The U.S. has a highly competent legal system.
Sure...Tell that to the falsely convicted and the victims of O.J.Simpson and so on. The US legal system can be corrupted like any other... by money and political pressure and lately by religious radicals on the right.
If there were credible and sufficient evidence, legal cases would have a chance at success in the U.S. judicial system.
No. Several reasons.
1. The US government at the time would have claimed everything from national security to it happening outside the jurisdiction of the court to prevent or/and delay any investigation or trial..... no wait they already did that for 5+ years. I am also sure that the Obama administration would use the same tactic since the political ramifications could play right into the hands of the enemy... however that does not make it right or justify the actions of the Bush administration.
2. The US government has not allowed access to Gitmo by any 3rd party other than the Red Cross. The Red Cross have even had their access limited. Hence any evidence would have to come from the US government... yea right in a pigs eye. Considering that the CIA has destroyed interrogation tapes, that hundreds of thousands of emails "disappeared" from the White House and all the other "funny facts" about the Bush administration then well.
Like it or not, there is plenty of circumstantial evidence that the US government with Bush and his minions not only were complicit but actually promoted the torture of person's they saw as a threat. We have Rumsfeldt admitting to giving the order to the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" and the Bush memos by the DOJ attempting to justify the use of torture. We have person after person coming forward claiming on being kidnapped and tortured by the US administration, and we have the deaths of detainees. So yes when there is smoke there is usually a fire too.
The allegations likely are far more politically-motivated than credible.
Considering the subject, then yes it is politically motivated. Anything involving the Bush administration is politically motivated as there was no accountability during the reign of Fuhrer Bush. But it is also very much motivated by the facts and evidence and wanting to punish the people who were not held accountable during their reign of terror .. I mean their administration.
Hence, those making the allegations are using a foreign court system--one with a sordid history of attempting to carve out extraterritorial jurisdiction for itself--to proceed with a politically-motivated case.
It is funny that the Spanish court system has prosecuted more of these cases than anyone else. It took the Spanish court system to put Pinochet on trial. It took the Spanish court system to put the facist right wing murders of Argentina on trial. At least there is some systems that believe in the rule of law and going after mass murders. That is more than the US system does.
It is unfortunate that some, who are unable to accept the limits of their political allegations, go shopping for courts in a bid to contrive a sense of legitimacy for their charges that would be unlikely to stand the scrutiny of a rigorous judicial process.
And when the US court system demands the extradition of nationals of other nations because of charges pending in the US? I guess that is okay?
As for standing the scrutiny of a rigorous judicial process..... I guess you have no clue on the history of this court and what it has done. This court took up the Pinochet case, and because of this court, Pinochet was arrested in London on request of the Spanish court system. Because of this court case, Pinochet had his immunity finally removed not long before his death. This alone was a triumph and kept the crimes of the US backed Pinochet regime in Chile in the lime light.
Thanks to this Spanish law, Adolfo Scilingo was put on trial and sentenced to 540 years for his part in the Argentinian dirty war.
How many war criminals has the US courts convicted lately?
It is even worse that some foreign judges choose to participate in such a political process, even as they lack jurisdiction.
They have no choice, it is the law. Its called Universal Jurisdiction. I am guessing you are against such a thing.
Then you are against Israel, because Israel has used this justification to apprehend and try Nazi war criminals.. are you an anti semitic jew hater?!?! (yes that is ironic and sarcastic)
Several countries have Universal Jurisdiction and they are mostly used in cases of crimes against humanity and war crimes. These countries include, UK, Canada, France, Belgium, Israel and Spain.
In fact... the US has Universal Jurisdiction too... well kind off. Since the US has taken Afghanis that attacked US troops and put them in Gitmo on "terror charges" and plan to put them on trial... then the US are prosecuting non nationals for supposed crimes committed in their home country against the US. But I guess you have no problem with that right?
