We are now about four months into the war on terror and national opinion still seems to be largely supportive of our government's actions at home and abroad. However, if you listen very carefully you can detect a few still small voices of dissent in certain places.
In the early days of our bombing campaign in Afghanistan we witnessed a handful of peace protests, but these were so few in number that they barely registered in the national consciousness. There are, after all, always a few nuts who will be against anything the government does, even if it is defending itself from suicidal maniacs.
The protests grew a bit louder and more mainstream as the Bush administration, led by Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, detained a number of Middle Eastern men indefinitely "for questioning" and loosened some federal restrictions on wire tapping and surveillance. Civil rights activists warned that we were in danger of sacrificing the ideals of personal freedom that make America a land worth defending. Ashcroft countered that by criticizing the government's actions these dissenters were aiding and abetting the enemy.
Now we are hearing some of those same critics, as well as some new ones on the international stage, question the U.S. treatment of detainees at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay. They charge that the detainees should be regarded as prisoners of war, subject to the human rights protections spelled out in the Geneva Convention.
Ashcroft counters that the detainees "are terrorists, they haven't fought like soldiers, they don't wear uniforms, they don't reveal themselves." He does not classify them as prisoners of war, but as "war criminals" and says that the restrictions being placed on them are necessary considering the danger they represent.
As far as I can tell, most Americans approve of Ashcroft's attitudes and activities over the last few months. Most of us appreciate the gravity of the situation and the dire threat these terrorists pose, and we are willing to sacrifice a certain amount of personal freedom and international goodwill for the sake of defending our very lives from some very dangerous people.
For the most part I share that sentiment, but there is something in the public reaction to the people who are questioning the government's actions that disturbs me. I was especially concerned by Ashcroft's largely unchallenged assertion that the people who were criticizing him were acting as passive accomplices to the terrorists themselves.
I am not a member of the ACLU, and I am not active in Amnesty International or the Human Rights Watch because I just don't see eye to eye with them on many issues. But I am certainly glad that these organizations are out there butting heads with the people in power, because even the greatest democracy in the world needs people who question authority.
History teaches us that even in the best situations bad things happen when nobody is paying attention to what the government is doing. And in the worst situations, as in times of war when fear and paranoia seize a nation's psyche, quick grabs for power and sudden revocation of personal freedoms can occur very suddenly, and often nobody realizes how much they've lost as a nation until it's too late.
It seems to me that many opinion columnists (and many Americans, for that matter) define a "right-thinking" American as someone who thinks the way they do, whether they are left wing, right wing, or whatever.
But I see things a little differently. To me, a right-thinker is someone who listens to all sides of an issue, forms a carefully considered opinion, and then bravely advances his views in the public arena.
Of course, the person I just described is the person that I aspire to be and is also the type of person that I prefer to associate with. It could be that I am just being partisan in my own way.
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