An End to Evil? (8)

If Americans and Iraqis weren't dying daily - in no small part because of the OSP misrepresentations - it would be comical to see Frum and Perle accusing the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) of persecuting those four "independent analysts." Why, "they [CIA and DIA] cooked up specious charges and removed the security clearance of at least one of the analysts," say Frum and Perle. (p. 47)

This hopefully conveys some idea of the type of argument used in this book, whether defending the invasion of Iraq, discussing the threat of Islamic extremism, proposing their version of "the war of ideas," or telling people to stop worrying about the PATRIOT Act's threat to civil liberties.

The discussion of homeland security concerns provides a good illustration of how ideology overwhelms pragmatic concerns for American security at every turn. It also illustrates how silence functions in their argument. In general, it's a bit of a cheap shot to criticize a book like this for what it does not mention. One can always say, "The authors should have given more attention to..."

But sometimes what is not mentioned is a critical factor. And in dealing with an essentially fanatical intellectual construction, that can be especially so. Thus, in discussing problems in the immigration system, Frum and Perle mention some real problems that need to be addressed. They criticize former California Gov. Gray Davis for his undocumented-immigrant dirver's license law. The California legislature has since repealed that law, primarily because of concerns about inadequate security checks.

But this section, too, is almost entirely polemical. "We need an identification system that makes it clear who is entitled to be in the United States and who is not and that expedites the removal of people who are not so entitled." (pp. 69-70) They express concern about the "hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants" annually to the US. And yet in proposing a far more comprehensive control of immigration, they manage to avoid so much as mentioning the words Mexico, agriculture or California growers. This shows a stunning lack of pragmatism, if not of all seriousness in addressing the topic.

Tags: an end to evil,david frum, richard perle