IS IT JUST ME?

Perhaps it is just me, but I do not feel any safer today than I did on September 12, 2001.

I don't think flying is safer, I don't think attacking Iraq has been helpful in any way and I don't think that the intrusion into basic civil rights and the erosion of our national morality has made us safe.

That Cheney et. al, claim the ends (our security) justify the means makes me ill. I agree with Jeff Schweitzer 's article in the Huffington Post:

"When we appeal to the corrupt idea that ends trump means, nothing constrains our worst instincts. We end up with Japanese detention camps, witch hunts for "communists" by the House Un-American Activities Committee, illegal wire tapping, falsified evidence for war, and torture.."

In other words - we just keep on repeating our history of wrong headed, demoralizing, inhumane activities and learn nothing and become ever more morally bankrupt. Quite frankly if the lawyers who drafted those torture guidelines are not prosecuted, or at least have their "careers" destroyed, then it will never, ever stop. Just as those people on Wall Street and in the banks and mortgage companies who made a killing before it all came tumbling down will just go out and do it again unless they are regulated into responsibility.

I question the Obama administration's reluctance to further investigate and prosecute those who made these abhorrent activities possible. I know that there is concern that seeking "retribution" will divert time and attention from the bigger agenda items. However, I don't see how we can go forward as a nation of conscience if we don't make it very clear that, yet again, we have blundered and take responsibility for the damage done.