Finding Our Moral Conscience

That was quite the movie, I saw it a couple of months ago. And, while far too appropriate in this debate, I have no doubt whatever that the WH and its enablers would cherry-pick stuff to support their conclusion. These clown will never heed a lesson that doesn’t match their pre-existing thoughtlines.

Even at end in the movie, Janning knew getting the book thrown at him was indeed the right ruling.

The soulless will never experience torture of the soul.

The most disgusting aspect found in reflecting on the American political class at this point is that, regardless of party, the political class has created an irreparably damaging situation for the US, for the lands we call Iraq, and for the Greater Middle East in general. Egregious, tragic, and catastrophic damage has been done. And the political class simply tries to evade accountability for this by creating a nonsensical and meaningless “debate” at home about illusory issues, for the purposes of harnessing the public hearts and minds in yet another meaningless national election.

The big question is not whether or not Bush or Cheney belong in a Nuremberg situation; the question in truth is “Who amongst the American political class, at this juncture, does NOT belong in a Nuremburg situation.”

Guilty, they almost all are, accountable, none of them ever will be, and absorbing the pain and disaster are an unconceivably large number of suffering and frequently impoverished individuals who simply never had a say in the matter.

There is no mechanism in our “democracy” at this juncture that can provide accountability for all those who need it. Injustice (and incompetence, profound incompetence) have ruled the day.

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Marlon Brando had a good line in “The Young Lions” (1958). He played a young German officer who starts out as an enthusiastic Nazi but becomes disillusioned at the end of the war. Near the end of the film he gets separated from his unit and wanders into a German Police Station, where he’s digusted by the screams of a man being tortured by the Gestapo. He leaves with a Parthian shot:

“I do not think it’s possible to remake the world from the basement of this dirty little police station.”

Much the same caveat applies to the Busheviks. Democracy implies the rule of law, and should be spread through example and persuasion. Instead the Busheviks attempt to apply the old Nazi slogan, “Be my brother or I’ll bash in your head.”

I think that if we are ever to restore the rule of law in this country and get rid of the notion of the unitary executive, we’ll have to have some sort of Nuremberg Trials. Methinks it’s pretty much the only way to restore our credibility in the world. Is Spandau Prison still operational? Impeachment hearings today, war crimes tribunals tomorrow.

Another great post, Larry.

I wrote this in the comments to my essay “He’ll Always Be Abu To Me”:

I think the truth is that evil is done mostly by ordinary people who just ignored the implications and did it anyway. That was undoubtedly true of some of the folks who designed Dachau, and it’s probably true in lots of other situations. You can’t always blame them - people sometimes have to do those things to survive. But often they have alternatives and they don’t take them. That was certainly true in Abu [Gonzalez]’s case.

Besides Bush and Cheney, I think Gonzalez is the one most ressponsible for what’s happened at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. It certainly appears that he never hesitated to do the wrong thing, even though he clearly had a choice. Whether that was due to personal loyalty or just some lust for power is irrelevant to me. The man is utterly despicable.

And none of those guys who went on trial at Nuremburg was the least bit sorry for anything he’d done. Oh, sure, Speer said he was and that he’d been sadly deluded, but he was almost surely faking it, and anyhow he was the only one.

None of our top evil-doers have shown any inclination to acknowledge the slightest bit of guilt. Last week I received one of those chain emails which compared peaceful Muslims to the “good” Germans who didn’t resist Nazism and claimed that all Islam is currently being led by radical fanatics. The whole thing was filled with ridiculous, reprehensible stuff. I feel like the entire country between two looking-glass sets of perceptions of reality. We view the same events but have entirely separate interpretations and moral evaluations. As Dee Loralei says above, we’re no longer governed by the rule of law, but we also don’t agree on how to get back.

You know, it really freaked out my 7th grade history teacher when I checked out Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer. I found out she was concerned I would want to be like a Nazi or something instead of what really had me reading. WWII was a frequent motif in movies I would see on TV, Big Red One, Patton, and stories about Vietnam and Korea were also very impressionable on a boy like me. They sell us army men, and Rambo all in one scoop. I even remember buying the Rambo knife from the back of the Sunday paper insert.

But this book RFTR was amazing to help me get a root understanding of what is misunderstood about terror creeping up from within, the “never happen here” myth.

Now that I’m older I am aware of why real historians consider Shirer’s book to be fairly pedestrian as a history book, but his work is an opening to moral equivalency lies we tell ourselves about what can happen in a “civilized country”.

What is a Good German?
I do know a little of what it means to blindly believe in my country. I was a teen in Reagan’s terms and was caught up the “Red Dawn” beliefs of the Russians. If they told me that a Russian was tortured to keep us from being nuked by the Rushkies, then I’d not have been equipped to question it because of what I was bought into. But thank god, yahweh, or bob dobbs, that we grow up and open our eyes.

This clip is a perfect reminder of what Good Germans will let happen with their eyes closed. Thanks again to Larry for the perspective.

I have too agree with with Larry. All the signs of what our country has become have been evident for a long time and no one, and I mean absolutely no one spoke up and tried to stop it.

The Democrats are just as guilty and are all complicit now in War Crimes. As is all who voted to continue torture, grant immunity for War Crimes to those who committed them under the American War Crimes Act and the stripping of Habeas Corpus out of our Constitution while giving the President the right to label American Citizens Enemy Combatants.

The passing of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 makes them complicit. They knew what they were passing and still refused to filibuster it. They are all War Criminals in my eyes. Both under American Law and International Law {Geneva Conventions}.

I think that we have come too far to turn our country around at this time in our History. I also believe that we will not have elections in 2008 since War with Iran is just around the corner and no one will be able to rein in this madman running our country. Just as no one in the German Legislature was able to rein in Hitler.

He will declare Martial Law and execute Executive Order for the new COG putting the congress and judicial system under his control, while suspending elections during a time of War.

We also now will probably face China and Russia backing Iran and we could very well see mushroom clouds over many of our cities. If he don’t destroy the world with his madness he will leave it in shambles before he is removed from power.

I long for the day Bush and the rest of his administration will sit in the court of the Hague for their Crimes Against Humanity and all the other War Crimes they have committed. And believe me that day will not be soon enough.

End of rant. I’m sorry but I feel that our country is too important not to speak out when one sees where this administration is taking it as it leads it down the path of destruction.

God Bless.

Excellent post Larry, and great comments here as well.

I have long wondered what could have been done by citizens of Germany to prevent Hitler’s horror. What lessons can we learn to prevent this attrocity, or another like it (Iraq??), in the future… Just this past week, I read again on that topic:

I think we need to Impeach, and throw out the residents of the executive mansions, then Indict every one of bushies minions, and send them to a trial before the same court that tried SH for the crimes he was found guilty of commiting. At least they should have the same punishment, since we are talking about CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY as well as TREASON… I’ll volunteer to help them form their final prayers…

Larry a soundly informative piece as usual. Thankyou.

I think I mentioned before that my father was a weapons salesman for the good guys years back, when we were told there was a raging cold war going on. Or rather everyone except President Ford seemed to be of that opinion. How right Ford turned out to be prophetically. My father sold weapons for the good guys on the the basis of the cold war. His premise was that nukes were purely symbolic and a good thing as they acted as a deterent. The bullshit worked with his peers, but I chased him to the grave with the notion that he might be wrong. Fortunately he didn’t last long enough for me to prove him wrong.

Really the World changed with the desimation of Dresden and Hamburg. The whole notion of colateral damage began. It was ok to bomb 10,000’s, 100,000’s of civilians on the pretext there was a legitimate target - industrial, military, UFO….whatever. Colateral damage reached a pinnacle with Hiroshima and Nagasaki which at best were unnecessary. There has been no ceasation of the colateral damage standard, arguably the fault of the Nazi V1 & V2 (in particular) attacks on the UK. Iraq is another example of how war does not impact or has limited impact on military people, but has devestating effect on the civilian populations who square up as lambs to the slaughter. And we have seen a vision with Iran that Nagasaki and Hiroshima were not enough. Those who itch to play with their menacing toys are planning doomsday once again.

Therein is the issue Larry. It is not Nuremburg. It is not the punishment of wrong doers, it is the design of an effective solution to stop the cycle continuing. There is the problem. Colateral damage is now good war policy. It must cease if humanity intends to survive.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18061.htm

don’t know why my link didn’t work in last post…

The first place to do this is through our allies.

The media schills on Murdoch turf in the UK & Australia, the Hill & Knowlton types.

The doughy pantload Jonah Goldberg. He lives in Canada. They’re party to Geneva? What a perfect example he’d be. Heaven forbid he leave Canada and return to the USA fleeing extradition for Nuremberg precedence.

He’d probably have to quit smoking pot all the time. Pity that LBJ’s bastard would have to go so grave a length as that. The right wing schadenfreude theme would be forced to undergo full retreat. An undisclosed bunker awaits, one much like the echo chamber that is Goldberg’s media voice.

Larry, another great movie to watch that’s currently being run on Cinemax is “All The President’s Men.”

Everytime I watch it, I’m reminded of the Bush administration.

Many of the statements made in “All The President’s Men” about Richard Nixon and other top officials in his corrupt administration are chillingly familiar when viewed in the context of what the current Bush administration has been guilty of doing, especially in regards to the Justice Department and our intelligence agencies.

With only one difference that I can tell.

Bush and his gang have gone far beyond what Nixon did to the executive branch, with the Bushites conducting a coordinated attack on the separation of powers, checks and balances, and even on the U.S. Constitution itself, as well as the Bill of Rights…essentially attacking the very foundations of our democracy. Nixon, to his credit, didn’t even go that far.

I’m not as kind as you are Larry. I’ve been calling them ‘neonazicons’ for some time because their pattern is identical to what the nazis did to enslave the masses in Germany to propaganda bullshit. When I was overseas I studied the Nurenburg War Crimes documents and from what I recall, the modus operandi is identical including the German people’s blatantly ignoring of reality and facts.

So who would play Spencer’s role? Muqtada might fill the bill.
To have another Nuremburg, someone would have to have a nation shattering defeat. Judges from the USSR, GB, FRA and the USA sat on the banc at Nuremburg. Would it be judges from Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Lebanon and Afghanistan sitting on the new banc?
Life in Prison, years and years on the public dole. Life in Prison for Madeline Albright? 500,000 children dead over the lifetime of the Iraqi sanctions traded for the paltry few remaining years of her dreadful life? 600,000 Iraqis killed by American combat actions, fair trade for the remaining years of Colin Powell’s life and James Yoo’s and a half a dozen other enablers and justifiers and cheerleaders. Our Lord Haw Haws and Tokyo Roses doing life without parole, making small rocks out of large rocks. Remember that the ones responsible for Germany escaped the punishments, escaped the judgements, as always the remora paid a wee bit and the sharks went on their merry ways.
All the fine sounding bloviation the film writers tranferred to Spencer’s mouth don’t change a thing; don’t mean a thing; don’t signify a thing in today’s world. The victors sat in judgement over the defeated and meted out as they saw fit. It has always been thus and it will always be thus.
Since Nuremburg, there have been three nation supported genocides, a dozen aggressive wars, uncounted small wars and local massacres. Judged by its efficacy, the Nuremburg Tribunal was a bust.

PrchrLady,
There was a German resistance, such as the attempt to assassinate Hitler. But I believe there were too few of them and they tended to be in small, isolated groups that weren’t as coordinated as the French resistance, say.

It’s funny, because in some ways we could compare the German resistance to the American anti-Bushie one. There was an element of the German intelligence and military community that was opposed to Hitler. But Hitler had neutered the press and media and a majority of the public supported Hitler, which made it impossible for the opposition to organize and oppose him publicly. Plus, the opposition couldn’t agree on a coherent message. For example: Some only opposed Hitler’s plan to lead Germany into a world war, but they agreed with Hitler’s other policies. World leaders, such as Neville Chamberlain, also acquiesced to Hitler and emboldened him as a result. We could compare that appeasement to the way other countries are afraid to challenge the US.

Excellent post Larry, thank you.

Judgment at Nuremberg might be a bit too subtle for middle Americans. They’d be waiting for Shatner to tear his shirt and Beam Up.

We must be careful to avoid equating Nazis with Fascists. HUGE DIF. We have Fascism in this country now, but we don’t yet have Nazis. Yet.

What do you mean Mudkitty? There are similarities between the two.

There was a pretty decent made-for-TV movie made in 1968 called, “Shadow On The Land,” that took place in a future Fascist U.S. Even decades later I can remember it. Like most movies of this kind it centered around a “McGuffin,” a plot device to hang the story on. In this case it’s a plan by the Regime to stamp out what little freedom remained by staging a fake Resistance attack on a power station during the Christmas holidays, triggering a domino power outage accross Southern Calfornia. This will give The Leader the excuse to announce the newest Draconian measures in his Christmas Address to the nation.

The main protagonists are two Resistance moles within the Internal Security Force (our homegrown Gestapo), an officer and his driver. They have to find out what the secret is and alert the Resistance in time to stop it. The chit-chat between the two is effective in explaining what has happened. The officer says that everyone with a house and a two-car garage was willing to give up their freedom in order to keep what they had, or so they were told.

Some of the images are striking. A Stormtrooper Xing out the Constitution with a paintbrush begins the movie! A Resistance raid on an ISF concentration camp ends with dying Resistance members lowering the totalitarian ISF Flag and partially raising the democratic U.S. Flag in a last gesture of defiance. The ISF symbol itself, a sinister spread eagle with “ISF” on it. The life-and-death struggle taking place while surrounded by Christmas decorations–as if nothing has changed.

I thought John Forsythe was particularly effective as the ISF General, with perhaps the best line in the movie. As the wounded Resistance mole/ISF officer reports to him that the rest of his ISF Strike Force is dead and that the entire power plant scheme has ended in a stinky fisco for which he thinks the General is responsible, Forsythe manages to keep it all in perspective. “You’re bleeding on my desk,” he chides the angry man.

Not a great film by any means, but an interesting one. The scheme is foiled by ordinary individuals helping the Resistance because it’s the right thing to do. In a veiled warning the Resistance mole tells the ISF General about the Greek Hero Jason, who planted the Hydra’s teeth in a field only to have each tooth instantly grow into an armed soldier. Each time Jason killed one of them another would spring up in his place . . . and another . . . and another . . . and another . . .

The great american fable that ordinary people will overcome apathy.
“The right thing to do” would that be “In your heart you know he’s right.” ” Yeah far right.” To know the right thing to do is easy. Let Joe Do It. I am reminded that just a few months ago, American troops were “detaining” the families of members of the “Deck of Cards” in Iraq. It would be easy to create a deck of cards for the USA. Do you really think that American boys and girls in thrall to the DHS or the CIA or the USA would have any more moral compunctions about “detaining” your wives and children in the USA than they had about “detaining” the families of Iraqis over there?
Ordinary folk obey and get paid. Bullshit fantasy folk from bad novels and worse tv defeat evil by their righteous love of each other and all the things that are good…or by swords and magic spells.

Former CIA Bob Baer was on Faux News today saying the administration will probably attack Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and nuke sites within 6 months.

“I’ve taken an informal poll inside the government,” Baer told Fox. “The feeling is we will hit the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.”….

“We won’t see American troops cross the border. … If this is going to happen, it’s going to happen very quickly and it’s going to surprise a lot of people,” said Baer. “I hope I’m wrong frankly, but we’re going to see.”

I sure hope he’s wrong! If not, Iran will be the second nation we’ve attacked, which hasn’t attacked us. We’ll be broadening the conflict to the region, providing al Qaeda with more excuses to exist and boosting their recruitment, and we’ll be committing another war crime. It’s against international law, or it used to be, to attack a nation that hasn’t attacked you and isn’t even thinking about it. You can bet Iranian casualties won’t be limited to the Revolutionary Guard, but will include innocent people.

Nazis were fascists, but not all fascists are Nazis. SC Justice Scalia’s father, for example, was a member of the American Fascists…even during WW2.

So Bush and the Democrats [Levin, Clinton] are trying to shift blame to Maliki—just in case the surge fails—they’re calling to replace Maliki. Even though Bush, Levin, Clinton et al are now saying that the surge is working. Their point being that if we stay, it’ll be in spite of our military “success” and due to the Iraqis’ political failure.

This is where I want to scream at the Dems: Oppose the war, damn-it, and withdraw all our troops! What is their problem? They want to play it politically safe? We’re talking lives here.

“The truths in this movie would probably torture their souls”
From The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV, currently DSM-IV-TR), a widely used manual for diagnosing mental and behavioral disorders,

Anti-Social Personality Disorder

#7: Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another

Quacking like a duck indeed.

If Larry could be KFAD the best he could come up with would be to “force” two people to watch a 46 year old movie. What would Larry do for the other 22.5 hours in that day? Ain’t it always the way of the statist, force and more force; tax and more tax.

Thanks for the post, Larry. I’ve loved JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG since it first came out, and have re-visted it periodically over the years. It always seemed to me to embody the notion of America as the preeminent moral leader in the world, and has served (to me, anyway) as a touchstone of American values and integrity.

It was sad to realize, the last time I watched the movie, that thanks to George Bush and Dick Cheney, none of this is true any longer. It seemed to me on this recent viewing that the movie addressed morality from the point of view of a country that no longer exists. Then, we were the good guys, with a clear moral prerogative. Bush and Cheney have robbed us of that, and now we are, to one extent or another, Ernst Janning–or, perhaps, the frightened servant couple in the movie who keep insisting, “We never knew, none of us knew about the camps.” Now, however, we know. Jane Mayer’s New Yorker article on renditions tells us; the photographs from Abu Ghraib tell us. We can’t say ‘we didn’t know.’

It’s nearly intolerable to watch the Democrats fumbling with a response to the crimes of the Bush-Cheney administration. War crimes have been committed; orders have been issued, signed by people still in power, but held in the deepest secrecy at least partly because of war-crimes implications.

I wonder, since our politicians don’t seem to have the spine for it, if the rest of the civilized world will insist on an accounting from us about our war criminals. I wonder, indeed, if someday, someone will make a “Judgment at Nuremberg” about US.

The Nuremberg Prosecutor, I think his name is Jackson called both Sadam Husein and Bush war criminals and said they should both be prosecuted.

*Newflash”: Self-appointed Emperor (little) Johnny Howard (Australian PM & unrepentent Bushite) staffers caught “tampering with wikipedia”.

Be careful what you read! Most Australians have a speech impedement that prohibits the pronounciation of ll’s

I’ve seen Judgement several times and recently. I read Asimow’s point as we are already pretty far down the slippery slope. It takes an understanding of social (mass) psychology to fathom our failures to adhere to our Constitutional principles. GWB and his crime syndicate have plenty of enablers, the unfinformed quiescent folk of ordinary life. WE, who are the consumers of the ever expanding corporate media. Clueless we are, loyal to our benefactors first and averse to any perceived threat to our personal security. We click right into the breech when the spector of collective threat is raised. It’s oh so natural! Sadly, the world is leaving America behind in the forward struggle to fashion civil societies that will withstand the pressures of population and technology.