Listening to The President
by Heather Herrick
September 25, 2001

Last Thursday night, a room full of my friends and I were nearly brought to tears as we sat gathered around our television watching President Bush’s address to the nation. However, the emotions they and I were feeling were distinctly different.

While I was sobered by it, my friends were inspired and excited, and they enthusiastically applauded each of his declarations along with those gathered at the Capitol. Indeed, the president’s speech was deeply inspiring, perhaps so much so that most who listened will not consider the serious implications of his words.

The scope of the president’s plans leaves no American untouched, so after applauding the president and feeling a swell of national pride, we need to stop and thoughtfully consider his course of action.

"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."

While this is certainly a noble goal, it is hardly a reasonable one. Such a war will be never-ending and is simply unwinnable. As long as man hates, there will be terrorism. The president and the politicians gathered together on Capitol Hill have publicly committed the United States to "a lengthy campaign unlike any other we have ever seen," because it cannot end. It will be a war that must either go on and on, or end in the U.S. admitting failure in meeting our utopian goal.

"This war will not be like the war against Iraq (with) a swift conclusion. It will not look like the air war above Kosovo two years ago, where no ground troops were used and not a single American was lost in combat."

In other words, we Americans must prepare to sacrifice our lives, our sons and fathers and friends, in this war. The President believes this campaign will last longer than any we have ever undertaken. Does this mean greater loss of life than in any previous war we have fought? We need to stop and ask ourselves whether it is wise to sacrifice so much for a war that has unreachable goals. Our response should bring justice for those killed, not impose the United States Government as world judge, jailer and executioner.

"We will come together to give law enforcement the additional tools it needs to track down terror here at home…to strengthen our intelligence capabilities to know the plans of terrorists before they act and to find them before they strike."

Again, we have a utopian promise. As witnessed by the failure of our intelligence agencies, terrorism by its very nature is virtually impossible to trace, detect, or predict. Nothing short of a totalitarian regime has the control over all of its territory and people needed to prevent terrorism, and in that case, the state itself is the terrorist group. The president argues that terrorism truly can be prevented provided we give the state enough resources, power, and support. He has created a false hope in people that if we just give up enough freedom, we will be safe. But the truth that we do not seem willing to face, is that our government is incapable of making us completely safe against those who are willing to die in order to inflict death on our society.

Many of the president ’s statements were indeed true and appropriate. We should grieve for those who have lost loved ones. The terrorists’ acts were wicked and have increased our insecurity. Still, the president’s plans, involving our lives, our future, our happiness, and our property, need to be examined.

Even given our fear of terrorist attack or our desire for justice, we cannot just applaud and accept the president’s words uncritically. Nor are we opposing liberty by questioning his plans. Indeed, times of crisis and war are the times when freedom is most deeply eroded, as people turn to their government as their only hope, and the government expands its reach at the expense of individual liberties. We can see this happening already.

We have been told repeatedly that the attacks of September 11 have changed life in America forever. But the truth is that, we, not the terrorists, have changed our way of life in these last two weeks.

We are the ones who, in the short time since the attacks, have committed our young men to be away at war, sacrificing their lives in a never-ending battle to rid the world of evil.

We are the ones sacrificing our time-honored civil liberties that those before us fought and died for: the right to privacy, the "'the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses" (free from government wiretaps), and "papers" (maintaining our internet privacy) -- and the right to engage in free enterprise (free from federal subsidies for airlines and free from the devaluing of our currency).

We are the ones who have just agreed to devote a tremendous amount of our money and resources to fighting a war on innumerable fronts with unknown enemies, unclear goals, and no definite end.

Finally, we are the ones who have agreed to give up freedom for our personal safety, ignoring Benjamin Franklin’s warning that "they that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Heather Herrick is a Government major at Patrick Henry College. She can be reached at hkherrick@phc.edu.