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The US Searches for War Criminals
It doesn't happen often, but sometimes, something you read is so magnificent on its own that there is nothing to say about it. This USA Today article, proudly touting the increased efforts of the U.S. Government to track down and punish war criminals (provided, of course, that they're not American), is one such example:
War criminals find it's harder to hide from past, U.S. agents
When federal agents finally caught up with Gilberto Jordan, he had all the trappings of a solid American life: a house in a tidy South Florida neighborhood, steady work as a chef and a spotless record as a law-abiding citizen since emigrating from Guatemala in the early 1990s.
Nothing suggested he was hiding from a horrific past that the agents attributed to him when they knocked on his door that day in May. He still used the same name that appeared on a decade-old order for his arrest on murder charges in his native country. . . .
The prosecution of Jordan, 54, underscores a new push by federal law enforcement agencies to hunt down war criminals and human rights abusers who have found refuge in the United States.
The agents that tracked him are from a special center that Immigration and Customs created last year to bolster its work on such cases.
When Jordan pleaded guilty this summer to participating in the [1982] Dos Erres massacre, it marked the first conviction won by a new, 50-person Justice Department office set up to prosecute them.
The targets range from African despots and military officers from the former Yugoslavia to lesser-known figures, such as Jordan. It's unclear how many are out there, but officials at Justice's Human Rights and Special Prosecutions office say they're tracking multiple suspects. Armed with new investigative tools, more legal powers and a beefed-up congressional mandate, they're charging culprits at an unprecedented rate.
Convicted offenders usually are deported, sometimes after a U.S. prison stint. Many end up being turned over to authorities in countries where they face charges for war crimes or human rights abuses.
"I don't think there's any question that we're going to have a greater number of these cases and that these cases are going to reach (suspects from) more parts of the world," says Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, a child of Holocaust survivors who has pushed the more aggressive efforts to hold war criminals accountable. "It's something we have to do. We owe it to our citizens and we owe it to the world."
Congress passed the laws amid a broader international push after the Cold War to hold war criminals and human rights abusers accountable, says Eli Rosenbaum, who ran the Office of Special Investigations and now is director of strategy and policy in the new Human Rights and Special Prosecutions unit.
"Interest burgeoned all over the world in bringing these people to justice," Rosenbaum says. Among U.S. policymakers, "there was bipartisan support for doing this, and Congress gave us a lot of new tools."
Now, it's going full steam.
"We want to send a message to would-be human rights violators of the future," Rosenbaum says. "Their odds of getting away with it are shrinking rapidly."
I love that Lanny Breuer quote so much that I just need to repeat
it: "It's something we have to do. We owe it to our citizens and we owe
it to the world." And that Rosenbaum quote seems grounded in the
premise that -- imagine this -- war crimes become more likely in the
future, become virtually inevitable, if "would-be human rights
violators" know they can "get away with it." This, from a country that
actually placed as a Judge on its second-highest federal court level one
of the prime legal architects of its worldwide torture regime, and
which blithely leaves him there even as more evidence emerges of the central role he played in enabling it, and whose top political leader formally adopts a position of full immunity for its own war criminals. My duties as a citizen compel me to help this new, muscular DOJ War Crimes unit by pointing to one place where they haven't yet looked (update: many vigilant citizens noted that this particular, un-apprehened war criminal is on the move, and is now located here).
Read more at Salon.com here. (including how best to report war criminals you may know about in your own community or country).
- Posted in
74 Comments so far
Show AllAgreed. The neocons and Israelis and nearly all of our media support covering up 9/11 truth ( which exposes high crimes of treason/mass murder engineered and orchestrated by them per overwhelming evidence) plus war crimes (Iraq/Afghanistan on contrived bases)—with unequivocal evidence-- at all costs plus continue agendas for power and profit, and ridicule all others. Neocons include many within our government. Charges for war crimes and other crimes are overdue against neocons, GWB/Cheney and Israeli leaders.
9/11 truth is key to restoration, accountability, justice and end of fiscal madness and military madness and police state.
Well put J R. There is a mass media cover up of 911. Any alternative view points to the fascist, conspiracy theory of the cheer leading whores in the MSM is totally blacked out or pejoratively, made fun of as some kind of wacko conspiracy theory when their theory is the wacko one! It has even been censored by Myth busters! What a better myth to expose than the myth of 911? It even seems that Democracy Now has been intimidated and may have been threatened with losing their license if they allow any truthers like David Ray Griffen or Steven Jones on their news show.
"which paralleled the real events"
yeah - that sure was a coincidence!!!
not at all suspicious...
You got that right Frank! All the people in Congress in Washington Deceit, that voted for the billions of $ for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are culpable and should be indicted for war crimes.
Most of these foreign war criminals being pursued have harmed people in one, two, or maybe three nations.
The war criminals occupying the White House and US Capitol (past and present) and their corporate conspirists harm people in nearly every nation on earth.
No s*it!
There are no war criminals in our government; Bush the Shrub had his Whores change the law?
War criminals ('ours') that fight for the greater good are now perfectly legal.
They're now officially 'Patriots'.
You really can't make this stuff up!
This country really does know any shame..
Makes you proud to live in a country who will not live up to its crimes.
Just goes to prove there is no God, She would never let this country do the things it does.
Really does make me ill!!
The only shame that the USG and its cronies, the PREDATORY CAPITALIST WELFARE KINGS, IS UNHEALTHY SHAME, which is the basis of the pretend christians false doctrines which appeals to and is touted by the shameless. The "I'm not responsible, god told me to do it and/or Satan make me do it but I'm not responsible doctrine".Truth, integrity, dignity are all considered to be shameful, indicative of weakness, replaced with false prides and it is pride that precedes the downfall of the shameless.
How about the previous administration?
Perhaps only Mel Brooks could do this 'justice'.
Springtime For Hitler?
What no Kissinger or Albright on your list?
I would add Barack Obama, subject of an International Criminal Court complaint soon to be drawn by University of Illinois professor of US Constitutional and International Law. "Secret Renditions" is illegal, according Boyle. Targeting innocents in order to get a "bad guy" is also a war crime.
A FULL list of US WAR CRIMINALS would surpass the 1,000 word limit imposed by CD.
That's good for a start. I'll be a proud American again when these fiends have had their day in court. Realistically, I plan on being ashamed of my country till the day I die.
Biggest terrorist exporter in the world, in the history of mankind, still going strong with no remorse. Hell, our "law enforcement" routinely tortures our own citizens without a peep of protest. If you want to be a mass murderer and get away with it, become a politician.
True list, obomber Must be included !
Will they be searching for the fiends who infected Guatemalans with syphilis, crime against humanity?
"Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled Nazis yearning to breathe free----" - sung by the Tall FBI Agents Chorus at Brooklyn Battery, with Statue of Liberty in the background.
Hundreds of these psychos were rat-lined out of harms way, into bowels of the Vatican's Castel Gondolfo, and thence to the good ol' USA via the International Recue Committee, thanks to Remnant Shepherd, Leo Chern.
Zoom zoom zoom but here by the fire we defy frost and storm; Ha, ha we are warm, and we have our heart's desire.
Trylon
When you live in the empire of hypocrisy you will get this kind of selective enforcement of the law.
Hoa binh
should that not read en-farce-ment of the law?
"My duties as a citizen compel me to help this new, muscular DOJ War Crimes unit by pointing to one place where they haven't yet looked (update: many vigilant citizens noted that this particular, un-apprehened war criminal is on the move, and is now located here)."
Cute: Greenwald provides a google link/photo of Bush's home in Dallas.
And, at the same time, our State Department and Sec. of State are honoring a genuine, certifiable war criminal and mass murderer, Henry Kissinger, who played a leading role in killing millions (YES! MILLIONS) of southeast Asians.
Have these people no sense of shame, of irony?
Jim Shea
Kissinger dated Barbara Streisand, and she didn't charge Henry one cent to sing for him.
I too was struck by the irony of this article when I read it in The USA Today. I was thinking about writing a letter to the paper and inquiring why there was no mention that the most egregious war criminals on the planet, such as Bush and Cheney and Obama and Petraeus, are still on the loose and have not been indicted for war crimes but I suspect that that supposed anti-patriotic letter would never see the light of day.
Why don't you TRY???
I may still inform the paper of how I feel but I doubt if my letter would stand much of a chance of being published considering the fact that the many letters that I had written in the past to the paper which criticized US militarism from previous articles by The USA Today have never made it to the Letters to the Editor section of the paper. That is the reason why I may not bother TRYING again.
Your letter will be forwarded to Homeland Security.
Erroll, why did you give up that exchange with that guy who'd reviewed Professor Kattan's book on Amazon? You clearly had the upper hand.
Try 10141 Daria Pl Dallax, TX 75229
and 1126 Chain Bridge Rd McLean, VA 22101
and 1600 Pennsylvania Ave SE Washington, DC
Our ever-vigilant corporate media is nothing if not saturated in hypocrisy. The practice of double standards and knee-jerk hypocrisy are main parts of their job description. That a story like this can even be written and published is breathtaking, in that it clearly shows how thoroughly indoctrinated our media is. USA Today doubtless is as unaware of what they're saying as Bush and Cheney are to this day of what major war criminals they are, and they've "gotten away with it" to a degree that war criminals throughout history would be green with envy. They have our great progressive president to thank. He's done Job Number One--protecting these criminals. How else could he expect to get away with all the crimes he's already committed and will keep committing?
"That a story like this can even be written and published is breathtaking..." –(Ephraim)
That it is.
It is so astonishing it takes one's breath away and brings the onset of dizzy spells.
Nothing is ever surprising in America for one knows that the 'truth' of things– what is even worse yet– already exists.
Former CIA operatives Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch are living big and easy to find in Miami, Florida.
They are renowned for murdering all 73 people on board a Cuban airliner, Cubana Flight 455 from Barbados to Jamaica on October 6, 1976.
but they are the GOOD terrorists????
If it weren't so tragic it would be funny. I'm trying not to laugh but .... aaahhahahahah
Ha, but none of the things you list are considered terrorist acts. In fact, the US is proud of them. Those are all in place to Keep You Safe. Feeling safe, right?
Our grandchildren will be dead long before any US war crimes are investigated. Those war criminals responsible for Hiroshima, Dresden, Viet Nam are still unapprehended - considered heroes.
How rubbery words have become, these days!
" This USA Today article, proudly touting the increased efforts of the U.S. Government to track down and punish war criminals (provided, of course, that they're not American), is one such example:" -- Glenn Greenwald
South and Central Americans are Americans, too. Personally, I think Glenn should have used U.S.A.n, or some derivative of U.S.A. to make his point. In addition, from everything I have read, the U.S.A. trained the Central and South American death squads. Here is Diane Ortiz talking about the "details of her abduction and torture by the U.S.-backed Guatemalan Military":
www.democracynow.org/2005/10/12/sister_dianna_ortiz_details_her_abduction
Possibly, he writes more about this in his column on Salon.
I once heard Diane Ortiz talk about her experiences -- her abduction, torture and the multiple rapes she suffered -- when she appeared on a panel with Chris Hedges and Jeremy Skahill here in NYC.
I agree with other writers -- Kissenger and any number of other U.S. officials should be arrested for crimes against humanity, including Presidents Bush and Obama.
They don't have to be in the U.S. either.
Look at OBushma's sanctions against Iranian officials who deprive Iran's citizens of human rights, promote torture, etc.
Hypocrisy to the utmost.
And the average citizen sits on her/his thumbs !
Duuuuhh!
What happened to looking forward and not back?
GwN... thanks for the laugh. Obama...what a pathetic, shameless asshole.
Look far enough forward, you see the back of your head.
Damn! Missed it by THAT much!
Just last month, Bill Clinton presented former Prime Minister Tony Blair with the 2010 Liberty Medal at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
Damn! If the DOJ wasn't preoccupied with their valiant rearguard defense of "Don't Ask Don't Tell", and diverting considerable resources to prosecuting Tim DeChristopher to the fullest extent of the law for disrupting a federal land auction in an act of civil disobedience, they might've busted two buzzards with one stone.
the US pursues non-US criminals.
the rest of the world will have to catch the US-based criminals.
Correct.
Glenn Greenwald comments on an article so 'off the charts' ironic and blithely inoculated to its own culpability as to make the macabre itself seem joyful. Does anyone truly need any more 'proof' of how abjectly hopeless America has become? How can one fail to recognize oneself in a mirror unless one is both delusional and insane?
"Ain't no life nowhere!"
–(Jimi Hendrix, "Manic Depression.")
There are so many war criminals and terrorists who are Americans that one is reminded of what was once said about Capitalism:
"What happened is that we have forgotten that capitalism even exists. It has become invisible because there is nothing else to see."
– (Sylvère Lotringer or Jean Baudrillard ?)
The same can be said about war criminals in America. Or Israel.
An honest search for war criminals in, for example, Washington,D.C. would decimate the population– leaving it a ghost town.
America 'itself' is a war crime incarnate. America 'searches' but cannot find itself.
Truly the most vile form of American exceptionalism.
When the apotheosis of barbarity is finally reached in America, who can say there will not be a series of Commemorative postage stamps unapologetically dedicated to its war criminals.
The first one will be of Henry Kissinger– toasting a magnum of Tattinger Brut at an elegant Manhattan soirée– with a backdrop of B-52 discharging their ordinance over Cambodia and Laos during the Vietnam war.
Blood harvest. Hail a great American!
–(Kim)
"How can one fail to recognize oneself in a mirror unless one is both delusional and insane?"
You asked.
Prosopagnosia. Its a fascinating and rare form of brain disease or damage. Dr. Oliver Sacks reviewed this phenomenon in his seminal work =The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat=.
It is always edifying to learn something, and we thank you for providing the appropriate clinical name for the symptomatology in question.
But we were using the 'looking in the mirror' example more as a metaphor for 'willful' blindness as a 'spiritual' malaise, more 'metaphorical' than a strictly medical one. The medical affliction can be 'forgiven' where the one we are addressing is unforgivable and essentially evil, however 'unconscious' it may appear.
Either way, it seems to be an astonishing affliction. America's 'war criminals' do not exist for the American media or for Americans. The notion is simply an impossibility for most Americans to countenance.
To this day we believe any accurate polling would reveal Americans–probably by a significant majority– would consider someone like Sgt. William Calley, more an American 'hero' than a war criminal.
America reserves the right–no demands it–to deem who is and who is not a war criminal, which by definition, cannot ever be an American. Unfortunately this is far worse than the 'disgrace' it is; it is a crime.
Living in Canada 30 years goes a long way to gaining perspective upon the USA, though it was painful for me during Summer and Winter Olympic Games. The health care was superb.
At the spry age of 98, England's Sir Bertrand Russell convened a =War Crimes Tribunal= to hear Vietnam's rejoinder to the American allegations of atrocity. The findings were published in a small paperback that I treasure.
I look in the mirror knowing exactly how old I am.
But looking back at me is a handsome
..virile person 25 years younger.
So I flirt with the Kroger's clerk and
..make a fool of myself.
Where have all the flowers gone?
As a resident of the Deep South, I somewhat bought the stereotype that New Yorkers, along with Jersey folks, "Took No Crap!"
Where's Silverstein and Guilliani??
On some NJ license plates:
WHAT ARE YOU LOOKIN' AT?
Only two types of war criminals never get searched for in the US:
1. Rightwing "Christians" be they gun nuts, anti-women on almost anything, anti-public education, pro-war, etc...
2. Rich corporatists terrorizing and persecuting Main Street until it bleeds dry.