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April 28, 2008
SouthAmerica: Talking about real criminals of war - I posted the following information on the Charlie Rose Show forum on June 12, 2004.
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I am glad to see an article in The New York Times regarding the International Criminal Court in The Hague, and the possibility that US officials could be tried for war crimes. You can read the article by Jonathan D. Tepperman âAn American in The Hague?â
(Published on Thursday, June 10, 2004 by the New York Times)
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0610-13.htm
When I wrote an article published on Brazzil magazine in October 2002 - âShock Treatment,â I was thinking on the possibility that some members of the Bush administration, including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Ashcroft, Condoleezza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and many others could be tried for war crimes at The Hague in the future. I will not be surprised if that possibility becomes reality, after this bunch left office, and they become civilians once again.
Quoting from my article published on Brazzil magazine in October 2002:
âShock Treatmentâ
By: Ricardo C. Amaral
Brazzil magazine
Published: October 2002
â¦1) It seems to me that there is nothing new about Iraq's mass destruction weapons. If there were any sign of danger, then Israel would have taken care of the problem as they did in the past. The information that Saddam Hussein is a ruthless dictator is nothing new, and certainly not a good reason to start a war in Iraq.
According to an article on the front page of The New York Times of August 18, 2002; "the Reagan administration provided Iraq with critical battle planning assistance at a time when American intelligence agencies knew that Iraqi commandos would employ chemical weapons in waging the decisive battles of the Iran-Iraq war, according to senior military officers with direct knowledge of the program."
A war in Iraq will be devastating to most economies around the world. I would be worried about Saddam Hussein if he was a religious fanatic, but he is not. Saddam is just a greedy and ruthless dictator; no different from many dictators that the US did business with and kept in power in the pastâ¦
2) Related to the new World Court, Brazil should not give an exemption for Americans from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.
If the leaders of the US government act according to international law, then there is no reason for them to fear the new World Court. I know that many people thought that they could get away with murder and that they were above the law. Today many of these people are in trouble because of their past wrongdoings; included on that list are the following people to mention just a few:
1) The Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic is being tried by the War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague in the Netherlands.
2) General Augusto Pinochet has been having all kinds of legal problems related to his 17-year dictatorship of Chile. Even Mr. Henry Kissinger is afraid to leave US soil today, and recently he canceled a trip to Brazil, because he was named in legal actions over the Chilean coup that brought Mr. Pinochet into power.
3) The leaders of the repressive Argentinean military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983 also have all kinds of legal trouble today related to their actions during that period. They thought that they were above the law, but now they will pay the price for their arrogance.
The lesson to learn from recent past history is that no country or any one can act above the law. You might feel arrogant and untouchable today, and believe that you are superior to everyone and that you will get away with it, but given enough time you will also have your downfall similar to the above examples. Any country or individual that acts according to international law will not need any special exemption from future prosecution from the World Court.
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