Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the dark days of the American Civil War. Woodrow Wilson Outlawed criticism of the government during the First World War. Franklin Roosevelt had Japanese Americans interned during the Second World War as well as ordering the massive bombing campaigns against Germany and Japan. Harry Truman ordered the atomic bombing of Japan, knowing full well that Roosevelt would have done the same had he lived to give the order.
And America survived all these things and did not go about embarking on a campaign to crush the rest of the world and conquer it. Steve Huntley, writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, reminds us of what we must not forget in time of war.
The administration had argued the Geneva Conventions are vague and could open U.S. interrogators to legal trouble. Critics said the White House was treading into dangerous territory by seeming to want to rewrite the conventions. The advice of the military — not to allow anything even approaching torture — should guide Congress in crafting this measure.
During this debate, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said, "The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism." McCain characterized his position by observing, "The United States has always been better than our enemies." Those sentiments have been echoed by others who worry that in fighting the war against Islamic extremism we face the danger of sinking to the point of becoming indistinguishable from our enemies. That's always a possibility in war, but let us recall that America has passed this test before.
In World War II, Allied bombing in response to the Nazi blitz against England destroyed German cities and killed civilians, but America did not emerge as a fascist nation bent on world conquest and genocide. In the brutal Pacific theater fighting, U.S. planes poured tons of explosives and two nuclear bombs on Japan without our nation becoming a fanatical state sponsoring Rape of Nanking-like atrocities and suicide bombers. In fact, for defeating fascist totalitarianism the American warriors of the 1940s are, with good reason, recalled as "our greatest generation."
We, reading history books in the comfort of our easy chairs, fault Abraham Lincoln for suspending habeas corpus during the Civil War and Franklin Roosevelt for the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Indeed, the treatment of Japanese Americans was especially reprehensible and without justification.
Perceiving an inevitability in history (which may not always be there), we see that neither suspension of habeas corpus nor internment was necessary to winning either of the wars. Yet, the point is that in the midst of those conflagrations, neither Lincoln nor Roosevelt knew just what it would take to win. They knew only the catastrophic consequences of losing and were determined — ruthlessly determined — not to let that happen, to do what it took to win their wars. And they are justifiably honored as among our greatest presidents.
What will it take to safeguard American lives today?
None of the American Presidents who led the nation through these titanic struggles knew what it would take to win. So they chose to relentlessly prosecute the wars to their ends. They also took what steps they believed necessary to reach the goal of winning. I think they made those choices in spite of how they knew those choices would come to be seen after the war was won. None of these were easy choices. But they were necessary ones. They made these choices knowing that America would undo the changes after the war was won.
But winning the war, protecting the nation always came first. Every, single time.
Go read the whole thing. Huntley did an outstanding job with this piece.
