The Obstructed View

 Random thoughts from an idle mind for the beginning of 2009

by Sam Osborne

I recently listened on NPR’s Talk of the Nation to an exchange between two legal scholars, Columbia University visiting Professor Charles Fried and Washington University Professor Jonathan Turely – the program, “The Legacy of Bush's 'War on Terror,” considered the justifiability of prosecuting Bush Administration members for authorizing the use of T….

I was frankly horrified by Fried’s cavalier dismissal of holding anyone accountable for the commission of T… in the name of We the People of the United States of America.

Fried’s dismissal could have come from some insanely excusatory dialogue given in a remake of the movie “Judgment at Nuremberg .”

From the original cinematic recounting of NAZI war crimes, best we remember some lines delivered by Spencer Tracy in portrayal of Chief Judge Dan Haywood:

“A country isn't a rock. And it isn't an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for, when standing for something is the most difficult. Before the people of the world – let it now be noted in our decision here that this is what we stand for: justice, truth…and the value of a single human being.”

Based upon what I heard Vice President Dick Cheney say in a public interview on television, there should be a formal investigation to determine if a crime of a prosecutable nature had been committed.  If someone like Professor Fried knows more about this matter than I do, he should be called to testify as to what he knows that the general public does not.

For the sake of the rule of law throughout the world, this matter cannot be swept under the rug of convenience.  Does Professor Fried neither know nor want to find out, or does he know and not care about what he knows?

Sam
Osborne, former editorial writer and Opinion Page Editor,
Iowa City Press-Citizen; former college professor and Business Department chair,
Ellsworth Community College; and currently out to pasture drinking too much
coffee.  His commentary, The Obstructed View,  will appear on these blog pages weekly, more or less.