UN Human Rights Investigator: US Failing to Properly Investigate War Crimes Committed by Soldiers
It is good to see that there is some external pressure being applied:
GENEVA -- An independent U.N. human rights investigator said Thursday that the United States is failing to properly investigate alleged war crimes committed by its soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Although some cases are investigated and lead to prosecutions, others aren't or result in lenient sentences, said Philip Alston, the U.N. Human Rights Council's special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings.
"There have been chronic and deplorable accountability failures with respect to policies, practices and conduct that resulted in alleged unlawful killings _ including possible war crimes _ in the United States' international operations," Alston said in a report dated May 26 and published on a U.N. Web site.
A spokesman for the U.S. mission in Geneva, Dick Wilbur, said Alston's conclusions and recommendations would be reviewed closely.
Read the entire article here.
If you want to read the entire 47 page report in PDF form it can be found here.
It would hurt the morale of our troops, did you already forget the memo?
May 29, 2009 2:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, the troops that are doing their jobs really hate it when the criminals among them are prosecuted. They would always prefer to have all of their reputations smeared than to weed out the bad apples.
May 29, 2009 3:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is there any connection in your mind between this and the prisoner abuse photos, the release of which you so passionately opposed?
May 29, 2009 5:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is there any possibility that you can comprehend war crimes prosecutions without releasing torture porn to the public?
May 29, 2009 5:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is essential that We the people squarely FACE what has been done in our name, not always with only tacit approval.
That would go a long way, also, to showing the world that we are what we claim to be: a democracy, founded on the rule of law, and PUBLIC scrutiny of trials in order to ensure due process for the DEFENDANTS, for the rule of law, and those victimized.
Otherwise we lie by omission in yet another instance of arrogant self-mockery.
May 29, 2009 6:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let me guess: you were AGAINST the German people having their faces rubbed in the contents of their concentration camps because that was an instance of "releasing torture porn to the public"?
May 29, 2009 6:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
So you're saying that you and I are guilty of war crimes and we should be marched out and have our faces rubbed in the contents of these photos?
May 29, 2009 6:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
I can even comprehend secret court hearings, including by military tribunals, not open to the public. So that printed information (not only photos) is not available.
Except that would defeat the point.
May 29, 2009 8:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
The argument will be that you have to lose the war to be a war criminal. That would take a surrender, but who to surrender to? And even mention the possibility and you're a traitor too.
May 29, 2009 7:41 PM | Reply | Permalink