I watched the classic film, Judgement at Nuremburg, last Saturday (the one with Spencer Tracy, Richard Widmark, Burt Lancaster, Marlene Dietrich, Montgomery Clift and Judy Garland). I hadn’t seen it in a long time and I was so struck by the parallels to the current investigations into the Department of Justice. It’s about a trial of several German judges and a prosecutor post WWII who allowed the Nazis to persecute innocent people. The German characters rationalized their own actions and that of their colleagues and family. They swore they didn’t know about the atrocities. They needed to support their government against their enemies and so had to overlook a few small technicalities and legalities even though it wasn’t really just or right. It was ok to sacrifice an innocent person for a greater cause. It was for the greater good. They didn’t think it would escalate and lead to a disaster. They were honorable people and shouldn’t be held responsible. It was a few others who committed a few atrocities not the German people. They shouldn’t be held accountable even though they enabled overlooked the crimes. They couldn’t or wouldn’t admit to the extent of the atrocities.

The Nazis need the justice system to legitimize their administration. Rather than retire or refuse, the judges and prosecutor on trial either caved to the pressure or felt the ends justified the means and carried out the policies of administration. When do the ends ever justify the means?

There was pressure on the American tribunal to move on, to let it go. It was in the past and what good would it do to prosecute? There was another threat, considered greater, Communism, and we needed the Germans as allies. People were sick of the war and wanted to forget about it. Another ends justify the means rationalization.

But if the justice system can be so easily compromised, made meaningless because of expediency, evil pervades a country. If the courts allow one innocent person to be convicted because of outside pressure, the whole system is corrupted. It may seem that one case, one person is not important. But it is a pattern of chipping away at protections and rights. Little by little protections are taken away until nothing is left of any significance. No one is protected and the weight of a powerful government will be used against political enemies and those not in power.

An investigation into the firing of several U.S. attorneys because alledgedly they didn’t carry out the agenda of the Bush administration is under way. Apparently, the pressure from the White House has been going on for some time, but the USA’s didn’t speak up until they were fired. Iglesias went public, not when contacted by Domenici and Wilson (he was obligated to report their calls then and didn’t), but when he was fired. Better late than never, but instead of dealing with a small issue, it has become a huge crisis. This reaches into our election process, courts, administration and congress. More importantly, which USA’s have gone along with the Bush administration’s pressure? What investigations were unjust, what cases compromised?

It happened in Germany. I saw what it was like to live under a corrupt system in Argentina. And the one piece of our government, our justice system, that up until this administration has been able to remain independent and clean, may have been compromised. We are living in precarious times. I believe it is encumbent upon us to pay attention to our government. Democracy can’t exist otherwise. Rent the film, the scene with Tracy and Lancaster at the end of the film should be shown every year just before the elections as a public service announcement.