Hello The Hague

Time is reporting that some victims of American torture are pursuing War Crimes accusations against Donald Rumsfeld and some of his fellow perps.
Just days after his resignation, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is about to face more repercussions for his involvement in the troubled wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. New legal documents, to be filed next week with Germany's top prosecutor, will seek a criminal investigation and prosecution of 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.

The plaintiffs in the case include 11 Iraqis who were prisoners at Abu Ghraib, as well as Mohammad al-Qahtani, a Saudi held at Guantanamo, whom the U.S. has identified as the so-called "20th hijacker" and a would-be participant in the 9/11 hijackings. As TIME first reported in June 2005, Qahtani underwent a "special interrogation plan," personally approved by Rumsfeld, which the U.S. says produced valuable intelligence. But to obtain it, according to the log of his interrogation and government reports, Qahtani was subjected to forced nudity, sexual humiliation, religious humiliation, prolonged stress positions, sleep deprivation and other controversial interrogation techniques.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs say that one of the witnesses who will testify on their behalf is former Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the one-time commander of all U.S. military prisons in Iraq. Karpinski — who the lawyers say will be in Germany next week to publicly address her accusations in the case — 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...

Not that he doesn't deserve it, but it ain't gonna happen - not, at least, in this age of the World. Germany, no doubt, will find some excuse not to prosecute, and even if it doesn't, there is no chance that the US will permit such a case to be prosecuted. There are a few countries, like Germany, where war crimes cases can be brought regardless of where the crime occurred, so there is at least a chance that Rummy and friends might find their vacation travel options limited in their declining years, but I doubt it.

If any of these guys were to be prosecuted, it ought to happen here. Not that that will happen either. Meanwhile, a few of the junior military will continue to rot in jail for Bush and Rumsfeld's crimes.

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