The Scapegoat Syndrome

By Paul Greenberg (Archive) · Saturday, November 14, 2009

A familiar pattern emerges after every treacherous assault on this country. The surprise attack is dissected not just to learn who wreaked all the havoc, but who was responsible for missing the clues that it was coming.

It happened after Pearl Harbor, when Americans wanted to know why it took so long to get the warning to Hawaii, particularly because our people in Washington knew an attack was likely, having broken the Japanese diplomatic code. Why, on that Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, were our aircraft lined up wingtip to wingtip at Hickam Field just waiting to be taken out by Japanese dive-bombers and fighters? It had to be a conspiracy!

The country's lack of preparedness became more than just another campaign issue in the presidential election of 1944. It inspired accusations of criminal negligence, if not outright treason. A small industry of conspiracy theorists sprouted. To this day, such accusations pop up not just in the smudgy pamphlets of fringe groups but in weighty tomes of revisionist history.

It happened again after September 11, 2001, another date that will live in infamy. It wasn't enough to note the various ways in which the country's splintered system of intelligence and counter-intelligence failed to connect the dots. The existence of legalistic walls between foreign and domestic intelligence agencies almost invited such an attack. But it wasn't enough to look at the structural problems with our national security; heads had to roll, leaders had to be scapegoated.

Predictably enough, high-ranking officials responsible for counter-terrorism operations that failed to counter terrorism wrote self-justifying memoirs casting the blame on higher-ups. Congressional investigations verged on witch hunts. The partisan search for villains soon went all the way to the White House. A whole industry sprang up devoted to blaming the president and commander-in-chief for a surprise attack -- in time for the 2004 presidential election. For when a proud nation fails to protect its own, its fury may turn on its own leaders.

Now it's still happening again. All the clues leading to that murderous attack at Fort Hood aren't just being investigated and laid out for the public, as they should be, but arranged in a pattern that points the finger at those who, we can now see in perfect hindsight, should have seen it coming.

The bloody rampage has already been blamed on everything from American Muslims in general to the U.S. Army's efforts to ensure that all its troops are treated fairly when it comes to promotion and advancement. Efforts once justly lauded for their equity and efficiency are now to be subjected to the familiar Scapegoat Syndrome.

How long before the lunatic fringe, which has a way of becoming the lunatic warp-and-woof at such times, finds a way to blame the massacre at Fort Hood on the current occupant of the White House? As president and commander-in-chief of the armed forces, he bears the responsibilities of command. But in the usual mix of anger and panic after such an attack, he will be charged with much more by those seeking partisan advantage -- or just an outlet for their paranoia.

By all means, let's note all the clues that were missed. But let us remember that they appear evident only now, after they culminated in the massacre at Fort Hood. Leave out that one, culminating piece of the bloody puzzle, and it's easier to understand how the others were ignored.

Yes, the suspect may or may not have talked about leaving the Army, but such talk is scarcely unique. Not everyone who wishes to separate from the service is a homicidal threat. Nor is every serviceman who expresses strong religious beliefs, whatever his faith.

Yes, the suspect had communicated with a radical imam -- but he was engaged in writing a research paper at the time, which was the reason officials concluded he didn't warrant further investigation.

Yes, the suspect had criticized the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but if every soldier who ever criticized a war were court-martialed, American ranks would be seriously depleted.

And how take action on the basis of a soldier's comments without inviting a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union? All the gods of political correctness, affirmative action, due process and general pettifoggery would surely have been invoked against anybody who dared question the major's loyalty. Even as the suspect came out of his coma at a Fort Hood hospital, he was asking for legal representation -- and by now has it, both civil and military.

There was a time when such matters were handled by the military courts -- with a dispatch, justice and finality unknown today.

This isn't General Washington's continental army any more, in which serious offenses could be tried promptly by military commission and the verdict carried out with exemplary dispatch. See the case of the gallant British officer who conspired with Benedict Arnold to hand over West Point to the enemy in what would become the best known act of treason in American history:

The bravery of Major John Andre on his way to the gallows excited the admiration of even his executioners. The major had made the mistake of being caught out of uniform while on his mission, and paid for it with his life by order of a board of American officers. He would be hanged as a spy rather than treated as a prisoner of war.

To quote an aide to General Washington, a colonel by the name of Alexander Hamilton, the major's execution was as necessary as it was regrettable. Such sentiments were to be expected in an age before lawyering had replaced a sense of honor -- on the part of both the major and his judges.

Imagine how many years Major Andre's case might have taken in this oh-so-enlightened age, and how many appeals to the Supreme Court of the United States would have to be argued. The charming major could have lived a long and healthy life before justice was done, if it ever was. Much like the anything-but-charming Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the orchestrator of the September 11th attacks, who at present is still safely ensconced at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, eight years after his terrible, honorless crime.

Today the whole idea of trial by military commissions is under fire, the military prison at Guantanamo is due to be shut down by the end of the year, and some of the bloodiest, most dangerous and self-confessed terrorists now imprisoned there could wind up in extended trials with no prompt or certain result.

For that growing possibility, this administration does bear a heavy responsibility. Its promise to close Guantanamo, and transfer case after case to the United States mainland, strikes at the integrity and competence of the whole system of military justice that once served this country and its security so well.

The most heartening aspect of the developing case of U.S. v. Nidal Malik Hasan is that it seems likely the suspect will be tried according to time-tested military law. Justice may yet be done. The country may even learn something from this awful event. For if anything reveals the folly of fighting a war against terror as if it were a matter for the ordinary criminal law, surely it is the massacre at Fort Hood. But will this administration get the message?

(c) 2008 TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.