Powerful War Criminals are Free to Ruin US

Excellent discussion about the hypocracy which is inherent in world diplomacy. Coming from an insider of the Bush/Regan/Bush (early on he bailed from W) years, it's even more powerful than if one of us "lefties" wrote it. My only critique is when he sites the "enablers" and forgot to mention Signore Berlusconi, who dreams of being the next Il Duce.
Little War Criminals Get Punished,
Big Ones Don’t
By Paul Craig Roberts
16/07/08 "ICH" -- - National Public Radio has been spending much news time on Darfur in Western Sudan where a great deal of human suffering and death are occurring. The military conflict has been brought on in part by climate change, according to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Drought is forcing nomads in search of water into areas occupied by other claimants. No doubt the conflict is tribal and racial as well. The entire catastrophe is overseen by a government with few resources other than bullets.
Now an International Criminal Court prosecutor wants to bring charges against Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, for crimes against humanity and war crimes.
I have no sympathy for people who make others suffer. Nevertheless, I wonder at the International Criminal Court’s pick from the assortment of war criminals? Why al-Bashir?
Is it because Sudan is a powerless state, and the International Criminal Court hasn’t the courage to name George W. Bush and Tony Blair as war criminals?
[...] President Bush claims that the enormous destruction and death he has brought to Iraq and Afghanistan are necessary in order for Americans to be safe. If we are accepting excuses this feeble, Milosovic passed muster with his excuse that as the head of state he was obliged to try to preserve the state’s territorial integrity. Is al-Bashir supposed to accept secession in the Sudan, something that Lincoln would not accept from the Confederacy? How long would al-Bashir last if he partitioned Sudan?
Last October the Atlanta Journal-Constitution had a photo on its front page above the fold of an elderly man with mikes shoved in his face. Paul Henss, 85 years old, is being deported from the US, where he has lived for 53 years, because Eli Rosenbaum, director the the US State Department’s Nazi-hunting bureaucracy, declared him a war criminal for training guard dogs used at German concentration camps. Henss was 22 years old when World War II ended.
A kid who trained guard dogs is being deported as a war criminal, but the head of state who launched two wars of naked aggression, resulting in the deaths of more than 1.2 million people, and who has the entire world on edge awaiting his third war of aggression, this time against Iran, is received respectfully by foreign governments. Corporations and trade associations will pay him $100,000 per speech when he leaves office. He will make millions of dollars more from memoirs written by a ghostwriter.
Does no one see the paradox of deporting Henss while leaving the war criminal in the White House?
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, an assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury during the Reagan Administration, is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20294.htm
Photo by John Amis
Paul Henss, left, takes reporters questions as wife Else stands at his side at their home Monday, Oct. 1, 2007 in Lawrenceville, Ga. Federal authorities have begun deportation proceedings against the 85 year-old Paul Henss, who they say served as a Nazi guard and trained and handled attack dogs at the Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps.
“I am not a war criminal,” he told a throng of reporters. “I was 19 years old … Everyone was with the Hitler Youth.” [my bold]
"We were all just doing what we believed was right...." This could be the neocon/neoliberal defense.

Is the Picture Getting Clearer Yet?

Tony Blair seemed so different from the 'shrub that the only pleasant moments seemed to occur when the two stood side-by-side or against parallel podiums. How cozy for Blair to make himself visible to the world as preparation for his new job. Read on:
Online campaigners aim to 'stop' Blair becoming EU president
07.02.2008 - 17:43 CET | By Honor Mahony
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - An online campaign to petition against Tony Blair becoming President of the European Union is fast gathering signatures, even though the post has not even been officially created yet.
But the British politician is not an uncontroversial figure. For some, it is unimaginable that a national of a country that is not part of core EU projects such as the eurozone and the Schengen borderless zone could represent Europe. His strong support for the US-led war on Iraq is also seen as a mark against him in some quarters.
The web-based petition, Stopblair.eu, seeks to tap into some of this anti-Blair feeling. Available in 11 languages, the petition already had over 4,000 signatures by Thursday afternoon (7 February), two days after it launch day, and aims to get 1 million signatures.
[...] Jerome Guillet, a Paris-based banker and one of the founders to the petition, told EUobserver that the discussion about Mr Blair "seemed more intense lately. As this is an idea that we think is terrible, some of us decided to do something about it."
[...] The online campaign emerged from a community of pro-European bloggers based in France known as the European Tribune. According to Mr Guillet, they would rather see German former foreign minister Joschka Fischer get the job.
http://euobserver.com/9/25622/?rk=1