W

hat the American governing and legal establishment must do, before too much time goes by, is to come completely clean not only with the American people but with Asia, especially, which has poured so much of its wealth into the US China and Japan are its biggest financial investors.

Everyone needs to know what really happened and who should be held accountable for the raw criminality behind the scenes.

The US needs to come clean by devising a wide-ranging - but fair -- criminal investigation of hedge-fund leaders and managers, derivatives sales groups and their allies, and of course any and all Ponzi-schemers that have defrauded people of their life savings. We don't need a visceral witch-hunt; we require fair and honest accounting.

What's at stake is not so much an eventual honest return on investments (which, in many instances, may be impossible, as many funds have vaporized down the rat-holes of criminal enterprises), but the credibility of the United States of America. And this is something that, when healthy, is priceless, and when destroyed, is worthless.

America, which has often and loudly described itself as a "nation of laws, not men *or women*," now needs to demonstrate for the world what that phrase represents. Criminal conspirators like members of the Mafia know what the lash of our law can mean.

Now, white-collar criminals who operated out of Wall Street corporate suites or off-shore in sunny foreign lands need to be brought into the stationhouse of American justice, read their rights, and be permitted one cell-phone call to their lawyer, before their fancy cell-phone is impounded, pending trial, along with all other illegal fruits of criminal profit.

We recall that when Chinese exporters were caught peddling toxic pet-food and eggs and so on, the uproar from the West was angry and overwhelming.

This is as it should be. The anger in Asia may be more muted (because, as a broad generality, Asians tend to be more polite). But the fury, however muffled, is palpable. What's more, judging from recent events in the US - such as more bonuses for AIG executives - this fury is unlikely to wane soon and may even attain new, bereaved heights.

The anger is stoked not only because of money lost but memories still fresh. One unforgettable example: American Treasury officials lecturing Asia about the need for national and corporate transparency. Who can forget, during the Clinton years, then- Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and his sanctimonious, holier-than-thou very public sermons to the Japanese about what they were doing wrong?

Another example: the thunderous editorial condemnations on the editorial pages of the Pravda of US capitalism - the Wall Street Journal - of central government intervention when markets are in crisis. Who's crying now? Remember the wholesale Western opprobrium that met Hong Kong authorities in 1998 when they sought to firm up their speculation-battered equity and future markets by buying up troubled H.K. stocks? But what is Washington doing today? Right, exactly that!

It is against that past backdrop of a kind of "abstinence" lecture series by US officials, in particular, that people want a measure of honest moral reckoning now.

The US Congress has sort of begun the process, but its approach is flawed by its own lack of moral standing. Just recall N.Y. Senator Charles Schumer's years of berating China for its manipulation of its currency - this from a senator so much of whose campaign funding came from the very Wall Street we are now thinking of calling by a different name: such as, Crawl Street.

What's needed by President Barack Hussein Obama - through an Act of Congress, if deemed needed - is an appointment of a Special US Financial Prosecutor.

A clean sweep must be made, Grand Juries must be impaneled, and indictments issued (though only when properly documented, and not announced before ripe so as to trigger the inevitable unhelpful media feeding frenzy).

America needs to prove to an anxious, waiting world that it is indeed a nation of ethical laws, not of unethical men pulling the strings of our politicians, our political institutions and even our news media from behind the scenes.

We need to demonstrate the meaning of accountability and transparency in deeds, not just in words, and let the multi-millionaire fraudster feel the law's hand just as the dinkiest street-vendor of drugs in America has for decades felt it (overly harshly, as a matter now of comparative fact).

This issue is as plain as black and white.

No other approach can clear the air. People who committed great financial crimes should age in jail. Those who cooperate with this effort by coming forward voluntarily, offering timely testimony, should receive more lenient sentences.

But the big-time rats who have so poisoned America's image - not to mention financial and banking systems - need to be seen doing hard time in prison. Fortunately, we have a President who can get this started because he, himself, understands the importance of justice for all.