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Jewish World Review Nov. 20, 2001 / 5 Kislev, 5762

Dennis Byrne

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The politics of success or, "It's too bad we're winning the war"


http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com -- Uh-oh, bad news: We're winning the war.

Just what learned scholars had feared might happen. And now, this must stop, stop, they say.

There's Maureen Dowd, writing for The New York Times from somewhere in geosynchronous orbit: "Our new friends in Afghanistan celebrated taking Kabul. They played some music. They flew a kite. They put a woman newscaster on the radio. They killed some people just because it felt good. We give the Northern Alliance an air force and they embarrass us with savage force."

What? Better that we had waited six months to marshal a half million U.S. troops to conduct a war in an edifying manner? Dead American soldiers and more dead American civilians always are better than being embarrassed.

But now that the Taliban has lost control of Afghanistan faster than anyone imagined, the war critics have had to shift gears even quicker. Now it's the fear that we might win, as in what do we do with Osama bin Laden if he is captured? Not that bin Laden would be so accommodating, since he promises that we'll never take him alive.

Just in case bin Laden and his fellow thugs chicken out, though, the Bush administration appropriately has decided they should be tried by military tribunal--a procedure that is established in international law and which has precedence here, going back to George Washington, and in other civilized societies. Trial by tribunal is subject to legitimate debate, but the real issues are getting fogged again by the exaggerations of those who insist it "raises questions about the nation's commitments to its basic values."

Baloney.

They also say that it will "inflame Muslim critics." Again, baloney. These same people only recently said that U.S. bombing would "offend," but, now, oops, Muslims are dancing in the streets, thankful that they have been freed of the Taliban, which couldn't have been accomplished without American bombing. Which proves that freedom always trumps tyranny.

But, whined an American Civil Liberties Union person: "Congress has not declared war!" My dear, the terrorists have declared war on us.

Terrorists have been playing on our sense of fair play for years. They know that we could seal their caves with tactical nuclear weapons, and they know that we won't. Nor should we.

But they know they are playing in our league now, by our rules, and we won't be intimidated by guilt trips from the left wing. Such as the ACLU, which turns hyperbole into slander by saying, "the administration is totally unwilling to abide by the checks and balances that are so central to our democracy." This an odd statement to be coming from an organization that has supported the unilateral usurpation by the U.S. Supreme Court of the legislative and executive branches' constitutional powers to make policy about the "right" to terminate a human being in utero.

Yes, defendants will have fewer rights under a military tribunal--but just about the correct amount of rights due to people who fight, not by conventional rules of war, but whose only weapon is to execute thousands of innocent Americans. As well as people from 80 countries who are visiting here under the protections of our laws and Constitution. Undoubtedly, these terrorists will get more legal protections than the 4,000 or 5,000 Americans who are summarily "terminated" in utero every day.

Maybe what we're supposed to do is give bin Laden the right of trial by a jury of his "peers." I guess that means we'll have to track down some other cutthroats to sit on the jury. Here is what the rout of the Taliban has demonstrated to American elites: If we're supposed to understand the Taliban, now the Taliban--and lots of other folks--understand us. They understand that when they declare war on us, we're fighting back. The Taliban didn't run for the hills or defect to the other side because we asked them nicely. They did it because we made life not merely inconvenient and uncomfortable, but flat-out dangerous.

And now other countries will think about the prospects of their own continued existence when they harbor murderers whose sole weapon is the killing of innocents. And would-be terrorists will think twice if they have to face a U.S. military court, instead of a court system that freed O.J. Simpson. Or to put it blunter: Getting your butt kicked tends to focus your mind, especially if it is located in posterior regions.



Dennis Byrne is a Chicago-based writer and public affairs consultant. Comment by clicking here.

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© 2001, Dennis Byrne