Ethics Now and Then: Mistakes, Crimes, and Sedition

What's the difference between a crime and a mistake? Well, here are a couple of differences:

When you commit a crime, you deserve punishment. When you make a mistake, you may or may not be punished for it, but you generally don't deserve to be punished in the same sense. Of course, you may or may not be punished for committing a crime, but if you're not, we say that justice is not done.

Another difference, according to lawyers and judges, is that a criminal has to have criminal intent. Perpetrators must know that what they are doing is wrong. If they don't know what they are doing is wrong, it's not clear that they deserve punishment. If they don't know what they are doing is wrong, they've made a mistake. That covers a lot of human behavior, because a lot of people who make mistakes think they are doing the right thing.

I was talking with someone tonight about whether or not our president is a criminal because he launched a war that's illegal in international law. She responded that it takes a long time for people to come around to that point of view. It took me a long time to come around to that point of view. For a couple of years, I said that the president is incompetent, and that he lacks judgment. That's what you say about someone who makes bad mistakes. Then I began to say that he's an incompetent criminal. Most recently, I've dropped the incompetent part. Do you know why? Because of the torture. Torture follows this president wherever his authority reaches: Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, secret prisons in Europe, rendition and waterboarding and death after death... That's what transforms this president's actions from mistakes into crimes. He is responsible for the way we conduct the war that started on September 11. He and his team have conducted the war not as incompetents, but as criminals.

One problem with calling the president a criminal is that it's almost impossible to do so without seeming to dishonor the brave soldiers who are fighting now in Iraq and Afghanistan. But I don't see it. Soldiers follow orders and civilian leaders give them. I know we have a whole jursiprudence in military law about not following illegal orders, but that's just not relevant in this case. We have an administration that has overseen the development of torture as a policy in the so-called war against terror. This policy is deliberate and it flows from the top of our government. Blaming our soldiers for the war itself, or for the way it's conducted, is out of the question. They are not to blame for what the government has done. The few soldiers who are blameworthy are already under investigation, and their acts don't diminish the bravery or honor of all the others who fight for us.

For all that, we still don't want to recognize the president's actions for what they are. We think that if Secretary Rumsfeld steps down, we can make things okay again. Well, Bush was right when he said, "I'm the decider." He meant that he supports Rumsfeld and the rest of the team that brought us Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, extraordinary rendition, and all the rest. Bush is responsible for all of it, but no one in government will say it. To say during a war that the president is a criminal sounds like sedition. Sedition is the incitement of rebellion against a lawful state, though, and this state is not lawful. It has shown itself a criminal state. It has destroyed our beloved constitution and our reputation as a democratic country that protects human rights. So we have to ignore its authority and find new leadership, fast.