In an earlier post on this blog, Aziz, Willow and perhaps Thabet agreed with Lawrence of A when he said:
ALL Americans are responsible for the Bush years. It was American policy, not Republican policy. It was American actions, not Bush/Republican actions. It was American money that pays for war, illegal detentions, torture…not Republican money or Bush money.
These were my actions, not some mythical “theirs”.
Well, the Washington insider punditocracy agrees with you, especially as it’s a useful con to get the real criminals of the Bush administration off the legal hook.
Hey Americans, the pundits blame you for Bush and Cheney’s torture policies.
…Jacob Weisberg, chairman and editor-in-chief of the Slate Group, agreed with Friedman’s contention that there should be no torture prosecutions because we had all “acquiesced” in the Bush-Cheney Torture Agenda; we were all “the President’s accomplices,” and thus “pursuing criminal charges would be too hard legally and politically and too easy morally.’ According to Weisberg’s twisted morality and logic, “Prosecuting Bush and his men won’t absolve the rest of us for what we let them do.”
His explanation for this astounding conclusion is simply that “everyone knew” about the torture — so no one should be prosecuted for it:
“Congress was informed about what was happening and raised no objection. The public knew, too. By 2003, if you didn’t understand that the United States was inflicting torture on those deemed enemy combatants, you weren’t paying much attention. This is part of what makes applying a criminal justice model to those most directly responsible such a bad idea. The issue we need to come to terms with is not just who in the Bush administration did what but how we were collectively complicit in their decisions.”
Ahh, collective complicity. Everyone’s to blame, so no one need have a guilty conscience (or be held accountable).
