Obama administration ‘looks backwards’ to punish heroes
Massey Energy workers take a break from drilling efforts above Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch Coal Mine in Montcoal, West Virginia. Image by Getty Images North America via Daylife
A few weeks ago, I commented on the media’s ennui in response to General McChrystal’s admission that the US military had “shot an amazing number of people, but to [his] knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat.”
Apart from a few fleeting exceptions (the Times briefly covered McChrystal’s statement,) the media collectively yawned and moved on even though — as I wrote at the time — here was the highest ranking US military official in Afghanistan, openly admitting that the US military has killed a whole lot of people, none of whom posed a threat.
In a society that adheres to the rule of law, killing innocent civilians is still considered a war crime. Of course, this isn’t the era of accountability. This is the era of Obama, and the era of Obama is about “looking forward, not backwards.”
We don’t look backwards if the former vice-president admits to a war crime on national television, CIA officials admit to destroying torture tapes that would have helped convict them of war crimes, or to reconsider wasteful imperialist agendas.
In fact, the only time Obama seems concerned with “looking backwards” is to prosecute people like Thomas Drake, who blew the whistle on the NSA wiretapping scandal. As Greenwald points out, this is a super way to discourage future whistleblowers. Who is going to step forward as an informant when they know exactly which side of the fight Obama and Company are on? Spoiler: The nice guy will finish last.
And Drake isn’t the first whistleblower to pay the terrible price for doing the right thing. Bradley Birkenfeld, a former banker for the Swiss giant UBS, who blew the whistle on the biggest tax evasion scheme in US history, recently asked Obama for clemency to coincide with Tax Day. Birkenfeld is currently serving a forty-month sentence even though he played a key role in uncovering the bank scandal. Meanwhile, the CEOs who made billions from Wall Street’s Ponzi scam are still free, and still extremely wealthy thanks to US taxpayers.
Thus far, the Justice Department has declined to comment on Birkenfeld’s case.
More than ever, industries need whistleblowers — conscientious citizens who value human life more than the bottom line, and are willing to heroically risk everything in order to do the right thing. These extraordinarily brave individuals are invaluable, especially considering the state of the oftentimes dangerously under-regulated industries they come from.
Whistleblowers must be protected, and it’s criminal that the Obama administration has, thus far, only levelled its “accountability for all” standard on the individuals seeking accountability.
Even if an informant summons the strength to step forth, someone needs to be there at the other end. Many times, no one listened when the whistle was being blown.
A belatedly celebrated whistleblower who was ignored by everybody, [Harry] Markopolos tried, umpteen times, to raise the alarm about Bernard Madoff’s $65bn (£43bn) Ponzi scheme which imploded at the end of 2008, leaving thousands of charities, hedge funds, pensioners and Hollywood stars bereft of billions of dollars. Dismissed as a misguided obsessive until Madoff’s eventual confession, he became increasingly anxious for his safety.
It also helps to treat regulation as a form of whistleblowing, and provide negative ramifications for substandard practices.
Inspectors have cited hundreds of safety violations at Massey Energy coal mines in Kentucky since an April 5 explosion at one of the company’s mines in West Virginia killed 29 employees, federal records show.
The 279 citations and orders in Kentucky, more than 80 of them alleging significant and substantial violations, were among a total of 442 issued to Massey underground mines in Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia from April 5 through Thursday.
Of those 442, more than half — 222 — were issued to one Massey property in Kentucky, Freedom Energy Mining Co. in Pike County, according to a Herald-Leader analysis of data from the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration.
“That’s off the charts. That is an extremely troubled mine,” said Tony Oppegard, a Lexington attorney who formerly worked at MSHA and Kentucky’s mine-safety agency.
So just to reiterate: Since the April 5 explosion that killed 29 mine workers, which was the worst US mining accident since 1970, Massey Energy coal mines have been cited by inspectors hundreds of times — and many of these violations are significant and substantial.
Before the April 5 blast occurred, that same coal mine had been cited for 600 violations in less than a year and a half, some of them for not properly ventilating methane, the gas suspected in the explosion.
Oppegard is right. These new violations are “off the charts,” and something should probably be done about it.
In a sane world, Massey Energy CEO, Don Blankenship, would probably go to jail for negligent homicide. Of course, by the Obama administration’s standards, Massey will probably receive a bonus and Oppegard will get shipped off to the slammer.
We can figure out what his crime is later during one of our “time to look backwards” moments. Maybe we can charge him with endangering the free market, or being a buzzkill. You know what? Let’s just skip charging him with anything, use the good ol’ state secrets privilege, and call it a day.
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Accountability is for peons.
Article is good until it gives portrays the killing of innocent’s and lack of accountability as something new and unique to the Obama administration. Anyone with two brain cells left to rub together, knows Obama is simply following the previously set forth agenda. Even here, we find writers doing the same as in the propagandized “News” media. Spewing their own slanted perspectives rather than objectively reporting facts. It’s supposed to be TRUE slant not just another slant. The Jerry Springer Effect is rampant.
Not sure I understand your logic. Bush has already been lambasted and deservedly so. But he’s not the Prez anymore. Obama does not get a pass just because Bush was horrible.
In response to another comment. See in context »I agree, Joe. This article was great until it pointed out that the election was essentially meaningless. Now I’m sad and have chosen to blame the above article instead of the people actually currently responsible, because lies are only bad if they make you feel bad and if the truth hurts rub some dirt on it.
In response to another comment. See in context »I’m essentially repeating what Scott already said, but President Bush isn’t in charge anymore, though obviously I believe he should be held accountable. Hence, the war crimes bit.
I’m not sure who you think I’m “slanted” toward, since I think Bush and Obama should face the same one-tier system of justice.
In response to another comment. See in context »RE:to raise the alarm about Bernard Madoff’s $65bn (£43bn) Ponzi scheme
…a pittance, obama wasted $800,000,000,000 billion on the fradulent stimulus, and the democrats are overpsending in congress at the rate of $1,500,000,000,000 per year compare that to maddoff’s $43,000,000,000…..count the zeroes….
This is a great article that point up something that smells very bad. Allison helps point up an important point in the body politic of the United States. The Republicans had a complete idiot in power for 8 years. Now the democrats have their bankster-owned chicago-land hack in office. That makes 9 1/2 years of horrible leadership. Any politically-minded person that thinks that one is good and the other bad are marching lockstep toward fascism. There is goiant opportunity out there if the right woman or man decides to sieze upon it.
i voted for obama and there are many faults i find with him but the whole not looking backward thing sticks in my craw. not bringing cheney up on war crime charges is a real clinker. gw bush should be standing right next to him. letting the shenanigans pulled off by wall street mega banks where they give themselves massive bonuses while the people whose money it was in the first place are drowning in debt is unspeakably wrong. he’s tossed the citizens overboard while ushering the rats onboard the ship. read the white house. my opinion of the man sinks and sinks.
yes I think most people are very disappointed. Obama is actually helping Liz Cheney because when he doesn’t proccute criminals they are free to say their actions are legal and even good. And that if you oppose torture you are the bad one.
In response to another comment. See in context »After Watergate many of Nixons men tried to defend themselves but the criminal convictions couldn’t be waved away.
This is a good point. By not prosecuting these crimes, Obama is permanently legitimizing them. Ditto for his embracement of executive privilege. I think many liberals are prepared to give Obama a “pass” with state secrets because “Obama’s a good guy, and he would never do anything bad with these powers.”
But what they fail to imagine is those same ballooned powers in someone else’s hands, say a President Palin. Obama is laying the groundwork for generations to come.
In response to another comment. See in context »I have spent some time considering this issue and have come to a conclusion. I believe that citizen Obama would be all in on investigation and prosecution of flagrant constitutional abuses. But President Obama has been briefed about topics and realities that the public knows nothing about. I believe that Cheney, Bush and others are getting away with murder because they know things the rest of us do not and may be holding this Ace against prosecutuion. It is the only scenario that makes sense of the seemingly ludicrous notion of “looking forward” even while Cheney rubs the administration’s nose in it.
We don’t live in a sane world. We live in a land ruled by corporations. Obama’s administration of change is as beholden to corporate interest as the one before it, and the one before that. The executive branch is made up of insider lobbyists.
There is no hypocrisy whatsoever in the dissonance between McChrysal or Cheney, and Drake or Birkenfield. We don’t care about crimes against (foreign) people, only crimes against corporations. Our consistency there is both admirable and abominable.
In the case of Massey Energy we have the conundrum of weighing criminal negligence in regard to Americans against the profit of American corporations…tough call.
The corporation needs to be punished, but it’s not a person so all we can do is fine it, which amounts to money in exchange for human life, the same thing we pay to the family of innocents in Afghanistan.
http://www.iwpr.net/report-news/afghan-anger-us-casualty-payments
True. The one-tier system of justice doesn’t apply to the wealthy and powerful, which explains why a poor person can go to jail the rest of their life for a drug violation, but the CEO of Massey, or the former President and Vice-President, walk free after committing negligent homicide and war crimes, respectively.
In response to another comment. See in context »While I agree with the idea of going after war crimes and exposing the Bush administration for what it is…it should be noted that going after Cheney and Rumsfeld, who I consider the nexus of of insanity would be quite an undertaking…a criminal trial on level with Nuremberg or the South Africa Truth Commission…it would take years to put together. So let us hope that maybe there is some effort being made to put a case together…I suspect Great Britain might help the cause.
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It is officially illegal to put concern for humans above concern for corporations:
http://www.france24.com/en/20100417-danny-glover-arrested-demo-against-frances-sodexo
Also notice that the Supreme Court gave corporations the right to free speech in Citizens United but apparently took it away from the humans that work for them.