by Ramsey Clark

About the author: Ramsey Clark, U.S. attorney general during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration, is an international lawyer, a human rights advocate, and author of War Crimes: A Report on United States War Crimes Against Iraq.

Nothing is more destructive of democracy or peace and freedom through the rule of law than secret criminal acts by government. The fact, or appearance, of covert action by government agents or their surrogates rots the core of love and respect that is the foundation of any free democratic society. Every true citizen of any nation wants to be able to love her country and still love justice. Corrupt covert actions make this impossible. They are the principal source of the possibility that a contemporary American poet would conceive of the lines penned by William Meridith more...