An article in today's Sunday New York Times details at great length the proposals, plans, and actions that were taken by a select group of Bush Administration officials in preparation for what they expected would be the capture of a large number of terrorists, including senior members of Al Qaeda and related organizations.
It is not a surprising article, because both the plans and the attitudes of the people making the plans has been described before, but it is chilling nonetheless, because the underlying and driving conceit of the people making the plans was that regarding the nature of this nations legal response to terrorism, only they alone knew best; further, that adherence to standard, existing legal practices would not only severely limit their ability to respond to and limit terroristic activities, but would provide aid and comfort to the terrorists.
Like John Galt, they determined that swift action, of a type to be determined by them alone, was necessary, and the devil take the naysayers. They made their plans secretly, cutting out major portions of the government and its processes at both senior and junior levels, acting with only cursory regard to existing legal tradition and conventions, feeling no need for legal, let alone Constitutional, support, save only what they themselves had created and approved. They felt that whatever action they thought right, was right, de facto, and objections to their actions were pusillanimous, misguided, and possibly seditious.
They acted as a cabal within the United States government.
And most of them are still there.
1 comment:
The only problem is that, unlike John Gault they don't live in a fictional world. In other words, their are other actors in the world with independant world views that have, as we've seen, managed to significantly complicate matters.
My only hope is that most of them will not still be there in the near future. I saw a very apt bumper sticker today:
"Regime change begins at home."
Post a Comment