The Memory Hole

If one could step back and view the currents of panic, denial and aggression which are convulsing the Bush Administration these days from some kind of Olympian remove, it might be possible to shake one's head and wryly marvel at the sight. The bizarre arrogance of Bush's recent formulations -- which amount to the argument that anyone who acknowledges recorded history is aiding and abetting the enemies of freedom -- ought to be the occasion for amazed laughter at the naked absurdity of his case.

It's not, however, working for me. I'm mostly just sickened by the development that the Senate is working hard to rule out habeas corpus, one of the crucial bulwarks of individual liberty, with regard to "enemy combatants." The "compromise" described is better than Senator Graham's reprehensible, Soviet-style original proposal, but still a needless and dangerous rejection of openness and the pursuit of justice. The consequences of how we've been handling the most basic questions about detainees -- do we have any defensible reason to suspect any given person we hold in custody? -- are stomach-turning.

As is the leak panic with regard to the reports of overseas CIA detention and torture facilities. The "fury" over the leaks is clearly an attempt to change the subject away from the pertinent question: precisely, why this ethically monstrous, legally murky and (from a standpoint of national security) amazingly short-sighted practice was undertaken in the first place? (And, yes, the President had the gall to mention the "gulags" in good old Evil Empire in his Veterans Day speech.)

Finally, there's the memory hole into which the President insists we thrust everything we might recall about the lead-up to war. Dr. Green makes the pertinent point (scroll down to the Nov. 12 entry for the full Mikey). I excerpt with, I hope, his approval:

Republicans claim that there was a near consensus supporting its opinions. Its contention that Iraq was pursuing nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons was widely supported in the US and European states. Furthermore, most of the leading Democrats voted for the war. Democrats claim that Bush lied about the intelligence on Iraq or, at least, that he manipulated the information that he had. The Republicans’ claims are true but irrelevant. The Democrats’ claims may or may not be true, but they are also irrelevant.

My reason for saying that is quite simple. No one seriously maintains that, say, Bill Clinton, John Kerry, Al Gore, Hilary Clinton … (name a Democrat) would have gone to war against Iraq on the basis of that information. No other government in the world pushed for war against Iraq. The only major political figures on Earth who thought that war was a sensible reaction to the information available are Dick Cheney and George W. Bush.

Every other “supporter” got in line behind the administration, conceding that it had the authority to engage in a war, not the substance of its decision. None were independently pressing for it. The buck stops there.

But they'd like you to forget, just as they'd like you to forget about the guys in Guantanamo, about "hunting down" Osama. About National Security Letters. Just think about...something else.

Posted by BT at November 14, 2005 11:23 PM