An Arrest Warrant for al-Bashir, Could Bush Be Next?

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued a warrant for the arrest of Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity -- the court's first against a sitting head of state. The court's decision grimly spelled out the suffering of the people of Sudan's western region of Darfur: a history full of murder, extermination, torture, rape, pillage, the forcible transfer of people and deliberate attacks on civilians.

According to the United Nations, some 300,000 have died in Darfur since the conflict erupted in 2003 and more than two million have been displaced -- figures strongly rejected by Khartoum.

Al-Bashir, however, remains defiant.

"The true criminals are the leaders of the United States and Europe," he told some 10,000 protesters who crammed themselves into central Khartoum in support of their president.

While the U.S. and several western countries have hailed the court's decision, most Arab countries and several African nations called it "regrettable" and warned that al-Bashir's arrest could damage peace negotiations. Meanwhile, editorials in the Arab press have expressed strong feelings that the ICC employs a double standard in focusing on Africa while avoiding issues involving the Middle East and powerful members of the U.N. Security Council.

A commentator on Al Jazeera demanded that the precedent be extended to former U.S. President George W. Bush, "who authorized torture in Iraq's Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, thereby giving his approval of American crimes against humanity."

An Al Arabiya television report showed Washington's ally Israel as a potential candidate for prosecution, in view of the fact that it recently used banned weapons on civilians in Gaza.

The strongest attacks against the ICC's decision came on Hezbollah's Al Manar television, where a Lebanese member of the parliament wondered "about the blindness of justice and its absence from the prosecution of war criminals from U.S. officials and the Israelis, who filled the graves of Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Pakistan with hundreds of thousands of dead and destroyed infrastructure, and milestones of human civilization."

Could the ICC's decision set a precedent?

According to David Crane, an international law professor at Syracuse University, the principle of law used to issue an arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir could extend to former U.S. President Bush over claims officials from his Administration may have engaged in torture by using coercive interrogation techniques on terror suspects. Crane is a former prosecutor of the Sierra Leone tribunal that indicted Liberian President Charles Taylor and put him on trial in The Hague.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority has asked the ICC to accept a complaint against Israel. After visiting Gaza, Britain's Secretary of State for International Development Douglas Alexander publicly stated that the war crimes charges should be investigated. During the war, nine Israeli human rights groups also raised the possibility that Israel had violated the laws of war and called for investigation.

Could Israeli leaders or former president George W. Bush be next?

Jamal Dajani produces the Mosaic Intelligence Report for Link TV

Comments

[sloLes]

One person's terrorist is another person's military defense. Just think about the one million Lebenese who were bombed out of their apartments from American-made airplanes with American-made bombs. Do these people really care that the pilot is wearing the uniform of the Israeli military?

We make the distinction in our western minds and have labeled the clothing that Hezbolloah, the Taliban, and anti-government Iraqi insurgents as 'irregular,' turning them terrorists. But for the people on the ground, being bombed is terrorfying no matter who the bomber is! And the key point that seems to be beyond the simple minds of most, is that the organized miltaries have more weapons than these 'irregylar' militaries. So, they are creating destruction one or two orders of magnitutde worse. Just as we have in Iraq! Beheading somepne is disgusting. Bombing every governement building in Baghdad for days, whether occupied or empty, is civilized, because our guys are wearing uniforms.

The USA won't restore its reputation, until it acknowlesdge the huge number of civilian deaths it's committed arond the plant. Surrendering Bush, which will probably never occur, is vital toward restoring the rule of law here. And in the eyes of most in the world, we look as silly and uncaring as the community which is supporting Bashir. The many comments here condemning him (Bashir) are right on! So are the ones about Bush et al. This is a bitter pill for most Americans. We're clearly not ready to take our medicine.

[TXfemmom]

I would fully support an indictment of Bush, but how these Muslim countries and groups can support al-Bashir is also quite telling.

He has systematically elimated over 300,000 fellow Muslims and they haven't batted an eyelash.

[RTIII]

When the article wrote:

A commentator on Al Jazeera demanded that the precedent be extended to former U.S. President George W. Bush, "who authorized torture in Iraq's Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, thereby giving his approval of American crimes against humanity."

WE CAN ONLY HOPE!

I _STRONGLY_ support the prosecution of GWB for war crimes.

And, it MAY happen HERE!

Vincent Bugliosi wrote a book last year titled, "The Prosecution of George W Bush for Mu.rde.r". In it, he outlines the actual statutes violated, the case law surrounding these, the possible defense strategies, and what is now known as evidence that's already in the public domain and which is undisputed by anybody. ...Bush can really go down for this. In fact, Bugliosi spells out that there are, in fact FIFTY ONE "sovereigns", each of which can prosecute _without_ there being "double jeopardy", which otherwise protects against multiple prosecutions for the same crime.

I recommend that ALL of our nations Attorneys General (all 51 of which have standing) and all our District Attorneys (a fantastically large number of which have standing) actually give it a go. Vincent has spelled out the exact law and case law for you in his very thoroughly researched book - Go For It!
.

[rick8055]

Wow, can you say "moral relativism?" There's no comparison between the horror of Darfur and anything the Bush administration or the Israelis have done. Some bad guys get waterboarded and you people think that rises to the same level as "murder, extermination, torture, rape, pillage, the forcible transfer of people and deliberate attacks on civilians" which killed 300,000 people? This is Owellian. And why aren't any of you calling out the Palestinians for launching thousands of unguided rockets into Israeli population centers, a text book violation of the rules of war. The Israeli response has been to either do nothing for years or target those missile sites with precision weapons in order to minimize civilian deaths. They even warn the Palestinians hours in advance that they are attacking the sites, completely giving up the element of surprise. The Israelis are the ones who are following the rules in that conflict and all the while they are still sending humanitarian aid across the border. Seriously people, put your ideology aside for just a few seconds and think about how silly you sound when you make these ridiculous comparisons.

[cohen238765]

Don't be in denial! Hundreds of thousands were killed in Iraq because of fabricated lies. Did you also forget about Abu Ghreib?

Palestinians were forcibly transfered otherwise you won't have millions of them living in refugee camps. More than 85 percent of the population in Gaza are refugees from towns and villages now occupied by Israel.

[Abraxas79]

You must be joking ? You do realize that Bush & Blair are responsible for the death of over 1 million Iraqis in an illegal war and occupation don't you ? The torture and rendition are incidental.

[karenbe111]

Bush and the Israeli leaders should be next if justice is to be served. They have, as everyone knows, committed war crimes. Even if the ICC does not go after them, they will eventually receive their due...I wouldn't want to live their next life!

[Catothemuchyounger]

Not gonna happen. The U.S. has not signed the ICC treaty, and the opposition to it has included the charge that it could be used against the U.S. for our military actions overseas. ICC supporters argue that this is a paranoid fantasy. ICC supporters are hoping the Democrat controlled Congress will ratify the treaty. There is no way the ICC is going to throw a wrench into that prospect by indicting Bush. The treaty would be a dead letter for years to come.

Even apart from the issue of trying to get the U.S. to join, International organizations like this do not indict the leaders of the major powers. Do you see them going after the Russian leadership over Chechnya or the Chinese leadership over Tibet?

[oxi]

Russia was fighting Islamic terrorists in Chechnya, so are you for or against terrorism? hehehe...

What about U.S. and NATO troops in Kosovo that went in to rescue Islamic KLA terrorists back in 1999 and their continued occupation in the Serbian state of Kosovo as justification that the U.S. and NATO continue protecting the Islamic KLA terrorists?

What about Bush's decision back in early 2001 to rescue Islamic NLA terrorists in FYROM with U.S. troops?

[Catothemuchyounger]

Uh, is that a comment on my comment on why the ICC will not be looking to provoke a crisis with the United States by indicting Bush?

[Abraxas79]

Isn't ironic that NATO is supposedly fighting the Islamic Terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and yet they have helped create, and continue to support a Muslim terrorist state in KLA Kosovo.

Anyone that thought the bombing of Serbia was the result of serb aggression in Kosovo has been sniffing glue for far too long. The reason they bombed Serbia was they wanted eliminate any hint of nationalism and pride of country, and to install a sympathetic "Client State".

The serbs were rewarded by Holbrooke for their compliance in coughing up Milosevic and Co., by the permanent loss of Kosovo.

Of course it is well known what the cost of entry to the EU will be. The recognition of an independent Kosovo.

[cohen238765]

Sudan has also not signed the ICC treaty! I guess they indict poor third world countries.­..

[RTIII]

It turns out that membership is _not_ required.
.

[Abraxas79]

Sudan never signed either, but it doesn't seemed to have helped bashir any. That is why everyone is calling the ICC out on the hyprocrisy and double standard.

[cohen238765]

Sometimes the truth hurts!

Sudan is guilty of genocide in Darfur; however, the past of the so-called civilized countries is full of war crimes, genocides, and colonialism. Let's not be hypocrites. The history of the US since its inception is full of all of the above, mass killings of American natives, war crimes in Vietnam, torture, Iraq, etc. etc. Israel also committed war crimes in Gaza and in Lebanon. France in Algeria. England in India and Africa. Germany's Holocaust. Russia's pogroms. Cambodia's killing fields. There is enough guilt to fill the planet!

[oxi]

How can you ignore the fire-bombing of European and Japanese cities let alone dropping 2 nukes?

And we have the nerve to point the finger at a nuclear Iran?

Hippicrit is the term...

[Hazbara]

IT IS OBVIOUS THAT THE CRITICISM OF ISRAEL WILL LEAD TO CRITICISM OF JEWS.

When this was said 2 months ago, many, feigning outrage, bulked at the very idea.

Some of us, who knew better, saw the writing on the wall.

Warning::::: Its been tried before and its doomed to failure..

Enjoy.

[Hazbara]

How the progressists in America have become so out of touch with reality is something President Obama is looking at very carefully.
Somehow , either he does not recognise who voted for him
or people who voted for him had the wrong idea about him.
In the translation something was lost..
Common sense.

[leonardox1]

Vanessa Redgrave denounced Israeli crimes against Palestinians back in the 70s then became persona no-grata in Hollywood; therefore, actors and celebrities play it safe with Darfur.

[newsjunkie5]

i totally agree...gr­eat reference

[liberalnfree]

How easily the conversation here slips into antisemitic tropes about the Jewish control of Hollywood.
Perhaps Mia Farrow and George Clooney campaign for the people of Darfur because they care about the death of hundreds of thousands of people in Darfur. No, it's much funner to smear them as cowards bowing to Jewish power, funner because it verifies all the antisemitc myths.

[liberalnfree]

The double standard is that the Arab media's outrage and world wide leftist outrage is reserved only for the deaths of Arabs and Muslims at the hands of Jews and Christians. When Muslims kill Muslims or Muslims kill Jews, Christians or animists it is a non-story in the Arab world. The thousand or so deaths in Gaza over a 3 week period got more coverage than the 2 million Christians and animists in the south of Sudan who were slaughtered by the Sudanese government a few years ago. The tragic deaths of Palestinian children caught in the crossfire between Israel and Hamas got played up as war crimes from the start, whereas the deliberate slaughter of entire villages in Darfur, in which children are wantonly hacked to death by Arab militia, is swept under the rug. The vast majority of those who died in Iraq were Muslims killed by fellow Muslims, usually in deliberate acts of terrorism in which crowded markets were blown up for the crime of being Shiite. Yet these deaths mean nothing to "the Arab street," which cares only for the lives of Muslims if they are taken by Christians or Jews, and cares only about prison conditions when the captors are Christians and Jews. There are thousands of Abu Graibs all over the Arab world.

[joz22]

Darfur is not a religious war! Muslims have been slaughtered there as well as Christians. It is political, ethnic and tribal.

[liberalnfree]

Who said Darfur is a religious war? No Christians have died in Darfur because there are no Christians there. The slaughter has been by Muslim Arab militias against non-Arab Muslim peoples. Christians were killed in the south of Sudan, along with animists. That is a separate conflict.
The point is that the Arab world fetishizes the Palestinian conflict, devoting more attention to the aproximately 1000 deaths in Gaza than to the hundreds of thousands of deaths in Darfur, where the killers are Muslim. The Arab media attention to the deaths of Palestinians is ten thousand times greater than the attention to the deaths in Darfur. This is because it is more fun to hate Jews than to criticize fellow Muslims, or to build democracy and prosperity in your own society.

[newsjunkie5]

are you serious?!?

as if the death of muslims worldwide or gazans specifically even matter to newsmakers­...

are you seriously trying to minimize the thousands of palestinians who have died at the hands of the israelis???

[oxi]

Your missing the point...

The point is Darfur has nothing to offer the west, so why should anybody care if they slaughter one another? Where is the oil, gold or other vital natural resources?

Case in point: Rwanda and Kosovo. Rwanda was ignored because they had nothing to give the west back. Serbia was attacked because they had many things to give back:

Remove Milosevich from power thus opening the last closed market for western goods in Europe... the Trepca mines have billions of $$$ worth of vital resources.­.. the AMBO trans-Balkan oil pipeline is being built near Kosovo at a cost of $1 billion, something western investors were unwilling to put the capital down with Milosevich in power o the north... Clinton needed to get Lewinsky off the minds of the sheep... NATO needed a war victory for 50 years of inaction..­.

Sad truth is we went in not only violating the NATO Treaty and the UN Charter but to rescue Islamic KLA terrorists from destruction by the Serb 3rd Army and Kosovo was recognized by some western nations as punishment for Serbia signing the South Stream oil pipeline project with Russia. We have the nerve...

[Abraxas79]

Actually you are incorrect. Sudan has oil. Plenty of it. If it didn't you wouldn't here a peep about this catastrophe. Remember Rwanda anyone ???

The US and other western companies hope to dispose Bashir, put in a favourable "Client State" and boot the chinese out, so as to gain control of Sudan's oil resources.

[Morocco]

Bachir belong in prison and evry Muslim and Arab tyrant deserve the same faith. Bush and the Neo-Zionist-Nazis deserve a summer house in Maui. The law is blind only when it comes to minorities or the REAL SEMITES. Bravo ICC! You are doing a heck of job.

[fbr79]

Don't go around saying that "neo-zionist-nazis" get houses in Maui, you'll get people to want to join their group, times are rough.

[newsjunkie5]

are you crazy?

[1stTsar]

in the end everyone faces justice

[1stTsar]

In the end everyone faces justice, just wait. Look at Ariel Sharon.

[leonardox1]

Ariel Sharon had divine intervention!

[msfsi]

LOL

[fbr79]

No way, Hizbollah came running in Bashir's? Trying to argument a comparison between oranges and apples? Shocking! Say it ain't so! I think it is great for all Arabic groups and nations who are crying for Bashir, showing the West their true face. Let's link that picture of Bashir and his BFF just for good measure:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/28/world/main2522786.shtml

Awesomeness!