Arrest warrants for more than 120 former soldiers and agents of Chile's National Intelligence Directorate were issued Tuesday for alleged human rights violations during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, CNN Chile reported.
Quoted from www.cnn.com, Sept. 2, 2009
The news out of Chile is heartening to anyone who believes there are certain crimes for which a statute of limitations should not apply. The arrests of the former agents of dictator Augusto Pinochet will help bring closure to the thousands of family members whose loved ones simply vanished during the 1970’s and 1980’s, and whose bodies have never been recovered.
I do not wish to be accused of “moral equivalency” when comparing the United States to other countries whose governments committed widespread atrocities. Nothing that the United States has done in modern times is equivalent to what happened in Chile during the Pinochet dictatorship. Still, I am struck by the willingness of that country to fully investigate the crimes its government committed against its own people. Crimes, by the way, that were defended at the time as being necessary to the security of the state.
Right now there is a big hullabaloo in the United States about whether the Obama Administration should investigate if officials in the Bush Administration committed criminal acts in the prosecution of the War on Terror. Not all of the skeptics are conservative Republicans, either. When President Obama stresses that we as a nation should look forward, rather than dwell on the past, he is offering at least implicit support for the position that the nation should not investigate possible Bush abuses.
My question is this: At what point is it OK to forget the crimes of the past, and when is it necessary for a nation to cleanse itself of past sins?
Of course, part of the problem we have in the United States is a disagreement on semantics. Is “waterboarding” torture or not? Former Vice President Cheney insists it is not. This legal uncertainty needs to be clarified. The only way we will ever achieve clarity on this subject is to actually prosecute those who authorized or engaged in waterboarding. Did their actions break anti-torture statutes and treaties? If they are found guilty, they can be pardoned if the circumstances warrant – which they very well might, especially for low level operatives who were given shoddy legal advice from their superiors.
As long as the United States refuses to investigate and prosecute what a reasonable person could view as criminal activity, that activity will repeat itself. If Bush officials are exonerated, then at least we know what kind of a country we live in, and we can put to rest the naive concept of United States’ moral exceptionalism. That distinction can go to a nation on the other side of the American landmass: Chile.
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Comments
that's why we don't look forward, not back, when it comes to assault, breaking and entering, perjury, murder and other crimes equivalent to the offenses of the Bush/Cheney administration
but the end of his life, Pinochet was unable to leave his country for fear of arrest and prosecution for crimes against humanity, I'd guess that the same fate awaits Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Ashcroft, Gonzalez, Powell, Addington, Feith, Woo, Hadley, etc, etc
You can't have it both ways. Either people are held accountable for their crimes or they are not. It can't just be "some" of the people.
I think it would be right for the Bush administration to be prosecuted for their abuses of people they capture and interrogated in the "War on Terror", and I think Dick Cheney might feel differently about waterboarding if it were done to him. A part of me thinks that it would be great to put that theory into practice, but I also think it is unrealistic right now. I think our country is in such a mess that we need to do some remedial things first, like get our economy back on track.
Although if we can find a way to do both at the same time, I'm all for it.
So the Chileans, who are both perpetrators and the victims of Pinochet, have a clear interest in pursuing this. Americans? Not so much.
I would be utterly delighted if anyone here could prove me wrong about this.
Alan, I'm reminded of Thomas Jefferson, who once postulated that nations need revolutionary upheaval once in a generation. Like you, I'm not too sure I want to experience it, though. I just think it's a dangerous game to let the powerful off the hook for actions that are so contrary to our nation's aspirations and moral standing.
Roy, if I beat the crap out of my neighbor I'd probably hope the police decide to look forward! Then I can beat him up again later.
spoons, that's why I wanted to make it crystal clear that the United States' actions don't rise to the level of Pinochet's. Although, it is pretty well documented that prisoners subjected to "enhanced interrogation" died.
You live in Germany, but (as far as I know) you are not a German citizen. Still, aren't you glad you are protected by German law? Otherwise, you could be arrested and tortured with absolutely no consequence to those doing the arresting and torturing. One's nationality is irrelevant, you are still protected by the law when you are in a "Rechtsstaat".
Procopius -- I fully agree with you. If I would begin a comment in support of your post and comments, I'm afraid it would turn into a multi-page commentary/diatribe/rant. Neither of us want that.
We cannot say that we are a nation of laws when we allow those in government to circumvent those laws. There needs to be an investigation, but one that is impartial.
I mean, I'd hate to see Blackwater running an investigation into alleged violations. :-D
Thumbed. Raising a toast to the people of Chile.
But think how long it took in Chile.
Article VI of the US Constitution declares that the Constitution and treaties ratified by the US constitute the highest laws of the land. The US ratified the Convention Against Torture and that convention requires that anyone alleged to have committed torture or to have aided or abetted torture must be prosecuted or extradited to a lawful nation that will prosecute them. Both Bush and Cheney confessed (boasted?) on television that they authorized torture. If we are a law-abiding nation with a Constitutional government then torture must be prosecuted or the alleged perpetrators extradited. That's not so hard to understand. Torture and the response to torture by this nation exemplifies the contempt in which those in the US military are held, despite the ribbons and flag lapels, because it leaves them without any protection from torture. I have been waiting for the media to thank Iran and North Korea for not forcing false confessions from captured US journalists as we did with POWs. I am still waiting.