Judge Lamentably Dismisses Lawsuit Against Rumsfeld
WASHINGTON — Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld cannot be tried on allegations of torture in overseas military prisons, a federal judge said Tuesday in a case he described as “lamentable.”
U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan threw out a lawsuit brought on behalf of nine former prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said Rumsfeld cannot be held personally responsible for actions taken in connection with his government job.
The lawsuit contends the prisoners were beaten, suspended upside down from the ceiling by chains, urinated on, shocked, sexually humiliated, burned, locked inside boxes and subjected to mock executions.
Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights First had argued that Rumsfeld and top military officials disregarded warnings about the abuse and authorized the use of illegal interrogation tactics that violated the constitutional and human rights of prisoners.
Hogan appeared conflicted during arguments last year. On one hand, he said he was hesitant to allow allegations of torture to go unheard. On the other hand, he said the case was unprecedented.
“This is a lamentable case,” Hogan began his 58-page opinion Tuesday.
No matter how appealing it might seem to use the courts to correct allegations of severe abuses of power, Hogan wrote, government officials are immune from such lawsuits. Additionally, foreigners held overseas are not normally afforded U.S. constitutional rights.
“Despite the horrifying torture allegations,” Hogan said, he could find no case law supporting the lawsuit, which he previously had described as unprecedented.
Allowing the case to go forward, Hogan said in December, might subject government officials to all sorts of political lawsuits. Even Osama bin Laden could sue, Hogan said, claiming two American presidents threatened to have him murdered.
“There is no getting around the fact that authorizing monetary damages remedies against military officials engaged in an active war would invite enemies to use our own federal courts to obstruct the Armed Forces’ ability to act decisively and without hesitation,” Hogan wrote Tuesday.
Had the Rumsfeld lawsuit been allowed to go forward, attorneys for the ACLU might have been able to force the Pentagon to disclose what officials knew about abuses such as those at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and what was done to stop it.
“The court ruled that innocent civilians tortured by the United States cannot seek recourse in the federal courts to hold responsible U.S. officials legally liable,” said ACLU attorney Lucas Guttentag. “We believe that the law and Constitution require more, and that the former secretary of defense must be held accountable for his policies that led to this abuse.”
The Justice Department had no immediate comment.
Hogan also dismissed the charges against other officials named in the lawsuit: retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, former Brig. Gen. Janis L. Karpinski and Col. Thomas M. Pappas.
Karpinski, whose Army Reserve unit was in charge of the Abu Ghraib prison, was demoted and is the highest-ranking officer punished in the scandal. Sanchez, who commanded U.S. forces in Iraq, retired from the Army and said his career was a casualty of the prison scandal.
© 2007 Associated Press
I guess what is good for the goose, isn’t good for the gander!
US courts should not be the final authority here.
This puts more pressure on the prosecutor in Germany, where Rumsfeld and 13 others have been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. Originally, the prosecutor was hoping to duck out of the matter by saying there was a chance that trials in the U.S. would get to the bottom of the crimes. Now that argument is gone. The German politicians, especially Prime Minister Merkel, want the issue to go away because they have been trying to rebuild relations with Bush after Germany stayed out of Iraq. It’s not clear how it will work out. It should be getting some attention in the alternative press, I believe, but I am finding next to nothing about it.
The judge is correct. These trials should beheld in the country where the crimes occurred, or in international courts. A fair trial in the US is nearly impossible; after all, the judge and entire jury pool paid the torturers, and many elected the top officials that ordered it.
This is just another demonstration that in this country if you are rich, famous or a corporation, then you are not accountable. Only the poor and middle-class are held accountable for crimes and made to pay.
“There are no courts for men like Rumsfeld.”
-V
This isn’t really a surprise unfortunately. The same result occured when a group of Viet Nam vets tried to sue Robert McNamara after the Viet Nam war, for the same reason.
Lobo Gris
Let the illusion of democracy and of blind justice continue unabated.
As much as I would love to see justice served on this group, the judge was correct in his finding,this will need a legislative act by our government to bring this gang to justice.
No surprise here. American justice is and always has been nothing more than a hoax. This is so plain that even as a six year old in first grade, I could never recite the words in the Pledge of Allegience “with liberty and justice for all” because it was so obviously a lie.
Our federal officials will never be held accountable and justice will never be done until we have a president and a congress who will commit to an International Criminal Court and will be willing to hold and extradite war criminals such as Henry Kissinger, Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush to that court for their actions.
Until then, the world will continue to suffer with wars, injustices, human rights violations and unmitigated corruptions on behalf of legitimate and illegitimate governments, corporate entities and others with the will, money and power to pursue them at the expense of the common citizens of the planet.
Since many consider the U.S. to set the precedent for the world, until our government is willing to take the lead on this issue and subject its own members and U.S. citizens and corporations to this type of legal entity there will be no progress in turning the tide on these issues of justice. As U.S. citizens it is ultimately up to us to hold our government accountable.
Is there hope? At this point we can’t even speak loud enough to force members of congress to impeach a president who has, among his many violations of the law and our constitution, lied us into an illegal war that has cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of human beings or to hold any of the torture enablers such as Rumsfeld and Gonzalez accountable. But, without hope activism becomes a mute point. So we must continue to speak up, act up, and dissent against the status quo and the media that supports it.
Good take on the situation folks. How about we check out ALL of the current presidential candidates for their position on the U.S. signing on to the Internation Crimianal Court? We can do this by participating in the townhall meeting being put on by MoveOn on 4/10/07. You can actually record your question to the candidates and have it asked of the candidates. I already recorded my question: “What is your stand on the impeachment of a president or other government official who does not uphold and defend the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Geneva Conventions and/or International laws?”
If everyone here in this discussion group went on over to moveon.org and presented a question about the candidates stand on U.S. participation in the Internation Criminal Court and/or their stand on holding government officials accountable for war crimes, it just might be possible that their stand on these issues could be put on record.
So there is hope. Go on..go on over and get your question recorded. I think the deadline for submitting questions is today. GO! You just might make a real difference!