Rumsfeld flees France fearing arrest
Sunday, October 28th, 2007 - 1:38am
Quote:
Former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld fled France today fearing arrest over charges of "ordering and authorizing" torture of detainees at both the American-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the US military's detainment facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, unconfirmed reports coming from Paris suggest.US embassy officials whisked Rumsfeld away yesterday from a breakfast meeting in Paris organized by the Foreign Policy magazine after human rights groups filed a criminal complaint against the man who spearheaded President George W. Bush's "war on terror" for six years.
Under international law, authorities in France are obliged to open an investigation when a complaint is made while the alleged torturer is on French soil.
According to activists in France, who greeted Rumsfeld shouting "murderer" and "war criminal" at the breakfast meeting venue, US embassy officials remained tight-lipped about the former defense secretary's whereabouts citing "security reasons".
Anti-torture protesters in France believe that the defense secretary fled over the open border to Germany, where a war crimes case against Rumsfeld was dismissed by a federal court. But activist point out that under the Schengen agreement that ended border checkpoints across a large part of the European Union, French law enforcement agents are allowed to cross the border into Germany in pursuit of a fleeing fugitive.
"Rumsfeld must be feeling how Saddam Hussein felt when US forces were hunting him down," activist Tanguy Richard said. "He may never end up being hanged like his old friend, but he must learn that in the civilized world, war crime doesn't pay."
International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) along with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), and the French League for Human Rights (LDH) filed the complaint on Thursday after learning that Rumsfeld was scheduled to visit Paris.
So now we have war crimes and resisting arrest.
Surprised the French government didn't do that on their own. Also, it doesn't seem to be resisting arrest, as they are only obliged to open a case and possibly arrest him. Think of the possibilities though, arresting him and Bush declaring war on France. At least it would be a war against the caucasians this time.
God how I loathe Charles deGaulle (sic) airport.
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I'd make a comment about fleeing to Argentina, but, y'know... Godwin.
I'd rank it above the old Detroit airport, but that's about it. The only place I've ever had to double park a rental car in traffic because there was nowhere else to put it.
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Quite a few world leaders can't go to certain countries in Europe for a variety of reasons. Pinochet was very nearly arrested in England and Kissinger has a warrant out for his arrest in Belgium. Recently both premiers of Ireland and Britain faced questioning from the judicial side of the government with both cases still open. At least here in Ireland former TDs, bit like a Congressman, get tossed into jail on a regular basis. As it stands our Taoiseach has to deny any knowledge of what has gone on in Shannon or could find himself an accomplice to a crime i.e.: torture.
You see clemency isn't something European leaders enjoy. While US presidents leave office and toss out a ton of pardons, European leaders can be made answerable to their actions years after they have left office which breed a culture like you see in the article. I'm willing to bet that you'll see more of this as time passes and members of the Bush administration travel the world on the lecture circuit. Rendition is too much of a sore point with many Europeans for it to just to be forgotten.
And the US wouldn't go to war with the EU over Rumsfeld and Bush. I'm sure quite a few Americans wouldn't mind at all.
Charles de Gaulle is the second largest international airport with Heathrow being the largest and both are a nightmare but thats what you get for being the crossroads of the world. Heathrow is a special kind of hell though.
Anyway, good on them and I wish more would follow there lead. Remember, if he has nothing to hide then whats wrong with answering a few questions?
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Time to arrest all French officials in the US and send them back home. Whoops, the plane landed in Saudi Arabia instead of France.
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Sorry, I question the validity of this article. Its sources are "unconfirmed reports" and "activistis in France"?
Fedaykin98 wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSL2658218120071026
Huh? What crimes did the French officials in the US commit?
edit: Another source. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FRANCE_RUMSFELD?SITE=ORROS&SECTIO...
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Conspiracy of fraud in regards to the Oil for Food Program. They're just as responsible for that as Rumsfeld is for torture. Neither one is really responsible; but I'm a firm believer in tit for tat when a foreign entity wants to play hardball. Attempting to arrest a visiting former US official for actions that he may have committed while in government is playing hardball when you don't have solid proof of his wrongdoings.
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Ah, thanks I didn't know about that. Yea, if they are responsible put them through the justice system like everyone else.
As for Rumsfeld, it looks like there is some evidence of his wrongdoings.
http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/us_law/etn/lawsuit/index.asp
http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/34189
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/detention.html
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/general/17587prs20050301.html
These are non-online resources.
*Seymour M. Hersh, Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib
*The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib, edited by Karen J. Greenberg and Joshua L. Dratel , Introduction by Anthony Lewis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006)
*Mark Danner, Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror (New York: New York Review Books, 2004)
*Waldron, Jeremy, 2005, "Torture and Positive Law: Jurisprudence for the White House," Columbia Law Review, Vol. 105, No. 6, pp. 1681-1750.
Here is the chain of command of everyone involved.
edit: I'd love more information on the fraud in regards to the Oil for Food Program. Do you have anything you can give me with regards to that?
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Okay, these confirm that a complaint was filed, which I never really doubted. They don't back up the assertion that an arrest was imminent or that Rumsfeld fled France to avoid being arrested, which were kinda the key points of the original article.
Fedaykin98 wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:
Or how the current diplomatic core in Washington has a connection to it and why would you connect and independent party to the current French government?
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The law in question says
According to Rueters. Does that not give them the right to arrest someone to put them through the legal system?
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So far, nothing has conclusively shown Rumsfeld to be responsible for torture. Multiple cases have been filed and none have been ruled against him. Furthermore, it's hard to pin this on Rumsfeld without successfully prosecuting his subordinates first. You need a chain to link him to the event and without his subordinates that chain is broken.
http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=ia&ID=IA16404
http://www.heritage.org/Research/InternationalOrganizations/bg1748.cfm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/10/10/do...
http://www.iic-offp.org/documents/IIC%20Final%20Report%2027Oct2005.pdf PDF
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In the links I posted I showed the chain of command in how he was linked as well as the lower subordinates of his that were indeed prosecuted and found guilty while the higher ranking ones were actually promoted. Please check them out again as you might have missed that.
Thanks for the links CC.
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Cannibal, do you now support the idea of the International Criminal Court? That's where you'd have to try the French officials.
I'm a lot more disturbed by the idea of "tit for tat". Rumsfeld, if arrested, would be investigated before any charges were placed. Are you proposing the traditional response of dictatorships, where if one of our guys is picked up or threatened, the authorities just pick up some representatives of the other state on bogus charges? Because there is no way that the French diplomats here - who are protected from arrest anyway - were involved in the Oil for Food abuses. That occurred at a much higher level. What bothers me is the offhand idea that we need to simply behave like the Soviets, or some tin-pot dictator, rather than deal with the issue itself. Is that how we should conduct ourselves as a beacon of freedom and justice for all?
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But that's not being questioned either.
Were French authorities actually planning to arrest Rumsfeld at that time?
Did Rumsfeld "flee" France to avoid this?
There's been no evidence presented to back either of these two particular assertions.
Fedaykin98 wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:
We could simply extradite them to Iraq and try them there.
Wait, so you support foreign countries arresting US citizens without charges in order to investigate a crime which may have happened in another country entirely? You'd be screaming bloody murder if we did such a thing in the US with one of our own citizens; so why is it okay for France to do it?
Then what should a country do if another country arrests one of its former officials on bogus charges? I see it like a fair trade agreement, you put a tariff on our products and we put that tariff on yours as well. You arrest one of our officials for a crime which may have occurred in another country, and we do the same.
We'd just be holding them for questioning and investigating the charges for the crimes as well as conspiracy charges for possible knowledge of the crimes.
The issue itself is one of our officials being arrested in a foreign country for crimes he allegedly committed while in our government. Crimes which have been brought before multiple courts without his conviction.
It's almost an act of war and France would be getting off easy with a few officials being detained. It would certainly be less bloody than an extraction mission.
I looked through it and there are serious gaps above Brigade level. At the Brigade level they couldn't get anything to stick besides simple dereliction of duty charges. Successful prosecutions for torture would be needed at Task Force and Command level.
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Le Monde is covering it. Seems there is actually a fairly decent case with his signature on a memo approving methods of torture.
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I know it wouldn't mean much in a court of law, but I find the "I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to four hours?" note scrawled on one of the memos authorizing forcing detainees to stand for up to 4 hours pretty damning.
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My French is horrible; but from what I read it didn't seem like they had any more evidence than the litany of memos that have already been paraded through court on more than one occasion. If the memos they have are so damning, then why not release the full memo along with the article?
You consider it damning to ask a question that would come into the minds of most people?
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Problem is, in the rest of the world that is torture. What he approved was torture. The guy is as guilty as sin.
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No you can't. There diplomats that the US can't touch as much as the French can't touch the US's.
He isn't supporting arresting without charge. Robear is clearly saying that if Rumsfeld was arrested he would be investiaged first and charges brought. Like everyone else.
Noone has or was going to be arrested. They wanted to ask a few questions regarding the charges brought. Fairly standard stuff. What you are proposing is boiler plate Soviet Union stuff.
Fail to see what the guys in the diplomatic core in Washington have to do with the Oil for Food scandal. If you want to pursue the people involved in the Oil for Food, I'm sure the courts can help you. Cooking up charges for the French diplomats is hardly anyway for a country to conduct itself.
France isn't or hasn't arrested him. An independent party, FIDH, has brought the charges. Under French law the states is forced to investigate any claims made about torture and in the eyes of French law he has a question to answer. Remember, regarding rendition, over here what the US did or is doing is highly illegal.
As far as act of war, the US has been snatching people, torturing them and returning them without any charges. There are arrest warrents in France, Italy and Germany for CIA agents who have done this. A very good example is Khalid El-Masri, a German citizen, who was detained, tortured and then dumped into Albania.
The US is in no position to occupy the high moral ground here.
Just repeating the question.
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This is worth saying; I would not. I was happy when the Oil for Food perps in the US were arrested under a similar situation. You are dead wrong here. Please don't put words in my mouth.
Here's the legal underpinnings for the action. US law provides penalties for not reporting violations of the Convention, by the way, so the same thing could happen if, say, Pol Pot had come to the US at some point.
Feel free to cite any international agreements which allow us to arbitrarily detain diplomats and render them to hostile countries.
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Yeah, so, let me follow the conversation so far...
Rumsfeld flees France fearing charges of war crimes...
So now we should torture all French diplomats in America, and besides, what he did couldn't be a crime because France was involved in Oil for Food.
'Kay.
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Some other places just copied the original link. http://www.alternet.org/story/66425/ Others actually give more details to him leaving. http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2007/10/travel-advisory-war-criminals-...
The NYTimes doesn't mention him leaving. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/27/world/europe/27rumsfeld.html?ref=europ...
Neither does AHN. http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7008969228
That's really hypocritical considering we are doing the very same thing with our secret prisons and Gitmo. It's wrong either way.
How can say they are bogus? Let the police do what the law says, which is investigate the matter. The United States signed the 1984 Convention Against Torture on 18 Apr 1988 along with 75 other countries.
No court has ever put him on trial for these crimes. The only one to every say anything was Germany which ruled it was for the US to decide. This isn't even close to an act of war because we also agreed to uphold the very same law as mentioned above. If this was an act of war then we have made the first move when we kidnapped, falsely imprisoned, and tortured a German citizen by the head of the al Qaeda division of the CIA's Counter-terrorism Center.
More and more examples of hypocrisy.
It reads to me you are associating the actual act of physically torturing someone with the act of ordering someone to be tortured. I would expect him to be investigated on the conspiracy and ordering of torture, not that he actually, physically tortured the prisoners.
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I was referring to the idea that a random selection of French diplomats posted to Washington today would somehow be tied to the Oil for Food scandal of the former French Foreign Minister.
Also, the quote starting "In the links I posted..." is Edwin's, not mine.
"Sometimes I go around saying, 'Kommisar Paulson has seized the commanding heights of the economy!'" - Paul Krugman, asked if recent changes to banking are socialistic.
Sorry, my mistake. Also yes, if those French guys who were caught red handed with the Oil for Food are here, have them thrown through the international justice system just like anyone else who has committed an international crime.
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I find it funny that he was heading there on the hush-hush and then when confronted with this runs like a little girl.
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