[Vision2020] NYT Paul Krugman "Just Trust Us"

Wed, 12 May 2004 07:12:19 -0700

Pat, if you would be so kind, please add me to that list, also.  Thanks.     

                                            Carl Westberg Jr.

>From: "JSullivan" <jsullivan@moscow.com>
>To: "Pat Kraut" <pkraut@moscow.com>, "vision2020" <vision2020@moscow.com>
>Subject: Re: [Vision2020] NYT Paul Krugman "Just Trust Us"
>Date: Tue, 11 May 2004 20:43:52 -0700
>
>I concur with Ms. Pall 100%. So add me to your list Pat.
>
>Janesta Carcich Sullivan
>   ----- Original Message -----
>   From: Pat Kraut
>   To: vision2020
>   Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2004 8:02 PM
>   Subject: Re: [Vision2020] NYT Paul Krugman "Just Trust Us"
>
>
>   You would.
>     ----- Original Message -----
>     From: Linda Pall
>     To: vision2020@moscow.com
>     Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2004 8:59 AM
>     Subject: [Vision2020] NYT Paul Krugman "Just Trust Us"
>
>
>     Dear Visionaries,
>
>     I thought this column was right on the money.
>
>     All the best,
>     Linda Pall
>
>     
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>
>
>
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>
>     May 11, 2004
>     OP-ED COLUMNIST
>     Just Trust Us
>     By PAUL KRUGMAN
>
>
>     idn't you know, in your gut, that something like Abu Ghraib would 
>eventually come to light?
>
>     When the world first learned about the abuse of prisoners, President 
>Bush said that it "does not reflect the nature of the American people." 
>He's right, of course: a great majority of Americans are decent and good. 
>But so are a great majority of people everywhere. If America's record is 
>better than that of most countries - and it is - it's because of our 
>system: our tradition of openness, and checks and balances.
>
>     Yet Mr. Bush, despite all his talk of good and evil, doesn't believe 
>in that system. From the day his administration took office, its slogan has 
>been "just trust us." No administration since Nixon has been so insistent 
>that it has the right to operate without oversight or accountability, and 
>no administration since Nixon has shown itself to be so little deserving of 
>that trust. Out of a misplaced sense of patriotism, Congress has deferred 
>to the administration's demands. Sooner or later, a moral catastrophe was 
>inevitable.
>
>     Just trust us, John Ashcroft said, as he demanded that Congress pass 
>the Patriot Act, no questions asked. After two and a half years, during 
>which he arrested and secretly detained more than a thousand people, Mr. 
>Ashcroft has yet to convict any actual terrorists. (Look at the actual 
>trials of what Dahlia Lithwick of Slate calls "disaffected bozos who watch 
>cheesy training videos," and you'll see what I mean.)
>
>     Just trust us, George Bush said, as he insisted that Iraq, which 
>hadn't attacked us and posed no obvious threat, was the place to go in the 
>war on terror. When we got there, we found no weapons of mass destruction 
>and no new evidence of links to Al Qaeda.
>
>     Just trust us, Paul Bremer said, as he took over in Iraq. What is the 
>legal basis for Mr. Bremer's authority? You may imagine that the Coalition 
>Provisional Authority is an arm of the government, subject to U.S. law. But 
>it turns out that no law or presidential directive has ever established the 
>authority's status. Mr. Bremer, as far as we can tell, answers to nobody 
>except Mr. Bush, which makes Iraq a sort of personal fief. In that fief, 
>there has been nothing that Americans would recognize as the rule of law. 
>For example, Ahmad Chalabi, the Pentagon's erstwhile favorite, was allowed 
>to gain control of Saddam's files - the better to blackmail his potential 
>rivals.
>
>     And finally: Just trust us, Donald Rumsfeld said early in 2002, when 
>he declared that "enemy combatants" - a term that turned out to mean 
>anyone, including American citizens, the administration chose to so 
>designate - don't have rights under the Geneva Convention. Now people 
>around the world talk of an "American gulag," and Seymour Hersh is exposing 
>My Lai all over again.
>
>     Did top officials order the use of torture? It depends on the meaning 
>of the words "order" and "torture." Last August Mr. Rumsfeld's top 
>intelligence official sent Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the commander of the 
>Guantánamo prison, to Iraq. General Miller recommended that the guards help 
>interrogators, including private contractors, by handling prisoners in a 
>way that "sets the conditions" for "successful interrogation and 
>exploitation." What did he and his superiors think would happen?
>
>     To their credit, some supporters of the administration are speaking 
>out. "This is about system failure," said Senator Lindsey Graham, a 
>Republican from South Carolina. But do Mr. Graham, John McCain and other 
>appalled lawmakers understand their own role in that failure? By deferring 
>to the administration at every step, by blocking every effort to make 
>officials accountable, they set the nation up for this disaster. You can't 
>prevent any serious inquiry into why George Bush led us to war to eliminate 
>W.M.D. that didn't exist and to punish Saddam for imaginary ties to Al 
>Qaeda, then express shock when Mr. Bush's administration fails to follow 
>the rules on other matters.
>
>     Meanwhile, Abu Ghraib will remain in use, under its new commander: 
>General Miller of Guantánamo. Donald Rumsfeld has "accepted responsibility" 
>- an action that apparently does not mean paying any price at all. And Dick 
>Cheney says, "Don Rumsfeld is the best secretary of defense the United 
>States has ever had. . . . People should get off his case and let him do 
>his job." In other words: Just trust us.

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