Martin Henn, a philosophy professor at the University of Wisconsin, has considered the major pronouncements of the late-great Bush administration on treatment of terrorists in the context of Western civilization from Aristotle down to the prsent day. Dr. Henn explains his purpose as follows:

"I seek, then, to demonstrate how high officials of he Bush administration, eager to suspend longstanding humanitarian treaties and War Powers Resolution limits to the exercise of presidential powers, have established by means of policy directives... a series of repressive and patently unconstitutional measures decreed into law in the days, weeks and months following the Al Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001...." (page 4)

For example, relying on his own translation of the ancient Greek, Henn quotes Aristotle on the futility of torture in reaching truth. "[T]hose under compulsion speak the truth no less than lies, persistenlty refusing to tell the truth, but then easily inventing lies so as to make the torturing stop the sooner." (p. 24) While more a pragmatic than a moral or ethical motive for eshewing torture as an interrogation method,the citation shows how deeply rooted in our Western traditions is the tendency to criticize, if not always condemn, torture.

Dr. Henn points to Edmund Burke, the great conservative Irish statesman, who protested British suspension of habeas corpus with regard to colonial privateers, incarcerated in English prisons indefinitely, during the American Revolution. (page 263)Burke maintained that "all ancient, honest, juridical principles and institutions of England are so many clogs to check and retard the headlong course of violence and oppression. They were invented for this one good purpose, that what was not just should not be convenient...." (page 263)

When I first entered the practice of law nearly three decades ago, one met in the profession real Renaissance men and women, such as a partner at my law (Philadelphia's Saul Ewing) who had published more than a dozen novels. The advent of the billable hour and ever-increasing emphasis on the bottom line changed law from a profession into a business. In my view, law school education has become ever more short sighted. While I fully appreciate the need to prepare law students --- who often are paying outrageous tuitions --- to earn a good living, little time and interest remains for more profound, if less remunerative, inquiries.

In other words, in our world of 30-second sound bites; instant information on the Internet; the imminent demise of the daily newspaper and perhaps even the book (or at least their absence from the daily lives of average Americans); the quick buck (and an obscenely big one at that) for investment bankers, entertainers and athletes, and CEOs... it takes a philosopher, rather than a lawyer, to provide the long view.

Terrorism is America's test case in the 21st century. Terrorists challenge us to prove that Western civil libertarian values are resilient, even in the face of severe threats to national security.

Professor Henn seems skeptical about how well we will meet this test. He notes that the Obama Administration, during its first year in office, posted something less than a stellar record. The jury, we might say, is still out, as U.S. combat troops leave Iraq but fight on in Afghanistan; as the Attorney General continues to toy with the possibility of bringing charges against Bush-era civil-liberties miscreants; as Guantanamo remains open but with a diminished prisoner population.

I predict that the real test will come if (or when) a new terrorist attack causes casualties on American soil. Had this year's Times Square bomber succeeded, for example, the Obama Administration's stated determination to better Bush II's human rights record, would have been sorely strained.

Martin Henn's new book reminds us that we are the custodians of a two-millennium tradition of civil liberties, hard won and slowly worked out, marked but two steps forward, one step back along its rocky road. Jefferson called America the world's last, best chance. Islamic extremism --- or what Harvard's Samuel Huntington called a clash of civlizations --- is the challenge that will determine whether the potential envisioned by Jefferson will be realized or abandoned in the 21st century.