Glenn Greenwald at salon.com:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/02/17/lawlessness/index.htmlTuesday Feb. 17, 2009 11:55 EST
Lawrence Walsh and America's law-free zone
David Rivkin and Lee Casey are right-wing lawyers and former Reagan DOJ officials who, over the last eight years, have been extremely prolific in jointly defending Bush/Cheney theories of executive power. Today, they have one of their standard Op-Eds, this time in The Washington Post, demanding that there be no investigations or prosecutions of Bush officials. Most of the arguments they advance are the standard platitudes now composing Beltway conventional wisdom on this matter. But there is one aspect of their advocacy that is somewhat remarkable and worth noting.
Rivkin and Casey have long been vigorous opponents of the legitimacy of international tribunals to adjudicate crimes committed by American officials. In February, 2007, they wrote an Op-Ed in the Post bitterly criticizing Italian officials for indicting 25 CIA agents who had literally kidnapped a Muslim cleric from Italy and "rendered" him from Milan to Egypt. In that Op-Ed, the Bush-defending duo argued that Italy had no right to prosecute these agents ...
They then went on to call for the Bush administration to vocally and decisively reject the legitimacy of the ICC so that the whole edifice would collapse. This is because American leaders should not be subjected to prosecution in foreign countries for their crimes -- only in America.
Yet what do these two argue today? That domestic investigations and prosecutions -- by American tribunals and American courts -- are also inappropriate, illegitimate and destructive. Though they acknowledge that "the Justice Department is capable of considering whether any criminal charges are appropriate," they nonetheless insist that this must not be done:
For his part, President Obama has reacted coolly to calls to investigate Bush officials. Obama is right to be skeptical; this is a profoundly bad idea -- for policy and, depending on how such a commission were organized and operated, for legal and constitutional reasons. . . .
Attempting to prosecute political opponents at home or facilitating their prosecution abroad, however much one disagrees with their policy choices while in office, is like pouring acid into our democratic machinery. As the history of the late, unlamented independent counsel statute taught, once a Pandora's box is opened, its contents can wreak havoc equally across the political and party spectrum. . . .
Obama and the Democratic Congress are entitled to revise and reject any or all of the Bush administration's policies. But no one is entitled to hound political opponents with criminal prosecution, whether directly or through the device of a commission, and those who support such efforts now may someday regret the precedent it sets....
The implication of their argument -- which is now the conventional Beltway view -- is too obvious to require much elaboration. If our political leaders can't be held accountable for their war crimes and other serious felonies in foreign countries or international tribunals, and must never be held accountable in the U.S. either (because to do so is to "pour acid into our democratic machinery"), then it means that American political officials (in contrast to most other leaders) are completely and explicitly exempt from, placed above, the rule of law. That conclusion is compelled from their premises.
... Here's what Iran-contra prosecutor (and life-long Republican official) Lawrence Walsh said in 1992 after George H.W. Bush pardoned Casper Weinberger days before his trial was set to begin:
President Bush's pardon of Caspar Weinberger and other Iran-contra defendants undermines the principle that no man is above the law. It demonstrates that powerful people with powerful allies can commit serious crimes in high office -- deliberately abusing the public trust without consequence.
Weinberger, who faced four felony charges, deserved to be tried by a jury of citizens. Although it is the President's prerogative to grant pardons, it is every American's right that the criminal justice system be administered fairly, regardless of a person's rank and connections.
The Iran-contra cover-up, which has continued for more than six years, has now been completed with the pardon of Caspar Weinberger. . . . Weinberger's early and deliberate decision to conceal and withhold extensive contemporaneous notes of the Iran-contra matter radically altered the official investigations and possibly forestalled timely impeachment proceedings against President Reagan and other officials. Weinberger's notes contain evidence of a conspiracy among the highest-ranking Reagan Administration officials to lie to Congress and the American public. . . .
In light of President Bush's own misconduct, we are gravely concerned about his decision to pardon others who lied to Congress and obstructed official investigations.Does anyone deny that we are exactly the country that Walsh described: one where "powerful people with powerful allies can commit serious crimes in high office -- deliberately abusing the public trust without consequence"? And what rational person could think that's a desirable state of affairs that ought not only be preserved -- but fortified still further-- as we move now to immunize Bush 43 officials for their far more serious and disgraceful crimes? As the Rivkin/Casey oeuvre demonstrates, we've created a zone of lawlessness around our highest political leaders and either refuse to acknowledge that we've done that or, worse, have decided that we don't really mind.
...
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
