What My Father Saw at Nuremberg (Christopher Dodd)

[struggle4progress]

What My Father Saw at Nuremberg
Sixty years ago today, my father watched the U.S. win the battle of ideas.
Have we lost our way?

By Christopher Dodd, SEN. CHRISTOPHER DODD (D-CONN.) is a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
October 1, 2006

.. At Nuremberg, we rejected the certainty of execution for the uncertainty of a trial. The test was one of principle over power, and the United States passed.

President Harry Truman understood that our nation's ability to bring about a world of peace and justice was rooted not in our military might but in our moral authority; not on the ability to compel people with our tanks and planes but to convince them that our values and our ideals were right. He understood that our ability to succeed in spreading American values of freedom and human rights are only as effective as our willingness to uphold them ..

Today, we debate secret prisons, suspension of habeas corpus, warrant-less searches and wiretaps. The president even asks us to reinterpret the Geneva accords to sanction the torture of enemy prisoners ..

We would do well to remember the words of Justice Jackson: "We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants today is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well."

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-dodd1oct01,0,6859766.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

[grasswire]

1. bravo, Dodd

Excellent.

[Peace Patriot]

2. Sorry, Senator, you can't remove the stench of your collusion with the

biggest crooks in the Anthrax Congress--Tom Delay and Bob Ney--in selling our right to vote to Bushite corporations, who are using TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code to "count" all our votes. The "Help America Vote Act," of which you were a chief engineer, has come close to killing our democracy and destroying our country. Only a Congress that is beholden to Diebold/ES&S and its fascist backers--and is no longer accountable to the American people--would have passed this torture bill. You have enabled a president and a Congress who do not represent the American people to rule over us. And now you smugly disagree with their fascist policy, and expect to score brownie points with us?

We must never forget that the record on which we judge you today is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow.

THROW DIEBOLD, ES&S AND ALL ELECTION THEFT MACHINES INTO 'BOSTON HARBOR' NOW!

BOYCOTT THE MACHINES--VOTE BY ABSENTEE BALLOT THIS NOVEMBER.

[bhikkhu]

3. It is a step, at least.

I have to say I am in agreement with another poster somewhere here - if given the choice between a country with no elections and a strong habeaus corpus (sp?) law, or one with elections but no habeaus corpus, I would choose the first.

[Peace Patriot]

4. And you would be right, because the right to vote is fundamental to all

other rights, and acts as a check and balance to protect all rights. With free and fair elections, the rights of accused people might be protected in some other way (aside from habeas corpus).

However, the two usually go to together--the right to vote and the right to be confronted with accusers/evidence and protection from arbitrary government arrest and detention. Arbitrary powers of government don't last long in a real democracy.

My point about Dodd is that it is useless and hypocritical to complain about the Bushites' horrifying torture/detention bill, when Dodd is one of the main sponsors of the bill that destroyed our right to vote, the result of which gave Congress an illegitimate Bushite majority, unaccountable to the people.

We could not have been stripped of the right of habeas corpus, without first having been stripped of the right to vote. Dodd's piousness sickens me. He knows very well what he did. This statement about Nuremberg is utterly hypocritical.

Dodd is running for president--and hopes to benefit from Diebold/ES&S's control of our elections. He announced his exploratory campaign on the Al Franken Show (with a substitute host) a few weeks ago. He said we don't want a "loser" candidate (Kerry, Gore), and Hillary is in trouble "with the anti-war crowd," and that leaves him. He may be just a pompous ass, but I don't think so. I think he is the Diebold/ES&S candidate, and a dangerous man.