Strength in the face of fear

Brian Issleb

How our nation will be altered remains to be seen, but the picture so far is not a pretty one. An ABC poll Tuesday reported two-thirds of people polled said they would be willing to sacrifice some personal liberties in support of anti-terrorism efforts.

That is the worst thing we could do.

Now, in our fear and anger, is not the time to sacrifice our freedoms. It has already been said many times in the past few days that the only way terrorists will have truly succeeded is if we change the way we live, if we change the precepts on which this country was founded and which make this the greatest nation on Earth.

Giving the government greater ability to listen to our phones, search our homes and arrest us without cause are very difficult things to take back. And make no mistake, that is what we are talking about. The changes will not stop at our airports.

Even at airports, where there is no doubt that security should be increased (though there is doubt how much good this would actually do), dangers abound. Last night I saw a man on TV calling for the stopping and searching of all Arabs boarding planes.

Is this really the direction we want to go in? One of our greatest national shames was the internment of Japanese-American citizens during World War II. As a nation, we wish we could go back and change the way we acted. We now realize war is not a reason to suspend the Constitution, and the situation then was much graver than it is now. So let's not do something now that we will regret later.

Stopping people of Arab descent more than those of other groups, even if by doing so we can be more sure of preventing terrorist attacks, is simply not right. The notion of equality our country is built on says we all get equal treatment and protection under the law. Unfounded arguments that blacks comprise a greater percentage of drug traffickers have been used to justify racial profiling by police for years. And this has not prevented drug smuggling any more than stopping Arabs would prevent terrorism.

What happens when the next group of terrorists turn out to be Chinese or Mexican or German? Focusing on one group in the hunt for criminals only leads to more exclusion and harassment, such as that by the group of teens who were stopped while marching in anger on a mosque in the Chicago suburb of Bridgeview on Wednesday night.

This is not to say Arab descent cannot be a valid identifier in combination with other factors. Young Arab men who have been in the country less than a few years, for example, might fit the profile of terrorists so well that security might be justified in stopping them. But that is not the same as singling out people solely because they are Arabs.

The sad truth no one wants to face is that terrorist attacks may very well be a price we have to pay for living in the free society we do. That sounds horrible, but it's true. As long as our nation upholds the values of freedom of movement, privacy and protection from government power, terrorists will be able to operate, no matter how good our security.

If we cannot prevent these crimes through greater vigilance, how then?

Retaliation. Our government should move slowly and not act until we are sure we know for sure the group or groups responsible for these crimes. But once we know, we must exact such retribution on them that they will never again be able to threaten us.

This will also send a message that the United States cannot be attacked with impunity. The world may have gained an image of us as soft — unable or unwilling to commit the resources necessary for success in conflicts. We pulled out of Somalia because of the death of American soldiers. We engaged in an air war against the Serbs in the Balkans, but refused to send in troops.

This is different. Those other actions were on the behalf of other countries, but this is personal. And terrorists will soon find out what that means.

Brian Issleb is a senior in commerce. His column usually appears Wednesday. He can be reached at opinions@dailyillini.com.

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