|
 n
the days to come, there are certain to be plenty of recriminations
over the causes of this day of tragedy. While nobody knows who committed
these crimes against the American people, we know they are enemies
of America, and terrorists — people against whom our country
has been allegedly waging war since the last World Trade Center
bombing, in 1993. Out of that tragedy — and the 1995 Oklahoma
City bombing — sprang the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death
Penalty Act of 1996 (a weighty, 89-page document that can be downloaded
off the Internet). The efficacy of that voluminous law can be judged
by its result today.
Clinton promised
a war on terror, but produced nothing of the sort. His administration
never honored its commitment under the Act, which provided that
families of victims could sue, in civil court, the state sponsors
of terror. In 1998, two years after the law was passed, the Justice
Department rebuffed Stephen Flatow's attempt to sue after his 20-year-old
daughter, Alisa, died in an Islamic Jihad bomb attack. When he sought
to collect on $247.5 million in damages against the Islamic Republic
of Iran, Flatow found himself up against Justice Department lawyers
in a federal court.
Nor did Clinton
ever deliver on his commitments to the families of the Pan Am 103
disaster, the international airliner blown up over Scotland in 1988.
Speaking at the 1998 anniversary of the disaster, Clinton bit his
lip and promised to bring those responsible to justice. After the
event Susan Cohen, the mother of 20-year-old Theodora Cohen, told
me: "All he has is crocodile tears to share about this. What
do I care about his emotions?" Ultimately, a compromise was
forged that sent two individuals to the Hague for trial and let
Libya — and any other nation that may have assisted in the
crime — off the hook.
Examples like
these showcase the problem of sending our political disputes into
the courts. By treating acts of terror as normal acts of malfeasance,
we fail to instill fear in the hearts of potential perpetrators.
If individuals aren't afraid of blowing themselves up in bombing
attacks, they're not going to be worried by legal briefs and prosecution.
|
