Pushing the Buttons: Fear and Freedom

Three minutes into his State of the Union Address last night, President Bush made reference to September 11, Osama bin Laden, and the ongoing threat of terrorism. He trotted out a litany of horrors including the “murder of school children in Beslan,” the bombing of the London subway and buses, and “the beheading of a bound captive.” Terrorists, he claimed, seek “weapons of mass murder” so that they might wield the ultimate weapon—fear.

The President waxed biblical, suggesting that retreat from the Middle East would permit “the violent to inherit the earth.” Here, I would like to respond by waxing Shakespearean: perhaps Mr. Bush “doth protest too much.”

I’m saying that the President is a purveyor of violence, a mass murderer, or a terrorist. Although progressive and liberal blogs are filled with such accusations, and one might find evidence to support such claims, I don’t really intend to follow that thread here.

Last night, however, the President brandished his weapon of choice early on in his address. It seems that whenever his presidency hits a rocky patch, George W. Bush reminds us that there is much to fear in this post-9/11 world, and, just as he did last night, he argues that the terrorists are out to destroy our freedom.

Is this really the case?

Honestly, I would argue that it is not. As horrific as the attacks on New York and Washington were, I really can’t see how they aimed to usurp our government and install an Islamic regime in the White House. Still, the President continues to push the fear and freedom buttons, hoping for an enthusiastically compliant, patriotic response.

If one looks at the history and rhetoric of Al Qaeda and bin Laden, an Islamic invasion and subsequent overthrow of our government seems less and less likely. The more plausible read on 9/11 is that it was the strongest possible means of sending a clear message to the United States that we need to keep our economic, military, and political noses out of Middle Eastern affairs.

It’s worth remembering that Osama bin Laden was an ally of sorts during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, where he fought alongside the US backed Mujahideen. In essence, the “killers” and “thugs” we are fighting now in Iraq and Afghanistan are the same people we supported in the struggle against Soviet communism.

Certainly, bin Laden’s rhetoric is radical and violent, but his grievances are unrelated to the continued freedoms we now enjoy as Americans. In the main, bin Laden and Al Qaeda oppose our support of Israel, our military presence in Saudi Arabia, our occupation of Iraq, and our support for several of the Middle East and Africa’s worst dictatorships.

If our liberty and our American way of life is at stake here, it is only insofar as we depend on cheap foreign oil, we profit from shady alliances, and we secure our access to that oil and that profit through our continued military presence in the region. However, if we scaled down or withdrew our influence in the Middle East entirely, I don’t believe iPods and Starbucks would cease to exist.

In the months following the September 11 attacks, the American mantra seemed to be, “If we give up our freedoms, the terrorists win.” I agree with that and I have said it, too. But I’m wondering how many of us actually believe it.

A recent AP/Ipsos poll showed that 42 percent of respondents felt that the President and the NSA should not be required to obtain a FISA warrant to conduct electronic surveillance of international calls. That’s a minority, but the fact that it so closely approaches 50 percent casts a great deal of doubt in my mind whether we have the resolve, as a nation, to stand firm on our freedoms and thereby prevent the terrorists from “winning.” For too many of us, the fear of another day like the one in September 2001 is sufficient motivation to surrender the very liberties that terrorists are presumably bent on destroying.

Think back to the other post-9/11 mantra—“connecting the dots.”

The prevailing opinion is that the federal government failed to stop the terrorist attacks because the competing bureaucracies failed to “connect the dots” of intelligence regarding Al-Qaeda cells in the United States.

Even if you believe that all of the turf battles between the CIA, the FBI, the NSA and the Pentagon have been resolved, the so-called “terrorist surveillance program” has generated a Katrina-like flood of dots, millions of them. If the failure to prevent 9/11 was a connection problem, how can we expect federal agencies to sift out actionable intelligence when the stream has become a torrent?

Still, the Bush Administration has repeatedly suggested that it might have been able to prevent the attacks on Washington and New York City, had it possessed the authority to conduct these warrantless wiretaps. Although this claim is utterly ridiculous, the fact remains that 42 percent of Americans accept this argument for domestic spying.

Which brings me to a disturbing conclusion. When the President presses the fear button, he isn’t simply looking for an outpouring of Americans who are willing to fight for their freedom. He’s also hoping to scare us in to willfully surrendering our civil liberties.