Discussion About What Will Never Happen

Regarding war crimes:

The same controversies over government lawbreaking arise over and over. And why is that? Because our political leaders keep breaking the law -- chronically and deliberately. And why do they keep doing that? Because there is no deterrent against it. Every time they get caught breaking the law, the Ronald Reagans and Ruth Marcuses of the world step in to insist that they should not be punished, that the criminal law is not for elite leaders in political office, that those involved in the noble function of ruling America are too intrinsically well-intentioned to warrant punishment even when they commit crimes, that it's more important to look forward than back.

Every time we immunize political leaders from the consequences of their crimes, it's manipulatively justified in the name of "ensuring that it never happens again." And every time, we do exactly the opposite: we make sure it will happen again. And it does: Richard Nixon is pardoned. J. Edgar Hoover's lawbreakers are protected. The Iran-contra criminals are set free and put back into government. Lewis Libby is spared having to serve even a single day in prison despite multiple felony convictions. And now it's time to immunize even those who tortured detainees and spied on Americans in violation of numerous treaties, domestic laws, and the most basic precepts of civilized Western justice.

If someone wants to argue that America is too good and our Washington elite too important to allow our powerful political leaders to be subjected to the indignity of a criminal proceeding, let alone prison, they should argue that. As warped as that idea is, at least it's candid and coherent.

[...]

Other than making sure that leaders know they will be punished -- like all Americans are -- when they break the law, how and why does anyone imagine that we can ensure this "never happens again," especially as we simultaneously affirm -- yet again -- that political leaders will be exempted from the rule of law if they do it? What's the answer to that?

  Glenn Greenwald - Salon