The Daily Background
| Charges filed against Donald Rumsfeld in German Court
by Arlen Parsa
TIME Magazine has an exclusive report on its website today that reveals charges will soon be brought against outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in Germany within the next week. Germany’s top prosecutor will be involved and plaintiffs (former detainees) allege that Rumsfeld personally approved torture tactics.
And that’s not all– they’re bringing in a former Brigadier General to testify against Rumsfeld in the case– and to confirm that as SecDef he personally approved the tactics used. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has also been named in the suit as well as former CIA director George Tenent. The suit has been filed in Germany for legal reasons:
Germany was chosen for the court filing because German law provides “universal jurisdiction” allowing for the prosecution of war crimes and related offenses that take place anywhere in the world. Indeed, a similar, but narrower, legal action was brought in Germany in 2004, which also sought the prosecution of Rumsfeld.
[…]
In bringing the new case, however, the plaintiffs argue that circumstances have changed in two important ways. Rumsfeld’s resignation, they say, means that the former Defense Secretary will lose the legal immunity usually accorded high government officials. Moreover, the plaintiffs argue that the German prosecutor’s reasoning for rejecting the previous case — that U.S. authorities were dealing with the issue — has been proven wrong.
Germany’s move to prosecute Donald Rumsfeld is quite pretentious considering its own history of genocide against the Jews for the purpose of “ethnic cleansing”.
And why do you think that Germany has it set in their law that they can prosecute war crimes with universal jurisdiction? Do you think it has anything to do with the Holocaust?
Further, do you think that anybody in power right now in Germany has anything to do with what happened during World War II?
WWarII and the Holocaust have nothing to do with today’s case. I quote “German law provides “universal jurisdiction†allowing for the prosecution of war crimes and related offenses that take place anywhere in the world.” It is probably because of the holocaust that Germany set up this universal jurisdiction.
Anyway, it is not about that, it is about how the US, given 2 years to handle it on their own, did nothing to reprimand Rumsfeld and his crew for war crimes we charge others for. What waws done was a crime and someone has to own up to it. Don’t think the US gov’t and Pres Bush didn’t expect this lawsuit to go away forever.