The Sons of Cain - International Social Equality/Unity

Few could say they were surprised by the murdering and pillaging activities of Cheney/Bush Co. notwithstanding the number of innocents killed by this homicidal, thieving regime staggers most civilised people. However, we should never forget that the incompetence and criminal lies of the neocons were exposed almost immediately after Bush took office. The price today of our inaction is the blood of innocents on all our hands, including -- for God’s sake -- thousands of innocent CHILDREN!

Reaction to the murder of a Greek youth was swift and sustained; the result is that non-representative forces in Greece have been forced to retreat. Changes in government are inevitable and Greece may be a better democracy as a result of the active participation of its people in preserving their democracy!

Contrast the swift action of the Greeks with the servility of Americans – tragic! Why do some people tolerate brazen crime and corruption from their leaders and allow themselves to be exploited and others do not? There are many answers to this question but all must necessarily include that single human quality crucial to any answer, GUTS, or the lack thereof!

Today, MINORITY power elites are responsible for not only the collapse of the global financial system but also every criminal war of plunder and territorial appropriation since the fragmentation of the Balkans and the theft of the Serbian province of Kosovo, which was a prelude to the illegal invasion of Iraq and the sorry state of the warring world today!

The methods these nefarious minorities employ to achieve their ghastly ambitions include mass murder, kidnapping, torture, denial of all human rights, illegal surveillance, disregard of sovereignty, collusion with organised criminals, and the wholesale corruption of legal institutions on the home and international fronts -- the ICC is a good example.

The International Criminal Court remains completely blind to the MANY HEINOUS war crimes committed by Americans! How is it that a supposedly independent court has selective vision regarding crimes against humanity? Presently, the highest profile personality on trial is the Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, who is accused of the murder of 8,000 Bosnians during the American and German instigated Balkan wars.

All sane people view the murder of a single human being as a horrendous crime, yet courts around the globe ignore the Bush regime’s orchestration of the invasion of Iraq and the subsequent deaths of over 1,000,000 (one million) innocent civilians! How is this possible? In two words, CORRUPTION and COWARDICE! The courts legitimise the most heinous criminals by simply ignoring their crimes but pursue other lesser criminals with zeal, as if to make up for their ‘oversights!’ But ‘we the morons,’ are not supposed to notice or question the glaring CONTRADICTIONS and HYPOCRISIES staring us all in the face – give me a break!

Perhaps we tolerate such overt criminality from our leaders because they condescend to leave us the crumbs and scraps from their ‘tables;’ but are we really so down-trodden and suppressed that we would eat shit rather than eliminate the scum that HAVE NO LEGITIMATE CLAIM TO RULE? Consider the mess of the global economy and those that caused it; or the mayhem of wars sold to us (by Murdoch) as “cakewalks.” GUTS, O yea, we have thimbles full -- for fuck’s sake!

The reprehensible, murdering scum alluded to above are known to the world as Bush & Co, Blair, Howard and their cohorts in crime. They CONTINUE to evade the LAW and JUSTICE not because they are of ‘superior intelligence’ -- we need not quote the moronic statements of Bush, Rumsfeld or Wolfowitz to emphasise the point, or cite the now infamous Australian natural gas sale to China (for a pittance) by servile flea, John Howard; or should we mention the rape and theft of Australia’s water and other resources by Transnationals – NO, we need not due to the fact WE ARE ALL AWARE OF THE UGLY, BLOODY, TRUTH BUT WE CHOOSE TO REMAIN PASSIVE -- for no good reason – AND WE CONTINUE TO EAT SCRAPS FIT FOR DOGS, while our criminal leaders treat us with the contempt WE DESERVE. Take another look at Greece and Thailand, you gutless wonders!

The latest example of our bravery is the not so strange case of Obama winning the presidency and then brazenly and contemptuously betraying everyone that voted for him. He probably derived the most satisfaction shitting in the collective public face – the shame of it!

Obama’s traitorous backflip/reversal from his previous populist position is astonishing for the fact he did it without the slightest regard for those that voted for him. “Change we can believe in,” for fuck’s sake! Instead of revolt and holding them ALL to account we sit here chewing on our shit sandwiches meekly accepting Obama’s traitorous reversal of policies after winning office. It’s just another example of our collective spinelessness, a characteristic minority ruling elites BANK on!

However, all is not lost (it never is). Europeans and Asians have united in their respective nations to demonstrate and force criminal elites from power. Minority criminal elites fear one thing above all else, a united population that seeks equity, accountability and JUSTICE – and so it goes for Greece and Thailand.

However, it seems that one of the most servile and apathetic populations in the world is finally stirring from its national stupor and complacency! The ‘who gives a fuck, she’ll be right, mate,’ Aussies, have had enough of incompetent government, disparity and inequity from the private sector. Workers across the nation are about to embark on campaigns of Industrial action to close the yawning disparity in wages – and about fuckin’ time, you useless pricks!

The lackey Rudd government is in no position to prevent the people seeking a, ‘fair suck of the sav!’ [Look it up if you’re not familiar with Oz slang!]

Ed Husic, Telstra workers’ representative, stated that previous talks and negotiations with management have failed and that the company will soon face Industrial action if it continues to deprive workers of fair wages. "Telstra’s CEO secures a neat $13.4 million pay packet with little fuss but the workers we represent ... have to struggle to get a fair agreement, and that's not right or fair," said Husic in a recent interview.

Personally, I favour hanging insider bankers (Allan Moss) and criminal CEOs (BHP) from light poles, as existing punishments seem not to deter white collar criminals in the least. However, I could be convinced to take a more moderate approach if private sector criminals displayed more remorse and contrition for their crimes. Perhaps volunteering for unpaid weekend community work over extended periods (minimum 10 years) may assist in convincing the public they are truly reformed characters. Gestures such as these may reduce the severity of future responses from the public!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/09/2441933.htm

There are also reports from the 'United States of Servility' that workers in Chicago are demanding fair treatment – wonders never cease! After receiving $25 billion from the public bailout package, Bank of America withdrew funding from a Chicago fittings factory, which effectively shut it down. Disgruntled workers, denied severance pay and entitlements staged a rather meek sit-in – storming the offices of insider Bankers and Corporate directors yields far more satisfying results! However, it seems that some progress has been made in obtaining worker entitlements. We shall see!

http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/09/news/companies/bankofamerica_credit

Nevertheless, we are confident the ‘light pole’ solution will become the universally accepted norm in dealing with corporate criminals in the near future – the truth behind the scandalous dealings of insider elites cannot be hidden indefinitely!

We can’t wait!

Even though the Federal Reserve is now the biggest single participant in the financial system, the myth of a "free market" still lingers on. Go figure? The Fed has expanded its balance sheet by $2 trillion, guaranteed $8.3 trillion of dodgy mortgage-backed paper, provided a backstop for bank deposits, money markets, commercial paper, and created 8 separate lending facilities to ensure that underwater financial institutions can still appear to be solvent. The whole system is a state subsidized operation buoyed on a taxpayer-provided flotation device which bears no resemblance to an invisible hand. More astonishing, is the massive power grab engineered by the Fed which has taken place without the slightest protest from 535 shell-shocked congressmen and senators. Elected officials have either kept their finger in the air to see which way the political wind is blowing or timidly caved in to Treasury's every multi-billion dollar demand. It's flagrant blackmail and everyone knows it. Congressional oversight is an oxymoron.

Anyone who has followed the financial crisis knows that the Fed's bloody fingerprints are all over the crime scene. Still, that hasn't stopped well-meaning liberal economists (Krugman, Stiglitz, Reich) from supporting Bernanke's increasingly unorthodox attempts to flood the financial system with liquidity ("quantitative easing") and invoke whatever radical strategy pops into his head. In fact, many of the experts believe that Bernanke should do even more given the sheer size of the meltdown. There's growing support for a gigantic stimulus package ($700 billion) which will focus on road construction, infrastructure, state aid, extensions to unemployment benefits and green technologies. The Obama camp hopes that government programs and deficit spending will make up for the huge losses in aggregate demand which threaten to drag prices down even further in a self-reinforcing deflationary cycle. Even so, its natural to wonder at the wisdom of giving even more power to the very people who created the mess and who seem more interested in proving their depression-fighting theories than throwing a lifeline to struggling homeowners, consumers or auto workers. Maybe its time to try something different.

So far, Bernanke's monetarist approach has amounted to nothing. The stock indexes are off 45 percent and housing prices continue to plunge. The Fed's low interest rates and lending facilities have helped to keep the banking system from collapsing, but they've failed to get consumers or businesses spending again. The economy is tanking fast. Paul L. Kasriel, the Director of Economic Research at The Northern Trust Company summed up Bernanke's dilemma like this:

"In a sustained housing bust that causes banks to take a big hit to their capital (low interest rates) simply will not matter. This is essentially what happened recently in Japan and also in the US during the Great Depression. Most people are not aware of actions the Fed took during the Great Depression. Bernanke claims that the Fed did not act strong enough during the great depression. This is simply not true. The Fed slashed interest rates and injected huge sums of base money but it did no good. More recently, Japan did the same thing. It also did no good. If default rates get high enough, banks will simply be unwilling to lend which will severely limit money and credit creation." (Interview with Paul Kasriel; Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis)

In fact, the banks are just one part of the problem. Another part is the shortage of creditworthy borrowers now that home equity is drying up and the standards for loans have gotten tougher. Most people have seen their personal wealth vanish and their 401-Ks shrivel to the size of a chickpea. The Fed chairman faces huge obstacles in trying to restart the credit engine and get maxed out consumers spending again.

Bernanke has expanded the money supply at record pace, but to little effect. The money is stagnating in pools because the financial plumbing is still gunked up from troubles in the banking system. The credit-transmission system has broken down causing a generalized contraction throughout the economy. Business activity has dropped off a cliff. Former Treasury Department economist, Bruce Bartlett, explains the phenomenon like this in his article "What Would Keynes Do?" in Forbes:

"Another problem that policymakers back then didn't grasp is that the money supply's effectiveness depends on how quickly people spend it; something economists call velocity. If velocity falls because people are hoarding cash, it may require a great deal more money to keep the economy operating.

Think of it this way: Velocity is the ratio of the money supply to the gross domestic product. If GDP is $10 trillion and money turns over 10 times per year, then $1 trillion in money supply will be sufficient. But if velocity falls to 9, a $1 trillion money supply will only support a $9 trillion GDP. If the Fed doesn't want GDP to shrink by 10%, it will have to increase the money supply by 10%.

This is essentially the problem we have today. Unlike in the 1930s, the Fed is not allowing the money supply to diminish. Also, we have programs like federal deposit insurance to prevent bank deposits from shrinking. But velocity is collapsing. Banks, businesses and households are all hoarding cash, not spending except for essentials. This is bringing on the deflation that is crippling the economy."

This is why Bernanke has launched his radical intervention; buying bonds, stocks and anything else that will keep asset-prices from crashing. It's an attempt to reignite spending by goosing the market. When businesses and consumers can't sustain demand, the government has to step in and take their place. Otherwise, businesses have to cut costs even more dramatically, sending unemployment soaring while prices continue to nosedive.

The real worry is that Bernanke's pet theory is merely an academic pipe-dream which is doing more harm than good. After all, his strategy is based on a controversial interpretation of history that is only accepted by disciples of Milton Friedman. The idea that a normal recession morphed into the Great Depression because the money supply decreased by one-third between 1929 to 1932, is likely an oversimplification of a very complex situation. If Bernanke's calculations are correct, then where's the proof? Why haven't the zero-percent interest rates and the trillion dollar lending facilities stimulated spending? Instead, the equities markets continue to tumble, corporate profits are down, foreclosures are on the rise, commodities are in freefall, and unemployment made its biggest leap in 30 years. (Unemployment during the Great Depression didn't reach 25 percent for three years. It is actually accelerating faster in 2008 than it did in 1929) So, where's the progress, Ben?

The present list of remedies fail to address the underlying rot in the system itself. That's the problem. There's no doubt that Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers will have better luck mitigating the effects of the slumping economy, but to what end? To stitch together a system which diverts a larger and larger portion of the national wealth to a smaller and smaller group of corporatist and bankers? Is that the measure of success?

No thanks. Besides, the financial crisis is not an accident of nature, like a tornado or an avalanche. It's a self-inflicted wound that can be traced back to particular policies that were put in place to shift wealth from one class to another. The low interest rates, the massive leveraging, the undercapitalized institutions, the off-balance sheets operations were all concocted with the same objective in mind. The Fed's repertoire may change, but the results are always the same, reflecting the deeply-held class bias which orders the economy according to the interests of rich and powerful.

Besides, there's reason to believe that Bernanke doesn't fully grasp the fundamental problem, that economic growth in recent years was predicated on a flawed model that can't be restored. Consumers were able to spend beyond their means because their personal assets were greatly inflated by the availability of easy credit and lax lending standards. Now that risk is being repriced, debt deflation has set in and prices are plummeting across the spectrum. Homeowners are feeling the pinch because they can't tap into their home equity which amounted to $800 billion in 2006. The process of lowering interest rates by spreading risk throughout the system (securitization) has bogged down, sending investors fleeing from the markets to the safety of US Treasurys and cold hard cash. Bernanke's attempts to reflate the bubble by buying up Fannie and Freddie's mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and bundled credit card debt from finance companies is a sign of utter desperation. He's like a man pumping air into a punctured tire, pushing up and down furiously while the air hisses out the other side.

The economy is contracting because the excessive spending was based on artificially low interest rates and debt leveraging. In The End of Prosperity Fred Magdoff and Paul Sweezy wrote:

“In the absence of a severe depression during which debts are forcefully wiped out or drastically reduced, government rescue measures to prevent collapse of the financial system merely lay the groundwork for still more layers of debt and additional strains during the next economic advance.” As Minsky put it, “Without a crisis and a debt-deflation process to offset beliefs in the success of speculative ventures, both an upward bias to prices and ever-higher financial layering are induced." (John Bellamy and Fred Magdoff, "Financial Implosion and Stagnation", Monthly Review)

This is the market model that Bernanke and Paulson are trying to resuscitate, but without much success. The credit that once gushed from the hedge funds and investment banks has slowed to a trickle. It's no longer possible to take complex debt-instruments and amplify their value 30 or 40 times over. Investors have seen through the swindle and boycotted the market for pools of debt packaged as securities. As foreclosures rise, the banks balance sheets will continue to hemorrhage, forcing them to make margin calls that will push more and more financial institutions into bankruptcy. This is what happens when the underlying economy can no longer support a oversized financial system because wages have stagnated and workers are unable to make the interest payments of their loans. The whole system begins to buckle. John Bellamy and Fred Magdoff explain the origins of "financialization" in their article "Financial Implosion and Stagnation":

"It was the reality of economic stagnation beginning in the 1970s, as heterodox economists Riccardo Bellofiore and Joseph Halevi have recently emphasized, that led to the emergence of “the new financialized capitalist regime,” a kind of “paradoxical financial Keynesianism” whereby demand in the economy was stimulated primarily “thanks to asset-bubbles.” Moreover, it was the leading role of the United States in generating such bubbles—despite (and also because of) the weakening of capital accumulation proper—together with the dollar’s reserve currency status, that made U.S. monopoly-finance capital the “catalyst of world effective demand.”

Magdoff and Bellamy's theory confirms that there was a coherent plan to expand financial markets into riskier areas to compensate for the stagnation which unavoidably occurs in capitalist economies. The real problem is rooted in the hostility of corporate bosses towards workers which translates into wages that don't keep pace with production. When wages languish, in an economy that is 70 percent consumer spending, the only way to increase GDP is by expanding credit. And that, in fact, is exactly how it has played out. Trickle down ideologues, like Henry Paulson, make every effort to extend credit to anyone with a pulse and a body temperature of 98.2 degrees, but they fight tooth and nail to crush the unions or any attempt to raise salaries. And Paulson, of course, is not alone in waging class warfare; he is just an extreme example.

The bottom line, is that financialization, which rests on the twin pillars of easy credit and ballooning debt, creates an inherently unstable system which is prone to wild swings and frequent busts. Bernanke is trying to restore this system ignoring the fact that workers--whose personal balance sheets are already bleeding red--can no longer support it. No amount of tinkering in the credit markets will reduce the overcapacity bulging throughout the system or add one farthing a poor man's bank account. There is a historic mismatch between supply and demand that cannot be reconciled by Bernanke's market meddling. Workers need a raise; that's how demand is created.

The same message goes out to Obama's economic team, too. The stimulus package might get the economy through the short-term crisis, but if wages don't rise, the economy will continue to underperform. That's why the new Prez would be well advised to quickly pass The Employee Free Choice Act (also known as the "card check") which would end secret ballots in union elections. It may be the most important piece of legislation in a decade. Its passage would ease union organizing and help to grow union membership which has dwindled to about 10 percent of the work force.

Forget about the fake differences between the two political parties. There aren't any. The only hope for deep structural change is to strengthen the unions and give workers a place at the policy table. That's the only peaceful way to dismantle this parasitic financial regime and bring about a more equitable distribution of wealth.

Author retains copyright.

GREECE'S conservative Government, hanging on to power by just one seat, was being pushed to stand down and call an election as the nation endured a fifth day of demonstrations, clashes and strikes - the worst civil unrest in 30 years.

National stoppages - called by unions demanding improved wages and state support for low-income families - have closed banks, schools and businesses for 24 hours, grounding flights at Athens airport.

Despite calls from the Government for a postponement of the strike amid fears of further violence, the General Confederation of Greek Labour (GSEE) and the civil servants union - which represent about 2.5 million people - persevered, hosting union rallies outside parliament, adding intense pressure on the centre-right Government of the Prime Minister, Costas Karamanlis.

On Tuesday, thousands of protesters marched on the parliament in Athens, chanting bitter anti-government slogans and baiting police. Hours later, an estimated 6000 men, women and children donned mourning clothes to pay their respects at the funeral of the boy shot by police in a street altercation on Saturday night.

Alexandros Grigoropoulos, 15, died when police responded with gunfire after a squad car was allegedly pelted with stones by a group of youths in central Athens.

The lawyer for the two policemen charged over the killing said yesterday that a ballistics report showed the boy had been hit by a ricochet and not a direct shot. Alexis Cougias said this corroborated the officers' account that they had fired warning shots and not directly at the teenager.

The boy's family pleaded for privacy and calm at his funeral on Tuesday, and the burial in a coastal suburban neighbourhood unfolded without incident.

However, groups of young men later turned violent, throwing rocks and petrol bombs when riot police moved in. Police ignored local residents' calls for restraint and hurled tear gas into the crowd to disperse the youths.

The nation's 45,000-strong police force is on full alert in what is regarded as the biggest security mobilisation since Athens hosted the 2004 Olympics.

The shooting of the boy appears to have touched a nerve with Greeks of all ages, who are becoming dissatisfied with rising unemployment, deepening political scandals, and a sense of powerlessness in the face of the global economic downturn.

The opposition leader called for an immediate election, claiming the Government had failed to protect its citizens.

"This country does not have a government," said George Papandreou, leader of the socialist PASOK party. "We claim power … The only thing this government can offer is to resign."

Rioters have barricaded themselves into at least two university campuses in Athens. Police and military cannot enter educational institutions after a 1973 student uprising that resulted in the deaths of 22 people at the Athens Polytechnic.

Reuters quoted Panagiotis Sotiris, 38, of a coalition of leftist groups, as saying the violence was sparked by the teenager's death and by the "struggle to overthrow the Government's policy".

© 2008 The Sydney Morning Herald

In his Nov. 16 interview on CBS’s “60 minutes,” President-elect Barack Obama reiterated his pledge to shut down Guantanamo Bay and end U.S.-sponsored torture. Both actions would be “part and parcel of an effort to regain America’s moral stature in the world,” he said.

Obama’s advisers are similarly encouraging him to look to the future and avoid the appearance of seeking vengeance for past practices. But many legal experts insist it’s as important not to let those responsible for diminishing America’s moral stature get away scot-free.

“When we speak about accountability, we’re not talking about vengeance,” lawyer and writer Scott Horton told at a packed forum on torture at New York University School of Law last week. “We’re really talking about the future.” President George W. Bush “has set a precedent that we cannot let stand.”

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), who also attended the forum, added: “Accountability is one of the most important questions before the country. It’s critical to preventing a recurrence of the lawbreaking that clearly has been done [by this administration].”

Liberal lawyers and civil rights advocates have been calling for prosecutions, even impeachment, of Bush officials tied to torture for years. Elizabeth Holtzman, a former Democratic congresswoman, published “The Impeachment of George W. Bush” in 2006. Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, published his book, “The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld: A Prosecution by Book,” in September. Others have published volumes of evidence implicating Bush officials in potentially criminal conduct . Among the most influential are Jane Mayer’s “The Dark Side,” Phillipe Sands’ “Torture Team” and “The Torture Papers,” a collection of administration documents on detainee abuses edited by Karen Greenberg, executive director of the Center on Law and Security at NYU, and Joshua Dratel, a prominent defense attorney who represents detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

But as the administration nears its end, the debate over what Obama should do about officials who authorized torture, humiliation or systematic abuse of detainees as part of the “war on terror” has become more urgent. (The NYU forum attracted so much interest that hundreds of vociferous supporters of prosecution were denied entry into the auditorium because of fire-code restrictions.)

Even as the pressure on Obama to take action grows, some prominent legal experts are urging restraint.

In a Nov. 26 Op-Ed in the Washington Post, Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith, director of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Dept. from 2003-2004, urged the incoming administration to let bygones be bygones. The decisions to use waterboarding or other forms of torture on terrorist suspects should not be prosecuted as criminal actions, he argued. Instead, they were wartime policy decisions that shouldn’t be second-guessed by lawyers. “[T]he greater danger now is that lawyers will become excessively cautious in giving advice and will substitute predictions of political palatability for careful legal judgment,” he wrote.

But what if President Bush pardoned himself and all other officials who authorized abusive interrogations of prisoners? Would that render the torture-accountability debate moot?

In August, Stuart Taylor Jr., a Brookings Institute fellow and columnist for Newsweek and the National Journal, argued that the president should issue a blanket pardon — and leave it to a non-prosecutorial truth commission to set the record straight for posterity.

Atty. Gen Michael Mukasey, however, has insisted repeatedly that neither investigations nor pardons are needed, because everyone in the administration was acting on the advice of Justice Dept. lawyers — and thus did nothing wrong.

As the debate over accountability heats up, the possibility of Bush issuing a blanket pardon increases — and that outrages lawyers and legislators who would see such a move as a flagrant abuse of executive power.

In November, Nadler, the congressman, introduced a House resolution urging the president not to pardon officials who authorized torture and potential lawbreaking. Since then, Democrats.com has been circulating a petition on the Internet to collect signatures of those who support the resolution. So far, almost 50,000 have signed it.

But legal experts say that neither the resolution nor the petition would have any legal effect on the matter.

“Congress can’t control the pardon power,” said New York University law professor David Golove, an expert on executive power. “For practical purposes, there are no clear limits.”

The breadth of the president’s pardon power has been challenged before, particularly after President Abraham Lincoln pardoned former confederate officials who swore an oath of loyalty to the Union. But in Ex Parte Garland, the Supreme Court spelled out just how far-reaching the president’s power is.

The pardon power “clothe[s] the president with the power to pardon all offenses, and thereby to wash away the legal stain and extinguish all the legal consequences of treason — all penalties, all punishments, and everything in the nature of punishment,” the court ruled.

Accordingly, if Bush pardoned administration officials accused of authorizing torture — say, Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, former Cheney chief of staff Richard Addington or former Justice Dept. lawyer John Yoo, to name a few frequently mentioned possibilities — legal experts say the pardons would be extremely difficult to challenge in court. The fact that none of these men have been convicted of anything makes no difference.

The Confederates pardoned by Lincoln hadn’t been indicted or tried, either. Similarly, President Jimmy Carter preemptively pardoned draft evaders during the Vietnam War when he took office in 1976. Even the Watergate-plagued Richard Nixon, pardoned by Gerald Ford in 1974, was never convicted of a crime.

Could Bush pardon himself?

That’s legally dicey. Although it’s never been done before, nothing in the Constitution specifically prevents it.

“I do not believe that a president can issue a pardon of himself,” said Holtzman, a panelist at the NYU forum. “I believe that would be an abuse of the pardon power.”

Some say that pardoning administration officials whose actions you signed off on would also be an abuse of power. Allowing a president to do that may set a precedent that’s even more destructive, say some legal experts, because it would remove any incentive for future presidents to follow the law.

“One of the most effective potential weapons to assure that a runaway executive does not violate the rule of law is that the people who carry out the president’s wishes are themselves subject to legal jeopardy,” said Golove.

In that regard, the U.S. presidency is similar to the British system. Although by law the English king could do no wrong, his ministers could, explained Golove. “So the way you controlled the crown was by threatening to bring criminal prosecutions against those who carry out his orders.”

That’s been the case in the United States as well. “So to allow the president to pardon those people is to remove to a considerable extent the incentive for the executive branch to follow the law,” contended Golove. “I see this as a terrible problem.”

Carolyn Patty Blum, emeritus professor at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law, agrees. “Bush doesn’t really need to pardon himself if he preemptively pardons others, because then no one has an incentive to talk about his role.”

Some commentators, such as Taylor, have argued that a blanket pardon would still allow for the appointment of a truth commission along the lines of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It could be easier for such a body to learn what really happened because participants wouldn’t face jail for participating.

But Blum, a consultant to the International Center for Transitional Justice, which specializes in accountability for human-rights abuses, disagrees. “[Our] institutional experience working with truth commissions around the world is that the opposite happens. Once people feel they are already protected, they don’t have any incentive to come forward.”

In South Africa, she noted, people were pardoned only after they testified truthfully about their crimes.

Pardons for administration officials would not necessarily close down the inquiry, however. A pardon wouldn’t stop victims of torture from suing U.S. officials, for example, and revealing the truth — although federal government officials can claim all sorts of immunities that would make such cases difficult to pursue in the United States. And a pardon would not prevent another country, or an international tribunal, from investigating and prosecuting war crimes and other violations of international law.

“Hitler could not pardon himself and the Nazi general staff for war crimes committed during World War II,” said Golove. “Even if he could have pardoned them under German law, that wouldn’t have had any effect at the Nuremberg Tribunal.”

As Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights noted at the NYU forum, “You cannot pardon war crimes and torture. Maybe here, but they’re not going to walk so freely in Europe.”

The center and prosecutors abroad have already sought to bring administration officials to trial in Germany, France, Italy and Spain, among other countries. Although charges probably wouldn’t land any U.S. officials behind bars, it could at least put a crimp in their travel plans — and prompt investigations that might further tarnish the Bush legacy.

© 2008 The Washington Independent

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