The question of whether Bush & Co. [Cheney, et al] ought to be pursued for multiple breaches of the law - think wire-tapping, unlawful detention, renditioning , Gitmo, torture and waterboarding to name but a few - is underway in the US. It is unlikely that they will be prosecuted. Justice and humanity demands that they ought to be by any yardstick.
Glenn Greenwald, writing in Salon under the headline "If criminal penalties are removed, what will deter lawbreaking by political officials?" reflects on the Nuremberg Trials and what we should have learnt from them:
"The opening address of Robert Jackson at the Nuremberg Trials is undoubtedly one of the most important speeches of the last century. It established the basic precepts of Western Justice. War crimes, Jackson observed, are such that "civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated." And, contrary to the blatantly self-contradictory claims from today's Washington elite, he pointed out that the only way to ensure they don't happen again is through real accountability and punishment:
'The common sense of mankind demands that law shall not stop with the punishment of petty crimes by little people. It must also reach men who possess themselves of great power . . . .'
It's irrelevant whether crimes rise to that same level or are of the same magnitude. These were principles of justice that were supposed to endure and govern how we conducted ourselves generally, beyond that specific case. In fact, Justice Louis Brandeis, 20 years earlier, observed that it's probably more important -- not less -- to enforce the rule of law when government leaders commit crimes than when ordinary Americans commit them:
'In a government of law, the existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.'
We haven't just forgotten these principles. We're deliberately -- consciously -- choosing to renounce them."
Glenn Greenwald, writing in Salon under the headline "If criminal penalties are removed, what will deter lawbreaking by political officials?" reflects on the Nuremberg Trials and what we should have learnt from them:
"The opening address of Robert Jackson at the Nuremberg Trials is undoubtedly one of the most important speeches of the last century. It established the basic precepts of Western Justice. War crimes, Jackson observed, are such that "civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated." And, contrary to the blatantly self-contradictory claims from today's Washington elite, he pointed out that the only way to ensure they don't happen again is through real accountability and punishment:
'The common sense of mankind demands that law shall not stop with the punishment of petty crimes by little people. It must also reach men who possess themselves of great power . . . .'
It's irrelevant whether crimes rise to that same level or are of the same magnitude. These were principles of justice that were supposed to endure and govern how we conducted ourselves generally, beyond that specific case. In fact, Justice Louis Brandeis, 20 years earlier, observed that it's probably more important -- not less -- to enforce the rule of law when government leaders commit crimes than when ordinary Americans commit them:
'In a government of law, the existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.'
We haven't just forgotten these principles. We're deliberately -- consciously -- choosing to renounce them."
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