My New Year's Resolution: To Maintain a Pre-911 Mindset
FOUR YEARS - THE LIFESPAN OF FEAR
Below is an op/ed piece I was working on a while back. I used opposition to the war as the main example of why I'm proud to have a "pre-911 mindset," but that can easily be replaced with opposition to warrantless spying or opposition to renewal of the entire Patriot Act or opposition to just about any viciously un-American thing else the American people are asked to choke down because we live in a "post-September 11th World."
At present, the convincing force of argument as to whether U.S. troops should still be in Iraq appears to favor Americans opposed to the war, as evidenced by recent poll numbers showing a majority of Americans becoming skeptical of the prospect of a stable Iraq and favoring American troop withdrawal within the year. The pro-war contingent, though, has the peaceniks beaten hands-down in one arena - that of the memorable catch-phrase.
Those that support the continued American occupation of Iraq have developed a batch of slogans that serve to deride both the backbone and the brain of the doves on the other side of the debate. The hawks have "as Iraqis can stand up, we will stand down." Then there is the virtuous, responsible-minded exhortation to "stay the course," often contrasted with its cowardly evil twin, the dovey "cut and run." And let's not forget that, if we leave Iraq too quickly, "the terrorists will have won."
In an earlier incarnation, that one about letting the terrorists win actually caused me to by my first lap-top computer in the weeks immediately following September 11, 2001, when I was assured by the President that my not spending outlandish sums of money I didn't have on products I didn't need would have Osama bin Laden giggling in his cave with girlish glee. "Yes, brothers!" Osama would say. "Our plan has worked perfectly, for the infidel Jason has kept his twenty-five hundred infidel dollars to pay rent to his infidel landlord, rather than purchasing a Sony Vaio! Allah be praised, for the infidel Best Buy suffers this day!"
But perhaps the most derisive and, until recently, most effective use of a pro-war motto has been to accuse those who believe American troops should be pulled from Iraq as soon as possible of having a "Pre-9/11 Mindset" in a "Post September 11th World." In a speech just a while ago to the Council on Foreign Relations, for example, President Bush claimed that, after the attacks of September 11, America decided to "tak(e) the fight to those who attacked us and those who share their murderous vision." He continued that "THE TERRORISTS have made it clear that Iraq is the central front." Likewise, Dick Cheney recycled a variation on this theme in his November speech to the American Enterprise Institute, in which he said that, "[i]n a post-9/11 world, the president and Congress of the United States declined to trust the word of a dictator" and that their "thinking was informed by what had happened to our country on the morning of September 11th, 2001."
Each time the Bush Administration attempts to meld the Iraq war with the terror attacks of 2001, it is an attempt to further the inference that those who disagree must not grasp the meaning of those horrific events, i.e., have a "pre-9/11 mindset." That rhetoric was originally designed to further the disingenuous claim of a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda. That notion has now been thoroughly discredited, but accusing someone who is against the war of having a "pre-9/11 mindset" still serves as code to Bush's hawkish base that those opposed are weak-willed or soft on terrorism.
But having a pre-9/11 mindset in a post-September 11th world means something different to me. I count my pre-9/11 mindset as a point of pride. One with a pre-9/11 mindset was in agreement with then-candidate George W. Bush when he said, before the 2000 election, that the United States was "not in the business of nation-building." In a post-September 11th World, however, the American taxpayer has paid over $30 billion toward the reconstruction of an Iraq we "broke" and therefore "bought."
With a pre-9/11 mindset, it was honorable to cherish our precious civil liberties and to work zealously to protect them from government intrusion. In a post-September 11th world, we allow law enforcement agencies, under the auspices of the Patriot Act's "sneak and peek" authority, to search our homes or offices with no meaningful judicial review.
Perhaps most importantly, with a pre-9/11mindset, both politicians and rank-and-file Americans could remember the inherent peril - to our international moral standing, to our domestic unity, to the on-going capacity of our military - that lurks in waging an elective war. In a post-September 11th world, it has become tragically clear that our national memory and Congress's institutional memory rebooted on 9-11-01.
Often in American history, when confronted with incomprehensible tragedy, a vulnerable public temporarily becomes willing to abandon some of the very ideals the United States should represent. In 1862, after secession and continuing during and after the Civil War, habeas corpus was suspended throughout the entire nation. It was restored four years later, in 1866. In 1942, after Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, placing American citizens of Japanese ancestry in concentration camps. The last camp closed in 1946 - four years later. It seems America's post-traumatic abandonment of principles tends to last roughly four years.
It is now almost four-and-a-quarter years after September 11, 2001. TIME'S UP. The "post-September 11th world" can now go back to being "the world". And maybe if we Americans with a "pre-9/11 mindset" "stand up" to demand the restoration of those true American values that we allowed to be sacrificed on the altar of a "post-September 11th world," those responsible for that sacrifice - primarily the Bush Administration and the Republican-controlled Congress - will "stand down." If not, then truly, "the terrorists will have won."
Note: cross-posted at my site