Today is Victory in Europe Day. On this day in 1945, Allied forces celebrated the defeat of the largest, most advanced military the world had ever faced. Nazi Germany caused the deaths of tens of millions of soldiers and civilians. The Nazis were celebrated by some of the world's most influential leaders when they first came to power. It didn't take long for that celebration to turn dark, as the Nazis annexed Austria and invaded Poland.
World War II lasted six years for the Europeans and four years for Americans. In that time, the Allies mustered their entire industrial might to fight and defeat a menace that most certainly intended to deprive the world of freedom. The casualties were high and the road was not easy. Along the way, our government made some controversial decisions which, in retrospect, violated some of our fundamental rights. Japanese internment, aggressive domestic spying, and a chill on free speech were just some of the wartime policies unanimously implemented by our government. At the end of the war, most of those policies and programs were dismantled, and life continued.
Fast forward 60 years. A relatively unknown terrorist group brings down the World Trade Center in New York. There was never any doubt that it was Radical Islamic militants who planned and executed the attack. As the nation prepared for war, our government once again unanimously implemented domestic security measures which, in retrospect, violated our civil rights. Mass data collection, rendition, so called "enhanced interrogation techniques," and domestic spying have all been identified as at least questionable practices in a free society. Just yesterday, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals determined that mass data collection supposedly allowed under the USA Patriot Act was illegal. It matters little now, more than thirteen years later. The data has been collected, the rights have been violated, and we now live in a very different world and enjoy very different freedoms than we had before 9/11.
A comparison of the "War on Terror" with World War II perfectly illustrates the difference between total victory and Pyrrhic victory. The arguments vindicating our government's war strategy over the last 13 years are few. It is true that we were not victims of another large scale attack. There were other terrorist attacks, but nothing on the scale of 9/11. We did eject Al Qaeda from Afghanistan for a time, but they were never totally defeated and, in fact, have expanded into the rest of the Middle East. We changed the regime in Iraq, but that country is now in the midst of a civil war where the best result will be Iran increasing its influence in the region. We set out to change the hearts and minds of the poor ordinary people in the Middle East, only to find that they don't want change and, while they will take our money, they want nothing to do with our policies and culture.
While amassing these luke warm successes, our government turned inward, collecting every text message, phone call, and email every American has ever sent over the last decade. Keep in mind that these massive war powers were granted to the intelligence agencies more than four years before Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone. The selfies of an entire generation have been scooped up by the government, giving new meaning to the phrase "feeling exposed."
It wasn't until Edward Snowden defected to Russia and exposed the program that Americans got a glimpse into this extraordinary government intrusion. Keeping true to form, for years the government denied every part of the program. They lied about it to Congress. They denied even having the capability. They painted Snowden as a traitor and liar. Perhaps he is, but now, years later, the government has had to admit that they were, in fact, extensively collecting the data exactly as accused.
Much of the outrage has passed. Technology companies like Apple are now making it nearly impossible for the Government to snoop. So called "black phones" are being introduced in the market and being made affordable for the average American. New Apps have been created to make it more difficult to pilfer personal data and messages. Many new computers come with total hard drive encryption. The private sector is giving back to people what they demand - privacy. But there has been a paradigm shift in our nation nevertheless. It used to be the role of government to safe guard our rights, like privacy. Now it is the private sector fighting the government to maintain some privacy for our citizens.
Predictably, the hawks and big government apologists have come out of the shadows forcefully arguing, that unless our entire population is entirely exposed all the time to government surveillance, we will be attacked again - and this time it will be worse. That may be true, but any future attacks will not be due to a lack of government intrusion or government power. It will be because we failed to wage an effective war against our enemies.
Perpetual, limited war has been the prevailing military strategy since World War II. For the last sixty years, our leadership has believed that a few smaller, but longer, lower intensity wars is a better way to manage our enemies than massive world wars. So instead of fighting the Soviets directly, we fought Vietnam and Korea. For whatever reason, however, once the Soviet Union collapsed, we maintained that mentality.
One of the many problems with perpetual war is that our domestic freedoms are perpetually compromised. Imagine World War II lasting 25 years, like our wars in the Middle East. Japanese internment for 25 years. Domestic spying for 25 years. Aggressive limits on free speech for 25 years. Our forefathers, and those who fought in that war would never tolerate that in perpetuity. Yet here we are, still at war, and our government still threatens us with "imminent attacks" if we don't give them unfettered access to our selfies.
Our government has failed to secure the objective. World War II was over in four years, but we've now been fighting a bunch of starving nomads in the desert since 1991. As our freedoms continue to erode, the danger to our nation from external enemies has actually grown. This is because the answer was never to turn inward and police our own people. Rather a strong nation projects its power outward, concentrating instead on annihilating the enemy where he lives, exterminating his will to fight and, if necessary, destroying his entire culture. Destroying your own culture and your own freedoms does the enemy's work for him. It is not a winning strategy.
That is not to say that temporary restrictions on our rights are never warranted. World War II is a good example. Our freedoms were truncated, some in very harsh ways, but only for a short period of time. After the war, our freedoms remained largely intact, and the war powers legislation used to take those liberties expired. Today we live in a country in which the government uses perpetual war powers to wage their perpetual war against the enemies abroad as well as the perceived enemies within. The damage to our society is becoming more evident every day. The citizens of our nation do not trust the government. Our inner city residents don't trust the police. Citizens in Texas don't trust the military to conduct drills in their state.
All of this sounds crazy because it is. The Emperor has no clothes on and neither do we. The importance of privacy in a civilized society cannot be understated. Privacy is one of the fundamental principles of freedom. People say: "Well, I have nothing to hide." But it's not about "hiding" anything. It's about basic human dignity. You wouldn't walk down the street naked, even if you have "nothing to hide." You wouldn't invite an IRS agent into your bedroom while you have sex with your wife. Taking away someone's privacy is dehumanizing. Being stripped of your clothes and put on display is a tactic used specifically to humiliate the victim. Making a policy of it is evil.
Many people argue: "Well, I'd rather that than to get blown up in a terrorist attack. We have to use every tool at our disposal to expose the evil men." But that's a false choice. The true choice is between violently and permanently annihilating the enemy or locking down our nation, exposing ourselves to the world, and praying that they don't get through. Radical Islam is no where near as powerful a foe as Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were during their peaks. If we were to muster the same comparative resources to defeat Jihad, it would be defeated and defeated quickly.
Anyone who keeps up with this blog knows that I am very reluctant to support more wars in the Middle East. As I've said before, however, I'm not against war, I am against poorly planned, poorly executed wars like those that have plagued the last two decades. Limited war in this context is unnecessary and foolish. It seems pretty obvious at this point that Radical Islam is not going to retreat. In the meantime we are doing much more damage to ourselves than we are the enemy. This is an enemy that can be defeated. Perhaps it's time to get on with it.
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