FOR THEIR SACRIFICES, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE DESERVE HONESTY

Two weeks ago, in the middle of the night, I woke up to CSPAN where Attorney General Eric Holder was testifying before the House Judiciary Committee about torture and other issues related to the War on Terror.  I turned up the volume to hear Congressman Ted Poe tersely ask Mr. Holder “Sir, what is your definition of a terrorist?”  To which Mr. Holder replied “I don’t know, I would have to think about it and get back to you.”  

The War on Terror was launched by a Republican led White House and Congress and, six years later, some of those same members of Congress that authorized the war have no clear definition of what it means to be a “terrorist”.  Given the current debate about closing Guantanamo Bay and sending the detainees elsewhere, it would help if we could define exactly what “terrorism” is and make it clear that not all terrorists wear turbans.  Somehow, in Mr. Poe’s question, I could not help but wonder how many of us consider Timothy McVeigh (the Oklahoma federal building bomber) or Thomas Blanton (1963 Birmingham church bomber) to be terrorists? How about the four African-American men in New York that planned last month to bomb the Jewish synagogue? 

We cannot have an honest debate on how to best deal with terrorism before first admitting that a terrorist can take on any size, shape, color or religion. This is why we must resist some people’s call to erode our founding principles – such as the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures – in order to eradicate terrorism. Such a short sighted viewpoint is dangerous and neglects the fact that terrorists have lived inside this country for a very long time.  This is clearly illustrated by the proliferation of Mexican drug cartels that are setting up shop on Texas ranches to train recruits to become killers.  We now have a real homeland security problem on our soil and it is misleading to the American public to suggest that it is in America’s interest to isolate the War on Terror to the Middle East. 

This same short sighted viewpoint is now being demonstrated in the debate about where to place the detainees once Guantanamo Bay is closed. Many of the same House and Senate Democrats who were vocal in their support of President Obama’s campaign promise to close the facility are now back pedaling that it appears that the detainees may have to be housed on US soil. They all want a solution to the problem, but only as long as it is not in their backyards. This could have been expected from the Republicans, but it is particularly disappointing when coming from those Democrats who at first supported the creation of the prison, then condemned it, and now that the facility’s closure is both possible and imminent, don’t want to take responsibility for their positions. Why not?  

Isn’t America better suited than Italy or some other country to house and monitor these suspected killers?  We have long lauded ourselves as having the most well developed justice system in the world and have in the past chastised other countries we feel do not provide the protections that we hold sacrosanct.  Why then do some of these same lawmakers not believe that our justice system is the best system to try, convict and punish the detainees?  Shying away from the responsibility to demonstrate that our system is fair, transparent, and most importantly, that it works, does a disservice to all of us. It does nothing to help our country’s image, so heavily tarnished in the last eight years, and only feeds the insinuations held by many around the world that we have something to hide.  When it comes to difficult decisions it is always easier to do what is popular instead of what is right. Closing Guantanamo Bay is both popular and the right thing to do, but without the courage to make the difficult decisions associated with its closure, we risk falling prey to those same shrill voices of fear and self doubt that lead us to making the poor decision to open it in the first place.

Sean Roberts