Obviously, nobody wants soft treatment for actual Al Qaeda terrorists -- if such individuals truly are incarcerated at these facilities. (How can we know?) But history teaches us what will happen if civilized people tolerate the existence of clandestine gulags.
Romania's Prime Minister insists: "We do not have CIA bases in Romania." No doubt, that statement is true -- technically. The United States has many methods of sponsoring a covert operation without making official use of the CIA's auspices.
The European Union hopes to wrestle the truth out of these two member countries. The Red Cross wants access to all "black sites."
If these investigative agencies obtain ironclad proof of "black site" torture -- and many believe that such proof already exists -- what countermeasures should the civilized nations of Europe take? Two obvious steps suggest themselves:
1. Criminal charges should be brought against Bush and Cheney at the International Criminal Court at the Hague. They must, of course, be tried in absentia. Even though the world probably would never be granted the satisfactory tableau of seeing the two malefactors behind bars, I nevertheless imagine that a conviction might inconvenience them in any number of ways.
It surely would put a crimp in their travel plans. Ninety-two countries are signatories to the 1998 "Rome Statute" designed to bring human rights violators to justice.
2. As a result of such a case, the peoples or Europe -- and possibly Asia -- might institute a boycott of the United States. Such a boycott would not just target our manufactured goods. (We don't make anything, anyways.) Although China and Japan pay for much of our crushing debt, Europeans have also invested heavily.
That investment should give Europe leverage over our behavior. They need merely awaken to their power.
I do not welcome the resultant economic disaster for the United States. But no other means will suffice to teach our corporate rulers not to support right-wing extremists. Only the harshest of lessons can return America to the sensible society we enjoyed between 1940 and 1970 -- a society noted for strong unions, steeply progressive taxation, protection of domestic industry, a tradition of scientific excellence and an absolute separation of church and state.
How to institute proceedings? Here are the possibilities:
Cases will come before the International Criminal Court in one of three ways: the United Nations Security Council may refer a "situation" using its powers under Chapter VII of the UN Charter regardless of where or by whom the crime or crimes in question were committed; a situation may be referred to the Prosecutor by a country that has ratified the Rome Statute; or the Prosecutor may initiate an investigation on his or her own (but may only pursue it with the approval of the Pre-Trial Chamber). Except in the case of a Security Council referral, the ICC will only be able to exercise jurisdiction over crimes committed by nationals or on the territory of countries that have ratified the ICC.A difficult situation. Obviously, the Security Council option is out so long as the U.S. remains the dominant force on that council. (Ironically, Bush would be in greater jeopardy if the rightists achieved their dream of a U.S.-U.N. divorce.)
One of the most significant innovations will be the role of victims in the ICC. Victims will be able to participate in the proceedings through legal representatives, and to seek reparation. In addition, a Trust Fund for victims is to be established.
The United States was a signatory to the ICC, but the Bush administration (no doubt foreseeing the very scenario under discussion here) "renounced" that status in 2002, while the Republican Congress has sought to punish nations supporting the ICC. Officially, we remain in a strange limbo -- signatory to a treaty we have not and will not ratify.
However, the "black sites" apparently exist within nations that have ratified the Rome Statute -- specifically, Romania and Poland. Even if those nations were simply used as transit points, the ICC may have standing to act.
A fourth mechanism exists to bring charges against Bush: A three-judge panel can authorize a case initiated by the ICC Prosecutor.
In the past, Republican-led governments laughed off any attempts to bring international charges against U.S. officials for violations of human rights. What makes the present situation different?
America's standing has changed. We are a pariah nation living on borrowed money. We are weaker than most Americans prefer to believe.
"Nothing's true but thinking makes it so," as Hamlet said. Any finding against Bush and Cheney, by any official body, may cause our European funders to think of this government as a criminal enterprise. Once that thought takes hold, civilized nations may no longer wish to do business with scofflaws.
2 comments:
That "...harshest of lessons" of which you speak is coming our way, one way or the other. Our debts are so astronomical that nothing short of "economic collapse" can restore a fiscal balance.
Two scenarios suggest themselves:
In the first, our creditors--China and Japan and Korea and India and Taiwan--redeem their IOU's by taking ownership of our farms and mines and skyscrapers. We become indentured servants to East Asia, with a fascist government keeping us under control for them. Global peace will be preserved.
In the second, we undergo a bloody revolution, and then repudiate our massive debts. We challenge those who don't like it to take it up with our armies. WW3 will result.
A third way is remotely possible, which is that the US undergoes a relatively bloodless revolution, in which Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld and the others are given up for trial as war criminals, and the rest of the civilized world begrudgingly assists our economic recovery in a kind of reverse Marshall Plan.
You can guess where my hope lies.
Let's see... Concentration camps in Poland. Where have I heard this before? Wait, it will come to me....
Post a Comment