It's official: Obama suspected of war crimes

[Warlord]

http://rt.com/files/news/1f/07/50/00/pakistan-us-drone-warfare-un.jpg

The commander in chief of the United States military has been found to be suspected of war crimes by the High Court of Peshawar, Pakistan.

Chief Justice Dost Muhammad Khan has referred the case of the murder of up to 50 civilians by a paramilitary organization under the presidents direct command ("CIA") to the United Nations security council and called on the Pakistan government to seek to pass a resolution in the UN General assembly. The alleged war crime took place on 17th March 2011 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datta_Khel_airstrike) in North Waziristan.

The liberals and Democrsts must be so proud!

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A high court in Pakistan has ruled that US drone strikes in the country's tribal belt should be considered war crimes and directed the government to use force to "protect the right to life" of its citizens.

The Peshawar High Court has recommended the Pakistani government advance a resolution against the attacks in the United Nations. The court issued its verdict on the CIA-run air strikes in response to four petitions charging the attacks killed civilians and caused “collateral damage.”

Chief Justice Dost Muhammad Khan heard the petitions, and ruled that drone strikes on sovereign Pakistani territory were illegal, inhumane and a violation of the UN charter on human rights.

“The government of Pakistan must ensure that no drone strike takes place in the future,” the court said on Thursday, according to the Press Trust of India. Khan also asked Pakistan's foreign ministry to file a resolution against the attacks in the UN.

The court also recommended that if the US rejects these findings in the UN, Pakistan should break off relations with Washington: “If the US vetoes the resolution, then the country should think about breaking diplomatic ties with the US.”

The Pakistani case was filed last year by the Foundation for Fundamental Rights, a charity based in Islamabad, on behalf of the families of victims killed in a drone attack on a tribal jirga, including more than 50 tribal elders and a number of government officials.

According to a report submitted by political officials of North Waziristan Agency, 896 Pakistani residents of the region were killed in the last five years ending December 2012, and 209 were seriously injured. A report by the South Waziristan Agency showed that 70 drone strikes were carried out in the last five years ending June 2012, in which 553 people were killed and 126 injured.

"In view of the established facts, undeniable in nature, under the UN Charter and Conventions, the people of Pakistan have every right to ask the security forces either to prevent such strikes by force or to shoot down intruding drones," the court verdict said.

Shahzad Akbar, a lawyer for victims in the case, hailed this as a “landmark” judgment: “Drone victims in Waziristan will now get some justice after a long wait. This judgment will also prove to be a test for the new government: If drone strikes continue and the government fails to act, it will run the risk of contempt of court,” he said, according to the website of legal action charity Reprieve.

More:
http://rt.com/news/pakistan-us-drone-illegal-093/

[Warlord]

Barack H. Obama - SUSPECTED WAR CRIMINAL (Jan 2009 -Present President of the United States and Commander in Chief of the United States military).

Leon E. Panetta - SUSPECTED WAR CRIMINAL (CIA director February 13, 2009 – July 1, 2011. Federal agency responsible for drone program).

John O. Brennan - SUSPECTED WAR CRIMINAL (United States Homeland Security Advisor and allegedly in charge of drone strike program and would have given the order for this drone strike and murder of 44 civilians to occur on 17th March 2011).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datta_Khel_airstrike

Will Congress or the International Criminal Court in the Hague now investigate this war crime?

[Warlord]

Also we must demand to know the name of the drone strike operator in Nevada who carried out this crime.

"Just following orders" is not a good enough explanation as evidenced by the Nuremberg trials.

Witnesses, statements, survivors testimony and official records are all readily available and Congress and the International community must now act.

The perpetrators of this grave crime must be brought to justice.

[CPUd]

I think they left out a lot of stars on that flag.

[torchbearer]

the UN is a joke. a charade.

[Warlord]

I've tweeted Mike Rogers communications director:


https://si0.twimg.com/profile_images/2623812685/v2sdaufkwcicdj8wuwac.png

Probably best to work on the liberals and human rights groups to pressure Feinstein in the senate un-intelligence committee.

Let's see if these people have a shred of human decency to investigate the alleged murder of up to 50 civilians and suspected war crimes by the CIA.

These people in government are evil.

[Aeroneous]

Also we must demand to know the name of the drone strike operator in Nevada who carried out this crime.

"Just following orders" is not a good enough explanation as evidenced by the Nuremberg trials.

Witnesses, statements, survivors testimony and official records are all readily available and Congress and the International community must now act.

The perpetrators of this grave crime must be brought to justice.

Creech AFB only controls Air Force RPAs. The CIA's aircraft are controlled elsewhere, by non-military personnel.

[Warlord]

Creech AFB only controls Air Force RPAs. The CIA's aircraft are controlled elsewhere, by non-military personnel.

Either way the information should be available from the "most transparent government ever" (laugh)

[green73]

Let's get this on Drudge.

http://www.drudgereport.com/

[Warlord]

We can try but he's not decided to cover it (doesn't want to embarrass intelligence people)

But this is surely something that can't be ignored

[Bruno]

I think they left out a lot of stars on that flag.

A few stripes, too. Probably not a top concern for theIr flag makers, all things considered.

[jmdrake]

So does that mean he'll have to return his peace prize?

http://facethepolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/barack-drone-bomber-obama.jpg

[Warlord]

Rand Paul defends the Bill of Rights


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR13xkOwtxU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR13xkOwtxU

(Hey, it doesn't just apply to accused Americans you know, us filthy ragheads deserve due process too!)

[Warlord]

This is a good report from the socialists but i can't link them since it would break the collectivist rule and they're begging for money to fund their communist agenda.

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Reports Detail CIA War Crimes in Pakistan

A series of recent articles by journalist Mark Mazzetti published in the New York Times have shed further light on the activities of the US Central Intelligence Agency in Pakistan. Mazzetti’s articles incorporate and summarize material from his recent book, The Way of the Knife, which in turn was based on dozens of interviews with inside sources both in Washington and Islamabad.

In particular, Mazzetti’s April 6 article, “ A Secret Deal on Drones, Sealed in Blood (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/world/asia/origins-of-cias-not-so-secret-drone-war-in-pakistan.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0) ,” exposes the wanton and deliberate criminality with which the CIA launched its drone murder program in Pakistan in June 2004. Using a missile launched from a Predator drone, the CIA killed Pashtun tribal leader Nek Muhammad—who Pakistan wanted out of the way—and six other people as they were sitting down to dinner, including two children aged 16 and 10.

Mazzetti reveals that the assassination of Muhammad was part of a quid pro quo: the CIA agreed to murder Muhammad in return for assurances from Pakistan’s authorities that the CIA would be free to use Pakistan’s airspace to carry out future assassinations. Meanwhile, the governments of both Pakistan and the US agreed to falsely claim that Pakistan had carried out the attack. The two children and the other men killed in the attack were labeled “militants.”

In other words, in a deal any mafia don or hit man would readily understand, America offered to do Pakistan’s dirty work in return for a license from Pakistan to carry out further murders. The two governments conspired to carry out the murder, lied about who carried it out, and lied about who was killed.

The episode further exposes Pakistan’s ruling establishment, which occasionally denounces the activities of the US military and intelligence agencies in the country, but which in reality is implicated in a long line of backroom conspiracies with the same agencies to murder its own citizens. According to Mazzetti, then-president Pervez Musharraf scoffed at the idea that the public would find out that the CIA was involved. “In Pakistan, things fall out of the sky all the time,” Musharraf said.

The missile strike that killed Muhammad, without charges or trial, constitutes a war crime and a clear violation of international law.

America’s deal with Pakistan included the proviso that the CIA would carry out drone assassinations only in a narrow range of areas near the Afghan border. Specifically, the US agreed that the drones would steer clear of “the mountain camps where Kashmiri militants were trained for attacks in India.”

The drone assassination program launched under the Bush administration underwent a massive expansion under the Obama administration, with the rate of strikes increasing by as much as 300 percent. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham recently boasted that at least 4,700 people have been killed so far.

Nek Muhammad was among the first of the victims of the CIA reign of terror in Pakistan. While the US government claims that everyone it murders is a “militant,” the victims in Pakistan have included young children and infants, rescue workers, political dissidents, mourners, and innocent bystanders. One Brookings Institution study found that for every reputed militant killed by a drone strike, ten civilians had been killed.

“The C.I.A. had approval from the White House to carry out missile strikes in Pakistan even when the agency’s targeters weren’t certain about exactly whom they were killing,” Mazzetti explained. “Under the rules of so-called ‘signature strikes,’ decisions about whether to fire missiles from drones could be made based on patterns of activity deemed suspicious.

“For instance, if a group of young ‘military-age males’ were observed moving in and out of a suspected militant training camp and were thought to be carrying weapons, they could be considered legitimate targets. American officials admit it is nearly impossible to judge a person’s age from thousands of feet in the air, and in Pakistan’s tribal areas, adolescent boys are often among militant fighters. Using such broad definitions to determine who was a ‘combatant’ and therefore a legitimate target allowed Obama administration officials at one point to claim that the escalation of drone strikes in Pakistan had not killed any civilians for a year.

“It was something of a trick of logic: in an area of known militant activity, all military-age males could be considered enemy fighters. Therefore, anyone who was killed in a drone strike there was categorized as a combatant.”

Mazzetti also describes how the CIA made the “switch” from torture to murder during the Bush administration. Specifically, senior CIA officials, including the CIA’s Inspector General John L. Helgerson, voiced concerns that the use of torture against prisoners captured in the course of the so-called “war on terror”—such as “confining them in a small box with live bugs”—could land CIA operatives and officials in jail. Rather than capture and interrogate, it was deemed easier just to kill them.

“Targeted killings were cheered by Republicans and Democrats alike,” Mazzetti wrote, “and using drones flown by pilots who were stationed thousands of miles away made the whole strategy seem risk-free.”

The New York Times itself supports the government’s drone murder program, with a few minor reservations as to the procedure.

The Times urged Obama in an editorial on April 7 to “work with Congress to create a lasting legal framework for drone strikes.” The Times suggested that that framework should resemble “the special court that approves wiretaps for intelligence gathering”—that is, the secret rubber-stamp court established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that approves 99.9 percent of the government’s warrant requests.

At the same time, there are doubtless concerns within the ruling establishment—reflected in Mazzetti’s article—that the sudden return of the CIA to the “assassination business,” and the targeted killing of US citizens, has far-reaching implications.

More details of the CIA’s dirty activities in Pakistan no doubt remain to be uncovered. In particular, in the period leading up to the assassination of Osama Bin Laden in May 2011, the once-collaborative relationship between the CIA and the Pakistani intelligence agencies broke down under circumstances that are not yet fully understood.

During that period, the CIA broke various promises it had made to the Pakistani authorities, including the promise to clear drone targets with them, and dramatically ramped up the rate of killings. Meanwhile, Pakistan captured CIA operative Raymond Davis (whom the Obama administration falsely claimed was a “diplomat”) after a January 2011 incident in Lahore, in which Davis shot and killed two Pakistani civilians and an American SUV ran over and killed a third before fleeing the scene.

What Davis was doing in Pakistan has never been fully explained. A February 2011 report in the Karachi-based Express Tribune, an affiliate of the International Herald Tribune, cited a senior official in the Punjab police who claimed “that Davis was masterminding terrorist activities in Lahore and other parts of Punjab.”

Davis had “close links” with the Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP), the official said. “Davis was instrumental in recruiting young people from Punjab for the Taliban to fuel the bloody insurgency.”

After the US secured Davis’ release in March 2011, the CIA bombed a tribal council meeting in the village of Datta Khel in North Waziristan, killing dozens of people. Mazzetti cites unnamed “American officials” who “suspected that the massive strike was the CIA venting its anger about the Davis episode.”

According to Mazzetti, the Datta Khel massacre—which provoked intense protests and opposition within Pakistan—precipitated bitter recriminations within the Obama administration. The American ambassador in Pakistan, Cameron Munter, demanded the right to approve CIA attacks before they were carried out. This led to a meeting in which then-CIA Director Leon Panetta told Munter, “I don’t work for you.” When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sided with the ambassador, Panetta replied, “No, Hillary, it’s you who are flat wrong,” Mazzetti writes.

Obama appointed Panetta to be secretary of defense shortly afterwards, and he was unanimously confirmed by the Senate.

The latest revelations concerning the CIA’s drone murder program in Pakistan confirm the need for the immediate arrest, indictment, and prosecution of all of the top officials in the Bush and Obama administrations on charges of war crimes.

[surf]

"suspected"?

[Warlord]

"suspected"?

It's a public forum so we have to be careful with our words and accusations

[heavenlyboy34]

I think they left out a lot of stars on that flag.
Made In China. ;)

[TheTexan]

http://rt.com/files/news/1f/07/50/00/pakistan-us-drone-warfare-un.jpg

Ya, I wouldn't want to draw 50 stars either if I was just going to burn the flag anyway.

[idiom]

Maybe its the low-res version of the flag.

As the An-caps don't seem to get, a court is only as strong as its thugs.

[Warlord]

The chief justice's first finding is perhaps the most obvious: "[Drone strikes] are absolutely illegal and a blatant violation of sovereignty of the state of Pakistan." The strikes are, he says, international war crimes, given that there is no state of war between the US and its nominal ally, Pakistan.

It does not matter whether General Pervez Musharraf gave the CIA a wink and a nod when he was the country's dictator. "[T]here is nothing in writing to the effect," writes the chief justice. In any event, no government can legitimately authorise the murder of its own citizens – certainly not without a public announcement through the democratic process. Indeed, Musharraf is currently facing the music for a number of illegal acts he allegedly took while in office.

The American use of drones is, in the chief justice's legal opinion, wholly disproportionate under international law. He notes that 9/11 still provides the US administration's pretext for a "global war on terror", yet there has been "not a single … terror incident … anywhere in the USA" emanating from Pakistan in more than a decade since. How, then, can it be proportionate to kill more than 3,000 Pakistanis, including "infant babies, pre-teen and teenage children, women and others".

Rather than respond with force first and ask questions afterwards, the chief justice orders the Pakistan government to try to solve the dispute through the rule of law. The Pakistan government must make an immediate and genuine complaint to the UN. If the UN security council reaches the appropriate conclusion (which he feels legally it must, absent a US veto), or the general assembly adopts a resolution, and "the US authorities do not comply … the government of Pakistan shall sever all ties with the USA and as a mark of protest shall deny all logistic and other facilities to the USA within Pakistan".

Then he makes another self-evident pronouncement: the Pakistan military's first obligation must be to preserve the security of its own citizens. The "security forces shall ensure that in future such drone strikes are not conducted and carried out within the sovereign territory of Pakistan". Again, rather than shoot first, the government shall administer a "proper warning"; if this does not work, the Pakistan air force must immediately shoot down the drones. Even though I am American myself, I find it hard to argue with this unhappy suggestion: after all, if the Pakistanis were terrorising Texas with Predator drones, I would expect Barack Obama to send the US air force into immediate action.

Ultimately, the US must bear full responsibility for its actions. "The government of Pakistan shall mak[e] a request to the UN secretary general to constitute an independent war crime tribunal, to direct the US authorities to immediately stop the drone strikes ... and to immediately arrange for the complete and full compensation for the victims' families."

This judicial decision is all about democracy and the rule of law. America has held itself out as a proponent of these ideals for more than 200 years. It is a shame that the CIA's supposedly secret drones campaign marks such a sharp departure from both, following on from earlier policy catastrophes such as Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.


Will Pakistan finally stand up against illegal US drone attacks?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/12/pakistan-us-drone-strikes

[HOLLYWOOD]

Creech AFB only controls Air Force RPAs. The CIA's aircraft are controlled elsewhere, by non-military personnel.

US MAP of locations of 64 DRONE Operational bases: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06/64-drone-bases-on-us-soil/
Hancock Field ANG, Syracuse, NY runs a ton of Drone ops. Obama has spent a lot of tax/debt dollars building up the drone base/operations over the years
We like to think of the drone war as something far away, fought in the deserts of Yemen or the mountains of Afghanistan. But we now know it’s closer than we thought. There are 64 drone bases on American soil. That includes 12 locations housing Predator and Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles, which can be armed.

Public Intelligence, a non-profit that advocates for free access to information, released a map of military UAV activities in the United States (http://publicintelligence.net/dod-us-drone-activities-map/) on Tuesday. Assembled from military sources — especially this little-known June 2011 Air Force presentation (http://www.afceaboston.com/documents/events/cnsatm2011/Briefs/03-Wednesday/Wednesday-PM%20Track-2/02-LtCol%20Howard-GBSAA%20Safety%20Case-%20Wednesday%20Track2.pdf) (.pdf) – it is arguably the most comprehensive map so far of the spread of the Pentagon’s unmanned fleet. What exact missions are performed at those locations, however, is not clear. Some bases might be used as remote cockpits to control the robotic aircraft overseas, some for drone pilot training. Others may also serve as imagery analysis depots.

The medium-size Shadow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAI_RQ-7_Shadow) is used in 22 bases, the smaller Raven (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeroVironment_RQ-11_Raven) in 20 and the miniature Wasp (http://www.avinc.com/uas/small_uas/wasp/) in 11. California and Texas lead the pack, with 10 and six sites, respectively, and there are also 22 planned locations for future bases. ”It is very likely that there are more domestic drone activities not included in the map, but it is designed to provide an approximate overview of the widespread nature of Department of Defense activities throughout the US,” Michael Haynes from Public Intelligence tells Danger Room.

The possibility of military drones (as well as those controlled by police departments and universities) flying over American skies have raised concerns among privacy activists. As the American Civil Liberties Union explained in its December 2011 report (http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security-technology-and-liberty/domestic-drones-hear-about-whos-watching-you-above), the machines potentially could be used to spy on American citizens. The drones’ presence in our skies “threatens to eradicate existing practical limits on aerial monitoring and allow for pervasive surveillance, police fishing expeditions, and abusive use of these tools in a way that could eventually eliminate the privacy Americans have traditionally enjoyed in their movements and activities.”

As Danger Room reported last month (http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/05/air-force-drones-domestic-spy/), even military drones, which are prohibited from spying on Americans, may “accidentally” conduct such surveillance — and keep the data for months afterwards while they figure out what to do with it. The material they collect without a warrant, as scholar Steven Aftergood revealed (http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/usaf/afi14-104.pdf), could then be used to open an investigation.

The Posse Comitatus Act prohibits the U.S. military from operating on American soil, and there’s no evidence that drones have violated it so far.
This new map comes almost two months after the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) revealed another one (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/04/faa-releases-its-list-drone-certificates-leaves-many-questions-unanswered), this time of public agencies – including police departments and universities – that have a permit issued by the Federal Aviation Agency to use UAVs in American airspace.

“It goes to show you how entrenched drones already are,” said Trevor Timm, an EFF activist, when asked about the new map. “It’s clear that the drone industry is expanding rapidly and this map is just another example of that. And if people are worried about military technology coming back and being sold in the US, this is just another example how drone technology is probably going to proliferate in the US very soon.”

Domestic proliferation isn’t the same as domestic spying, however. Most — if not all — of these military bases would make poor surveillance centers. Many of the locations are isolated, far from civilian populations. Almost half of the bases on the map work only with the relatively small Raven and Shadow drones; their limited range and endurance make them imperfect spying tools, at best. It’s safe to assume that most of the bases are just used for military training.
Privacy concerns aside, the biggest issue might be safety, as we were been reminded on Monday when a giant Navy drone crashed in Maryland (http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06/bams-crash/).

[Warlord]

The Chief Justice in the case ruled that the Pakistani government should go to the UN.

But really they probably won't and even if they did the US can veto it.

He should have referred it to the ICC because they might have jurisdiction under treaty (I've not checked whether Pakistan is signed up or not).

[JK/SEA]

Made In China. ;)

Made in the basement at the CIA.

[Working Poor]

I do.'t thi.k Obama,Bush or Cheney will be prosecuted for war crimes. Dream on though the elite are not quite teady to eat their chumps.

[Christian Liberty]

I'm mixed in that I have no respect for Obama but I also have no respect for the UN.

Of course, Pakistan has every right to shoot these things out of their skies, but I'm not sure going to the UN is really a good idea. Frankly, I don't WANT a UN who has the power to punish Obama. Because if they can do that, they can also do other things, like impose their firearms regulations on us.

All that said, of course Obama is a war criminal. No freaking duh. In other news, the sun rises in the east.

[Warlord]

The ICC is the place to do it because that's an agreed thing by treaty and may have jurisdiction over where the crimes took place.

Whether they would have the balls or not is another thing.

Congress doesn't even have the balls to ask anything of the CIA nevermind probe their alleged crimes.

What is the point in Mike Rogers and Feinstein? Does these massacres not concern them? They get all the behind closed door briefings and have authority to conduct oversight but they just don't care.

That's even more sickening than the actual crime itself in my view.

[idiom]

If a court can't arrest you, whats the point? Maybe every country in the world will boycott America until Obama is handed over?

Voluntary justice...

[enhanced_deficit]

Probably best to work on the liberals and human rights groups to pressure Feinstein in the senate un-intelligence committee.



Is she a suspected war criminal too?

[Todd]

Most Presidents in the 20th century are guilty of some sort of war crimes or human rights crimes. None have stood trial

[Warlord]

Is she a suspected war criminal too?

She's not in the executive branch so no.

[Warlord]

Pakistan's incoming Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, has condemned a suspected US drone strike which killed the Taliban's second-in-command.

Waliur Rehman reportedly died when a missile hit a house in the North Waziristan tribal region on Wednesday.

Mr Sharif, whose Pakistan Muslim League-N won this month's parliamentary election, expressed "serious concern and deep disappointment" at the strike.

Earlier, US Secretary of State John Kerry defended US drone attacks.

He said they were legal because the country was at war with al-Qaeda and the Taliban, adding: "Those strikes have saved lives".

But in a statement issued by the PML-N on Friday evening, Mr Sharif said: "The drone attack was not only a violation of the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity, but also an action that has been declared as a violation of international law and the UN Charter."

His concerns were conveyed to Richard Hoagland, deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Islamabad, by a close aide of the former prime minister, the statement added.
Waliur Rehman - library photo The US government had placed a $5m (£3.3m) bounty on Waliur Rehman's head

Meanwhile, Pakistani military sources say 34 militants have been killed since Thursday in an operation in the Kurram tribal region, close to the Afghan border. Three soldiers were also killed, they said.

The Pakistani Taliban withdrew their offer of peace talks with the Pakistani government on Thursday after confirming the death of their deputy chief.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22737481
-

The Taliban are going to avenge this killing and it's going to be bloody. Also the US drone strike just messed up the potential for a peace accord. Well done Obama/Kerry, the drones save lives!

Prepare for more bloodshed.

[enhanced_deficit]

February 13-15, 2015

How the System Looks After Its Own

Why US War Criminals Walk Free by CHARLES PIERSON
“Why Is Henry Kissinger Walking Around Free?” Andy Piascik asks (CounterPunch, Feb. 6-8, 2015). On January 29, Kissinger appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee to testify on the Iranian nuclear threat. Because, you know, some countries just can’t be trusted.
Also present were Medea Benjamin and CODEPINK who were there to confront the celebrated diplomat, author, and war criminal with pink plastic toy handcuffs.
Not only is Kissinger still walking around free, he is fawned over. The February 10 New York Daily News reports that Kissinger’s endorsement is a “sought-after prize” for 2016 Republican Presidential hopefuls “looking to boost their foreign policy credentials.” (The Daily News predicts that Kissinger’s rose will go to suitor Jeb Bush.)
The short answer to the mystery of why Kissinger remains at large is that US leaders look after their own. Democrats and Republicans even share this courtesy with each other. When in December, the Senate released its report on torture under the Bush Administration there was briefly talk of prosecutions, but such talk was quickly eclipsed by the announcement of President Obama’s new Cuba policy. Anyone who had been paying attention knew not to expect prosecutions. Obama had announced at the beginning of his administration that there would be no prosecutions of Bush era officials. That turned out to be a wise decision given Obama’s subsequent penchant for using drones to blow foreign civilians into tiny, charred bits. He who lives in a glass White House shouldn’t throw stones.
Other countries, at least some of them, some of the time, are less blasé towards war criminals and human rights violators in their midst. Let’s begin, as Andy does, with Nixon and Kissinger’s complicity in the coup that ousted and murdered Chile’s democratically elected socialist leader, Salvador Allende. The coup took place on September 11, 1973, a date Chileans have ever since remembered as “El once.”
The coup brought to power General Augusto Pinochet who remained dictator of Chile until accepting an offer of immunity in 1990. Although he stepped down as President, Pinochet—a bastard, but not a fool—held on to his position as Commander-in-Chief of the Army until 1998. This ensured that any attempt to prosecute Pinochet or his henchman would be crushed under jackboots, along with Chile’s fragile restored democracy. As Pinochet warned in 1991: “The day they touch one of my men, the rule of law ends.”
Immunity, however, did not mean forgiveness. Or forgetting. In 1990, Chile’s new civilian government convened the Rettig Commission on Truth and Reconciliation. The Commission was created in order to document the human rights abuses of the Pinochet regime. Wrongdoers from the Pinochet regime would be spared prosecution, but the price would be their public acknowledgement of the crimes they had committed.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/13/why-us-war-criminals-walk-free/