Headline from Serbia could just as well be from U.S.

The headline and story: "Bosnian Serb police chief turned over to UN court" First some details from the story:

Jun 21st, 2008 | BELGRADE, Serbia -- Serb authorities Saturday turned over an ex-Bosnian Serb police chief to the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in the Netherlands.

Stojan Zupljanin was arrested in the town of Pancevo last week after nine years on the run. A Belgrade court on Friday rejected his appeal against extradition.

"Stojan upljanin was transferred today into the tribunal's custody, after evading justice for more than eight years," the court in The Hague, Netherlands, confirmed. Details of the transfer routinely are not disclosed.

Serbia has been under pressure from the European Union to turn over suspects to the international tribunal, which has charged Zupljanin with war crimes for allegedly overseeing Serb-run prison camps where thousands of Muslims and Croats were killed during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia.

The EU has stressed that all the suspects sought by the tribunal must be arrested and extradited if Belgrade wants to move closer to the 27-nation bloc." (Click here for the entire story posted on Salon.com.)

You could substitute the name Donald Rumsfeld, Cheney or Bush, for that matter, for that of the Serbian Police Chief or former President Slobodan Milosevic, it is possible the same story could play out here, based upon suspected approved torture techniques from our government and played out in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.

The question I put to you is this, do we as citizens have the courage to consider this request if it were made of us? Would we be willing to turn over any of our citizens to be tried in the World Court at the Hague in the Netherlands? We insist other countries do, as does the EU make similar requests, as they have in this example. We must elevate our morality and sense of justice, instead of entitlement, to consider these larger questions. I would love to hear from you as to what you believe we should do faced with a similar request from other governments or the U.N. Leave a comment.

Headline reads: Officials warned about harsh interrogation

According to this news story, "Military psychologists were enlisted to help develop more aggressive interrogation methods, including snarling dogs, forced nudity and long periods of standing, against terrorism suspects.

Before they were approved by then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, such harsh techniques had drawn warnings from military lawyers that they could be illegal, an investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee has found. Officials familiar with the findings discussed them on condition of anonymity because the information has not been formally released.

The psychologists who helped interrogate terror suspects for the CIA were set to testify Tuesday before the Senate committee, which was expected to release details of the investigation.

The hearing is the committee's first look at the origins of the harsher methods used in Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba and Abu Ghraib in Iraq and how policy decisions on interrogations were vetted across the Defense Department. Its review fits into a broader picture of the government's handling of detainees, which includes FBI and CIA interrogations in secret prisons."

Of course they were warned by attorneys with a moral conscience that the techniques were most likely illegal. Their testimony will prove, once and for all, that the Bush Administration knew exactly what they wanted to do and approved these illegal and degrading techniques used, which, in my view, violate the Geneva Convention and our Constitution. They can and, most likely, will form the base for claims by the World Court in the Hague, to bring charges against Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld in later years. I can't wait for that day! The U.S. does not accept the jurisdiction of the Court over officials within the U.S. but it uses the Court to suit its purpose when other leaders of countries do things we don't approve of, as was the case against Chile's Augusto Pinochet.

We are going to need to decide at some future time whether the laws that pertain to others in the world apply to us as well. I think they should and I think if we believe in the rule of law, we need to get on board with the rest of the world as we are no better than anyone else. Will there be mistakes made by the World Court at times, YES. But there are mistakes made within our own country when it comes to applying the law fairly to its citizens. We too must join in the world institutions if we expect to gain support for positions we hold.

Hillary's determination and what's scary about it

The media tonight speaks of Hillary's determination to continue the race in spite of the reality on the ground. A reporter stated tonight that Hillary and her campaign seem oblivious to the reality of the situation in delegate count and that reality is going to hit them in the face soon.

Is she acting Presidential? In one way, yes, if President Bush is the comparison. He too has repeatedly denied the facts on the ground, has shown his stubbornness and in the face of all the data, refused to pay attention to it. In that respect, Hillary is just like Bush. I don't want another Bush in the White House in the disguise of Hillary Clinton or John McCain. She seems fanatical at this point and someone is going to have the difficult task to tell her it's over and that won't be Bill either.

Will we make another mistake picking our next President?

With U.S. Fatalities at the highest level in about 6 months, we can expect the run up to our election this Fall to have increased violence. The question is this. If everyone in the World wants to have an effect on our election, should we be listening to them? What do you think?

For myself, if we want to have a more positive influence in the World and a better image than we have had these past 7 plus years now, then we should be listening and contemplating what they are saying to us. They still think we were crazy to elect President Bush, not the first time in 2000, but for the second term he has had. Anyone can make a mistake the first time but with the experience we had with him how could anyone have voted for him the second time. That indeed is a great question. We may repeat that error again in this upcoming election if we are still sleeping.