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Patriotism Perverted

Sept. 11 and the Erosion of American Liberty

By Dan Cook

We all became patriots on the morning the planes struck. Not gun-toting patriots storming across a battlefield, or even armchair patriots waving flags from the sidelines, but fearful and fragile patriots suddenly under attack in the land whose safety we had never questioned.

We didn’t feel like patriots — at least not at first. But we did feel connected to our fellow citizens in a way that had been absent just 24 hours earlier. We dropped our daily routines to watch the madness unfold with our co-workers. We called our wives and husbands. We uttered short, simple phrases that nonetheless conveyed exactly how we felt: “Oh my god,” “I can’t believe it,” “Do you think it’s over?”

We stood transfixed as coverage of the New York attacks was interrupted by news of an explosion at the Pentagon. A nation that thought it was at peace had been attacked in two cities — and it was not yet 10 a.m.

Then, two more nerve-shattering reports: At 10:29 a.m., the north tower of the World Trade Center came down, and at 10:37 a.m. the government confirmed a plane crash over Pennsylvania. Huddled around TVs and radios in our offices and schools, we felt violated and confused, like the pillars that propped us up had just crumbled in the same unthinkable mass of steel and concrete that had brought down the towers. We felt more fragile and more afraid, and we wondered how it would all end.

Everything unraveled that morning. But by mid-afternoon, we were gathering up the scattered strands and stumbling stoically toward day’s end. Each hour that passed without another attack gave us the confidence to move forward to the next hour. As scared and drained as we felt, we started asking questions: Why did this happen? How could someone hate us so much? What should we do now?

A Rebirth of Patriotism
For many whose experiences were not forged in wartime, the deep feelings of patriotism stirred in the fall of 2001 were entirely new. Generations that previously had nothing but disdain for elected officials found themselves suddenly awed by our leaders’ resolve and reassurance. New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was transformed overnight from a tainted lame duck into a genuine folk hero. President Bush was instantly recast from a man who seemed overwhelmed by his office into a steady and sturdy commander-in-chief; questions that had lingered about the election that brought him to power evaporated with no trace. Confidence in the federal government to “do the right thing” soared to levels unseen in modern times.

In a rare moment of civic clarity, selfish parochial interests melted away as we sought to come to terms with the events of Sept. 11. The same country that spent much of the 1990s consumed by the stock market and the president’s sexual shenanigans suddenly had an urgent national priority, one that was one shared by all citizens, regardless of age, race, religion or income. We realized, for once, that there were more important things to focus on than Al Gore’s beard, Britney Spears’ navel or Bill Clinton’s penis.

The awakening of patriotism within us was — at least initially — real, genuine and valid. And for many who were overcome with these patriotic emotions, perhaps there was a sense that supporting the government was the same thing as being patriotic.

In the weeks that followed, we watched, learned and listened. After decades of declining attention spans, we suddenly cared about the outside world again. Media coverage of foreign affairs skyrocketed. We watched as our president stood shoulder to shoulder with Muslim leaders and cautioned against equating Islam with violence. We learned about the history of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. We listened to the stories of heroism on United Flight 93. We talked about tradeoffs between liberty and security. We gave to the people of New York. We studied the history of conflict in the Middle East. And mostly, we asked questions like “Why?” and “What now?”

Within our quest for knowledge was the hope of a new national maturity. For most of us, terrorism had always seemed like someone else’s problem — more an abstract concept than a life-threatening reality. Yes, the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 had shocked us. But somehow those attacks still seemed like isolated events brought on by random madmen, not the dark harbingers of a brave new world where an enemy might be lurking in the plane seat next to us.

Now terrorism was our problem, and we rose to the challenge of facing it. While some called for a new approach in the world and others defended our record, the important thing seemed to be not that we achieved complete unanimity, but that for once we were all paying attention.

Warning Signs
Nearly a month passed between the Sept. 11 attacks and the first U.S. airstrikes on Afghanistan, which began Oct. 7. Shaken by events and still mourning our losses, it was a span of weeks that bordered on the surreal as a shell-shocked nation pondered its next move. Despite a flurry of activity — memorial services and war-making plans, reports from Ground Zero and sporadic acts of anti-Muslim violence — the general mood was one of quiet anticipation as we waited for what our government would undertake in our name.

In the days and weeks that followed the attacks, the Bush administration laid out a far-reaching new agenda with serious long-term implications, both internationally and domestically. But perhaps only in hindsight can we see clearly how our somber resolve was used as the basis to move that agenda forward.

The signs of what was coming internationally were almost immediate. On Sept. 12, President Bush referred to the previous day’s attacks as “acts of war.” In keeping with the policy of recent presidents, his use of the word “war” in no way suggested that he would actually ask Congress to declare a war, and the murmured suggestions from a few academics that the attacks should be treated as criminal acts rather than war were roundly ignored. On Sept. 16, Bush promised a “crusade” to “rid the world of the evil-doers” — a later retraction of the word “crusade” did little to calm Muslim fears that what Bush had in mind was nothing less than an assault on Islam itself. Pope John Paul II said the same day that he was “heartbroken” by the attacks and called for restraint in responding.

In a nationally televised address on Sept. 20, President Bush promised an open-ended “war on terror,” saying that “our war on terror begins with Al-Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.” The war, he said, would be “a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen.”

Domestically, the signs of a new agenda unfolded over several weeks. On Sept. 19, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that suspected illegal immigrants could henceforth be detained for 48 hours, up from the previous 24. The American Civil Liberties Union issued a statement the next day urging Congress to “carefully consider the ... long-term impact on basic freedom in America” of the Bush administration’s counter-terrorism proposals. General Motors launched its “Keep America Rolling” program the same day, an effort to jump-start a stalled economy that foreshadowed an era of more crass corporate patriotism. On Sept. 28, Ashcroft said authorities had arrested or detained more than 480 people. By November, that figure had grown to more than 1,100; Ashcroft announced that the identities of the detainees would not be released.

But the clearest sign of the new domestic agenda came with the USA Patriot Act. (The title of the USA Patriot Act is an acronym for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.”) The Patriot Act was introduced in early October, just before the bombing started in Afghanistan. The bill passed the Senate on Oct. 11 and the House followed suit Oct. 12. President Bush signed the bill into law on Oct. 26.

Far from living up to the ideals of freedom and liberty inherent in the word “patriotism,” the Patriot Act is a stunning no-confidence vote on fundamental principles of constitutionality and the rule of law. The 342-page bill was hastily drafted and passed without the usual niceties of the democratic process. There was virtually no public debate, and no conference committee to hammer out differences between House and Senate versions. In the House, the Republican leadership squelched an alternate anti-terrorism bill that had unanimously passed the House Judiciary Committee and would have addressed civil rights concerns.

“This was the least democratic process for debating questions fundamental to democracy I have ever seen,” said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. “A bill drafted by a handful of people in secret, subject to no committee process, comes before us immune from amendment.”

Among other things, the Patriot Act gives the FBI broad access to people’s records without having to show evidence of a crime; gives the CIA access to information about American citizens; expands the ability of the government to conduct secret searches; lowers the level of judicial supervision needed for telephone and Internet surveillance; makes it easier for federal officials to examine student records; and creates a new crime of “domestic terrorism,” which critics fear will lead to surveillance of legally established domestic political and religious groups. The act also grants the Immigration and Naturalization Service authority to detain immigrants suspected of terrorism for lengthy or even indefinite periods of time.

The USA Patriot Act passed the Senate on a 98-1 vote; Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wisc., cast the sole voice of dissent. An analysis by the Center for Constitutional Rights summed up the bill’s flaws with the question, “What’s so patriotic about trampling on the Bill of Rights?”

War is Peace: A Culture of Permanent War
Like many of the steps the government took in the weeks and months after Sept. 11, the Patriot Act involved a shift in the balance between liberty and security that, for many people, seemed justified by the imperatives of the moment. But in the larger context of the government’s actions, it is now clear that the Patriot Act signaled the onset of a new political agenda based on the curtailment of liberties at home and the pursuit of brash unilateralism abroad.

Since the attacks, the government has proposed the use of secret military tribunals to try non-citizens; re-interpreted internationally agreed-upon laws of war to justify long-term detentions; backed out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty; abandoned the United States’ longstanding role as honest broker in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; provoked trade friction with allies; demanded immunity from the International Criminal Court; and looked the other way as foreign governments stifled dissent in the name of anti-terrorism.

Taken together, the domestic and international elements of the Bush agenda have laid the groundwork for a society in an Orwellian state of permanent war. Just as there is more than a little doublespeak in the title of the USA Patriot Act, there is also plenty of linguistic trickery in calling our present effort a “war on terrorism.” A war on “terrorism” — as opposed to a war on a particular group of terrorists, such as Al-Qaeda — is by definition unwinnable. “Terrorism” can’t be defeated; only terrorists can be.

But by framing the battle in this way, the Bush administration has set the stage for an ever-shifting and open-ended conflict that requires ongoing sacrifices of both liberty and material resources, yet offers no clear benchmarks of success. Once we’re done with one set of terrorists — or decide they’re too much trouble — we will move on to the next set. Who determines the next set of enemies? The Bush administration, of course — Congress is out of the loop, because no war has been declared. The next front in our permanent war might be against Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines, FARC in Colombia, or Islamic Jihad and Hamas in the West Bank. Or, now that the Patriot Act has created the category of “domestic terrorism,” it might be against the Animal Liberation Front in the United States. And when will the war on terrorism end? When “every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated,” according to President Bush.

Translated into English, that means the war stops when the government says it stops.

Ignorance is Strength: Self-Induced Silence
The Bush program depends on two things from us — patriotism (or, at least, the outward appearance of it) and fear. Our patriotism has us willing to make sacrifices in the belief that we are taking temporary steps to further a greater good. Our fear allows us to be cowed into accepting a new deal — one that we never voted for and would never have accepted before terrorism hit home.

Almost as disturbing as the Bush agenda itself has been our collective complicity in allowing it to move forward. When the war machine got rolling, we stopped asking questions. Or more precisely, we collectively decided that some questions were simply off-limits. After the bombing started, it was OK to ask how the war against Al-Qaeda was going, but it wasn’t OK to ask whether it should have been undertaken in the first place. It was OK to ask about the final death toll in the collapse of the towers, but it wasn’t OK to ask how that number compared to civilian casualties in Afghanistan. It was OK to ask (quietly) whether the Patriot Act would curtail civil liberties, but it wasn’t OK to vote against it.

And what happened to the quiet determination that characterized the first stage of our patriotic revival? It was overtaken by the Bush juggernaut, mutating from a wave of pure feeling for our country’s loss into a superficial patriotism that asked not what we could do to make our country live up to its ideals, but how willing we were to look the other way while those ideals were eroded. While the Bush administration pushed an agenda that undermines basic constitutional protections at home and projects an arrogant face to the world, our legitimate patriotic awakening was diverted into a sideshow of corporate-sponsored slogans, unreflective self-praise and “God Bless America” bumper stickers.

Freedom is Slavery: The Erosion of Due Process and the Vilification of Dissent
In November 2001, a conservative academic group launched a broadside against 40 college professors for their supposed lack of patriotism in their responses to the events of Sept. 11. “College and university faculty have been the weak link in America’s response to the attack,” said the report by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a group founded by Lynne Cheney, wife of the vice president. The report published the names of professors and excerpts of oral or written statements they had made, characterizing their statements as “short on patriotism and long on self-flagellation.”

Meanwhile, between November 2001 and March 2002, the Bush administration conducted nearly 5,000 “voluntary interviews” of men who were mostly Arab immigrants or Muslim Arab-Americans. According to the mainstream Council on Arab-American Relations, less than 20 of those interviewed were arrested, and none on charges related to terrorism. Nonetheless, Attorney General Ashcroft announced an expansion of the program in March, saying that the administration would conduct 3,000 more such interviews.

On June 24, the Associated Press reported that the FBI has been visiting libraries across the country in an effort to track the reading habits of people suspected of having links to terrorism. The visits are legal under the Patriot Act. The same law that requires librarians to give up the information also forbids them from revealing the extent of the inquiries. “It’s super secret and anyone who wants to talk about what the FBI did at their library faces prosecution,” said Judith Krug, the American Library Association’s director for intellectual freedom, according to the AP story. “That has nothing to do with patriotism,” she said. For her efforts to protect readers’ privacy, Krug regularly receives threats.

On June 27, CNN reported that the FBI and the INS had conducted an operation focusing on Pakistanis working at jewelry kiosks in shopping malls. The feds were searching for evidence of money being sent back to Pakistan to fund terrorist operations; no charges were filed, but some of the Pakistanis were taken into custody for immigration violations.

In this brave new world of the liberty-stripping Patriot Act and the permanent war on an ever-evolving enemy list — a world in which Rush Limbaugh proudly claims to be “chief of the patriotism police” — it seems that college professors, librarians and Muslims of all backgrounds have been put on the defensive in the domestic front of the war on terrorism. But while reasonable people can disagree about where to draw the line between liberty and security, only unreasonable zealots should be expected to blithely ignore basic constitutional protections or to imply that the airing of disagreement in a democratic society amounts to a lack of patriotism.

Patriotism is “pride in or devotion to the country somebody was born in or is a citizen of.” But what does devotion to a country mean? Is it devotion to the country’s government? To its people? Its history? Or is it devotion to the country’s ideals?

The awakening of patriotism within us on Sept. 11 was real, but we stopped short of seeing it through. True patriotism asks not how we can blindly support our government, but how we can challenge that government — and ourselves — to live up to the highest ideals of our nation.

“Freedom and fear are at war,” President Bush told us in his Sept. 20 address. If we acquiesce in the erosion of liberty, we let fear win.