wikileaks synthesis: US bullying allies to stop criminal prosecutions

[91bravojoe]

Bob Egelko is the legal affairs writer for the SF Chronicle. He takes a break from domestic homicides to isolate three instances in the wikileaks cables of the US seeking to halt criminal investigation of US personnel for the usual litany: torture, kidnapping, blowing up journalists.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/03/06/IN251HEQIP.DTL

[JMA]

Bob Egelko is the legal affairs writer for the SF Chronicle. He takes a break from domestic homicides to isolate three instances in the wikileaks cables of the US seeking to halt criminal investigation of US personnel for the usual litany: torture, kidnapping, blowing up journalists.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/03/06/IN251HEQIP.DTL

The following is spine chilling:


Federal courts have dismissed el-Masri's suit against the U.S. government, accepting arguments by both the Bush and Obama administrations that secrets about the CIA's rendition program could be exposed if the case proceeded.

[91bravojoe]

That "state secrets" privilege, a wholly judge-made concept, had the occasional
appearance in US law prior to the little Bush administration. Now you see it about as often as a Homeland Security foulup. Discussed here:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/statesec/index.html

-----------------

Yes Pete, now in the East Bay.

[Old Eagle]

I think that it was Dan Drezner from Fletcher who made the observation, but most of the excitement around wikileaks appears to be centered around those unfamiliar with how diplomacy functions. The "informed public" in gov't, academia, and even journalism doesn't see as many reasons for excitement.

One of the things that we do in overseas missions is to try to convince the host governments to support our point of view on issues ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. We don't "bully", after all, we're diplomats. But we do engage to the limits outlined in our instructions from Washington. Many times the host gov't doesn't agree, and life goes on.

In the CIA cases, Justice cases and those of other government officials, there is little expectation that anything meaningful can result, but the resulting aggravation between us and our various partners could do even more damage.

I would also point out that we don't get to pick and choose our issues. As dumb as any particular demarshmallow may appear, we have to follow instructions and deliver it, sometimes multiple times. Life still goes on.