Headline News Avoided by Most of the Major U.S. Media
Ousted U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is being charged in German courts via a complaint filed by the international Center for Constitutional Rights. Also charged are Alberto Gonzales, who was previously White House Counsel and is now U.S. Attorney General, along with former CIA Director George Tenet.
The complaint filed requests the opening of an official look into the various unofficial charges of torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the Guantanamo prison in Cuba, and perhaps the various kinds of “Black Prisons” and “rendition” of prisoners to locations where they could be tortured in peace and quiet without oversight by the U.S. courts or Congress.
The suit names one dozen victims who claim they were tortured with electricity, beatings, sexual abuse, hypothermia [severe cold] and long periods without food, water, or sleep, among other events.
Several countries have such laws that allow the prosecution of war crimes no matter where they were committed. Previously Mr. Rumsfeld held “diplomatic immunity” which prevented such charges being filed, but he recent ouster only one day after the U.S. elections could be just the ticket these countries need to put him on wanted posters.
The 220 page complaint names 14 defendants, including generals and lawyers who supported the torture in writing, along with the above, who also apparently signed incriminating memos that have surfaced.
Apparently it was not only diplomatic immunity, but also some NATO meeting in Germany, that prevented these charges previously, when Rumsfeld was encouraged to participate in the NATO meeting by not allowing the charges to become official.Source: Democracy Now, Fox News, Center for Constitutional Rights, but not much from the major U.S. television networks, mostly radio.