As we recover from the tragedy, the people and the government seek justice, or vengeance. Our leaders explain that we face a new war and the lessons of history are of little use. The enemy is unseen, yet everywhere, even among us.
Clearly, a conventional war across an empty desert has little to teach us about fighting the war on terrorism. But lessons of other wars can still teach us much. Mostly, they teach cautionary tales. The Cold War, the Vietnam War and the War on Drugs have lessons I fear we will forget in the "all new" War on Terrorism. Each, in its own way, was a war against an unseen enemy that was everywhere, even at home.
The Cold War, the only one of the three we won, should remind us to ask how many of our rights we will violate to prosecute the war. In the hysteria at the height of the Cold War, when communists were not only in Moscow and Beijing but seemingly in our midst, McCarthyism grossly violated the very rights we were fighting to protect. The Cold War should also teach us to ask who our allies are and whether they are worthy of our support. To defeat the enemy who roamed everywhere, we armed Pinochet, funded Marcos, and in the 1980s supported the "freedom fighters" known as the mujahaddin, including Osama bin Laden....
It is a new war in a new century, but we actually have much experience battling stealthy and global enemies. Unfortunately, we are only one for three so far. Let us heed the lessons of our past, so that we can achieve the justice we deserve, while preserving the principles we hold dear.
