Letters to the Editor
Ijon Tichy
Published Letters: 452 Editor's Choice: 69
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A question for Mr. Shapiro
[Read the article: The man who ended our Nixon nightmare]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What banana republics subject their disgraced presidents to jail or financial ruin? I'm wracking my brain here,Mr. Shapiro. Is Fujimoro finally donning a striped suit? I haven't done a serious Google search, but my cursory search does show that prior presidents have been murdered (Guatemala, Chile, Argentina, fled with the country's assets to friendly foreign climes (Papa and Baby Doc, Fidel Marcos, the Shah), or died in mysterious plane crashes (Trujillo); or in the rare case, been executed or rocket grenade by whatever revolutionary government that overthrew them (Baptista, the Nicaraguan guy).
The only banana dictator I recall who ever ended up in prison was Manuel Noriega who happened to be jailed by ... (wait for it)... us, as in the US. Well, maybe jailing is what countries that aren't banana republics do. That is, when they are not using their intelligence service to overthrow any "banana republic" that has the nerve to democratically elect a leader we don't like (See Guatemala, Chile, Argentina, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Honduras etc etc.).
No, civilized countries like us, don't jail or sue our former leaders for real violations of law or abuse of office. No, we undermine other democratic countries, assassinate, jail or sue their leaders for crimes against capitalism and daring to use their power to be something other than a banana republic.
How ironic that at a time when Augusto Pinochet, the darling of one of the worst criminal offenses of our government of "laws not men" passed away - and gives me one reason for believing in hell - Mr. Shapiro should wax so eloquent about the virtuous nature and actions of our shining beacon of liberty and its ultimate symbol; an unelected president pardoning a criminal.
Mr. Shapiro, a nation made of laws not men acts like it is truly bound by those laws, not by its desire to assume any man annointed leader by this country is beyond guilt or obesience to those laws. That is not constitutional democracy, but papacy. Your argument works well with the Pope where Canonical law is well founded in absolution of any Pope for anything no matter how dire, because God annointed him. However papal law is not our constitutional and common law.
The lesson of Ford's pardon is not the survival of our Republic, but the undermining of its very foundations and the argument that a President is above the law, even infallible. No wonder we are where we are today.
Ford's unpardonable act is in fact the seed that lead future leaders to act not just recklessly, but with impugnity, knowing they are above the law. Nixon's pardon and inevitable rehabilitation as an elder statesmen is the act that not only allowed Bush to invade a country against all Constitutional and international law, but to likely avoid the prosecution and incarceration he so richly deserves for his criminal and deadly acts.
That is Gerald Ford's legacy.
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Saddam hangs for killing several thousand Iraqis
[Read the article: Saddam: The death of a dictator]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And yet Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz walk the earth free men.
Trying, convicting and hanging him in the middle of a bloody civil war he ruthlessly kept in check would be true farce if it weren't so tragic. I actually felt sorry for the former dictator; which is amazing considering who he was, but a testimony to how bad our own "tinpot general" ruined that country.
If history is any guide, things will get far worse before they get any better. France followed the execution of its king with it's Reign of Terror, Russia had its bloody civil war, Somalia, Yugoslavia... these are histories lessons to sweeping away the old regime and leaving nothing legitimate to replace it with. When the blood and dust finally settle, I believe the Iraqis will remember who was responsible for all this, and we may well be fighting them over here, because we fought them over there.
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The operative word here is "victory"
[Read the article: Same as it ever was]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Your question suggests Bush is focused on ending the conflict and achieving peace in Iraq. Would that were so. Sadly, Bush is focused only on victory.
Peace and stability amid a civil war requires negotiation, compromise, conceding some self interests and permitting opposing sides to gain some of their own interests in return for conceding others. It recognizes that any opposition is a legitimate party with equal validity as our own or those we support. Where peace, and not self interest, is the ultimate objective, self interest on all sides must be compromised and the outcome may be less than what the original goal was. Compromise may leave all parties less than satisfied, but if successful, satisfied enough to abandon violence. This was the hard truth faced, and finally accepted, by the British, Protestants and IRA in Northern Ireland. It is not one Bush is willing to accept.
Every speech he has given since he landed on the deck of the USS Lincoln in his "war suit" has uttered the same words over and over again: "Victory." In Bush's brain victory means a winner and a loser. He is determined to be a winner, a victor, and that those who oppose him be vanguished. Those that battle the US forces and Iraqi government, those that support them, Iran, Syria, Al Quaida, must be losers. There can be no in between, no compromise. The Bush world is black and white, his cause is just and blessed by God. The enemies of his army and his Iraq are not just and cannot be negotiated with as they have no legitimacy, definitely no legitimacy equal to his messianic goals.
Until Bush stops speaking "victory" and starts speaking "peace" expect more of the same, "surge" "stand up/stand down, no retreat, no surrender, no withdraw from the fight, no option but "victory."