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WHEN IS A CRIME SO GREAT?
BY ROBERT SHETTERLY
Before the votes were even counted, a strange chorus
arose, like toads from the swamp, from every point on the
Democratic compass — so persistent, one might even think it
choreographed - croaking in dire basso, “Now’s the time to work
on fulfilling the Democratic agenda, not the time to hold anyone
accountable for the massive corruption or the extraordinary lies
that got us into this mess." Let’s be moderate, let's be wise, the
toads all intoned, let’s don’t disintegrate in partisan bickering
about who’s responsible. And, pullleeeease, don’t even utter the
word impeachment. No, no, no, let’s repeal the tax cuts for the
rich, raise the minimum wage, enact universal health care, raise
the mileage on our cars, sign on to the Kyoto Protocol, reduce
the debt, fund our schools, fix Social Security, and work in a
bipartisan way toward an exit strategy from Iraq. All very sensi­
ble. Every single one of those things needs to be fought for if
we want to have economic and social justice.
But, that’s not enough. I thought one of the cornerstones
of our democratic republic was the rule of law. Transparency.
Accountability. We hold people accountable so every bozo with
a zip-gun won’t stick up a 7-11 for 50 bucks or start a preemptive
war by lying to the people. We sent a Japanese soldier to prison
for 25 years after World War 2 for waterboarding a United States
soldier; we hung Adolph Eichman. I'm trying to imagine what our
response would have been after that war if the Nazis had said,
“Look, we lost the war, our cities are rubble, our people starving,
we have no infrastructure, don’t waste your money on some
stupid, inflammatory trials at Nuremburg about the people who
started this war or thought the Holocaust was a cool idea. Sure,
mistakes were made, but let's get on with rebuilding." Very
sensible.
Massive crimes have been committed. Our administra­
tion has ridden roughshod on our Constitution as though it were
a hobbled and blind cow. What-might-have-been looks like a
bomb crater. So irresponsible and massive are the crimes that
the perpetrators have changed the laws to avoid being held
accountable for crimes against humanity. So irresponsible that
their failure to act to mitigate global warming endangers the very
survival of human life on our planet. Hundreds of thousands of
people are unnecessarily dead, many more hundreds of thous­
ands maimed and wounded. The incredible debt undermines our
economy and will plague our children. When is a crime so great
that it shouldn't be acknowledged? Or prosecuted? Do we pat
Rummy & Dickie & Georgie & Connie on the butt and send them
to the bench with a “Nice game, kids. Let’s all be good sports
and let someone else have a go at it?" Live and let live.
MATTWUERKER
HUMAN RIGHTS DENIAL
MERITS IMPEACHMENT
BY PETER PHILLIPS
Human Rights belong to people collectively. To believe
in rights for some and not others is a denial of the humanness
of people worldwide. Yet, denial is exactly what Congress and
George W. Bush did with the signing of the Military Commission
Act of 2006 The new official U S. policy is that torture and sus­
pension of due process are acceptable for anyone the President
deems to be a terrorist or tenorist supporter. This act is the overt
denial of the inalienable rights of human beings propagated in
our Declaration of Independence and the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights.
Our famous words, “We hold these truths to be self-
evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed
by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among
these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness," did not
declare that some men (and women) are without unalienable
rights. Our independence was founded on the belief that all men
and women are recognized by this nation as having innate rights
derived from their humanness.
Likewise, the Universal Declaration of Rights, created
by the United Nations in 1948 and signed and ratified by the
U S. Congress, specifies in its preamble that “recognition of
the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of
all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom,
justice and peace in the world."
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a treaty
that legally binds the United States government. Article 10 states
that “everyone is entitled to full equality, to a fair and public hear­
ing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination
of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against
him,” and Article 5 specifically prohibits torture or cruel, inhuman
or degrading treatment or punishment.
For the U.S. government to unilaterally declare that our
country will not comply with international human rights laws, nor
uphold the core values of our nation's foundation is an indication
of extremism that supersedes the values and beliefs of the
American people. When such an extremism exists, we may
need to take seriously the founders’ declaration that, “to secure
these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving
their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That
whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of
these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it,
and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such
principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them
shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
Behind all the outrageous events of this era — Iraq,
global warming, the debt, election fraud, war profiteering, failure
to create alternative energies, species extinction — is a culture
of non-accountability, cronyism, and obscene profit. How will
it stop? Raising the minimum wage by $1.50 over three years
might not do it. Arrogance, deceit and blatant crime are respon­
sible for these crises. Not poor execution. Accountability is the
way out. There is no reason why we can’t pass fair, life-saving
legislation at the same time. We can walk and chew gum. We
have grown so accustomed to living in a world of euphemism
and doublespeak, so accustomed to not calling reality by its
name, that we think there is no reality except what we can get
away with, the reality that sells the product or “develops the
resource." Not true. Nature won’t be fooled. And we only imperil
ourselves and our cherished institutions if we don’t hold our­
selves accountable. It’s not about partisan revenge, it’s about
naming the crime. Some very bad people have broken our laws,
dashed our hopes, mortgaged our futures, broken our hearts,
and betrayed our country. They need to pay the piper. If we don’t
hold them accountable, who will we allow to hold us accountable
for making things right?
It's a platitude to say that political progress is the art of
compromise. We compromise in order to share as much justice
and opportunity as evenly as we can. But when great crimes
have been committed by our elected leaders, we shouldn’t
compromise with our sense of justice. It’s hard to admit because
as citizens we are responsible, too. But that responsibility
demands an accounting, demands an earning back of national
integrity by investigating the depth of the crimes. That’s called
maturity. Our leaders have inflicted an enormous trauma on Iraq
and on us. We will all be much healthier if we heal by inquiry and
justice rather than repression.
The U.S. government is actively torturing people to
death. One need only read the 44 official U.S. military autopsy
reports on civilian detainees from Afghanistan and Iraq in 2002
to 2004 posted on the American Civil Liberties website to see
the horrendous details of death by “strangulation,” asphyxiation,"
and “blunt force injuries.”
The Military Commission Act retroactively approved
the use of torture to the beginning of the 9/11 Wars. Congress's
reaction to the ACLU report of October 2005 was to pass legis­
lation banning further use of the Freedom of Information Act to
request documents on current military operations.
We are in a time of extremism, permanent war, and
the unilateral manifestation of ethnocentrism and power by an
openly public cabal of people in the U.S. government. Those in
power are set on the U.S. military domination of the world. They
seem willing to defy the foundational values of the American
people to achieve their ends. We have no choice but to declare
openly our belief in universal human rights and demand the
immediate impeachment of George W. Bush and Richard
Cheney and a full accounting of those in their administration.
Peter Phillips is a professor of sociology at Sonoma
State University and director of 'Project Censored’. He is co­
author with Dennis Loo of Impeach the President: The Case
Against Bush & Cheney.
Robert Shatterly is a writer and artist who lives in Brook­
ville, Maine. He is the author of Americans Who Tell The Truth.
His article has been reprinted from CommonDreams.org.
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