However, with the election of an ex-CIA chief. George Herbert Walker Bush, as the Vice-President of the USA in 1980s, oversight of the military and the security agencies began to go into decline onc e again.
Since that time, most USA officials have no longer felt accountable to international law--and too many lawyers, justices, and soldiers advising the president and congress have also scorned the responsibilities and principles outlined in the Nuremburg Tribunal, the Geneva Convention, and the Declaration of Human Rights. (All of these rights and principles were intended to promote the common good and enable individuals to pursue whatever their ideas of happiness are.)
In short, the Malaise that Americans in the 21st Century face is that they now live in a society which no longer actively and spiritually takes seriously the Founding Father's calls to pursue happiness. Such pursuit of happiness came with responsibilities --even in the 18th century. This is why Jefferson helped kick John Adams out of Office in 1800, i.e. because of John Adam's support for the evil Alien and Sedition Acts.
Meanwhile, the large standing USA army and the world's largest clandestine network of agencies has led many average (non-politician/ non-government employed) Americans to either throw away or to give up on the principles outlined in the Nuremberg Tribunal, the Geneva Convention, and the Declaration of Human Rights.
In short, a nation full of irresponsible people are walking around shrugging their shoulders--and mumbling "it can't be helped". This is just like the Japanese--or the Germans of decades ago who followed Hitler and the Kaisar to war.
These helpless ones (they see themselves as victims of the system) simply accept and use phrases like "collateral damage", "acceptable levels of collateral damage" and other nonsense that means basically:
(1) We can't help it if we have to torture someone
(2) We can't help it if we have to send people without criminal charges to Guantanamo Prison or other prisons indefinitely.
(3) We can't help it if the terrorists force us into this corner.
(4) We can't help cutting assistance to the poor and the aging because big money and big business really run the U.S.A.
(5) We can't help it. The system is broken and someone else will have to fix it. We can't.
This is what American officials--whether in government, the CIA/NSA, or in the DOD--all too often tell us.
It is what Vice President Cheney told us. It is what President George W. Bush told us.
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