Dick Cheney, it has been said, fears that "somebody will Pinochet him." ... If Cheney really loved his country, he would demand that a grand jury be convened, he would want a world where the schoolchildren of tomorrow, his own grandchildren and great-grandchildren, can truly pledge that there will be justice for all.You should read the entire piece, it won't take long.
He would want to clear his name and never more see it even remotely associated with Pinochet, that thief, that traitor, that man who tortured his own people and lives on only in the annals of villainy.
But this is the thing: Dorfman is truly wrong about the "justice for all" part. Cheney believes in Richard Nixon's concept of the law and the presidency, which is: "If the President does it, it is legal."[1] That is why Cheney all but ordered Bush to pardon Scooter Libby.[2]
Cheney was an elected tyrant. He probably will not live long enough to be tried for his crimes, at least not in a court of law. But in the judgment of history, he will be named for what he was: A brutal war criminal.
And we, the citizens of the United States, will go down as this generation's version of the "good little germans" who closed our eyes and ears to the crimes being committed in our names and did nothing about it.
Cheney stained the honor of this country. His eagerness to pervert the material witness statutes into tools for holding people in detention without access to counsel or the courts and his advocacy for the use of torture stained the honor of this country. It gave moral cover to other brutal regimes who tortured their own people.
But that stain on our national honor need not have been permanent. We, the people, the citizens of this country, by not demanding that Cheney be held to account for his crimes, have made Cheney's stain irrevocable.
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[1] Of course that only applies to Republican presidents. Undoubtedly, Cheney subscribes to the GOP view that Democratic presidents would be executed for illegal parking.
[2] Somewhere around 2006, Bush seems to have figured out that he didn't have to do what his Uncle Dick wanted him to do.
EB, it is the people like yourself who make it possible for America to redeem herself. You might feel you are a small light in a vast darkness but you are a light. Keep talking about justice, liberty and honest government and who knows it might snowball into a grass roots cause.....Allan
ReplyDeleteDictator Cheney and his partner "Bush the Stupid" has already been tried in this household and they have been found guilty of multiple crimes that would bring the death penalty by the uncivilized. We try to be civilized. Now those who are not bringing these two to justice are being tried.
ReplyDeleteI hate to think that this criminal scumbag thinks to this day that 'he' is "more" patriotic than I am.
ReplyDeleteI can NOT wait for him to tried and sentanced as the Criminal Scumbag he is.
He is a STAIN upon the land of America.
w3ski
> We, the people, the citizens of this country, by not demanding that Cheney be held to account for his crimes, have made Cheney's stain irrevocable.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree with everything you say--but I do wantcha to know that I personally wrote to Obama personally in January 2009 pleading with him to make sure the BushCheney war criminals got prosecuted so the rest of the world might possibly forgive us or at least give us some cred. And I seriously doubt I was the only one.