Another Victory For Torture: Germans Reject Investigation Request

German federal prosecutors on Friday rejected a U.S. group's formal request to investigate allegations that current and former Bush administration officials were complicit in the torture of military prisoners.

The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights accused former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former CIA director George Tenet and eight other officials of either ordering, aiding or failing to prevent the torture.

According to a report from David Rising of the AP in the Washington Post,

German law allows the prosecution of war crimes regardless of where they were committed, and permits any citizen or group to formally request a criminal investigation.

In rejecting the complaint, prosecutors said that it was up to the U.S. to hold any inquiry, adding that there were no indications U.S. authorities or courts would not conduct one.

Of course they'll conduct one. They'll conduct as many as they have to. But there is no indication that it will be anything other than a whitewash, just like the "investigation" they did last time. And even the lapdog WaPo virtually admits as much:

Attorneys leading the case had said [...] they had documents from 2005 congressional hearings suggesting that Rumsfeld approved harsh methods [...]

After FBI agents raised concerns, the documents showed, military investigators began reviewing the case and in July 2005 said they confirmed abusive and degrading treatment [...] Still, the Pentagon determined that no torture had occurred.

So once again we're left with questions, such as:

Has it not dawned on the German prosecutors that the Pentagon will always determine that nothing illegal has occurred? Of course it has.

Would these same German prosecutors let a fox investigate mysterious death and destruction in a chicken coop? Apparently they would.

Center for Constitutional Rights President Michael Ratner vowed to pursue an appeal in Germany or action in another country.

"If Germany is not willing to enforce their law we think other countries will be. We're not going to leave a stone unturned," Ratner said by telephone from New York.

Splendid sentiment, but it seems rather unlikely that Ratner will find anyone with more backbone than the Germans who rejected the request.

The attorneys were also hopeful that testimony from former U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski -- the one-time commander of all U.S. military prisons in Iraq -- would bolster their case.

When the complaint was filed, Karpinski [...] told reporters in Berlin that she would testify against her superiors because only a handful of low-ranking soldiers have been convicted in the abuse at Abu Ghraib.

"People who are far more culpable and responsible have walked away blameless," Karpinski said.

But they wouldn't even talk to her.

So what have we learned?

Witnesses don't matter, testimony doesn't matter, the law doesn't matter, and the facts of the case don't matter.

Torturers should investigate their own crimes.

Welcome to hell.

Newly Linked

[UPDATED below]

I've just linked a couple of new blogs on the sidebar and I wanted to draw your attention to them, as things are busy over there and here too at the moment, and you could easily have missed them.

Steve Burks : Shooting Straight

Steve Burks is a musician and writer from Gary, Indiana via Dallas, Texas. He popped up on my radar screen when he blogged about Sibel Edmonds and had me on the floor when he turned on his diplomacy blocker and said what he really thought about Dixie-Chick Haters.

So I kept reading and found that Steve is really thoughtful and thought-provoking; he hasn't blogged a lot lately but what he has posted at Shooting Straight seems really good to me. From one musician and writer to another: Keep up the good work, Steve. I'll be reading you.

Ranger Against War

Then there's the Special Forces vet who now blogs against the war from an undisclosed location in the USA. He came to my attention when he mentioned Janis Karpinski and I got reading a bit on his blog, RangerAgainstWar, and I found myself really enjoying it, especially in the spots where he and I don't exactly see eye-to-eye ... and there are quite a few of those spots, so it's been very interesting reading him. I think you'll probably enjoy reading him, too.

You might want to start with "Disarmament", a post which makes a ton of sense, and which, since I found it, has been linked by Juan Cole at Informed Comment. So this Ranger's undisclosed location is probably getting a ton of traffic at the moment, and it's very well-deserved, in my opinion.

From one undisclosed location to another, Congrats! and Please keep up the good work. I'll be reading you too.

Pen And Sword

Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) was operations officer of a naval air wing and an aircraft carrier, and commanded an E-2C Hawkeye aircraft squadron. His satires and analyses of military and foreign policy affairs have appeared in Proceedings, The Navy, Jane's Fighting Ships, and other print periodicals. Some of his essays have been required student reading at the U.S. Naval War College, where he received a master's degree in national security studies in 1995.

His "Navy Admiral Goes to CENTCOM: Be Very Afraid" caught my eye when it appeared at Larisa's blog and his blog, Pen And Sword, looks excellent (from what I've seen so far).

As always, your comments are invited.

Dumsfeld And Others Accused Of Torture

Outgoing Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and other American officials have been named in a lawsuit filed in Germany earlier this week, which alleges that they bear responsibility for torture committed at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. A preliminary hearing was held in Berlin on Tuesday, details of which have been difficult to find, especially in the USA. How surprising!

Fortunately, more comprehensive reports have been published elsewhere.

From Business Day (South Africa): Former US inmates target Rumsfeld in war crimes suit:

Eleven former prisoners of the US armed forces [Tuesday] filed a lawsuit in Germany calling for former US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and other American officials to be investigated for war crimes.

Backed by human rights groups, the 11 say they were tortured at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison and the US prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba on the orders of Rumsfeld and other top members of US President George Bush’s administration.

From The Berlin Paper: Lawyers meet in movie theaters to push for Rumsfeld war crimes suit

Lawyers met Tuesday in Mitte’s Babylon theater [shown in the photo above: the marquee reads "Human Rights Against Rumsfeld"] to announce and explain their lawsuit against outgoing US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials whom they accuse of committing war crimes.

The lawsuit was organized by Wolfgang Kaleck from the Center for Institutional Rights (CCR); the German lawyers’ group “Republikanische Anwälteverein” (RAV); and the Paris-based Federation Internationale des Ligues des Droits de l’Hommes (FIDH). The suit asks the German Federal Prosecutor’s office in Karlsruhe to investigate whether Rumsfeld, attorney general Alberto Gonzales, former CIA director George Tenet, and Bush administration lawyers John Yoo and Jay Bybee committed war crimes in authorizing the use of torture.

For five hours on Monday, lawyers read the text of their lawsuit to the public at Friedrichshain movie theater Kino International before filing court papers on Tuesday in Karlsruhe.

This suit differs from a similar brief filed last year in that it lists 12 individuals, rather than four, as having been tortured and abused by US officials. In both instances, the cases were cobbled together using Pentagon memos, reports from human rights groups, newspaper articles, and eyewitness testimonies.

But what bolsters their argument this time is former brigadier general Janis Karpinski’s offer to testify on their behalf.

By far the most detailed English-language report of the hearing that I have been able to find is Rumsfeld faces lawsuit for alleged war crimes in Iraq, written by Roger Boyes in Berlin, and published by Times Online (UK). Boyes' report includes the following:

[Janis Karpinski], the former head of Abu Ghraib jail [...] gave a graphic account of conditions in the US detention centre as part of an attempt to put Donald Rumsfeld in the dock for allegedly aiding and abetting war crimes in Iraq.
...
“When I arrived in 2003, the prison held under 500 Iraqis, but, within a month, after a visit by military intelligence, that number had jumped to 3,000,” said Mrs Karpinski.

“Within a further month, the prison was holding 7,800. There was no release procedure in place and most did not know why they were being held.”
...
She accused Mr Rumsfeld [Tuesday] of authorising the use of torture at the prison and effectively wresting the jail out of her control.

At a public hearing in Berlin today - to press home the prosecution case against Mr Rumsfeld - the former governor described how a senior military intelligence officer, Major General Geoffrey Miller, took command over the prison. He was, according to the case presented to a public hearing today, acting on the orders of Mr Rumsfeld to secure better and quicker intelligence from captured Iraqis.

“He simply said: ’I order you to hand over Abu Ghraib to me’,” recalled the former governor, who was disciplined and demoted after photographs of prisoner abuse were made public.

Mrs. Karpinski was interviewed on Monday by the German paper Tagesspiegel, but (as far as I can tell) it has only been published in German. My attempts to translate the text into English using software have produced illegible results, so I'll spare you the details.

If you any know enough German to translate this web page, or if you know of any software capable of generating a reasonable translation, please contact me, either via email or in comments.

Dumsfeld, Others May Face Charges Over Abu Ghraib

Is there a noose in Dumsfeld's future? Could be.

This just in (via BB2): a new article by Adam Zagorin of Time Magazine says:

New legal documents, to be filed next week with Germany's top prosecutor, will seek a criminal investigation and prosecution of [outgoing Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld, along with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former CIA director George Tenet and other senior U.S. civilian and military officers, for their alleged roles in abuses committed at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
...
Along with Rumsfeld, Gonzales and Tenet, the other defendants in the case are Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone; former assistant attorney general Jay Bybee; former deputy assisant attorney general John Yoo; General Counsel for the Department of Defense William James Haynes II; and David S. Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. Senior military officers named in the filing are General Ricardo Sanchez, the former top Army official in Iraq; Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the former commander of Guantanamo; senior Iraq commander, Major General Walter Wojdakowski; and Col. Thomas Pappas, the one-time head of military intelligence at Abu Ghraib.

According to Zagorin's account,

one of the witnesses who will testify [on behalf of the plaintiffs] is former Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the one-time commander of all U.S. military prisons in Iraq.

Karpinski [...] has issued a written statement to accompany the legal filing, which says, in part: "It was clear the knowledge and responsibility [for what happened at Abu Ghraib] goes all the way to the top of the chain of command to the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld."

This could get interesting very fast.

As Zagorin notes,

the Bush Administration has rejected adherence to the International Criminal Court (ICC) on grounds that it could be used to unjustly prosecute U.S. officials.

The fact that the ICC could be used to justly prosecute U.S. officials doesn't make any difference, does it? Oops! I wasn't supposed to mention that, was I?

Oh well ... They've had their fun; now it's time for them to hang.

Pray for justice. Then watch as the neocons eat their own.

I can guarantee it won't be pretty. But it might be fun anyway.