I saw Obama's impassioned national security speech which sounded law-driven and liberal, revising much of the Bush approach; He condemned as detrimental the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques and he argued the necessity and wisdom of the closing of Guantanamo Detention Camp:

Standing in front of a display containing the original Constitution, Obama returned to that theme today, saying that while the United States needs to update its institutions to deal with the continuing threat from al-Qaeda and its affiliates, Americans must also trust in those institutions and in U.S. values.

Obama said fidelity to American values was the reason that the United States grew to become the world's strongest nation.

"It's the reason why enemy soldiers have surrendered to us in battle, knowing they'd receive better treatment from America's armed forces than from their own government; the reason why America's benefited from strong alliances that amplified our power and drawn a sharp and moral contrast with our adversaries; the reason why we've been able to overpower the iron fist of fascism, outlast the iron curtain of communism and enlist free nations and free peoples everywhere in the common cause and common effort of liberty," he said.

"Where terrorists offer only the injustice of disorder and destruction, America must demonstrate that our values and institutions are more resilient than a hateful ideology," Obama said. Those values were put to the test by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which showed that the government would need new tools to prevent future assaults, he said.

"Unfortunately, faced with an uncertain threat, our government made a series of hasty decisions," he said. While those decisions "were motivated by a sincere desire to protect the American people," he said, "too often our government made decisions based upon fear rather than foresight," and it often "trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions."

He added, "Instead of strategically applying our power and our principles, too often we set those principles aside as luxuries that we could no longer afford. And during this season of fear, too many of us -- Democrats and Republicans; politicians, journalists and citizens -- fell silent. In other words, we went off course.

NY Times
5-2-09

This speech was followed by Cheney's attack dog defense of everything Bush and Co. did after 9-11. Weird seeing the same arguments over and over. As ever, Chomsky in this Nation piece puts the whole subject in historical perspective, going back to torture used against American Indians as well as various other occasions. Subject of amnesia in these matters important and telling. Chomsky also points out that many forms of torture remain available by sending detainees to foreign countries. I'm sure the fight over Guantanamo and the legacy of Bush/Cheney malfeasance is far from over.
BP

That first US war on terror has also been deleted from historical consciousness, because the outcome cannot readily be incorporated into the canon: hundreds of thousands slaughtered in the ruined countries of Central America and many more elsewhere, among them an estimated 1.5 million dead in the terrorist wars sponsored in neighboring countries by Reagan's favored ally, apartheid South Africa, which had to defend itself from Nelson Mandela's African National Congress (ANC), one of the world's "more notorious terrorist groups," as Washington determined in 1988. In fairness, it should be added that, twenty years later, Congress voted to remove the ANC from the list of terrorist organizations, so that Mandela is now, at last, able to enter the US without obtaining a waiver from the government.

The reigning doctrine of the country is sometimes called "American exceptionalism." It is nothing of the sort. It is probably close to a universal habit among imperial powers. France was hailing its "civilizing mission" in its colonies, while the French Minister of War called for "exterminating the indigenous population" of Algeria. Britain's nobility was a "novelty in the world," John Stuart Mill declared, while urging that this angelic power delay no longer in completing its liberation of India.

Similarly, there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of Japanese militarists in the 1930s, who were bringing an "earthly paradise" to China under benign Japanese tutelage, as they carried out the rape of Nanking and their "burn all, loot all, kill all" campaigns in rural North China. History is replete with similar glorious episodes.

As long as such "exceptionalist" theses remain firmly implanted, however, the occasional revelations of the "abuse of history" often backfire, serving only to efface terrible crimes. The My Lai massacre was a mere footnote to the vastly greater atrocities of the post-Tet pacification programs, ignored while indignation in this country was largely focused on this single crime.

Watergate was doubtless criminal, but the furor over it displaced incomparably worse crimes at home and abroad, including the FBI-organized assassination of black organizer Fred Hampton as part of the infamous COINTELPRO repression, or the bombing of Cambodia, to mention just two egregious examples. Torture is hideous enough; the invasion of Iraq was a far worse crime. Quite commonly, selective atrocities have this function.

Historical amnesia is a dangerous phenomenon, not only because it undermines moral and intellectual integrity, but also because it lays the groundwork for crimes that still lie ahead.

Noam Chomsky
The Torture Memos and Historical Amnesia
The Nation
May 19, 2009