The activity detailed in this 2007 report from the International Committee of the Red Cross, if confirmed – and much of it has already been corroborated by public comments by Bush administration officials – constitutes a clear violation of international law and of U.S. domestic law. The prescribed penalties are severe. If members of a previous administration were accused of, say, money laundering, or theft, or lying under oath about sex, today’s administration would have little choice but to prosecute. Similarly, I do not see how the current U.S. attorney general can ignore the mounting evidence of widespread state-sanctioned human rights abuses under his predecessors, and keep his job.
The activity detailed in this 2007 report from the International Committee of the Red Cross, if confirmed – and much of it has already been corroborated by public comments by Bush administration officials – constitutes a clear violation of international law and of U.S. domestic law. The prescribed penalties are severe. If members of a previous administration were accused of, say, money laundering, or theft, or lying under oath about sex, today’s administration would have little choice but to prosecute. Similarly, I do not see how the current U.S. attorney general can ignore the mounting evidence of widespread state-sanctioned human rights abuses under his predecessors, and keep his job.
I don’t often write about these sorts of things. I’m more a routine-day-at-Parliament-Hill kind of political writer. But this is monstrous.