Where is the outrage and why is this story buried?I voted for him, but now I'm done. At the time of the election, even then, my hopes for change had wavered. Voting to extend the FISA was a moral line I couldn't fathom crossing but did. The alternative was no better. Now I'm done. In his own words he has offered up a specious response against prosecution for crimes against humanity and War crimes 'Those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice... will not be subject to prosecution'. Think about those words and think back to 1945 ad 1946. Nuremberg. The defense put forth by suspected guards at concentration camps. 'We were just following orders' Orders given to them by their own Justice department. But we didn't listen then. We pursued them. We prosecuted them. We hung them and we pursue them today. But now we are supposed to just move on as if it never happened?
“We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history,” Obama said in a statement. “Nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.”
His words now ring hollow. No different than what Gerald Ford did after Nixon.
Let no words be parsed to say that these crimes were not done on his watch. They were. He was a part of a governmental branch that allowed the torture to take place. Let not the context be obfuscated by condemning the act but not prosecuting the criminal.
There is an old term in the newspaper business - rowback. And it applies in this case. Correcting an error without ever admitting that you might have been a cause of the error. The past president was a war criminal. The men who perpetrated these crimes are war criminals. The current president provided countenance. The defense of 'just following orders' was not allowed by the United states at Nuremberg. Why is it allowed now?
Go back now and re-read Gerald's R. Ford's decision not to pursue prosecution of Richard Nixon.
"Ladies and gentlemen: I have come to a decision which I felt I should tell you and all of my fellow American citizens, as soon as I was certain in my own mind and in my own conscience that it is the right thing to do. I have learned already in this office that the difficult decisions always come to this desk. I must admit that many of them do not look at all the same as the hypothetical questions that I have answered freely and perhaps too fast on previous occasions. My customary policy is to try and get all the facts and to consider the opinions of my countrymen and to take counsel with my most valued friends. But these seldom agree, and in the end, the decision is mine. To procrastinate, to agonize, and to wait for a more favorable turn of events that may never come or more compelling external pressures that may as well be wrong as right, is itself a decision of sorts and a weak and potentially dangerous course for a President to follow. I have promised to uphold the Constitution, to do what is right as God gives me to see the right, and to do the very best that I can for America. I have asked your help and your prayers, not only when I became President but many times since. The Constitution is the supreme law of our land and it governs our actions as citizens. Only the laws of God, which govern our consciences, are superior to it. As we are a nation under God, so I am sworn to uphold our laws with the help of God. And I have sought such guidance and searched my own conscience with special diligence to determine the right thing for me to do with respect to my predecessor in this place, Richard Nixon, and his loyal wife and family. Theirs is an American tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must. There are no historic or legal precedents to which I can turn in this matter, none that precisely fit the circumstances of a private citizen who has resigned the Presidency of the United States. But it is common knowledge that serious allegations and accusations hang like a sword over our former President's head, threatening his health as he tries to reshape his life, a great part of which was spent in the service of this country and by the mandate of its people. After years of bitter controversy and divisive national debate, I have been advised, and I am compelled to conclude that many months and perhaps more years will have to pass before Richard Nixon could obtain a fair trial by jury in any jurisdiction of the United States under governing decisions of the Supreme Court. I deeply believe in equal justice for all Americans, whatever their station or former station. The law, whether human or divine, is no respecter of persons; but the law is a respecter of reality. The facts, as I see them, are that a former President of the United States, instead of enjoying equal treatment with any other citizen accused of violating the law, would be cruelly and excessively penalized either in preserving the presumption of his innocence or in obtaining a speedy determination of his guilt in order to repay a legal debt to society. During this long period of delay and potential litigation, ugly passions would again be aroused. And our people would again be polarized in their opinions. And the credibility of our free institutions of government would again be challenged at home and abroad. In the end, the courts might well hold that Richard Nixon had been denied due process, and the verdict of history would even be more inconclusive with respect to those charges arising out of the period of his Presidency, of which I am presently aware. But it is not the ultimate fate of Richard Nixon that most concerns me, though surely it deeply troubles every decent and every compassionate person. My concern is the immediate future of this great country. In this, I dare not depend upon my personal sympathy as a longtime friend of the former President, nor my professional judgment as a lawyer, and I do not. As President, my primary concern must always be the greatest good of all the people of the United States whose servant I am. As a man, my first consideration is to be true to my own convictions and my own conscience. My conscience tells me clearly and certainly that I cannot prolong the bad dreams that continue to reopen a chapter that is closed. My conscience tells me that only I, as President, have the constitutional power to firmly shut and seal this book. My conscience tells me it is my duty, not merely to proclaim domestic tranquility but to use every means that I have to insure it. I do believe that the buck stops here, that I cannot rely upon public opinion polls to tell me what is right. I do believe that right makes might and that if I am wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference. I do believe, with all my heart and mind and spirit, that I, not as President but as a humble servant of God, will receive justice without mercy if I fail to show mercy. Finally, I feel that Richard Nixon and his loved ones have suffered enough and will continue to suffer, no matter what I do, no matter what we, as a great and good nation, can do together to make his goal of peace come true. Now, therefore, I, Gerald R. Ford, President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from July (January) 20, 1969, through August 9, 1974.In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this eighth day of September, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and seventy-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and ninety-ninth.Gerald R. Ford - September 8, 1974"
He held that he had no precedent on which to base his actions so he set one. A precedent based on a fallacy "During this long period of delay and potential litigation, ugly passions would again be aroused. And our people would again be polarized in their opinions. And the credibility of our free institutions of government would again be challenged at home and abroad." A specious argument to not pursue the correct path of the courts when that is exactly what was needed. "In the end, the courts might well hold that Richard Nixon had been denied due process, and the verdict of history would even be more inconclusive with respect to those charges arising out of the period of his Presidency, of which I am presently aware." Not pursuing a trial because of the length of time and because people might not agree with the outcome? What would be the point? The point would be justice. Justice that this country was founded on. Justice that we sought at Nuremberg when we hung German officers for war crimes. Justice in the United States when spies landed on our Florida shores and were swiftly captured and executed.
Hear these words again, without attribution, and think what our world would have thought had they been spoken by
Konrad Adenauer. “We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history,” “Nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.” The outrage in the U.S. would have been palpable.
