For four years following the Second World War, the top 24 Nazi leaders, instigators and perpetrators had to sit through seeing their crimes fully explored and revealed through the Nuremberg Trials. Thousands of lesser lackeys of the Third Reich were similarly prosecuted. Similar trials took place in Tokyo and throughout Asia from 1946 through 1948. Dozens of ex-soldiers and ex-politicians and ex-technocrats were hung, many hundreds more incarcerated for long prison terms.
To this day, nations around the world cooperate in the relentless pursuit of anyone involved in the inhumanities of that era.
They didn't use the phrase 'Zero Tolerance' in those days, but that is exactly what was meant, and enforced. Waterboarding a prisoner even once, for example, was a hanging offense every time.
It still is.
Most importantly, the Nuremberg Principles drafted by America and its Allies firmly established that for all nations, whether they became signatories to the Principles or no, there is no excusing of war crimes or crimes against humanity by claims of 'just following orders,' or by virtue of being a government official, or by claims of not knowing that their conduct was a war crime, or of not being capable of stopping such crimes. No such excuses are allowed under international law.
The precise standard of absolute personal responsibility for war crimes that has been in place since WWII has never been vague or uncertain -- if the crime factually happened, and if you were present, or you were aware of it, or you took any part, or you voted for it, or you failed to vote against it, or failed to attempt to stop it -- you committed a war crime, or a crime against humanity. And, there is no statute of limitations, none whatsoever, on these crimes. You are completely subject to prosecution, wherever you may be, for every remaining day of your life.
Sixty years since the final gavel fell, and the Nuremberg Principles established by those trials are now openly violated by the United States of America -- crimes against peace, wars of aggression, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Administrations change, but torture remains unrenounced and unpunished. That means it is not rejected, reviled and cleansed from the American character. As a nation, we accept torture. It's as American as applie pie now. We excuse wars of aggression, if they're authored by ourselves or our friends. What we won't accept or permit from any other nation on this planet, we do without concern or consequence.
Well, that won't fly. There is no statute of limitations to prevent prosecution of every individual connected to such conduct.
Both political parties, both sides of both Houses of Congress, by absconding from their sworn oaths and duties to our Constitution and our obligations to world peace, have left themselves entirely open to prosecution for permitting, abetting, conspiring and engaging in elective wars of aggression, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes against peace. By the precise standards of absolute personal responsibility for war crimes established by the Nuremberg Principles, not a one of America's Senators or Congress members may walk this earth as free men and women. They all belong to the same category now -- they are non-prosecuted war criminals until such time as they actually are prosecuted.
Perhaps their trial will be held in the ancient city of Nuremberg. Perhaps it will be held in Washington.
Who was charged in the original Nuremberg Trial?
There were two dozen prominent Nazi leaders, officials, and officers. They were prosecuted as individuals, and as members of one or more of six "criminal organizations" of the defeated Nazi regime that were also prosecuted.
These six criminal organizations were:
the political leadership of the Nazi Party,
the Schutzstaffel (the infamous SS),
the High Command of the German Army,
the Gestapo,
the Sicherheitsdienst (the Intelligence Branch of the SS),
the Sturmabteilung (the Brownshirts).
What were these military, political, police and intelligence organizations charged with?
The charges against them (and the individual members of them) were:
1. Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of crime against peace
2. Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression and other crime against peace
3. War crimes
4. Crimes against humanity
In order to constitute the court, and to prosecute the crimes of the Nazi regime, the Nuremberg Principles were created and agreed upon by the Allied Powers, most particularly the USA, Russia, Britain and France. The seven Nuremberg Principles are:
Principle I
Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment.
Principle II
The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law.
Principle III
The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.
Principle IV
The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.
Principle V
Any person charged with a crime under international law has the right to a fair trial on the facts and law.
Principle VI
The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:
(a) Crimes against peace:
(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
(b) War Crimes:
Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation of slave labor or for any other purpose of the civilian population of or in occupied territory; murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the Seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.
(c) Crimes against humanity:
Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime.
Principle VII
Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law.
The horrific revelations of crimes against persons and whole populations revealed during the four-year Nuremberg Trial, and subsequent lower level Nuremberg Trials, fostered unanimous international agreements and treaties to forever prevent any recurrence of such crimes against humanity from ever recurring, and to hunt down and punish every single individual even remotely connected to them.
These include the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, the Genocide Convention of 1948, the Geneva Convention on the Laws and Customs of War in 1949, the Convention on the Abolition of the Statute of Limitations on War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity in 1968, and the Supplementary Protocols strengthening the Geneva Convention in 1977.
How America's Senators, Judges, Congress members, military officers, police and intelligence agency personnel behaved under the absolutely illegal and immoral scenarios pursued by the radical Bush Administration rests entirely on their individual heads, and always will. No excuses are permitted, as long as a moral choice to participate or not was even remotely possible. If these political, military, police and intelligence personnel did not, and do not now stand against the war crimes of the Bush Administration, they will stand trial some fine day for participating, and for not standing against it. If they participate now in covering these crimes up, hiding them, destroying evidence, lying about what factually happened, then they commit further crimes against humanity.
These kinds of conduct cannot be excused, and cannot go unpunished, no matter how long it takes to bring them to light, and to justice. That is the sum of international law enshrined in multiple American treaties -- international treaties that largely originated in America, and were brought into international force by American influence and leadership.
No matter their political party, when their trial comes, upon some unforeseen day between now and the end of their lives, not a one of the people who took part in this kind of conduct, or fostered it, or failed to prevent it, or covered it up afterward will be afforded any excuse for their complicity or participation in the capture, torture, interrogation, imprisonment, trials, punishment or death of any human beings under the Bush Administration. No member of the Obama Administration that covers up or hides war crimes, or interferes with investigation of crimes against humanity, will be excused or spared either.
There simply is no statute of limitations for any such behavior, or any connection to such behavior. There will be a judgment. There will be a trial.
The Bush Administration was a criminal organization by the clear definitions of the Nuremberg Principles. So are the government and military and police and intelligence organizations that followed the directives, orders and policies of the Bush Administration in regards to torture, renditions, and aggressive war. So are the individual members of those organizations. Just as the High Command, political leaders, intelligence, police and political operatives of the Nazi Administration were tried, convicted and variously hung or imprisoned, so will all participants in the crimes of the Bush Administration be variously imprisoned or hung when they are eventually brought to justice, if not in America then in some more civilized nation.
The wrong course for members of the Obama Administration is to hide and deny and ignore the crimes of its predecessors. That makes them complicit in every one of them.
Stand apart from torture! Take no part in it, take no hand in hiding it. Denounce it, and prosecute it.
Or, stay the course and go down with it. Live with the shame of it for the remainder of your days. Tell your grandchildren that you were 'just following orders' -- but don't try telling that to the judge. Live in fear of your coming trial for as long as you may live, wherever you may go. When every nation on earth is calling for your trial, where do you think you will go?
Every nation on earth has long since agreed to the pursuit and prosecution of people like you. We will bring you to the docket, and you will answer for your participation in the Bush Administration. You will answer for your participation in covering up the crimes of the Bush Administration, whether you are a Democrat or Republican, whether you currently sit atop the government or not.
Get out. Get back. We let Bush and Friends leave office without being impeached and imprisoned. That doesn't change anything except the timeline for their prosecution.
America doesn't torture? America did torture. America currently excuses torture.
Until we clean that up, until we lay blame and responsibility for this humanitarian disaster fairly unto the last man and woman involved in creating it or letting it happen, we are not Americans but collaborators and Quisling cowards.
Choose America or torture. Can't have both.