[Deathpenalty]Fw: [NYTr] The War-Criminal Attorney General (Boyle)

[Francis Boyle]

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, Ill. 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (voice)
217-244-1478 (fax)
(personal comments only)

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <nytr at olm.blythe-systems.com>
To: "NYTr List" <nytr at olm.blythe-systems.com>
Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2004 7:52 PM
Subject: [NYTr] The War-Criminal Attorney General (Boyle)


> Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
>  
> sent by Francis Boyle
> 
> CounterPunch - November 18, 2004
> http://www.counterpunch.org
> 
> The Dems Are Caving on Gonzales
> 
> War Criminal as Attorney General?
> 
> by Prof. Francis A. Boyle
> 
> As White House Counsel, Alberto Gonzales originated, authorized, 
> approved, and aided and abetted grave breaches of the Third and Fourth 
> Geneva Conventions of 1949 (e.g., torture and Gitmo kangaroo courts), 
> which are serious war crimes. In other words, Gonzales is a prima facie 
> war criminal. He must be prosecuted under the Geneva Conventions and the 
> US War Crimes Act.
> 
> For example, article 129 of the Third Geneva Convention on Prisoners of 
> War provides in relevant part with respect to prima facie U.S. war 
> criminals such as Gonzales: "Each High Contracting Party shall be under 
> the obligation to search for persons alleged to have committed, or to 
> have ordered to be committed, such graves breaches, and shall bring such 
> persons, regardless of their nationality, before its own courts."
> 
> To the same effect is article 146 of the Fourth Geneva Convention 
> protecting Civilians in wartime. This obligation to prosecute Gonzales 
> applies to every High Contracting Party to the Geneva Conventions, which 
> means almost every state in the world, including the United States of 
> America--still "the land of the free, and the home of the brave" despite 
> incumbent US Attorney General John Ashcroft, another prima facie war 
> criminal. And there is no statute of limitations for the commission of 
> such serious war crimes. No wonder the Bush Jr administration has done 
> everything humanly possible to sabotage the International Criminal Court.
> 
> The same conclusions can be reached by the application of the Pentagon's 
> own U.S. Department of the Army Field Manual 27-10, The Law of Land 
> Warfare, which, by its own terms, also applies to civilian government 
> officials such as Gonzales involved in ordering or aiding and abetting 
> or conspiring to commit war crimes
> 
> Despite the pusillanimous predilections of Senator Leahy, the U.S. 
> Senate must reject his nomination. As a prima facie war criminal, 
> Gonzales is not fit to be Attorney General of the United States of 
> America. Should Gonzales travel around the world in that capacity, then 
> human rights lawyers around the world will attempt to get him prosecuted 
> wherever he might go along the lines of what they did to General 
> Pinochet in London. Like pirates, war criminals are "hostes humani 
> generis"--the enemies of all humankind. A fitting description for Bush 
> Jr and his gang of war criminals.
> 
> [Francis A. Boyle, Professor of Law, University of Illinois, is author 
> of "Foundations of World Order," (Duke University Press), "The 
> Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence," and "Palestine, Palestinians and 
> International Law," (Clarity Press). ]
>        
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