Rumsfeld flees France fearing arrest

[This would be comic, were there not substantial reasons to hold Rumsfeld and the Bush administration generally responsible for criminal acts that we fought WW2 against the Axis powers to end for all times. As one who all too well remembers those days as a child -- two uncles survived but were really post traumatic stress victims who never really recovered the lives they might have had -- I am constantly appalled at the casual way that torture and killing of civilians have been taken by Americans -- even presidential candidates and an attorney general candidate feel they can waffle on torture? Perhaps all the media violence and porn have really corrupted our national soul? I don't agree with the madness of the fundamentalist extremists who seem bent on punishing and killing, but as a humanist I find such things appalling. I gather one of our chief Marine legal representatives has just resigned to protest the violations being practiced in that domain. There still seem to be some good and caring people doing what they can to halt America's playing fascist games! Ed Kent]

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http://wor.ldne.ws/node/8596

Rumsfeld flees France fearing arrest
Sat. 10/27/2007 - 08:45

Former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld fled France today fearing arrest over charges of "ordering and authorizing" torture of detainees at both the American-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the US military's detainment facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, unconfirmed reports coming from Paris suggest.

US embassy officials whisked Rumsfeld away yesterday from a breakfast meeting in Paris organized by the Foreign Policy magazine after human rights groups filed a criminal complaint against the man who spearheaded President George W. Bush's "war on terror" for six years.

Under international law, authorities in France are obliged to open an investigation when a complaint is made while the alleged torturer is on French soil.

According to activists in France, who greeted Rumsfeld shouting "murderer" and "war criminal" at the breakfast meeting venue, US embassy officials remained tight-lipped about the former defense secretary's whereabouts citing "security reasons".

Anti-torture protesters in France believe that the defense secretary fled over the open border to Germany, where a war crimes case against Rumsfeld was dismissed by a federal court. But activist point out that under the Schengen agreement that ended border checkpoints across a large part of the European Union, French law enforcement agents are allowed to cross the border into Germany in pursuit of a fleeing fugitive.

"Rumsfeld must be feeling how Saddam Hussein felt when US forces were hunting him down," activist Tanguy Richard said. "He may never end up being hanged like his old friend, but he must learn that in the civilized world, war crime doesn't pay."

International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) along with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), and the French League for Human Rights (LDH) filed the complaint on Thursday after learning that Rumsfeld was scheduled to visit Paris.
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