Dodging a bullet

MANIFESTO

Glenn Greenwald comments on the latest news regarding the Bushies, viz., "high-level Bush officials actively considered and even advocated that the power to use the military to arrest American citizens on U.S. soil be used."

Needless to say, the upshot is a no-brainer.

All of this underscores why it is so important to vigorously oppose the efforts of the Obama administration (a) to continue many of the radical Bush/Cheney Terrorism programs and even to implement new ones (preventive detention, military commissions, extreme secrecy policies, warrantless surveillance, denial of habeas corpus) and (b) to endorse the core Orwellian premise that enables all of that (i.e., the "battlefield" is anywhere and everywhere; the battle against Terrorism is a "War" like the Civil War or World War II and justifies the same powers). By itself, the extreme injustice imposed by our Government on the individuals subjected to such tyrannical powers (i.e., those held in cages for years without charges or any prospect for release) should be sufficient to compel firm opposition. But the importance of these issues goes far beyond that. Even if the original intention is to use these powers in very limited circumstances and even for allegedly noble purposes ("only" for Guantanamo detainees who were tortured, "only" for people shipped to Bagram, "only" for the Most Dangerous Terrorists), it's extremely dangerous to implement systems and vest the President with powers that depart from, and violently betray, our core precepts of justice.

Every time some new Bush Administration tyranny is discovered, I think to myself that it can't get worse—that this is as despotic as they could have been. Needless to say, I keep getting it wrong.