posted on December 2, 2001 10:10:40 PM
"There is an eerie quiet across the land. The chance of a second major terrorist attack is somewhere between “very likely” and “100% guaranteed,” according to the people we pay with our tax dollars to know such things. I feel like I am on a huge bus heading straight toward a cliff. We could suggest that the driver steer in a different direction. But no one wants to talk about it.
Perhaps this is a school bus, where the kids sit quietly because they don’t want to make the driver mad. Back in early October, news leaked out that intelligence officials told Congress another attack was 100% certain, if we attacked Afghanistan. The driver -- the president -- got very mad, indeed. He threatened to limit Congressional briefings drastically (and then backed off). But Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer had already warned: “People have to watch what they say.” The news media got the message. Some things are better left unmentioned - even impending disaster.
Or perhaps we believe that changing direction won’t help anyway. The president has tried to convince us that nothing we do can influence the terrorists. Sometimes he describes them as Nazis, bent on conquering us because they hate our freedoms. Sometimes he paints them as inhuman demons, bent on evil for evil’s sake. In either case, there is no way to deter them from their appointed villainy; we are on a bus with no steering wheel. Most Americans seem to believe that.
But let’s suppose Osama bin Laden speaks for the criminals. (If he doesn’t, current U.S. policy is pointless.) He does not try to tell us how we should live here at home. He does define specific new policy directions he wants us to take in his part of the world: get U.S. troops out of Saudi Arabia; end bombing and sanctions in Iraq; stop supporting Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. These may or may not be wise policies for us. But they are not wholly unthinkable. And they might give us a chance of veering away from the cliff. Aren’t they worth talking about?
Some say this would be appeasement. Do we want to send others the message that terrorism pays? But put the question another way: Do we want to send the message that, on rare occasions when our government's policies drive people to suicidal desperation and homicidal rage, we will at least discuss those policies? When our policies put thousands of American lives at risk, don’t we want to weigh the wisdom of those policies against the potential loss of life? Why not send that message? Is it unreasonable?
There is surely no guarantee that a change in U.S. policies would avert the next attack. But it might. If staying the present course means a certainty of another attack (as Congress was told), then the math is simple: changing policies makes us relatively safer than continuing the present policies.
Of course safety may not be the highest value. Our present policies in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Israel may be so important that they are worth the loss of thousands more American lives. But that is a decision for all of us passengers on the bus to make. This is a democracy, where the driver is suppose to heed the majority will. If we leave all decisions up to the driver, we give up the democratic freedom we are supposedly defending. And it looks like the driver is hell-bent to take us over the cliff.
So principle and self-preservation both lead to the same conclusion. It is time to break the silence and start a national debate, before it is too late. The alternative is to wait until the next thousands die. That would be terrible, not only for the victims and their loved ones, but for the whole nation. After the next attack, some will insist that the new deaths make the old policies more sacred and inviolable; to change them would mean that all the victims died in vain. Others will be equally convinced that we must change policies as the only way of avoiding further catastrophe. The more deaths, the more polarized we will become. Anyone old enough to remember the Vietnam war knows that.
We can insist that the driver turn the wheel in a new direction. Perhaps we should insist. Perhaps not. But surely now, while we can still talk to each other, is the time to start talking about it."
--Ira Chernus
Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. [email protected]
posted on December 3, 2001 09:08:33 PM
The people of this country have had a false sense of security for a long time now. The threats have always been present. We've been very busy consuming and have had certain issues minimized for us and we just liked it that way...very immature. Our priorities have been wrong for a while now. And the American people will be growing up quickly now, the age of innocense is over.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.~Nelson Mandela
posted on December 5, 2001 04:41:37 PM
I wish that I knew why people are so reluctant to discuss issues involving our freedoms. I've seen the same reaction in some, but not all, of the people with whom I come into contact locally, as I also see on the boards, and that seems to characterize the nation as a whole. I suspect a combination of reasons and the bus analogy with its stated and implied metaphors gives as vivid a picture of the present times as I've encountered.
Personally, I've become concerned enough to join and to contribute to the ACLU. I've always had enough issues with the ACLU, combined with a disinclination to support large, bureaucratic specific interest groups and charities, that I've not chosen to support it. Recent events have certainly re-order my priorities, for the time being at least.
random error
[ edited by antiquary on Dec 5, 2001 04:58 PM ]
posted on December 5, 2001 05:04:31 PM
I agree, Antiquary. I've made a special exception to my reluctance to support large charities and interest groups and I have joined this orgaization.
posted on December 5, 2001 05:11:34 PM
I'm glad to hear that others are also joining, Helen. I've wondered if the current "quiet" crisis would increase membership in the ACLU.
posted on December 5, 2001 05:59:45 PM
I was an ACLU member for a few years. Maybe it's time to donate to a good cause again, particularly if it's a bur under Falwell's and Robertson's saddles.
Certainly current events need to be discussed in a more enlightened way than those two did after September 11 when they blamed the ACLU for the attacks.
posted on December 5, 2001 06:33:11 PMBut let’s suppose Osama bin Laden speaks for the criminals. (If he doesn’t, current U.S. policy is pointless.) He does not try to tell us how we should live here at home. He does define specific new policy directions he wants us to take in his part of the world: get U.S. troops out of Saudi Arabia; end bombing and sanctions in Iraq; stop supporting Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. These may or may not be wise policies for us. But they are not wholly unthinkable. And they might give us a chance of veering away from the cliff. Aren’t they worth talking about?
The greatest country in the world doesn't take orders from some two-bit hoodlum like Bin-Laden. The professor needs a swift kick in the ass. Subversive crap.
posted on December 5, 2001 07:52:09 PM
Thanks for that link, saabsister.
Safire's column today addresses the rising concerns from genuine conservatives about the excessive abridgement of freedoms, their pointlessness in combating terrorism, and their interference with successful international intelligence gathering. Let's hope that Robertson's fall has a domino effect.
"Preparing to tell the Senate Judiciary Committee where to get off today, Attorney General John Ashcroft lashed out at all who dare to uphold our bedrock rule of law as "voices of negativism." (A nattering nabob, moi?)
"Polls show terrorized Americans willing to subvert our Constitution to hold Soviet-style secret military trials. No presumption of innocence; no independent juries; no right to choice of counsel; no appeal to civilian judges for aliens suspected of being in touch with terrorists.
"President Bush had no political motive in suspending, with a stroke of his pen, habeas corpus for 20 million people; his 90 percent popularity needs no boost. The feebleness of the Democrats' response, however — with the honorable exception of Vermont's Senator Pat Leahy — is highly political. Tom Daschle is waffling wildly because he is terrified of being slammed as "soft on terrorism," which might overwhelm his strategy of running against "the Bush recession" in the 2002 elections.
"With most voters trusting the government with anything, and with an attorney general and his hand-picked F.B.I. boss having the publicity time of their lives, one might expect us negativists to be in disarray.
"Here's why we are not: The sudden seizure of power by the executive branch, bypassing all constitutional checks and balances, is beginning to be recognized by cooler heads in the White House, Defense department and C.I.A. as more than a bit excessive.
"Not that they'll ever admit it publicly; Bush will stick to his shaky line that civil courts cannot be trusted to protect military secrets and, as fearful Orrin Hatch assures him, jurors will be too scared to serve. But his order asserting his power to set up drumhead courts strikes some of his advisers, on sober second thought, as counterproductive.
"Set aside all the negativist libertarian whining about constitutional rights, goes his newest advice, and forget about America's moral leadership. Be pragmatic: our notion of a kangaroo court is backfiring — defeating its antiterrorist purpose.
"At the State Department, word is coming in from Spain, Germany and Britain — where scores of Al Qaeda suspects have been arrested — that the U.N. human rights treaty pioneered by Eleanor Roosevelt prohibits the turning over of their prisoners to military tribunals that ignore such rights. That denies us valuable information about "sleepers" in Osama bin Laden's cells who are in the U.S. planning future attacks. (Those zealots who cited F.D.R.'s saboteur precedent forgot about Eleanor.)
"At the C.I.A., data about China, Russia and other closed societies is gleaned from debriefing returning travelers. But U.S. kangaroo courts would legitimize harsh proceedings overseas against U.S. business executives, academics and tourists — thereby shutting down major intelligence sources. (Interviewing 5,000 Muslim students and visitors, however, is seen by our spooks as an excellent opportunity to recruit Arabic-speaking agents.)
"At Justice, those not in the Ashcroft-Mueller axis view the tribunals as giving priority to punishment for past attacks rather than helping to prevent future attacks. Thus Ashcroft undermines Justice's justification for its nationwide dragnet.
"At Defense, the hastily drawn order must be translated into a system of trials that would not be invalidated by a Supreme Court. Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has refused to follow lockstep behind Ashcroft in deriding strict constructionists as negativist. On the contrary, Rumsfeld calls the informed outcry "useful" in refining the order. The hopeful news is that Rumsfeld has reached outside the Pentagon to get advice from legal minds not conflicted by administration ties. Lawyers inside the armed services are also determined to resist the subversion of the Uniform Code of Military Justice by Bush's diktat.
"Many attorneys friendly to this White House know that order was egregiously ill drafted. The White House counsel, Alberto Gonzales, defended the order on this Op-Ed page by denying or interpreting away its most offensive provisions. That's his signal to the Pentagon general counsel, William Haynes, to give the broadest interpretation to the order's five words promising non-citizens "a full and fair trial."
"Otherwise, our Constitution would be set aside by Cicero's ancient inter arma silent leges — "in time of war, the law falls silent."
posted on December 6, 2001 05:04:50 PM
Reminds me. . . . on Sept. 12th I had to get to California from Utah for a business appointment so I took an overnight Greyhound bus for the first time in my adult life. Wasn't too bad a ride.
But the first sight that greeted me as I boarded the bus was a group of 6 Pakistani Muslims who were traveling the country, playing and singing their music and preaching the Koran.
They would have been okay but a Jesus freak kid was goading them to talk, and they were rather loudly explaining their religion AND defending their right to stone women for indiscretions, cut off hands for robberies, etc. The rest of us didn't know where to look, and most of us sat quietly with our hands folded in our laps until the group got off the bus many miles down the road.
And I thought to myself, they are allowed to talk this way, even to offend some of us, because this is America. Even after the September 11th Terror, this is still America. No arrests, no beheadings, no stonings. Lucky guys.
