The Battle Of Today Is Not For Today Alone

[babylonsister]

The Battle Of Today Is Not For Today Alone
Submitted by davidswanson on Mon, 2008-06-23 14:52.


Re Prosecuting For War Crimes: As Lincoln Said, The Battle Of Today Is Not For Today Alone, But For A Vast Future.

By Lawrence R. Velvel


In the last essay he wrote before his death, Arthur Schlesinger spoke of "national stupidity." Here is what he said:

Sometimes, when I am particularly depressed, I ascribe our behavior to stupidity -- the stupidity of our leadership, the stupidity of our culture. Thirty years ago we suffered military defeat -- fighting an unwinnable war against a country about which we knew nothing and in which we had no vital interests at stake. Vietnam was bad enough, but to repeat the same experiment thirty years later in Iraq is a strong argument for a case of national stupidity.

This writer has expressed the same thought here many times, perhaps in more Runyanesque language. It has been said, on several occasions, "After Viet Nam, who would've thunk it?"

"{N}ational stupidity." "Who would've thunk it?". Yet it happened a second time. After Viet Nam no one thought it could happen again, and Congress took steps to assure it couldn't, such as enacting the War Powers Act, reining in the CIA, and banning electronic eavesdropping of Americans by the NSA. But it did happen again and worse -- worse because today we not only have a years-long unwinnable war, but also torture, kidnappings and renderings to foreign countries for torture, many years of detention without trial of people who are innocent, the use of massive private armies to help carry out Executive policies, electronic spying on anyone and everyone the Executive wishes, suppression of the media far beyond anything experienced during Viet Nam, reducing Congress to an impotency exceeding that of Viet Nam, the use of Executive Branch lawyers to write professionally incompetent, secret memoranda giving clearance to awful policies, and the use of retired generals who are making a fortune from the Pentagon to spread its gospel on the mainstream media.

snip//

There will also be those who say, as is so typically American, that we should simply put Iraq behind us, should not seek "revenge" upon those responsible for it, and should just get on with life. But that was said about Viet Nam in its day, helped lead to Iraq, and was largely responsible for the pardon of Nixon which taught American leaders like Bush and Cheney that they can evade punishment for horrible actions. The "forget the past and get on with life" philosophy should not be indulged now any more than we indulged it with the Germans and Japanese. Otherwise we will get more Viet Nams and more Iraqs because leaders will know they can get away with anything, will suffer no consequences to themselves.

In his own time, in the vast cauldron of the Civil War, Lincoln said that the battle of today is not for today alone, but for a vast future. That is equally true of the necessity of bringing to book the men who have led us to disaster twice in one lifetime, in Viet Nam and Iraq. The battle to impose criminal responsibility upon them is not for today alone, but to safeguard a vast future. Otherwise the future will be threatened by Executive lawlessness undertaken because of knowledge that leaders need fear no personal consequences, the future will be threatened by the possibility of more Viet Nams, more Iraqs, more violent denials of basic civil liberties because leaders -- especially leaders of a militaristic or highly conservative cast of mind -- will know they need fear no personal consequences.


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http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/34300

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. I cannot add anything to this except:

K&R

:cry: