Barack Obama's War Crimes Double Standards

Ben Chang, spokesman for president Obama's National Security Adviser, said on February 5, 2009 that Obama's Administration supports "the International Criminal Court in its pursuit of those who've perpetrated war crimes [in Darfur]. We see no reason to support deferral [of the indictment] at this time."

However, when the alleged war criminals are Americans, such as the former president George Bush and the rest of his Administration, as well as the CIA and U.S. army personnel, then Barack Obama wants to prevent any prosecution of the perpetrators.

It's hypocritical that so many Americans, including president Obama, want justice in Darfur, while at the same time pardoning and/or justifying the crimes and torture committed by their own government and military.

Vincent Warren, Executive Director of the American Center for Constitutional Rights, says that "the Obama Administration's stand against impunity for president al-Bashir for serious international crimes and support of his arrest warrant should go hand in hand with the investigation and prosecution in U.S. courts of those American former high level officials, starting with Donald Rumsfeld, who ordered and authorized torture and war crimes. Not doing so would suggest an unacceptable double standard."

A recently declassified report by the US Senate Armed Services Committee noted that the "U.S. government backing for the CIA's harsh interrogation methods set the tone for abuses by U.S. troops towards detainees" in Iraq and elsewhere.

The abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo weren't simply the work of "a few bad apples" in the U.S. military ranks. Instead, the techniques used in the abuse of prisoners have been approved and encouraged by the top officials in the George Bush's Administration.

Of course, some will say that the crimes committed in Darfur are not the same as the ones committed by the Bush Administration and thus cannot be compared.

True. I am not comparing the crimes, but only asking that all alleged war criminals be prosecuted and punished if found guilty, whether they are from Khartoum, Belgrade, Gaza, Tel Aviv, Washington DC, or Texas.

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Savo Heleta is the author of "Not My Turn to Die: Memoirs of a Broken Childhood in Bosnia" (March 2008, AMACOM Books, New York). He holds an M.Phil degree in Conflict Transformation and Management from Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Visit www.savoheleta.com for more info.