I’m sorry for the late reply. Been blessedly busy.

Chomsky is a crank in the realm of international relations. I’ve studied IR at a graduate level, and that’s largely the assessment that IR professionals have of him. He has a Marxist world view (that is, analyzing events in international relations in terms of bourgeois and the proletariat, but at a nation state level), and that’s a line of thinking that has largely been discredited. You won’t see many citations from serious IR types for Chomsky.

Of course, that doesn’t mean a damn thing in the real world. I’m a realist, in IR parlance, meaning I see world events akin to what Hobbes described as a state of nature, and I therefore value national sovereignty above all.

So with all of that being said, in regards to Cheney and his ilk — he hasn’t gone to one of those really nice jail cells in the Hague because no one can make him go there. War crimes are for losers, in a literal sense. Churchill, McNamara, ho chi Minh would all deserve time in a cell or a noose, if we applied standards of war crimes to everyone equally.

But to do so would be to give up national sovereignty. And that only happens, internationally, when one is forced, coerced, or its in their best interest to do so. None of those apply with Cheney.

And specifically to Cheney — I absolutely despise the man. I went to war and rode in Humvees that he and rumsfeld thought were good enough. My comrades were maimed and killed because of inferior equipment, and then had the nerve to lecture us on going to war with the army you have and not the one you want. But it would set a dangerous precedence for American leaders, American foreign policy, and by extension, America writ large to see him in jail.

As to Manning — again, I was there, was mighty close to these kinds of videos, had a job similar to his, swore the same oath and signed the same papers swearing elements of my Constitutional rights away. I’ve got no sympathy for what happened.

And I say all of this eyes wide open. I’m pro Murcia not because I think we’re the best out of ignorance, I’m pro America because I know we’re the best in a messy, imperfect world.