It's Too Quiet On This Bus

There is an eerie quiet across the land. The chance of a second majorterrorist attack is somewhere between "very likely" and "100%guaranteed," according to the people we pay with our tax dollars to knowsuch things. I feel like I am on a huge bus heading straight toward a cliff. Wecould suggest that the driver steer in a different direction. But no one wantsto talk about it.

Perhaps this is a school bus, where the kids sit quietly because they don’twant to make the driver mad. Back in early October, news leaked out thatintelligence officials told Congress another attack was 100% certain, if weattacked Afghanistan. The driver—the president—got very mad, indeed. Hethreatened to limit Congressional briefings drastically (and then backed off).But Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer had already warned: "People have to watchwhat they say." The news media got the message. Some things are better leftunmentioned—even impending disaster.

Or perhaps we believe that changing direction won’t help anyway. Thepresident has tried to convince us that nothing we do can influence theterrorists. Sometimes he describes them as Nazis, bent on conquering us becausethey hate our freedoms. Sometimes he paints them as inhuman demons, bent on evilfor evil’s sake. In either case, there is no way to deter them from theirappointed villainy; we are on a bus with no steering wheel. Most Americans seemto believe that.

But let’s suppose Osama bin Laden speaks for the criminals. (If hedoesn’t, current U.S. policy is pointless.) He does not try to tell us how weshould live here at home. He does define specific new policy directions he wantsus to take in his part of the world: get U.S. troops out of Saudi Arabia; endbombing and sanctions in Iraq; stop supporting Israeli occupation of Palestinianterritory. These may or may not be wise policies for us. But they are not whollyunthinkable. And they might give us a chance of veering away from the cliff.Aren’t they worth talking about?

Some say this would be appeasement. Do we want to send others the messagethat terrorism pays? But put the question another way: Do we want to send themessage that, on rare occasions when our government's policies drive people tosuicidal desperation and homicidal rage, we will at least discuss thosepolicies? When our policies put thousands of American lives at risk, don’t wewant to weigh the wisdom of those policies against the potential loss of life?Why not send that message? Is it unreasonable?

There is surely no guarantee that a change in U.S. policies would avert thenext attack. But it might. If staying the present course means a certainty ofanother attack (as Congress was told), then the math is simple: changingpolicies makes us relatively safer than continuing the present policies.

Of course safety may not be the highest value. Our present policies in SaudiArabia, Iraq, and Israel may be so important that they are worth the loss ofthousands more American lives. But that is a decision for all of us passengerson the bus to make. This is a democracy, where the driver is suppose to heed themajority will. If we leave all decisions up to the driver, we give up thedemocratic freedom we are supposedly defending. And it looks like the driver ishell-bent to take us over the cliff.

So principle and self-preservation both lead to the same conclusion. It istime to break the silence and start a national debate, before it is too late. The alternative is to wait until the next thousands die. That would be terrible,not only for the victims and their loved ones, but for the whole nation. Afterthe next attack, some will insist that the new deaths make the old policies moresacred and inviolable; to change them would mean that all the victims died invain. Others will be equally convinced that we must change policies as the onlyway of avoiding further catastrophe. The more deaths, the more polarized we willbecome. Anyone old enough to remember the Vietnam war knows that.

We can insist that the driver turn the wheel in a new direction. Perhaps weshould insist. Perhaps not. But surely now, while we can still talk to eachother, is the time to start talking about it.

(Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University ofColorado at Boulder)