LAST WEEKEND, the Taliban controlled all of Afghanistan. This weekend, as we go to press, their last remnants are fighting for their lives under heavy American bombardment in two rapidly collapsing redoubts: Kunduz in the north and Kandahar in the south. Terrorist leaders of al Qaeda have been captured by rebel forces in some cases and killed from the air in others. These last include Osama bin Laden’s top lieutenant, Muhammad Atef, most likely one of the planners of the September 11 attacks. Everywhere that the Taliban’s murderous hold has been broken, our allies–whether they’re Turkic-speaking Uzbek fighters in the north or irate anti-Taliban Pashtun tribesmen in the south or urbane Herati professionals near the Iranian border–are greeted with tears of joy and dancing in the streets. Most heartening, reporters at the Afghan border have described a mammoth exodus of healthy young men into Pakistan. These are the “Afghan Arabs” and other fair-weather sympathizers of the Taliban, who dressed up their sadism as religion and inflicted it on the Afghan poor. The leisurely pace at which America at first chose to fight this war gave rise to criticism–some of it in these pages. But now that the war is beginning to go so well, we should react in a way appropriate to a flexible people in an information-age conflict. We should rejoice with all the glee of an Afghan peasant suddenly freed of the worry that a gang of illiterate Islamogangstas with Saudi-bought Kalashnikovs who don’t speak his language will stone his wife to death for sport. The more usual reaction in the media, though, has been to assume that there must be something wrong with this picture. We’re like a country that can’t take “thank you” for an answer. CNN’s Satinder Bindra emphasizes that “this war is far from over.” The New York Times’s R.W. Apple warns of an excess of optimism that “made a lot of people”–in his set at least–“think about Vietnam.” (Proving Vietnam a metaphor capacious enough to accommodate everything from quagmires to cakewalks.) This pessimistic cast of mind, this scrounging scrupulosity, is evidence of a noble American habit of self-criticism. In general, however, it must not deflect us from the certitude that we are engaged in a war as unambiguously just as any in our history. And in particular, it must not degenerate into the lazy-minded habit of blaming America for things largely out of its control. Opponents of the war effort complained when reports emerged that 450 Taliban who took refuge in a mosque in Mazar-i-Sharif had been killed by troops linked to the Northern Alliance. That’s not the way we’ve been fighting the war, but it’s not a reason to stop pressing our advantage, either. Last Tuesday, the New York Times ran a series of spectacular photos by Tyler Hicks that appeared to show Northern Alliance fighters executing a Taliban captive. These photos should win a Pulitzer for Mr. Hicks; they should not win a reprieve from justice for the Taliban. The same principles should hold true at home. We are in a particularly difficult stage of the war on the domestic front, during which complacency about terrorism can masquerade as vigilance about civil liberties. This attitude was out in force in the wake of President Bush’s announcement that terrorists captured in Afghanistan could be tried by military tribunals. Grandstanding politicians sought to make hay of the announcement by intentionally ignoring the fact that only foreign belligerents could be tried by these tribunals. Vermont senator Pat Leahy says the order “sends a message to the world that it is acceptable to hold secret trials and summary executions, without the possibility of judicial review.” The only answer to that is that it is indeed acceptable when you’re at war with people who have proved themselves willing to gaily end the lives of 5,000 innocents. Once you widow housewives in Long Island and orphan Little Leaguers in New Jersey, you forfeit the soapbox. If Senator Leahy has a means of assuring that trials of the September 11 killers won’t drag on for years–during which time our captives will serve as trade bait for every hopeful hostage-taker in the world–we’d love to hear it. USA Today is wrong to describe military tribunals as an “abandonment of the very principles the U.S. holds dear.” The New York Times is not just wrong but constitutionally misinformed when it editorializes that “Mr. Bush has essentially discarded the rulebook of American justice.” And the Washington Post misleads when it describes the president’s critics as “ranging from the solidly liberal People for the American Way to conservative Rep. Robert L. Barr Jr. (R-GA).” Sorry–that’s not a “range.” That’s one flaky organization and one flaky politician, fleeing in opposite directions from an American consensus that is sensible and rock solid. –Christopher Caldwell, for the Editors November 26, 2001 – Volume 7, Number 11
