It is an assault on the general prohibition of double jeopardy (as I already noted) and an attack on sovereignty.
If I can be tried in Spain for a crime I commit here in Saudi Arabia, then which law am I supposed to govern myself by? If my actions are square by Saudi and Spanish law can the Germans nab me for breaking their codes?
If a Brit can be tried in his county for hiring an underaged prostitute in Thailand (and he can), can I be tried if I am arrested in London? Why are the British regulating the sex trade in Thailand? Some sort of Neo-Colonialsm? (Well, it is for the children, so that makes it OK.)
The idea of trying people who do thing you do not like elsewhere is a darn slipper slope. Can America declare executing teenaged gays a Crime Against Humanity and so issue warrants for Iranian judges? Can Iran call American judges releasing murders after only 20 years in the big house and affront to their law?
It is an assault on the general prohibition of double jeopardy (as I already noted) and an attack on sovereignty.
If I can be tried in Spain for a crime I commit here in Saudi Arabia, then which law am I supposed to govern myself by? If my actions are square by Saudi and Spanish law can the Germans nab me for breaking their codes?
If a Brit can be tried in his county for hiring an underaged prostitute in Thailand (and he can), can I be tried if I am arrested in London? Why are the British regulating the sex trade in Thailand? Some sort of Neo-Colonialsm? (Well, it is for the children, so that makes it OK.)
The idea of trying people who do thing you do not like elsewhere is a darn slippery slope. Can America declare executing teenaged gays a Crime Against Humanity and so issue warrants for Iranian judges? Can Iran call American judges releasing murders after only 20 years in the big house and affront to their law?
What will the reaction of the average European be towards this? Ho hum or outrage…or something in between. Because I think that the judge doing this is doing it with no more thought than to score some points with the faithful…in Spain. The big question I have is…what will the reaction be with the rest of Europe, and does anyone else think that while the US might be keeping a simmer on low for hostility towards France, a good chunk of Europe seems to want to keep their hostility towards the US on full boil? Is this a good thing?
As to the man on the street I’d guess a lot of Europeans no longer give a fuck what the US thinks and anything that annoys them is a good thing. Much the same way as a lot of Americans couldn’t give a flying fuck what we think.
PRwise the US has had a disastrous time over the last few years. Arrogance, blind fate and stupidity are the common words I hear to describe Americans over here. Ireland is a very pro-American kinda place due to the close contacts we have with the US but that good feeling has been seriously eroded.
My feeling to this incident is that Spain is trying to make a point. They feel the US has whitewashed this incident. I remember at the time there were accusations of the US troops on the ground purposely targeting those journalists. I don’t know what evidence the Spanish have but I seriously doubt they believe they’ll ever actually get US soldiers in court.
I think you are showing too much of your own bias towards Europe in your post. Why do you think that
?
Where is that coming from? Because a Spanish judge wanted to persue this further constitutes ‘a good chunk of Europe’ now? Maybe the judge does feel that this is in the interests of justice to follow up on it.
Also, do you have any comments on my question;
If the situation was reveresed do you think the US would do nothing about it? Or would you be labelling the European country in question ‘hostile’ towards the US because they refused to take the matter any further?
Except as Sam pointed out, Italy is charging people for a crime alleged to have taken place in Italy. Italy certainly has jurisdiction to charge people for crimes in Italy. Does Spain have jurisdiction to charge people for crimes commited in Iraq?
Which parts do you fine biased? Not that I’ll claim to be completely unbiased as far as Europe is concerned…I’m not (and certainly not about Spain). Still, I’m not sure which parts you are taking exception too specifically.
They are unrelated points, at least in my mind. By and large Europe IS hostile towards the US…and this doesn’t seem to be lessening but growing stronger as the months pass. The Spanish Judge in question is a symptom (IMHO), not the cause.
As to the ‘interest of justice’, blah blah blah…bullshit. You don’t issue arrest warrants for something like this, not when your own attorney general objects unless you are trying to make a point. He has no expectation that the US will comply…in fact, I’d say he KNOWS they won’t and is playing to that (the reasons are debatable…IMO the actions aren’t).
The thing has been investigated. If he desires it he could request all the investigation data and then he could issue a statement where he has further questions or problems with the investigation. Afaict thats not what he did…he decided to do it this way instead to, as I said, make a point.
Dunno…do you have any evidence that the US in the past has done something similar to a supposed ‘ally’? Have we ever issued arrest warrants for an ally’s soldiers after their own military had investigated their actions and pronounced them innocent? I’m no lawyer so I really have no idea…but I find it hard to believe we ever did something like this in a similar situation (i.e. one of our journalists killed in a war zone by friendly or allied troops…its bound to have happened in the past sometime).
The war being sanctioned by the UN wouldn’t change anything. If we had UN support for the invasion of Iraq it’s not like we’d turn over all soldiers accused of crimes to some UN court, that just isn’t how it would work. In fact I really don’t see any relevance to the UN not having santioned the action whatsoever.
The legal status of Baghdad probably was that of a “no-man’s land.” Technically crimes being committed there would fall under various jurisdictions. Saddam’s government still had control of large parts of the city, and they could arrest criminals and prosecute them up until the time they were completely driven out. The U.S. hadn’t really set up any governing bodies, but since they had forced out the original governmnet they could claim de facto jurisdiction over the entire area.
But, since a war was going on, pretty much any crimes committed in Baghdad for some time may have “legally” fallen under some jurisdiction but there was no one around with the time or power to do anything like arrest and prosecute criminals.
U.S. soldiers on the other hand are always under the jurisdiction of military courts, no matter where in the world they are. They must always follow the Uniform Code of Military Justice. As it was, this incident was not found to be a crime by the U.S. military. And basically the only courts that can prosecute American soldiers for war crimes are American courts. So these men are basically immune from prosecution at this point, there is no other valid jurisdiction under which they could be prosecuted. There is a growing idea about “universal jurisdiction” (something that I think is both good and bad, depending on the situation) but the U.S. government tends to reject most of that theory. And since we don’t ascribe to, we aren’t going to follow any of it’s precepts. That’s the thing about “international law” most of the time it’s very hard to do anything if the “perpetrator” just refuses to acknowledge it. This really isn’t a case of international law, anyways. This is one Spanish judge taking action that I’m hoping he realizes will never be enforced and is very likely to be overturned by his own government.
If a U.S. journalist was killed in similar circumstances, no I do not think the U.S. would try to have the other country’s soldiers arrested. We would ask for some explanation as to what happened, and the U.S. has given an explanation. If an individual prosecutor wanted to make headlines he could try to get a warrant from a judge, but I doubt we could find many judges who would complete ignore jurisdictional rules and issue a warrant for people who were never in any U.S. court’s jurisdiction.
That’s sort of what happened in Spain, one individual decided to make headlines.
On Democracy Now this morning (www.pacifica.org) it was stated that Spain had laws in place that allowed the prosecution of those who harm Spanish citizens in other nations, if the host nation does not prosecute. Since Iraq, or the U.S. occupiers, have not prosecuted those responsible, Spain chose to.
Personally, I think this is a great thing, not necessarily for the three soldiers sometimes shit happens, but if we could sink all the military powers (and wannabes) in court paper work so deep that we never have another war/skirmish/action/terrorist attack/whatever on this planet, life could be improved.
Great idea! Gods, should have thought of this years ago. Why hasn’t anyone sunk AQ and Osama in a mountain of court red tape? Why hasn’t Spain issued arrest warrants for insurgents in Iraq!! The war there could be over tomorrow! Someone quick…get on the phone to Spain and have them get rolling.
Quit poo-pooing my plans for world peace. If this world is to be saved from itself it might just be us Dopers who do it… Maybe my court action methods may not be successful, but perhaps we can have our Mods jackboot them out of warfare.
I am listening to the Democracy Now episode again and the Spanish journalists they spoke to have a conspiratorial theory that the Americans were killing the witnesses (journalists) intentionally. This might explain why the Spanish court has issued the warrants.
If not then they’ve got nothing to worry about. They’ll get a fair trial.
Are we saying that there should be no process for making that determination? The US has no problem arresting and imprisoning people from other countries and we don’t even feel the need to charge them with anything. Goose-Gander, man. We don’t exactly have any moral high ground to cry about this.
