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City scholar questions post-Sept. 11 policies
By Jana Seshadri
Sunnyvale resident Dr. Laura Donahue spoke openly on counterterrorism policies adopted by many liberal democratic states around the world, but was especially critical of those currently in use by the United States.
"Terrorism is a multi-pronged attack that attacks the very legitimacy of the state," Donahue said. "But no measure is going to keep terrorism from happening again."
Donahue's talk, titled "Responding to Terrorism at Home and Abroad," was presented by the American Association of University Women on Jan. 21 and was attended by more than 100 people.
Donahue's references to the United States' counterterrorism practices suggested that the United States' approach to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was, understandably, a knee-jerk reaction. Pointing out inconsistencies in pre- and post-Sept. 11 U.S. policies, Donahue, 31, said the United States should proceed with caution and not invite antagonism from other countries--even allies--however justifiable and logical those policies might seem.
After quoting "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself," Donahue set out to prove FDR's point with the help of statistics. She said the U.S. government has taken steps and continues to find ways to allay its citizens' fears of future attacks.
She said within the first eight weeks of the attacks, 98 percent of the business conducted by Congress and 97 percent by the Senate have been directly related to terrorism. In the same time frame, 323 bills were introduced into Congress and every single committee in Congress has been involved in counterterrorism policies since Sept. 11, she said. She added the U.S. government has been introducing more and more stringent counter-terrorism measures.
After graduating with a degree in philosophy from Dartmouth College, Donahue obtained a master's degree in Northern Ireland and a Ph.D. at Cambridge University in England.
Donahue said it was her close association with convicts during her education in Northern Ireland that steered her in the path of international security and terrorism. Her first book, Counterterrorism Law and Emergency Power in the United Kingdom from 1922-2000, deals with the policies adopted by the U.K. to fight terrorism, especially during the conflict between England and the Irish Republican Army.
Other countries look to the United States for guidance as a superpower, Donahue said, and many times those countries find the U.S.'s actions to be hypocritical. This could seriously jeopardize international relations, she said. Immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. government imposed controls on imports from and exports to other countries and revisited its diplomatic ties with other nations.
Donahue said one of the primary areas of concern right now is the violation of civil rights and liberties of the people in the United States, which shakes the very foundation that the country was originally built upon. She said the concept of "equal and exact justice to all men" is under question.
Donahue said that the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service had information and lists of terrorists' names even before Sept. 11, and the 19 hijackers entered the country under their own names. However, immediately after the terrorist attacks, the INS resorted to widespread detention of an ethnic group. The INS questioned more than 5,000 people of Islamic faith and held more than 1,200 behind bars without appeal, out of whom not one has been brought up on charges so far, she said.
She said President Bush's idea of a military tribunal to try prisoners of war could be justified by many reasons. A military tribunal would give the federal government full control of the legal procedure; the process would produce swift results; the criminal would be held accountable and responsible for the crime; and there would be no right of appeal to anyone.
However, these prisoners, who have been flown into the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are still referred to as "detainees" and not as POWs. Prisoners of war have the protection of the Geneva Convention for certain rights, but the nebulous war on terrorism broke out without a declaration of war. Donahue argued that if the "20th hijacker," Zacarias Moussaoui, could be tried in a civil court, why can't the other terrorists? According to Donahue, all the reasons and justification for a military tribunal are still contradictory and inconsistent with the country's record.
The death penalty, which most liberal democratic countries have abolished, is still used in the United States, much to the chagrin of the international community, Donahue said. Countries around the world have been cracking down and imprisoning terrorists. However, these countries would hesitate to extradite any of these terrorists, linked to the Sept. 11 attacks, to be tried on American soil for fear of the U.S.'s practice of the death penalty, Donahue said.
She added that several surveillance measures that have been implemented since Sept. 11 are contradictory to the concept of limited government, on which this country was founded.
However justified current laws and practices might seem, Donahue suggested that the U.S. government handle terrorism with extreme caution.
Donahue had a two-year fellowship at Harvard University and currently fills two posts at Stanford. She's a research fellow in the Center for International Security and Cooperation and assistant professor in political science.
Currently working on her second book, Donahue has written 19 magazine articles and has given several speeches at colleges, universities and institutes.
"She has traveled widely and has accomplished so much in her young life--truly an amazing young lady," AAUW program vice president Joan Kurtz said.
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
