Conservatives Without Conscience

On a broad base, Jim Harper, the director of Information Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, has observed, “We can compare the risk of terrorist attack to other dangers our country has historically faced: During the height of the Cold War, we drew within a few figurative minutes of midnight—the moment that the Soviet Union and United States would hurl their world-ending arsenals at one another.” Harper further noted that “we didn’t throw out the rulebook during the Cold War. The executive branch did not make extravagant claims to power,” as are Bush and Cheney.[90]

Despite such realities, the Bush administration continually presents the public with a worst-case scenario. Clearly, the most serious threat from terrorists is that they obtain a weapon of mass destruction (WMD). But we face another very serious threat: namely, that our own government terrorizes us so much that we are willing to give up the ideals of democracy in exchange for reducing our fear. This threat to democracy seems well understood by Osama bin Laden and his troops. I have noted in the past, and I believe even more strongly today, that “the real danger posed by terrorism for our democracy is not that they can defeat us with physical or military force,” rather “terrorism presents its real threat in provoking democratic regimes to embrace and employ authoritarian measures that (1) weaken the fabric of democracy; (2) discredit the government domestically as well as internationally; (3) alienate segments of the population from their government, thereby pushing more people to support (passively, if not outright actively) the terrorist organizations and their causes; and (4) undermine the government’s claim to the moral high ground in the battle against the terrorists, while gaining legitimacy for the latter.’”[91] This is precisely what is happening in America today, as Bush and Cheney are being sucker punched by Osama bin Laden. Authoritarianism is everywhere in the federal government, not because Bush and Cheney do not realize what they doing, but because they are authoritarians, and they are doing what authoritarians do. In the process they have weakened the fabric of democracy, discredited the American government as never before in the eyes of the world, caused people to wonder if terrorists have a legitimate complaint, and taken the United States far from the moral high ground in refusing to abide by basic international law.

In citing the worst-case potential of the next terror attack in the United States—a nuclear weapon, a “dirty bomb,” or a chemical or biological weapon that could kill or injure millions of Americans—the Bush administration is not making a baseless argument. Such things could happen. But there is much that can be done to reduce the potential, as well as the impact, of a WMD terror attack. It would, therefore, seem logical—if the Bush administration is truly concerned about such a catastrophic terror strike in the United States—for it to focus its efforts on such measures, rather than simply frightening people.

How serious is the Bush administration about addressing the possibility of another major terror attack in the United States? Remarkably, not very. Notwithstanding the level of importance the administration purportedly places on fighting terrorism, according to the 9/11 Commission’s 2005 year-end “report card” Bush and Company were given five Fs, twelve Ds, and two incompletes in categories that included airline passenger screening and improvement of first responders’ communication systems. The bipartisan members of the 9/11 Commission found that “there has been little progress in forcing federal agencies to share intelligence and terrorism information and sharply criticized government efforts to secure weapons of mass destruction,” according to the Washington Post.[*] “We believe that the terrorists will strike again,” 9/11 Commission chairman Thomas H. Kean told reporters. “If they do, and these reforms that might have prevented such an attack have not been implemented, what will our excuses be?”[92] When the president and his cohort continue to raise the threat of terrorism but refuse to implement even the minimum measures recommended by the commission, it is clear they are playing the politics of fear. No one knows when, if ever, terrorists will use a weapon of mass destruction in the United States, but using the issue to frighten people while not addressing the 9/11 Commission’s concerns is worse than irresponsible; it is cruel.