UN: Charge Bush with Torture

[franko]

BERLIN (AFP) — The UN's special torture rapporteur called on the US Tuesday to pursue former president George W. Bush and defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld for torture and bad treatment of Guantanamo prisoners.

"Judicially speaking, the United States has a clear obligation" to bring proceedings against Bush and Rumsfeld, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak said, in remarks to be broadcast on Germany's ZDF television Tuesday evening.

the rest

This could be interesting.

[franko]

and this: Future Times

[MC Habber]

That doesn't exactly fit into Obama's plan to unite people and build bi-partisan support.

That Future Times is remarkably thorough.

[The New Guy]

Jan 21, 2009 22:01:14 GMT -5 franko said:

BERLIN (AFP) — The UN's special torture rapporteur called on the US Tuesday to pursue former president George W. Bush and defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld for torture and bad treatment of Guantanamo prisoners.

"Judicially speaking, the United States has a clear obligation" to bring proceedings against Bush and Rumsfeld, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak said, in remarks to be broadcast on Germany's ZDF television Tuesday evening.

the rest

This could be interesting.

Nope. Frankly it's a non-issue. Because whoever wrote is clearly ignorant of some basic facts.

Problem the first - there is no UN Convention on Torture. There is a UN Convention Against Torture, but it makes it really hard to research the errors in an article when you can't even quote the relevant legislation correctly.

Problem the second - have you read the UN Convention Against Torture? Let me quote:

Article 1

1. For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

And here we strike what I consider to be the second biggest problem with any thought of prosecuting anyone for torture. It's vague. It's unwieldy. And if anyone ever thought to apply it as a legal principle they would get torn to shreds by any lawyer worth his salt.

And then there's problem the third - contrary to what the Special Rapporteur said, the United States of America has never signed the convention. Nor has Canada for that matter. The countries that have signed it? Afghanistan, Argentina, Belgium, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Senegal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Uruguay, Venezuela, Luxembourg, Panama, Austria and the UK.

So yeah - really poor writing to begin with. And not a shred of hope of anything happening to end with.

[Habs_fan_in_LA]

Waterboard the UN!
Nuking is too good for them.
War is terrible, but it is better than the alternative.
You have to break a few eggs to make an omlet.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved a lot of lives and ended the war a lot sooner.
Japan bombed Pearl and killed a lot of people.
Germany bombed London. We bombed Berlin.
In a perfect world we would have trials, rehabilitate criminals, provide support and comfort to our enemies. In the real world................kill the bastards.

[CentreHice]

History has shown that war basically has no rules. Just continuous rationalization of whatever it takes to win.

[Cranky]

Help me! HELP ME! I once tortured my hamster by letting run around in circles. Shirley, the UN has some kind of law against that too. Oh wait, I'm not American or Isaeli so I must be okay. *sigh*

The UN needs good two handed shovel smack on it's head because this gabage makes it more irrelevent every day.

[CrocRob]

UN/International Law is meaningless, anyway. They can't even get a court to uphold it. What's the bloody point?

[MC Habber]

Jan 21, 2009 22:49:26 GMT -5 The New Guy said:

Problem the first - there is no UN Convention on Torture. There is a UN Convention Against Torture, but it makes it really hard to research the errors in an article when you can't even quote the relevant legislation correctly.

I'm going to split hairs. ;D The article doesn't refer to any so-named "Convention on Torture" - it says "the UN convention on torture" which is a reasonable description of that which is known as the "United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment." It is, after all, a convention whose subject matter includes torture.