By The Colonel
There was a story in the New York Times this morning by Azam Ahmed and Habib Zahori about a case of government “ruling class” abuse of power in Afghanistan but this story is little different in principle from another story taking place in the United States of America. That story involves the Attorney General of the United States seizing James Rosen and his parent’s phone records with no evidence to support a warrant. I argue the Afghan story illustrates an important principle in that one of the few core responsibilities of any government is to protect its people from external (National defense) and internal harm (law enforcement)…to protect the weak from the strong. Yes the government can be an equalizing force protecting the little guys from the big powerful guys…unfortunately the government can also be the big and powerful who tyrannizes we common citizens. I worry that we are seeing the symptoms of tyranny not just in Afghanistan, but here at home in the USA.
The Afghanistan story is about an army major (Pashto) who was stopped for a routine traffic check and vehicle search by an Afghan policeman (Dari), the army major was reportedly arrogant and angry that he had been stopped by a Dari policeman so he phoned his Army unit and asked that soldiers be sent to teach this lowly policeman a lesson. Two trucks, 17 soldiers, arrived and beat the policeman severely after which the army major left to go on his way. The other policemen on duty at the checkpoint took their colleague to the hospital. Even though the incident was reported up the police chain of command, the army major remains free and giving orders because his ethnic or political group (Pasto) is in “power” and the policeman’s ethnic group (Dari) is not.
While we might think this lack of justice is pretty common in a third world country, it seems to be happening more frequently now in the United States of America? For example, James Rosen, a reporter for Fox News, recently had his and his parent’s phone records collected by the U.S. Attorney General without charging or indicting him with any crime…and in spite of his First Amendment right to free speech and a free press. Even though the Justice Department got a judge to issue a warrant, it was not easy to do…they (Justice Department) had to “Judge-Shop” … to fool a judge into signing the warrant…the first two judges approached refused to issue the warrant because there was no evidence to support it and because the Justice Department had not notified James Rosen of their intention to go after his and his parent’s phone records nor had they taken the first steps required by law to simply ask James Rosen for the information they were seeking. In fact, on the warrant the Justice Department finally found a judge to sign the AG lawyers had stated that James Rosen was “potentially criminally libel” in a National security case…even though they knew well he was not. James Rosen vs. the power of the entire United States government…with very deep pockets full of taxpayer dollars and an armed FBI agent to do the enforcement does not seem fair? I think this is why we have the rule of law…at least for now?
James Rosen and his parents were powerless and worse yet unaware they were being investigated by the all-powerful, resources-rich Federal government of the United States of America. James Rosen is a reporter for the Fox News network which is reportedly a conservative news organization and the U.S. Justice Department is under Attorney General Eric Holder, a member of the reportedly liberal administration. So the liberal party in power in America can abuse the rights of the conservative party members who are not in power? In Afghanistan, the ruling party-in-power abuses the rights of those who are not in power or are of another ethnic group (Dari). There may not be as much difference between us and the third world countries as there once was; do we really want to drift into the rule-of-man (even if he is historic and charismatic) or did our Founding Fathers have it right in the Constitution to guarantee rule-of-law, where we are all equal before the law?
Remember the classic book Animal Farm where “all of the animals were equal but some were more equal than others” (Orwell, 1946). Orwell was humorously mocking socialism and communism in 1946 but I think he would be shocked today at how some of our citizens (e.g., ruling class elite) are, “more equal than other citizens.”