The U.S. government’s handling of the “War on Terrorism” reeks of hypocrisy and contradiction. America claims to be defending the lofty ideals of freedom, justice and human rights, yet at the same time, it is clamping down on civil liberties and expressions of dissent. The United States is attacking the very same ideals that it claims to stand for. The state of the union is frightening. Images of Japanese-Americans in concentration camps and communist purges should not be far off in our memories. It is sad because it seems that the United States has not learned from the lessons of the past.
The U.S. Congress has just passed a comprehensive anti-terrorism bill, ironically referred to as the “USA Patriot Act.” The fine print of this bill reads like something from a one-party police state. This patriotic act gives the government sweeping powers to infringe on the inherent rights of citizens and non-citizens alike. It is now easier for the FBI to tap your phones and to sift through your e-mail and check what websites you’ve been to. The worst of it, though, is that authorities are now allowed to incarcerate immigrants for up to seven days if they are suspected of terrorist activities. And if they feel that the detainees’ release will be a “threat to national security” then they can keep the detainee in jail for up to six months.
The danger is that the authorities will use this bill to persecute and disproportionately target Muslims and Arabs. This hits close to home. Here in Georgetown, we have a sizable international Arab community. Just think that one of your friends could be detained for a week just because he said something that was perceived as “unpatriotic.” As things stand, Muslims and Arabs are already being racially profiled by airport security. Arabs are being judged by the color of their skin. By now, every Arab can tell you a story of someone close to them who has been humiliated while boarding an airplane or passing an airport security checkpoint. One of our more cultured congressmen, in this case Louisiana Rep. John Cooksey, made the declaration that any airline passenger with a “a diaper on his head” should be “pulled over” for extra questioning.
Lack of freedom is also present on our television screens. I think it is fair to conclude that CNN is actually a government-controlled television channel. It has been reduced to the mere status of propaganda machinery. Whenever I log onto CNN.com, I always run into the same close—minded, special-interest-friendly, one-sided media coverage that has become a celebrated staple of American news coverage. Indeed, on CNN, you will never see a picture of a Palestinian child covered with blood after he has been shot by an Israeli soldier. Nor will you see pictures of Afghans who have been killed or maimed by U.S. bombings. The government knows that if the broad American public sees these distasteful images then popular support for the “War on Terrorism” will dissipate.
Look past the propaganda. Americans have to realize immediately that this unjust war has already claimed many lives. On Friday, according to the news agency Agence France-Presse, two sisters, ages six and 11, were killed instantly when a U.S. bomb landed on the outskirts of Kabul. On Monday, the United Nations confirmed that nine people were killed as a result of a U.S. cluster bomb which landed near an Afghan village. And, to emphasize the accuracy of “targeted bombs,” one need not look further than the accidental bombing of six Red Cross warehouses. How is this any different from the terrorism championed by Osama Bin Laden? Do 5,000 Afghan children need to die before we realize that what our American government is doing is eerily similar to what the terrorists did to us on Sept. 11? Strange how we call something “terrorism” when it is against us, but when we’re doing it we call it “justice.” For every Afghan life that is lost, the rest of the world will hate us even more. When an Afghan father sees the blood stains on his child’s T-shirt, then we will have one more parent who will want revenge. Think about it. If your child’s life was cut drastically short by an U.S. bomb, how would you feel about America? I’m not so sure I want to answer that question.
I don’t know how we can all keep on living in a world where justice is only an illusion. There was a time when I enjoyed learning about the world’s latest events on the front page. Now, I can’t bear to look anymore. It is only with pain that I open up The Washington Post, because I know that everytime I look, I will read that America continues to mercilessly attack the Afghan people. All because of one man. To be honest, I don’t think they will find him. And, if they do, it will only be at the expense of thousands of innocent lives and many more broken families. Only then will we be forced to ask ourselves if it was all worth it.
