The New AG Appointment and the WTC
In introducing his new pick for Attorney General, Judge Michael Mukasey, President Bush put great emphasis on Mukasey's performance during a crucial criminal case: the trial of the "blind sheikh" found responsible for the bombing of a New York landmark in 1993. The target, of course, was the World Trade Center, and prominent mention of that case brings up a nagging question: why was that attack on the WTC treated, successfully (to hear President Bush tell it), as a criminal matter, while the 2001 attack was treated as a casus belli--not one war, but two? A British author published an opinion column over the weekend that raised the question anew, but it's a question that has been pushed to the margins of our political discourse: to question the very necessity for a "war on terror" at this point in time is now regarded as kooky. Yet the blind sheikh sits in jail, and the three countries in Europe that faced deadly serious terrorist threats in the 1970s--Britain, Italy and Germany--all successfully dealt with those threats without electing to put themselves on a war footing. Somehow, this President was allowed to make that choice without a moment of public debate. Six years down the line, we're beginning to realize the costs of that decision.
Posted September 17, 2007 | 10:49 AM (EST)