Those Who Can't Teach

[realFedUp]

-I like journalists who can make their point in
the first four paragraphs...so easy to post here. :-)

http://www.newsforreal.com/

Those Who Can't
Teach

Stephen Pizzo

November 30, 2005

Nothing fancy today folks, just a few stories that caught in my craw.

The Bush administration sees itself as the world's Pied Piper of Democracy. The only trouble is the lessons they preach are undermined daily by their own undemocratic actions.

For example, when they needed a place outside the reach of US democracy and justice where they could treat prisoners in ways illegal here, they chose the nascent democracies of Eastern Europe where "the rule of law" is still, to say the least, still a shaky concept.


WASHINGTON, Nov. 29 - The Bush administration, responding to European alarm over allegations of secret detention camps and the transport of terror suspects on European soil, insisted Tuesday that American actions complied with international law but promised to respond to formal inquiries from European nations. (More)

Hell, they even used some of the former Soviet Union's mothballed Gulag prison camps. Imagine this. What if after occupying Germany the Allies had spiffed up Auschwitz and used it to interrogate captured Germans? And, just to encouraged them to talk, fired up the furnaces -- you know, for effect? Whatya think? What message do you think the Germans would have gotten from that?

So what's the lesson the Bush folk have taught the world's emerging democracies about their true feelings on the rule of law? How else can it be interpreted than this: "The rule of law is fine as long as it doesn't get in the way of political policy goals. When it does get in the way, find ways around it. If caught, lie about it."

continued