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The New Untouchables
By Doug Patton
December 17, 2001

The dilemma of a free society is to balance the rights of its citizens against the responsibility of government to fulfill its first duty, which is to defend the lives and freedoms of those citizens. It is a delicate balance, especially in time of war, but it is important to remember that the U.S. Constitution is supposed to protect the life, liberty and property of American citizens, not those who would misuse the freedoms they enjoy here to destroy us and our way of life.

We understand very well how to fight a war outside our own borders. We have had a great deal of practice over the years in destroying other people's property and killing their citizens, which is the essence of warfare - to kill people and destroy property. What we don't do well, because we have not had to do it in two hundred years, is to fight a war against a foreign foe encamped on our own soil.

With the war abroad proceeding better than most of us could have imagined, two problems face the Bush Administration in fighting the war at home: porous borders and political correctness. Both these problems were exacerbated by the criminal negligence of the previous administration, which was so preoccupied with its socialist domestic agenda, and with creating a defense for the unchecked libido of its predator-in-chief, that it failed miserably in protecting American citizens from enemies foreign and domestic.

In this post September 11th world in which we now live, the loony leftists and phony civil libertarians who populate the ACLU and the Democratic Party must face a sobering truth, and it is this: there can be no real freedom or security for anyone in the United States unless and until those allied with the perpetrators of terror are rounded up and deported, incarcerated or executed.

Imagine Elliot Ness trying to fight the domestic side of this war on terror. What would he say? I think he would tell us that what he needs are the same tools he needed to fight the terror of Al Capone. I can picture him coming before Congress to testify that if you want to find and punish lawless people who have no sense of civilized behavior, you must have the latitude to do what is necessary.

I think he would say in no uncertain terms that the United States of America is at war, and that our avowed enemies are living and working among us. I think he would remind us that all but nineteen people who died on September 11th were law abiding individuals who never went home to their loved ones because of the actions of our internal enemies, and that unless we want to see such carnage repeated again and again, we had better wake up to a few hard, cold realities.

And I think he would tell us that just as surely as we would steel our will to fight these enemies if they were assaulting our homes with guns and tanks, we must be willing to root them out in order to prevent another attack.

In short, he would testify that what is needed today is a new group of "Untouchables," courageous, honest law enforcement agents who can't be bought, bribed or intimidated, and who will pursue their objective to the bitter end.

This group could consist of agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Secret Service. They could be accountable to the Attorney General or to the new Director of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, who doesn't seem to be doing much else other than giving speeches and holding press conferences about "the need to do this" the "necessity of doing that." Time to stop talking about it, Tom, and start doing it.

I believe Elliot Ness would look at the misguided souls who whine about so-called "racial profiling" and tell them to get real. He would probably tell us he didn't care if the terrorists were black, white, green or blue, that if they align themselves with killers, they should be brought to justice by whatever means are available. But he would also restate the obvious, that every single one of the terrorists who attacked our country was Arab, and to deny that little detail in the name of political correctness is the act of a fool.

Am I willing to see a few questionable Arab gentlemen rousted in order to defend my nation from another attack? You bet I am, just as I would be willing to see blue-eyed Germans rousted if the nineteen hijackers had been blue-eyed Germans trained in the Rhineland. And I submit to you that most Americans agree with me.

Doug Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a speechwriter and policy advisor to federal, state and local candidates and elected officials. His work can be viewed weekly on GOPUSA.

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