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A Prosecution by Book
by Michael Ratner
The evidence that the Bush administration is guilty of war crimes, presented in the form of a court case brought by one of the premier civil rights organizations in the United States.
"He won't be tried in the United States. He can't be tried by an international tribunal. So Donald Rumsfeld will have to be prosecuted by book."
The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld lays out the evidence that high-level officials of the Bush administration ordered, authorized, implemented, and permitted war crimes, in particular the crimes of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.
Using primary source documents ranging from Rumsfeld's "techniques chart" and Iraqi plaintiffs' statements to the testimony of whistleblowers and key pieces of reportage, the book sets forth evidence of a torture program that took place throughout the world: in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantánamo, secret CIA prisons, and other places unknown.
The accused are accorded a defense drawn from their memos and public statements. Readers are allowed to judge whether the Bush administration has engaged in torture and whom among the administration to hold responsible.
Reminiscent of Christopher Hitchens's bestselling The Trial of Henry Kissinger, The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld constitutes one of the only attempts to hold high-ranking Bush administration officials criminally responsible for their actions.
"Of course, a real trial would give the defense an opening and closing statement, and books don't allow for cross-examination. Though his case appears strong, Ratner's conceit will appeal primarily to those who have already voted 'guilty.'" - Publishers Weekly.
This information about The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Michael Ratner was born 1943 in Cleveland, Ohio He is a 1966 graduate of Brandeis University. He received his law degree from Columbia Law School.
Ratner is President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a non-profit human rights litigation organization based in New York City and president of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) based in Berlin.
The Center for Constitutional Rights, along with other human rights groups, filed a war crimes lawsuit against Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, and other U.S. officials in Germany under the country's universal jurisdiction law.
Ratner lives in New York City.
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