Spanish investigating magistrate Baltasar Garzon has passed a 98-page complaint to prosecutors that accuses former Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and five others violations of international law, including torture.
For months, many of us have been complaining about President Barack Obama’s blocking of any war crimes investigation despite the confirmation of a torture program under President Bush. While saying repeatedly that “no one is above the law,” Obama has acted in precisely the opposite way: guaranteeing that former President Bush and others are above the law. This seems to confirm reports (denied by Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder) that they promised various people before the start of the Administration that they would never allow a criminal investigation.
One of the issues raised by Obama’s refusal to appoint a special prosecutor to look into these well-documented allegations is that it leaves the United States open to international intervention. While there is an obligation for the United States to act under our treaties, a failure to act allows other countries to intervene to uphold international law. This puts the United States on the same moral plane as Serbia and other countries that shielded allegedly war criminals. This is precisely the problem that we have discussed in prior interviews.
The story here should not be the actions of the Spanish, but the lack of action by Obama. The United States will now be in a position of trying to block this inquiry while blocking any criminal investigation at home. That is how Obama is implicating himself in these violations and making himself an accomplice and accessory after the fact.
While Obama’s political advisers have told him that it is simply too politically risky to allow the enforcement of these laws, the moral response is obvious. This is simply not Obama’s decision. He should leave it to a special prosecutor to decide on the evidence if anyone can be charged. He can use the Spanish proceeding to say that the United States will conduct its own criminal investigation — not another meaningless commission but an investigation by a special prosecutor.
The Spanish complaint names Gonzales John C. Yoo, Douglas J. Feith, William J. Hayes II, Jay S. Bybee and David S. Addington. Bybee was put on the Ninth Circuit despite objections from civil libertarians of his role in the torture program. Once again, the democrats refused to use their power to block the nomination. He now has life tenure on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
For the full story, click here
“Thriving on publicity, Judge Garzon has, at various times, gone after former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger”
Too bad he could not get that rascal; no one is perfect at getting all the liars, criminals, and politicians who thrive on allowing our government to kill other peoples who do not follow their brand of distorted democracy.
“but he did publicly declare his opposition to Spain’s involvement in the US-led war in Iraq.”
Well, I applaud him for that alone.
Note Mr. Garzon is in tax trouble in Spain:
“For the moment, Judge Garzon is distracted. He took a sabbatical in 2005-06 to teach at New York University and was paid $200,000 in addition to his judge’s salary. Spain’s judicial oversight board claims he did not advise its members of his double-dipping arrangement, something that is required by law. The board’s investigators must decide by mid-April whether to drop the case or penalize Garzon.
If it is dropped, the world can expect this judicial megalomaniac to look for other tempting targets, such as U.S. military leaders or government officials, past or present, who carry out policies he considers “war crimes.””
Frontier Justice From Spain
By Peter Hannaford on 3.26.09 @ 6:06AM
In recent years human rights activists have pushed the concept of “universal jurisdiction,” by which judges in one country can assert authority to prosecute any offense regardless of where it took place.
The zealots have found their champion in one Baltasar Garzon, a judge on the Spanish National Court. A socialist activist as a college student, Garzon at age 32 became the youngest magistrate on the court. Now 53, he has spent many of the intervening years practicing what can only be called judicial megalomania.
Thriving on publicity, Judge Garzon has, at various times, gone after former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the late former Chilean strongman Augusto Pinochet, 98 former Argentine military members (despite an amnesty enacted after the end of that country’s “dirty war”). In 2003 he even indicted Osama bin Laden and 34 other alleged terrorists, a few of whom were in Spanish custody. He charged them with being members of a terrorist gang and for being involved in the 9/11 attacks, rather than any terrorist acts in Spain. The proper jurisdiction for anything involving 9/11 would have been the United States. As desirable as it would have been to capture and try bin Laden, only 18 of the defendants were convicted of having terrorist links and none with 9/11.
Late last year, Judge Garzon reopened the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, by accusing the late Generalissimo Franco (dead 33 years) and 44 of his army and Falange Party officials of war crimes. Inasmuch as a 1977 amnesty sought to put that war to rest through national reconciliation, cooler heads prevailed. On the eve of a National Court ruling that he had no jurisdiction, the publicity-seeking Garzon dropped his probe.
Last year, Judge Garzon found a new, much larger target: alleged polluters of the atmosphere He said he would fight global warming by bringing them to justice wherever they were. He hasn’t yet turned this plan into action. Instead, his most recent judicial escapade involves two Russian citizens, one of whom has lived peacefully on the Spanish island of Majorca for a decade.
Last June he initiated the arrest of Gennady Petrov. The Guardia Civil, with helicopters overhead and tipped off media outlets present, surrounded Petrov’s house, grilled him and his wife for four hours, carted off jewelry and other valuables, took two automobiles and threw Petrov in jail. Two days later he was charged with money laundering, falsification of documents and violations of tax law. Ironically, Petrov had moved to Spain to escape being a possible target of Russian mafiosi. He had no criminal record in Spain or Russia. His lawyer contends that the court has produced insufficient evidence to substantiate its indictment and shows no inclination to bring Petrov to trial (under Spanish law, he may be held for up to four years before being tried).
In October, Judge Garzon stretched “universal jurisdiction” once again. He issued a summons to appear for questioning for Vladislav Reznik, a member of the Russian State Duma (legislature), for alleged connections to organized crime. Reznik lives in Russia, but has a vacation home, purchased from Petrov, on Majorca. This residence was raided and some contents seized. Reznik chairs the Duma’s Financial Markets Committee and is a reputable citizen. Viktor Pleskachevsky, chairman of another Duma committee, said of the raid, “As the search [of Reznik’s Majorca house] was conducted within the framework of a criminal case unknown to us, in the attendance of the media, and Judge Garzon is well known for hearing political cases, we have grounds to suspect that it is a politically motivated action.”
For the moment, Judge Garzon is distracted. He took a sabbatical in 2005-06 to teach at New York University and was paid $200,000 in addition to his judge’s salary. Spain’s judicial oversight board claims he did not advise its members of his double-dipping arrangement, something that is required by law. The board’s investigators must decide by mid-April whether to drop the case or penalize Garzon.
If it is dropped, the world can expect this judicial megalomaniac to look for other tempting targets, such as U.S. military leaders or government officials, past or present, who carry out policies he considers “war crimes.”
will the real Garzon stand up:
He rarely voices his opinions in public, but he did publicly declare his opposition to Spain’s involvement in the US-led war in Iraq.
He is also known to harbour political ambitions and spent months as a minister in a previous Socialist government.
He walked out, saying he was not being given the tools to do the job. Party sources said he was upset about being passed over for higher posts.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3085482.stm
Hmmm: wonder what this has to do with it all:
Judge Garzón to answer allegations against him this weekend
Mar 13, 2009 – 6:43 AM
Baltasar Garzón – EFE
National Court judge, Baltasar Garzón, who is currently taking part in a seminar in Guatemala, has said that when he gets back to Spain he will speak about the allegations of him not declaring his earnings in the United States when on a year’s sabbatical there.
http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/article_20447.shtml
rafflaw:
When you have to look up to a banana republic, you really have fallen. Apparently that’s the true Bush legacy:
http://johngaltfla.com/blog2/2008/12/16/when-argentina-calls-us-a-banana-republic/
Patty C:
As you know, I am second to none in my appreciation and admiration for your prolific contributions -scientific, gastronomic, political, and others just too numerous to catalog– but even I must say that SOME of the commentary about our fellow and diligent blogger Jill went over the top. Jill may sound like a broken record on rare occasion, but I had hoped we could do a “Rodney King” and just get along. We are, after all, substantially on the same side. Seeing that we can’t is disheartening, especially since you and I occasionally provide the senior perspective on the blog, and you are certainly the “master of the rolls” when it comes to the rich history this blog enjoys in its short but important history. I can honestly say I feel that I have missed something each day that I do not make it to this site (which I am sure some here would hope is a feeling I would suffer more often given my own propensity to snap when a gentle scold would do.) In any event, I am just hoping we can get past all the personal animus to discuss things the way we usually do with some insight, biting wit, and the sense that we are all fighting the good fight.
End of sermon by unworthy preacher.
Mespo,
Your comparison to Argentina is an interesting one. It is amazing how low we have sunk during the Bush years.
Baltasar Garzón is a respected jurist who led the successful investigation into the civil rights abuses of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and secured his arrest by British authorities while Pinochet was traveling in London. He also spearheaded the GAL death squad investigation in the Basque region of Spain. A fearless and incorruptible advocate for international human rights, Garzon is a formidable threat to the Bush under-rock dwellers who must now fear leaving the country. Ironic, isn’t it, that we have become the new Argentina harboring all manner of right wing fascists from the reach of law. Maybe that will change with Judge Garzon. Obama may be faced with calling for an investigation of his own, or the humiliating prospect of extraditing senior officials of the previous Administration to Spain as he is required to do under the United Nations Convention against Torture signed by the US in 1988, and ratified in 1994.
Read it for yourself:
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/cat.htm
JT, Good work tonight — as usual — on Countdown.
len,
Please provide a link. Thanks.
Jill,
I didn’t see the Suskind/Maddow program, but I have been anxiously awaiting for the confirmation of Dawn Johnson because she was one of the most outspoken critics of the Bush torture regime. I think she will a driving force in getting the Obama administration on the right track.
One thing I do disagree with Ron Suskind and Rachael Maddow on is that we now must wait for Dawn Johnson to be confirmed before we may proceed to war crimes investigations. That just doesn’t track. The law is clear right now. There is no need for her to be in place to take action. Obama can, and should, appoint an independent special prosecutor whether Dawn Johnson is in place or not.
len,
aren’t you forgetting that Obama has to commit a war crime before he has to worry like the Bushites!
Patty C,
As tough as this is for me to say to you, Ma’am, you are way out of line. Calling another regular “trash” is unconscionable.
Professor Turley has gone out of his way to remove the real spam “trash” to make this site more tolerable and he has specifically asked you and some others to be more cordial. For you to continue to attack Jill seems very disrespectful to Prof Turley and he is a special individual.
Please just ignore Jill, if you must, but please do not continue to demean her for simply expressing an opinion. You are a valued and intelligent person but you are demeaning your own chosen medical profession with such nonsensical attacks. During my time as an Army medic, I never heard such verbal attacks emanate from a physician.
Respectfully submitted, but compellingly so.
Patty C:
I understand that you disagree with Jill, but please we need to avoid the name calling. I deleted a couple entries with personal attacks under our long civility rule. I would appreciate your help. Thanks.
Patty C.,
How quickly you forget.
Gyges 1, March 30, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Good on you Spain.
‘I also think this is a good time to re-iterate the advice of several people of the past few months.’ …
…Write and call every politician that you get to vote for and demand that this country starts holding those in high places accountable for their crimes.
—
There are no ‘several people’ – it’s only me, Gyges, who has been asking people to contact their local elected representatives instead of doing what Jill has been proposing for months on end.
Let me explain my position this way.
If you want to help – ‘Great, WE could use the help!’
But if you are not going to ‘help’, then get the frick
out of the way. It’s that simple.
p.s. We don’t need you OR your negativity! Just get out of the frickin’ way!!!!!!!!!
Others and I appreciate your courage and conviction for your statements regarding the war crimes of the Bush Administration.
As a Republican, the principal reason I voted for Mr. Obama was that I thought a former constitutional lawyer would return the U.S.A. to its rightful place under the rule of law based on the sound principles of U.S. Constitution. I also supported Mr. Holder for the AG position because of the comments he made during his confirmation hearings. However, both Obama and Holder appear more adept at politics than legal scholarship.
Good on you Spain.
I also think this is a good time to re-iterate the advice of several people of the past few months. Write and call every politician that you get to vote for and demand that this country starts holding those in high places accountable for their crimes.
I think Obama is wrong in refusing to appoint a special prosecutor. 1. it’s our law 2. we have to restore our credibility in the world and ignoring war crimes is not the way to do it and 3. the people are ahead of Obama on this issue, not behind him. I’m certain his political advisors and he knows this to be the case. I don’t believe his wealthy patrons want these prosecutions to proceed but the majority of the US population does. Why is he following his patrons instead of the law?
Secondly, there are statute of limitations coming up on some of these actions (see ACLU letter to Eric Holder on their website for that information). It seems that at least part of the strategy is to run out the clock–now this will be more difficult.
Philippe Sands who wrote “Torture Team” was intimately involved in this investigation. He’s done his homework and I’m certain he and the other people working on this case have a good one.
The Obama DOJ has already defended Alberto Gonzales in a prior case. I hope that people put a lot of pressure on Obama to follow the rule of law and appoint a truly independent prosecutor. I am really hoping that he does not continue to ignore or support people who very likely did commit war crimes. To do so, violates are own laws, trashes our position in the world and betrays our people at home.