How would you have felt if Clark had volunteered to defend Pinochet? Similar principles would be at stake - the validity of the international jurisdiction, etc. Regardless, it would stink to high heaven. This stinks more and higher. Doug
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I think I understand Clark's motivation. Or rather let me put it this way, I think I can come up with a fairly good defense theory for Ramsey Clark.
It has to do with defending those criminals of state and institutional power who the international legal community has found it politically convenient to charge with genocide and crimes against humanity. So, for example we have Milosevic and Ntakirutimana. In the first case, the European and Atlantic community wanted Milosevic's head to vindicate first their diplomatic incompetence, then their own botched Kosovo war. Milosevic was a very convenient defendant. In the case of Nakirutimana, again the EU and US wanted African heads to roll over their own stumblingly inadequate and then tragic, potentially racist incompetence in dealing with Africa. Fry a couple of Africans in a Belgian court room---a former African colonial power. A similar sort of dynamic was involved over the Ukrainian nazi war criminal.
Consider the US domestic cases, Lyndon LaRouche and whatever the name of the Branch Davidian in the wrongful death against the US. These are politically convenient defendants, precisely because they are universally hated and despised.
These cases follow a contrariant logic in the sense that those who need the best defense are those who have been found the most convenient to prosecute in a world with numerous others much less politically convenient to charge, yet even more culpable and who remain essentially unindictable.
For example the question isn't really would Ramsey Clark defend Pinochet, but would he defend Henry Kissinger?
Clark would probably not defend Kissinger, since Kissinger is politically very inconvenient to charge and prosecute, and as a member of the US ruling elite, Clark could be more than certain, Kissinger would be given better than a fair trial. In fact, one interesting reason to defend Pinochet would be to hang his atrocities on Kissinger as the unindicted co-conspirator.
I suspect a similar sort of logic was behind Michael Tigar's defense of Terry Nichols. White trash marginalia out to blow up the government. A universally despised type, easy to nail and prosecute, in the face of a righwing government covering its own brutal domestic agendas---creating the very socio-economic and ideological conditions that breed such disaffection---while at the same politically depending on it in fact for its own popular support.
In other words, hate government is the rightwing political platform. Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeah(?) just got carried away with the rhetoric. It seems hardly fair to turn around and prosecute them for what the same rightwing government was doing to the public commons---destroying it piecemeal.
So in a general way those who need the best defense are those who are arbitrarily prosecuted within an unfair system that meticulously avoids investigating, charging, and prosecuting the politically inconvenient, but far more culpable.
I think this general rational can be also extended to include Lynn Stewart's defence of Sheik al-Whatsit and of course who ever got the Walker case before the plea bargain---was it MOFO?
``George W. Bush walks the streets a free man, and here we are churning up the Web in hot pursuit of Ramsey Clark. Seems some sense of proportion and timeliness is in order here...'' Carl
Hilarious. But would Ramsey Clark defend GWB before the Hague for crimes against humanity in the war on Iraq? Would he defend Ariel Sharon? I seriously doubt it, just as I seriously doubt either will ever find themselves cross examined on the stand. On the other hand, if by chance some stupid US Army captain blows away an Iraq village and then gets charged for a war atrocity---who better to defend?
Chuck Grimes