Last week, as part of a December-January movie-going binge, I finally saw Nuremberg, the latest film about the famous war crimes trials held in Nuremberg in 1945-6.
Unlike those that have preceded it, this film centers on the psychological chess game played out, over time, between Reichsmarschall Hermann Goring (played by Russell Crowe) and US Army psychiatrist, Douglas Kelley (played by Rami Malek). Kelley was assigned to conduct individual sessions with 22 top Nazi leaders who had been captured and were being held to stand trial in front of an international tribunal of Allies. He was asked to evaluate their mental condition and report on what they might say in their own defense. The prisoners were facing charges of complicity in the deaths of millions and the atrocities surrounding those deaths. The film was powerful, disturbing, and, ultimately, instructive.
It was instructive because I couldn’t help but wonder just who will hold the cruel and rageful white house resident and all his sycophants, enablers and fellow murderers to account, following the end of his nightmare term in office. After all, the Nuremberg defendants had lost the war and it was the victors who were holding the trials for which there was, as yet, no actual international law to apply on the subject.
Would a country, especially our country, ever hold its own leaders accountable for war crimes? Would it, as it did in 1945, work to convene an international tribunal?
I believe it must be done. The crimes committed by this regime have continued to shock the conscience of any descent person. Begin by totaling the millions who are dying after the withdrawal of US AID funding, add the deaths here at home stemming directly from the crackpot anti-vax advice given by the Crackpot-In-Chief, Robert Kennedy Jr., stir in the cruel mistreatment, incarceration, violence and deliberate murders by ICE, add the killing of innocent fishermen in the Caribbean, and top it off with the invasion without permission of Congress, of Venezuela, and the kidnapping, jailing and show trial of their president, and you will find ample evidence of crimes against humanity and against the peace. And who knows what atrocities are next as America’s dictator careens into threats of international bombing, and the taking of an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark.
To elaborate: an international study published by The Lancet estimates that, by 2030, over 14 million preventable deaths will occur because of the withdrawal of US AID funding. Boston University estimates that 300,000 to 600,000 people have already died from the startling dismantling of this help, most of them children.
Those cuts, alone, also put 95 million people at risk of losing basic healthcare and will affect the educational opportunities of more than 23 million children.
I know I don’t need to detail the horrendous toll stemming from the rough treatment, property damage, violence and, ultimately, murder by rogue ICE forces here at home. Finally, add the actions of the members of this miserable excuse for a Cabinet in not only destroying the health of our children, our elderly and all of us in between, but also weaponizing the Justice Department to attack and cover up crimes.
They must be held accountable and now, at least, thanks to the Nuremberg trials, themselves, we have a body of international law against which to measure this egregious conduct. And good old American law to identify responsibility for death and destruction here. I will happily volunteer just to bring the legal team coffee. If only…..
Who Will Write History
In her current bestselling novel, The Knight and The Moth, (I have already come out as a science fiction and magic fan), Rachel Gillig writes, “A nation’s histories are forged by those who benefit from them and seldom by those who live them.” No kidding. This current regime seems to imagine that hiding plaques, redacting damaging reports, renaming buildings, removing displays from the Smithsonian and mischaracterizing practically every historical and current news event will, somehow, truly alter the memories of the American people for even one minute beyond the nightmare span of the regime, itself.
Dream on, I say. As soon as this tyrant is gone, restoration will begin: the full history of the country, warts and all; the contributions of people of all races, genders, and status; as well as the ugly facts of the transgressions of this regime, all of them.
In addition, some currently powerful individuals will be remembered only for the sins committed by them while in the thrall of the faux king orange guy. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, for example, has already earned the doubtful distinction of having a traffic stop, which occurs only because of the race of the driver, named after him. Driving while black or brown is the alleged offense; a “Kavanaugh Stop” is the current shorthand for the resulting action. Do they have any idea how history will actually remember them? Time will tell.
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