American Justice

When Americans commit war crimes, is it really a war crime? The teevee show 24 says.. no.. Jack Bauer is an American hero "doing what it takes".. and there are more people than you can imagine who do not understand the distinction.

A court in Spain is working up indictments for top Bush administration officials, possibly including the two top monkeys.. This is the same court that got Pinochet.

It's really not a rhetorical question. If it were very well known in the general American public that Bush and Cheney did, in fact, commit war crimes, would the American public favor arresting them and turning them over to a Spanish court for prosecution? I think not.

It's not that we're in favor of atrocities, but we would never turn over a President to another country to face any charges for anything. Americans would consider that a breech in our "we're the masters of the world" protocol. Instead, we pretend like it never happened.. which is what is going on now, and the Obama administration is going to great lengths to make sure that protocol is followed.

It just wouldn't be a good idea for a lot of those folks to book a European vacation any time soon.

Herman Goering said, "The victor will always be the judge, and the vanquished the accused."

Always..

/update

David Schuster is on MSNBC debating the release of the "torture memos", whether they should be released or not, and whether a criminal investigation should be started.

The Conservative obviously does not think the memos should be released, nor any investigation done. He wants to be "forward looking", as Obama has claimed, and does not want any memos released nor any investigations started. He claims there is no "benefit" from doing so.

I have to phonetically spell the guy's name.. Michael Mirschonish.

He argues that there is no problem with torturing a "terrorist" such as Kalid Sheik Mohammad, the "9/11 mastermind". Schuster agrees to the extent that torturing "bad guys" is okay, but some innocent people were also tortured.. and that's bad.. or something.

Aside from the fact that torturing produces nothing useful (it doesn't work), and is a tremendous moral stain on our nation, it is also illegal. If they wanted to torture Mohammad, the should have changed the law to allow it.

You can tell that somebody is really fucking stupid (and that includes Schuster), when they think laws should apply conditionally, based on purely subjective conditions. He's bad.. torture him.. he's innocent.. don't torture him.

Of course, that is completely antithetical to our system of justice.

These people are essentially saying war crimes should be dismissed simply because it was the top officials in government that authorized it. These very stupid people can't grasp the implications of doing that.

If a Spanish court produces very persuasive indictments, those responsible, including Bush if there is a case against him, then they should be arrested and transported to Spain to face trial.

The United States launched a war of choice against Iraq. If anyone committed war crimes, they must be held to account.

Just don't count on it.

...

Sarah Palin is on my teevee telling me that we needs teh missile shield.. zap zap zap..