It’s The Terror that’s descending on the new Obama administration, making them hesitate, equivocate, compromise with real evil, morally neutralizing their best intentions. Close Gitmo and stop torture? Great! But what about the ad hoc Tribunals and the secret gulag of renditions sites? What happens if the Obama government tries to address the state criminality of the illegal imprisonment and unjustified prosecution of political detainees from Israel to Iraq and Afghanistan to Holland and EEurope to Tanzania and Rwanda? What happens is The Terror.

Think back to the look on Eliot Spitzer’s face: the popularly elected Democratic governor of New York forced by the FBI to resign his public office over some private dalliance with a young, overpriced tartlette--and all that just as “the Sheriff of Wall St.” was bringing regulatory heat down on the bandits of The Street--that’s The Terror.    more »