"The Kafka Strategy" (Bob Herbert on Bush and War Crimes, NYT, 09/18/06)

[swag]

Times Select (sub.req)

. . .

“Let’s imagine you’re a prosecutor,” said Mr. Horton. “Are you going to seek the death penalty against someone and convict them and let them be sentenced to death without letting them know what the evidence is against them? No way. What prosecutor wants that?”

One of the biggest concerns of the administration is the possibility of evidence emerging that could lead to charges of war crimes against high-ranking officials. The president and others in the administration have argued that they are seeking changes in the law in order to protect soldiers and ordinary interrogators in the field against war crimes accusations.

But there are already clear guidelines — short of war crimes prosecutions — for dealing with soldiers and civilian interrogators who abuse prisoners. The Abu Ghraib prosecutions are a good example.

The people who would have to worry, if war crimes were found to have been committed, would be those at the top of the command structure who crafted policies that were illegal and ordered them carried out — or who turned a blind eye to atrocities.

“Those are the ones,” said Mr. Horton, “who are vulnerable.”

[bobbieinok]

1. Kafka's The Trial

http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=23128&pageno=2

This is the chilling start of the novel--

Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., he knew he had
done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested.

....

"No," said the man at the window, who
threw his book down on a coffee table and stood up. "You can't go away
when you're under arrest." "That's how it seems," said K. "And why am
I under arrest?" he then asked. "That's something we're not allowed to
tell you. Go into your room and wait there. Proceedings are underway
and you'll learn about everything all in good time.

....

****

K spends the rest of the novel trying to find out what he has been charged with. As I recall, he dies without ever having learned what his 'crime' is.

****

Kafka scholars have frequently commented on the fact that this book, published in the 1920s after his death, is a chilling prophecy of the Nazi era.

Kafka was a German Jew living in Prague; his girlfriend and most of his family died in the Nazi death camps.