"I
dread our own power and our own ambition. I dread being too much
dreaded."

These
are the words spoken by the Member of Parliament, Edmund Burke,
at the advent of the English Imperium.

Following
yesterday's carnage, I've listened in vain among hundreds of television
and radio voices, waiting for words that approach the wisdom of
Burke's.

The
penultimate occupation of the "experts" seems to be encouraging
acts of vengeance against anyone (or everyone), as long as they
have brown skin.

Following
the attack in New York City, the city that reviles John Rocker and
rails against Southern "racism," any midtown or uptown
cab driver with a "towel on his head" was pulled out of
his taxi and beaten. (All the police are downtown, so the rest of
the city is largely unpatrolled.)

This
seems to echo the foreign policy analysis of our nation's brightest
leaders. Among this analysis is the usual flatulence from one of
the neocons' favorite warlords, Robert Kagan. In The Washington
Post, he admonishes Congress to declare war … with someone …
with anyone. He said "It does not have to name a country."

However,
the first priority of the pundits is evidently to discuss security.

During
a web search, I ran across this: "The World Trade Center’s
security program is unmatched by any other commercial or government
building in the U.S. … It is a national model for security."
When I clicked on it, nothing appeared but a blank screen.

Surely
the World Trade Center's "model" security was the perfect
attraction for a hopeless act of terror.

Endless
numbers of experts have crossed the television screen (including
the widely respected Tom Clancy), every one uttering the same dreary
pronouncements: More security, less freedom.

More
security. We all know what that means.

We
can look forward to more government intervention into the lives
of those it purports to represent, and more government intervention
into the lives it doesn't, continuing a vicious cycle.

I
find discussion of security a particularly bizarre obsession in
light of this specific act of barbarity. What were the implements
of this destruction?

Will,
and box cutters.

How
is "security" going to eliminate this kind of threat?

And
compared to this complex feat, which took extraordinary skill and
planning, isn't bio-terrorism a much more simple method?

How
many remember that the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center was
"unsuccessful"? If the chemical bomb had deployed its
poison properly instead of burning, that attack could easily have
been as tragic as this one, perhaps more so.

And
can anything better prove the folly of "Star Wars" missile
defense?

Ever
since Nimrod created The First State, and the first security system
— the tower that was to reach the heavens and protect his throng
from another devastating flood, man has sought security from The
State.

But
as thousand of years of human history have borne witness, security
is an illusion.

Yes,
we can put bars on the windows, and improve our intelligence, but
what good is "security" in the face of waves of hate and
chaos?

It
reminds me of the fantasy of "the thin blue line." If
some community decides, en toto, not to abide by any rule
of law, no number of police can stop them. I think Los Angeles appreciates
that fact.

And
so it is with foreign relations. No amount of military intervention
or "security" can control all the seething peoples who
hate us.

"For
when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh
upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not
escape."

So
do we just fatalistically throw up our hands? Is hatred of America
an Eastern ontology?

In
recent years there have been no few number of warnings regarding
the linkage of foreign intervention and domestic terrorism, and
the voices have been powerful, but these voices often seem like
voices crying in the wilderness. They have asked, "Will we
soon ask the question, as a result of some horror: u2018Will we ever
feel safe again?'"

Has
anyone been listening? Does anyone remember the Founders' warnings
about "entangling alliances"?

A
gaze across the political landscape does not provide encouragement..

During
the Republican primary debate of 15 Feb 2000, Larry King asked candidate
Bush, "Governor, in what occasion could you describe where
you would use arms?" He answered, "When it's in our national
strategic interests. Europe is in our national strategic interests.
The Far East is in our national strategic interests. Our own hemisphere
is in our national strategic interests. The Middle East — protecting
Israel is in our national strategic interests …" In sum,
there is no corner of the Earth that is not in our national strategic
interests.

King
asked John McCain, "What if it wasn’t? What if it was a moral
question, Senator?" The Senator replied "I just want to
say, it's not that simple. It's not that simple because we are driven
by Wilsonian principles as well as others. There are times when
our principles and our values are so offended that we have to do
what we can to resolve a terrible situation…"

He
actually said "Wilsonian."

During
the Bush-Gore televised presidential debates, George W. Bush proudly
claimed he was an anti-interventionist; though, his own words betrayed
his "non-interventionist" position.

The
moderator listed eight military engagements, asking each candidate
how they felt about them. On Grenada, Panama, the Persian Gulf,
Bosnia, Haiti, and Kosovo, Mr. Bush and Mr. Gore both enthusiastically
agreed with each intervention. Mr. Bush and Mr. Gore both expressed
regret and caution with respect to Somalia. The only exception to
their agreement was Lebanon, which Mr. Gore thought was a mistake,
Mr. Bush did not. (President Reagan himself realized (too late)
the folly of that adventure, and pulled out our troops.)

As
if enough warning wasn't offered before the election, one doesn't
have to look that closely to see that the interventionist policy
of President Clinton is being continued by President Bush.

The
big post-election question was: To whom will the president lend
his ear? The interventionist Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz wing at Defense,
or the less interventionist wing at State? (Supposedly, Mr. Powell
wanted someone other than Wolfowitz in the Deputy Secretary of Defense
slot.) We seem to have received our answer.

Secretary
of State Colin Powell, most recent news reveals, is rumored to be
increasingly pushed out of the inner circle.

Assuming
for a moment that Mr. Bush truly is as non-interventionist as he
claims, he certainly does not have the necessary intestinal fortitude
to counter the predominant Beltway culture, in the Executive and
Legislative branches, who have designs on every corner of the planet.

And
suffer us not to forget the "conservative" press. While
William F. Buckley was still heading up National Review,
he could not tolerate the blasphemy of Joe Sobran — who questioned
the wisdom of The Gulf War — and sent him into the wilderness (or
so he had hoped).

And
things have become much worse. We have the editors of The Weekly
Standard who have been desperately mourning the arrival of The
End of History, so have never seen a war they didn't like. We have
National Review Online Editor Jonah Goldberg advocating the
virtual colonization of the whole of Africa, etc., etc.

Assuming
he wanted, can Mr. Bush stand against this great tide of "benevolent
global hegemony"? I sincerely doubt it.

I
know a number of right-thinking folks who consider themselves "conservatives,"
but are deceiving themselves into thinking that we have not reached
the nadir of American political discourse. Before the election,
these conservatives believed that they had "found their man"
because some empty suit parrots a very few of their favorite soundbites,
while avoiding an analysis of the symptoms that foretell the decline
and fall of nations.

"Prophesy
not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy
deceits …"

Of
course, I'm not laying all the blame at the feet of Mr. Bush — but
as one president once said, "The buck stops here." The
next time he summons his formidable "brain trust," we
can only hope he asks the right questions, and we can only pray
he listens to the right voices.

The
president, in our hour of mourning told us, "America was targeted
for attack because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity
in the world."

Dead
Wrong — America was targeted because its government diminishes the
freedom of foreign peoples, murders its innocents, is the friend
of its enemies, and whose press participates in the obfuscation
of truth.

What
can be done about terrorism? Nothing.

Nothing
except one thing: America Come Home.

September
14, 2001

Brian
Dunaway [send him
mail] is a chemical engineer and a native Texan.