Les nouveaux règlements sur les interrogatoires de l’armée de terre américaine, qui seront prochainement publiés par le Pentagone, ne contiendront pas le principe interdisant l’humiliation des prisonniers, principe qui est contenu dans la Convention de Genève, rapporte le journal Los Angeles Times. – Radio Chine International
For decades it was US military policy to follow minimum standards set out in the Geneva conventions for treating prisoners. But in 2002, President George Bush suspended sections of the Geneva conventions for alleged al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. – Sunday Morning Herald
President Bush’s critics and supporters have debated whether it is possible to prove a direct link between administration declarations that it will not be bound by Geneva and events such as the abuses at Abu Ghraib or the killings of civilians last year at Haditha, Iraq, allegedly by U.S. Marines. But the exclusion of the Geneva provisions may make it more difficult for the administration to portray such incidents as aberrations. – San Francisco Chronicle
Now that President Bush has resolved publicly that those who committed war crimes will be punished, the subject of U.S. war crimes may begin to move closer to its deserved prominent place in the American public discourse. If this happens, more Americans are likely to realize that the man who spoke of punishing war criminals has himself violated the law and should be accordingly punished.
In fact, according to the Nuremberg Charter, a document which the U.S. had a major role in drafting, those who initiate a war of aggression quite literally bear individual criminal responsibility, not only for waging unprovoked war, but for the war crimes which inevitably flow from aggression. – Consortium News