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RedditPresident Bush promised in his State of the Union message, "We will deliver justice to our enemies."
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The Shooting of Jose Ramos Horta
Allan Nairn: If Timor-Leste's President doesn't survive the assassination attempt, his soul will get a good laugh at outlasting Suharto, who killed a third of his people.
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Guatemalans Seek Redress in Spanish Court
Allan Nairn: As Americans consider who to choose as their next President, Guatemalan Mayans seek justice for Reagan-era atrocities.
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Justified Violence: Breaking the Gaza Wall
Allan Nairn: The breaking of the Gaza-Egypt wall is clearly a good thing, and a rare example of the moral--and also wise--use of violence in politics.
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Bush's War of All Against All
Allan Nairn: A leader who waged war with impunity shouldn't be surprised to someday be called to account for his actions.
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Suharto's Passage: One Small Man Leaves a Million Corpses
Allan Nairn: Indonesia's dictator is fading fast: But what of his people's memories of the civilians he killed?
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US Complicity in Timor
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License to Kill in Timor
That's the way people like Bin Laden think, and Bush apparently shares his mindset.
A leader chooses his definition of justice and goes out and kills--or does whatever--to the culprit.
That's the way things theoretically work by default in the absence of a strong society, in the condition of something like what Thomas Hobbes called "the war of all against all."
But if we didn't have a strong society, Bush wouldn't have a $2.8 trillion budget for FY 2007. He wouldn't have Secret Service bodyyguards, so he'd have to wear a holster to the podium, as Yassir Arafat--who had a smaller budget--once did.
Without a strong society there wouldn't be any effective inheritance laws, so Bush would be out there scrambling for work and food like everybody else.
In other words, you can't have it both ways.
You can't luxuriate in huge social entitlements while ignoring society's most basic laws and taboos: the ones regarding killing other people, the ones that say that society defines justice on these matters--not individual leaders, or even establishments--and it defines it by consensus and law (i.e., murder laws), made laboriously over time.
So if Bush wants to go out and kill somebody with a sword, as he might in a Hobbesian world, that's up to him.
But he shouldn't be surprised--or complain--when he's arrested by society's law-enforcers.
