On Fear
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in The War On TerrorismI just read an editorial that pretty much sums up what I’ve been thinking lately about terrorism, the war, civil liberties. Well, what I’ve been thinking minus the flashes of rhetoric.
Now, I hesitate to link to this piece because it calls Bush a “king” and so forth, but read it and ponder what it means to live in America post 9/11. I think those thoughts are valuable and the overall theme of “what have we given up for security” is certainly spot on. And yes, maybe I don’t get it…but I’m continually shocked by polls and comments on this site that demonstrate how much people are willing to give up in favor of an atmosphere of safety.
The world has changed, but have we overcorrected?
Do read the piece and decide for yourself.
This entry was posted on Monday, December 26th, 2005 and is filed under The War On Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
December 27th, 2005 at 10:17 am
Justin wrote:
The author of that piece doesn’t know the half of it. Then again, neither, it seems, do most of the MSM’s pundits and America’s politicians. Like them, he seems to be fixated solely on counter-terrorism efforts, which are just the tip of the Long War iceberg.
This war is basically a war of ideas, specifically between competing societal models. This begs two questions: (1) Can the American model of secular liberal democracy prevail over the Islamist model of institutionalized shari’a in the hearts and minds of the world’s Muslims (including those living in the U.S.), and (2) How far ought our government go to promote our model and/or demonize the other one? (To the point of silencing ostensibly non-violent but pro-shari’a Islamists, for example?) Neither question has an obvious answer, nor does either one relate directly to terrorism, but freedom-loving people like us ignore them at our own peril.
December 27th, 2005 at 4:19 pm
Mr. Steinback suffers from selective memory, at least as far as suggesting that our human rights record during WWII was better than it is now. In WWII, those non-uniformed “enemy combatants” in Guantanemo would have been summarily shot as spies. Today we spy on those suspected of communicating with the enemy. In WWII, we had “internment camps” for those of suspect allegiance.
As for Osama winning, Freedom House reports that in 2005, 8 countries plus the Palestinian Authority moved up in the freedom index, either from “not free” to “partly free”, or from “partly free” to “free”, while 4 moved down. Six of those 9 countries (counting the PA as a country) moving up were Muslim. None of the 4 moving down were Muslim. Seems like whether Osama has “won” in the US or not, he’s losing on the world stage pretty badly.