Just Trust Us

Krugman - Didn't you know, in your gut, that something like Abu Ghraib would eventually come to light?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Did top officials order the use of torture? It depends on the meaning of the words "order" and "torture."

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.

el - It has seemed inevitable that the dark underbelly of the Republican nonsense would finally come out. One of the most popular sites for the conservative cheering section is Little Green Footballs. Several months ago I linked to the quiz Little Green Footballs or Late German Fascists? By their words, you cannot tell them apart. It is not surprising that their actions, their secrecy, their racism, their ignorance would lead followers in charge of interrogation lead part-time army reservists into inhumane abuses.