Obama's Turning Point

If you think the United States has overreacted to a terrorist threat again, you’re wrong.

Armored vehicles on the move and 9,000 police officers armed to the teeth in pursuit of one man. All chasing a 19-year-old student suspected of killing three people and wounding more than 170 others with two bombs during the Boston Marathon. As though the metropolis were threatened with an inferno, Boston was on lockdown for an entire day, with the population ordered to stay indoors. Television reporters tripped over one another to put out their latest horror stories, and people could follow the search for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a Chechnyan-American, live on Twitter.

In view of these warlike images, we Europeans ask ourselves: Have the Americans gone bonkers again in the war on terror? Have they not discovered reason and moderation, even under Barack Obama’s leadership?

And immediately, the evil spirits from Guantanamo again materialize. A merciless government that thinks that terrorists don’t deserve any legal rights. A surveillance state gone wild, as it did after 9/11, when urban areas were festooned with closed-circuit television cameras to capture every move citizens made. The Boston bombing will just see a resumption of it all.

The old ideological divides reopen immediately. The young Dzhokhar had barely been taken into custody before right-wing politicians began demanding that he be treated as an enemy combatant in order to have him tried by military tribunal. Their tired old argument: As an enemy combatant, it would be permissible to question him without informing him of his rights.

The Evil Spirits of Guantanamo

But the impression that America may have backslid to the lawless Bush era in the last 10 days disappears upon closer inspection; the U.S. government has basically acted prudently and with restraint. Of course, mistakes were made, and mishaps occurred. It wasn’t the lockdown that resulted in the fugitive’s capture. None of the 9,000 police officers found him hiding in a boat in a residential backyard. He was discovered by the boat’s owner only after the lockdown had been lifted and citizens were again allowed to leave their homes.

But what alternative did the officials have to a militaristic police operation? Fighting terror is at best a balancing act, and everyone is always wiser after the fact. The two suspected bombers showed their utmost determination to inflict maximum devastation. During their flight they shot one policeman to death, hijacked a car and threw explosives at their pursuers. Other explosives were found in their possession, and after the older brother was gunned down he was found to be wearing an explosive suicide belt. In any case, the use of collective governmental power was at least able to prevent further casualties. Citizens of liberal Boston thanked the police and FBI with exuberant celebrations. The state of emergency lasted less than 24 hours, and no one spoke of any overreaction.

What the world has seen in Boston is a new, self-confident, perhaps even mellowed-out America — and in the midst of the terrorist danger, a president reacting prudently. That wasn’t by any means guaranteed. Obama’s record concerning constitutional democracy up to now has been uneven at best. He has handled some issues no better than his easygoing predecessor, George W. Bush. Plus, Obama has broken a number of important promises. Guantanamo is still operating, as is trial by military tribunal. Obama even signed a law that permits the permanent imprisonment without trial of terrorists considered especially dangerous. Human rights organizations correctly give him low marks for such actions.

Obama Has Experienced an Important Turning Point

Obama supports the death penalty, a practice that has been on the wane in the United States. In the state of Massachusetts, where Boston is located, capital punishment has been abolished. But Obama will likely disregard that and seek the death penalty against Tsarnaev, if for no other reason than to allow him to later change the sentence to life imprisonment as part of a deal to get a full confession from him. That was the deal offered to Timothy McVeigh, the right-wing extremist tried and convicted for the April 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that resulted in 168 deaths and more than 800 wounded.

Obama has experienced a significant turning point and thereby distanced himself from the George W. Bush era. Ignoring the right-wing outrage, he ordered the Justice Department to prosecute the Boston bombing case according to constitutional legal guidelines. Tsarnaev was read his rights while he was still hospitalized, and a public defender was assigned to represent him; the trial against him will proceed in civilian criminal court, not before a military tribunal.

The only hysteria and panic that took place was on Twitter and the political talk shows. In comparison, at the White House and the Boston operations headquarters, the order of the day was calm and deliberate decision making.