RE: UK police chase crooks on CCTV (fwd)

[Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>]

At 05:41 AM 10/29/98 -0600, Brown, R Ken wrote:
>> So when are they going to arrest Gorby and Fidel?  They killed more
>people.
>
>Castro I assume the moment he steps foot in the USA other than on a
>diplomatic mission. I've no idea about   Gorbachev, I assume as a KGB
>official he was party to the same sort of behaviour as Pinochet was, but
>when he got to the top at least he didn't make things worse. Anyway,
>what about Oliver North?  And since when did our inability to catch all
>criminals stop us prosecuting the ones  we can catch?

Castro was in Spain on the same day Spain tried to extradite Pinochet.
Pinochet is accused of murdering 4K people.  Castro murdered many more than
4K people.  Gorby had a couple of massacres during his regime.  One in the
Baltics and as I recall one in Georgia.  I'm sure collectively he killed
more than 4K of people.  He no longer has diplomatic immunity either.  My
point is not that we shouldn't grab them it's that the "Human Rights
Community" is politically discriminatory and wouldn't think of going after
commies.

How about Mandella.  The Truth and Reconcilliation Commission report says
that the ANC was guilty of plenty of human rights violations.

>The very fact
>that some people who once had political credibility,  like Thatcher or
>Bush, support Pinochet is exactly the reason why he should be tried. We
>need to draw a line between tolerable and intolerable government and put
>his lot on the other side of it.

The very fact that some people who once had political credibility, like FDR
or Henry Wallace, support Joe Stalin is exactly the reasom why he should be
tried.  We need to draw the line...

And how about all those American commies whose cancelled paychecks from
Moscow we recently recovered from the KGB files.  

And what about the Butcher of Waco?

>You have to know what the threats to liberty are. Old Soviet-style
>"Communism" is hardly on the menu in any European  or North American
>country these days and out-and-out looney Naziism isn't either 

Be careful with this argument because Pinochet could propose a necessity
defense.  If you say communism is worse, then he can say he had to do it to
prevent communism.  

Also, "human rights violation" is a vague charge.  There are students in
the UK who are mad at Red Tony for the human rights violation of starting
to charge college tuition and depriving them of a free college education.

American tax cutters are regularly accused of the "human rights violation"
of letting people keep more of their own money.

It can hardly be illegal for governments to kill their own citizens.  They
do it all the time.  The US governments kill hundreds or thousands every
year depending on how you do the math.  

Better to use straight criminal law (or revolution) and inevitably let some
heads of state escape justice than to indulge in the ex post facto
political law represented by "crimes against humanity."

DCF