General Thoughts on National Defense and Liberty
The world is entirely different. It’s so hard to remember what it was like before September 11, 2001. I vividly remember that day. I was considering a change of careers to sell individual retirement accounts and mutual funds, so I scheduled some time off of my day job to get fingerprinted at the local police station. Little did I know what was about to happen to the financial center of America.
My boss, Jim, came in as I was going to speak with my friend and prayer partner, George. He asked me if I’d heard “about the airliner plane that flew into one of the Twin Towers in New York City, and a few minutes later another one came in right after it.” The notion was so preposterous that I somehow made myself hear him say, “Did you hear the one about the airliner plane...”
Jim wasn’t one to tell tasteless jokes, but he did have a dry wit, and his immediate demeanor was just as calm as always, which just added to my confusion. Willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, I waited for him to continue, but he neither smiled nor elaborated. He just stood there as if waiting for some sort of confirmation that I heard and understood the news he just delivered. In the next moment, a million thoughts scattered throughout my head. The implication would be that America was under attack, and I thought no one could be that daring. No one could be that stupid. It had to be a joke.
It wasn’t that terrorism was far from my mind. The day before, I finished a difficult essay had been writing since the execution of Timothy McVeigh earlier in the summer. In the essay, I postulated that America was too powerful to be harmed by conventional means, and that the next big enemy would be terrorists due to the combination of America’s might and pervasiveness. Where a conventional army would fail, terrorists could strike at any time, because not everything could be given equal protection. They can prioritize targets based on the level of protection it is given, and by definition, they give a high priority to civilian targets.
I didn’t guess that it would happen so soon. Being an avid reader of current events, and having read about the USS Cole strike when it occurred, I probably had read about Al Queda at some point. However, when in the coming days we were told how these monsters had planned this atrocity and believed themselves justified in doing it, I did not remember having previously heard or read the name.
I don’t know if anyone had any delusions of accomplishing any actual work that day, because they would have had to pry us from the radios and television set in order to get us to do it. After running around, crying and praying in private, finally settling down and figuring out that, as terrible as this moment was and as little as we know about who the attackers were, armageddon was not underway, I excused myself and preemptively abided by President Bush’s advice to “go about” my life. I was at the police station getting fingerprinted when the first tower fell. Wanting to simultaneously remember every moment and get the day over with at the same time, I understood that, whatever happens, somebody would have to get up in the morning tomorrow. Somebody would have to get the work done tomorrow. Somebody would have to live tomorrow. And it would be twice as hard as it was today. Armageddon wasn’t here. At least not that day. But September 11, 2001 marked a crossroads for America and the world. Momentum alone would have moved us past the intersection at which we found ourselves, so staying put was not an option. We were forced to choose a path, but what our appearance would be upon our arrival at the final destination remained a mystery.
Over the next few weeks, as we sorted out the fact from fiction, we were subjected to some truly inspirational stories of hope. Willful defiance of our enemies was displayed over the trees and fields of Pennsylvania, flags were raised, battle plans were drawn, and a spirit of unity erupted unlike any seen in America for decades. Could at be that a Great Awakening was about to occur?
***
As the mountain peaks eventually erode to hills and valleys, so did the passage of time do the unity and outrage that were engendered by this sickening act of terror. Lines were drawn in the sand, alright, but we divided our attention between the actual enemies abroad and the political enemies at home. In the meantime, we paradoxically called for our government to do more to secure us as well as respect our personal space and privacy to an impossibly unreasonable degree. When our government did act, it was done with the support of an overwhelming majority of people and politicians. Over time, the support for the action we demanded eroded until the nation became as it was right before the attack happened. Split. Right down the center.
It didn’t occur to most of us that we were all taking a wrong or incomplete approach. We were exampled with the right form only recently, but we were so caught up with the idea that wars are fought by governments through their militaries, we forgot that, when a terrorist takes a docile civillian as his preferred target, it is utterly impossible to surround every unarmed civilian with an armed guard. The answer is to follow in the path of Todd Beamer and the other passengers of Flight 93. We must be strong, as they were. We must become something more than the terrorists expect, more than they can defeat, more than they can handle, and we need to make them believe it, too, so they can see the fruitlessness of their efforts and the impossibility of their endeavors.
For terrorists prey on the weak and unprotected. They do not profit from attacking positions of strength. It follows, then, that it is necessary to be neither weak nor unprotected, and since it is impossible to station a personal bodyguard with every person (and who would want that anyway?), we must protect ourselves, and we must protect each other. We must fight back, or else we will be bankrupt by our government’s futile attempt to protect everything for us.
Half of the equation is being fulfilled. We are taking the fight to the heart of the enemy, so that they are too preoccupied to fight us here. Iraq and Afghanistan are two important fronts in this struggle from a strategic standpoint. However, the attacks in London and Madrid have shown that this strategy only works up to a point. The age-old question is how to deter a fanatical terrorist--who seeks his own death--from attacking without giving the enemy more tools to generate new recruits.
On one hand, we want the enemy to fear us, but on the other hand, we do not want them to hate us. However, when a choice must be made between attempting to inspire love and attempting to incite fear, it is more effective to cause fear. This works on a personal level, too, because the enemy is afraid to attack anything that is not weak. Thus, if there are no weak points to attack--if we are all united against them in the protection of each other and in defense of true justice, then they shall not have the will to fight us. In order to defend justice, an accord must be reached on its meaning, for even the terrorists believe themselves to be just. It is important to note that belief in any one thing does not make it so. Instead, justice must be ascertained as stringently consistent with a universal good, such as the virtue of rightly ordered freedom. This freedom is not defined as the complete absence of government coersion, for coercion can be used in defense of freedom against those who would rob others of their state of peace or of their natural property, such as their lives and the fruits of their labor. Enforcing properly enacted, scrupilously targeted laws against terrorism is a form of coersion, but it is coersion consistent with the protection and maintenance of a justly lived freedom.
My boss, Jim, came in as I was going to speak with my friend and prayer partner, George. He asked me if I’d heard “about the airliner plane that flew into one of the Twin Towers in New York City, and a few minutes later another one came in right after it.” The notion was so preposterous that I somehow made myself hear him say, “Did you hear the one about the airliner plane...”
Jim wasn’t one to tell tasteless jokes, but he did have a dry wit, and his immediate demeanor was just as calm as always, which just added to my confusion. Willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, I waited for him to continue, but he neither smiled nor elaborated. He just stood there as if waiting for some sort of confirmation that I heard and understood the news he just delivered. In the next moment, a million thoughts scattered throughout my head. The implication would be that America was under attack, and I thought no one could be that daring. No one could be that stupid. It had to be a joke.
It wasn’t that terrorism was far from my mind. The day before, I finished a difficult essay had been writing since the execution of Timothy McVeigh earlier in the summer. In the essay, I postulated that America was too powerful to be harmed by conventional means, and that the next big enemy would be terrorists due to the combination of America’s might and pervasiveness. Where a conventional army would fail, terrorists could strike at any time, because not everything could be given equal protection. They can prioritize targets based on the level of protection it is given, and by definition, they give a high priority to civilian targets.
I didn’t guess that it would happen so soon. Being an avid reader of current events, and having read about the USS Cole strike when it occurred, I probably had read about Al Queda at some point. However, when in the coming days we were told how these monsters had planned this atrocity and believed themselves justified in doing it, I did not remember having previously heard or read the name.
I don’t know if anyone had any delusions of accomplishing any actual work that day, because they would have had to pry us from the radios and television set in order to get us to do it. After running around, crying and praying in private, finally settling down and figuring out that, as terrible as this moment was and as little as we know about who the attackers were, armageddon was not underway, I excused myself and preemptively abided by President Bush’s advice to “go about” my life. I was at the police station getting fingerprinted when the first tower fell. Wanting to simultaneously remember every moment and get the day over with at the same time, I understood that, whatever happens, somebody would have to get up in the morning tomorrow. Somebody would have to get the work done tomorrow. Somebody would have to live tomorrow. And it would be twice as hard as it was today. Armageddon wasn’t here. At least not that day. But September 11, 2001 marked a crossroads for America and the world. Momentum alone would have moved us past the intersection at which we found ourselves, so staying put was not an option. We were forced to choose a path, but what our appearance would be upon our arrival at the final destination remained a mystery.
Over the next few weeks, as we sorted out the fact from fiction, we were subjected to some truly inspirational stories of hope. Willful defiance of our enemies was displayed over the trees and fields of Pennsylvania, flags were raised, battle plans were drawn, and a spirit of unity erupted unlike any seen in America for decades. Could at be that a Great Awakening was about to occur?
***
As the mountain peaks eventually erode to hills and valleys, so did the passage of time do the unity and outrage that were engendered by this sickening act of terror. Lines were drawn in the sand, alright, but we divided our attention between the actual enemies abroad and the political enemies at home. In the meantime, we paradoxically called for our government to do more to secure us as well as respect our personal space and privacy to an impossibly unreasonable degree. When our government did act, it was done with the support of an overwhelming majority of people and politicians. Over time, the support for the action we demanded eroded until the nation became as it was right before the attack happened. Split. Right down the center.
It didn’t occur to most of us that we were all taking a wrong or incomplete approach. We were exampled with the right form only recently, but we were so caught up with the idea that wars are fought by governments through their militaries, we forgot that, when a terrorist takes a docile civillian as his preferred target, it is utterly impossible to surround every unarmed civilian with an armed guard. The answer is to follow in the path of Todd Beamer and the other passengers of Flight 93. We must be strong, as they were. We must become something more than the terrorists expect, more than they can defeat, more than they can handle, and we need to make them believe it, too, so they can see the fruitlessness of their efforts and the impossibility of their endeavors.
For terrorists prey on the weak and unprotected. They do not profit from attacking positions of strength. It follows, then, that it is necessary to be neither weak nor unprotected, and since it is impossible to station a personal bodyguard with every person (and who would want that anyway?), we must protect ourselves, and we must protect each other. We must fight back, or else we will be bankrupt by our government’s futile attempt to protect everything for us.
Half of the equation is being fulfilled. We are taking the fight to the heart of the enemy, so that they are too preoccupied to fight us here. Iraq and Afghanistan are two important fronts in this struggle from a strategic standpoint. However, the attacks in London and Madrid have shown that this strategy only works up to a point. The age-old question is how to deter a fanatical terrorist--who seeks his own death--from attacking without giving the enemy more tools to generate new recruits.
On one hand, we want the enemy to fear us, but on the other hand, we do not want them to hate us. However, when a choice must be made between attempting to inspire love and attempting to incite fear, it is more effective to cause fear. This works on a personal level, too, because the enemy is afraid to attack anything that is not weak. Thus, if there are no weak points to attack--if we are all united against them in the protection of each other and in defense of true justice, then they shall not have the will to fight us. In order to defend justice, an accord must be reached on its meaning, for even the terrorists believe themselves to be just. It is important to note that belief in any one thing does not make it so. Instead, justice must be ascertained as stringently consistent with a universal good, such as the virtue of rightly ordered freedom. This freedom is not defined as the complete absence of government coersion, for coercion can be used in defense of freedom against those who would rob others of their state of peace or of their natural property, such as their lives and the fruits of their labor. Enforcing properly enacted, scrupilously targeted laws against terrorism is a form of coersion, but it is coersion consistent with the protection and maintenance of a justly lived freedom.
posted by Cameron Beck at 7:51 PM
1 Comments:
It is such a balance to achieve a love/fear relationship with others of such different mindsets. Very thought provoking Cam. Thanks.
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