Koppel at Berkeley Commencement on National Debate

What we will do after the next terrorist attack is not a conversation that should be deferred. The time for that national debate is now. As important as it may be to argue over the rights of Iraqi prisoners of war, those horrific photographs have largely obscured the context in which the abuses took place. The perceived need to obtain more and better intelligence in the face of a mounting Iraqi insurgency late last fall created the environment in which those human-rights abuses took place. It is quite extraordinary that so much attention is being focused on the culpability of a bunch of young military police when they in fact were clearly operating under guidelines that had been set much, much further up the command chain. [Applause] It is the legitimacy of those guidelines that require public discussion. And yet, what have we been debating for these past few months? The nature of George W. Bush's service in the Air National Guard more than 30 years ago, while he was working on a senatorial campaign in Alabama? The value of John Kerry's military service in Vietnam once he'd appeared at the same antiwar rally as Jane Fonda? What madness! Do we really believe we can rise to the great challenges that confront us by endlessly questioning one another's motives and patriotism? There are decisions that will be addressed or ignored over the next few months that will set the course of human and civil rights in this country for years to come. There is a direct correlation between the perception of threats to America's security and the contraction of our rights and freedoms. We need to critically examine the nature and scope of those threats, and where they exist we must be prepared to calibrate our rights, and even our freedoms. If we fail to do that now, in a time of relative sanity when it is still possible for voices of moderation to be heard, then we will have condemned ourselves to having those choices made in a climate of national hysteria.

--Ted Koppel, Speech at UC Berkeley Commencement

From
http://www.poynter.org/forum/?id=misc