By Chris Tucker, KERA 90.1 Commentator
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-576111.mp3
Dallas, TX –
The Vice President and others in the Administration warn that debate and dissent will undermine our troops' morale and give aid and comfort to our enemies.
Predictably, the other side accuses Dick Cheney of trying to squelch the very essence of America's democratic principles. If we stifle free expression, they say, we hand the terrorists a victory.
So it looks like a pretty stark choice: We either take to the microphones and hurt our cause, or voluntarily limit freedoms that no army could ever take from us by force.
But I'd like to propose a third way of looking at this dilemma: What if both sides are right?
I think we're strong enough to admit that our system of vigorous debate and free flow of information probably does help our enemies in certain ways. During World War II, Winston Churchill said the truth was so precious that "it must sometimes be attended by a bodyguard of lies."
But in America, even in wartime, the truth almost always ends up on the front page, stripped of its bodyguard, as it did last year when the New York Times exposed a secret and legal government program to track the international bank transfers of terrorist suspects.
Or consider the endless TV footage of heavily armed insurgents blazing away against American troops. How could such coverage fail to inspire our enemies? If you were a jihadist hiding in the streets of Baghdad, wouldn't that kind of publicity in the enemy's homeland inspire you?
If I were Osama Bin Laden, I'd do a victory dance every time Charlie Gibson or Katie Couric gave me a minute of precious TV time. And I'd be ecstatic to know that my enemies are sorely divided in their thinking about how to fight me.
So I'm willing to acknowledge the "collateral damage" done by America's freedom of the press and freedom of dissent, though a lot of good-hearted, optimistic people don't want to see it that way. They want freedom of speech, because it is a great good, to be all good.
But even our most precious rights have their flip sides, their unintended consequences. As the philosopher Isaiah Berlin reminds us, one good thing is not another. Free speech is free speech. It is not security. A free press is the lifeblood of a democratic society, but it is not necessarily the best wartime strategy.
Still, this chaotic openness is our way. America doesn't speak with one voice; we speak with many voices. That's what we're great at, and it's one of the main reasons millions of people from around the world would give everything they have to live in America right now.
We debate. We protest. In so doing, we sometimes lay ourselves open to people who would like to destroy our system.
So be it. Our faith is that, ultimately, we're strong enough to win any war of ideas, even if we often fight with one hand tied behind our backs. Our loud, messy way will triumph over their closed, authoritarian secrecy. It's worked so far. If we're going down, we're going down talking. As much as anything, that's the American Way.
Chris Tucker is a writer from Dallas.
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