Glenn Greenwald has the skinny on Germany and Italy indicting Americans for the "extraordinary rendition" (a fancy, nonsensical bit of jargon for kidnapping) of their citizens, which resulted in them being held without charge, and tortured in some country or other. I find it fascinating that Bush "unsigned" the US from the International Criminal Court because Americans were not exempt from indictment and/or prosecution. Apparently it never occurred to him that there were national laws on the books as well that could very well be used to hold Americans accountable for illegalities. I know there are some out there who find tthis kind of thing enraging - how dare these non-Americans actually take action against Americans and America? - but I am surely not one of them. The more indictments the better - Henry Kissinger is long overdue for a day in court - and keep them coming, I say. When Americans break the law, they should be punished - or is law and order only for those of the wrong color or class?
At the end of the Second World War, the United States, under the leadership of Supreme Court justice Robert Jackson, led the way in creating an international legal standard, both of precedent and enforcement, in which citizens of individual nation-states would be held accountable for illegal acts. Along with all the other destruction wrought by the Bush Administration, it seems this heritage, of which we should be inordinately proud, has also been pissed away.*
I have been wondering, for the past year or so, how other countries would begin to take a stand against the United States, the biggest, most dangerous rouge nation in the world, and have feared more than I care to admit, that military action would be the answer. It is a good thing to see that it is legal action, subpoenas and indictments, rather than armies and bullets, that will be used to bring us to heel.
*I am well aware that the United States, and most other countries as well, have violated various of the Nuremberg Standards. The principle, however, has rarely been ignored as extraordinarily as it has been under Bush.
