Frank: Thanks for the courteous criticism. However, you misread me. I do not
derogate Russell's opposition to the Vietnam War, which I lived through and
also opposed from the git go. He was right about Vietnam. I have a bookshelf
full of Russell's works. I also do not dispute that the US committed war
crimes in Vietnam. However, the Bertrand Russell War Crimes Tribunal was a
kangaroo court; ask yourself if any of the procedures of due process were in
place? Answer: no, they were not. It was a show trial. Doesn't mean the
defendants were innocent. It just means it was a show trial.
I really don't mind if you disagree. I may, if I have the time, dredge up a
contemporary (c. 1973) article about Russell and the Svengali (a radical
named David Somebody, name escapes me) who kept him under wraps during the
whole BRWCT affair, very much like the IAC and Clark; it's been a long time,
and needless to say, the article is not on the Net. If I find it, I will
post what I have the time to type in. The whole subject is dicta to my
original characterization of Ramsey Clark's involvement with the IAC
anyway. In other words, it's beside the point.
The point, again, is that it's not character assassination to point to the
way Clark has squandered his moral authority through his connection with the
Workers World Party. Let's revisit some of the highlights of his association
with this "principled" organization:
> At the end of 1998 Clark attended a human rights conference in Baghdad, Iraq,
> where in his keynote speech he pointed out how "the governments of the rich
> nations, primarily the United States, England and France," dominated the
> wording of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which showed "little
> concern for economic, social and cultural rights." The social and cultural
> rights claimed by his Iraqi hosts include the right to hang opponents in
> public at the airport, or poison thousands of Kurds and torture and execute
> any opponent of the regime. And on the legality of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait,
> the silence is deafening.
> When he flew to Belgrade to support Slobodan Milosevic during NATO's campaign,
> there was no word about the siege of Sarajevo, the massacre at Srebrenica or
> the million homeless refugees from Kosovo -- and even less of those
> olfactorily eloquent mass graves that NATO is now uncovering. But then, urging
> Belgrade to resist NATO, while he was there picking up an honorary degree, he
> told his hosts, "It will be a great struggle, but a glorious victory. You can
> be victorious."
> In Grenada he went to advise Bernard Coard, the murderer of Prime Minister
> Maurice Bishop. Other clients include Radovan Karadzic, the indicted Bosnian
> Serbian war criminal whom he defended in a New York civil suit brought by
> Bosnian rape victims, and the Rwandan pastor who is accused of telling Tutsis
> to hide in his church and then summoning Hutus to massacre them, and then
> leading killing squads.
As for the WWP:
> The Workers World Party split from the Socialist Workers Party many decades
> ago in support of the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, and it has remained
> true to its origins. Oddball Trotskyists morphed to Stalinoids, its members
> have since then supported the Chinese government over Tiananmen Square -- and
> of course see the current incumbents in Belgrade and Baghdad as staunch
> anti-imperialists. By appearing on their behalf, the former attorney general
> allows their views a vicarious respectability that they could never dream of
> otherwise. Associates take some small comfort from the WWP's hold on Clark --
> it means that he no longer carries water for the equally oddball Lyndon
> LaRouche, with whom he flirted in the '80s.
More--much more-- at
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/06/21/clark/index.html
I find it discouraging that at the same time listmembers bend over backwards
to discredit the ICTY as a creature of NATO, they wax indignant at my
mention of the obvious travesty of due process that the IAC and its useful
idiot Ramsey Clark, represent.
Incidentally, I take the time to respond to you because you seem to respect
the obligations of fact and reason. I hope we can maintain that standard in
our dialogue.
PS Those on this list infatuated with Russell AND the IAC might benefit from
reading his scathing attack on Marx and its Stalinoid progeny: "Why I Am Not
a Communist." (http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Lights/1040/htmls/why.html)
Looks like Russell would fit comfortably inside that special circle of
Leftist Hell reserved for hated "liberals."
--
Tresy Kilbourne
Seattle WA
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