Reply #90: Licensed to Kill BY Scott Horton - Oct 6, 2007

[L. Coyote]

Licensed to Kill
BY Scott Horton - Oct 6, 2007
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/10/hbc-90001367

The Bush Justice Department does have an essential law enforcement mission, though sometimes it seems to behave much more like a criminal syndicate. It warmly embraces the crime of torture as a tool for collecting human intelligence notwithstanding both its manifest illegality and immorality and the uniform view of intelligence professionals that torture consistently produces corrupted, inherently unreliable information. In so doing of course it is engaged in a fairly primitive game of self-protection. It can’t acknowledge the fundamental criminality of its conduct, so it turns the Justice Department into its consigliere. Three different lawyers in the office of legal counsel have rendered formal opinions giving a stamp of approval to a universal crime. Indeed, this sort of legal dexterity now seems to be accepted as a rite of passage for “movement” lawyers—a fact which is very revealing of the new character of the “movement.” It has nothing to do with ideals, and everything to do with personal fidelity. In each of these cases, the opinion boils down to the fundamental principle of the authoritarian state, namely: if the Leader authorizes it, then it must be okay. I can’t wait to see the intellectual conversion that will occur on January 20, 2009, when the opposition party furnishes the Executive.

But the Justice Department’s attitude towards murder is also extremely revealing. In the view of the Bush Administration, a number of curious footnotes have been introduced into the concept of murder. One of them appears to be that certain persons are given a license to kill, freely, with full and unquestioned discretion. They need fear neither criminal investigation nor negative repercussions for their crimes. They will be protected.

Of course this sort of license does not come cheaply. It would appear that you get this license by having a close, nurturing relationship with the Republican Party—funding its candidates for office and offering employment to its functionaries following a sort of revolving door model. The strangest part of the Tuesday hearing came when Blackwater USA head Erik Prince was grilled about his funding of Republican causes—not by a Democrat, but rather by a remarkably PR-challenged Republican. As the Los Angeles Times reports, Blackwater’s head, who inherited a large automotive parts business based in Holland, Michigan

has donated $230,000 to federal campaigns and causes in the last decade. Almost all of that money has gone to Republicans,/] ......