9/11 to Mumbai: Reflections

The terrorists win when they make us become more like them.

They win when we imprison Uighurs at Guantanamo for years and then, finally admitting they are not guilty of any conceivable charges, keep them in prison because they now have no place to go. (And, of course, it’s unthinkable to make amends by admitting them to the United States and providing counseling and rehabilitation to make up for what they have endured.)

They win when a whistle-blowing MP is arrested and his computer and Blackberry and papers are searched and seized.

They win when national political conventions become an automatic occasions for beefing up security forces and crying “the communists are coming and they are going to destroy our country!” Oops — showing my age. Today’s security motto is “the anarchists are coming and they are going to destroy our city!”

The War on Terror followed the War on Drugs followed the Cold War. War rhetoric provides excuses for super-patriotism, denunciation of enemies foreign and domestic, and a host of “war powers” enshrined in the Smith Act, the Patriot Act and presidential, above-the-law directives on surveillance.

Time for a change.