Crimes Against Humanity

It might be instructive to ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush's compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic (after proper burial rites, of course). Uncontroversially, he is not a “suspect” but the “decider” who gave the orders to invade Iraq -- that is, to commit the “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole” (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: in Iraq, the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country and the national heritage, and the murderous sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region. Equally uncontroversially, these crimes vastly exceed anything attributed to bin Laden.

To say that all of this is uncontroversial, as it is, is not to imply that it is not denied. The existence of flat earthers does not change the fact that, uncontroversially, the earth is not flat. Similarly, it is uncontroversial that Stalin and Hitler were responsible for horrendous crimes, though loyalists deny it. All of this should, again, be too obvious for comment, and would be, except in an atmosphere of hysteria so extreme that it blocks rational thought.

Similarly, it is uncontroversial that Bush and associates did commit the “supreme international crime,” the crime of aggression, at least if we take the Nuremberg Tribunal seriously. The crime of aggression was defined clearly enough by Justice Robert Jackson, Chief of Counsel for the United States at Nuremberg, reiterated in an authoritative General Assembly resolution. An “aggressor,” Jackson proposed to the Tribunal in his opening statement, is a state that is the first to commit such actions as “Invasion of its armed forces, with or without a declaration of war, of the territory of another State….” No one, even the most extreme supporter of the aggression, denies that Bush and associates did just that.
~ from Osama bin Laden’s Death: There is Much More to Say by Noam Chomsky ~

I realize some (many?) of you may be tired of the fact that I keep revisiting this topic, but, for me, it represents an indelible stain on the American ideal. While there is no question that this nation has rarely walked its sanctimonious talk, the last decade or so has witnessed our leaders abandon all pretense of conscience, ethics or morality.

America the Beautiful has become the ugliest of bullies! We set rules for everyone else to follow, but we excuse ourselves from them AND we don't even follow our own internal rules either.

Of course, when I write "we," I mean the acts carried out in our name. We, the People, actually have no voice in any of these decisions or acts. So, the indelible stain we now carry was smashed into our foreheads against our will.

What makes this whole mess even more unpalatable is that much of it has been carried out under the watchful eye of the man of "hope." If we continue to commit one atrocity after another under the leadership of a so-called God-hating, Muslim-loving, socialist president, what chance is left that we can find the middle path to genuine hope, prosperity, justice and peace?