Posted on 06/22/2002 6:02:25 PM PDT by quidnunc
America's present predicament is that of a great nation rendered vulnerable by its very openness. In the global war against terrorism we are now forced to wage, we are lucky that in George W. Bush we do not have a Hamlet, wringing his hands endlessly over whether or not and how to respond. What we do have is a president more like Shakespeare's King Henry V at Agincourt, clear both in his view of the battlefield and on the stakes of the conflict at hand. The president's clarity of vision has defined terrorism for precisely what it is — evil. With this same clarity, he further defines our enemies as the "axis of evil." No punch pulling here. Like the old umpire, President Bush calls 'em as he sees 'em.
The doctrine of pre-emption that Bush put forward in his West Point speech earlier this month brings still more clarity to this strange new war against terrorism. The Bush doctrine recognizes the physical impossibility of protecting our every vulnerability while asserting clearly that America's only effective defense is to take the battle to the terrorists. This bold new program is, in the words of former Secretary of State George Shultz, "not just hot pursuit but hot pre-emption." Or, as President Bush put it plainly: "We must take the battle to the enemy … [to] confront the worst threats before they emerge."
What are our targets? First, of course, al Qaeda. Our military success in Afghanistan degraded Osama bin Laden's main asset, his elaborate network of terrorist finishing schools. But now al Qaeda's remnants appear to be morphing into a new kind of organization. Instead of bringing volunteers to al Qaeda's leaders, its leaders are sending emissaries out to the volunteers: hotheaded, delusional young men, whose resentment of America has metastasized into a hatred continuously nurtured by the incitement of so many countries in the Arab world. This new organization, more loosely organized than the old al Qaeda, is fully capable of planning and carrying out devastating attacks on American targets.
At home, civil libertarians must understand why America is holding some suspects in secret detention. We don't want these suspects to alert fellow plotters as to how we caught them. Detention is another form of pre-emption, and it is necessary precisely because the freedom of our society has been so badly abused by the terrorists who used our public libraries, interstate highways, and airports with virtually no interference. We must change our attitudes so as to pre-empt criminal acts — instead of trying to catch and punish terrorists after they strike.
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He IS a dem and was a very big supporter of Algore.
The reality of 9-11 has opened his eyes.
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