21-04-2009, 01:06 PM
I suspect that targeting Bybee, as the NYT has done, is intended to deflect and diminish attention from more senior Bush Administration figures, i.e., shoot the messenger.
With one scalp taken everyone will settle down and breath a sigh of relief that justice has been done and, therefore, Obama can then focus entirely on the future.
If I were the controlling mind behind a campaign of torture I would be arrested, tried and sent to prison. If important and influential people do the same thing, the wagons get circled and some minor player gets scapegoated for appearance sake.
With one scalp taken everyone will settle down and breath a sigh of relief that justice has been done and, therefore, Obama can then focus entirely on the future.
If I were the controlling mind behind a campaign of torture I would be arrested, tried and sent to prison. If important and influential people do the same thing, the wagons get circled and some minor player gets scapegoated for appearance sake.
The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.
Carl Jung - Aion (1951). CW 9, Part II: P.14