It Writes Books

Benjamin Ferencz was one of the chief prosecutors of the Nuremberg trials where he convicted nazi geniciders guilty of crimes that were undoubtedly worse than 911.  In a recent interview, he said something quite interesting:

“The principal lesson we learned from Nuremberg is that a war of aggression — that means, a war in violation of international law, in violation of the UN charter, and not in self-defense — is the supreme international crime, because all the other crimes happen in war.  And every leader who is responsible for planning and perpetrating that crime should be held to account in a court of law, and the law applies equally to everyone.”

So it is unfortunate that Obama has exculpated, and even shielded from investigation, or even criticism, anyone from the Bush era involved in the infamous crimes of the era:  torture, detainee abuse, domestic spying, and most of all misrepresenting intelligence in order to lead us in to a war of aggression with Iraq.   In hindsight it appears that he did this so that he could take part, and even  extend, these same abuses during his own presidency.  But more likely this was simply a side benefit and his real reason was to circumvent radical right-wing criticism during his election that such investigations would hobble the intelligence and defense communities by giving them fear of future prosecution for breaking laws (but his actual reasons for doing this is another subject altogether).

We do know a lot about the Bush era.  So I was surprised to see, a few months ago, that Donald Rumsfeld  appeared on the Daily Show to promote a book. I remember thinking: “why?”  …Why have a war criminal on your show only so that he can peddle his book and ignore your questions about his well-documented crimes in the folksiest, midwestiest language humanly possible?  Why give him a forum so that he can win over the 40% or so of people that are gullible enough.  Or, if you are going to give him a forum in which to hide in plain sight, why not at least invite Pat Tillman’s brother as a surprise co-guest?  (Pat Tillman was an NFL football player turned marine who lost his life due to friendly fire while in Iraq.  The defense dept., under the command of Donald Rumsfeld, covered up the nature of his dealth to avoid embarrassment.)

Robert Fisk’s latest column, Beware men of power who turn to writing books, about warlord who write books, reminds me of Rummy:

“And I owe it to Alexandre Najjar to raise in the literary section of the French-language L’Orient Le Jour the weird parallels between Gaddafi’s novels and short stories and some of his latest ravings. Saddam wrote the execrable Zabiba and the King. Old Syrian General Mustapha Tlass wrote about 40, some close to being anti-Semitic, along with a deeply embarrassing set of poems for Gina Lollobrigida. They write books, these guys, you know.”

And of course who can forget OJ Simpson’s literary achievement, If I Did It.

Writing a book doesn’t make you innocent, but it is a good way to convince people and maybe even yourself, that you are innocent.  You can write from the first person perspective, show what you were feeling at the time, present yourself in a noble light and screen any part of the story that you are uncomfortable with. Like OJ, Rumsfeld should be living in shame somewhere.  Instead he is allowed to distance himself from his crimes with talk-show publicity.  For illegally and recklessly coaxing the country in to a devastating war of aggression (a crime as Ferencz pointed out), and for many of his negligent executive decisions during that war, the only attention he deserves is prosecution.

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