It’s long been the case that Washington elites are possessed of an overly rosy picture of American “hard” power and its efficacy; in the Beltway, the regular use of military force is praised as “tough” and an unwillingness to negotiate in good faith is regarded as “principled” and “necessary.” But this is a manageable problem; there are still plenty of political elites who hold more moderate or opposite views, and it’s possible envision a status quo in which there isn’t a tremendous political cost to pursuing a more “dovish” foreign policy. Truth be told, the thinly veiled militarism of our political elites it isn’t nearly as troubling as what seems to be the emerging elite thought on the use of torture, and an immensely powerful executive branch more generally.
Basically, what you’re hearing from various outlets of elite opinion is something along the lines of this, “Yes, we understand that the Bush administration constructed and authorized a program of clandestine torture, and yes, we understand that it was built on a dubiously legal foundation. And yes, we get that this is as clear an example of executive branch overreach – and even lawbreaking – that we’ve had in a very long time. But, we still can’t tie the president’s hands, because there are bad guys out there who want to hurt us.” David Ignatius says as much in a column expressing his apprehension at the release of the torture memos. After all, he argues, we don’t want to “blind” America’s “shadow warriors.” In today’s New York Times, Roger Cohen makes a similar argument; indeed, he’s actually pretty forthright about his unwillingness to prosecute anyone who authorized torture, broke the law, and tarnished cherished American principles:
So I’m wary of the clamor for retribution. Congress failed. The press failed. The judiciary failed. With almost 3,000 dead, America’s checks and balances got skewed, from the Capitol to Wall Street. Scrutiny gave way to acquiescence. Words were spun in feckless patterns.
Those checks and balances are recovering now. I don’t think this recovery would be served by prosecutions, either of C.I.A. operatives or those who gave them legal advice. Such legal action, if initiated, would split the intelligence services and the military in paralyzing ways at a time when two wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, are still being fought. The country would be lacerated.
John McCain, himself a torture survivor and joined by Joe Lieberman and Lindsay Graham, declared that prosecution would have “serious negative effects on the candor with which officials in any administration provide their best advice.” And everyone’s favorite “moderate’ Republican, Arlen Specter, was quoted as saying that prosecuting officials who broke the law is more appropriate for a “banana republic” or “Latin America” than it is for the United States. Judging from this, and the Beltway’s docile reaction to last year’s FISA revelations, our political elites have graduated to a higher view of executive power. It isn’t enough that the executive branch has near total control over foriegn policy, and can invade other countries at (effectively) the drop of the hat. No, the executive branch must have near unlimited powers to do whatever it pleases, whenever it pleases, with the guarantee that it will never be held accountable for its crimes or missteps. These people are clamoring for a police state, and the terrifying thing is that they’re likely to get it.
two sides of the same coin