TOTAL LICENSING
TERRORISM
?
By George Medina, Intercontinental Licensing
September 11, 2001 seems a long time ago! That’s “The powers of man have grown to dangerous pro- (since a shocked world had to deal with Nazi atroci-
when the editor of the predecessor magazine of To- portion. Biologically we can cure almost miraculously, ties after World War II) still hold up?
tal Licensing came to the USA from the UK to inter- we can create new life, we can influence nature for As we all know and have often read recently, these
view industry figures about their shock, impressions better or for worse, we have awesome power to de- questions lead to the questions about “due process”
and thoughts on the event that had just occurred stroy, we are collecting power that is almost godlike, and torture:
– and subsequently asked me to write about it. but we cannot predict the fate of our knowledge Already during the Revolutionary War, President
This became the start of the column that has ap- – that is the difference between us and the God to George Washington vowed that the new nation
peared regularly in each issue since then and that whom we pray.” would not follow the British example of using the
you know as “The View from America”. There are others like author and commentator Sean torture of prisoners to secure information, and it
Shortly after that a new phrase entered American Hannity – generally thoughtful but definitively a very would not allow this practice to its troops.
terminology – “The War on Terror!” rightwing conservative - who explores the nature of After the 9/11 attack all security services assumed
When today I read my own column about that day I “evil” in his best seller book Deliver Us from Evil. some second attack – possibly with biological weap-
can see how innocent I was at the time and examine For him the world is divided simply into “good’ and ons - would follow. Vice-President Cheney, who had
my own, what I could call, instinctive, knee-jerk reac- “bad”. He is not interested in causes for terrorism; assumed the National Security portfolio, together
tions. I can see how far the American people, and I it is evil and that is enough. He blames the liberals with President Bush, felt a sense of guilt that the
with them, have come since then. like the Clintons and other liberal think tanks as the administration had been caught surprised and had
Many of us have remained innocent and gut-reac- Establishment that by their permissiveness allowed underestimated Osama bin Laden’s threat. This, they
tive for quite a long time thereafter – and I finally terrorism to grow practically unopposed. In his world decided, would never happen again!
decided now, at the dawn of changes, to involve my- you get on the barricades by recognizing “evil” as a The Outsourcing of Torture
self in three months of serious concentrated study force. His hero is President Reagan whose courage • The need to know more began to control every-
of this premier topic of our times. Of necessity, only made the Berlin Wall collapse. He reminds us of the one’s thinking in the inner circles of government.
more thorough knowledge of the subject matter can failure of Neville Chamberlain’s use of appeasement • With that began a long journey of measures to
bring us to a proper response to terrorism - instead to stop dictators like Hitler and Mussolini (but he recover lost ground.
of a blind reactive, defensive “hitting out at the en- conveniently overlooks that we had to ally ourselves • They sought powers to investigate, find legitimacy
emy” that deals only with revenge for harm done or with bloody dictator Joe Stalin’s troops to bring Hit- and a path to security.
temporary protection from anticipated harm. It’s a ler’s empire to an end). Cheney, one week after 9/11, appearing on a weekly
tactical response to a given situation but are there To paraphrase former Vice-President Cheney – “I’ll TV program, explained, “We’ll have to work sort of
strategies to end the war with victory? tolerate a son of a bitch as long as he is my son of on the dark side.” And the dark side it truly was! This
SO WHAT ABOUT THE AMERICAN PUB- a bitch.” slippery slope brought over time:
LIC? HOW CAN WE LIVE PEACEFULLY? He certainly believes in the necessity of the Iraq War • Large unrestrained expansion of the President’s
Now, we are worrying a lot about the economic col- – and backs Bush’s world view without reservation. power under his wartime authority.
lapse, real estate crisis, our 401K plans, our fears Allies, world approval – all pales in importance be- • It later showed that the CIA had made quite a lot
of loosing the job, our decisions to drive old cars for side the necessity to defend oneself. of errors in not properly processing internal infor-
another year, our counting how much of our reserves There is a certain beguiling simplicity and logic to mation it had gathered. So the CIA, appropriately
we have lost from our stock market investments. We Hannity’s solutions. It’s appealing to the self-defense regretful, wanted to show its remorse by following
have not sustained a major terrorist hit since 9/11 instincts we all possess. “Ours not to reason why the White House urging assiduously.
and that is a long time for many of us. So, the seem- – ours just to do and die.”(Alfred Lord Tennyson) • While during wartime other Presidents had over-
ingly distant possible danger is not the first thing He is not too concerned about complications like stepped their authority (famously FDR’s confin-
on our minds if we don’t live in Washington or New “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom ing 130,000 American Japanese to concentration
York. I asked one of my North Carolina friends what fighter.” He blames the pre-Bush “liberal elite” for camps at the beginning of World War II). What was
he felt about biological warfare. He is a well-read ignoring the clear signs: Osama bin Laden’s attack new about Bush’s actions was the defensive disman-
educator who deals daily with classes of specially against American marines in Yemen in 1992, the tling of the civilian rights of habeas corpus and the
gifted children, so I thought he would be a good one first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, use of tortuous legalisms that would have long-term
to use as a thoughtful sample. the Khobar Towers incident in 1996, the American unanticipated effects.
He reflected a bit, obviously quite unprepared. He Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, • First, the “War on Terrorism” had to be designated
felt far removed from threatening danger – but, be- and the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000. as “a war unlike any other war.”
ing a religious person he brought up an answer I Evil has been in the world since ever and must be • The CIA began a policy of kidnapping terrorists
had not considered and which I would like to share battled and not tolerated. America by its exception- in overseas locations and “helping” foreign govern-
with you: alism as a “moral” superpower must be realistic and ments with questioning. Questioning could turn quite
always take sides. brutal but because it did not take place on US soil
However, we might question: What may this lead to, the US could distance itself from such outsourcing.
The views and opinions expressed in the View from when applied unquestioningly? • The problem with the Geneva Conventions was
America column are the opinions of the author, When you fight terrorists you will kill some and cap- that prisoners could be held indefinitely to the end
George Medina, and not necessarily the views of
ture some – what do you do with them? What is the of the war, although they had to be kept in “hu-
Total Licensing, the publishers.
law? What is necessity? Does the Geneva Conven- mane” conditions and be available for visits by Red
tion that has governed prisoner of war treatment Cross inspectors.
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