Scott Horton Interviews The Other Scott Horton
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The Other Scott Horton (no relation), international human rights lawyer and contributing editor at Harper’s magazine, discusses his article “Spanish Court Resumes Gitmo Prosecution;” the many other foreign courts, frustrated with the US’s refusal to act, restarting their own torture prosecutions; uncertainty of how high up the chain of command indictments will go, and whether the White House OLC lawyers enabling torture will be targeted; how WikiLeaks got the ball rolling again by exposing high-level US efforts to squash previous Spanish investigations of American political and military figures; the US’s repudiation of international law and universal jurisdiction, after helping establish them after WWII; and Ron Paul’s effort to repeal the NDAA’s indefinite detention provision.
MP3 here. (20:43)
The other Scott Horton is a Contributing Editor for Harper’s magazine where he writes the No Comment blog. A New York attorney known for his work in emerging markets and international law, especially human rights law and the law of armed conflict, Horton lectures at Columbia Law School. A life-long human rights advocate, Scott served as counsel to Andrei Sakharov and Elena Bonner, among other activists in the former Soviet Union.
He is a co-founder of the American University in Central Asia, and has been involved in some of the most significant foreign investment projects in the Central Eurasian region. Scott recently led a number of studies of abuse issues associated with the conduct of the war on terror for the New York City Bar Association, where he has chaired several committees, including, most recently, the Committee on International Law. He is also a member of the board of the National Institute of Military Justice, the Andrei Sakharov Foundation, the EurasiaGroup and the American Branch of the International Law Association.
Walter Cole
January 25th, 2012 at 12:40 am
Al Qaeda never was more than a few hundred guys, because that is what the American government has told us continuously.
As an American, I would like to thank all and any nation that is prosecuting our war criminals, because our government has officially stated that it will not do so. Thank you.
mickperry
January 25th, 2012 at 2:17 am
Well said Mr Cole. Contemplating the past ten years of silence from so many people who have power, but who have denied any responsibility to speak out always brings to my own mind these words from Martin King:
“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crises maintain their neutrality. There comes a time when silence is betrayal.”
Thank you then to Scott Horton, Clive Stafford Smith, Andy Worthington, Philip Sands, Baltasar Garzon, the people at WikiLeaks, Michael Ratner and all the other very rare souls who saw what was happening all those years ago and also found the courage to do something about it.
Last week I spent two inspiring evenings after work attending events here in London marking the 10th anniversary of Guantanamo's opening. It was heartening to hear a young US lawyer working for the CCR also drawing strength from the words of the late Dr King: “Let us realize that the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”
When we look at the recent successful prosecutions that have happened in Argentina, Chile and elsewhere, of crimes committed decades ago, we understand that this is indeed the case.
Claus Eric Hamle
January 25th, 2012 at 9:40 am
It was revealed when the archives were opened that it was in fact the FBI that murdered Gaitán. More than half a million died in the civil war "La Violencia" which followed. Nobody has been prosecuted for the killings of about 6,000 unarmed ordinary citizens in Panama City in December 1989. White Phospherous and Depleted Uranium against the population of Fallujah, now deemed worse than Hiroshima by Doctors and scientists. Some experiment ? Like the kidnapping of small boys and their mothers in Iraq and forcing the mothers to watch while the boys were raped by US soldiers while it was filmed by a female soldier. For that reason Obama said that all films of torture should be destroyed. Bush had to cancel speaking to rich Jews in Geneva to avoid being arrested as a war criminal. Good luck to the Spanish courts !!!
eCAHNomics
January 25th, 2012 at 9:51 am
O doesn't need indefinite detention of U.S. citizens bc he just assassinates them.
John Ellis
January 25th, 2012 at 10:27 am
mickperry
“these words from Martin King: “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crises maintain their neutrality…”
LIGHT
Having spent over ten years authoring and compiling the first and still the only “Dictionary of the Ancient Greek Language,” I would have to say that all Bibles are correct, that there is no mention in the ancient Greek scrolls of both the Old and New Testament of the existence of an eternal burning hell. For example, in the Book of Revelation it states that the devil and all his evil angels will in the end be cremated to “ashes under our feet.” Surely as accurate a description of non-existence as there could ever be.
John Ellis
January 25th, 2012 at 10:28 am
mickperry
“ Dr King: “Let us realize that the arc of the moral Universe is long but it bends toward justice.”
LIGHT
Here again Dr King’s words are moral light that we should all take to heart, but again Scripture is not quite in agreement. For according to Scripture all of society has a freewill, everyone will either repent and all things turn toward the good, or the good will be persecuted our of existence and all things will turn toward the bad. As to why heaven is allowing all the misery to continue, it is written,
The logic being that planet earth is a wasteland of
meaningless fiction, and though the Creator is in
submission, not by choice. For he does it so that
through his subjection, during that time, full trust
in him be established. For then the Creator will be
set free from being enslaved by such corruption,
and we shall have the liberty and glory of being
the children of God.
“For it is self-evident that, with all of us, the Creator laments
and suffers the same agony to this very day.” Romans 8:20
Claus Eric Hamle
January 25th, 2012 at 3:08 pm
From http://www.mcremo.com it is evident that we´ve been around for at least 2 billion years blowing it all up now and then.
Orville H. Larson
January 25th, 2012 at 7:41 pm
Damn straight! As an American myself, I detest what the U.S. Government has become–namely, a squalid threat to ourselves and to the world. Hillary Clinton–that sanctimonious fraud who's impersonating a Secretary of State–exemplifies this.
The WikiLeaks revelations show how the U.S. Government tried to deep-six Spain's torture investigation of Americans. It's imperative that Spain go forward with its investigation, and vindicate the rights of its citizens. (No nation should want to be like the U.S., which lets Israel kill Americans with impunity.)
I'd like to see Dubya–the former Chickenhawk-in-Chief/Torturer-in-Chief/Wiretapper-in-Chief–and his whole cretinous crew (Cheney, Bybee, Yoo, Rice, et al.) prosecuted for war crimes. Nations of the world,
help yourselves!
IP Khalifah
January 26th, 2012 at 6:34 am
U$kingz includincc seal Obama indefinite detention of U.S. citizens(Khalifah Aaed live or death) or control of UN193coloniez will end soon…Please join me in welcoming Umar Empire SOON.
John Ellis
January 26th, 2012 at 7:50 am
GOVERNMENT — 51% MOST GREEDY
Orville H. Larson
“Damn straight! As an American myself, I detest
what the U.S. Government has become–namely,
a squalid threat to ourselves and to the world.”
LIGHT
Actually what above poster finds so miserable is the dominant paradigm of his own class, the voting majority class, namely the 51% most educated and wealthy that have absolute control over Empire USA.
01% High Society (80% of wealth)
10% Country Club-class, together do they now own 90% of wealth? And the 40% educated Middle-class, do they not own 10% of all the wealth in the most filthy brutally imperial Empire the world has ever known? And the 49% Laboring class, all those with no education but some high school, do they not own all the poverty and debt?
John Ellis
January 26th, 2012 at 7:55 am
For the 1% High Society and the 10% Country Club-class, together do they not own 90% of wealth? And the 40% educated Middle-class, do they not own 10% of all the wealth in the most brutally imperial Empire the world has ever known? And the 49% Laboring class, all those with no education but some high school, do they not own all the poverty and debt?
So, as liberals are all those who feel poverty can only be eliminated by paying a liberal and living wage to those who do all our hard labor, what if all of a sudden their 1% RICH logo — became a 51% GREEDY? Bingo — a shot across the bow of the 51% most lovers of darkness, a gigantic hole in the smokescreen that hides the 51% most crafty and cunning deceivers on mother earth, bless their darling hearts.
MoT
January 26th, 2012 at 8:23 am
My departed dad once told me that "To know what your country is up to you should read the foreign press". He definitely knew what he was talking about even though at the time I thought he was just the "old man".
jjme23
January 26th, 2012 at 12:53 pm
Spain I got your back, let me know whatever it is you need for me to do to help. If you follow through I promise I will vacation in SPAIN every year for the rest of my life.
" All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent ".
…Thomas Jefferson…
IP Khalifah
January 27th, 2012 at 6:47 am
C101:But, what can you expect when the C crew is so underpaid and over worked. The Indocrew is not mission prepared. But one member of the dining crew told me that he makes 40 dollars a month, plus tips, they work 7 days a week for 10 months of the year and the average "day" is 15 hours.
CC Price of live victims $14K..Price of dead victims is $3M unless u r a muslim arab accrodincc to Obama-NeogengRich Mafia Getmo dustoor(X indifint waiver for killincc muslims).
John Ellis
January 27th, 2012 at 9:01 am
LIGHT
One of the founding fathers of thought control, that was slave owner Thomas Jefferson, along with Socrates and Plato who both wrote,
”It is permissible to lie,
if it is beneficial.”
For did Jefferson not know that unregulated democracy was nothing more then slavery by and for the 51% most wealthy and greedy? Surely, for true democracy is to bar the 25% most wealthy from voting and to give them jail time if they fund any politician. For this would give the uneducated lower half of society full equality with the upper half, the laboring class then being half of the 51% voting majority.
John Ellis
January 27th, 2012 at 3:47 pm
New Western study — Super propaganda
DARKNESS
“As suspected, low intelligence in childhood
corresponded with racism in adulthood.”
“People who were poorer at abstract reasoning
were more likely to exhibit prejudice against gays.”
“For example, Hodson said, many anti-prejudice
programs encourage participants to see things from
another group's point of view. That mental exercise
may be too taxing for people of low IQ.”
news.yahoo.com/low-iq-conservative-beliefs-linked-prejudice-180403506
John Ellis
January 27th, 2012 at 3:48 pm
LIGHT
The little Western world has a gigantic lie that has all of its upper class voting majority free of guilt, that my slow thinking half of society has such a low grade of intelligence and morality that its not fit to make any more babies.
DARKNESS
“people who hold naive attitudes are also less bright.
In other words, it might not be a particular ideology
that is linked to stupidity, but extremist views in general.”
LIGHT
Quite the reverse, for a man’s stupidity is in direct proportion to his pride, which is in direct proportion to his intelligence. For greed and stupidity mean the identical thing, which means that over 99% of all stupidity is in the minds of the voting majority, the 51% most intelligent and wealthy who own all the property in Empire USA.
For if we were all given a perfect IQ of 100, then love would be impossible. For love is a giving action that produces a grateful response, and if we all were earning equal, then equal gifts would be mutual gratification and who would feel grateful for that?
Benjacomin Bozart
January 30th, 2012 at 2:04 pm
Wasn't there something about separating the wheat and the tares which are burned?
Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.
—Matthew 13:24-30
Benjacomin Bozart
January 30th, 2012 at 2:12 pm
The Republic is dead. The question is when is the 51% going to be desperate enough to take arms and have another revolution and overthrow the Empire? Or more likely raise a ruckus that will result in an official Emperor being installed. The right loved to use that title for GWB. The "conservatives" I know are already calling for the Constitution to be scraped and someone like them installed to take charge to "save" the country from Obama and the left.
Since Obama is a Republican President in everything but name it shows how far off the rails things have become.
Anonymous
January 31st, 2012 at 4:50 pm
@Bennie Bofart
Matthew was a burned tare
Wolfs 6:6-6 : you cast no shadow if you know more that your ‘father lord’
Anonymous
January 31st, 2012 at 4:54 pm
and Bennie, both you (right) and left are arms of the same beast.
grow up coz the beast has lost already!
Anonymous
January 31st, 2012 at 5:12 pm
@ipkhalif
which hosting-company you work for?