Eternal Vigilance Society Commentary: What If We Lose?

Fall 2004


What If We Lose?

By Gerald Chisholm Jr.

A conservative estimate of the casualties resulting from the detonation of a crude nuclear device in a major U.S. population center is 30,000 dead and 60,000 injured. Thousands more would suffer ghastly radiation burns and would go almost untreated as nearby hospital and medical resources that are not incinerated would be overwhelmed. The blast site of the explosion would be uninhabitable for years. The chaos and devastation that would be unleashed by such an attack defies description. The briefest consideration of the graphic reality of this type of terrorism causes the mind to recoil in such horror that it is almost quite literally unthinkable. But we as a nation and in particular our elected leaders must contemplate very clearly exactly what it would mean to lose this battle to the forces of terrorism.

General Tommy Franks recently remarked that a chemical or biological strike on our soil would mean that “The western world, the free world loses what it cherishes most, and that is the freedom and liberty we’ve seen the last couple of hundred years in this experiment we call democracy.”

He went on: “In a practical sense, it would mean our population would begin to question our own Constitution and to militarize our own country in order to prevent another mass-casualty producing event.”

He is referring to the imposition of martial law.

General Franks is not wild-eyed or hysterical. He’s also not running for any office. He is discussing the frighteningly real possibility of a WMD attack on the United States in the very near future. The noisy give-and-take of our cherished political and electoral process can drown out this sobering fact: there are well funded, highly motivated, organized terrorist groups operating within our borders planning such an attack at this very moment.

This is undeniable, and even patriotic doves concede as much.

Yet we debate whether the mild counterterrorism procedures of the Patriot Act represent an undue “infringement” of our rights. Well-intentioned civil libertarians and their political fellow travelers bemoan the use of roving wiretaps while suicidal fanatics are plotting to destroy whole American cities, libraries and all. There is a disconnect here, a vast chasm between the seriousness of our national dialogue and the magnitude of the threats we face. If we do not elect leaders whose primary focus is on closing this gap and organizing our government around preemptive self-defense, our country as we have come to know and love it will cease to exist.

These disturbing realities should dominate our national discourse. However, even after September 11, the acknowledgment of them is portrayed as alarmist. Leaders who speak this way are accused by political opponents and media outlets of exaggerating the danger. Such rhetorical broadsides are a part of our political process and are to be expected; they even have value in that a healthy and robust debate should produce for voters strong candidates who are sharp and clear in word and action. Our politics best serves our country when it helps cultivate what our nation desperately needs: leaders who will not flinch from doing what is necessary to defend the country in the face of great opposition, both military and political.

Some of our leaders and would-be commanders are honest men who served the nation proudly in a different era. However, a stubborn insistence upon viewing today’s immense security challenges through the outmoded lens of Vietnam or even the Cold War will prove disastrous. The nuclear doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction was a defense posture that served our country well for decades. It is utterly obsolete, because it is predicated on an enemy who is both rational and a participant in an international system of checks and balances. Our current, suicidal foes are neither. Backward-looking, timid leadership that views our present enemy as a “law enforcement matter” represents a danger to our country almost equal to the terrorists themselves, for it would serve to enable them.

That is a harsh assessment, but a necessary one, for our country is presently on shaky and transitional defensive footing at an extremely perilous moment in history.

What exactly should we expect our leaders to do, and what will be the repercussions of those actions? It is instructive to consider what could have been done to prevent 9/11, and what the domestic political response to that action would have been. The best preventative measures would have been at minimum, a unilateral preemptive invasion of Afghanistan to remove Al Quaeda’s base of operation and aggressive security measures at our borders and our airports. There is a consensus of opinion on this.

The hue and cry from the American and international left and major news organs would have been so loud that the President who took those actions, which seem reasonable and rather sensible now, would have been vilified and driven from office. He would have been called a warmonger, a fascist cowboy, unconcerned with the lives of U.S. servicemen and our countries’ alliances around the globe.
There would have been countless editorials demanding “proof” of the disrupted terror plot. Tighter airport security would have been called racist and unconstitutional. Commissions populated by less resolute backbenchers would sit in judgment and second- guess the rationale and motivation for the “unnecessary” war.

In short, we would have roughly the environment that exists right now.

What is to be made of this? Have we, as a nation, learned nothing from the carnage and smoking rubble of 9/11? Certainly, we have. The danger is that we have not absorbed the new reality as quickly or as thoroughly as we need to. The danger is that a return to our customs of partisan squabble leaves us exposed to an attack on this country of an unfathomable magnitude. The danger is we elect leadership that seeks an impossible return to “normal”. It is a very grave danger indeed.

We need to keep at the forefront of our national consciousness that our country needs steely, courageous leadership that acts to disrupt and destroy our enemies before they can mount the catastrophic attack. We need people who put a vigilant defense of the country ahead of their own political fortunes. Such individuals are not to be found exclusively in any one political party, but they must be found. Our liberty, our way of life, and our country are at stake.

Our nation was inadequately defended on 9/11/2001. The will and determination of America’s fanatic enemies was greater than our willingness and capacity to do what was necessary to stop them. The cost to our country of that failure is enormous, and historians will only begin with the 3000 people murdered. An analysis of the events leading up to that day brings into sharp focus the questions of: why were we caught off guard by a threat that in hindsight seems so clear? What measures should be taken today to prevent attacks of a larger scale? Our leaders must address these questions with unflinching honesty. Unfortunately, discussion of them is often bogged down in partisan finger pointing and blame-casting. It would be an unconscionable compounding of the errors made leading up to 9/11 if we countenanced national leadership not ferociously vigilant to what was once called “unthinkable” but is now horrifyingly possible: an attack using nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons on a United States city.