JUSTICE

How can the United States talk about "justice" How can American citizens talk about "justice"? The only kind of justice that exists in the United States is that which is radically modified by "liberty," the doctrine of irresponsible self-righteousness.
Our government suspends the right of habeas corpus, does away with the presumption of innocence until proven guilty; it condones torture, practices state kidnappings and "disappearances," and blackmails our supposed allies to keep quiet about our torturing their citizens. It starts illegal wars of aggression, and supplies obscene weapons--I'm thinking of phosphorus bombs, designed to burn, maim, and kill people indiscriminately--to vicious, uncivilised Israelis.
(The phosphorus bombs that the United States gives the Israeli army to use against Palestinians are not designed for use against military targets. They don't destroy buildings or guns; they aren't aimed at combatants. They are dropped, to explode before they hit the ground; upon detonation, they spew hundreds of large burning phosphorus pellets through the air. Phosphorus burns flesh--and keeps burning flesh, and keeps burning flesh. Of anybody: children, for example, as well as women and men and maybe even a few militants.)
Now, with the closing of the United States' main Concentration Camp at Guantanamo imminent, many Americans are complaining: they want "justice," they say, thining about the bombing of the USS Cole and the destruction of the World Trade Center. But Americans don't want justice; they want revenge. And revenge is not a worthy motive for anything.
After torturing people for six years, we have no right even to use the word justice. Only if the torturers--from the president down to the lowly scum who gave the direct orders and the craven creatures who carried them out--are brought to justice for their crimes can those who have been tortured ever be accused of crimes, and probably not even then: they have already been punished--illegally, inhumanely, and unjustly.
Americans can't ask for what they call "justice," and they can't be allowed further acts of vengeance. Rather, America must be brought to justice for its crimes.