Should Busheviks Stand Trial For War Crimes?

(Photoshop via Bartcop.)

The only reason that the Japanese Imperialists and the German Nazis did was because, in a word, they lost. Had they won, it would never have become an issue, and Churchill might be now recalled, at best, as a particularly forthright British martyr.

In the court of history, the Busheviks "lost" (at least this battle). They were 'defeated.' By the logic of victors/victory, they SHOULD be prosecuted. So, if the victors do NOT prosecute the losers for such crimes, what could account for this benignity?

Two things, briefly: 1) Margin of Victory and/or 2) Blackmail. I'll return to the first in a while.

As to the latter: Humans seem to be the only species to have evolved the social strategy of threatening universal destruction on the event of the end of any given individual's unique power, as a means to achieve/compel rapprochement with one's antagonists. There have been times in recent history when we have had occasion to regard the process by which a previously dominant, powerful population has been shorn--or has been threatened with shearing--of their exclusive hegemony. The fall of the Soviet Union was one such event. The overthrow of apartheid in South Africa was another. I always though those were situations fraught with deadly potential for social blackmail. The continuing Israeli/Palestinian crisis is another.

Possibly another such case may be occurring now in the USofA. Whether in fact Barack Obama's election constitutes such an occasion is as yet unclear. But in all those events previous, I think there must have come a moment among the powerful when they faced, and retreated from, the prospect of "crying 'Havoc! and letting loose the dogs of war." In other words, saying "Fuck it. If I'm going down, I'm gonna take you with me." And I think Prez.O's election may foreshadow one of those moments, perhaps the most momentous yet.

Consider: Rasmussen (generally acknowledged to track rightard opinion very well) reports this morning:

Thirty-six percent (36%) of U.S. voters say Congress should hold hearing to investigate possible government wrongdoing during the Bush years. Democrats, by a 57% to 27% margin, believe such hearings should be held. Thirty-eight percent (38%) of unaffiliated voters agree as do nine percent (9%) of Republicans.

Twenty-eight percent (28%) believe Congress should hold hearings to investigate possible war crimes by the Bush Administration. Sixty-percent (60%) disagree.

On all questions, there are significant differences along ideological lines. By a 50% to 22% margin, liberals believe Bush and his team are guilty of war crimes. By a 42% to 26% margin, political moderates disagree. Conservatives, by an 8-to-1 margin, reject the claim that war crimes were committed.

I have maintained since Day 1 of the past campaign that NO ONE of the inner Bushevik circle will ever feel the lash of justice for acts performed as part of their "official" duties 'serving' the President.

There is not now, nor was there ever likely to be, sufficient popular 'mandate' for Obama & the Dims to prosecute the Busheviks for anything. It's funny, but in a sorta round-about way, the Pukes actually 'WON' the 2008 election because they retain the power to protect their most notable criminals--John Yoo, Beto Gonzales, David Addington, Dick Cheney, etc--from the legal consequences of their obviously politically motivate criminal violations of both convention and the Constitution.

Forty-six percent of the voters chose McCain (or at least, voted against Obama). And almost 60% of "white" voters did. Only 43% of white voters (still the overwhelmingly dominant national demographic) supported Prez. O. Fifty-seven percent of the largest demographic in the country rejected the candidacy of the eventual winner. This is a statistic the possible consequences we have not yet even seen hinted at, except in surveys on (somewhat) non-trivial--but still ancillary--issues.

Interestingly, too, and probably significantly, many of those same "Whites" constitute the audience for the Beck/Limbaugh/O'Reilly/Savage/Hannity (shall we designate them, simply, as "the BLOSH"?) axis of venality --they ARE being richly paid for their daily exudations of corpoRat feculence. That they are now pretty much uniform in their frank expressions of desire that Obama & the Dims 'fail'. So if they are speaking openly to that same disaffected MAJORITY--and given the psychometric and polling tools now available--it may be possible to conclude that a large portion--perhaps a 'tactical' majority--of the USer electorate will be content to see the 'nation' fail as long as it means that Obama & the Dims are saddled with the responsibility of the unfolding catastrophe as well as the previous ones leading to the current crisis.

This strikes me as of a muchness with the partisan 'logic' that subjected the Clenis to impeachment for non-criminal, consensual sexual acts, by which the "Right" lifted some of the onus off Nixon (who, one should recall, was NOT impeached, and then was pardonned, for demonstrably CRIMINAL acts).