THE AFTERMATH OF SEPTEMBER 11 AT HOME ★^1119patriotism: the Alien and Sedition Acts during the “ quasi- war” with France
in 1798, the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War, the
severe repression of free speech and persecution of German- Americans during
World War I, Japanese- American internment in World War II, and McCarthy-
ism during the Cold War. These episodes underscored the fragility of principles
most Americans have learned to take for granted— civil liberties and the ideal
of equality before the law, regardless of race and ethnicity. The debate over lib-
erty and security seemed certain to last as long as the war on terrorism itself.
The Torture Controversy
Officials of the Bush administration also insisted in the aftermath of Septem-
ber 11 that the United States need not be bound by international law in pur-
suing the war on terrorism. They were especially eager to sidestep the Geneva
Conventions and the International Convention against Torture, which regu-
late the treatment of prisoners of war and prohibit torture and other forms of
physical and mental coercion. In January 2002, the Justice Department pro-
duced a memorandum stating that these rules did not apply to captured mem-
bers of Al Qaeda as they were “unlawful combatants,” not members of regularly
constituted armies.
Amid strong protests from Secretary of State Powell and senior military offi-
cers who feared that the new policy would encourage the retaliatory mistreat-
ment of American prisoners of war, in April 2003 the president prohibited the
use of torture except where special permission had been granted. Nonetheless,
the Defense Department approved methods of interrogation that most observ-
ers considered torture. In addition, the CIA set up a series of jails in foreign
countries outside the traditional chain of military command and took part in
the “rendition” of suspects— that is, kidnapping them and spiriting them to
prisons in Egypt, Yemen, Syria, and former communist states of eastern Europe,
where torture is practiced.
In this atmosphere and lacking clear rules of behavior, some military
personnel— in Afghanistan, at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and at Guantánamo—
beat prisoners who were being held for interrogation, subjected them to elec-
tric shocks, let them be attacked by dogs, and forced them to strip naked and
lie atop other prisoners. Photographs of the maltreatment of prisoners, cir-
culated by e- mail, became public. Their exposure around the world in news-
papers, on television, and on the Internet undermined the reputation of the
United States as a country that adheres to standards of civilized behavior and
the rule of law.
The full extent of the torture policy did not become known until 2014,
when a Senate committee released a scathing report stemming from a long
How did the war on terror affect the economy and American liberties?