I think I have a right to speak up. I've seen some pretty silly litmus tests proposed here and I've spoken up against many of them. The fact is that one cannot expect any member of Congress to vote any one person's wishes all of the time. I will vote for my Congressman (Mike Thompson) in November, although he voted for the Bankruptcy Act last year. That is one vote he cast to which I take exception, but there many more votes he cast in which I am in strong agreement.
Mike Thompson voted
No today. He spoke for me.
I had strong feelings about the Bankruptcy Act, but it was not a litmus test. I don't think I've ever seen a single piece of legislation in my life that I would consider a litmus test.
Until now.
The passage of a law to shield war criminals from prosecution is a war crime in itself. The passage of a law that defines war crimes as something other than war crimes is a war crime in itself. Those who stood beside Mr. Bush and his neoconservative advisers today in the House of Representatives committed a war crime when each uttered the simple word
Aye. They may have removed Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and their appointed aides from the reach of federal courts, but not from the reach of an international tribunal. Those who supported Mr. Bush's position today have unnecessarily soiled themselves with his foul misdeeds and become accomplices to them.
Mr. Bush and his neoconservative aids have too long held themselves unaccountable to any law. That is part of what has brought us to this point, where we are engaged in and losing an unwise war of choice in Iraq that will go down among of the worst strategic and tactical blunders in history, where the government that is supposed to protect us from the likes of Osama and his lieutenants let them slip through there fingers in order to pursue Saddam, who was no threat, where our country has earned the scorn of the world for its now badly tarnished human rights record.
In 1945, America gave the some of the most heinous war criminals in history the benefit of a fair trial and due process. Nuremberg was a proud moment for us.
I do not believe that the allied authorities gave the Nazis their rights as a courtesy of a generous victor over a vanquished nation. This was not a courtesy. This was a recognition of human rights. Human rights are inalienable and nontransferable. One cannot be justly deprived of his human rights for any reason, even the murder of millions. To deprive one of his human rights is to stoop to the level of a war criminal.
As hard as it is to believe at times, Göring, Ribbentrop and the others were human beings. They were made of flesh and blood and all of the same stuff that you or I are made. That is all that was required of the Nazis to have entitled them to the right to a fair trial and due process. You read that right. The Nazis who stood trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity after the war were as deserving of a fair trial and due process as they were of being hanged later. Nothing else but the fact that they were born human entitled them to it; nothing could take it away from them. It's that simple.
After the war, the allied authorities on President Truman's urging did the right thing and afforded fair trials to these people knowing that several were guilty of the most hideous crimes of modern history. They were the least among all of us. But if the Nazis are entitled to justice as a universal human right, then so are those who planned the September 11 attacks and so are those who manipulated intelligence in order to garner public support for invading Iraq. So are those who may later be accused of waterboarding, setting vicious dogs on detainees, making a detainee stand hours in stress positions or other forms of torture. So are those who denied others due process by establishing kangaroo courts in which they could not examine and question the evidence against them.
Not since slavery was recognized as a valid institution or native Americans systematically murdered for their land has America done anything so shameful as pass this legislation that sailed through the House today. It is an affront to us all, Americans and foreigners, the left and right alike. The evidence against those who voted
Aye is simply the
roll call recording how each House member voted today on HR6166, published on line.
They have already condemned themselves.
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