Walter Williams writes about the differences between how people reacted to World War II and how we’re reacting to the War on Terror.
Driving through downtown Washington, D.C., a few weeks ago, I asked myself: What’s happened to the character of the American people? There were barricaded landmarks, armed guards and people waiting to be searched. Several weeks ago, I visited downtown Philadelphia in the vicinity of Independence Hall. Again there were barricades, armed guards and visitors waiting in line.
During the 1940s, my cousin and I, carrying our shoeshine boxes, simply walked in and stood before the room where the Declaration of Independence was adopted and the U.S. Constitution was signed. The only barrier was a velvet-covered rope. Much of today’s security measures are little more than a panicked response to terrorism and not likely to ever go away because Americans are coming to accept it as normal.
Exactly. Doing things like putting cameras in subways may make us feel more secure, but they really don’t do anything to stop a determined suicide bomber from reaching his target, or selecting another, less secure target (if you can’t get to the federal building, a shopping mall will probably do).
Israel and Great Britain are two of the most security-intensive states in the Western world and yet they are not immune to terrorism. Even an authoritarian state like Russia was helpless to stop a group of gunmen from holding an entire school hostage last year. Giving up freedom in the name of meaningless or in effective security accomplishes nothing.
During last week’s commemoration of V-J day, I thought about American responses to loss of life in Iraq compared to yesteryear’s American response to loss of life in the Pacific. Taking Iwo Jima cost 7,000 American lives and thousands wounded. Okinawa cost the lives of 5,000 sailors, 7,600 soldiers and thousands more wounded. There were no calls to cut and run and no political attacks on Presidents Roosevelt and Truman. Instead, those losses stiffened the backbone and resolve of the American people. But of course, back then, common sense prevailed. We hadn’t become feminized and turned into a nation of wimps and nervous Nellies.
And we didn’t have a ridiculous color-coded alert system either. From the home front to the war front, America in World War II did what it needed to do, win the war. That’s what we need to be doing now.
Or, as Williams said:
I’d like to see our political leaders adopt the character of their predecessors and say that we’re not going to sacrifice liberties and cower in the face of our new enemy; we’re going to kill him.
