War Crimes
...n years ago seeking information about the U.S. government’s involvement with former Nazis. After WWII German Gen. Reinhard Gehlen, who served as one of Adolf Hitler’s most senior military intelligence officers during World War II, later he became a key U.S. intelligence resource after the war. (Rulon) The United States had fought against Germany to stop the genocide that had been accruing in Europe. The CIA had contradicted all the reasoning for going into WWII when they had hired Nazi officers to provide expertise on the former Soviet Union during the Cold War. The United States may have hired war criminals but they prosecute them as well. American legal experts have been helping prepare cases for the trials the will be conducted in Baghdad. 12 top government members of Iraq will be going to trial this spring of 2005; prosecutors are demanding the death penalty. One of the first men to be tired is Saddam Hussein’s cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, Known as chemical Ali for his role in the poison gas attacks in the 1980’s. (Burns) Saddam Hussein has escaped from the U.S. numerous times before committing war crimes all over Iraq and towards the U.S. as well. Two years after the American troops had captured Baghdad; two courtrooms were constructed for the trials against Mr. Hussein and his aides. (Burns) The criminals are doing everything in their power to prepare for the cases, meeting with lawyers regularly. The concern for everyone awaiting these trials is that Saddam is going to use his courtroom appearances as a political platform, in the way that Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president, had done in the years of testimony at “The Hague.” May 27 1999 Slobodan Milosevic and four deputies were charged with war crimes. Milosevic had been trying to rid Kosovo of its ethnic Albanian population; he had authorized a military campaign against civilians in the Serb province of Kosovo. (Milosevic) This will be the first time a head of state has been charged with war crimes, but it will not be the last. Milosevic and his 4 deputies were facing charges of murder, deportation and persecution in violation of the laws and customs of war. (Milosevic) Many Albanian refugees who fled Kosovo had reported systematic rapes, beatings, detentions and mass killings at the hands of Serb forces. Just as any other violent crime war crimes have serious punishment, Milosevic had found out the hard way. When a military campaign is set against civilians other nations are not going to watch violent criminals get away with murder and rape of innocent people. War crimes are a felony and in the Justice system they will not be taken lightly. In Bosnia they have established court where it will try war crimes cases next year. This court is mandated to deal with war crimes and most serious organized crime cases; t...