Kabul on the Potomac

My house is just a few miles from where the infamous Montgomery County, Md., sniper made his first cluster of killings. My kids have had no soccer games on weekends for three weeks and no playground access during recess because of fear that the sniper may shoot someone else.

I myself have curtailed unnecessary trips to the store and other activities that may increase my chances of being shot. Several of the sniper’s victims were shot while pumping gas, so even that is considered a life-threatening activity here in Montgomery County. I fill up in D.C., at urban gas stations with lots of concrete around and no wide open fields or forests where the sniper can shoot and get away unseen.

Driving the boys to school in the morning instead of letting them take the bus has added an extra hour of transit to my already busy day, but it gives them (and me) peace of mind in an odd sort of way. Rationally, there is nothing I can do if a sniper wants to target my kids as they step out of our car in front of their schools. But at least I feel like I can control some part of my life, and give my kids the impression that I can make their lives safer.

The Washington Post pointed out last week that my chances of being shot were (before the latest shootings on Saturday and Tuesday) one in 517,422. With these odds, I am more at risk of getting in a car accident or getting run over while jaywalking. Plenty of people are at a higher risk for developing cancer just because they are smokers.

Another way to look at this situation is to recognize that, in the time the sniper has taken to kill nine people and wound two others, “traditional homicides” have claimed the lives of 18 people here in the Washington D.C. area. These non-sniper victims included a Congressional intern from Mississippi who loved rock climbing and poetry, a mother found stabbed in her apartment and a refugee who fled civil war in Sierra Leone. These non-sniper violent deaths were not broadcast on CNN and other national news channels. No multi-jurisdictional police teams intervened. Like those who die in violent deaths all over the country every day, the sadness of their sudden passings touched an immediate circle of friends, family, neighbors and co-workers. But for the rest of us, their passing had as little effect on us as the rest of their earthly existence.

Even before the sniper started his rampage, however, Washington D.C. was becoming less and less of a hospitable place. I remember the day that George W. Bush was inaugurated on January 20, 2001. I was there with a sign protesting what I felt was a derailed election process that had resulted in an undermining of democracy. I stood peacefully on the side of the parade route and held my sign, doing nothing to disrupt the proceedings. I had done this before at many other demonstrations over the years, but this one was different. While I was peaceably exercising my Constitutional right to express my opinion, I felt physically threatened and intimidated by members of the crowd who saw my action as unpatriotic and villainous. Several people tried to get me to put down my sign, and one young man let loose with a string of insults that ended with, “This is our town now. Get used to it.”

As the so-called “War on Terror” has unfolded since Sept. 11, President Bush has created a climate where even to question his decisions is tantamount to being unpatriotic. Republicans who prefer more police intrusiveness and less civil liberties pushed a “USA Patriot Act” through Congress last year in October. They fostered, and the Democrats almost unanimously accepted, the shortsighted notion that if we love our country we should do anything to defend it — even if it means undermining the Bill of Rights that we supposedly are fighting for in our current ill-advised foray into the Middle East.

In his current approach to global politics, Bush has embraced the strong-arm tactics of a bully instead of the statesmanlike approach of a global leader. With-me-or-against-me absolutism does not work with other self-respecting world leaders. They may go along with him as long as America has the military might, but my experience in politics and life has taught me that relationships built on bullying engender resentment, anti-bully backlash and end up undermining what the bully was trying to accomplish in the first place.

The state of siege in Washington will not end when the current sniper is caught. Bush Administration policies based on this country being willing to go it alone without the United Nations and without allies will breed a new generation of terrorists fixated on tearing us down a notch or two. If one sniper can do this much damage to the economy, activities and psyche of a region, imagine what a dozen of them could do.

Whereas we used to be called the “Ugly Americans” in the 1950s because we thought we did not have to learn the languages or customs of countries we visited, we will be known as the “Frightened Americans” in the 21st century, because no amount of military might will be able to protect us when we travel overseas. Meanwhile, here in the nation’s capital, we will drive to work in our armored cars and then return home to our gated communities. We will hold our heads up, as proud Americans — and then look around to make sure there are no snipers lurking nearby.

When William Lederer and Eugene Burdick first published The Ugly American in 1958, they foretold how American arrogance, incompetence, and corruption in Southeast Asia might lead to the United States losing the struggle with communism in Asia. In today’s world, the arrogance of the Bush Administration might lead us down a similar path in our dealings with the MidEast.

Reach Phil Tajitsu Nash at pnash@campaignadvantage.com.