Yes, the US is a complete hypocrite. I’m not arguing with you on that. But hopefully things will change. And no the USA isn’t in any position to demand others not act unilaterally. However, it still doesn’t make it right when a country (or in this case, a judge) does.
I wasn’t saying the members of the Bush administration shouldn’t be punished. I was just commenting on the fact that you brought up the Noriega situation. The two aren’t completely analogous. There was more of a reason for the US to act unilaterally in that case than in the current one with the members of the Bush administration. That is, if you believe the evidence that was put forward at the time. I was more or less picking nits.
It does when there’s little or no other practical, ethical choice. Asking America to punish it’s people who abuse Spanish citizens won’t work; letting it slide is unethical; and some kind of economic/political war with America would be a disaster. I suppose they could just send assassins instead of indictments.
Or kidnap them, ala Eichmann.
I agree you can’t let it slide and a economic/political war isn’t an option. I’m not saying there’s a right answer here. But the best thing I would suggest is to get an alliance of like-minded countries and make a demand of the US for justice, whatever that may be. You just have to be sure to back up your demands with something.
Yes, there IS a right answer. The right answer is to indict the criminals and demand extradition. That is what civilized nations do and have agreed to do and that is what this judge is doing. How is that so difficult to grasp?
Civilized countries have treaties to deal with cases like this and if the USA wants to be the rogue nation which does not participate then it is in no position to demand anything from anybody.
The extradition will probably not be granted and America will be exposed for what they are and stand for.
The problem is that America wants a double standard whereby when others kill innocent Americans it is terrorism but when America does it to others it is just “collateral damage” in an undefined “war on terror” or on communism or on whatever the boogeyman of the day is.
Can’t disagree with you on that.
Edited to add: I’d prefer a group of countries do the inditing. Not just one particular judge. The more countries that agree to something, the more persuasive it is under Int’l law. If we want a precedent to set, that is.
Well I remember hearing about it but I cannot find a proper cite. Regardless with or without shelling it was bad.
argumentum ad populum
Still argumentum ad populum. It really depends on how you feel about things he did. If you are convinced he was a bad President, why should I convince you otherwise? Either you understand what Alessan says about this being political or you don’t.
And if Iraq is a thriving Democracy in ten years Bush will be remembered for that.
Not necessarily, but there is a matter of scale involved here. I know it’s nice and idealistic to value human life on the individual level, but that’s not how it works under these circumstances. Bush barely rates as a tyrant. I hated him as President as much as the next guy but I do believe it would be worse to go after him than it would be to just let sleeping dogs lie. Future Presidents cannot lead if they know their unpopular decisions are going to be brought before a tribunal every time by their political opponents.
Right, we’ll send a clear message that the Presidential office should be a toothless ceremonial position, and that we’d prefer to watch our Republic waste away because no politician will ever be willing to make an unpopular decision.
Outside of your hyperbole, I think you miss the point. Most Presidents who have taken us to war have presided over worse. Vietnam was worse, World War II was worse, the Civil War was worse, World War I was worse. The only reason people think Bush was so awful is because a 24 hour news cycle confronted them them with the ugly and brutal truth about war, not because he was any worse than the vast majority of our other wartime Presidents. In all reality he was probably not as bad as any of them. Not as bad as Lincoln, Jackson, Truman or FDR, not even close, not even in the same league.
So putting a cloth over someone’s face and spraying water on them is worse than genocide, indiscriminate bombing of civilian populations, spraying a carcinogenic defoliant across the jungles of an entire country, separating a whole ethnic cohort of your nation’s citizens from the lives they have built, obliterating two cities with nuclear weapons or forcing people to kill their own countrymen at gunpoint?
Not going to happen. And if it did, Americans remembering him that way would just underline their self centered arrogance.
Once again; letting such behavior slides simply reinforces the message that Presidents are above the law, and that they might as well break them because there are no consequences.
No, Americans are unhappy with Bush because the economy crashed and burned on his watch, and because the war was a disaster, and because the torture became public and showed America up for what it is. Not because it was evil. He was re-elected in the first place because Americans are far too self centered and malignant to care about the slaughter of innocents and torture; they just want a happyface pasted over it all.
Don’t do that. Don’t characterize waterboarding as “putting a cloth over someone’s face and spraying water on them.” It is forcing a victim’s brain to believe he is drowning. It is torture, and even the government recognizes and denounces it as torture when other countries do it.
More importantly, don’t restrict the torture the administration authorized to waterboarding. It was more than that, even if you don’t include rendition-to-torture. People died. Dozens of people died during interrogations as a result of asphyxiation, beatings, stress positions, sleep deprivation, and environmental manipulation.
I get the point you’re making, but don’t minimize the torture.
Don’t make me laugh. The chances of that are indistinguishable from zero and, in any case, if by miracle it happened it would be in spite of American intervention and not because of it. Not to mention that, again, the ends do not justify the means and the means were criminal and evil. There is no way America can be justified in its actions when it tortures or invades a country which was no threat. No way.
I thought the premise of western democracies was that all are equal before the law and no one is above the law. Now you are saying that presidents, and those acting on their orders, which is to say the entire executive, ought to be above the law. And I suppose the legislative and the judiciary should also be covered? They ought to be free to do whatever they want in order to achieve their ends. Wars, killing, torture, graft, corruption, all is good. So what is the point of having laws? Al you need is one law saying “what the president says, goes”. And in one stroke you have gone back in history, what, at least a millenium, because even in modern Europe it was not like that and the kings were subject to the law.
You seem to not understand the difference between unpopular and illegal. Maybe you ought to get yourself a dictionary.
Not to mention that the world changes and advances and what might have been forgivable sixty years ago and under the circumstances of WWII would not be admissible today under the circumstances of this bullshit war (oops, sorry, Obama says it should now be called a “contingengy”, not a war). Times change for the better and many things become inadmissible. Just because it was admissible or excusable at one time in history does not make it acceptable forever.
sailor You’re missing the point. I am saying that there are reasons to come after every President, and that going after the Bush’s would accomplish nothing and render future Presidents impotent. The general welfare of this nation is worth more than the value of the catharsis you seek.
And how is giving future President carte blanche to break the law and commit atrocities good for the welfare of the country ? That’s what NOT going after Bush does. As I said, I’m sure the knowledge that they’d never be punished for anything they did was one reason for his and his cronies’ behavior.
No. There are only reasons to go after presidents who break the law. Which they should not do because that’s what the law is for. And because the law should apply to everybody.
Your concept of the state is antiquated by more than 1000 years. 500 years ago the King of Spain was subject to the law and not above it.
As a former subject of their most catholic majesties, I find this very hard to believe.
Don’t take me wrong, these guys were much better than their english counterparts (pirates the lot of them).
You find it hard to believe? Well, that just shows your ignorance of Spanish (and European) history. Because Europe has never had a tradition of absolute despots as was comon in Asian history. Any cases of that in European history have been truly exceptional and contrary to European tradition. Some European monarchs tried to rule with absolute, unrestrained, power and quite a few of those ended up literally losing their heads.
The king of Spain in the 16th century was, indeed, very much subject to the written law as well as to the usages and customs. As king of Castile he had somewhat more power. As King of Aragon he had much less. He could not impose new taxes without consent from the Cortes (parliament). Which he hated to convene because they always gave him a hard time with their demands.
In Aragón the traditional formula of swearing allegiance to the new king reminded him that he was only “primus inter pares”, first among equals, and that he was subject to the law. It went something like this:
We, who are worth as much as you, and together more than you, make you our king on the condition that you respect our privileges and laws, and if not, not.
The oath was conditional on the king respecting the law. And it was always understood that the king served the good administration of the country and not that the people were to be sacrificed to the personal service of the king. In European history there is always the notion that the king serves and represents the country and serving the king is serving the country.
The American declaration of independence is a list of grievances against the king for not doing his duty. The war of the comunidades and hermandades against emperor Charles was similarly based.
For another example look at Phillip II in the case of his secretary Antonio Pérez. There is plenty of evidence that the King was subject to the law. As soon as Antonio Pérez crossed into Aragón he was protected by the laws of Aragón. The judicial processes which resulted from the murder of Escobedo dragged on for many years and there was little the king could do about it.
When Pérez was arrested in Zaragoza on a technicality by order of the king, the people of Zaragoza understood it was illegal and the revolted and killed the Viceroy and Chief Justice for going along with the sham. Read about it.
The respect for the law and customs at that time was very important. When Spaniards set themselves up in the New World the first thing they did was set up all the legal institutions (cabildo etc).
So, I insist, the notion that the president, or king, can do whatever he deems convenient, without being subject to the law flies against centuries of European history and those who would defend such a notion would want to put us in the situation of oriental despots who had absolute power. Western societies have never been like that except in very exceptional and short lived circumstances. We have always been subject to the rule of the law while oriental countries relied on being subject to the unrestrained wisdom of their ruler.
People who advocate immunity for the executive claiming it is needed to fight our enemies do not seem to realize the irony because what they are trying to do is destroy the very essence on which our western society is based. They are worse than the external enemies in the damage they can do.
I just hate it when someone talks about America as if it were a group of about one hundred people with like minds.
We are a big jumble of differing opinions. A large portion of Americans have been protesting the detainment and torture of men at Guantanamo for several years now. There have been far too many of them for Der Trihs to be saying:
There will be plenty of American supporters if and whenever those responsible for the war crimes at Guantanamo are brought before the appropriate court.
I found out this week that a 93 year old man has been detained there. Without trial.
I agree with your point and understand what you mean but, while it is entirely true that many Americans, Der Trihs included prominently, have opposed the barbaric policies, and everybody knows that, I think it is valid to consider America as a whole with a public opinion as a whole because America acts as a whole when it invades Iraq or when it tortures people. America as a country has a personality which is distinct of its individual citizens and it is valid to criticize America which does not in turn imply criticism of all its individual citizens. In that sense I think it is valid to say “Americans don’t care” meaning the average of public opinion is like that and that is what shapes policy but not implying every single citizen feels like that which I do not think anybody believes. But the fact is that there are enough who feel that way to shape American policy and that those who oppose it are not enough or do not feel strongly enough about it. Too many Americans might say they do not support torture but come election time might vote for a candidate who would support torture because that candidate offers something else which the voter values more.
I think it is valid to state that groups of people are of certain points of view even if there are individuals in that group who are not as long as the net effect of the whole is supported by that point of view.
Consider the two following assertions:
-Spanish people like bullfights
-Spanish people dislike bullfights
Obviously none of the two are absolutely correct because some will like and some will dislike bullfights. In fact, I think it is safe to say there are more people who dislike bullfights than those who like them. BUT, having said this, the fact is that their dislike is not so strong for bullfighting to be banned so, if you weigh the the mild opposition of many and the stroger pro-bullfighting stance of fewer you end up with an aggregate public opinion which is favorable to bullfighting and which allows it to exist.
In this situation I think it is very fair to say that the Spanish people (as a whole) are in favor of bullfighting and for someone to come up and say “but my aunt is very strongly against bullfighting” means nothing. Yes, there are people who are strongly against bullfighting but they are not enough to counterweigh those who are in favor. And so it is fair to say that “Spaniards”, meaning your representative, average, ideal, non-existant, Spaniard is in favor of bullfighting.
Just like it is fair to say Americans make on average more than Mexicans. Of course it does not follow that every single American makes more than every single Mexican but as a general picture it is valid.
So, while I understand that not all individual Americans support the crimes and barbarities committed in their name, the fact is that the weighted average does (or did until recently) in fact support them and it is fair to paint America as a nation of people who support such things. Of course this is only fair with general views and it would be totally unfair to judge any individual by this.
On the whole Americans supported the barbarities because those who supported them were numerous and their support was strong while those who opposed them weighed together were not as strong, probably because their opposition was not as strong. Many Americans might have been against torture but their opposition was not strong enough to counteract the support of the other side.
