Doing Something
November 13, 2001
In order to
combat terrorism, our government is cracking down on the usual suspects:
us. As I was reminded last week, we are all suspected terrorists now, subject to
insulting and invasive searches at airports.
At Dulles Airport I somehow set off an alarm,
even after removing every key, pen, coin, and paper clip from my pockets. I had to
stand with my legs spread and arms extended while a gent with a turban and a
bushy beard checked hitherto private sections of my person with a metal detector.
He was quite polite, but I couldnt help reflecting to myself that he looked a
bit more, well, exotic than I did. If such indignities become a routine part of air
travel, pretty soon only nudists will be flying.
On my return trip I set off another alarm at
OHare in Chicago. Once again a spread-eagle search failed to detect any
deadly weapons, but this time the contents of my pockets moved the authorities to
spring into action. A young official announced to me that he was confiscating two
of the three cigarette lighters I was carrying. It seems there is a new Federal rule
that you may carry only one lighter aboard an airplane.
I decided not to bring OHare to a halt
by demanding an explanation of this novel rule. But I tried in vain to think of a
reason. It seemed to me, and still does, that if you can hijack a plane with a
cigarette lighter, one would be enough, and there would be no great advantage in
having a second or third lighter. I cant really explain why I happened to
have so many lighters on me my pockets are always full of unsorted stuff
but Ive never lit two of them at the same time, and I dont
know how Id go about lighting three of them at once. But maybe these
cunning hijackers have some tricks I havent heard of.
Anyway, the Federal
Government seized two of my cigarette lighters without even offering
compensation. Id broken a rule Id never heard of and cant
understand, and I paid the price. This is how we live now. Do you feel safer?
I suppose the real purpose of these measures
is to make us feel that the government is doing something about
terrorism, even if what it does has no discernible relation to addressing the
problem. The pettier the precaution, the greater the vigilance.
Is this also the purpose of the war on
Afghanistan to convince us that the government is doing
something? We are assured that the war is going well, that raining bombs
on a godforsaken country is somehow having an impact on terrorism though
the terrorists we have to worry about are already living here, know what to do,
and presumably dont need to be activated by orders from a cave in Asia.
Who cares? When its feelings that
count, dropping bombs is an emotional release. Whether they achieve their stated
goal is secondary. Some people who feel very strongly want to use nuclear
weapons. That would really be doing something.
Ordinary Americans feel that they are
doing something by waving flags signifying their support for the
government, or the country. Some people seem to think they prove
their own patriotism by impugning that of others; radio talk-show hosts display
their patriotism by accusing the news media of lacking it, as if Peter Jennings
were rooting for Osama bin Laden.
What it really comes to is that nobody knows
what to do. We are faced not with a war in the usual sense, but with an extremely
nasty sort of vandalism. It cant conquer us, but maybe, because of its
diffuse nature, we cant conquer it either. We arent dealing with
Hirohito, let alone Robert E. Lee. There will be no conclusive Appomattox moment
when the enemy surrenders his sword and we know its finally over. It can
go on until the last fanatic decides to devote his remaining years to collecting
stamps.
And in the meantime, the government will
keep cracking down on the usual suspects.
We all want desperately to return to the world
we thought we were living in on September 10. But this desire may be a utopian
yearning. That world no longer exists and may never exist again.
Joseph Sobran
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