There is no star more firmly fixed in the establishment firmament than that of Graham Allison, the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at Harvard, past dean of the Kennedy School of Government, and public servant in every administration since Kennedy’s. Allison is a serious man and an experienced one.
This past Sunday, Allison was featured in the Outlook Section of the Washington Post – the sort of place one looks to see what it is that the “wise men,” as they used to be called, are thinking. The headline is an eye-catcher: “We Must Act As If He Has The Bomb.” The article is must reading – not so much for the center-right which has long believed in the realities about which Allison writes, but definitely for the center-left and far-left, which continue to worry more about John Ashcroft than about Osama bin Laden and his allies.
Here are the key paragraphs:
Preventing nuclear terrorist attacks on the American homeland will require a serious, comprehensive defense – not for months or years, but far into the future. The response must stretch from aggressive prevention and preemption to deterrence and active defenses. Strict border controls will be as important to America as ballistic missile defenses.
To fight the immediate threat, the United States must move smartly on two fronts. First, no effort can be spared in the military, economic and diplomatic campaign to defeat and destroy al-Qaida, and in the international intelligence and law-enforcement effort to discover and disrupt al-Qaida sleeper cells and interrupt attempted shipments of weapons.
Allison is correct, which brings us to the decision by President Bush to authorize military commissions as one means of trying terrorists, and Attorney General Ashcroft’s decisions to question hundreds of foreign nationals even as the government begins to listen into the conversations between terror suspects and their lawyers. All three measures have sparked a loud cry from a few folks, most on the left and a handful on the right. Here are some examples, all from this past Sunday’s New York Times:
- Law professor Herman Schwartz, American University: “What this really looks like is soft authoritarianism. You have a very powerful secret police, and corners constantly being cut; you have a free press, but continuous pressure on it; a government which recognizes that it can’t become an authoritarian or totalitarian government but nevertheless wants to squelch opposition.”
- Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way: “These last three weeks reflect what John Ashcroft has been about for the past three decades. It’s absolutely chilling to see the person entrusted with enforcing our laws and defending our civil liberties showing so little concern for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.”
- History professor Alan Brinkley, Columbia University: “Habeas corpus is gone, trial by jury is gone. This is one of the most extraordinary assaults on civil liberties, albeit not of citizens, in our history.”
The most interesting question to pose to opponents of the recent administration steps is this: “If both the intent and the ability to use a weapon of mass destruction against Americans on American soil are present within al-Qaida, and the measures announced by the president and the attorney general reduce the likelihood of that use happening, are the measures justified?” Professors Schwartz and Brinkley and Mr. Neas, meet Graham Allison. Perhaps you have heard of him?
There are limits, of course, to the steps we would take to prevent the unthinkable from happening. The Constitution sets out those limits, and those limits have not been approached much less breached. President Bush seems to me to be acting as a man taking seriously the charge to protect and defend the nation and its people. Those who are attacking him for doing this may discount the threat. I do not. And I do not believe this is an instance where the odds-makers ought to be consulted. What the pundits cannot know is what our various intelligence sources have provided the president. We have to trust him. I do. The vast majority of Americans do as well.
It is a good thing that the administration’s critics are absolutely free to throw around the harshest charges they can invent out of fund-raising need or feverish imagination. It is a better thing, though, that they do not have the power to act as recklessly as they talk, or to impose upon us the defenselessness they perceive as freedom. As Thanksgiving comes near, I have made a note to include in my prayer a sincere thanks for the leaders we have and the wisdom they have displayed.
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