War Crimes

UNITED NATIONS -- The Security Council, launching the first international judgment of war crimes since the aftermath of World War II, voted unanimously yesterday to establish a tribunal to prosecute atrocities committed in the Balkans.Spurred by mounting evidence of mass killing, forced deportations, concentration camps and mass rapes, the council said reports of widespread violation of international law threatened international security."There is an echo in this chamber today; the Nuremberg principles have been reaffirmed," U.S. envoy Madeleine Albright said in voting for the resolution.

In response to those who complain that President George W. Bushought to be tried for war crimes, I guess that means it is OK to bomb civilians using drones - or are you also ready to put President Barack Obama on trial? As for Sen. Barbara Mikulski who has been in the U.S. Senate for what seems like forever, why did she wait until now to try and pass a bill requiring equal pay for women knowing she did not have the votes? ("Equal pay, equal work," June 7). Why didn't she bring it up when Democrats held a majority in Congress a few years back, and why are federal employees excluded from the law?

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is oiling up legal machinery that hasn't been used since World War II as another weapon in the war on terrorism: special military tribunals to try selected terrorist suspects. Defense Department lawyers are putting finishing touches on guidelines for prosecuting suspected terrorists and al-Qaida fighters for war-crimes violations, said Maj. Ted Wadsworth, a Pentagon spokesman. By the end of the year, the guidelines may be ready, including a definition of war-crimes offenses.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — A Pentagon legal official approved war crimes charges Wednesday for a Pakistani detainee at Guantanamo who is accused of joining al-Qaida and taking part in a series of post-Sept. 11 terror plots after spending much of his youth in Maryland. Majid Khan, 31, faces up to life in prison if convicted of charges that include murder, attempted murder and providing material support for terrorism. The Pentagon's Convening Authority approved the charges two days after they were filed by military prosecutors, a process that has taken months of review in the past.

In response to those who complain that President George W. Bushought to be tried for war crimes, I guess that means it is OK to bomb civilians using drones - or are you also ready to put President Barack Obama on trial? As for Sen. Barbara Mikulski who has been in the U.S. Senate for what seems like forever, why did she wait until now to try and pass a bill requiring equal pay for women knowing she did not have the votes? ("Equal pay, equal work," June 7). Why didn't she bring it up when Democrats held a majority in Congress a few years back, and why are federal employees excluded from the law?

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — A Pentagon legal official approved war crimes charges Wednesday for a Pakistani detainee at Guantanamo who is accused of joining al-Qaida and taking part in a series of post-Sept. 11 terror plots after spending much of his youth in Maryland. Majid Khan, 31, faces up to life in prison if convicted of charges that include murder, attempted murder and providing material support for terrorism. The Pentagon's Convening Authority approved the charges two days after they were filed by military prosecutors, a process that has taken months of review in the past.

JERUSALEM -- In a report released yesterday, Amnesty International accused Israel of committing war crimes during its recent campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, saying it broke international law by deliberately causing extensive destruction to the country's infrastructure. "Many of the violations examined in this report are war crimes that give rise to individual criminal responsibility," the human rights group said. "They include directly attacking civilian objects and carrying out indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks.

MADRID -- The Spanish government announced yesterday that Ante Gotovina, a top war crimes suspect from Croatia, had been arrested in Spain's Canary Islands, clearing a major obstacle to Croatia's efforts to join the European Union. Spain's Interior Ministry said Gotovina, 50, was arrested Wednesday night at a restaurant in a luxury hotel in Tenerife. The Croatian government had been criticized by European Union officials as failing to cooperate sufficiently in the search for Gotovina, who is a revered figure in parts of Croatia.

Washington.--As the Persian Gulf war passes into an era of postwar "arrangements," the lawyers' turn to act will come, and what they do -- about war crimes, for example -- could turn out to be one of the more complex but possibly least conclusive parts of the entire affair.The war has left behind a pile of legal wrongs awaiting legal remedies, including deeply serious charges of wide-ranging atrocities. But, as is often the case with law, it is simpler to recite broad goals than it is to say what legal method, process or principle is to be used to reach the goals.

WASHINGTON -- In a long-awaited report, the Pentagon asserted yesterday that Iraq committed serious war crimes during the Persian Gulf war by abusing all of the prisoners of war it captured, torturing and killing Kuwaitis and damaging the environment by releasing oil into the Persian Gulf and destroying Kuwaiti oil wells.The report was prepared by the U.S. Army and was based on intelligence and operational reports, and interviews and debriefings of prisoners of war and hostages by teams of military lawyers.

On weekday mornings, I'll post the most controversial, shocking and (of course) ridiculous stories for your reading pleasure. That way, when you walk into work, you'll be the master of witty conversation. • Weiner says photo might be him. #Weinergate. (WSJ)  • "Walmart of weed" opens . (Reuters)  • U.N.: Libyan rebels guilty of war crimes. (Daily Beast)  • U.S. economic data called 'horror.'  (CNBC)  • We've lost the war on drugs . (BBC)

100 Years Ago — Judge sludge The two items below were used as fillers at the bottom of a page of the Times , with the first item regarding a judge, followed directly by the bit about Cloverleaf. The items' placement was appropriate, the latter providing great commentary on the first. "A Rhode Island Judge has decided that a husband has the right to slap his wife when he catches her going through his pockets. The Cloverleaf Manure Spreader sold by P.T. Bennett of Sykesville is by far the best spreader made.

The ornate baton of a Nazi field marshal convicted of war crimes against Italian citizens during World War II caused a sensation in Towson Saturday when it brought $731,600 at auction, far more than Alex Cooper auctioneers or the baton's owner ever expected. The 19-inch ceremonial baton, once the property of Field Marshal Albert Kesselring of Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe, had been listed with an estimated value of between $10,000 and $15,000 by Alex Cooper before the auction. The baton was wrapped in bright blue velvet and adorned with white and yellow gold and enamel insignias and crosses.

Peggy Alley says President Obama should be impeached (Readers respond, Nov. 8). I remind Ms. Alley however, that all the conditions she mentions, including enforcement of immigration laws, existed, and in most cases were created, during the Bush administration. American citizens were losing jobs, having their homes foreclosed on and having to choose between food and prescriptions. Illegal immigrants were coming into the country in record numbers and sending their children to public schools.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli Prime Minster Ehud Olmert defended yesterday his country's 22-day offensive in the Gaza Strip and pledged to defend the military against international calls for an investigation of potential war crimes. "The soldiers and commanders who were sent on missions in Gaza must know that they are safe from various tribunals and that the State of Israel will assist them on this issue and defend them," Olmert said before his weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, in comments released by the government.

HOLLYWOOD - The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave Kate Winslet half her wish, nominating her for best actress for her indelible performance as a one-time concentration-camp guard in The Reader, but skipping over her other acclaimed performance, as a suffering suburban housewife in Revolutionary Road, a film directed by her husband, Sam Mendes. Winslet apparently had hoped to avoid having her two performances go mano a mano by expressing her wish (via the studios' campaigns)

NEW YORK -- If President Clinton acts before Dec. 31, he can correct one of the most embarrassing foreign policy mistakes of his tenure. His signature on the treaty for the International Criminal Court would signal for the first time firm U.S. support for the most important new human rights institution in 50 years. The International Criminal Court will be a global tribunal to bring to justice those responsible for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. A diplomatic conference in July 1998 adopted a treaty to establish the court.

Almost half a century has passed since the U.N. War Crime Commission first met in October 1943. (The commission, composed of 15 Allied nations, predated the United Nations Organization formed in San Francisco in 1945.) Throughout, the United States was the moving force in the organization and prosecution of both the Nuremberg and the Tokyo trials.That the United Nations should now, after a hiatus of 50 years, have taken the first step of establishing another war-crimes tribunal to try the perpetrators of atrocities in the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia is not merely fortuitous.

John Joseph Curry Jr., a retired accountant and World War II veteran who fought at the Battle of the Bulge and later guarded high Nazi officials before the Nuremberg trials, died of heart failure Friday at Oak Crest Village. He was 84. Mr. Curry was born in Baltimore and raised on West Saratoga Street. He was a 1942 graduate of Mount St. Joseph High School in Irvington and attended the Maryland Institute College of Art before being drafted into the Army in 1943. The Army sent Mr. Curry to the University of Oregon in Eugene, where he studied basic engineering, before assigning him to the 11th Armored Division in Europe.

Lawrence M. "Larry" Goldberg, an eyewitness to the Nuremberg war-crimes trials who later managed post exchanges in postwar Europe and founded several record distribution companies, died of cancer Sept. 23 at his Hunt Valley home. He was 81. Mr. Goldberg was born in Elizabeth, N.J., and moved with his family to the Bronx, N.Y., in 1937. After graduating from DeWitt Clinton High School, he was drafted into the Army, and after completing basic training was sent to Europe. "As a 19-year-old sergeant, he became the manager of the post exchange at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, Germany, just as the Nuremberg war-crime trials got under way," said a son, Bennet R. Goldberg of Los Altos, Calif.