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Editorial: New, cheap security tool
Chertoff proposes being nice
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More from OpinionSecretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff has come around to the view that the U.S. should spend more on foreign aid, scholarships for foreign students and "soft power," basically making friends in the world.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, he said traditional security measures are important, but "a lasting victory in safeguarding the country" requires winning "a contest of ideas, and a battle for the allegiance of men and women around the world."
His own department has hardly been a big help in that contest.
In 2004 — before Mr. Chertoff took over DHS — the State Department, at the request of Homeland Security, revoked the work visa of one of the world's leading Muslim scholars only days before the was to take up a tenured teaching position at the University of Notre Dame. Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss citizen, had already shipped his household furniture to the U.S. and enrolled his daughter in school at South Bend.
Rather than go through the hassle of proving in our Kafka-like bureaucracy that he did not espouse terrorism, the Muslim moderate gave up the teaching post and returned to the University of Friburg. There's a U.S. friend for life.
Or Elena Lappin, a British journalist, who was stopped at Los Angeles airport by Homeland Security officials, body- searched, handcuffed, frog-marched through the airport, held in a cell overnight and put back on a plane the next morning. We'll bet she was moved to write good things about us when she got back.
Ms. Lappin did not have a special journalist visa, an old and long-ignored rule that Homeland Security decided to enforce. Why do journalists need a special visa at all to come here? It amounts to licensing journalists, which is unconstitutional in this country. True, visas at the State Department's responsibility, but Homeland Security has a lot of say in the matter.
Secretary Chertoff is right about soft power. Being welcoming and accommodating to foreign students, visiting professors and journalists is a good place to start.
Posted by cassandra2 on December 8, 2008 at 9:50 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Good editorial. It's not really about being nice but about being appropriate and within the scope of charge.
Posted by got_hope on December 8, 2008 at 1:14 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Like Bush in his Rove-orchestrated exit interviews, Chertoff is burnishing his legacy, hoping to have a soft place to land, financially speaking, once he is replaced Jan. 20. Amazing that Bush's cronies suddenly gain some common sense now that the exit door comes close to hitting them in their backsides. It would be more convincing if Chertoff had been spouting this philosophy for awhile, rather than waiting until now to parrot what the Dems have been saying since the Clinton administration. What's next, Dick Cheney starring in Prius ads?
Posted by sslocal on December 8, 2008 at 1:22 p.m. (Suggest removal)
They had Ted Kennedy on the watch list for awhile but took him off. Seems a shame to me.
From the article: "Why do journalists need a special visa at all to come here? It amounts to licensing journalists, which is unconstitutional in this country.:
Yet it seems as if everyone wants to license gun owners but that's okay. You don't get to pick and choose folks. You either take them all or you get nothing.
Posted by cassandra2 on December 8, 2008 at 6:16 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I hear Cheney is going to go hunting with Palin. When he shouts "Duck!" he really means it.
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