The Threat Is Real

The United States is sacrificing freedom for the cause of freedom. We are allowing our liberties to be shredded so that we can be protected against those who hate our liberties. In our War On Terror, we are creating a space for our own brand of terror.

On October 17th, 2006, when he signed the Military Commissions Act into law, President Bush emphasized that history would hold a simplified and stark view of the current fight against terrorism. He said, “The questions will be narrowed and few: Did this generation of Americans take the threat seriously, and did we do what it takes to defeat that threat?”

Mr. Bush is right about the fact that we are accountable to our children’s children in the decisions we make today. He’s right about our need to take threats to our freedom seriously. But he’s dead wrong about just what the threat is.

The threat to the U.S. is within the U.S. itself. It is in our fear-mongering and deceptive president, the compliant congress that enables him, and a citizenry that always has the option of looking the other way. We must not look the other way. Our nation’s constitution is being systematically undermined by leaders who claim they are serving justice and protecting our way of life.

The Military Commissions Act allows the government to label persons “enemy combatants” and then suspend Habeas Corpus, the right to a trial. Let’s think about that for a moment: A person can be called a terrorist, can be arrested, can be detained indefinitely, and have no ability to challenge the accusation made against him or her. An accused person can also be tortured, so long as the ones doing the torturing are creative enough to sidestep the short list of interrogation techniques explicitly prohibited in the MCA – not such a tall order.

The Military Commissions Act is an attack on America far greater than even the horrific events of September 11th, 2001. On 9/11, Americans offered a stark contrast to the viciousness of terrorists as we cared for our dead and wounded with incredible compassion and generosity. On that tragic day and in the weeks that followed, there was a clear distinction between heroes and villains. But in the years since, the actions of our government have come to resemble those of terrorists more and more.

Do the terrorists kill innocent people? Our military campaigns will cause a hundred times the destruction to innocents. Do the terrorists have no regard for human dignity? Our soldiers will offer the disgrace of Abu Ghraib. Do the terrorists hate the rights that American’s enjoy? Our government will fight terrorists by sacrificing the inalienable rights it presumes to be founded upon.

Jesus Christ, the one in whom George Bush reputedly places much faith, was keenly aware of these sorts of dangers. Repeatedly throughout the Gospels, Jesus warns his followers against imitating their enemies. When two of his disciples wanted to claim seats of power for themselves, Jesus forced them to think seriously about those to whom they felt so superior: “Their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be a servant.” (Matthew 20:25-27) Or, consider the saying of Jesus that is known as the Golden Rule of Christian faith: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Luke 6:31) The other side of this prescription could be stated, “Do not become that which you despise in others”.

Since 2001, Bush has been telling us that the terrorists want to destroy our way of life. If, in response to terrorism, we undermine liberty and practice our own forms of injustice, then the terrorists have accomplished their objective splendidly. The saddest part of Bush’s MCA speech was when he bragged that, "One of the terrorists believed to have planned the 9/11 attacks said he hoped the attacks would be the beginning of the end of America. He didn't get his wish." It breaks my heart, but I fear he actually did.