The New Yorker has been at the forefront of investigating Bush administration excesses since 9/11. Seymour Hersh is their leading light but Jane Mayer should also step forward. In this week’s edition, she outlines the death of an inmate at Abu Ghraib and the ability of the government to both sanction and encourage the use of torture to extract information. International law was ignored. No rules applied. Accountability was non-existent.
America and its allies, including Australia, are about to suffer a horrendous case of “blowback.” We will certainly know why.
While Australians are told that recent arrests disrupted an imminent terrorist attack, the Australian government simply cannot be believed on national security matters. Foreign affairs matters are off the agenda. Muslim extremists are “evil” for no apparent reason. Iraq is irrelevant to the current problems.
We will look back on these times in years to come and wonder how hysteria was so effectively created.