On The Way To Iraq
by Warren Coats

Hi all,

Once again I am on my way to Iraq. This is the second of my every other month, two week visits since my two months there in May and June. However, this time the security conditions in Baghdad have deteriorated so much that I will most likely stay here in Amman and meet with Iraqis from the Central Bank who will fly here to see me or by videoconference.

I did not feel safer on my flight to Amman because I had a plastic knife to eat with over the Atlantic. Fortunately most European airlines do not adhere to such silliness for their non U.S. flights so I had a real knife for the Frankfurt Amman leg of my flight on Lufthansa. I did not feel safer because every one took their shoes off and put them through an X-Ray machine before boarding my plane. Or to be more accurate, I do not think that any increase in safety from x-raying shoes is worth the cost we are pay for it. I would be safer saying home than driving to the theater in the evening (42,643 people died in traffic related accidents in 2003 and three people died every 200 million miles traveled in the US in 2001), but the quality of my life would be reduced if I did so (and was lucky enough to survive). I am leaving aside the well known fact that most accidents happen in the home (but where else can we go to hide).

I do not think that the greater ease with which John Ashcroft could put people in prison (Guantanimo) without explanation or court approved reasons increased my security enough to justify the increased risks of government abuse of my constitutionally protect rights. In earlier years we all condemned the Soviet Union for this kind of behavior ((the Gulag). We haven’t fallen that low yet, but as my neighbor Senator John McCain, who knows a lot about the treatment of prisoners of war, said the other day, by overlooking the Geneva Conventions and our own earlier norms of acceptable government behavior “we put ourselves on a slippery slope.” My greatest shame is that now when asked by curious venders on the streets of foreign countries where I am from, for reasons of safety I reply that I am a Canadian (no offense to my Canadian friends). The world is a more dangerous place for Americans today than it was three years ago (both at home and abroad), primarily because of the policies we have chosen to follow.

Personal liberty always suffers in a state of war. That President George W. Bush has chosen to put us into a state of war in response to the terrorist attacks on 9/11 must be an unexpected victory for Ben Laden. The risk of terrorist attacks will be with us the rest of our lives, and in fact has always been with us, but the individual freedom under the rule of law that has helped make us the super power that we have become will not survive under a permanent war on terrorism. Perpetual war and the powers governments assume when at war will eventually destroy us from within. The rolling yellow and orange security risk levels in Washington DC and elsewhere and terms like “homeland security” are more reminiscent of George Orwell’s classic novel of state oppression, 1984, than of the America God blessed. Our British friends survived the many years of terrorism from the Irish Republican Army (IRA) without declaring a war on terrorism. We should try to learn from them how to minimize the risks of terrorism without destroying our way of life.

One of America’s many great strengths is its capacity to learn from its mistakes. It is too late to undue the war in Iraq. Let’s hope that it is not too late to leave Iraq a better place than we found it (within our life time), nor to restore a more appropriate balance in protecting our domestic security.

I am putting my life on the line here to do my bit, but the U.S. government’s many mistakes in recent years are putting me and all of you at unnecessary risk. I have held back these unpleasant remarks until after the election because I did not what you to think that I was being partisan. I am speaking out for the America I love. God bless American, she needs it.

Warren

Reprinted with permission. It was sent privately by Dr. Coats to friends. It does not necessarily reflect the views of BearingPoint or USAID.

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