An Ithaca Blog reader wrote about Darfur, as we described the situation yesterday, as familiar: a country rich with oil, a government killing and displacing people to control it.
The point is well taken.
We have an opportunity - and a responsibility - in the U.S. to show that political leaders who kill and displace innocent people for money are punished. That means impeachment proceedings against Richard Cheney and George Bush, Jr., who lied this nation into such an incursion in Iraq.
Lying is the thing that makes crime possible, and perpetuates it. The U.S. wouldn't be in Iraq without the willful and knowing lies of the current administration.
Lying is also generally the thing that gets criminals caught. It's hard to catch someone in the act of a crime. It's not as difficult to show a lie. The old saying in Washington is that it's not the crime that undoes you, it's the cover-up: that is, the necessary subsequent lying to prop up the initial deceit.
Another old saying among criminals is that it's not illegal if you don't get caught. Our own criminal politicians, who have created a situation in Iraq parallel to the one in Sudan, need to get caught, for this kind of violence to be illegal, hopefully, everywhere.
Stephen Burke
for Ithaca Blog
No comments:
Post a Comment