Reading the Rand

Brian Michael Jenkins on the RAND Corporation site offers his view on the war on terrorism. On of his salient points follows:

"Preserve American values. “Whatever we do . . . must be
consistent with our values, and here I think we in America are
in some danger,” warns Jenkins. “We have too readily accepted
assertions of executive authority as necessary for our security.
We have confused the appropriate need to gather intelligence
with the rejection of all rules that govern collection. We have
yielded too much to fear, and it is fear that could destroy us.”
Jenkins concludes: “We cannot claim to be a nation of laws, a
champion of democracy, when we too easily accept a disturbing
pattern of ignoring inconvenient rules, justifying our actions
by extraordinary circumstances, readily resorting to extrajudicial
actions based on broad assertions of unlimited executive
authority, and espousing public arguments against any
constraints on how we treat those in our custody. Th e defense
of democracy demands the defense of democracy’s ideals. To
ignore this is to risk alienation and isolation. And defeat.”

http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9193/