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+--- Thread: Amnesty International wants Bush on trial over torture. (/thread-4801.html)
Amnesty International wants Bush on trial over torture. - Magda Hassan - 11-11-2010
AI wants Bush on trial over torture
Wed Nov 10, 2010 3:45PM
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Former President George W. Bush admitted to authorizing water-boarding against detainees.
The London-based Amnesty International (AI) has called for a criminal investigation into former US President George W. Bush's admission of torture.
The rights group's call comes after Bush confirmed in his recently released memoirs, Decision Points, that he authorized the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" against detainees held in secret US custody.
Exactly six days after the September 11 attacks, Bush authorized the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to set up secret detention facilities outside the US.
Amnesty claims multiple human rights violations were committed against detainees in the name of the so-called 'war on terror.'
Additionally, in an 8 November 2010 interview with Matt Lauer on NBC, Bush stated that he had authorized the use of "water boarding" and other "enhanced interrogation techniques" against alleged "high-value detainees." During the interview, Bush focused on the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
"Would it be OK for a foreign country to waterboard an American citizen?" Lauer asked.
"It's all I ask is that people read the book. And they can reach the same conclusion. If they'd have made the same decision I made or not," replied Bush.
According to a report released by the CIA Inspector General, Mohammed was water-boarded 183 times. Mohammed had spent three and a half years in a solitary confinement in secret locations before being transferred to military custody in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he continues to languish without trial.
Amnesty is calling for Bush and others involved in torture to be tried under the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which the US ratified in 1994.
"Under international law, the former President's admission to having authorized acts that amount to torture are enough to trigger the USA's obligations to investigate his admissions and if substantiated, to prosecute him," AI said.
"Failure to investigate and prosecute in circumstances where the requisite criteria are met is itself a violation of international law," it added.
LF/PKH/MMN
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/150441.html
Amnesty International wants Bush on trial over torture. - Magda Hassan - 11-11-2010
Just shows how compromised and right wing the Democrats are when it is the Republicans who are talking about this even if he has a grudge against some in his party. :banghead:
Quote:Republican congressman: I have ‘no hesitation whatsoever’ in probing Bush for torture
By John Byrne
Wednesday, November 10th, 2010 -- 8:47 am
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Republican congressman said in a little-noticed interview Tuesday he'd have "no hesitation whatsoever" in beginning an investigation of the former President George W. Bush for torture.
Appearing on MSNBC's The Dylan Rattigan show, GOP Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), who also serves on the House Government Oversight Committee, said he'd be more than willing to join a torture probe.
"How far back do you think is appropriate?" Rattigan asked. "Because the one thing that’s not on this list is for instance a torture investigation."
"Well, it may be on the list as well," Chaffetz said. "I’m not afraid of going after the Bush administration. I wasn’t brought here by the establishment.
"When I ran for congressman in 2008 -- I’m just a freshman here, George W. Bush, Orrin Hatch, and Bob Bennett, three Republicans, they campaigned against me," Chaffetz added. "So I don’t mind going back and looking at ‘em. So I don’t have any hestitation whatsoever."
Chaffetz's position differs from that of the current Democratic presidential administration of Barack Obama. The civil liberties group American Civil Liberties Union has criticized Obama for not being more proactive in opening investigations into CIA practices.
"This is the remarkable thing: Other countries are reckoning with the legacy of the Bush administration's torture program, and meanwhile the United States is not," Jameel Jaffer, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's national security program, told McClatchy Newspapers in August.
"That's part of why we're so concerned," Jaffer added. "The Obama administration, rather than investigate the abuses of the last eight years, has increasingly become an obstacle to accountability."
Still, there is an ongoing investigation into whether the CIA or its contractors went beyond US law when interrogating suspected terrorists.
Attorney General Eric Holder has tapped Assistant US Attorney John Durham to asked him to look into whether the CIA or contractors went beyond legal interrogation methods. That investigation is ongoing, according to NPR.
Chaffetz's comments were first picked up by the liberal blog, ThinkProgress. A detailed (and thoughtful) investigative profile of the congressman can be read at The Washington City Paper website.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/republican-congressman-announces-no-hesitation-probing-bush-torture/
Amnesty International wants Bush on trial over torture. - David Guyatt - 11-11-2010
It won't happen - but what a lovely thought. Bush and then Blair.
Amnesty International wants Bush on trial over torture. - Jack White - 11-11-2010
In the US, the mentally impaired are spared from capital punishment.
Thus Dubya will never be brought to justice.
Jack