This is one of the best editorials I’ve read in a long time: HSBC, Too Big to Indict? The Times editors hit the nail on the head in terms of the baffling injustice and negligence of the government in not pursuing criminal prosecutions against HSBC.
Compare their treatment of international bankers who directly, and significantly, “aided the enemy” by laundering money for murderous drug cartels and terrorist groups with their borderline torture and full-court-press prosecution of Bradley Manning. The bankers merely gave the U.S. a cut of their blood money, 2 billion dollars or so that is probably a drop in the bucket for them, and all is forgiven.
If Holder approved this crooked deal, it’s more evidence that he’s incompetent. If Obama thinks it’s wise to let the rich get away with financially assisting terrorists and cartels, just because they’re rich and powerful, then he’s a fool. And the lack of outrage from the GOP is unsurprising given where they usually stand in terms of prosecuting, chastising, or merely attempting to regulate the activities of banks and the rich.
The cowardly, deferential behavior of our government when confronted with corporate criminality is even more nauseating than the criminal behavior itself. We expect that banks and oil companies have no conscience- they’ve behaved that way for centuries. But one would think, for all the populist rhetoric we heard from the president during the election, that Obama’s Justice Department could do much better than this.
Kudos to the Times for telling like it is.
