Spanish Judge Pursues Bush Officials... Thanks to Obama

Gerald Warner has and interesting post regarding the "torture" memos. Check it out.

Warner writes "Barack Obama's 100 days of un-American activities are being appropriately marked by the latest hostile initiative against the United States that his partisan rancour has made possible. Notorious Spanish fruit-cake Judge Balthasar Garzon has issued a 10-page writ opening an investigation into officials of the Bush government as 'possible material authors' of torture, accomplices and those who gave orders for torture.

"This ridiculous legal initiative was only made possible, as Garzon admits, by Barack Obama's declassification of US Justice Department memos on interrogation techniques which 'reveal what had been just an intuition: an authorised and systematic plan of torture and mistreatment of persons denied freedom without any charge whatsoever and without the rights enjoyed by any detainee.'"

Way to go Obama... Another example of how Obama does not seem to realize the ultimate consequences of his actions. He's not on the campaign trail anymore-- but that means he's lost and doesn't know what to do. As a community organizer, a brief stint as a State Senator from polarized Chicago, and then a US senator where all he did was plan for his presidential campaign, Obama has made his career from campaigning for various Left causes and enriching himself in the process. He has done little else, aside from being glorified by the media (again a campaign mind-set).

I've written previous posts about Obama's naivety, the cruelty that is inflicted, and the perennial campaign strategies he uses to push his policies. This is just another example of his partisan politics (whatever happened to that post-partisan nonsense?) being ineffective (as Warner notes "latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows a solid majority of Americans opposed to Obama's release of Bush-era memos") and backlashing in ways his administration seems unable to conceive. He needs a damage control czar.

Warner continues "Garzon bases his pompous claim to try American citizens on the principle of 'universal jurisdiction' - the judicial version of World Government. The healthy American response would be to tell him to spin on it; but with this administration grovelling to anti-American forces, convinced its only enemies are fellow Americans, one wonders what further surrenders of US interests, dignity and sovereignty may be made. Why draw the line at Spain - why not have Republican officials tried in Cuba for maintaining a blockade?"

It always amuses me when the Left starts railing on about "international law," thinking that it is some kind of cure-all. In fact, it's nothing more than the shuffling off of responsibility. Instead of doing something and leaving yourself open for attacks (such as Bush), let's let The Hague figure it all out... like the Slobodan Milosevic trial. That legal farce started on Feb. 12, 2002 and ended March 11, 2006. It ended with neither a conviction nor even a verdict, but simply stopped when Milosevic died of a heart attack. Is that international justice? A four year trial that could never even reach a verdict on this butcher?

Warner notes "Garzon is requesting the US Government to send the documents to him. His gratitude to Obama is patent: his previous attempt to indict six specific Bush administration officials, headed by Alberto Gonzalez, former US Attorney General, finally collapsed on April 17 when Spanish prosecutors said it should be heard in America. But this is a different situation: thanks to President Pantywaist's eagerness to undermine US government officials, there is now documentary evidence to support a prosecution in Garzon's kangaroo court."

I doubt that the Obama administration has the spine to send the "documentary evidence" Garzon requests. Even they could see the ramifications of American political figures on trial in foreign courts. Yet, one has to wonder if they would do it otherwise? What's in their hearts on this matter? Where are their loyalties? Is it to the Constitution or to the faddish push for international (i.e. European) law?