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i think that otto was trying to be witty. that seems his m.o.---the vague drive-by that has some snide quip in it which would, were it interesting, call into question the idea that conservatives ever do or have done anything that could be questioned by anyone why it al must be some giant liberal chimera...it's the functional equivalent of "i know you are but what am i?" which seems appropriate given the schoolboy level of the posts.
i remain unclear as to the rationale for not initiating something on the order of chilcot in the united states---perhaps one reason for not doing it is that chilcot operated under the basic question "how was it possible for the blair government to simply follow the united states like that?"
while here, obviously, there's no-one else to blame.
i wonder if the problem is that to take on the bush administration would require taking on its entire conception of executive power which would mean that actions could not be taken as individually problematic but would be positioned in that legal viewpoint. in which case there would be a (**gasp!**) philosophical debate about the acceptable limits of executive power, something that would cut to the heart of the national security state doctrine (which remains in effect, de facto) that legitimates exactly the kind of authoritarian executive deployed by the bush people under the aegis of a state of emergency justified (in the cold war period) by the phantom of someone like stalin.
personally i think it's well past time to dismantle the old national security state. this would be a good way to do it formally...and it would be a final defeat for the neocons.
short of that, the position i think the bush people put the us system in amounts to: if you argue your position on rational-sounding legal grounds, you can do anything, including invade another country on false pretenses, and there are no consequences.
within that, it seems to me that either there are other problems which are actionable:
the iraq war itself.
gitmo on civil liberty violation grounds-->problem with this is that it will run into the same issue because all this stuff was justified by way of a conception of the state of emergency.
that seems to be the problem really...what is a state of emergency inside the us legal system. are there limits to what an administration can do within that context? who decides on those limits?
but right now, there are no limits. there aren't even any checks. and no consequences.
seriously, i do not understand how it is possible that after the bush period that the tea bagger right can be freaked out about an authoritarian presidency. we just had one that in the end found a limit entirely as a function of its own incompetence. for which we have to be almost grateful because it is now clear that the american "checks and balances" do neither in a state of emergency-style situation (terror alert anyone?)
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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