, and spectacularly so, until they have nowhere to go but out -- to roam free among the public.

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