Afghanistan confirms blanket pardon for war crimes

[Robb]

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - Afghanistan confirmed for the first time publicly on Tuesday that it had enacted into law a blanket pardon for war crimes and human rights abuse carried out before 2001.

Human rights groups have expressed dismay that the law appeared to have been enacted quietly, granting blanket immunity to members of all armed factions for acts committed during decades of war before the fall of the Taliban. President Hamid Karzai had promised not to sign the National Stability and Reconciliation Law, when it was passed by parliament in 2007.

Human rights groups say they learned only this year that the bill had been published in the official gazette, making it law.

Karzai's spokesman, Waheed Omer, said on Tuesday that the bill had become law because it was passed by two-thirds of the parliament and therefore did not require Karzai's signature....

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62F2LU20100316

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No wonder they kept it quiet. This is not just former Taliban who would be protected, but the remnants and precursors of the "Northern Alliance." Human rights orgs over the years made it pretty clear the Taliban was worse, but only because they were more organized and institutional about things. x(

[Ozymanithrax]

1. The pardon is only good in Afghanistan...

Outside the medieval areas of the world, these people can be tried for crimes against humanity.

[Mithreal]

6. +1

[dipsydoodle]

9. Correct.

Nations cannot forgive International crimes.

[Oregone]

2. It sucks, but can prevent future war crimes

If someone knows they will be strung up, it prevents them from ever negotiating and considering quitting. Random thought. Im not usre if thats the purpose here of this

[No Elephants]

3. How is that different from not prosecuting? Besides, I think the statute of limitations

on acts prior to 2001 may have run out by 2007 anyway, assuming their system is anything like ours.

[Robb]

4. I don't know, actually.

I know the law there has a 10-year clock on murder. :shrug:

Edited to add: that should really have read "I seem to remember" rather than "I know." :D

[dipsydoodle]

10. There is no statute of limitations

on crimes against humanity.

[No Elephants]

12. Would "crimes against humanity" be the charge against Bushco? The reason I ask:

I heard or read somewhere I trusted (tho' cannot now recall) that the statute of limitations re: Bush, Cheney, et al. had run.

I've been posting that. I really hate posting "facts" that are anything but factual. So, if I've been repeating bad information, I apologize to the entire forum.

[dipsydoodle]

16. They're still hunting

Nazis and that's over sixty years now. :shrug:

[skeptical cynic]

5. Is that very different from President Obama

letting the past be the past and not investigating war crimes committed by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others prior to 2009?

Isn't refusing to investigate a de facto pardon?

[Mithreal]

7. +1

[cstanleytech]

11. Eh, its a bitter pill to swallow I'll grant ya with letting Bush and Cheney walk away but

sometimes ya have to pick your fights carefully and not distract yourself with no-win ones like having Bush and Cheney tried in court would likely be because it would be near impossible to find a truly impartial jury where all the members would be willing to set aside their own politics.
As proof I just have to point to how many conservatives still support them, do you really think they would be impartial? I don't.

[No Elephants]

13. Well, if you don't believe in the jury system, it's hard to argue anyone should be tried.

We have a system whereby each side gets to question and challenge jurors. And we are supposed to end up with something impartial. In reality, it may not be entirely impartial, but it probably is usually at least balanced and representative of the community as a whole.

On jury duty, I saw a defense lawyer get rid of someone whose job was installing alarm systems. It was a rape case (victim and perps all juveniles) not a breaking and entering case. The only thing I could figure was the defense lawyer thought the person might be too "law and order" oriented. But, that's how picky it was.

They got their jury without me, so I got dismissed without being questioned. Although that meant I had wasted a day, I was relieved because I had formed an opinion about the guilt of the defendants based on the way they were acting. The judge had yelled at every prospective juror who said he or she had formed an opinion about guilt or innocence; and I had been dreading having to tell him that I had formed one.

[No Elephants]

14. Self delete. Wrong Spot.

[cstanleytech]

17. The problem isnt that it doesnt work rather that or hot topics like this one would be

it just doesn't work well enough.
Sure ya can challenge a juror but ya are bound to have atleast some lie and slip through and all it takes is one to mess with the process.

[Flaneur]

8. If this is the case, then at least Afghanistan needs a truth and reconciliation commission.

A poster above is correct: Being a wanted war criminal makes one unlikely to want to play ball.

But if they are going to let them get away with murder, there needs to at least be an open reckoning of who did what to whom. They did something like that in South Africa rather than risk further dividing their country with nasty trials. And maybe Rwanda, too.

[No Elephants]

15. We had to know about this when it passed, right? This is

really awkward, wot?


"He called on the international community and the United States to apply pressure on Afghanistan to repeal the law.

"The U.S. needs to decide whether they're with the victims or the perpetrators, and make their views known publicly," he said."

[Doctor_J]

18. Before 2001 - that means that Bush and Cheney are still elligible

My best guess is that after our empire crumbles (in the next 10 years or so), the world community will take up the cause, and treat Bush, Cheney, Yoo, Bybee, Rumsfeld, ... like Pinochet and Milosevic. Rummy and Cheney will likely be dead from natural causes, but it's going to suck to be the others.