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Spanish Trials For Bush Officials Edition
My earlier diary,"Narcissism, The Bubble Economy and American Exceptionalism--Part 2a", began looking at malignant narcissism via a weirdly exculpatory NYT Op-Ed from a British psychologist, Belinda Board, who semi-excused John Bolton, and "high-ranking business executives" like him who might share many traits with the criminal class, but managed to keep themselves from getting locked up.
But what happens when they don't keep themselves from getting locked up? That question is no longer a merely idle one, as the US abdication of its responsibilities under international law is now opening the door wide for foreign prosecutions of US war crimes and related violations of international law. As they NY Times now reports, "Spanish Court Weighs Inquiry on Torture for 6 Bush-Era Officials":
LONDON - A Spanish court has taken the first steps toward opening a criminal investigation into allegations that six former high-level Bush administration officials violated international law by providing the legal framework to justify the torture of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, an official close to the case said.
The case, against former Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and others, was sent to the prosecutor's office for review by Baltasar Garzón, the crusading investigative judge who ordered the arrest of the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. The official said that it was "highly probable" that the case would go forward and that it could lead to arrest warrants.
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The move represents a step toward ascertaining the legal accountability of top Bush administration officials for allegations of torture and mistreatment of prisoners in the campaign against terrorism. But some American experts said that even if warrants were issued their significance could be more symbolic than practical, and that it was a near certainty that the warrants would not lead to arrests if the officials did not leave the United States.
The complaint under review also names John C. Yoo, the former Justice Department lawyer who wrote secret legal opinions saying the president had the authority to circumvent the Geneva Conventions, and Douglas J. Feith, the former under secretary of defense for policy.
I disagree strongly with the characterization that the warrants would be "more symbolic than practical", as the beginnings of legal proceedings have an inherent practical effect. They may not lead to the immediate results one might wish for, but they lead us forward out of inaction and passivity, and that in itself has a positive practical effect. Altering how the great mass of people see things inevitably has practical consequences, and almost always begins with a much smaller band of determined individuals. Clearly, Baltasar Garzón has proven himself to be such an individual. But I'm writing here under the wider umbrella of looking at the role of narcissistic personality disorder, and so I want to follow that connection as well, without for a moment slighting the importance of the Spanish proceedings.
In Board's NYT op-ed, "The Tipping Point", she wrote:
Take a basic characteristic like influence and it's an asset in business. Add to that a smattering of egocentricity, a soupçon of grandiosity, a smidgen of manipulativeness and lack of empathy, and you have someone who can climb the corporate ladder and stay on the right side of the law, but still be a horror to work with. Add a bit more of those characteristics plus lack of remorse and physical aggression, and you have someone who ends up behind bars.
As we all know, public figures can exhibit extreme characteristics. Often it is these characteristics that have propelled them to prominence, yet these same behaviors can cause untold human wreckage. What's important is the degree to which a person has each ingredient or characteristic and in what configuration. Congress will try to decide whether Mr. Bolton has the right combination.
For nearly eight years now, that's what the American political class has done: looked at borderline or full-blown sociopaths, and asked itself if they had "the right combination," and the very fact of their calm deliberations served to justify the larger sociopathic enterprise that our nation as a whole embarked on. Although we've had a change of parties as well as a change of Administration, there is not yet evidence that we've had a change of heart-or rather, perhaps, an awaken. Which is why it is now necessary for Spain to take up our legal responsibilities for us. And the longer this situation persists, however it plays out, the more our entire political class becomes the effective accomplices of these international criminals. While legal culpability may not attach for the precise form that their accomplice activity takes, a different perspective opens up when it comes to questioning their psychology, both as individuals and as a group.
For it is undoubtedly clear that over the past 8 years there has been not just egocentricity, grandiosity, manipulativeness and lack of empathy, but also lack of remorse and physical aggression, and now it's time to for someone to end up behind bars. If we will not do that ourselves, that is one thing. But if we actively take the side of those who belong in prison, then we shall forfeit any shred of moral authority over any other international criminals in the world. We will announce ourselves as full-fledged apologists for torture, even murder, and we shall declare ourselves nothing more or less than a sociopathic mob.
What greater victory could our enemies possibly hope for than to have the world see us as such-and not only that, but for them to be right?
The distinction that Board sought to draw four years ago, between the pin-stripped business-leader sociopath and his prison-stripped counterpart was always an artificial one. Who ends up on which side of the bars is always subject to unexpected reversals. We are always on much sounder moral ground when we do not make excuses for either, and certainly do not authorize them to act or speak in our names. |
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