Can you pardon the innocent?
There's been a lot of speculation swirling around about Bush's
potential presidential pardons. In particular, people are wondering if
he'll preemptively pardon any and all unnamed individuals in his
administration or their agents who had anything to do with torture,
extraordinary rendition, and warrantless wiretaps. A "blanket" pardon
of unnamed people is not unprecedented
but earlier examples were all part of a national healing process after
a time of profound social and political upheaval. I feel this is very
different.
The immediate problem is that the pardons would be for acts that undermine our constitution and are contrary to our fundamental national values. They are violations of human rights and, no doubt, have placed our country in greater danger by enraging people with their audacious flouting of international law.
For me, however, I see another fault, one that cuts to the core of the problem with the Bush administration. How can you pardon people for "crimes" before those people have been found guilty in a court of law? If they are not guilty of a crime, they are innocent, no? And therein lies the problem I think. The Bush folks for years now have been chasing, capturing, wiretapping, torturing, and locking people up on pure suspicion. No longer is guilt necessary to be nasty to people. Tangentially but related, I've noticed lately how the White House has altogether stopped using the word "suspected" in sentence such as "US aircraft bombed the camp of a [suspected] terrorist with ties to Al Queda." No trial needed. He's a terrorist!
Admirably, they are applying the same standard to themselves. They presume their people are guilty of a crime, thus in need of pardoning. But I say, how can you pardon "innocent" people? Or has they very ideas of "innocent until proven guilty" become a trite nicety, no longer valid in America?
The immediate problem is that the pardons would be for acts that undermine our constitution and are contrary to our fundamental national values. They are violations of human rights and, no doubt, have placed our country in greater danger by enraging people with their audacious flouting of international law.
For me, however, I see another fault, one that cuts to the core of the problem with the Bush administration. How can you pardon people for "crimes" before those people have been found guilty in a court of law? If they are not guilty of a crime, they are innocent, no? And therein lies the problem I think. The Bush folks for years now have been chasing, capturing, wiretapping, torturing, and locking people up on pure suspicion. No longer is guilt necessary to be nasty to people. Tangentially but related, I've noticed lately how the White House has altogether stopped using the word "suspected" in sentence such as "US aircraft bombed the camp of a [suspected] terrorist with ties to Al Queda." No trial needed. He's a terrorist!
Admirably, they are applying the same standard to themselves. They presume their people are guilty of a crime, thus in need of pardoning. But I say, how can you pardon "innocent" people? Or has they very ideas of "innocent until proven guilty" become a trite nicety, no longer valid in America?
