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It was supposed to be a work of fiction.
In November of 1998, a blockbuster movie came out in theaters across the country. It starred Denzel Washington, Bruce Willis, and Annette Bening.
In ripped from the headlines type style this movie at first seems to be a typical action movie about terrorists being chased by the FBI.
In reality however, this film was a prescient warning about how our own out of proportion fear in reaction to terrorism was a bigger threat than the terrorists themselves.
In the movie, the terrorists initially blow up a Marine barracks in Saudia Arabia, to which a renegade American general named William Deveraux, played by Bruce Willis then hunts down and kidnaps the Sheik Achmed bin Tilal who was believed to be responsible for planning the barracks attack.
In turn the terrorists take to terrorist attacks in New York City, beginning with bus bombings, then a theater bombing, then an attempted school bombing, and finally the destruction of the Federal Building in New York City which in the movie killed 600 people.
The protaganist in the film was FBI agent Anthony Hubbard, played by Denzel Washington. With mixed success, he and his team of agents stop some of the terrorist attacks and fail to stop others - including the attack which destroys the Federal Building and kills his coworkers and friends.
In response to the escalating attacks, the President (at the time Bill Clinton) declares martial law in NYC and appoints General Deveraux to oversee it.
The General, now in charge of the situation grows ever more out of control. He rounds up all the Arab males in the area and places them into a soccer stadium in fenced enclosures surrounded by razor wire and armed military police.
He seizes a man named Tariq Husseini who the General believes has knowledge about pending attacks from the custody of Agent Hubbard and procedes to torture and finally kill him.
In the torture scene, while General Deveraux and his men discuss the efficacy of various means of torture to extract information from the helpless man who sits strapped naked to a chair in front of them in the mens room, Agent Hubbard begs the General not to torture him:
Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard: "Are you people insane? What are you talkin' about?"
General William Devereaux: "The time has come for one man to suffer in order to save hundreds of lives."
Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard: "One Man? What about two, huh? What about six? How about public executions?"
General William Devereaux: "Feel free to leave whenever you like, Agent Hubbard."
Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard: "Come on General, you've lost men, I've lost men, but you - you, you can't do this!
What, what if they don't even want the sheik, have you considered that? What if what they really want is for us to herd children into stadiums like we're doing? And put soldiers on the street and have Americans looking over their shoulders? Bend the law, shred the Constitution just a little bit? Because if we torture him, General, we do that and everything we have fought, and bled, and died for is over. And they've won. They've already won!"
Well it was supposed to just be a work of fiction, but now it is a fact.
Today we became the nation that has legitimized torture and thrown the Constitution out the window.
Today the terrorists have won and the light has gone out on our freedom.
Today the United States Senate ignored the warning of "The Siege", and did the unthinkable. Instead of punishing the President for commiting crimes against humanity, it legitimized and legalized torture and passed laws to destroy the protections of habeas corpus and prevent the Courts from reviewing this evil being practiced in our names.
Shame on them.
Doug De Clue
Orlando, FL
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