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Edited on Mon Dec-13-10 04:17 PM by Peace Patriot
And if Uribe were the accused, he would not really be defending him with the defense that Uribe had not really been ordering death squad hits as Uribe, per se, that is, his real self--the guy who would go to jail if Uribe was found guilty--but as another Uribe--call him Uribe 2--who was just doing his job as president, which is to see that trade unionists have short lives. He would not really be defending Uribe; he would be defending that "principle"--that if Uribe 2 does it, it's not really a crime.
The English thought this, too, at one time, until they beheaded Charles I. By this act they established that the king and the criminal were one and the same sentient being who is as responsible for his actions as any peasant or juggler. And I can't even remember what Charles I did to rile up his subjects so much. I seem to recall it was a vague charge--general arrogance or dissolving parliament or something. Levied taxes on the barons and burghers to support his kingly lifestyle? Married a Catholic? Something like that. It's not as if he had been carving up his subjects alive and tossing their body parts into mass graves, like they do to trade unionists in Colombia who organize for decent pay from big U.S. corporations like Drummod or Chiquita. They decided that he is an ordinary mortal and should be beheaded for monarchical arrogance. They took it back, some years later, with the Restoration (restoring Charles I's son, Charles II, to the throne--a rather good king actually, as kings go; religiously tolerant in an era of terrible religious wars, witty, loved women, re-legalized the English theatre; loved science; established the Royal Science Society) but the monarchy was never the same again. The principle thereafter was that kings are not above the law.
Uribe and his defenders, who are not really defending him, you understand, but the "principle" that Charles I would have argued--that the king IS the law and thus cannot break the law--would re-establish that "principle" even for an ex-king who had been ousted by term limits (and because the CIA wanted him out). And in this case--the Drummond case--he cannot even be questioned as a witness or be required to testify. He has "diplomatic immunity" as the ex-king (um, president) of Colombia. He has no diplomatic appointment from the current king. He is no longer speaking or acting for his subject country. Yet somehow or another, he cannot be touched, not even supboenaed.
It's interesting that the U.S./Obama government has arranged for the extradition of key death squad witnesses from Colombia to the U.S., on mere drug charges, and has buried them in the U.S. federal prison system--out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors and over their objections--by complete sealing of their cases in U.S. federal court in Washington DC, and is furthermore likely behind the weird overnight asylum given by Panama to all the spying witnesses against Uribe, also over the objections of Colombian prosecutors. That takes care of two of the crimes, in Uribe's crime spree in Colombia--the ones that he is most vulnerable on. Now he comes to the U.S., with several honors being showered upon him--academic sinecures, prestigious legal commissions--and claims "sovereign immunity" as the ex-monarch of Colombia.
'Go ask Alice," I guess--the one who fell down the rabbit hole into "Wonderland"--how many realms the absolute power of the Red Queen extends to, and she would no doubt try to answer logically, that the Red Queen's absolute power can only be exercised in Wonderland, but she would be wrong. Wonderland is a mirror world, and everybody knows that if you put two mirrors facing each other, the image between them extends into infinity. The correct answer therefore is that the Red Queen is the absolute monarch of infinite lands where she can behead anyone she whom she takes a dislike to, but no one can behead her.
Mind-boggling, ain't it? Of course Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld started this reversion to early Medievalism, with regard to rightwing (but not leftwing) presidents. Presidents, like kings, can do whatever they damn please--kill (indiscriminately, or targeted), torture prisoners, spy on everybody, empty the public coffers, hold his own kind of criminal trials against anybody he chooses, etc--as long as they do so to further the interests of the super-rich, multinational corporations, war profiteers and the protected drug gangs--but cannot do anything, and has no power whatsoever, if he is of a mind to champion the poor.
And this "principle"--"sovereign immunity," aka "the unitary executive"--extends to infinite realms, currently encompassing the U.S. and Colombia, but theoretically encompassing any land where Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and brethren, including their "made man" Uribe--could be required to testify about something or might be vulnerable to investigation and prosecution. Transglobal immunity.
Their lawyers will not really be defending ordinary mortals but some other kind of being, whose feet can never be allowed to touch the ground, even after they have been de-throned by term limits. Their aura is infinite.
Oh, and the other thing that happened to the English monarchy is that some of its rebellious subjects established an entirely new principle and a much better one, that it is the People who are the sovereign power--not the president, not the congress, not the courts, and neither Drummond Coal nor Exxon Mobil nor any of their monstrously powerful pals. The People. That changed everything, once. Will we ever see that principle again?
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