I am hesitant to despoil my beautiful blog with the visage of this man who has caused so much calamity in the U.S. and in the world, but I feel that for the purposes of bringing the world back to just and right relationship, some very serious crimes need to be accounted for.

You can't just go and trump up a war, then commit war crimes, and loot hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars, and then go hang out at your ranch.  If you can do all that, and walk away free, what kind of precedent does that set?  It means that for crimes where hundreds of thousands of people are killed, and hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people's lives are adversely affected, there is nothing to be done on behalf of the perpetrator.  The president of a country should be responsible to everyone, not the other way around.  The president is given a lot of power (and freedom -- not to be confused with 'license', which is what Bush and company took), and to allow them to abuse that freedom in order to impose upon other peoples' freedoms is neglect of the first order.

I want to be clear that I am NOT asking for retributive justice, though I must admit that over the course of the last 8 years, the idea of some grisly form of capital punishment for their evils has crossed my mind.  What I am asking for is restorative justice.  Those who have made things wrong must fully recognize what they have done, and work to put things back to the way they ought to be, so this kind of injustice cannot be done again.  I do wonder though, are these men entirely incorrigible?  In that case, they should be removed from society as a form of safety for society, but not as a form of punishment.

This new case brought up by a Spanish court promises to be interesting, but doesn't go after Bush or Cheney, and is probably non-binding, since extradition will be difficult at best, unless any of those named in the suit happen to travel to a country that would apprehend them on behalf o Spain.  Now, if other countries were to join suit, eventually the folks named would be trapped in the U.S. (which admittedly is still a pretty big place to travel in).  I wonder what it would take to have charges actually pressed in the U.S. itself?

lyrics: "Indictment!"

From Indictment, by Antibalas

colors: The New Red, White, and Blue

mood: Time for restorative justice.

chant/prayer/mantra: Peace to all people.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel