Also this issue: The Price Is Wrong -Bruce Schimmel Refuse One Israeli soldier's decision not to serve in the occupied territories. -Amir Rosenfeld Letters to the Editor

March 20-26, 2003

pretzel logic

The War at Home

by Howard Altman

By the time you read this, the cruise missiles will have probably been launched. Bombs will have probably been dropped and Baghdad will most likely be burning.

By the time you read this, it will probably be too late to do anything to stop the insanity that is taking place in Iraq.

But it is not too late to stop the insanity taking place at home.

Ironically, as this nation sets off to democratize Iraq, we are increasingly seeing the Iraqitization of the U.S.

Ever since 9/11, we have experienced an assault on the Constitution that is making Saddam and his closest allies smile. The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 -- USA Patriot, get it? -- allows law enforcement to operate under the cloak of darkness. Shamelessly passed with little congressional debate just six weeks after 9/11, the law greatly expands the FBI's ability to obtain records through secret court orders and allows law enforcement wider latitude in monitoring telephone and e-mail conversations.

The proposed Domestic Security Enhancement Act -- dubbed Patriot Act II -- would further erode due-process protections and make us even more like Hussein-run Iraq by allowing secret detentions, wire taps without court orders, the creation of a DNA database of suspected terrorists and unsuspecting terror associates, and easier deportations.

If that's not alarming enough, consider what's taken place in the past few days leading up to Bush's ultimatum.

Deviation from the White House point of view is being punished. Around the country, Dixie Chicks CDs have been tossed into garbage cans and run over by bulldozers. Former fans have been burning tickets to their sold-out concerts. The band has been taken off of playlists, including here in Philadelphia, where country radio station WXTU replaced Dixie Chicks' songs with "America the Beautiful."

All this because Dixie Chick and Texas native Natalie Maines told a London audience that "we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas."

It is not a popular comment, but it is hardly seditious, either. Yet we are heading toward book-burning.

Dissension is not much appreciated in that great mass of gelatinous protoplasm known as Congress either, where Republicans are barbecuing the few spine-owning Democrats who dare question the president.

On Monday, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, in a rare display of Democratic will, let Bush know that the blood will be on his hands.

"I'm saddened, saddened that this president failed so miserably at diplomacy that we're now forced to war," Daschle said.

The next day, House Majority Leader Dennis Hastert blasted Daschle, all but calling the South Dakota senator a traitor: "Those comments may not undermine the president as he leads us into war, and they may not give comfort to our adversaries, but they come mighty close," Reuters reported Hastert saying.

Giving aid and comfort to the enemy is treason, punishable up to and including death. Tail-gunner Hastert's comments are clear.

Doubt Bush, you are a Hussein-loving al-Qaeda symp.

Doubt Bush, and you are the enemy.

If Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge should light the Red Alert lamp, the U.S. will have many enemies -- most inadvertent.

"If the nation escalates to Œred alert,' which is the highest in the color-coded readiness against terror, you will be assumed by authorities to be the enemy if you so much as venture outside your home," the Courier-Post reported on Sunday, paraphrasing New Jersey anti-terror czar Sid Caspersen.

Sounds a lot like the Iraq we are about to blow apart.

We may not be able to do much about the war in Iraq, but there are things we can do here to stop the madness at home.

And some things we shouldn't do.

Support New Mexico State Rep. Max Coll's efforts to undo the damage of the Ashcroft regime. Coll's "House Joint Memorial 40" affirms "civil rights and liberties" and declares "opposition to federal measures that infringe on civil liberties." Coll goes as far as calling for New Mexico law enforcement agencies not to cooperate with federal immigration investigations.

Check out Coll's proposed legislation on the Web at www.legis.state.nm.us.

Then get on the horn with your state legislators and see if any of those invertebrates can muster up some courage to pass a similar bill here. (See the Committee of Seventy's website, www.seventy.org, for contact information.)

Do whatever you can to protect the constitution. Protest. Write letters. But we shouldn't do anything that will prolong this mess in Iraq, like trying to besiege military installations -- where guards have already been given orders to shoot.

If we are in it, we have to win it. Regardless of how you feel about Bush -- and I too am ashamed that he is running the country -- directly interfering with military operations won't help the cause of peace. Once we are committed to war, any delay in a swift, decisive victory over Hussein will only mean more blood, ours and theirs.

And, before the missiles fly and the bombs drop and our troops head into battle, I leave you with this thought.

I am fed up with those who equate debate with helping Hussein.

I have friends going into battle.

I don't want them to go.

And I very much want them to come home from this war that Bush's incompetence has wrought.