November 15, 2010--Safe Haven for Nazis
Our Justice Department is a busy place. Much of its time the past few years has been taken up with the decision about where to try Kalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attack on the U.S. He is the purported terrorist who was waterboarded by the Bush administration 183 times and since Obama's election has been the object of intense internal discussion about where to bring him to trial.
Guantanamo is the right place, most pandering politicians say, claiming that it would be either unsafe to try him in New York City, just 10 blocks from Ground Zero, or too painful for families of victims to see him and his lawyers ranting on local TV. Initially and courageously the Obama administration said there is no better place both symbolically and constitutionally to have him face justice than where he committed his heinous crime.
But then, in what is sadly typical for them, Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder got cold political feet when opposition mounted. The issue, almost two years later, is still festering undecided, and now New York governor-elect Andrew Cuomo has weighed in saying there is no way he will allow the trial to take place in New York City.
But the Justice Department has been busy with other matters, including attempts to withhold the publication of an internal report that reveals how the U.S., after World War II, provided a safe haven for Nazi war criminals and collaborators.
According the the report, which was reported about in the New York Times (linked below), the rationale for sheltering Nazis was the hope that they would help in the hunt for some of the most notorious of war criminals--Dr. Joseph Mengele, the so-called Angel of Death who presided over barbarous medical "experiments" at Auschwitz and Ivan the Terrible, the notorious prison guard at Treblinka, who the government, with former Nazis' help, wound up misidentifying.
No matter how valid it was at the time to harbor some small fish in order to get their help in tracking down the big fish, most of the thousands of former Nazis who were allowed to come to the U.S. and live here unprosecuted were of no help whatsoever. They just lived on in effect protected by our government and were never held accountable for their misdeeds.
And now refusing to release the report, for some inexplicable reason, only compounds that crime.
According to the report, "America, which prided itself on being a safe haven for the persecuted, became--in some instances--a safe haven for the persecutors."
Withholding the release of the report, the Justice Department claims that though it is the product of six years of work it was never formally completed and thus does not represent its official findings. According to the Times, the department cited “numerous factual errors and omissions,” but declined to say what they were.
Declining to say what its problem is with the United States harboring Nazis is not my idea of Justice. But I know I should try to understand--Attorney General Holder has a lot of his plate.
Guantanamo is the right place, most pandering politicians say, claiming that it would be either unsafe to try him in New York City, just 10 blocks from Ground Zero, or too painful for families of victims to see him and his lawyers ranting on local TV. Initially and courageously the Obama administration said there is no better place both symbolically and constitutionally to have him face justice than where he committed his heinous crime.
But then, in what is sadly typical for them, Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder got cold political feet when opposition mounted. The issue, almost two years later, is still festering undecided, and now New York governor-elect Andrew Cuomo has weighed in saying there is no way he will allow the trial to take place in New York City.
But the Justice Department has been busy with other matters, including attempts to withhold the publication of an internal report that reveals how the U.S., after World War II, provided a safe haven for Nazi war criminals and collaborators.
According the the report, which was reported about in the New York Times (linked below), the rationale for sheltering Nazis was the hope that they would help in the hunt for some of the most notorious of war criminals--Dr. Joseph Mengele, the so-called Angel of Death who presided over barbarous medical "experiments" at Auschwitz and Ivan the Terrible, the notorious prison guard at Treblinka, who the government, with former Nazis' help, wound up misidentifying.
No matter how valid it was at the time to harbor some small fish in order to get their help in tracking down the big fish, most of the thousands of former Nazis who were allowed to come to the U.S. and live here unprosecuted were of no help whatsoever. They just lived on in effect protected by our government and were never held accountable for their misdeeds.
And now refusing to release the report, for some inexplicable reason, only compounds that crime.
According to the report, "America, which prided itself on being a safe haven for the persecuted, became--in some instances--a safe haven for the persecutors."
Withholding the release of the report, the Justice Department claims that though it is the product of six years of work it was never formally completed and thus does not represent its official findings. According to the Times, the department cited “numerous factual errors and omissions,” but declined to say what they were.
Declining to say what its problem is with the United States harboring Nazis is not my idea of Justice. But I know I should try to understand--Attorney General Holder has a lot of his plate.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
4:42 AM
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