Marble Composition

Clamping Down...Hard. And Then More Clamping

I think about this quite often, and mainly because it's something I fear will transpire in the next couple of years, but we should ask ourselves, what if the U.S. suffers another major terrorist attack before President Bush leaves office? I believe Richard Cheney will call for even more police state measures that will make us much less free, while making us less safe at the same time (thanks for that bit Ben Franklin). Thankfully, I stumbled across two writers that are able to describe what I was thinking in a far superior way than I ever could. Here's Arthur Silber over at The Power of Narrative:

As a nation, we continue to suffer from an exceedingly dangerous delusion: that if we only take the correct actions, we will somehow manage to insulate ourselves entirely from all those who wish to inflict injury upon us. To put it kindly, this reflects a rather astounding degree of immaturity. At the same time, we also know that no one actually believes this fable: while our leaders wage war on a country that was no serious threat to us in the name of "safety" and with the alleged aim of reducing the terrorist threat -- while in fact, the occupation of Iraq predictably has had exactly the opposite effect -- they regularly remind us that another attack is inevitable. The fact of a future terrorist attack is a certainty, we are informed; the only unknowns are when, where, exactly how, and the extent of the devastation.

This is another form of the seeming paradox I discussed in a recent essay about responsibility: our leaders seek leave to curtail our freedoms, to engage in widespread spying, and to take any number of further actions justified in the name of security, while they also tell us that we will definitely suffer future attacks. As I pointed out in the earlier post, they thus want to do whatever they wish, while they simultaneously tell us that all such efforts will be futile, at least in part. In this manner, they can act in whatever manner they choose and, when they fail, that failure will not be their responsibility. And when they fail again, they will propose the same solution: they will insist they need still more power and that our freedoms will have to be curtailed still further -- but even that, they will remind us, still will not guarantee our safety. There is only one winner in this perpetual game: an increasingly powerful and oppressive government. History has taught this lesson repeatedly, over thousands of years, and still we will not learn it.

Here Arthur nails it. He also includes this from William Pfaff:

Such an attack is possible as long as civil airplanes fly, trains run, power systems and public utilities function, people go to work, and business and markets continue. Each can be subverted, or intervened in, or exploited in ways that damage their users and the larger society.

As they say, go read the whole post. Hopeless? No. Here's what the U.S. can do, and, let's make it short and sweet, shall we?

• Withdraw all U.S. forces from Iraq based on a staged timetable within nine months.
• Impose enormous political and economic pressure on Isreal to agree to a final two-state solution based on full withdrawl from Palestinian territories.
• Negotiate directly with Iran regarding their nuclear ambitions. Include the U.N., NATO, and The Arab League. Call for a summit.
• Close the prison at Guantanamo Bay and all CIA-led prisons on foreign soil immediately. Demand all hardcore prisoners who are likely to be repeat terrorist offenders be prosecuted under the laws of their country of origin. Not feasable? Refer them to the International Criminal Court, and back that court fully.
• Enter into direct negotiations with North Korea, backed by the full force of the stalled six party talks already under way (U.S., China, Russia, Japan, South and North Korea).
• Propose and provide verification for an international program to collect and control loose nuclear material and nuclear intentions on a global scale.
• Use human rights abuses as a cudgel to force governments that voilate them to change their ways (this is where the U.S. has completely lost the moral high ground because of Guantanamo Bay. It's a tool we used to bring down the Soviet Union. We need it back).

In other words, let the rest of the world know that we're serious about global security and stability, and that we're ready and willing to listen to other peoples' interests and take them into account. We can broker these kinds of things. We just have to commit to them. Yes, there's lots of hard work involved, but what's the alternative, keep digging? No.

The only way to convince other people that it's not worth attacking America is to convince everyone that it's not worth it, and not because we'll do something about it, but because the world community at large will.

posted by FuzzFinger @ 3/09/2006 08:06:00 PM