El está muerto pero tan es la justicia

I wish that I felt happy enough about Augusto Pinochet's death to go into the street and bang pots and pans and throw confetti, like some Chileans did today. But part of the premise of being concerned with human rights and social justice is that justice will ultimately occur. The effort to make Pinochet accountable for his crimes was admirable and unceasing. Yet it was thwarted at almost every turn. So I don't feel happy. I feel sad for the victims and their families for what I see as their double loss.

I have heard some of Pinochet's victims discuss their horrific torture, some of which went on for years. I have heard the anguished voices of the families of people who were disappeared. I have seen Margaret Thatcher greet Pinochet with immense gratitude while he was under house arrest. The blood of thousands of people was spilled at his hands, but the hands of neocons who supported his torturous reign to prevent the spread of communism aren't clean, either. What a neoconservative coincidence that Jeane Kirkpatrick died this week, too.

When it's decided that communism is too terrible to bear but we'll allow lawless killing of people to ensure it doesn't happen, a thinking person is bound to wonder how much worse communism could be. When a country like Great Britain sends people to war to fight Saddam Hussein in violation of international law, but won't extradite a criminal to Spain in compliance with international law, I don't know where we go from there.

I'm not sure why we keep reliving this lesson: When law becomes optional, no one is very safe.