Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Dan DeWalt, who writes for ThisCan’tBeHappening.net.
Spectacle has its place in any culture. Accompanied by pomp or solemnity, it can instill a sense of grandeur or respect for the institution or nation that is making use of it. Unfortunately, much spectacle in the arena of American officialdom is irredeemably tainted by farce and absurdity.
A couple of recent examples come to mind, starting with the NRC public meeting in Brattleboro on May 23. Typically, the NRC commissioners respond to audience questions and comments with boilerplate comments that appear to be taken straight out of the NRC answerbook – giving vague, everything-is-rosy statements that don’t address the crux of the questions if not evading them outright. Rather than allow this sham of a quasi-serious event to once again blow smoke over the glaring deficiencies of the NRC’s oversight of the nuclear reactor industry, local citizens decided to create their own NRC panel, one that would actually address issues and questions asked, a practice unknown to NRC officials. This led to no small amount of pandemonium at the meeting and the whole event came off as pure farce, with none of the regular veneer of respectability that the NRC likes to hide behind when they conduct these hearings.
Some expressed consternation at the impression this farce may have made to the average citizen reading or hearing an account of the meeting the next day from the news. Would this mockery of the NRC turn off those interested in serious affairs? Would it create an unfavorable impression of the post-nuclear activists who staged the parallel hearing?
These are fair questions, but they are perhaps answered with another question: Would it have done a greater disservice to the truth and to the public’s understanding of the safety of Vermont Yankee if the NRC had been allowed to conduct their farce in a serious manner, masking the vacuousness of the exercise and giving the impression that we are in good hands under their watch? If we’re to be presented with farce, let it not be cloaked in respectability, lest unchallenged, it turn into tragedy.
Reminiscent also of the Bush/Cheney administration, the Justice Department, as reported by the New York Times, has prepared a memo saying that while the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process is still valid, it could be replaced by internal deliberations in the executive branch.
Alas, the high-jinks of the NRC and local activists pale in comparison to the show performed by the Obama administration when defending the weekly kill list meetings where he and his advisers sit around and decide who next to murder by drone. Vaguely reminiscent of Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook” statement, presidential press secretary Jay Carney patiently explained to passive reporters that the president’s actions are consistent with American law and values. Reminiscent also of the Bush/Cheney administration, the Justice Department, as reported by the New York Times, has prepared a memo saying that while the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process is still valid, it could be replaced by internal deliberations in the executive branch.
Reporters have gently probed the policy. They have questioned the wisdom of aggravating “allies” like Pakistan or Yemen by dropping assassination bombs within their borders; and they have asked about the ramifications of civilians who may find themselves dead, or as we call it, collateral damage from these attacks. The administration says not to worry, they are declaring any male older than an adolescent to be a legitimate military target. This cute reclassifying of human beings means that we can claim that almost everyone we kill is a combatant. (Sort of like “if the president does it, it can’t be illegal” — Tricky Dick again.) As far as wives and children of slain ”combatants,” well, it’s just their tough luck.
But the most obvious question hasn’t been asked. What is the evidence that our intellectual Nobel Peace Prize winner uses to decide who shall die? When he is debating whether to murder or to let live a 17-year-old “jihadist” girl, what information is he weighing? Surprise surprise, he’s relying on intelligence brought to him by the Pentagon and the CIA. These are the same illustrious entities that validated the fabrications of Ahmed Chalabi, enabling Bush II to lieus into the war with Iraq. These are the same stellar investigators that fed us the lies about Sadaam Hussein’s yellow cake uranium in Niger. These are the geniuses that convinced Bill Clinton to bomb an aspirin factory in Sudan, thinking that it was bin-Laden’s terrorist camp.
But our news media would rather analyze the psychology of our enigmatic president, marveling at his mental toughness and his analytical genius in figuring out how to justify his murders without trial. “Pragmatism over idealism” trumpets the Times, with nary a word about the credibility of the evidence. It tells us that a leading critic of Bush/Cheney counterterrorism policies has now been installed as the top lawyer at the State Department. In his new position, he supports Obama’s policies, even going so far as to refer to the prime mover behind the kill list, John Brennan, as a moral priest leading us into war.
These smug officials still have the gall to talk about the rule of law. Obama is still referred to by the slavish press as a constitutional scholar. But the foul actions of this administration put the lie to any claim that our rulers are any more ethical than the people that they decide to murder. If we want our government to be conducting themselves with the same amount of judicial restraint that al-Qaida uses, then we should be pleased. If we want to believe that America stands for the rule of law, then we should be outraged.
