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TechnoratiWill War Crimes Be Outed?
As the officials of the Bush administration pack up in Washington and move into their posh suburban homes around the country, will they be able to rest easy, or will they be haunted by the fear that they will be held accountable for war crimes committed during their reign?
There are many reasons to anticipate that the incoming Obama administration and the new Congress will let sleeping dogs lie. Attention to criminal acts by the former administration would probably anger Republicans, whose support Obama is hoping to win for his first priority, his economic program. Democratic Congressional leaders have known a great deal about Bush administration lawlessness, and in some cases have even given it their approval--making an unfettered review seem unlikely.Some of Obama's own top appointees would undoubtedly receive scrutiny in an unconstrained investigation--Obama's reappointed defense secretary Robert Gates, for example, has had responsibility not only for Guantánamo but also for the incarceration of tens of thousands of Iraqis in prisons in Iraq like Camp Bucca, which the Washington Post described in a headline as "a Prison Full of Innocent Men," without even a procedure for determining their guilt or innocence--unquestionably a violation of the Geneva Conventions in and of itself.
But the repose of the Cheneys, Bushes, Gonzaleses and Rumsfelds may not turn out to be so undisturbed. In his notorious torture memo, Alberto Gonzales warned about "prosecutors and independent counsels" who may in the future decide to pursue "unwarranted charges" based on the US War Crimes Act's prohibition on violations of the Geneva Conventions. While no such charges are likely to be brought anytime soon, neither are they likely to vanish. In the short run, Obama and his team face inescapable questions about the legal culpability of the Bush administration. And in the long run, such charges are likely to grow only more unavoidable once the former officials of that administration have lost the authority to quash them.
In April Obama said that if elected, he would have his attorney general initiate a prompt review of Bush-era action to distinguish between possible "genuine crimes" and "really bad policies."
"If crimes have been committed, they should be investigated," Obama told the Philadelphia Daily News. He added, however, that "I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt, because I think we've got too many problems we've got to solve."
Obama's nominee for attorney general, Eric Holder, speaking to the American Constitution Society in June, described Bush administration actions in terms that sound a whole lot more like "genuine crimes" than like "really bad policies":
Our government authorized the use of torture, approved of secret electronic surveillance against American citizens, secretly detained American citizens without due process of law, denied the writ of habeas corpus to hundreds of accused enemy combatants and authorized the use of procedures that violate both international law and the United States Constitution.... We owe the American people a reckoning."
A Reckoning?
While attention has focused on whether, once president, Obama will move quickly to close Guantánamo, shut down secret prisons, halt rendition and ban torture, there's a less visible struggle over whether and how to provide a reckoning for war crimes past.
A growing body of legal opinion holds that Obama will have a duty to investigate war crimes allegations and, if they are found to have merit, to prosecute the perpetrators.
In a December 3 Chicago Sun-Times op-ed, law professors Anthony D'Amato (the Leighton Professor at Northwestern University School of Law) and Jordan J. Paust (the Mike & Thersa Baker Professor at the Law Center of the University of Houston) ask whether president-elect Barack Obama will have "the duty to prosecute or extradite persons who are reasonably accused of having committed and abetted war crimes or crimes against humanity during the Bush administration's admitted 'program' of 'coercive interrogation' and secret detention that was part of a 'common, unifying' plan to deny protections under the Geneva Conventions."
They answer, "Yes."
"Under the US Constitution, the president is expressly and unavoidably bound to faithfully execute the laws." The 1949 Geneva Conventions "expressly and unavoidably requires that all parties search for perpetrators of grave breaches of the treaty" and bring them before their own courts for "effective penal sanctions" or, if they prefer, "hand such persons over for trial to another High Contracting Party."
The statement is particularly authoritative--and particularly striking--because Paust is also a former captain in the United States Army JAG Corps and member of the faculty at the Judge Advocate General's School.
Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights says that one of Barack Obama's first acts as president should be to "instruct his attorney general to appoint an independent prosecutor to initiate a criminal investigation of former Bush Administration officials who gave the green light to torture."
Parallel to the legal community, members of Congress and president-elect Obama are trying to chart a strategy that avoids the appearance of seeking to punish Bush administration officials without appearing blatantly oblivious to their apparent war crimes. According to the AP's Lara Jakes Jordan, "Two Obama advisors say there's little--if any--chance that the incoming president's Justice Department will go after anyone involved in authorizing or carrying out interrogations that provoked worldwide outrage." Instead, "Obama is expected to create a panel modeled after the 9/11 Commission to study interrogations, including those using waterboarding and other tactics that critics call torture."
Asked if Bush administration officials would face prosecution for war crimes, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy flatly said, "In the United States, no," but he does intend to continue to investigate Bush administration officials and their interrogation policies. "Personally, I would like to know exactly what happened. Torture is going to be a major issue."
Continue the Cover-Up?
President-elect Obama may well seek to delay taking a stand for or against such accountability actions. But he is likely to be confronted early in his administration by choices about whether to continue or terminate legal cover-up operations the Bush administration currently has under way.
For example, the Bush administration has blocked the civil suit against US officials by Canadian Maher Arar for his "rendition" to Syria and his torture there by invoking the "state secrets" privilege. According to Christopher Anders, senior legislative counsel for the ACLU, they have appointed a prosecutor to investigate the destruction of videotapes of CIA interrogations, but the investigation is limited only to whether crimes were committed in relation to the destruction of the tapes--not whether what was being videotaped is a crime. The administration has refused to cooperate with the trial of twenty-six Americans, mostly CIA agents, who kidnapped a terrorism suspect in Milan and flew him to Egypt where, he says, he was tortured. And they have refused to provide secret documents to the British High Court in the case of Guantánamo detainee Binyam Mohamed that may demonstrate that US officials were complicit in his torture in Morocco.
If the Obama administration continues the Bush administration's efforts to prevent investigators from investigating and courts from hearing such cases, it will rapidly become part of the cover-up. If it begins to, at a minimum, stop obstructing such proceedings, the result could be a rapid crumbling of the wall of silence the Bush administration has tried so assiduously to build around its "war on terror."
A bipartisan report issued by the Senate Armed Services Committee on December 11 will make it far more difficult to evade the responsibility of holding Bush administration officials legally accountable for war crimes. Released by Senators Carl Levin and John McCain after two years of investigation, the report concluded:
The abuse of detainees in US custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of 'a few bad apples' acting on their own.... The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees.... Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques for use at Guantánamo Bay was a direct cause of detainee abuse there.
In an interview published in the Detroit News, Senator Levin said he was not responsible for deciding whether officials should be prosecuted for authorizing torture, but he admitted that there is enough evidence that victims of abuse could file civil lawsuits against their assailants. Levin also suggested that the Obama administration "needs to look for ways in which people can be held accountable for their actions."
An Accountability Movement
Outside the Beltway, a movement to hold Bush administration officials accountable for torture and other war crimes after they leave office is gradually emerging. It received a boost when over a hundred lawyers and activists met in Andover, Massachusetts on September 20 at a conference entitled "Planning for the Prosecution of High Level American War Criminals." The conference created an ongoing committee to coordinate accountability efforts. At the close, conference convener Dean Lawrence Velvel of the Massachusetts School of Law noted more than twenty strategies and specific actions that had been proposed, ranging from the state felony prosecutions proposed by former district attroney Vincent Bugliosi to the international prosecutions pioneered by the Center for Constitutional Rights' Rumsfeld cases; and from impeaching Bush appointees like Federal Judge Jay Bybee to public shaming of torture-tainted former officials like ohn Yew, now a professor at the University of California Law School.
One of proposals discussed at the Andover conference was the creation of a citizens' War Crimes Documentation Center, modeled on the special office set up by the Allied governments before the end of World War II to investigate and document Nazi war crimes. Such a center could be the nexus for research, education and coordination of a wide range of civil society forces in the US and abroad that are demanding accountability. It could bring together the extensive but scattered evidence already available, to compile a narrative of what actually happened in the Bush administration. It could help or pressure Congress to conduct investigations to fill in the blanks. It could pull together high-profile coalitions to campaign around the issue of accountability for specific crimes like torture. If Obama does initiate some kind of investigating commission, such a center could provide it with information and help hold it accountable.
A Moral Education
There are a myriad of reasons for urgently holding the Bush regime to account, ranging from preventing unchallenged executive action from setting new legal precedent to providing a compelling rationale for the immediate cessation of bombing civilians in the escalating Afghan war.
But the issue raised by Bush administration war crimes is even larger than any person's individual crimes. As Thomas Paine wrote in Common Sense, "A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." The long history of aggressive war, illegal occupation, and torture, from the Philippines to Iraq, have given the American people a moral education that encourages us to countenance war crimes. If we allow those who initiated and justified the illegal conquest and occupation of Iraq and the use of torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo to go unsanctioned, we teach the world--and ourselves--a lesson about what's OK and legal.
As countries like Chile, Turkey and Argentina can attest, restoration of democracy, civic morality and the rule of law is often a slow but necessary process, requiring far more than simply voting a new party into office. It requires a wholesale rejection of impunity for the criminal acts of government officials. As Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) put it, "We owe it to the American people and history to pursue the wrongdoing of this administration whether or not it helps us politically.... Our actions will properly define the Bush Administration in the eyes of history."
38 Comments so far
Show AllQuestion - How many of you have read any of the WW-II War
Crimes trial accounts? They probably are on the shelves of
your public library? What the US did in Iraq or
Afghanistan hardly rises to that level. I do really
encourage all of you who are interested in truth and
justice, not just scoring political points one way or the
other to actually read a few of the transcripts. They make
your hair stand on end.
Roger
that's it guys -- go out and wave little lapels some more saying "support the troops" ....
feed that ADDICTION to militarism SOME MORE! and see where it gets you and all of us. with STORM TROOPERS banging at the doors at any time of day or night. and then say "GOD BLESS AMERICA" as your own loved ones are hauled off to prison for "suspicion".
I'm afraid aretmix has it right--both parties agree on maintaining the Empire, and the opinions of the People are irrelevant. But--for that tiny chance that Obama actually has some integrity--CAN he prosecute what would turn into a majority of the top people in the previous administration for war crimes, violations of the Constitution at home, and perhaps other crimes--including a genuine investigation of what was really behind 9-11? Realistically, if we tried all officials suspected of complicity in these things we'd haul in quite a few Democrats, which is one reason the answer is No. Ain't gonna happen, in his first or his second term--Obama will never initiate any serious investigations of Cheney administration crimes.
But. It might happen anyway, if the investigation and prosecution is brought about by some outside party--and it's possible that Obama would be relieved by this eventuality, to see justice done at last without his having to spend all his political capital on it and invite assassination.
Don't hold your breath!
Look at the actual quote from Mr.Obama in the article above. "'If crimes have been committed, they should be investigated,'Obama told the Philadelphia Daily News."
As a constitutional law professor and a lawyer, he must know the difference between the words "investigated" and "prosecuted." When crimes have been committed, you prosecute the perpetrators; you investigate to determine if crimes have been committed. It looks here as though he is using ambiguous, indirect, and misleading language in order to avoid the possibility of someone's actually being prosecuted. For, uh, what? You see, only Germans are capable of committing crimes against humanity.
and if obama doens't confront this all the way -- and is more concerned about how he is PERCIEVED by the GOP for "witch hunting" which THEY DESERVE anyway --
he , as a constitutional lawyer has ALREADY begun his presidency by COMMITTING TREASON to the american people and the principles that he and the USA espouses and was handed down by the Founders to be BUILT UPON as "increasing rights...NOT curtailing them".
the USA is going the OPPOSITE direction of what its inheritance of PRINCIPLES of liberty taught.
exactly. he is choosing his words carefully to prepare the statements of NO PROSECUTION in effect. Crimes are to be forgotten..."we have other things to do"...such as commit more war crimes.....namely -- STAY in iraq against the iraqi's wishes....etc. etc. etc. and the Empire MUST March Forward!!!
"I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt, because I think we've got too many problems we've got to solve."
=========
that is a variation of Pelosi's
"Impeachment is OFF the table -- we don't want to be distracted from more important problems" -- namely of course COMMITTIMG MORE WAR CRIMES if necessary to promote empire SOME MORE!
although one has to be hopeful..i honestly DON't think it will ever come to that -- if left to the USA government.
the entire history of the United States as an imperial power is built on ........what ELSE BUT war crimes?.
is it really to be expected that just because there was world war 2 and a nuremberg trial that the usa signed - and was the main prosecuting country -- that it would EVER , as a government deing to REVERSE the judgement upon itself?
regardless of how the world has seen the USA openly put in place policies of torture , kidnapping, etc. and practically daring the world to "catch" it through its redefinitions -- was there EVER any such application against war crimes it has already committed numerous times - in vietnam, laos, cambodia, and many other countries? they were ALWAYS defined BY the united states as "liberation" and "democracy building" -- it's not going to START prosecuting ITSELF for "war crimes" NOW when it is "too busy fixing the economy" or more precisely SAVING capitalism from itself as its new posture to try and continue what it has LONG self-designated as the power to be "policeman of the world" for ITS own "national interests".
those national interests - everyone can see more openly now -- have NOTHING to do with democracy - as it continues to play double standards , points fingers at "unworthy" Democracy "pretenders" like russia - while ignoring ITS own mishaps. EVEN as the whole world sees it. no...
obama, congress, pundits all talk about 'restoring our reputation' --- is just TALK. they really don't care about that.
what they care about is HOW TO RESTORE the near-absolute dominance and prevent rivals from challenging the USA.
prosecuting war crimes the USA has been representatively committing through george bush , complicity of congress, silence of the Courts, is but a small matter to the powers whose only real concern is ---
POWER because to them -- POWER means to GET AWAY with ANYTHING.
prosecuting these war crimes isn't going to come FROM the USA government...and most certainly not from obama. if he is already backtracking on other promises : such as "what i REALLy meant in saying we will leave iraq in 2009 , is that it DEPENDS......."......
don't people see the writing on the walls?
to prosecute war crimes by itself "to show the world" it is upstanding -- is tantamount to ADMITTING the USA foreign policies are FUNDAMENTALLY WRONG - because it is THOSe -- EMPIRE -- that have led to these crimes. and that is a NO NO . and "limits the options" ...and if the USA is ANYTHING -- it is what pelosi, clinton, bush, condi rice, and obama say :
"ALL OPTIONS are on the table".
THAT includes committing war crimes as it always has .
in this mode of thinking anhd path of empire -- that the USA STILL thinks can be maintained -- and has a right to maintain -- the USA can not be saved from itself and its corrupted morality.
it's that simple.
POWER such as this never abdicates...and that means using EVERYTHING in that power.
If these war crimes are not pursued and punished how can we have a Nazi-hunting organization within our government for war crimes over seventy years ago. If we can permit American-Jewish officials to use our government for such crimes, then we must demand the same when our officials commit war crimes....and just as importantly going on until just recently and perhaps still occurring!
There should absolutely be an investigation; and prosecutions. Do I think it likely, no. As has been pointed out before, incoming presidents are loathe to go after their predecessors for crimes that may have been committed during the previous administrations. Can anyone even think of an example of a incoming administration looking seriously at the previous administrations actions?
this is why -- the argument is made that the AMERICAN PEOPLE themselves are partly responsible for what has happened, and what may YET come - namely -- a potential fullblown fascist state brought about by crises used as justification for "security".
they BECAME enablers through inattention over the decades - as they ran after the MYTHICAL "american dream" and tried to PRESERVE that security they thought they could have by participating in that MYTH - and therefore chose, whenever they could, presidents that PROGRESSIVELY tore down the walls of defense against losing their own rights as human beings , until one day -- came george w bush - complete with an "american way" of media manipulation - ALSO tolerated by americans - that gave them officially designated torture , spying, etc....(which were until then only in the "dark" but which americans SENSED was TRUE but since it did NOT affect them DIRECTLY yet they ignored and continued to vote for politicians that little by little added MORE of these things).
and one day -- the imperial presidency has become a strong symbol of the Military industrial congressional complex that is now swallowing up america.
and so -- obama is just another one that will BUILD UPON what has been MADE ACCEPTABLE by george bush. THAT is what will happen. on the way to the eventual liquidation of the american empire -- but also arrive at the time when the american people will wake up in HORROR at what the USA had become and PARTLY because of THEIR own doing.
The "mother" of these war crimes was 9/11 itself. The official commission's case is severely flawed and unnecessarily exculpatory with respect to the Administration. A new, unbiased investigation is necessary to identify domestic sources of the crime which directly killed 3000 people in New York and Washington, unleashing forces responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of displacements of people in Afghanistan and Iraq, among other crimes.
Note to Nation editor: Christopher Hayes' cover article of a year or two ago was foolishly disdainful of what he conveniently labeled paranoid beliefs about insider operations on 9/11. We doubt that he has read David Griffin's work or seen DVDs such as "9/11 Mysteries" (or currently, "Zero"). To defend democracy we need to investigate not only responsibility for torture, but for the wars themselves.
Sioux Rose
VAINO: Excellent points.
TEDDY: Thank you for your powerful analysis on power!
Yes, this will be the early and acid test of the integrity of Mr. Obama. Will he rise to the occasion, or fail?
Biden thought that some foreign agency was going to test him, but this will be a far more meaningful test of his character.
It will happen again but if we let it go now it will happen again sooner.
I think it's very clear that Bush, Cheney, et al. will be in great personal peril after they leave power. After all, they will be the targets of many dangerous international organizations like al-Qaida, the Taliban, SMERSH, and the International Criminal Court. We the American people ought to provide the most thorough and comprehensive security protection possible for them, starting as soon as possible, and extending 24/7/365 (or 366, depending) for the rest of their natural lives. It will be a challenging and expensive task, but we do have the means to carry it out --
At the FEDERAL SUPERMAX facility in Colorado.
After all, after all they've done, after the role they've played in American history, wouldn't you agree that they deserve the VERY BEST?
Nuremberg TWO
"There are many reasons to anticipate that the incoming Obama administration and the new Congress will let sleeping dogs lie. Attention to criminal acts by the former administration would probably anger Republicans, whose support Obama is hoping to win for his first priority, his economic program."
This explains the timing of the economic meltdown.
meltdown happened shortly after w went to saud to tell him the plan. 7/08
Rather than a special prosecutor or a 9/11 style Commission, I still think the ordinary federal grand jury process should be utilized to address the war crimes issues.
Torture is a federal felony.
Violation of FISA warrant requirements is a federal felony.
The Department of Justice has the legal right and obligation to investigate, seek indictments, and prosecute people who commit federal felonies. DOJ also has the authority to grant witnesses immunity from criminal prosecution in appropriate circumstances in exchange for truthful testimony that helps the government prove its case.
The only reason the Department of Justice was unable to discharge its traditional law enforcement functions under the Bush/Cheney regime was because at its very top, the system was staffed with perpetrators and lawyers enabling the perpetrators. All that changes shortly after January 20, 2009.
I say simply let the system work. Let Eric Holder as the incoming Attorney General do his job.
That way, the needed message is sent: nobody is above or beyond the reach of the law. Everybody gets their day in court, if the grand jury hears sufficient evidence to return an indictment. Everybody gets a fair and public trial.
Isn't that supposed to be the American way?
Bill from Saginaw
If Bush had thrown a shoe at Saddam, he would be in jail. Killing Saddam plus a million of his citizens. Apparently not such a big deal.
Bush is trying to retire to a "gated" community. I hope he gets his wish.
Obama isn't about to hold anyone in the bush administration responsible for their high crimes, that would be too "partisan", and not "pragmatic".
As Thom Hartmann explains elsewhere today, Obama should instead invite them into his administration as s sign of caring about them.
of course, as a supporter of the death penalty, he will advocate any and all small-time gangsters from desperately poor backgrounds should be hung and hung high.
Same with left-wing troublmakers who are forced to defended themselves from killer-cops, like Mumia-Abu Jamal. Hang'em high!
But filthy rich poeple who murder many thousands? Show them compassion and magnamity!
---USAn---
If Dennis Kucinich had spoke at Bush's inauguration, it would have made me feel like I was still a part of this country - that I wasn't being excluded. We don't want Obama to be one-sided, surrounded by yes-men, and exclude people based on their ideology. That would turn Obama into Bush.
Sorry, my comment doubled up. God bless America!
www.dangerouscreation.com
War crimes? What war crimes? America was just spreading freedom and democracy and human rights!
All right, so a few people got killed. Well, have it your way, a lot of people got killed. Sometimes you can be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Is that America's fault?
You people just don't get it! America is the 'Beacon on the Hill.' The world is lucky to have a nation like America. It's McDonalds and Coke culture has lifted the world up, put it on a towering plateau.
Or is that teetering?
www.dangerouscreation.com
"The individual whose vision encompasses the whole world often feels nowhere so hedged in and out of touch with his surroundings as in his native land. " Emma Goldman
No they won't be prosecuted because the Congress and the president elect don't really care and the only thing that has
mobilized people in great numbers is getting Obama elected. People keep waiting for a savior and not realizing that change only really comes from below. Maybe the mass disillusionment that is likely to follow the Obama presidency will remind the citizenry that they have to do it th;emselves. Anyone getting that office is there to serve the Empire and our two parties agree on that. Everyone in this country has had their civil liberties violated and their money looted. If we don't care enough about self interest to be storming the gates why would we act for others?
You either prosecute war criminals - or you're with them.
Your silence will be your consent.
nurembergrevisited@gmail.com
Will War Crimes Be Outed? Probably not. Why? Because while the public consistently polls liberal, conservatives run the government.
Conservatives understand each other. They are birds of a feather, sharing their fears, superstitions, warmongering, racism, greed, reactionary violence, etc. They view their criminal counterparts as heroes.
Not keen on acquiring money and power like conservatives are, liberals do not like to run for political office. Since there are very few liberals in government, conservatives will always be able to exonerate their criminal brethren.
We might say that liberals brought this problem on themselves for not running for office. However, once a liberal acquires the money and power of elected office, he or she usually becomes a conservative.
These are reasons why representative government fails and another good reason to turn to a technologically advanced direct democracy.
Does anyone recall a little blip about Bush buying land in Paraguay because of extradition laws there?
Paraguay's new president is Bishop Fernando Lugo, a liberation theologian, "Bishop of the poor" and leader of a socialist government elected last spring.
I kind of doubt that Bush will be at all welcome there.
---USAn---
Here I rant again, folks.
"the wall of silence the Bush administration has tried so assiduously to build around its "war on terror." Yeah! Somebody's talking about this!!
As I have ranted, the government and the military and the media are fighting this global war to prevent future terrorism, even if the populace ignores it as much as possible.
We must bring this '(global) war on terror' into the light of day, if only because Bush doesn't want that. Victory (in this war against future terrorism) is illusory, but if the American public continues its somnolence the war will go on and on, escalate and surge, until future terrorism is finally prevented because we're all in cages (don't ever forget - it's a global war and that's why there's now an active US army unit within the Homeland itself).
No legal actions against war crimes will happen while America continues to be a 'nation at war'. No progress on any of our concerns can get past the roadblock of 'national security during wartime' (which means forever unless we do something).
A common line in World War II America was "Don't you know there's a war on?"
America, right now, doesn't know that it is stuck in a war that has no victory.
And that seems to be deliberate.
Whatever it takes, the American people must demand that Bush, Cheney and the rest of their acolytes, be tried for treason and war crimes; otherwise, the American people are just as guilty as they are. If we allow this perdition of Iraq, the Constitution and our Bill of Rights to go unpunished, then we are no better than Nazi Germany. The American public is not exculpatory for these most egregious crimes against our country and the world.
I agree with you 100% but I think we both know nothing will be done. We actually are no better than Nazi Germany.
-- ekaton --
I think Mr. Obama is a conservative. He will hold the Bush administration accountable when pigs fly.
I don't see the good old USA punishing anyone in their lifetime.
But wait !
If any citizen of the other countries, where people have been hurt or killed by GW or his cronies, they can be detained by that country, or Interpol, if they ever step outside the USA.
This is what happened when Pinochet went to England, and Spain had an arrest order with Interpol. They made this criminal's life a hell to live, until he finally died. He was not imprisoned, but he couldn't do anything, other than being reclused in his home or hospital.
I keep hoping for a brave Judge, like Garzon of Spain, to issue the arrest warrants.
AND remember, there are no statutes of limitation, nor a USA 'local' pardon that will condone these criminals on international courts.