Anyone familiar with Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón will remember that he’s an activist who sought to bring criminal charges against a number of Americans, including Henry Kissinger and the so-called “Bush Six.” (Alberto Gonzales, former Attorney General; John Yoo, of the Office of Legal Counsel; Douglas Feith, former undersecretary of defense for policy; William Haynes II, former general counsel for the Department of Defense; Jay Bybee, also at Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel; and David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff.) The Wall Street Journal called his behavior “an assault on American sovereignty and the integrity of the U.S. legal system.”
And now that Garzón is facing trouble — in Spain — for trying to bring indictments in violation of the 1977 amnesty for 70 year old Civil War crimes, the LA Times has leaped to his defense.
José Guardia has the details, and explains how the LA Times got it wrong.
So no, LA Times, Garzón’s trouble are not as venial as a disagreement on whether to prosecute a dead regime or not. I know it all sounds really strange, more like in a bad movie than reality. Welcome to Spain’s “wonderful” politics.
What I’d like to know is why the LA Times went out of its way to stick its nose into Spain’s internal politics in the first place.
Might it be that they like Garzón’s assault on American sovereignty?