Pardon Me

Speaking of war crimes, nobody in the Bush administration has done anything on a Karadzic scale, but we've had a number of clear violations of domestic and international law -- most notably on the issue of torture. Under the circumstances, you've got to think it's pretty considerate of conservative lawyers to be urging Bush to offer preemptive pardons to his lawbreaking subordinates, since without pardons they could probably get a lot of work doing legal defense for these crooks.

From Bush's perspective, however, pardons make a lot of sense. The relevant precedent would be his dad, who pardoned people for breaking the law preemptively in order to prevent any investigation from muddying his reputation too badly. Judging from the coverage of the Marc Rich pardon and the Scooter Libby commutation, I feel like Bush would be hailed as a hero by the mainstream for ensuring that nobody is called to account for his administration's crimes. Basically, some small-time cash-for-favors is the worst thing in the world (big-time cash-for-favors is the legislative process at work), but wholesale violations of the constitution are just a policy fight.

Comments

It would be a typical Bush move, with the added prospect of ensuring international war crimes indictments by short circuiting our judicial processes.

Posted by jimbo | July 22, 2008 8:16 AM

"....nobody in the Bush administration has done anything on a Karadzic scale."
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Um, Matt, the number of Iraq and Afghan civilians killed in these two wars numbers in the hundreds of thousands as counted by several independent agencies and international rights groups. WTF are you talking about? Launching a preemptive war based on demonstrable lies caused these deaths. Bush outshines Karadzic. Oh, wait, that was your point! Bush hasn't done anything on a Karadzic scale, he's exceeded it. Right?

Posted by steve duncan | July 22, 2008 8:20 AM

Correct me if I'm wrong, but a presidential pardon wouldn't mean squat to the ICC. Karadzic, after all, could have pardoned himself or Mladic; it wouldn't change their status as war criminals and pariahs to the international community.

Posted by Gregory | July 22, 2008 8:22 AM

My passive-aggressive contribution to the "accountability" debate:

If Bush pardons all his henchmen, Obama should pardon Bush. While specifically enumerating the crimes against the Constitution, and the Geneva Conventions, for which he is pardoned.

Will other nations honor our pardon, or will they take note of those crimes against international law and wait for Bush's next European vacation? I don't know. That's his problem.

Posted by Ted | July 22, 2008 8:22 AM

"Speaking of war crimes, nobody in the Bush administration has done anything on a Karadzic scale..."

Ummm, how many thousands of needlessly dead people qualify one for the "Karadzic scale"?

Posted by Some dude in Princeton | July 22, 2008 8:58 AM

nobody in the Bush administration has done anything on a Karadzic scale

Haha, Matthew, you slay me. Finniest thing I read all week.

Oh. You were serious?

Look, I'm not a harsh person at all. I would advocate hanging by the neck until dead only the worst of the worst criminals in the current Bush regime. But that would still leave the sad necessity of hanging (after due process, or course) over 20,000 people.

Posted by voice of reason | July 22, 2008 9:16 AM

White phosphorous bombs + Iraq.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | July 22, 2008 9:16 AM

Bush has not done anything in the Karadzic scale? Tell that to the million of Iraqis who are refugees, and the hundred of thousands dead!

Posted by abiodun | July 22, 2008 9:19 AM

Just to back up Matt's point, Victoria Toensing, quoted by the NYT, is a Republican political operative who has consistently carried the Administration's water in the media. And so her support for pardons, while arguably against the economic interests of the defense bar, is just doing her job.

That said, while I think it is indeed quite likely the press will not give due coverage to these pardons, I think it will in fact even further lower these people in public estimation. In fact, preemptive pardons would likely have to be somewhat specific to be legally effective, and so will act as something of a substitute for indictments in terms of revealing who did what.

Posted by DTM | July 22, 2008 9:33 AM

Depleted uranium munitions. I'm not sure Karadzic bequeathed several successive generations the insidious gift of cancer, birth defects and a seriously malformed gene pool. Again Matt, a monumental understatement of the damage and death inflicted on Iraq by Bush. A couple demerits are being noted on your permanent record here.

Posted by steve duncan | July 22, 2008 9:40 AM

I'd say that just about anybody in the Bush administration that had anything remotely to do with Iraq and torture should be planning nothing but domestic vacations for the rest of their lives.

Posted by LFC | July 22, 2008 9:49 AM

Oh, I don't know, LFC. I can see a future Prez threatening an arresting nation with various painful consequences for taking an ex-Prez into custody. I predict Bush will stroll around the capitals of the world unperturbed (should his pea brain get the urge to travel). $500,000 to a $Million a pop for speeches is too much money to pass on. Bush will be assured safe passage. Even conducting a mini-Holocaust isn't enough these days to land an American President in serious hot water. Not too many (if any) bigger dogs on the porch to cause him trouble.

Posted by steve duncan | July 22, 2008 10:00 AM

While such pardons would be outrageous, I wonder whether they might increase the likelihood of some investigation of Bush Administration actions, like a Truth and Reconciliation process. By pardoning everyone going out the door, Bush might raise enough controversy to get even the feckless Democrats in Congress to do something. And, with the prospect of prosecution removed, it might be easier to pursue this without it looking like a partisan witch hunt. But, even if something like this was pursued, the risk that it would be a bi-partisan whitewash is exceedingly high.

Posted by paul | July 22, 2008 10:34 AM

I think pardons open up two interesting possibilities. First, I would think that the people involved could be subpoenaed to testify before congressional committees, and could no longer take the Fifth (though presumably they would just say "executive privilege" instead). Second, various other countries have universal jurisdiction for crimes against humanity, and might be willing to undertake prosecutions once pardons have explicitly stopped any possibility of prescution in the USA. I think the key figures like Cheney, Addington are going to get very nervous about foreign travel to certain countries.

But really it would be best to have the whole thing aired out in the USA. The Libby trial was quite illuminating, and we need more of that.

Posted by Richard Cownie | July 22, 2008 11:12 AM

I wonder whether they might increase the likelihood of some investigation of Bush Administration actions

There is nothing more frustrating than this kind of cluelessness. There will be no such investigation, ever, for one simple reason: the entire political establishment is deeply implicated in the crimes of the Bush administration.

Truth and reconciliation commissions occur when the ruling regime is overturned it its entirety. Sadly, there is no prospect of that happening in the U.S.

Posted by LarryM | July 22, 2008 11:19 AM

I can see a future Prez threatening an arresting nation with various painful consequences for taking an ex-Prez into custody.

Ooh, scary.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 22, 2008 11:19 AM

I could see a future President wanting to make sure Bush himself wasn't arrested during foreign travel.

But people like Rumsfeld and lower? Sorry, Don, but we aren't going to cut off trade with Europe just to bail you out.

Posted by DTM | July 22, 2008 11:28 AM

Ooh, scary.
Posted by pseudonymous in nc
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There are means other than martial the U.S. can cause a nation trouble. We do it often to great effect. Much of it occurs under the radar through arcane and nearly incomprehensible banking and trade rules. Pshaw if you will but people do think twice before crossing us.

Posted by steve duncan | July 22, 2008 11:48 AM

Pshaw if you will but people do think twice before crossing us. - steve duncan

Nu? The other nations of the world can't go after us, so they pick on US allies instead. E.g., Israel (c.f. Isaiah's Song of the Suffering Servant -- in general, Zionists are people who didn't read the Bible carefully enough ... they can't say Isaiah didn't warn them ...).

Being friends with the US is not necessarily so good for Israel

Posted by DAS | July 22, 2008 12:38 PM

"Speaking of war crimes, nobody in the Bush administration has done anything on a Karadzic scale"

What on earth were you thinking of? Karadzic is not remotely in the same league as the Bush/Blair administrations. Not close.

They are guilty of the worst war crime of them all according to the Nuremberg tribunals. We have no reason to believe that there haven't been 1.2 million deaths in excess of the mortality rate of Sanctions-ridden Iraq. But to get the full horror we really have to go back to the sanctions and Albright the use of sanctions for regime change. Hell now we have to go back to Bush I bombing the Iraqi civilian infrastructure to accelerate sanctions in pursuit of regime change. Good grief.

Karadzic and his type are the small fry. I am not sorry to see them brought to justice but lets not kid ourselves who are the real criminals.

And if you want to know why the 1.2 million figure should be taken seriously see The Significance of the Iraqi Death Toll.

Posted by Chris Dornan | July 22, 2008 5:37 PM