[Originally published in The Herald of Randolph.]
Compared with much of the rest of the world, America enjoys unparalleled, constitutionally guaranteed freedoms. Unfortunately, in bad or difficult times, our national leadership, irrespective of political party, is prone to make those guarantees secondary to their own notions of “security.”
Suddenly, the “safety of the American people” becomes more important than the Constitution. Practices and procedures are adopted that fundamentally conflict with that document. Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and George W. Bush have all gone that route.
At least Lincoln and Roosevelt had real wars on their hands. Bush had only his contrived “War on Terror,” a self-defeating reaction to the horrors of 9/11 which apparently was designed by the Neoconservatives, as were many of his other policies, to keep Americans in an endless state of fear and turmoil. This would, in turn, enmesh us in their “long war” which would commit us to equally endless years fighting their contrived enemies. Maybe they thought that fomenting this struggle would keep them in power. Clearly, it has not.
Over the six-plus years since 9/11, we have seen an end to certain habeus corpus rights, unconstitutional wireless wiretapping, torture, the CIA Gulag of prison camps, over 700 presidential “signing statements” abrogating legal legislation, and on and on.
We even got to the point where when President Bush found a law he didn’t like, he said he would interpret the law his own way. With a court system that was increasingly permissive in dealing with his activities, you had the perfect constitutional storm.
After 9/11, having not experienced a serious foreign attack on the continental US since the War of 1812, Americans panicked. We were being asked to actually give up constitutional rights for some amorphous sense of safety. We were bombarded with color-coded threat assessments, constant reminders of America’s vulnerability, stories of plots against America, and heavy coverage of attacks abroad.
Then we got Iraq, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, waterboarding, the CIA Gulag and we were told America had to do that to be safe. In a direct abrogation of our responsibilities as citizens, we accepted it! We simply packed up all our constitutional convictions and gave in, forgetting Benjamin Franklin’s admonition of 300 years ago that if you give up your rights for safety, you will get neither. That does not seem to have changed under President Obama.
The fact is that free societies are not safe. That’s the price you pay for your freedom. There is no middle ground. Either you are “free” or you are “safe”.
Let us accept as true the Bush administration’s claim that the techniques and tools that diminished our civil liberties at home and our reputation abroad were worth it because they stopped terrorist attacks. Even then the argument fails, for such things represent a tactical response to a strategic threat. They may stop the occasional attack, but they won’t address the fundamental issue. Even with a new administration, we need to change our counterterrorism policies.
Don’t believe the constant drumbeat that Muslims “hate us for what we are.” They actually like what we are. What they don’t like is what we do. They do not like our policies. As long as those policies persist, that tiny percentage of Islam that is composed of radical Muslims will wish and do us evil.
What Muslims want is pretty straightforward. They want foreign troops out of Arab countries, particularly out of the holiest countries like Saudi Arabia. They want an end to foreign support for the repressive, unelected governments in the Muslim world, an end to the American military occupation of Iraq, an end to killing Muslims and an equitable solution for Palestine.
It is possible to reach the goals outlined above if America and Europe get together and work for them. As of this moment, our active involvement is the only way we will solve the problems that face us in that part of the world. Only through such solutions will we realize our national interests in the Middle East, rid ourselves of our fears here at home and reconnect with our constitutional guarantees.
The election of Barack Obama initially provided real hope that appropriate solutions would be undertaken. Since then, he appears to have adopted the Bush Administration’s foreign policy philosophy and tactics, leaving little hope either for peace or for our military departure from the Middle East.
Haviland Smith is a retired CIA Station Chief who served in East and West Europe and the Middle East and as Chief of the Counter-terrorism Staff. He lives in Williston.
