A Spanish court has resently started a criminal investigation into allegations that six former Bush administration officials violated the 1984 Geneva Convention Against Torture by creating legal justification for torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. One man accused, John Yoo, wrote the memo that said it was right to use waterboarding and other torture methods on terror suspects. Well, I can't really call them torture methods. There's a huge controversy on that too. So I'll just go with "extreme interrogation methods" instead. Stated by Yoo in a Wall Street Journal column was that the Obama administration risked harming international security if they punished individuals such as himself. So basically he's trying to give a reason to get out of punishment for doing something very wrong. I think Obama should punish those individuals for torturing people and disobeying the Geneva Convention. That would put Spain closer to being our buddy.So Guantanamo Bay is a detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In '01, President Bush signed an executive order that allowed US military to detain any non-citizen they suspected of terrorism. Prisoners captured in Afganistan were soon transported to Guantanamo Bay. The Bush Administration asserted that the detainees at the camp were not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions, but after that case went to the Supreme Court, the detainees were entitled to the minimal protections listed under some article column something or other. So a couple Spanish people detained there said they were tortured when they got back to Spain (and I believe they were and that lots of things went on that people don't know about). And that's how Spain brought up the allegations towards the Bush Administration.
Detainees at Guantanamo Bay
Balthazar Garzon, the Spanish judge in the case. (Again, sorry for the tiny picture. Computer won't let me get the full size image)
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