Well, we’ve been following Kiefer Sutherland’s “24” each week, and last night they really stepped in it. The usual disclaimer at the beginning of the show might have warned not only that the show would be too violent for viewers without discretion, but that it would depict Americans committing odious, unamerican acts. See, here’s the problem—after the first few episodes, we mentioned that the show felt like a suicide note from a nation on a steep depressive decline. What we meant was this: You are either against torture, or you are for it. This is not an area that admits a lot of gray area. The cliff-hanger structure of the show has allowed the writers and producers to suggest over and over again that the ends justify the means. Well, I mean, really—if your choice is between breaking a (guilty) terrorist’s thumbs or a nuclear warhead being set off in a major American city, it’s pretty obvious what should be done, no?
Last night, though, the show went one step further and made “Global Amnesty”—a transparent stand-in for Amnesty Internation, duh—the dupes of Marwan Habib, the evil overlord of terrorism on the show. (When one ofhis operative is caught, he calls Amnesty and dispatches a lawyer and federal marshall to prevent any, um, aggressive questioning.) We appreciated the gesture toward that yellowing old rag we call the Constituion, when the president sided with the lawyers and suggested that due process was in order—and which instantly puts Jack Bauer outside the law. But by now, we all know who the hero of this story is, and any moral qualms we might have about his M.O. evaporate in the overwhelming evidence against his nemeses.
Now, one can feel slightly propped up by the realization that this show is really just a high-grade motion-picture comic book on steroids. But if there is something to be even more troubled about than the implication that due-rpocess, civili-rights—lovin’, glue-sniffin liberals are nothing but an impediment to justice—it is a certain aspect of the show’s intense realism.
What we mean by that is the relative ease with which terrorists on the show have arranged just about every major attack its writers and producers could conceive after what must have been several potfuls of strong coffee. It was not enough to kidnap the Secretary of Defense and his daughter. That was a plot designed merely to overload the Internet, to allow the covert transfer of information allowing Marwan to gain access to every nuclear power plant in the country. But that was just a diversion to allow Marwan to hijack a stealth bomber to shoot down Airforce One. But that was just a convenient way to get his hands on “the football”—the president’s briefcase with all nuclear ballistics codes and locations.
See, now taken as a quick synopsis, doesn’t that seem ridiculous? Problem is, we wonder just how unrealistic it really is. In last Sunday’s Times magazine, former CIA agent Melissa Boyle Mahle comments on the crossroads of intelligence and politics. She poses the interesting question: What if we caught Osama bin Laden and didn’t tell anyone? If we were really worried about security in a concrete way—preventing terrorist attacks with or without taking public credit, you know, speaking quietly and carrying a big stick— the most brilliant move would be to hold him in secrecy and let the rest of al-Qaida come looking for him. But political expediency would absolutely demand that the sitting administration crow from the highest tree in its loudest voice. We hate to be cynical about it, but it’s not hard to believe that some of the adminstration’s more enthused partisans would put the GOP ahead of the safety of Americans—half of whom are godless John Kerry lovers, after all.
As Tom Friedman makes clear in this recent column, we should not assume that just because there has been no terrorist attack in the US since September 11th that it’s because of anything we might have done to shore up security. The present administration seems far more interested in the politics of security than the realities of security, and we sincerely hope that Friedman is wrong about the dark days ahead.
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