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Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 17:15:40 -0500
To: Matthew Gaylor <<a href="mailto:freematt@coil.com">freematt@coil.com</a>>
From: Matthew Gaylor <<a href="mailto:freematt@coil.com">freematt@coil.com</a>>
Subject: Winning the Battle and the War by Richard M. Ebeling
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<<a href="http://www.fff.org/comment/ed1101b.asp>">http://www.fff.org/comment/ed1101b.asp></a>
<p>
Winning the Battle and the War
by Richard M. Ebeling, November 2001
<p>
<p>
The tragic events of September 11, 2001, have aroused a degree of
sympathy for the victims and a demand for justice against the
perpetrators that have not been seen in America relation to any other
event for many decades.
<p>
But in this understandably emotional moment it is necessary for every
American to step back and weigh carefully what should be done, the
best means to accomplish it, and what the likely consequences will be.
<p>
The people who conspired in these attacks are international criminals
who must be tracked down and apprehended in the old-fashioned way,
through police and investigative work. The government has already put
a bounty out for them. But make it a real bounty, say, $500 million
for Osama bin Laden and $250 million for each of his suspected
co-conspirators. Unleash private mercenaries and bounty hunters to do
the job.
<p>
But military build-ups, land invasions, and carpet bombings threaten
to set off reactions in various countries around the world,
especially in the Middle East, which will only risk intensifying the
opposition and terrorist potentials against the United States and
other countries.
<p>
At home, Americans need to take a careful and thoughtful look before
we risk losing many of our liberties in the name of "security."
President Bush, in his address before Congress and the nation,
announced that he was setting up a permanent Office of Homeland
Security, with wide national powers and authority.
<p>
Do we really want to see a further reduction in our traditional
system of constitutional federalism, with Washington taking over
supervision and command of police powers normally considered the
responsibility of local and state government? If we lose our liberty
at the hands of our government or if it is noticeably restricted,
what will we have gained in the long run?
<p>
Even if the evil perpetrators of this despicable crime are caught,
put on trial, found guilty, and punished, will that end the problem
of terrorism for America? It will not. It is important, to understand
why. Yes, some of those involved in terrorist rings hate "the
American way of life" and wish to destroy what they dislike about it.
But that is not the only or even the primary reason behind their
conduct. What many millions of others in many countries resent and
oppose is the U.S. government's political and military intervention
around the world.
<p>
For decades, in the name of freedom, our government has sponsored,
financed, and supported anti-democratic, dictatorial regimes. Those
governments have sometimes used the aid and training they've received
to terrorize and kill their own people. The U.S. government has armed
and supplied opposition movements that it has labeled "freedom
fighters," who then came to power and oppressed their own people. And
they often are the very people the U.S. government later accuses of
being terrorists and war criminals.
<p>
Our government has used its military might to bomb, blockade, and
kill innocent people in the name of opposing "rogue governments." A
former U.S. president ordered the bombing of a pharmaceutical plant
in Sudan that was not being used by terrorists to distract attention
from his domestic embarrassments, resulting in a shortage of
medicines for thousands in Africa. Even our European allies view the
U.S. government as an arrogant giant presuming to have the right and
duty to make the world over according to its own vision of how the
rest of the world should look.
<p>
If there is any fundamental lesson we as a nation should learn from
this tragic event, it is that our own government is creating many
enemies by trying to socially engineer other people's lives in their
own countries. Those people don't like it or want it. Yes, many of
them want our fast food, our designer clothes, our action movies, and
our freer way of life. But they do not want the U.S. government to
interfere in their domestic, political, and economic affairs. They
want to decide those things for themselves, even when they make a
terrible mess of it and end up with political and economic systems
far reflecting the American political system.
<p>
Americans rightly want justice in the face of this terrible crime.
But we need to learn humility and end our government's political and
military interventions around the world.
<p>
Professor Ebeling is the Ludwig von Mises Professor of Economics at
Hillsdale College in Michigan and serves as vice president of The
Future of Freedom Foundation in Fairfax, Va. He is also the co-editor
of The Failure of America's Foreign Wars.
<p>
© 2001 The Future of Freedom Foundation. All rights reserved.
<p>
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