The Fifth Anniversary, Part II
As we wrote, “We owe them continuance of America’s righteous anger until justice is done,” we also owe an accounting of justice done, including balancing the scales back in the direction of protecting the innocent. Opinion polls ask, “Do you feel more safe or less safe now?” It is the wrong question. In the same way the phrase “war on terrorism” doesn’t go to the heart of the issue, neither does a measure of “feelings.” Angst is partly a function of finding out how deep and wide the problem was before we fought back.
As we wrote, “We owe them continuance of America’s righteous anger until justice is done,” we also owe an accounting of justice done, including balancing the scales back in the direction of protecting the innocent. Opinion polls ask, “Do you feel more safe or less safe now?” It is the wrong question. In the same way the phrase “war on terrorism” doesn’t go to the heart of the issue, neither does a measure of “feelings.” Angst is partly a function of finding out how deep and wide the problem was before we fought back.
We surely have done better nationally and internationally sharing information about terrorists, their movements and their finances. We look more carefully at who is in our country, why and with whom they share money and information. Polls show the public widely understands and supports government efforts to track, trail and listen to people talking to suspect persons abroad. We have arrested people and uncovered domestic plots. There has not been one coordinated attack on American soil since 9-11, although individuals have conducted attacks which if they occurred in Israel or Iraq would be called terrorist attacks. We have prevented attacks emanating from other countries – including the horrific plan to blow up ten airliners over the Atlantic Ocean.
Those who say the U.S. cannot protect the homeland from terrorism while conducting the war abroad are demonstrably wrong. It can. It has.
We have killed many and captured some of the perpetrators of 9-11 and their network around the world. Five years is not a long time to work through legal issues surrounding the status of terrorists and enemy combatants and it is to our national credit that we work on it. The Geneva Convention and POW status do not apply; they were made for honorable soldiers. Neither was designed for people who use airplanes as missiles to blow up secretaries and stock traders, who shoot from amid women and children, or who believe the afterlife will be markedly better it one enters it voluntarily in bloody shreds. American morality does apply and we have faith in that.
Excuse us for not crying over Khalid Sheikh Mohammad’s interrogation by the CIA. Or Guantanamo prisoners, the 400 worst-case captures from Afghanistan and Iraq, who have the same medical care as the troops who guard them; religious freedom; and private visits from the Red Cross, Congress and various European delegations. Where were the self-righteous when Olaf Wiig and Steve Centanni were forced to convert to Islam at the point of a gun? Where is their concern for Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser, and Eldad Regev? Spare us the crocodile tears about Gitmo.
Captured terrorists, including KSM, will stand trial and face American justice after Congress passes legislation to authorize the military tribunals the Supreme Court ruled were appropriate if so authorized. JINSA disagreed with the Hamdan ruling, believing this President, like Presidents from George Washington to Franklin Roosevelt had that authority.
But if Congress acts, an additional measure of justice can still be done.