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Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 14:00:30 -0800 (PST)
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Subject: [iwar] [fc:Expel.Arabs,.profile.truckers....]
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Expel Arabs, profile truckers ...
By Mona Charen
Originally published October 28, 2001
WASHINGTON - Most of us can live with fear - not happily, of course,
but you endure what you must - and people are more resilient than our
therapeutic culture has suggested.
But while Americans are flinty and will be courageous as required, we
ought not be asked to withstand more than necessary. There are two
ways in which our government may be asking that of us.
The first is political correctness.
While it is very true that we cannot and should not declare war
against all Muslims worldwide, and while we cannot and should not
persecute, insult or harass Arabs and Muslims within our borders, we
must take steps to reduce our vulnerability to those who mean us
terrible harm.
If we are truly facing the threat of radiation weapons, biological
agents or chemical weapons, then we are dealing with threats to our
very survival as a nation. And if that is so, then should delicacy
about political correctness inhibit us from doing everything necessary
to defend ourselves?
The FBI, reports Time magazine, is urgently searching for a group of
about 30 Arab men who have received licenses to transport hazardous
materials. These men enrolled in a driving school in Denver, in groups
of two and three over the past two years. They paid in cash, and after
receiving their licenses, never looked for work. They have
disappeared.
Attorney General John Ashcroft informs us that there are at least 190
individuals associated with al-Qaida inside the United States whom
authorities have been unable to apprehend.
We keep congratulating ourselves on what an open society we are. Fine,
but let's not congratulate ourselves into an early grave. There are
thousands of Arabs in the United States at this moment on student and
travel visas. They should all be asked, politely and without
prejudice, to go home. This will work hardships in many cases, and
that is regrettable. But, there is no constitutional right to visit
the United States. There is no constitutional right for foreign
students to study here.
This is not a proposal for concentration camps or even preventive
detention (and this would not apply to citizens of Middle East origin
- though they, too, should receive some scrutiny). It should be done
more in sorrow than in anger, because we know that only a tiny
fraction of these people mean us harm. But we cannot take chances.
As for those missing hazardous materials drivers, the only answer is
ethnic profiling. Every Middle Eastern-looking truck driver should be
pulled over and questioned wherever he may be.
There is a second fear that looms even larger: smallpox.
Unlike anthrax, it is highly contagious and easy to transport. Unlike
chemical weapons, it is easy to distribute. It could easily overwhelm
us. All Americans born after about 1972 are unvaccinated. As for those
over 30 who received the vaccine at birth, there is serious doubt that
the vaccine remains effective, since booster shots would have been
required every decade.
About 30 percent of those who contract smallpox will die a slow and
painful death. Our health systems would be rapidly overwhelmed by such
an epidemic. The economy would be destroyed, and national morale could
crack as nearly every family buried at least one member.
The government was ahead of the curve (for once), appropriating
several million dollars in the late '90s for smallpox vaccine. But
even the most optimistic assumptions cannot get all 280 million of us
inoculated in less than two years (three is more realistic.)
During the Persian Gulf war, the United States privately warned Iraq
that if chemical or biological weapons were used against our troops,
we would consider all forms of retaliation. That was a balance of
terror - just what we need now. Nations can be deterred, but can
terrorists?
Only perhaps, by this: the certainty that in the 21st century, an
epidemic cannot be contained on one continent. Even without a threat
of retaliation in kind, the terrorists must be given to understand, by
whatever method, that once unleashed, smallpox cannot be controlled.
And the Muslim world would surely be even more devastated by it than
would we.
Mona Charen is a syndicated columnist.
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