This is the Who's Who of defendants in a German filing to seek the war crimes prosecution of several people involved in the (mis)treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay:
Along with Rumsfeld, Gonzales and Tenet, the other defendants in the case are Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone; former assistant attorney general Jay Bybee; former deputy assistant attorney general John Yoo; General Counsel for the Department of Defense William James Haynes II; and David S. Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. Senior military officers named in the filing are General Ricardo Sanchez, the former top Army official in Iraq; Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the former commander of Guantanamo; senior Iraq commander, Major General Walter Wojdakowski; and Col. Thomas Pappas, the one-time head of military intelligence at Abu Ghraib.
Absent from the list is William Delahunty, former side-kick to John "Organ Failure" Yoo at the Justice Department, now a professor at the St. Thomas Law School in Minneapolis. Odd.
Why Germany? Well, Germany recognizes the principal of "universal jurisdiction" for the prosecution of war crimes, a proposition that is also supported in international law.
Germany was chosen for the court filing because German law provides "universal jurisdiction" allowing for the prosecution of war crimes and related offenses that take place anywhere in the world.
The pace of the unraveling of the veil covering the brutality, illegality, and stupidity of the war in Iraq is quickening. The prospect of American political and military leaders, pale and quivering in the dock, increases with every day. The souls of thousands of dead and maimed American service people, and the hundreds of thousands of dead and injured Iraqis demand it.
Source: TIME.com: Exclusive: Charges Sought Against Rumsfeld Over Prison Abuse
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