America is settling down for a long, hard fight
Sep 20th 2001
THE whole country is aflutter with flags. They fly at half-mast from federal buildings. They fly from every other house and car you pass as you walk down the street. Huge flags decorate sports stadiums, tiny ones dangle from baby carriages. Wal-Mart and K-Mart have sold more than half a million flags in the past week.
These are only the most visible signs of a wave of patriotism that has washed across the country after last week's attacks. When George Bush visited rescue workers in lower Manhattan, they broke into spontaneous chants of “USA, USA”. One of the fastest-selling music albums at the moment is a five-year-old collection by Lee Greenwood, “God Bless the USA.”
As well as patriotism, people are seeking solace in religion. Churches, synagogues and mosques are full to overflowing. Worshippers jammed into them on Friday, September 14th, for a national day of remembrance, and then again on Sunday. In his sermon in Washington's National Cathedral, Mr Bush recalled Franklin Roosevelt's phrase about “the warm courage of national unity”. People have given more blood than the wounded need, and more food than can be consumed.
But this warm courage turns hot on the question of retribution. The opinion polls show nine out of ten Americans backing military action, and being willing to make whatever sacrifices are necessary so that this sort of thing does not happen again. The word “war” is heard everywhere. It speaks not just of the challenge ahead but of the blow that has already hit the country. In Vietnam, 50,000 Americans lost their lives in ten years: more than a tenth of that number died in one hour on September 11th. Americans feel physically threatened in their homeland for the first time for more than a century.
Politicians are gripped by the same instinct for national unity. Congress, which only narrowly approved the war that Mr Bush's father waged against Saddam Hussein, is burying partisan differences. The Senate passed a resolution authorising the use of force without a single dissenting vote; the House vote was 420-1. The Senate also swiftly confirmed John Negroponte's nomination as ambassador to the United Nations. The tragedy even seems to have reunited Bill Clinton and Al Gore, who spent most of a day together discussing it.
Even as normality returns—restaurants fill up, sporting events restart, ads edge their way back into news programmes—there are reminders that some things may never be quite the same again. Fighters and helicopters patrol the skies above Washington. Security at all nuclear power plants and most hydroelectric dams has been increased dramatically. Nine units of the National Guard that specialise in germ warfare have been sent to selected locations, in their first-ever mobilisation. Major-league baseball has banned parking within 100 feet of its stadiums.
At the state and city level, the possible costs of political patronage are coming under closer scrutiny. At Boston, where both flights that hit the World Trade Centre originated, the terrorists apparently nosed around the airport for several weeks before the attack; one may even have slipped into the airport's control tower. The Massachusetts Port Authority, which runs the airport, has been called “a cesspool of patronage”. Its security chief and executive director used to be, respectively, a driver and press aide to a former Massachusetts governor, William Weld.
Will the solidarity last? There is a “peace movement”, but still a tiny one (see article). Leftist critics of “superpower imperialism” who have hinted that America may be somehow reaping what it has sown have been disowned. Right-wing mavericks who have challenged the national mood have also got short shrift. Jerry Falwell's argument that homosexuals, lesbians, feminists and civil-liberties supporters “helped this happen” was treated with derision even by fellow conservatives.
Yet partisan politics is bound to return sotto voce. Despite the agreement to prise open the Social Security lock-box to pay for the damage, there are disagreements about how to stimulate the economy (see article). Despite the rallying around Mr Bush, Congress was reluctant to give the commander-in-chief open-ended approval for any military action whatsoever.
The home front is going to be enormously important. This will not just be a war conducted in a faraway land; it will be partly fought at home. Even if it wins abroad, America cannot then up sticks and go home. The enemy also sits within the gates, inside these United States.
In the coming months there will be a vital debate on two key issues. The first is the proper balance between freedom and security. Some erosion of civil liberties is inevitable. But how much is tolerable in the land of the free? A diverse collection of pressure groups and civil-rights organisations—including the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, the American Civil Liberties Union and the libertarian Cato Institute—are joining forces to fight legislation they think will undermine people's rights.
The other is the ethics of war. Support for the war is bound to wobble if American troops start to come home in body bags, and if civilians get killed. The current support for a war drops to 75% if it leads to civilian casualties. The “liberal media”, which many of Mr Bush's people despise but which so far have backed the president to the hilt, may begin to defect.
But that is as it should be on the home front. The essence of a free society is that it should disagree strenuously about things that matter. The terrorists calculated that America had gone soft. There has been nothing soft about the courage and self-sacrifice of the rescue workers, or the resolve of people across the country to wage war on terrorism. The terrorists thought they would reveal the hidden vulnerabilities of a free society. They have ended up revealing its hidden strengths as well
Sep 20th 2001
THE whole country is aflutter with flags. They fly at half-mast from federal buildings. They fly from every other house and car you pass as you walk down the street. Huge flags decorate sports stadiums, tiny ones dangle from baby carriages. Wal-Mart and K-Mart have sold more than half a million flags in the past week.
These are only the most visible signs of a wave of patriotism that has washed across the country after last week's attacks. When George Bush visited rescue workers in lower Manhattan, they broke into spontaneous chants of “USA, USA”. One of the fastest-selling music albums at the moment is a five-year-old collection by Lee Greenwood, “God Bless the USA.”
As well as patriotism, people are seeking solace in religion. Churches, synagogues and mosques are full to overflowing. Worshippers jammed into them on Friday, September 14th, for a national day of remembrance, and then again on Sunday. In his sermon in Washington's National Cathedral, Mr Bush recalled Franklin Roosevelt's phrase about “the warm courage of national unity”. People have given more blood than the wounded need, and more food than can be consumed.
But this warm courage turns hot on the question of retribution. The opinion polls show nine out of ten Americans backing military action, and being willing to make whatever sacrifices are necessary so that this sort of thing does not happen again. The word “war” is heard everywhere. It speaks not just of the challenge ahead but of the blow that has already hit the country. In Vietnam, 50,000 Americans lost their lives in ten years: more than a tenth of that number died in one hour on September 11th. Americans feel physically threatened in their homeland for the first time for more than a century.
Politicians are gripped by the same instinct for national unity. Congress, which only narrowly approved the war that Mr Bush's father waged against Saddam Hussein, is burying partisan differences. The Senate passed a resolution authorising the use of force without a single dissenting vote; the House vote was 420-1. The Senate also swiftly confirmed John Negroponte's nomination as ambassador to the United Nations. The tragedy even seems to have reunited Bill Clinton and Al Gore, who spent most of a day together discussing it.
Even as normality returns—restaurants fill up, sporting events restart, ads edge their way back into news programmes—there are reminders that some things may never be quite the same again. Fighters and helicopters patrol the skies above Washington. Security at all nuclear power plants and most hydroelectric dams has been increased dramatically. Nine units of the National Guard that specialise in germ warfare have been sent to selected locations, in their first-ever mobilisation. Major-league baseball has banned parking within 100 feet of its stadiums.
At the state and city level, the possible costs of political patronage are coming under closer scrutiny. At Boston, where both flights that hit the World Trade Centre originated, the terrorists apparently nosed around the airport for several weeks before the attack; one may even have slipped into the airport's control tower. The Massachusetts Port Authority, which runs the airport, has been called “a cesspool of patronage”. Its security chief and executive director used to be, respectively, a driver and press aide to a former Massachusetts governor, William Weld.
Will the solidarity last? There is a “peace movement”, but still a tiny one (see article). Leftist critics of “superpower imperialism” who have hinted that America may be somehow reaping what it has sown have been disowned. Right-wing mavericks who have challenged the national mood have also got short shrift. Jerry Falwell's argument that homosexuals, lesbians, feminists and civil-liberties supporters “helped this happen” was treated with derision even by fellow conservatives.
Yet partisan politics is bound to return sotto voce. Despite the agreement to prise open the Social Security lock-box to pay for the damage, there are disagreements about how to stimulate the economy (see article). Despite the rallying around Mr Bush, Congress was reluctant to give the commander-in-chief open-ended approval for any military action whatsoever.
The home front is going to be enormously important. This will not just be a war conducted in a faraway land; it will be partly fought at home. Even if it wins abroad, America cannot then up sticks and go home. The enemy also sits within the gates, inside these United States.
In the coming months there will be a vital debate on two key issues. The first is the proper balance between freedom and security. Some erosion of civil liberties is inevitable. But how much is tolerable in the land of the free? A diverse collection of pressure groups and civil-rights organisations—including the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, the American Civil Liberties Union and the libertarian Cato Institute—are joining forces to fight legislation they think will undermine people's rights.
The other is the ethics of war. Support for the war is bound to wobble if American troops start to come home in body bags, and if civilians get killed. The current support for a war drops to 75% if it leads to civilian casualties. The “liberal media”, which many of Mr Bush's people despise but which so far have backed the president to the hilt, may begin to defect.
But that is as it should be on the home front. The essence of a free society is that it should disagree strenuously about things that matter. The terrorists calculated that America had gone soft. There has been nothing soft about the courage and self-sacrifice of the rescue workers, or the resolve of people across the country to wage war on terrorism. The terrorists thought they would reveal the hidden vulnerabilities of a free society. They have ended up revealing its hidden strengths as well
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