Larisa Alexandrovna
Published: February 28, 2006

Continued from Page One:

RS: When you say "President Bush and Secretary Rice have explicitly agreed with your point--to say that we have often supported tyrannies"--are these the same two people who have publicly stated over and over that "We do not torture," despite the large mass of evidence and the President's push back against the McCain (R-AZ) anti-torture bill? So much so, that the President signed it into to law only after his hand was forced and even then with a caveat attached excluding his authority from the law?

How is this cleaning up our mistakes?

ML: It isn't cleaning up ALL mistakes; that won't happen in this life. But we should all be happy to have that huge mistake corrected. It's a rare event.

On War Crimes and Accountability

RS: If we have learned anything from WWII, the Holocaust, and from the Nuremberg trials, it is that citizens are responsible for what their government does in their name. Given this context, what is your view of torture, the Geneva conventions and the current policy, largely pushed out of the Vice President's office, to disregard international law and enforce extreme techniques of interrogation? (Detainees held; new photos and footage released.)

ML: Well, to begin with, I don't think people "learn" very much from history, although I do agree that, in the contemporary period, citizens of free societies are indeed responsible for their government's actions (these distinctions are important; I don't hold all Soviet citizens responsible for Stalin's crimes, for example, although there is greater culpability for Germans during Nazism). And I was disgusted, appalled and horrified by the criminal actions by Americans at Abu Ghraib as by Brits in the south, as I have been disgusted by the criminal actions by Europeans in Africa.

RS: You are right, there is a distinction between those "unable" to stop their government and those who are able, but unwilling. So I agree on that point. Who should be held accountable for the torture we are now seeing evidence of, including the rape of women, children and men, as well as all out murder and unmarked graves?

ML: I want them, and their superiors, to be aggressively punished. I abhor torture, and I've written about it.

Vladimir Bukovsky is one of my closest friends, and he is right when he says that torture destroys both its victims and its practitioners, and that it is deadly to any civilized enterprise.

That said, one must have a sense of context. These evil criminal acts are not the same as the Holocaust, or the genocidal slaughters in Africa. They are aimed against individuals, not against an entire people. They must be condemned and punished, we must do all we can to ensure they do not recur, but the worst American sadist in Iraq does not come close to the evil of the Third Reich, which undertook the systematic extermination of entire peoples.

RS: I agree that a systematic processing of such precision in order to exterminate a group of people is entirely unique to the Holocaust. As a Jew, I understand this quite well, but you say that American sadists are not close to the evil of the Third Reich. Yet the Third Reich came to power because and only because the West allowed the financing of the regime. In other words, the "sadists" in the US and Britain funded the "sadists" in Germany.

ML: I reject the theory that Hitler came to power "because and only because the West allowed the financing of the regime." Hitler came to power because most Germans wanted it. They loved it when they got it, and they fought and died for it. To reduce a horror of such dimensions to mere cash flow is unworthy of a serious person.

RS: I understand your sentiment, but with all due respect, I disagree with the notion that a nation of people wanted this or asked for it. Some may want such a thing, but not a nation of people. You are excluding the systematic fear tactics, propaganda of hate, and other control mechanisms that over a period of time convinced an entire people that they were under constant threat by a whole other group of people.

The Holocaust did not occur overnight and in a vacuum. It started as a fire that was blamed on the terrorists, at that time "the Communists." Anyone who spoke out was branded as an enemy and jailed. Those who did not speak out were fed large doses of psychological manipulation. The horror of the Final Solution did not start with the installment of Hitler to power. The Jews did not become the object of Hitler's insanity until later, much later.

But how was this propaganda machine possible and to such an extent? How was the war machine possible or the facilities for what would later be used as extermination centers, or any number of things required to achieve such a horrible end? The Germans were still paying reparations from WWI and were largely bankrupt. If it were not for the funding made possible by US and British companies, like DuPont or Ford Motors, would the Nazis have been able to rise to power and achieve what they had achieved?

ML: I don't like the behavior of American corporations any more than you, but I think that Joseph Kennedy did more damage than DuPont. And I'm quite happy that so many corporations have been compelled to pay significant funds to the survivors.

RS: What about accountability? The Third Reich continued to be funded by US "free trade" interests, thanks to companies even after the United States entered the war. So again, we are back full circle, where the "tool" of its handler is the evil thing, but the handler is not.

When we see such funding again, over and over and all over the world, we are seeing a stunning failure of humanity to punish the handler of the tool as well as the tool itself, do we not?

Ford Motors and General Motors, whose subsidiaries became engines of the German war machine, were not held to account, and neither was DuPont. If they had been, would they be in a position, such as in Ford's case (later sued for involvement in Argentinian abuse), to go on to commit such crimes again?

What about Halliburton? The company does business with nations that have long harbored extremism and terrorists, such as Libya , and even currently with Iran, one of the members of the so-called Axis of Evil. Despite this and the appearance of impropriety in the Vice President's being the firm's former chief executive, the company continues to be awarded no-bid contracts and overcharge the US government. Would they be engaged in such behavior if their predecessors were held accountable?

ML: If they are guilty, I'm all for holding them accountable, but, alas, I don't think it would deter evil people from doing evil things today or tomorrow. I'm afraid that the struggle against evil is probably endless.

RS: We now know from various memos (see newest from the New Yorker) leaked to the public that there is a policy pushed by the Vice President's office and the Vice President himself, including his staff and civilian members of the Pentagon like Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, which lays out that harsh interrogation practices should be used by our military. The policies were legally justified by attorneys John Yoo and Alberto Gonzales [now US Attorney General].

Who should be held accountable for violating the Geneva Conventions and for committing war crimes, the soldiers following orders, or the officials setting that policy, or the attorneys who made it somehow legal?

ML: We've been through this several times now. Punish all the guilty parties, whoever they are, and do everything possible to prevent anything of the sort happening again.

RS: Including Dick Cheney and George W. Bush?

ML: No exceptions. But I haven't seen anything that convinces me they should be prosecuted.

RS: What about mass media and corporate bosses who kept the coverage of such things to a minimum? Are they guilty? Are members of Congress guilty, who align with their leader and party but not the law? What about you, and me, and every citizen of this country who is financing these crimes?

ML: There are well established legal standards as far as prosecution is concerned. On the big question, which is the moral one, there's the 'court of public opinion,' and you and I will do our best to identify sins of commission and omission, and try to convince our peers that we are right. If you're going to attack media for insufficient coverage of Abu Ghraib, etc. (which I think would be a real exaggeration; there's been enormous coverage), then you should also hammer them for failing to report the 'other side of the story,' namely the many excellent things that are going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bloggers have done much better, from Steve Vincent to Michael Yon and others, especially the Iraqi bloggers.

RS: Who can hold them accountable ? Israel cannot hold the US accountable because Israel does depend greatly on financing from the US. Britain cannot hold the US accountable because they are the "ally." So on whom does this task fall it when Geneva Conventions are no longer recognized by the world's only super power?

ML: We have to identify and prosecute our own criminals.

RS: How, if our political leaders align with their party and the leader of that party? Who will be able to hold anyone accountable now?

ML: Just as we always have, by speaking and writing what we believe in, challenging lies when we think we see them, and appealing to mankind's better instincts. But again, one has to have a sense of history and context. For the most part, it takes a considerable passage of time before we get a full sense of what actually happened. Lots of innocents get slimed and ruined in the meantime, while rotten people get medals. Marc Anthony's funeral oration for Caesar, as reported by Shakespeare.

Part II will run next week and will focus on the Niger documents, the Plame leak, and Iraq pre-war intelligence.