function pop_me_up(pURL, features) { new_window = window.open(pURL, \"popup_window\", features); new_window.focus(); } \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\nRights in The Real World\n\n\n<\/p>
| \n\n\r\n \r\n\n \nDecember 2, 2001\nRights in The Real World\nBy THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN\n\n \n was being interviewed the other day by an Arab satellite TV station when\nthe host drifted into a line of questioning that one hears so often in the\nArab-Muslim world today: \"What proof do you have that bin Laden is guilty?\nHow can you be sure the Arab passengers were the hijackers? Won't you be\nembarrassed if in a couple of years it turns out that the hijackers were\nreally from Colombia?\"<\/p> The host was a serious Arab journalist, who\nwas partly playing devil's advocate — but he was certainly reflecting his\nArab viewer's opinions. As I absorbed those questions, a famous picture came\nto my mind. It was the snapshot of American black and white college students\nreacting at the moment O. J. Simpson was pronounced \"not guilty\" — the blacks\nexploding in celebration, the whites grim-faced and angry.<\/p> Remember\nthat picture? Well that picture is us and the Arab-Muslim world today. Just\nas many African- Americans felt abused for decades by the U.S. judicial system\nand expressed their anger by rallying to O. J. and refusing to acknowledge\nhis apparent guilt, many Arabs and Muslims now passively back bin Laden to\nexpress their rage at U.S. support for Israel and repressive Arab regimes.\nAmerica is to many Arabs and Muslims today what the L.A.P.D. was to many\nAfrican-Americans — an unfair power structure. This is why so many intelligent\nArabs and Muslims refuse to acknowledge bin Laden's guilt. They don't endorse\nhis murders, but they relish his trying to beat the system. If bin Laden\nwere to have a trial by his peers, he would be acquitted faster than you\ncould say \"Marcia Clark.\"<\/p> I raise this issue to make a simple point:\nAttorney General John Ashcroft is not completely crazy in his impulse to\nadopt unprecedented, draconian measures and military courts to deal with\nsuspected terrorists. Do not get me wrong: I am glad critics are in Mr. Ashcroft's\nface, challenging his every move. His draconian measures go against our fundamental\nnotion that people have a right to be let alone by government when there\nis no evidence that they have committed a crime and, if there is evidence,\nto be charged and tried in public, with judicial oversight, not in some secret\nproceeding. When our officials deviate from those norms they should be grilled\nand grilled again.<\/p> But having said that, I find myself with some\nsympathy for Mr. Ashcroft's moves. Listening to the debate, it is almost\nas if people think we're safe now: the Taliban have fallen, we've won and\nwe can act as if it were Sept. 10 — with no regard to the unique enemy we're\nup against.<\/p> At some level our legal system depends on certain shared\nvalues and assumptions between accusers and accused. But those simply do\nnot apply in this case. When we were at war with the Soviet Union, we saw\nthe world differently, but there were still certain basic human norms that\nthe two sides accepted. With bin Laden and al Qaeda we are up against radical\nevil — people who not only want to destroy us but are perfectly ready to\ndestroy themselves as well. They are not just enemies of America; they are\nenemies of civilization.<\/p> Before we totally repudiate what Mr. Ashcroft\nis doing we need to remember something very basic: most of these hijackers\ncame from big families. They left behind parents, brothers, sisters and,\nin at least one case, a fiancée. What does that say? It says they\nhate us more than they love their own families.<\/p> As the Israeli author\nAri Shavit noted, they hate us more than they love life itself. In the cold\nwar, we could always count on the fact that at the end of the day, the Soviets\nloved life as much as we did — which is why the Soviets finally backed down\nin the Cuban missile crisis. That is not the kind of enemy we are up against\nhere at all.<\/p> So, yes, let us grill Mr. Ashcroft and President Bush\nevery time they propose deviating from our legal norms. And let us certainly\ndemand judicial oversight for their steps. But let's not debate all this\nin a vacuum. Let's not forget what was surely the smile on those hijackers'\nfaces as they gunned the engines on our passenger planes to kill as many\nAmericans as possible in the World Trade Center. Let's not forget what they\nwould do had they had access to even bigger weapons. And let's not forget\nhow long they lived among us and how little they absorbed — how they went\nto their deaths believing that American laws were only something to be eluded,\nAmerican citizens only targets to be killed and American society only something\nto be destroyed. <\/p>\n\n | \n\n<\/td>\n | \n\n<\/td> <\/tr>\n<\/table>\n\n","contact":"","link":"","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":" Date: December 2, 2001\r\nRights in The Real World\r\nBy THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN\r\nAttorney General John Ashcroft is not completely crazy in his impulse to adopt unprecedented, draconian measures and military courts to deal with suspected terrorists.\r\nSource: The New York Times\r\nSection: Opinion","numcomment":0,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2001\/12\/frie.html","filesize":"8.1 kibibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2001\/12\/13367.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[]} |