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In case you missed it, your nation’s capital was turned into a massive military encampment this week for the Nuclear Summit meeting of world leaders. We don’t really know if the goals of the Summit meeting will be met, since they are voluntary, but we do know one thing: the meeting cost one human life on the streets of DC
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A cyclist was killed this week by a large military vehicle pulling into an intersection to block traffic. In all likelihood, the driver of the truck didn’t even see the cyclist and probably didn’t know he’d killed someone until he heard screams of people on the streets. It is probably not his fault he killed a person. It is the fault of those who decided to turn DC into a military camp for the two day Summit meeting.
Huge military vehicles do not belong on city streets except in a time of true national emergency. They especially don’t belong in deployment in Washington, DC, where the military are supposed to serve as protectors of citizens from outside the country, not as de facto policemen on American citizens peacefully going about their day.
It is true beyond doubt that we live in a world of great danger from random, unpredictable acts of terrorists. We managed to live almost sixty years, however, under the constant threat of nuclear war without turning our country into a police state. We lived every day with that danger and those of us who chose to live in the capital knew, every day, that we would unquestionably be the first to go in a “nuclear exchange” with the Soviet Union,
The most popular innovation with “security experts” these days is the exclusion zone. That’s what they have tried to create at airports around the world and it what they tried this week on the streets of DC. The idea is that you can’t keep terrorists from planning attacks, but you can keep them from getting inside your protected area. Green zone mentality, in other words.
Exclusion zones are wonderful ideas for military dictatorships, but they don’t work well at all in democracies. For one thing, we are not accustomed to dealing with military vehicles and machine guns on our streets. Further, the events this week might have violated the Constitutional rights of American citizens by requiring anyone entering the zone to show ID. Either the area is open or it is closed. Forcing citizens to show ID runs against the principle of free movement and free association guaranteed by our Constitution. It turns all of us into suspects, instead of affording all of us the protections of presumed innocence.
The so called world leaders love to have their meetings in big city capitals. The wives go shopping, everyone goes out to great lunches and dinners and gets to meet and visit their peers from around the world. Cafe Milano, the hot spot in leafy Georgetown, was chock a block this week with limos and well dressed people in dark suits. A good time was had by all.
If you can’t hold your meetings on an atmosphere of peace, consistent with the Constitutional guidelines we all expect and enjoy, I say this: go somewhere else. Have your meetings on an island thousands of miles from threats and surround it with battleships at the ready. Better yet, go out into the plains of Kansas and create an exclusion zone there. Pay the farmers to leave for the week, buy out the cafes and restaurants. They would be glad for the money and the break from routine.
Don’t put yourself in the position of killing people riding their bicycle to work because of hyper fears of terrorism. Sadly, the impulse of people to blow things up is not going away. The wave of terrorism from the middle-east will, in time, subside, but the example is now out there for all the world to see. Yes, government officials deserve protection, but how much? Do they own the world? Why go to such elaborate lengths when any of the jets carrying people to and from the Summit could be attacked from the ground? What’s the idea behind the barricades? Is it just another power play by “security experts”? We’ve come to the point where demonstrating concern by massive security efforts is equal, or more, important than actual protection.
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