Spanish Court Weighing Indictments of Bush-era War Criminals
For a long stretch of the late Bush years I wondered if Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzón, famous for his prosecution of Pinochet and other efforts to assert universal jurisdiction over international human rights law, would put the Bush administration in his sights. And now it seems he has: “The officials include former attorney general Alberto Gonzales, former undersecretary of defense for policy Douglas Feith, former Cheney chief of staff David Addington, Justice Department officials John Yoo and Jay S. Bybee, and Pentagon lawyer William Haynes.”
The New York Times reports that “Spain can claim jurisdiction in the case because five citizens or residents of Spain who were prisoners at Guantánamo Bay have said they were tortured there.” They also observe that “some American experts said that even if warrants were issued their significance could be more symbolic than practical, and that it was a near certainty that the warrants would not lead to arrests if the officials did not leave the United States.”
I do think that symbolism is important in situations like these, so I wouldn’t dismiss the importance of symbolism. And while fear of traveling abroad isn’t the gravest punishment in the world, it’s not nothing. One also has to consider the element of time here. John Yoo will probably still be with us in thirty years, at which point the circumstances may have changed. And I think it’s important not to normalize these kind of crimes as the precise time and place of their commission fades into the background. Legal rulings help with that, even if they don’t lead to trials in the short-term.
65 Responses to “Spanish Court Weighing Indictments of Bush-era War Criminals”
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March 29th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
I’ll just say for the record that I think the political downside of (fairly and justly) prosecuting Bush administration officials in the United States has been vastly overstated.
March 29th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
It is puzzling that Cheney, Rumsfeld, and even Bush are not mentioned.
March 29th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Nice post Matt.
March 29th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
It’s an historic oddity this court has arisen in Spain. How much of it is due to the one man, Judge Garzón?
Has Judge Garzón ever come to America? Spoken in a public forum?
It would be good if he would. It would put the issue on the front page. The hate unleashed against him would be instructive.
March 29th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Completely agree.
March 29th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
With Matt’s post, I mean to say.
March 29th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
English proficiency is not widespread in Spain, so it’s unlikely that he would make a public address in English even if he did visit.
March 29th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
интересное…
For a long stretch of the late Bush years I wondered if Spanish Judge Baltasar Garz?n, famous for his prosecution of Pinochet and other[...]…
March 29th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
at which point the circumstances may have changed.
Perhaps in thirty years America’s antipathy towards “crimes against humanity” will change. Then Woo can be charged here.
However, I have trouble imagining an American ever getting tried in a foreign court for a crime Americans don’t believe he committed. It would require Europe to have more power than they have or are ever likely to have.
Universal Jurisdiction has only worked when tough European countries have imposed their values on small weak ones. I would like to see them try this on say China or even the US.
March 29th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Based on recent history, these guys are just arrogant enough — or in Doug Feith’s case just stupid enough — to decide some pissant spanish judge isn’t going to dictate to them so they could go ahead and leave the country and get their asses arrested.
March 29th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Woo’s case suggests that all this liberal talk of human rights etc is just that, as otherwise why does he have a tenured Professorship in that bastion of liberalism, UC Berkeley?
They elites are all in this together, and they do not at the core care about niceties like human rights and humane treatment of prisoners etc.
March 29th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Robert Shapiros waiting…
talking in Yiddish (talking in Hebrew)
March 29th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
I don’t understand this talk of prosecuting Woo. I mean, Hard Target was pretty bad, but I hardly think it makes him a war criminal.
Joel Schumacher or Michael Bay, on the other hand…hopefully they’ll be with John Yoo in the Haugue some day.
March 29th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
John Yoo will probably still be with us in thirty years,
Let’s hope not.
March 29th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
@14: rimshot
March 29th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
I love the idea of these people being unable to leave the US ever again for fear of prosecution. They should feel like the world is a hostile place for people like them, because fear of external hostility is exactly how they tried to sell us their blatant disregard of American AND International law. Canada should offer to extradite them, just in case one of them wants to take their family to Quebec City or something too. Is there a Spanish Batman to come here and kidnap them?
March 29th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
If they spend the rest of their lives like Pinochet, that will be some measure of justice.
March 29th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
I predict that the left will like this idea right up until the point where some foreign judge with a slightly different set of ideas decides that either Bill Clinton or Obama needs to be prosecuted for extraordinary renditions (which Obama has endorsed). At that point, suddenly Matt and everyone here will be horrified.
March 29th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
(which Obama has endorsed
Lie.
March 29th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Hey DTM, how’s your campaign for a congressional “investigation” of Cheney’s “war crimes” going? How much longer are the victims of this “war criminal” going to have to wait for justice, dammit? The Obama Administration still hasn’t shown the slightest interest in pursuing an “investigation” of Cheney, let alone an actual criminal prosecution. Why are you letting Obama get away with this?
March 29th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
Hey, look, Mixner has finally picked an accurate handle.
March 29th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
I predict that the left will like this idea right up until the point where some foreign judge with a slightly different set of ideas decides that either Bill Clinton or Obama needs to be prosecuted for extraordinary renditions (which Obama has endorsed). At that point, suddenly Matt and everyone here will be horrified.
Obama has not endorsed extraordinary renditions. Rather, he is continuing with renditions. See: http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2009/01/no-more-extraordinary-rendition.html
And if a Democratic president employs torture, I think many liberals would fully support an indictment. See, one difference between liberals and “conservatives” these days is that liberals in general don’t put a higher premium on party loyalty than on basic decency and a commitment to human rights.
March 29th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Continuing the policy of renditions is tacit endorsement of them, regardless of what fantasy you want to tell yourself.
Liberals were as quiet as crickets when Clinton began the rendition policy. And they’ll stay quiet, without regard to what Obama does here. It’s all a matter of power, and not really much about principle.
March 29th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
I worry, I think if there ARE Warrants that one of them will travel abroad and get arrested and then working with his Republican colleagues, will demand Obama get them out of it. I have no problem with them being tried and sentenced in Europe and spending the rest of their natural lives in jail but how many Americans feel the same and will the turn on Obama if he does?
March 29th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
Right–it would be odd for Yoo to exclaim, “I beat the rap, suckers! All I have to do is never leave the U.S. for the rest of my life.” That’s a serious restriction on a legal scholar who claims or hopes for some renown, and a real humiliation. No, he’s not going to be thrown in prison–duh. That doesn’t happen to high-level officials in powerful countries that haven’t lost wars. But what we’re getting might be pretty good.
March 29th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
Thank goodness back then I was on the left, which actually did object.
March 29th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
I predict that the left will like this idea right up until the point where some foreign judge with a slightly different set of ideas decides that either Bill Clinton or Obama needs to be prosecuted for extraordinary renditions (which Obama has endorsed). At that point, suddenly Matt and everyone here will be horrified.
Obama has not endorsed extraordinary renditions. Rather, he is continuing with renditions. See: http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2009/01/no-more-extraordinary-rendition.html
If Garzon wants to indict Obama for not investigating credible allegations of war crimes committed by Americans, I would support that.
March 29th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Continuing the policy of renditions is tacit endorsement of them, regardless of what fantasy you want to tell yourself.
No, continuing the policy of renditions is explicit endorsement of them.
Which has nothing to do with their position on extraordinary renditions.
It’s the torture, stupid.
March 29th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Then I suggest you listen to Panetta, who has strongly suggested that the CIA is leaving the door open to following the Bush administration’s lead on questioning terrorists, “if the circumstances warrant it”.
March 29th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
DTM,
I have no such “campaign”,
Well get cracking, then. How much longer are the victims of Cheney’s “war crimes” going to have to wait for justice, dammit?
but so far the major steps in Congress have included the Chairs of both the Senate and House Judiciary Committees calling for commissions, and then introduction of a bill to that effect in the House (which was referred to the relevant committees).
But that bill doesn’t even mention Cheney. And there’s no indication that it will even make it out of committee. The vast majority of House Democrats have not expressed any support for the proposed commission. Not a single Republican supports it. The Obama Administration hasn’t given the slightest sign of support for an investigation of Cheney, let alone a criminal prosecution. Why are you sitting around on your ass while this “war criminal” continues to go free? Oh, the humanity!
On March 17th I suggested I would like to see prosecutions within three to five years.
Ha ha ha ha ha! Three to five YEARS! But you claim to already know that Cheney is a “war criminal.” Why the hell should it take “three to five years” to bring him to justice if the public record already proves he’s a “war criminal?”
March 29th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
I worry, I think if there ARE Warrants that one of them will travel abroad and get arrested and then working with his Republican colleagues, will demand Obama get them out of it. I have no problem with them being tried and sentenced in Europe and spending the rest of their natural lives in jail but how many Americans feel the same and will the turn on Obama if he does?
It is extremely unlikely that any European country would be foolish enough to actually arrest and put on trial for “war crimes” any high-ranking U.S. government official, past or present. If they were that foolish, the United States would punish them so severely they would never dream of pulling such a stunt again.
March 29th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
DTM, it’s from that right wing site, the NY Times:
So basically, the “change” we have is “we won’t use the methods we campaigned against, unless we decide to use them”.
March 29th, 2009 at 11:40 pm
Has Judge Garzón ever come to America? Spoken in a public forum?
He was just speaking in San Francisco a week ago last Friday. I was hoping to go up and see him, but I was too busy with my work.
March 30th, 2009 at 12:39 am
This “why don’t people with no power whatsoever singlehandedly arrange for the prosecution of powerful war criminals” routine might be the single dumbest line of non-reasoning Mixner has ever pursued, and I don’t say that lightly.
March 30th, 2009 at 12:40 am
Stop trolling, ‘johnson’. Let’s take this thread as read. If you don’t have anything new to say, you’re just picking an argument to pass the time.
March 30th, 2009 at 12:42 am
Mixner, what should we, the people you’re addressing, be doing that we’re not doing? I’m genuinely asking.
March 30th, 2009 at 12:48 am
You’re either for the rule of law, or against it (paraphrasing the former president).
There are places in the world where they have the balls to do the right thing. I don’t know much about this Spanish judge, but he sounds like that kind of guy.
No statute of limitations. That means these guys have this on their heads for the REST OF THEIR LIVES.
Gonzales could have left government at any time, and would have had many career opportunities — he was a Texas Supreme Court justice, for crissakes. That looks kinda nice on a resume. War criminal? Not so much. Thanks, boss. No, Mr. Cheney, I don’t need a letter of recommendation…
March 30th, 2009 at 1:00 am
johnson wrote:
I think you’re still thinking it’s 1999 … and the US is all-powerful. If several European countries came to Obama and offered, “we’ll send troops to back you up in Afghanistan, if you turn over the American war riminals for a trial in the Hague,” you can be certain we’d have war crime trials in the Hague. It’s not going to happen this time (they’re not willing to back us up in Afghanistan, in any event), but within 3-5 years, some such situation will undoubtedly arise.
March 30th, 2009 at 1:47 am
Is there a Spanish Batman to come here and kidnap them?
No, but there is an Italian Spiderman.
March 30th, 2009 at 6:35 am
ipanema – the liklihood of the Euros offering additional troops for Afghanistan for any reason is about nil.
March 30th, 2009 at 6:38 am
This judge also has a big reputation as a prosecutor of terrorists.
March 30th, 2009 at 7:07 am
DTM
The simple reality is, the US will not surrender its sovereignty on this kind of thing. No great power will now, or at any foreseeable point in the future.
March 30th, 2009 at 7:08 am
I’m reasonably confident that sometime in the medium-term future, there will be no sufficiently significant U.S. constituency strongly in favor of shielding unelected officials like the ones involved in this case from foreign war crimes prosecutions.
That would require there be no “sufficiently significant U.S. constituents.” Those left in the medium-term future who, like yourself, have volunteered out of spite, spinelessness, or insanity to give up the sovereignty of their own nation.
March 30th, 2009 at 8:12 am
DTM
Ponder for a second the idea of a President – any President – tolerating the arrest of a former President when he left the US. That’s not going to happen, because it puts his/her own future at risk, and it also puts the foreign policy of the US at risk. No President would allow that, period.
Quite simply, arresting a former President would be an act of war, and would likely be treated as such an act.
If you favor this, then explain to me why we shouldn’t arrest the following people when they enter the US:
– any Chinese govt official
– any Cuban govt official
– many officials from various African govts
– any Iranian govt official
and so on. There are any number of crimes against humanity that the US could prosecute against many sitting and former heads of state. The reason we don’t do it is simple: it would destroy our entire ability to conduct foreign policy. Likewise, if another country attempted to arrest a former US govt official, it would destroy relations with the US.
March 30th, 2009 at 8:23 am
DTM
For that matter, from the 50’s onward until 1991, why didn’t we arrest any Soviet official who entered the US? Why did we recognize Communist China while Mao was still running the charnel house at full bore?
You simply cannot treat leaders, or former leaders that way if you expect to be able to engage in normal relations with other countries.
March 30th, 2009 at 9:04 am
Sure, we’ll pick on the leaders of small, basically irrelevant nations. We won’t pick on the leaders of large, influential powers. Likewise, they won’t pick on us.
If you see other nations willing to prosecute former or sitting US leaders, you’ll know that the US has ceased to be a great power.
And – if you think that anyone in charge of Liberia counts as elected, I have to chuckle at your grasp of events there. If you want to reason that way, then the old USSR had elections, too.
March 30th, 2009 at 9:44 am
No kidding. There’s no logic or argument there at all. It’s just masturbation, like pretty much everything else coming out of the right these days. It makes them feel good, but it’s completely meaningless.
March 30th, 2009 at 9:47 am
James: not only are you conflating the President with unelected officials, as DTM said, you’re confusing FORMER officials with ACTIVE officials. Of course arresting an active official is dangerous, but as far as I can tell, neither Cheney, Yoo, nor Gonzales are still in office.
Presumably if Yoo knows that he would be arrested if he visited certain countries, he wouldn’t go there. I believe this is the situation Kissinger faced, and we didn’t go to war over it.
March 30th, 2009 at 9:49 am
Why is James Robertson continuing to ignore DTM’s point about unelected officials vs. the President and Vice President?
March 30th, 2009 at 10:00 am
The artificial point about elected/unelected is just silly. If you want to run this concept of “moral foreign relations”, and allow other nations to prosecute former US officials, then the US govt will need to get into the business of prosecuting former officials of other govts as well.
For instance, how many former officials of the old Franco regime should the US and Europe have put on trial over the last couple of decades? And, would doing so have helped get Spain past Franco, or hindered it?
Likewise, should Sinn Fein people in Northern Ireland be prosecuted for various acts of terror, or should they be left alone, in order to foster the ongoing peaceful reconciliation there?
Your calls to prosecute former officials and leaders sounds great, until you start looking at what would be likely to happen. Take Mugabe, for instance. Would he be more likely to let power go if he knew he would be immune from prosecution? Quite possibly yes. Instead, he knows that the Western powers have taken it upon themselves to arrest such people, and punish them for their crimes.
That sounds great, until you ask this: Are the current residents of Zimbabwe better off that way? Might they be better off if Mugabe knew he could safely retire with whatever he stole to some island somewhere? I don’t like accepting evil any better than the next guy, but you have to consider whether a “moral” policy actually does more damage than the realistic one.
I’m sure that people here objected to the removal of Hussein in Iraq, for instance. But on “moral foreign policy” grounds, as advocated by many here, he should have been kidnapped and tried, or his nation invaded so he could be tossed over. Why then did you all object to that? We engaged in exactly what you’re calling for here.
March 30th, 2009 at 10:06 am
For practical purposed related to both domestic and international politics, James.
It’s a much smaller hurdle to clear to arrest unelected officials. Capturing former officials who can’t order an army to wage a war in order to avoid arrest leaves a lot fewer innocent dead people scattered about than overthrowing someone still in power.
They ability to act is often constrained by outside considerations. This is hardly a novel concept.
March 30th, 2009 at 10:07 am
Staff Sergeants and 2nd Lieutenants are also un-elected. What is your point? Is the Attorney General of the US “non-covered” (heh, someone better tell Holder)?
Hell, lets put Garzon on the 2nd Circuit.
Anyway, then we’ll see. Leftist incoherence may work out yet.
March 30th, 2009 at 10:13 am
I always forget to dumb it down for the conservatives.
The point is that it is much easier to prosecute lower-level, unelected officials than higher-level, elected ones.
See, my problem is that I expect people with an interest in not understanding a point to understand it, so I don’t bother to write things at a level of explicitness that would commonly be perceived as insulting the reader’s intelligence.
March 30th, 2009 at 11:28 am
Scott P.: English proficiency is not widespread in Spain, so it’s unlikely that he would make a public address in English even if he did visit.
Riiight. Because no one ever comes to the U.S. and delivers a speech that gets translated. [Aside from the point that Garzon has been here repeatedly and recently, as another commenter above pointed out.]
The Spanish court initiative is useful to the extent that it puts pressure on for U.S. prosecution-related activities. In the immediate short term, it creates further interest in the release of that Dept. of Justice report on the OLC lawyers’ opinions, and on the rest of the OLC opinions themselves.
Before any attempted prosecution of the highest-level officials who pushed and authorized the torture policy, it will be important to shatter their ability to put forward any defense based on the idea that the tortures were declared legal at the time. The Spanish proceedings will be helpful in that effort. They may also provide findings to support the disbarment of the lawyers, and the impeachment of Bybee as a federal judge.
The organizations that published the letter to AG Holder requesting he appoint a special counsel to investigate for prosecution are planning to file a formal criminal complaint this spring. The Robert Jackson steering committee drafted the letter; their Preliminary Memorandum will form the basis of that filing. It’s very worthwhile reading, and will be strengthened by the incorporation of the findings of the 2007 Red Cross report on the torture committed at the black sites.
March 30th, 2009 at 11:55 am
the US govt will need to get into the business of prosecuting former officials of other govts as well.
The US government has long been in that business. See, e.g., the Nuremberg trials and the Japanese war crimes trials.
March 30th, 2009 at 11:58 am
You simply cannot treat leaders, or former leaders that way if you expect to be able to engage in normal relations with other countries.
Which is why we never prosecuted former Nazi or Imperial Japanese government officials, because otherwise we’d never had had normal relations with Germany and Japan….
March 30th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Well, it’s a little odd to discuss trying former government officials for war crimes and not mention the largest and most well known instance of trying former government officials for war crimes.
March 30th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
But doesn’t this make James Robertson’s point?
Trying other countries’ senior government officials is something you do to a defeated wartime enemy.
March 30th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Nor did Spain or England defeat Chile before the English police arrested Pinochet at Spain’s request.
March 30th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
There is a reason why no Chinese official has ever been arrested in Europe over Tibet, and it is the same reason why Yoo isn’t going to be arrested in Spain.
March 30th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
We didn’t defeat Liberia in a war before trying Chuckie Taylor Junior.
OK, a defeated wartime enemy, or a piddly third-world country that can’t make too much trouble for you.
March 30th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
Do you really think these prosecutions of Bush officials will go forward in Spain if Bill Clinton doesn’t report to serve his 20 year sentence in Serbia?
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/425822/8928
Belgrade sentences Clinton for war crimes
Belgrade sentenced 14 Western leaders to 20 years in prison each on Thursday for war crimes during last year’s NATO air strikes and said it would issue arrest warrants.
US President Bill Clinton, Jacques Chirac of France, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and 11 other leaders have been on trial since Monday in the Belgrade District Court. Empty seats in the courtroom were labelled with their names.
“In the name of the people…We sentence…to individual prison terms of 20 years each,” presiding judge Veroljub Rakitic said, reading out the 14 names to applause. He said an order was given to issue arrest warrants against them.
The 14 were found guilty as charged for inciting a war of aggression, war crimes against the civilian population, use of banned weapons, attempted murder of President Slobodan Milosevic and the violation of Yugoslavia’s territorial integrity.
March 31st, 2009 at 11:39 am
we U.S. taxpaying citizens and patriots must punish our own crooks or suffer forever as we now do over all of nixon’s crap artists!
April 1st, 2009 at 12:39 am
Balthazar Garzon is one Bad ass Judge! I know it, because I lived in Spain for 14 years. The Spanish Courts are persistent and will follow each and eveyone of these indicted to the gates of their own hell. The courts like dripping water are relentless in Spain and finally get their man, or their gold like from the galleons found by Mel Fischer off the coast of Florida!
April 16th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Greeting. See things as they are and write about them. Don?t waste your creative energy trying to make things up. Even if you are writing fiction, write the things you see and know.
I am from Mali and now study English, give true I wrote the following sentence: “The mission of air dolomiti was clear from the beginning – to become the first regional company in italy which could operate at an european level, with direct.”
With love
, Beauregard.