CIA Torture & the Nuremberg Code: Apologies to Good Germans?

" ... Attorney General Eric Holder says it’s 'unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women ... for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Justice Department,' but he fails to note these very CIA agents requested said authority in order to engage in what all but the most insidious parsing of legal thought recognizes as torture... "

Obama Stands Nuremberg on Its Head
by Mike Farrell
www.truthdig.com
Apr 20, 2009

Excerpt:

... “Good Germans who were only following orders” are not exempt from the bar of justice. Individuals must be held responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Justice Robert Jackson, chief United States prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, declared in his opening statement to the tribunal that the men charged “represent sinister influence that will lurk in the world long after their bodies have returned to dust. They are living symbols of racial hatreds, of terrorism and violence, and of the arrogance and cruelty of power.”

The arrogance and cruelty of CIA officers who torture and brutalize helpless prisoners are not expunged just because, as Obama said, they “carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice.” Attorney General Eric Holder says it’s “unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Justice Department,” but he fails to note these very CIA agents requested said authority in order to engage in what all but the most insidious parsing of legal thought recognizes as torture. ...

Continued
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The cover-up mentality of the Good German press: "Time to put interrogations behind U.S.": " ... We agree with the decision by the Obama administration to defend CIA officials and employees in any legal proceedings related to the government's interrogation program if the method used didn't cause permanent damage. ... "

http://www.thedailyjournal.com/article/20090420/OPINION01/904200336
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" ... There is no immunity from murder, as the Tribunal in Nuremberg stated in 1945. Thus we are obliged to follow through and bring George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld et. al. to justice and to punish them to the full extent of the law ... "

If just saying sorry will suffice, the Nazis could have gotten away with murder

April 19, 2009

VHeadline commentarist Kenneth T. Tellis writes: When memos of the crimes of torture and other illegal methods are exposed by the Obama regime and then shielded by order of the President, it is quite clear that the very government of the United States of America is no different to the mob that runs crime in America.

The former Bush regime went about gutting all norms and international agreements, by virtue of the fact that it could use threats of violence against any nation which pursued that course.

We are therefore reminded that neither the Bush regime nor the present one under Barack Obama is any different to the Nazis or the Soviets that the US government in the past condemned as War Criminals ... there is only one standard of justice which should apply to all nations.

It is now incumbent upon us to pursue a course that will bring about the trial of the CIA (US War Criminals) and their partners in crime, the Obama regime, to justice at an international neutral venue. That way, at least, we can be a part of a system of justice which does not permit anyone to break the law and profit from it as was done by the Bush regime for eight long years in which hundreds of people were tortured, killed and 'disappeared' under very mysterious circumstances. But that still does not account for the murder of close to two million Iraqis at the hands of the US Shutzstafeln, also called the Marines.

There is no immunity from murder, as the Tribunal in Nuremberg stated in 1945. Thus we are obliged to follow through and bring George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld et. al. to justice and to punish them to the full extent of the law ... just as those Nazis in Germany received at Nuremberg in 1945.

If just saying sorry will suffice, then the Nazis could have gotten away with murder. So whatever the excuse President Barack Obama, no member of the Central Intelligence Agency or any other US Government agency that committed crimes against humanity, should be given immunity from prosecution.

Kenneth T. Tellis
kenneth.tellis@vheadline.com

http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=79264