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Remembering Why We Fight
HON. ADAM B. SCHIFF
OF CALIFORNIA
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Thursday, July 8, 2004
Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Speaker, in the early days of World
War II, the government commissioned director Frank Capra
to make a series of films that would explain the nature
of the war to a hastily mobilized Nation.
Over the course of the next 3 years, Capra produced
a remarkable series of films collectively known as ``Why
We Fight.'' These films were instrumental in elevating
the war from a fight for land and resources to a struggle
between the ``free world'' of the Allies and the ``slave
world'' of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.
As a Nation rooted in an ideology rather than ethnic
or geographical identity, the United States has always
looked at its wars as ideological conflicts between
freedom and tyranny. Our national reluctance to go to
war has shaped the prerequisite that when we fight,
we do so for a high moral purpose that honors our principles
and values.
When he addressed the Congress, the Nation and the world
in the wake of the September 11 attacks, President Bush
laid out the challenge posed by terrorism. Al Qaeda
and radical Islamists, the President declared, attacked
us because ``they hate our freedoms, our freedom of
religion, freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and
assemble and disagree with each other.''
The moral clarity the President expressed nearly 3 years
ago has been clouded by the administration's ambiguity
over whether the rule of law applied to the prosecution
of the war on terrorism or in Iraq. The abuse at Abu
Ghraib and the unreviewable and potentially unlimited
detention of Americans and others as enemy combatants
are incompatible with a Nation born in a struggle against
tyranny and caprice.
Last week, three courts in three countries reminded
us of what is at stake in the war on terrorism and in
our efforts to rebuild Iraq.
In Iraq, Saddam Hussein and the surviving leaders of
his government were arraigned for their crimes against
the Iraqi people and for crimes against humanity. The
sight of the former dictator and his henchmen in a court
of law was a glimmer of hope that chaos and bloodshed
will one day give way to a better life for Iraq's people.
Here in the United States, the Supreme Court circumscribed
the President's power over its own citizens and others
when it ordered that Americans and foreigners held as
enemy combatants had a right to contest their detention
before a neutral arbiter. Expressing confidence that
courts would be able to balance individual rights and
national security, Justice O'Connor wrote ``that a state
of war is not a blank check for the President.''
Perhaps the most extraordinary assertion of principle
was made in Jerusalem by the Israeli Supreme Court,
which ordered the government to reroute part of the
security fence it is building to prevent Palestinian
suicide bombers from infiltrating into Israel. In reaching
their decision, the Israeli justices conceded that from
a military point of view, the alteration might not make
protection against terrorism easier. ``This is the destiny
of a democracy,'' the court said. ``She does not see
all means acceptable, and the ways of her enemies are
not always open before her.''
The ways of our enemies are not open to us. We do not
behead our adversaries on camera for their families
to witness in all its gruesome barbarity. Nonetheless,
facing greater foes than we face now, we have prevailed
and we will prevail again. At root, the rule of law
is the source of our strength in war as it is in peace,
and the assertion of the rule of law by courts in Iraq,
Israel and here at home is a moving reminder of why
we fight and also how we must fight to win the America
we cherish.
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