A lawyer in Spain -- who did his legal studies while serving over seven years in prison for kidnapping and terrorism -- has engineered a complaint accusing the U.S. government of systematically torturing war-on-terrorism detainees. He filed this complaint with Baltasar Garzon, an activist magistrate famous for championing the "universal jurisdiction" of Spanish courts. That magistrate is now asking a Spanish prosecutor to bring criminal charges on this matter against former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, four other former Bush administration lawyers, and me....it does seem rather ridiculous. As much as I fear what these Bush lawyers did was atrocious, we should release the memos and set up a truth commission before calling an inquisition. May cooler heads prevail.
The allegation is not that any of us tortured anyone. And it is not that any of us even directed anyone to commit torture. The allegation is that, when we advised President George W. Bush on the Geneva Conventions and detainee interrogations, our interpretations were wrong -- in the view of the disapproving Spaniards. According to the complaint, these wrong interpretations encouraged the president to make decisions that led to torture.
The Spanish magistrate apparently believes that it can be a crime for American officials to offer the wrong kind of advice to a president of the United States and, furthermore, it can be a crime punishable by a Spanish court.
Saturday, April 4
Well, when you put it that way
Via Frum, WSJ:
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we prosecuted nazi lawyers and judges for creating the legal justifications for the crimes committed by the nazi regime. as for us, i operate under the cynical (but totally justified) belief that our political leadership doesn't have the balls or the will to fully expose the crimes committed by the bush administration. if we don't do it, then i am fully comfortable with another country doing the job that we were obligated, yet failed, to do.
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