Staying the course

[kliljedahl]

By James Carroll | December 26, 2005

AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE was proving itself inadequate to the challenge. The president appointed a special commission to make recommendations. The year was 1954. The commission chairman was James Doolittle, the retired bomber general who had led the first air raid against Tokyo.

"It is now clear," he stated in his report to President Eisenhower, "that we are facing an implacable enemy whose avowed objective is world domination by whatever means and whatever cost. There are no rules in such a game. Hitherto acceptable norms of human conduct do not apply. If the United States is to survive, longstanding concepts of 'fair play' must be reconsidered. We must develop effective espionage and counter-espionage services, and must learn to subvert, sabotage, and destroy our enemies by more clever, more sophisticated, and more effective methods than those used against us. It may be necessary that the American people be made acquainted with, understand, and support this fundamentally repugnant philosophy."

Sound familiar? Again and again, in the year now ending, the American people have been told by their leaders that strategies based on a new ''repugnant philosophy" are required if the nation is to survive the challenge facing it. Forbidden incendiary weapons must be used in urban settings. Prisoners of war must be deprived of Geneva protections. Aggressive interrogations of enemies must approach torture. Commitments to provide US combat forces with adequate protective gear must be forsworn. Extrajudicial kidnapping of bad people must be justified. Allies must be pressured into joining secret networks of detention camps.

Human rights standards must be jettisoned. Traditional obligations to the United Nations must be ignored. Treaties that limit action can be cast aside. Distinctions between foreign and domestic espionage must be left behind, with US citizens subject to unmonitored surveillance by military agencies. Public libraries must be regarded as government peepholes. The lawyer-client privilege must no longer be regarded as sacrosanct. The press must be recruited into the project of information management. Dissent must be labeled as treason.

A great American erosion has occurred this year, and only now are the contours of what is lost becoming apparent.



Keith’s Barbeque Central

[fooj]

1. One hell of a great article, isn't it?

Peace.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

2. Here's a question for you

do you think that Bushco really believes we are at that level (equal to WW2) of danger from terrorists or are they just power mad?

I honestly can't see that the danger has reached that level. I know, I know..911. But it hasn't happened again and I think perhaps we have over-reacted.

[kliljedahl]

4. I don't know about that

that's not really the gist of the article. The article is about abrogation of powers.



Keith’s Barbeque Central

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. This course of course.....