America's Broken Unity After 9/11

ICYMI, be sure to read Daniel Henninger's, "Whatever Happened to 9/11?", from a couple of days ago. Henninger recalls where he was on the morning of the attacks, and what it was like for him. Then he begins discussing the American response to the terror, for example, with the USA Patriot Act. There's more like that, and then he writes:

Virtually every aspect of the Bush antiterror policies became a target for litigation from the ACLU, opposition in Congress and press exposures: the wiretaps, Guantanamo, the Swift program to track terrorist finances, military courts, the Bush Doctrine of pre-preemptive strikes, terrorist interrogations. Opposition to the Iraq war rose, too, but the effort to thwart the provisions of the Patriot Act was a separate front.

Policy disagreements are inevitable. But how does one account for the intense personal animosity directed toward George Bush and those who worked for him in the government? They were hated, reviled, mocked. Recall, for instance, the effort to disbar former Justice Department officials John Yoo and Jay Bybee for writing the legal opinions on aggressive interrogations. Opposition wasn't enough. The destruction of reputation became a policy goal.

This Sunday's 10th anniversary commemorations will evoke some semblance of the unity then in the face of an enemy attack on U.S. soil. But make no mistake: It's gone.

What happened?

Well, continue reading. But as noted above, political opposition wasn't enough for the left. The utter destruction of opponents is required, for according to progressive/socialist ideology, conservatives and Republicans are greater enemies to America than the terrorists. And the left's bloodlust demands for revenge and recrimination continue right into the 10th anniversary. I watched Rachel Maddow on MSNBC while working on this post. Her broadcast, "Day of Destruction, Decade of War," was one long repudiation of America's response to the terrorist attacks, from the decade-long war footing and military mobilization, to the interrogation techniques that helped generate actionable intelligence to track down and kill Osama Bin Laden. Plus, I'm reading David Cole, at New York Review, "After September 11: What We Still Don’t Know." Cole is a far-left activist professor of law at Georgetown University. He's repeatedly argued that the bigger threat to American security is the U.S. government and not the terrorists determined to decapitate it. At Cole's New York Review piece, he revives calls for war crimes prosecutions against Bush administration officials, taking President Obama to task for purportedly not standing up for constitutional values:

As President Obama entered office, he sought to make a clean break with his predecessor. But at the same time, he has insisted that we look forward, not back. His administration has refused to conduct the criminal investigation that the Convention Against Torture requires wherever there are credible allegations that a person within our jurisdiction has committed torture. His Justice Department vetoed the recommendation of its own Office of Professional Responsibility that lawyers John Yoo and Jay Bybee be referred to their bar associations for disciplinary action in view of their having failed to provide candid legal advice in drafting the “torture memos.” The administration has sought to derail efforts in Spain to investigate US responsibility for torture of Spanish citizens held at Guantánamo. And President Obama continues to oppose even a high-level commission to investigate and report on the nation’s departure from the rule of law and descent into torture, abduction, and disappearances.

Obama appears to believe that such an investigation would be divisive, and might undermine his efforts to portray himself as above partisan wrangling. But division is a fact of life in Washington these days. And being above the fray is not an unmitigated good; some things are worth fighting for. A legal and moral accounting of the wrongs we have done should be high on the list.

Cole goes on like that, and it's interesting that he picks out John Yoo for special condemnation, twice in fact, basically renewing the call that Yoo should have been disbarred for his work in the Bush administration, and by extension, tried as a war criminal.

Behold the mind of the progressive left on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the attacks. For radical progressives, it's America that's the problem, not the fanatical killers who continue to wage war against us.