Hindsight from The New Gun Week December 20, 1998
Movie Highlights Founders Concerns
by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive EditorDespite reviews panning the movie and the announced boycott by some Arab-American organizations because of its anti-Arab themes, we went to see the film "The Siege" recently.
I was surprised to discover that it conveyed a surprisingly valuable lesson for modern Americans, one that highlighted fundamental concerns of the Founding Fathers.
The plot of the movie is simple. Yes the writers seem to have forgotten how red-faced some politicians and the media were after they immediately jumped to the conclusion that people of Arabic background were immediately labeled as those responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. That kind of hysterical xenophobia and discrimination notwithstanding, the back guys in "The Siege" are linked to Arabic origins, and the Islamic religion after a busload of people are blown to bits in the early minutes of the film.
However, the main point of the movie is that the acts of terrorism committed in New York City pose a quandary for our government. Should the President (who is clearly Clinton, be the way, and in not a very flattering portrayal) and the Cabinet allow the civilian FBI to lead the investigation and capture the terrorists or should the military be called in.
For a while, they stick with the FBI, and New York City assistant special agent-in-charge (ASAC) Denzel Washington undertakes to identify, find and capture the culprits while keeping the Constitution in mind.
As incident piles on incident, however, others get impatient, especially since it doesn't look good to have a handful of terrorists making "the most powerful government on earth" look inept.
Military Warning
During "what to do" discussions in Washington, the general commanding an Army division which will eventually get the job (played by Bruce Willis), argues against the deployment of the military in the US for such a purpose. He notes that the Army is a "blunt instrument" which will not adhere to the niceties of civil liberties guarantees. He tells the Cabinet.
But things get hotter and Bruce's division is called upon to take over New York City in a surprising 12-hour deployment.
As my good friend Peter Kokalis pointed out in a recent review of "Saving Private Ryan" which appeared in Soldier of Fortune magazine, Hollywood seldom gets the technical details of guns and military tactics right. However, if one suspends belief and experience a bit, sometimes the movies have something important to say. I think "The Siege" is such a movie.
As soon as Bruce Willis and his Army division take over the beleaguered city, they proceed to round up just about every young Arab-American or visiting Arab they can find and unceremoniously put them behind the barbed wire of makeshift concentration camps. Apparently, sports stadiums and similar venues are ideal for this purposes, because before long tens of thousands of people are crowded together there in pretty unsanitary and unsavory conditions. (That doesn't say much for the capacity of sanitary facilities in modern sports palaces.)
The soldiers in the movie aren't the type to be too gentle with their prisoners, or even with civilian types like Denzel Washington and his other FBI helpers when they try to continue their part of the investigation. Their probe, by the way, is complicated by a sub-plot in which a woman agent of the CIA is helping the FBI and the terrorists at the same time.
The spectacle of what happens when you use the military in the US is a frightening one. Bruce Willis is not a good guy in this film once his masters in Washington take him and his men off the constitutional leash.
On the whole, I thought some of the criticism by Arab-American groups was overblown, but some of it was justified. There was more focus on Islamic religious symbols and customs than was necessary. On the other hand, the movie does show that, as with most ethnic and religious groups, we have nothing to fear from people with Arabic or Islamic backgrounds.
That said, however, it is clear from the movie that we have a lot to fear from allowing the CIA to get involved in domestic problems, and even more to worry about when we order the military to become policemen. In the end the FBI gets to the terrorist leader first and settles his hash.
But the movie helps illustrate that we should beware of what we wish for when we become concerned about public and personal security. It also shows why the Founding Fathers were afraid of standing armies, why they wrote the Second Amendment, why they worried about illegal searches and seizures, quartering troops and the whole banquet of civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It also explains why later American leaders enacted the Posse Comitatus laws, which appears to have been violated in the Waco, TX, mess in 1993.
Yet we have civilian and military leaders who keep wanting to put the armed services to work on the drug problem and a host of other crises. They have even discussed using the military and military resources to guarantee the security of certain cities and to make house to house searches for "illegal" firearms. Some of the people making those recommendations are in the military. Unbelievably, others are civilian leaders.
The most recent of these proposals came to my attention just a few days after seeing "The Siege." It was over a month old, but still relevant.
Defense Secretary
The independent, non-military Army Times has carried a story in its Oct. 27, 1998 issue headlined, "US Defense Secretary Predicts the Army Will Patrol US Streets."
It quoted Defense Secretary William S. Cohen as saying, "Terrorism is escalating to the point that Americans soon may have to choose between civil liberties and more intrusive means of protection."
"The nation's defense chief told the Army Times he once considered the chilling specter of armored vehicles surrounding civilian hotels or government buildings to block out terrorist as strictly an overseas phenomenon," the newspaper continued. "But no longer."
Cohen told the Army Times that after eight months of studying threats under the Pentagon microscope, he had concluded that it could happen here. The defense chief pointed out that other steps were going to be needed first, including much greater emphasis on intelligence gathering, involving human and electronic agents.
But he also warned that free-lance terrorists with access to deadly chemical, biological and nuclear bombs are "going to change the way in which the American people view security in this country."
As the Army Times pointed out, the use of the military in domestic law enforcement would require revisions to the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act which specifically prohibits such deployment of national military resources. Such a change would require legislation, and Cohen's statement may even be part of a campaign to justify such a change.
Certainly the distribution of more intelligence agents and electronic or other high-tech screening devices among the general population also involves the prospect of violations of the Bill of Rights. In fact, some of the proposals concerning electronic eavesdropping by federal law enforcement have already seemed to puncture the individual privacy barrier.
But the picture being painted is a far from pretty one. And it doesn't seem to be part of some wild scheme you get off the Internet.
The military and other national leaders may merely be discussing these issues out of a "what if" scenario. But it does appear that a serious choice may indeed by facing Americans as we near the end of this century.
Will we have to choose between freedom without security, or security without freedom?
The New Gun Week is published three times a month by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) on the 1st, 10th, and 20th. Hindsight is a commentary written by SAF President and Gun Week Executive Editor Joseph P. Tartaro. This commentary may be reprinted so long as credit is given to the author and the publication. For more information or to subscribe, write Gun Week, PO Box 488, Buffalo, NY 14209, or call 716-885-6408 Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST, or inquire on Compuserve to John Krull, Production manager-JohnSAF@Compuserve.com or gunweeksaf@broadviewnet.netAlso, check out the New Gun Week at http://www.GunWeek.com