Citizens briefing book
Ξ January 15th, 2009 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Uncategorized |
Establishment Washington unifies against prosecutions
The Washington Post’s David Ignatius today does what he does best: serve as the spokesman for Washington establishment’s most conventional wisdom in a way that really illuminates what it is:
to underscore the message, obama indicated that he would oppose retrospective investigations of wrongdoing by the cia and other agencies, arguing: “when it comes to national security, what we participate in to focus on is getting things right in the future, as opposed [to] looking at what we got backfire in the past.” this is the kind of realism that will stand up individualistic score-settlers, but it makes clear that obama download download animation movie crime movie has a formidable appreciation of the dangers america still faces from al-qaeda and its allies.
The word “liberal” has undergone a remarkable transformation over the last eight years. All that has been necessarily to qualify is a belief in such radical, exotic and fringe-leftist concepts as search warrants before the Government can eavesdrop on our communications; due process before the state can encage people for life; adherence to decades-old Geneva Conventions restrictions which post-World-War-II America led the way in implementing; and the need for an actual threat from another country before we bomb, invade, occupy and destroy it.
Now added to the pantheon of “liberal” dogma is the shrill, ideological belief that high government officials must abide by our laws and should be treated like any other citizen when they break them. To believe that now makes you not just a “liberal,” but worse: a “liberal score-settler.” Apparently, one can attain the glorious status of being a moderate, a centrist, a high-minded independent only if one believes that high political officials (and our most powerful industries, such as the telecoms) should be able to break numerous laws (i.e.: commit felonies), admit that they’ve done so, and then be immunized from all consequences. That’s how our ideological spectrum is now defined.
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The more important development highlighted by Ignatius’ name-calling is how important it has obviously become to establishment media and political figures to vigorously argue against investigations and prosecutions for Bush crimes and even to rehabilitate Bush officials as well-intentioned leaders who, at worst, went a little overboard in protecting us. Digby raised this question the other day: given that there is virtual unanimity among our political and media elites that we do not and should not hold American political officials accountable when they break the law and (especially) when they commit war crimes — indeed, outside of civil liberties groups and a few political advocates here and there, it’s virtually impossible to find anyone advocating that Bush officials should be criminally investigated — why has it become such a priority for establishment figures to defend Bush officials and urge that there be no prosecutions? As Digby put it:
i’m beginning to gape if there isn’t more to all this than is obvious. i don’t honestly weigh anyone wants to grapple with with the torture regime, and it doesn’t seem to me that there is a huge public clamor for it. for most people, it’s probably enough that the president has promised to ambivalent the policy. so, i’m a undersized segment surprised that it remains so prominent on the radar screen. something doesn’t scan.
I’m not sure I know the answer exactly, but there seems rather clearly to be two primary factors at play:
First, Bush officials didn’t commit these crimes by themselves. Virtually the entire Washington establishment supported or at least enabled most of it. It isn’t merely that leading Congressional Democrats were, to one degree or another, complicit in these acts and are therefore hamstrung in investigating crimes of which they were aware and did nothing to stop, though that is true. The enabling of all of this extends far beyond the leadership of the two parties.
As confirmed accounts emerged years ago of chronic presidential lawbreaking, warrantless eavesdropping, systematic torture, rendition, corruption in every realm, and all sorts of other dark crimes, where were journalists and other opinion-making elites? Very few of them with any significant platform can point to anything they did or said to oppose or stop any of it — and they know that. Many of them, even when much of this become conclusively proven, were still explicitly praising Bush officials. Most of them supported the underlying enabling policies (Guantanamo and the permanent state of war in Iraq and “on terror”), and then cheered on laws – …
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