[Marxism] torture and the rule of law

[Dbachmozart@xxxxxxx]

clip from Glenn Greenwald's blog at salon.com 
 
"I never thought I would say this, but I think it might, in fact, be time for 
 the United States to be held internationally to a tribunal. I never thought, 
in  my lifetime, that I would say that, that we have become like Serbia, 
where an  international tribunal has to come to force us to apply the rule of 
law. 
I never  imagined that a Congress, a Democratic-led Congress would refuse to 
take  actions, even with the preeminent institution of the Red Cross saying, 
this is  clearly torture and torture is a war crime. They are still refusing to 
take  meaningful action."  
So, we've come to this ignoble moment where we could be forced into a  
tribunal and forced to face the rule of law that we've refused to apply to  
ourselves. 
It will never stop being jarring that Pulitzer-Prize-winning revelations from 
 the New York Times that the President and the telecom industry were  
committing felonies for years culminated in the full-scale protection of the  
lawbreakers and retroactive legalization of the criminality by the "opposition  
party" which controls the Congress.  
One cannot coherently sanction or even acquiesce to serious government  
lawbreaking and then feign outrage over illegal torture and other war crimes.  
The 
sanctioning of government illegality is precisely what leads to abuses like  
the American torture regime. Those who have spent the last seven years scoffing 
 at Unserious, Hysterical objections to Bush lawlessness are the very people 
who  have created this climate that they will now pretend to find so 
upsetting. The  "rule of law" isn't some left-wing dogma that is the province 
of 
Leftist  radicals and hysterics. It's the cornerstone of every civilized and 
free 
society  ... 
full article -- 
<http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/07/12/torture/index.html>



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