Can We Have Security Without Fear?

The war of words between President Obama and Dick Cheney has exposed a rancorous divide over national security. Mr. Cheney states flatly that there is no middle ground on the issue. There is no such thing as being half-safe, he declares. On the face of it, his statement is nonsensical. Unless he has a way of screening the thoughts and intentions of every potential enemy in the world, we will always be half safe. But is that the real issue? Aren't we talking about our right not to be afraid as much as our right to defend ourselves? Better be safe than sorry is common sense. Better be afraid all the time is toxic politics at its worst. When the Senate voted overwhelmingly to deny funds for closing Guantanamo, they acted out of toxic motives. President Obama accused them of being irrational, and he was absolutely right.
The issue of national security was a Republican gold mine for eight years, during which time not enough objection was raised over waterboarding, domestic surveillance, and holding detainees indefinitely without bringing them to trial. The tide turned with the new President, but the underlying dilemma remains with us.

Can we be secure without resorting to fear?

The Bush administration profited from fear to a huge extent; therefore, they couldn't resist the temptation to wield it. As if the 9/11 attacks were not terrifying enough, they created bogeymen with no justification. The primary one was Saddam Hussein, who posed no threat to the U.S., had no weapons of mass destruction, and made no alliance with Al-Qaeda. But the detainees being held without trial at Guantanamo were also a bogeyman. We still have no idea who among them was or is a danger to this country, but in a massive refusal to be fair, adult, and rational, we allowed all of them to be lumped together and treated as imminent threats.
Cheney's round defense of torture is morally bankrupt, but the right wing knows -- as it knew in the McCarthy era -- that scapegoating an unpopular minority works. Fifty years ago it was Communists; now it is Muslims of any stripe, including the most harmless. We have been detaining harmless Muslims at Guantanamo for years without due process; we have also been imprisoning dangerous Muslims and others who fall between the extremes. The only way to sort them out is with fair trials, adequate evidence, and rational consideration of potential threats.

Or you can just play the fear card.

In his ongoing efforts to treat the American public as they have rarely been treated -- that is, as adults -- Obama pointed out several rational things:

• Our supermax prisons are safe. No one has ever escaped from them.


• America stands for constitutional principles.


• No one's fate should be decided by one man, even if he is President.


• The issue of releasing potential terrorists is difficult and troubling.

Notice the one thing he left out: fear. That's the difference between him and Cheney. If he didn't play the fear card over and over, Cheney's vision of national security would fall apart, just as McCarthy's argument about Communists infiltrating the federal government fell apart when he couldn't find any. The show of smoke, mirrors, and fear collapsed. In a decent moral scheme, Obama would have pointed out the cruel injustice of holding anyone in prison without charges or the chance to defend themselves. How would any of us like to be in such a position, knowing that we were innocent? It doesn't matter if the accused happens to look like a bogeyman. He's a human being and should be treated like one.

Published in the San Francisco Chronicle

Comments

[Brian123d]

Your post really made me to think. Thanks for posting :)

[olita]

I am sick to death of all this talk about "keeping us safe"!! Just because the American sheeple stopped shopping and playing video games long enough to watch the WTC collapse on 9/11, everyone thinks we should be "kept safe".
Here's some reality: NO ONE can keep us "safe" and clinging to this infantile concept keeps this country down. Crying about it all the time does empower "terrorists" and supports those who are attempting to re-write the Bush/Cheney legacy.
What would be healthy and productive is engagement with the rest of the world in a realistic and grown-up fashion based on respect and humility. We need an approach that doesn't involve exceptionalism and acknowledges our past hypocracies. Only then can we build a foundation for security and stability (I think Obama is trying real hard here) and begin to approach "safety".

[MassInsanity]

I am appalled by the things 'executive privilege' allows you to get away with. Military tribunals, indefinite detention based off of suspicions, no tangible evidence, for years...YEARS, state secrets...

What kills me is people don't think it can happen to them. Last I checked, wiretapping is still going on in this country. I don't fear terrorists, I fear our government. Obama didn't have to use fear in his bells and whistle "continuing down the same path under a different name" speech, it was already instilled in us from the last administration. He just had to say "we have reason to believe" *just no tangible evidence to convict, and then let Cheney do the rest...

Empathy goes a long way, and after reading about some of the things that happened during the 'enhanced interrogation techniques,' I can not rest easy, until justice is served and the true criminals are behind bars, dealing with the mess of a judicial system they created...

[p-junkie]

I would prefer to live in a 'state of vigilance' rather than a 'state of fear.'

I'm always aware of my vulnerabilities and therefore try to stay alert and aware of my surroundings and protect myself as best I can against any and all possible scenarios.

That gives me a certain level of confidence without becoming complacent.

[mendelcrosses]

Well,if you are in FEAR then it simply means that you are not Safe.

[take10]

We won't have security until we have peace! Anyone who thinks America can continue to make war around the world and have security is unrealistic. We want everyone to fear us and our might while we live unscathed by our assaultive behavior. It won't be that easy! The real fear I have, is that America, with the help of Israel, will provoke the consequences that we have been able to avoid so far. That is a war to end all wars which will leave America in the present condition of Iraq or Europe in the late 40s. If that happens, America will be a divided country - red fascist/neocon run states with Chinese currency, and blue progressive democratic United States holding on to its currency, with no chance or desire for reconciliation!

[doug108]

Can we be secure without resorting to fear?


Yes, but we can't be a "democracy" that runs an empire without it.

[Polly]

As always Deepak you show the intelligence of a man with a heart & soul - maybe a liberal.

[James Stordahl]

Rancourous divide? I think not! What we do have is the embarrassing display of a former vice president showing a very limited grasp of how this country views security. Why do we have to see his condescending sneer on TV? Where does he get his news?

[Pdubya]

thank you.

if folks understood that there is a false left/right paradigm and that cheney is just providing cover to obama's stated position, we'd see the light. as they lobby back and forth, no real policy is changed, no real legal ground is made...only troop movement, closures, strategy and calling an atrocity by a nicer name.

we're being played.

[doug108]

This country has allowed itself to be played for a long time, and there's no end in sight.

[cheforacle]

Excellent analysis as usual. I do have problems with the admissiblity of hearsay in those cases that will be tried in front of a military tribunal (although I do not think that just because a case is tried by a military tribunal is inherently suspect) and the detention of those ( I believe three detainees) whose cases will not be tried but primarily Obama is just trying to clean up a mess left by Bush/Cheney. These are difficult issues and deserve rational debate not incessant fear-mongering. The fact many Democratic congressmen seemed to join the GOP in scaring Americans about terror suspects coming inside th US was the height of demagoguery. It was sad that it had to take President Obama to clarify that no one held in federal maximium security has ever escaped.

[llisa]

It is very hard to know what to do with these prisoners, in great part because many of the records were "lost" or never existed.

[MassInsanity]

It's not hard to know what to do with a person sitting in a war prison, with no evidence against them...you let them go.