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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
Oct 02, 2010
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).
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© 2023 Salon
Glenn Greenwald
Glenn Greenwald is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, constitutional lawyer, commentator, author of three New York Times best-selling books on politics and law, and a former staff writer and editor at First Look media. His fifth and latest book is, "No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State," about the U.S. surveillance state and his experiences reporting on the Snowden documents around the world. Glenn's column was featured at Guardian US and Salon. His previous books include: "With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful," "Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics," and "A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency." He is the recipient of the first annual I.F. Stone Award for Independent Journalism, a George Polk Award, and was on The Guardian team that won the Pulitzer Prize for public interest journalism in 2014.
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).
Glenn Greenwald
Glenn Greenwald is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, constitutional lawyer, commentator, author of three New York Times best-selling books on politics and law, and a former staff writer and editor at First Look media. His fifth and latest book is, "No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State," about the U.S. surveillance state and his experiences reporting on the Snowden documents around the world. Glenn's column was featured at Guardian US and Salon. His previous books include: "With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful," "Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics," and "A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency." He is the recipient of the first annual I.F. Stone Award for Independent Journalism, a George Polk Award, and was on The Guardian team that won the Pulitzer Prize for public interest journalism in 2014.
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).
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