If Obama Fails to Prosecute War Crimes, Is He A Criminal Too?

If Obama Fails to Prosecute War Crimes, Is He A Criminal Too?
Submitted by Bob Fertik on December 18, 2008 - 2:11pm.


Dave Lindorff makes an excellent point that is largely missing from the debate over whether Obama should or should not prosecute Bush for war crimes. Namely, does Obama even have a choice?
http://www.democrats.com/node/18606

....if crimes have been committed—and in the case of the authorizing of torture, which is banned by both international treaties to which the US is a signatory, and by US law, which folded the torture bans into the US Criminal Code for good measure, they clearly have been—-the president and his incoming attorney general have a sworn obligation to prosecute them. That’s what “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution” means, after all.

http://www.democrats.com/if-obama-fails-to-prosecute-war-crimes-is-he-a-criminal-too
and:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/12/18/prosecutions/index.html

Yes, not really a straight parallel, but clearly SA post-apartheid policy wasn't to prosecute.

It'd be nice if that happened. Hell, it'd be nice if we had an all just, all knowing and all loving being calling the shots. It just isn't so though.

Because if you are, your post suggests you may actually be ignorant of what it was really about. You'd better read up on it.

But here's a nutshell:

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission process did not entail letting anyone off the hook. It did not mean that South Africa simply covered up and forgot the great crimes of the apartheid regime. On the contrary, the main goal of the TRC was full exposure of the truth so that future generations would know their own history.

Amnesty from prosecution was provided only in exchange for a complete accounting of everything one knew about what had really happened under the regime. Those who refused to testify were, in fact, prosecuted. As a result, the members of the apartheid regime and the former SA police and military testified at length about their horrific crimes, describing many cases of murder, torture, subversion and conspiracy, preserving the historical record.

Do you support a TRC process for the United States? I'm all for it as one possibility. It would be more radical, however, than what you seem to think. In fact, it would be far more radical than a few prosecutions of the worst perpetrators. It would mean throwing open the entire record of American government crime. It would mean a huge, all-consuming purging of the country and its hidden history. I certainly hope it happens!

So, did you know any of this? Or did you have a different kind of "truth and reconciliation" in mind, one that actually has nothing to do with either?

"The Truth and Reconciliation Commission process did not entail letting anyone off the hook."

"Amnesty from prosecution was provided"

Both yours.


EDIT: And I didn't see anyone suggest what you asked.

Otherwise they'd be prosecuted. The TRC traded amnesty for truth as the best of all possible outcomes. This was a difficult choice to make, and of course it entailed the contradiction you point out. In exchange for confession, murderers went free.

But South Africa under Mandela chose this route so as to

a) avoid a meltdown of South African society due to sabotage by reactionary elements and total white flight (with attendant loss of capital);

b) actually get the full, true history of what happened under apartheid (which would not have been the case otherwise) and prevent the rise of revisionist mythologies;

c) achieve a genuine if limited reconciliation, bringing many whites in as allies to the new order rather than as enemies.

Measured against the common expectations of what post-apartheid South Africa would be like -- that it would face white sabotage or lose all the whites, descend into civil war, and turn into a complete hunger state like present-day Zimbabwe -- it may indeed be the case that the TRC solution was the best possible compromise.

Emphasis on the "possible."

As for the crimes of the United States government, including the Bush regime and the deep state entities with their far-ranging international crimes against many nations stretching out over decades: Of course I would prefer a kind of global Nuremberg process that didn't compromise by offering amnesty in exchange for truth, and put all of the top-level bastards away for the rest of their lives.

So what does Obama appear ready to offer in the real word? It's looking like a repeat of the utterly disastrous Clinton-era "move on" formula, which exposed nothing and left the first set of Bush regime criminals completely free to go on to new pastures and profitable careers, and ultimately to return to power and commit even greater crimes. Compared to that, the truth and reconciliation process as it was practiced in South Africa was certainly a world better.

To take one example, I think it would be better to get a full confession from the liars like Feith et al. about how they engineered the justifying propaganda for the Iraq invasion, although they knew (everyone knew, you can be certain) that there were no WMDs. If this meant that those who lied the country into war and killed a million innocents got amnesty, it would be incredibly fucked up. (At least it would at least end their careers as political operators). However, it would be better than what we are likely to get: No confession. No history. The full truth remains classified. We are treated to corrosive revisionist mythologies that encourage reaction and fascism. The perpetrators remain completely free to plot their next crime, their next usurpation.

Again, I think Nuremberg is the better model.

Then he is clearly a criminal, as per the OP's definition. He did not directly seek prosecution, and instead provided a pathway to amnesty. Its black and white. Either you are with us, or you are a criminal, terrorist, pot-smoking traitor (against us).

Obviously untrue of Mandela (a "pathway to amnesty" is not equivalent to "letting them get away with rewards and blessings"). Also an untrue reading of the OP. And I don't know what the "pot-smoking" part is supposed to say, unless it's your lame excuse for why you make no sense. Sorry.

I was providing a historical example of a case where prosecution, read "retribution", was not primarily sought and which is not considered internationally as "criminal". It is in no way related to this case, nor do I suggest it should be done. I just thought the original "non prosecution makes one a criminal" premise is a bit of a blanket statement.

The example you choose is obviously mis-applied as an argument relating to the OP.

Under the Mandela model, it was assumed that full retribution could not be sought due to the danger of civil war. But truth was sought (unlike what happened under Clinton, and is likely to happen under Obama). No one was forgiven. They were amnestied in exchange for truthful testimony. Those who failed to be truthful were still liable to prosecution. Thanks to the testimony, charges in murder trials were brought against many who refused to testify. There were convictions. So it's not even remotely comparable to the Clinton model of doing nothing or "moving on," which is what you are suggesting. One can argue whether Mandela's was the best model, but it was an attempt to uncover crime and get some measure of justice. There is no basis for pretending otherwise.

So it doesn't have to have fuck all to do with the current situation. I could send you a PDF on how to remove a stick from one's ass.

It's not an example against anything if you show you have no idea what "it" is. So the smart thing to do is to thank me for the factual correction, or at least go read for yourself and come back with actual knowledge about the TRC.

Cluelessness is not a virtue.

Tell us again what Mandela did?

reality bites!

then he is an enabler. and I will lose even more respect for him and his admin. Like I did with Pelosi.

war crimes I will never ever believe or trust.

Unfortunately Obama gave them a decent one.

He's exercising his 'prosecutorial discretion.'

http://law.jrank.org/pages/1870/Prosecution-Prosecutorial-Discretion.html

in criminal prosecutions? Does he order the Justice Department to do something, or Congress, or who? I think Obama is responsible for everything past, present, and future, and we would be a hell of a lot better off to impeach him now. Why wait?

Pelosi didn't prosecute Bush, Obama won't either. And when he doesn't, that will not make him a war criminal.

I am still convinced there is more to this than meets the eye. There is a specific reason why Pelosi did not want to go forward with charges. I wonder if we will ever find out what that reason is.

person in this mess, to the fullest extent possible. If they aren't they Do NOT represent us at all and we are under no obligation to obey. We should then dismantle this ''government'' and start over.

elect someone else thenext time around. I am wary of your seeking to "dismantle" the government. By what means did you have in mind?

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/12122008/transcript4.html

"...In 2002, as the WASHINGTON POST documented, Nancy Pelosi was brought to the CIA and along with Jane Harman and Bob Graham and Jay Rockefeller, the key Intelligence Committee Senators, were told about the torture program that the CIA had implemented, that we were going to water board and had water boarded certain suspects, that we were going to do things like hypothermia and stress positions and forced nudity and sleep deprivation.

All of the tactics that we've always said characterized tyrannies that used torture. That we were going to start using them ourselves, even though they clearly violate both international and domestic law. And according to all public reports, and they're not denied by the participants, every single Democrat in that session either quietly assented to it or actively approved of it.

And so the question then becomes, well, as a matter of political reality, how is Barack Obama going to encourage investigations of crimes to be undertaken when the leading members of his own party were, if not-

BILL MOYERS: Good question.

GLENN GREENWALD: -participants were certainly complicit? And there are things that he could do. He could appoint, as I said, an independent prosecutor and say take this road to wherever it leads. And if it leads to leading Democrats who you think have criminal liability, so be it..."

she was advised about the program and either signed off on it or said nothing, but either way she was informed early on. So she had some degree of culpability herself. Not a surprise that she wasn't willing to open that can of worms.

Here's hoping Obama has more integrity.

kick & recommend

"...the president and his incoming attorney general have a sworn obligation to prosecute them..."


http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/12/17/spitzer/index.html

"...What's most striking is not that we have zero intention of prosecuting the serious crimes committed by our leading establishment figures. It's that we don't even recognize them as crimes -- or even serious transgressions -- at all. To the contrary, we still demand that those who are culpable be treated as dignified, respectable, serious and inherently good leaders. Real outrage is never generated by the crimes and outrages they have undertaken, but only when they are not given their proper respectful due as leading American elites. Hence:

An Iraqi citizen throws his shoes at an American President who -- all based on false pretenses -- invaded, occupied and obliterated his country; set up prisons where his fellow citizens were encaged without trials and subjected to brutal treatment; slaughtered hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and displaced millions more. And the outrage is predominantly directed at the disrespect, irreverence and the "ingratitude" displayed by the shoe-thrower, not the murderous and inhumane acts of the dignified American leader....

...The reason the American political establishment tenaciously refuses to acknowledge the devastation and crimes that have been unleashed during the Bush era is obvious: aside from the generalized belief that Americans are inherently good and thus incapable of meriting terms such as "aggressive wars" and "war criminals" no matter what they actually do (those phrases are applicable only to lesser foreigners), most of the establishment supported these crimes and the criminals who unleashed them. We can therefore tolerate thinking about Bush officials and their bipartisan enablers as political and opinion leaders who (with the best of intentions) embraced what turned out to be some misguided policies, but not as people whose criminal acts led to death and suffering on an enormous scale and an almost complete degradation of whatever was still commendable about American political values.

That's the real benefit, the real cause, of these flamboyant and obsessive collective outrage sessions directed at petty offenders who do things like hire prostitutes, commit adultery, or engage in some sleazy though quite commonplace political corruption. Those rituals enable those who participated in and cheered on real crimes to parade around as righteous defenders of the moral good without having to acknowledge the extremism, brutality and destruction they've supported. The spectacle of the pro-war New York Sun and the Lieberman-endorsing TNR -- of all people -- joining together to complain that Eliot Spitzer (of all people) hasn't yet been humiliated or scorned enough is just one particularly vivid illustration of this warped public morality."

...because otherwise, duh, yeah....

He's going to have his hands full just reestablishing the Justice Department as a nonpartisan agency of enforcement over the next couple of years.

would certainly be enforcing the laws against murder, war crimes, terrorism (which is what bombing cities from the air is), torture and aggressive war. These do not have statutes of limitation.

nt

If we, the people, don't prosecute Bush and his friends for war crimes, does that make us war criminals too?

THANK YOU for stating the OBVIOUS. EVERYONE is in a huff to "hold Obama's feet to the fire" before the sucker even has the keys in his hand. Meanwhile, Bushco is busily shoving poison pills down their throats. Rather than DEMAND that the CRIMINALS BE TAKEN OUT, which would mitigate some of the destruction and STILL COULD BE ACCOMPLISHED at this late date, it would seem most prefer to busy themselves "doorbuster" sales...

Anyone in the entire world who accepts war crimes and does nothing about them is corrupt.

That would be so much better. :sarcasm:

could well include our country being branded, and rightly so, as a (rogue, criminal?) state by the international community.

The very idea that prosecution is even optional is repulsive, as well as criminal.
:kick: & R

If he's the guy with the power to make it happen and he chooses not to, well... that's the very definition of responsibility.

All of Congress are already in violation of their oaths, which of course is part of the sticky dilemma.

if we don't.

You don't rewrite ethics like this unless you are living in a 3rd grade elementary
classroom country. Ford's forgiveness of Nixon gave us this world.


From the Japanese waterboarding of pilots who hung for that to Hitler's ovens and camps
that lead us to Nuremberg we move on to My Lai to NO? I don't think so. We can not let this pass, unless
you want your children to bring these people to Justice like South America has lately.
Or should they repeat our mistakes for their children?

I don't want revenge, I want international justice that reminds people that this behavior is wrong
and condoned by the mass of humanity.

It is his duty to US and our Constitution that we hired him to serve and protect!

I refuse to let up on this, and my children's children
will pursue this when I'm gone if necessary.

I think the War Criminals will ultimately be taken on by the International Community, because we are letting it go un-prosecuted.

I hope something is found that leads Obama to allow for prosecution here in the US.