Everybody's activities are open belatedly to public inquiry. that's what history is about.

The fact that the records get destroyed and tampered with makes it all a lot harder of course. Most of the time the questions can't be answered beyond a doubt.

But the idea that there is some moral distinction between what the people who rule us are willing to do, when push comes to shove, and what the people running terrorist organisations are willing to do, strikes me as pretty hard to sustain.