Whistling In The Wind

(I wish to digress from the usual rollicking humor you'll find here to make a political statement -- for all the good it'll do -- so please bear with me. And, if you're like me, if it appears the blogger's political opinion differs from your own, you'll tend to surf away -- but let me ask you to bear with me until the end, because this statement is not what it first appears to be. Your comments are welcome, because if anyone has differing viewpoints on this, I'd sure like to hear them ...)

Let's engage in a hypothetical experiment. Let us assume, for a moment, that first thing tomorrow morning, Osama bin Laden showed up at the entrance to Baghdad's Green Zone and said, "I don't want to be on the run any longer. You're going to get me eventually anyway, and I'm tired of living in caves. The humidity messes with my portable dialysis equipment and makes my beard all frizzy."

And let's assume further that all of the Muslim militant fundamentalists, who are currently shelling and suicide-bombing and generally wreaking havoc in Iraq and Afghanistan, lay down their arms and say, "You know, there's really no upside to this. How the hell could each of us who martyr ourselves end up with 71 virgins in Heaven, anyway? Where would those virgins come from? There just aren't that many alive on the planet, you know."

So, for purposes of this hypothetical, bin Laden and al-Qaeda and Zarqawi and all other Middle East militants have surrendered or walked away. And Saddam Hussein, as we know, has already been "neutralized".

Is anyone under the illusion that the Dubya Administration would, under these best-of-all-possible circumstances, withdraw our troops from the Middle East?

This is not going to be an anti-Dubya rant (that would be just too darn easy). But, like him or hate him, Dubya has shown that he has no intention of bringing our troops home anytime soon. There will always be militant threats against U.S. interests abroad. There will always be threats to Israel, or to Saudi Arabia, or to Kingdom Come that might impact American security or our economy.

Now, the reason I posed this hypothetical is because Dubya is quite unapologetic about ordering covert wiretaps, bypassing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) which required intelligence agencies to obtain a warrant before eavesdropping on communications involving "U.S. persons." [link] In fact, Dubya is now on the offensive, saying that the fact that such covert (and illegal) activity was leaked to the New York Times has caused "great harm to the nation," [link] and the Justice Department is now investigating who could have dared to tell the Times about this illegal government activity. [link]

"My personal opinion is it was a shameful act for someone to disclose this very important programme in a time of war. The fact that we're discussing this programme is helping the enemy," Mr. Bush said. [link]

What I want to focus on is Dubya's turn of phrase: "in a time of war". The question here is, at what point might the war end? When the war against terrorism was launched after 9/11, Dubya admitted that we were facing an enemy without a specific location or identification, with no fixed timetable or measure of victory. In other words, this war was against somebody, somewhere, and could continue indefinitely.

Does it, therefore, strike anyone else as strange to use "in a time of war" as justification for keeping illegal governmental activities secret, when by the President's own admission, the conclusion of this war cannot be reached for the indefinite future? "Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda," Dubya told the nation, "but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated."

A popular Government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives.
- James Madison, letter to W.T. Barry, Aug. 4, 1822

Dubya is very incensed that covert activity, whether legally or illegally carried out, has been leaked to the press. He's concerned that it could affect national security, and certainly, that's a very valid concern. But it seems to me that just as "legitimate" privacy interests "must be balanced" against national security [link], so, too, must national security needs "be balanced" against our constitutional rights.

... the First Amendment rests on the assumption that the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public, that a free press is a condition of a free society.
- Justice Hugo Black, Associated Press v. U.S., 1945

If Dubya and his cronies are correct, and we cannot reasonably ask what our government is up to regarding its own citizenry (even in times of war) for the sake of "national security", then we have already become a fascist state.

We are waging war in the Middle East in the name of protecting and spreading the American style of democracy. But if the freedoms that make democracy possible can't be protected and enjoyed at home, then just what the hell are we trying to spread, anyway?

Other than, it would appear, a thick layer of horse manure that they're telling us is a bed of roses ...

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
- Benjamin Franklin, Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, November 11, 1755