This Summer, See America
The safest vacations for Bush Administration officials may be domestic ones, according to Philippe Sands of University College London. Sands reports that the military commissions act of 2006 may increase the likelihood of a future foreign war-crimes prosecution for those in the torture chain-of-command. Sands glosses a European prosecutor saying that "it would make it much easier for investigators outside the U.S. to argue that possible war crimes would never be addressed in their home country."
Which is true enough! Time was, I could mutter darkly about the arrogance of universal human rights violations and "rule from Brussels" and all of that. Now I say, bring it on. My own country has asserted its own universal jurisdiction, but a much more grandiose and damaging version of it. You don’t see Belgian judges conquering entire countries in the name of "freedom" or "benevolent hegemony." Given a choice between grabbing the odd retired official from an airport, jailing him in comfort and allowing him access to counsel and a public trial, and triggering the killing of tens to hundreds of thousands and the displacement of millions, while shoving hundreds of prisoners into legal black holes for abuse, the lesser evil kind of jumps out at me.
What the Raw Story gloss on the article doesn’t go into is whether the Military Commissions Act itself might constitute a criminal conspiracy under international law.
Comment by Professor Coldheart —
April 3, 2008 @ 9:00 am
That strikes me as wishful thinking. No one ever tries the victorious hegemon – just the losing one.
(not to suggest that the U.S. is “winning” the war in Iraq – but D.C. isn’t in flames, either)
Comment by Flippanter —
April 3, 2008 @ 11:04 am
Also, it isn’t as though after January 2009 Bush is ever going to visit even a jurisdiction in the United States where he is treated as less than the Sun King, much less a hostile setting abroad where Baltasar Garzon can get at him.
Comment by Nell —
April 3, 2008 @ 11:36 am
“It’s a matter of time,†the judge observed. “These things take time.â€
About 25 to 30 years, in my experience. I hope it will be less in this case. An end to impunity is something worth living for.
It takes 25 to 30 years of working for it; it’s not as if the time it takes is some sort of ripening process.
The mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and the COMADRES and the families of the disappeared didn’t sit around and wait during the 25 to 30 years it took to get the beginnings of justice.
Meanwhile, self-styled liberals who dismiss prosecution and impeachment as “moral vanity” should be considered as collaborators with fascists.
Comment by Nell —
April 3, 2008 @ 11:39 am
Oh, I don’t know, Flippanter. In a few decades even Texas may not be safe.
Maybe they’ll all have to hole up in Dubai.
Comment by KCinDC —
April 3, 2008 @ 11:57 am
Nell, I thought that Paraguay was the plan.
Comment by Thoreau —
April 3, 2008 @ 12:04 pm
The conquest of Iraq isn’t our government’s only claim of universal jurisdiction. They also claim the authority to send agents to grab anybody who might be Muslim from anywhere in the world, send him to a secret prison, and torture him at will.
Compared to that, a trial with the benefit of lawyers in the Hague seems pretty good.
I’d like to see more towns follow the lead of that Vermont town and start issuing resolutions calling for the arrest and prosecution of Bush and Cheney. Not that it will seriously crimp his vacation options (then again, some of the more quaint vacation towns have very liberal locals, so who knows?) but it would be good to keep the pressure on.
Comment by Michael —
April 3, 2008 @ 12:37 pm
You don’t see Belgian judges conquering entire countries in the name of “freedom” or “benevolent hegemony.”
You tell that to the Walloons…
Comment by sglover —
April 3, 2008 @ 2:55 pm
The conquest of Iraq isn’t our government’s only claim of universal jurisdiction. They also claim the authority to send agents to grab anybody who might be Muslim from anywhere in the world, send him to a secret prison, and torture him at will.
Well, long before that, I never quite understood how we decided that we could “arrest” (our former on-scene Quisling) Manuel Noriega. And of course, going back through the years, there are lots of other dicey interventions one could cite.
I’d much rather see impeachment, followed by domestic criminal proceedings. It’s really necessary if we want to consider ourselves a functioning republic. But of course, the “opposition” party won’t take the chance, so yeah, I don’t see why the Bush gangster syndicate doesn’t deserve exactly the same treatment that Milosevic got.
Comment by Jon H —
April 3, 2008 @ 4:43 pm
“That strikes me as wishful thinking. No one ever tries the victorious hegemon – just the losing one.”
Julius Caesar would quibble with that, though in his case it was more stabby than a typical trial.
Substitute countries for senators, and we might see:
‘Et tu, Britannia?’
Comment by Neel Krishnaswami —
April 3, 2008 @ 5:28 pm
Time was, I could mutter darkly about the arrogance of universal human rights violations and “rule from Brussels” and all of that. Now I say, bring it on.
Six-seven years back, I was really nervous about the absence of things like double jeopardy provisions in the the ICC. Nowadays, I find myself hoping some of these guys will even face single jeopardy. I am also kind of pissed off at how far the bar has been lowered.
Comment by ajay —
April 4, 2008 @ 6:32 am
There’s always the risk that the Dutch government will dispatch a strike team of highly-trained and incredibly socially liberal commandos to Texas to capture Bush and take him back to the Hague for trial.
Well, maybe it’s not a big risk, but it’d be a great movie. Sort of “Harold & Kumar” meet “Black Hawk Down”.
“Black Hawk Downer”!
Comment by Davebo —
April 4, 2008 @ 10:06 am
Hello???
Have you seen how much a Euro costs these days?
I think that alone is enough to vacation in Conus!
Comment by Thoreau —
April 4, 2008 @ 11:34 am
ajay-
And now you see the real purpose of the border fence: To make it impossible for those commandos to escape into Mexico with their captive.
Comment by joe —
April 4, 2008 @ 3:44 pm
“Dude, Where’s My Humvee?”
Comment by kathleen —
April 4, 2008 @ 5:33 pm
friends, I believe we have come up with the plot for the long-awaited Stripes 2.
Comment by Idi Amin's Last Meal —
April 6, 2008 @ 5:04 pm
Believe me, Bush can go to UK however often he wants. He can stay in Blair’s house & wait out extradition. It will be Pinochet-Thatcher II, though the sex will feature less drooling.