Friday, November 27, 2009

Opinion

John Aloysius Farrell

When Did Americans Become Such Cowards?

May 15, 2009 01:58 PM ET | John Aloysius Farrell | Permanent Link | Print

By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

When did Americans become such cowards?

Our commanders in the war on terror have asked us to defuse a potent point of terrorist propaganda by shutting down the detention center at Guantanamo Bay.

And Republicans in Congress don't want us to do so...because their constituents are afraid to have detainees in U.S. prisons!?

What could they possibly be afraid of? That the detainees are going to endanger our good ol' American rapists and murderers?

Or that Al Qaeda is going to stage some kind of terrorist jail break, freeing their Arab brothers with ninja-like assault teams?

If so, why haven't they done so at Gitmo? Or at the Supermax in Colorado, where terrorists are held now?

When did Americans become such fools?

Is there any doubt that the release of more photographs showing detainee abuse would be anything but a gift to Al Qaeda?

It is not like this is a big secret. Not like we haven't seen dozens of these photographs already. The people's right to know has been more than adequately protected.

But no, says the Left... let's wallow in recrimination.

And, God forbid any of us should show self-control, brains and patriotism, and keep partisan bloodlust out of our discussion about methods of interrogation.

I hope that the 200,000 Americans in uniform in Iraq and Afghanistan are not paying attention to the current cycle of news stories in Washington.

It must be demoralizing to see the rest of us acting like such clowns—and making things more dangerous for them.

Have we forgotten the vows we made when the twin towers fell, and the Pentagon burned? That we would do what it takes to avenge our dead?

Bin Laden is still out there, laughing at us.

Check out our political cartoons.

Tags: POWs | Guantánamo Bay | al Qaeda | Taliban

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John Aloysius Farrell is a contributing editor at U.S. News & World Report. An award-winning Washington reporter, he has written for The Boston Globe and The Denver Post and is the author of Tip O’Neill and the Democratic Century and an upcoming biography of the great American defense attorney, Clarence Darrow.

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