Worth it?

I have often wondered how we determine how things become “worth it.” For example, let’s say you’ve been eating a particular candy bar for years at, say, 25 cents. But then the price is raised to 30 cents. Okay, you will buy it. But how about 40 cents? Or fifty cents? Or even more? At what point do you decide it’s not worth it. And why? Is it a purely financial decision or do other things enter into the equation? Let me suggest a more complicated example. A number of years back a woman shot her husband to death as he was asleep on the couch. During the trial it turned out the man was an absolute bastard who punished his children so severely they would wet their pants. And he beat and abused his wife. She finally got sick of it and shot and killed him. At her trial she was acquitted, even though everyone knew she was guilty of murder. Of course you could argue special circumstances as, indeed, many did. But the prosecutor didn’t agree and insisted she had to be tried again. After some thought the county refused to try her again. Not because they thought there might not be further questions about her guilt and the circumstances but purely because they said it would cost too much money.

I bring this up now because on Buzzflash today there is a short piece about the possibility of bringing war crimes charges against Bush/Cheny/Rumsfeld/Rice/et al, who are now known to have held meetings in the White House detailing how prisoners should be interrogated (tortured). If this is true, they would clearly be guilty of serious war crimes. Of course they are already known to be guilty of war crimes because a pre-emptive attack on another nation that is no threat to you is a known war crime, as is torture, renditions, war profiteering, hiding prisoners from the Red Cross, etc., etc. That is to say, there is no doubt they are guilty. But some are arguing that trying them for war crimes, or even trying to try them for war crimes, would not be “worth it.” This is not an argument that has anything to do with the financial cost, mind you, but, rather, with the cost in time and energy that would be involved. That is, they argue, it would take valuable time away from, say, passing universal health care, or trying to save the economy, or so on. One could argue, I suppose, that it would, in fact, be too expensive (in money). But what is the difference in the question of cost, money or time? And, more importantly, what about the morality involved? It would seem to me that in a case of war crimes, when you are speaking of the deaths of thousands upon thousands of people, including non-combatant women and children, there is a moral imperative involved. The cost in time and/or money has to be completely irrelevant in this context. How could anyone excuse the illegal mass murder of thousands, and the torture of who knows how many, on any grounds whatsoever? To quote someone or other, “this isn’t beanbags you know.” To me, even the suggestion that such monsters should go unaccountable for their actions betrays a moral bankruptcy so profound as to be virtually inhuman. To excuse such behavior on the grounds that we don’t have the time or money for it is totally unacceptable. Congress has already used this as an excuse for not impeaching Bush/Cheney, will they be allowed to just walk away from this more powerful moral imperative? If so, I believe there is no hope whatsoever for the U.S. to be forgiven or to ever take their place again in civilized society. This is a rare case, I believe, where it is absolutely and unquestionably “worth it “

LKBIQ:
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
Edmund Burke