Jonathan P. Baird

When our military blew up the girls’ elementary school in Iran, the reaction was telling. The President and his War Secretary denied responsibility. Shortly after, the New York Times reported that these murders were a result of an American tomahawk missile. That disclosure made no difference to the powers-that-be. They have moved on with no look back and no compulsion to return to an unwelcome subject.

It was not different than the boat strikes’ murders and the reaction to that. No legal case was presented to justify those many murders. The Trump regime wanted some people dead. Case closed. The expectation is that the public will not care and the story will disappear. As with the school girls’ murders, there is no accountability.

The pattern has been well-established. An awful government-generated crime is committed. Whatever the outcry and public reaction, nothing happens to the perpetrators. This is not just true with Republican administrations. It happens with Democrats too.

There are no shortage of examples. Just during my lifetime, I would cite the targeted assassination of Fred Hampton, the Phoenix program in South Vietnam, U.S. support for the death squads in Latin America during the 1970’s-1980’s, torture in Iraq at Abu Ghraib and other black sites, the drone killing of Anwar al-Alwaki and his 16 year old son, the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Freddie Gray and the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

Certainly that list could be greatly expanded but there are commonalities. Lack of accountability is connected to class. Very wealthy people who commit crimes are often not charged or punished. The same cannot be said for working or poor people. The U.S. Supreme Court has shown much more forgiveness towards white collar criminals than blue collar defendants.

This form of injustice has accelerated under the Trump regime where it has reached its apogee. I am reminded of a quote from Eugene V. Debs:

“There is something wrong in this country; the judicial nets are so adjusted as to catch the minnows and let the whales slip through.”

Trump has made it his mission to free every white collar criminal he can, no matter how egregious the crimes committed. His abuse of the pardon power is legendary. Michael Milken, Paul Manafort, Charles Kushner, Changpeng Zhao, Steve Bannon, Trevor Milton, Todd and Julie Chrisley, David Gentile and Joseph Schwartz and the ex-Honduran president Juan Orlando Hemandez all received pardons.

He also pardoned his political allies like the more than 1500 January 6 rioters who trashed the Capitol and viciously attacked the police.

The outstanding example of lack of accountability is the failure to prosecute the circle of people around Jeffrey Epstein. The high flyers who inhabited the Epstein universe have for years escaped any prosecution or even questioning. Because of their status and position, police looked the other way. They were too big to prosecute.

It is undisputed that Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were best friends for many years. To date, Trump has successfully covered up that extensive connection. No one knows exactly what secrets they shared. The Attorney General has covered for her boss. Withholding millions of files and protecting the identity of wealthy predators rather than the identity of victims has been her agenda.

The public deserves an explanation for the special treatment of Epstein collaborator, Ghislaine Maxwell. Even though she is a convicted child sex offender, the prison authorities moved her to a country club prison inconsistent with her sentence. This happened after her two day meeting with Trump’s former lawyer and now Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. Logic would suggest that the more favorable prison conditions Maxwell received were in exchange for promised testimony absolving Trump of any Epstein-related crimes.

When I mentioned the bi-partisan failure of accountability I would particularly cite President Obama’s refusal to investigate or prosecute the torture that the George W. Bush administration inflicted on those deemed “enemy combatants” in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama himself acknowledged that the U.S. “tortured some folks”. The torture included waterboarding, stress positions and sleep deprivation and that torture violated international law. The prohibition against torture is absolute. In justification, Obama argued we should look forward – not back.

I would say that ignoring past crimes hasn’t worked as a way to insure a more hopeful future. The failure of accountability in America has deep roots. It goes back to our societal failure to acknowledge our two great national sins – slavery and the genocide against Native Americans. All subsequent failures follow and were made possible by the larger failure.

In contrast to Germany where there has been a genuine societal soul-searching about the Holocaust, America avoids introspection. We have not had Truth and Reconciliations Commissions. Our monuments about slavery like Bryan Stevenson’s Legacy Museum and National Lynching Memorial are private affairs. The U.S. government has no memorials about its treatment of Native Americans. Our tendency is to bury dark chapters. If America was a psychiatric patient, these words from Carl Jung would apply:

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.”

If we continue the pattern of unaccountability it is hard to see how we will ever overcome the legacy which has led us to Trump’s fascist regime. Unless we get to the roots of what has led us to this debacle and offer a political alternative that speaks to the human needs of Americans, we will be likely to see a worse version of fascism in 2032 or 2036.