A Spanish court has taken steps toward promoting prosecution and possible arrest warrants for six Bush Administration officials who devised and promoted the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as part of the policy developed toward terrorists after September 11.Â
These officials include former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, Justice Department lawyer John Yoo, former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, and David Addington, chief of staff and legal adviser to former Vice President Dick Cheney.Â
The possibility of arrest is unlikely unless these officials travel overseas, but it should be pointed out that former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was arrested and brought to trial under the authority of this particular Spanish court, and various human rights groups are pursuing this idea for American officials who promoted waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques in the War on Terror. Our own government has promoted the prosecution of foreign leaders who have promoted human rights violations, so it is certainly possible that there could be domestic prosecutions of Bush administration officials, and this theoretically could lead to top figures, including both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, facing the bar of justice for their unconstitutional actions in office.
I say take these investigations and prosecutions where they lead, and restore the United States as the promoter of human rights, and have this country be in the forefront of the reestablishment of the basic principles of international law!