Feb 07 2008

United States of America: Rogue State

It has come to that.

With the admission of torture, and by claiming the right to torture again…America has undoubtedly crossed the line.

The two possible and agreed upon most heinous violations of International Law for nations, and indeed of basic moral decency….are waging aggressive war and torture. And America has done both.

Now normally what would happen, in a democracy that has committed undeniable, and indeed admitted War Crimes such as illegally invading another country or torture…would be someone in the opposition party calling for investigations and prosecution of the responsible parties. In this case George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. But that is where we run into a bit of a problem….that is where we cross the line from a State that has committed crimes to a Rogue State. Because that is NOT happening.

And it is NOT a mystery as to why it is not happening.

The Democrats, with Pelosi and Reid as their figureheads, have been reprehensibly lax, criminally lax in their Constitutional and moral duty to stop the excesses of George Bush. They have become his accomplices. They have voted for illegal War, they have continued to vote to fund illegal war …and several of them including Nancy Pelosi were briefed on the use of torture by the CIA and did virtually nothing to stop it.

Those who would normally be charged with stopping and/or prosecuting the War Crimes of the Bush Administration allowed either allowed themselves to be compromised…or worse, chose to be complicit out of political considerations and expediency.

They are now choosing not to bring impeachment investigations against the instigators of the War Crimes that have been committed, thus grievously deepening their complicity and guilt. Thus removing the only recourse for Justice at our disposal. Out of what can only be viewed as self-preservation. Criminal self-preservation.

This can lead to only one conclusion, if America will not right its own ship of state and hold itself accountable for the crimes it has committed, it becomes a rogue state. It declares itself to be above international laws and standards. It leaves the company of nations that adhere to the Rule of Law.

What other conclusion is possible?

And as the most mighty nuclear power on the face of the earth, as well as one that has already show its contempt for international laws and standards, what other counry will call them to account? The Bush Administration has done it’s best…and succeeded… at discrediting and declawing the UN. It refuses to acknowledge the International Criminal Court. The War Criminals appear to have won.

And that means that they have taken this once proud nation and reduced it to the level of a Banana Republic ruled by a petty dictator, all with the complicit of Congress.

The only difference being that we have elections. And apparently, with the current Dem Congress willing to aid and abet…or at the VERY least, not hold accountable….the now admitted War Criminals, our only real hope for justice lies there.

From the comments in the Dkos version of DWG’s essay, rontripp asks the pertinent question of our candidates:

 “The President has now admitted that he has authorized a technique, known as water boarding to be used on several detainees held by US forces.

   This technique has been declared to be unlawful by the United Nations.

   If you are elected president would you consider it to be your official duty under the circumstances to order the arrest and trial of the President you will be replacing because of this admission? Please answer Yes or No.”

And of course, in the current political climate, still reeling in the stench of fear that Bush used to make all of this…the illegal invasion and torture and secret prisons and the spying on Americans and all the rest possible…they will not answer. Not that the media will ask the questions anyway, for they are complicit in their own way as well.

.

So we are left as many have observed, with a classic case of the Emperor’s New Clothes; The invasion was illegal, the spying was illegal, the torture was illegal. Crimes have been committed, crimes have been admitted…and yet no one has yet stood up and pointed this out and demanded justice for these crimes against humanity.

All we can do as citizens is point our fingers and yell the truth and demand justice. And until it arrives…never, never let this be forgotten.

Until the War Criminals are held to account and tried…America IS, and will remain, a nation that holds itself above the Law….a rogue nation.

26 comments

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  1. as I can think of nothing clever to go with this that would not be in bad taste….except perhaps a memorial wreath for what we once were, the beacon of freedom and human rights in the world.

    • Tigana on February 7, 2008 at 20:18
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    Buhdy, as you have called before – we must hold a strike. BushCo can’t run wirhout us.  

    • DWG on February 7, 2008 at 20:39
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    According to the Washington Post, Mukasey has ruled out a criminal probe into waterboarding. The logic is astounding.

    Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey said this morning that waterboarding was deemed legal by the Justice Department at the time it was used by the CIA on three al-Qaeda captives, and as a result the Justice Department “cannot possibly” investigate whether a crime occurred.

    In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Mukasey said that because waterboarding was part of a program approved by Justice lawyers, there is no way the department can open a criminal investigation into the practice.

    “Waterboarding, because it was authorized to be part of a program … cannot possibly be the subject of a Justice Department investigation,” Mukasey said in response to questions from panel Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.).

    “That would mean that the same department that authorized the program would now prosecute someone for taking part” in it, he said.

    I guess it would be too much to ask that Mukasey drag Gonzales or Ashcroft into court for authorizing it in the first place.  Rogue nation status accomplished.

  4. passed into rogue state territory when we started an optional war that has killed over 1 million people and turned another 4 or 5 million into refugees in need of dire humanitarian assistance.

    For Billmon we turned into a rogue state when our soldiers were caught trading photos of mangled corpses for online pornography access, the two streams of porno commingled into one.

    But really a nation that spends as much on militarism as we do is guaranteed to be a rogue state. As Naomi Klein and others have pointed out, the recent debate about torture forgets all the other torturing we’ve done.

  5. According to this Wiki:

    Rogue state is a term applied by some international theorists to states considered threatening to the world’s peace. This means meeting certain criteria, such as being ruled by authoritarian regimes that severely restrict human rights, sponsor terrorism, and seek to proliferate weapons of mass destruction.

    In the last six months of the Clinton administration, the term “rogue state” was temporarily replaced with the term “state of concern,” however, the Bush administration has returned to the earlier term. The U.S. government perceives the threat posed by these states as justifying its foreign policy and military initiatives, as in the case of anti-ballistic missile programs, which are held to be grounded in the concern that these states will not be deterred by the certainty of retaliation.

    In late 1990s U.S. officials considered North Korea, Pakistan[citation needed], Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Libya as “rogue states”. The U.S.-Pakistani alliance following the 9/11 terrorist attacks removed Pakistan from the list. The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan removed the country from the list, and Iraq followed suit after the U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq. Libya achieved success through diplomacy and now is also not considered in the list. The concept of “rogue states” was replaced by the Bush administration with the “Axis of Evil” concept (gathering Iraq, Iran, and North Korea). U.S. President George W. Bush first spoke of this “Axis of Evil” during his January 2002 State of the Union Address.

    As the U.S. government remains the most active proponent of the “rogue state” expression, the term has received much criticism from those who disagree with U.S. foreign policy. Critics charge that “rogue state” merely means any state that is generally hostile to the U.S., or even one that opposes the U.S. without necessarily posing a wider threat. Some point to the double standards over Pakistan which blatantly breaches nuclear non-proliferation protocols by exporting nuclear weapons technology, yet is no longer considered to be a “rogue state” by the U.S. [1] [2] Some others, such as author William Blum, have written that the term is applicable to the U.S. and Israel. Both the concepts of rogue states and the “Axis of Evil” have been criticized by certain scholars, including philosopher Jacques Derrida and linguist Noam Chomsky, who considered it more or less a justification of imperialism and a useful word for propaganda.

    So maybe instead of adopting the “rogue state” meme, we need a different, more descriptive term.  “The Lawless Empire” comes to mind.  You may have your own words.  But anybody who thinks the lawlessness of “rogue states” isn’t dwarfed by the US’s activities is dreaming.  

    • Edger on February 7, 2008 at 22:22
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    America no longer belongs to Americans.

    Maybe the troops should be redeployed from Iraq to Washington, DC to preemptively invade the White House and use overwhelming military force to achieve regime change and install a friendly government there, and deliver freedom and democracy to America.

    This could be a problem.

    Better to just arrest Bush and Cheney.  

    • ANKOSS on February 8, 2008 at 04:11
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    Almost all of us cheered for the war to bring down Saddam. It was one of the most perfectly executed propaganda campaigns in history. Now most of us can’t accept that we share responsibility for the horrors that have been revealed. This is why the Democrats don’t go after Bush: because they know that the public doesn’t want its shameful complicity exposed.

    We will all pay for our collective dishonesty. America has become the thing we most detested: a corrupt and brutal power.

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