Why Human Rights are More Important than National Security

On Friday, the morning after the Democratic debate, I was stunned to read in the War Room column over in Salon that Governor Bill Richardson had said the wrong thing about national security versus human rights. Tim Grieve wrote, "We're not sure which office Richardson is seeking these days, but he came pretty close to disqualifying himself from either of them last night when he insisted that human rights are more important than America's national security." I'm not sure what planet Tim Grieve is living on, but on our planet, it is human rights that are precious and rare and always to be preserved and "national security" that is ever and anon a cant boondoggle. I was not alone in my dismay. I read War Room almost everyday and have liked Grieve's posts in the past. When I first read what he was saying, I thought he was joking; so did other readers. The entry got 57 responses. Almost all of them were outraged, and several called on Tim to explain himself. He never did.

Human rights are defined, most notably in the U.S. Bill of Rights. They are defined because the Founding Fathers realized that if they were not defined, they would be more likely to be abrogated or lost entirely. The Founding Fathers understood the temptation on the part of governments to give and remove human rights arbitrarily, because they had experienced such things before the Revolutionary War -- in the Stamp Act, in the quartering of British soldiers on American households, and in illegal searches and seizures, in no taxation without representation. They recognized that although British Law customarily acknowledged various human rights, it was essential to name, codify, and write them down to make it less likely that they could be taken away.

Human rights are profoundly local -- they reside in individuals. According to humans rights theory, if someone is human, he or she has the same rights as every other human. The rights of American citizens as described in the Bill of Rights have been expanded and extrapolated around the world so that they apply not only to us but to everyone. While in the U.S. this idea is a bit controversial, in other countries it is standard, accepted, and cherished. The codification of human rights, and the widespread acknowledgment of this, is one of the things that makes the modern world modern. To roll back human rights, even for some individuals, is to return to a more primitive, hierarchical, and un-American theory of human relations. One example, of course, concerns women. Can women routinely be imprisoned, sold, mutilated, or killed by their relatives? U.S. law says they cannot; in practice, many are, but no one openly promotes what many secretly do. If a candidate, even a Republican, ran on a platform of reducing the legal rights of women, he wouldn't get far (ask me again in 10 years, though). Or consider lynching. The U.S. has a long tradition of lynching. It was only after the Second World War that the Federal Government and state governments began enforcing their own anti-lynching laws. This was a victory for human rights. Do you want to go back? The Republicans would like you to, in the name of: "national security."

Guess what? There is no such thing as "national security"; it's a concept that not only hasn't been defined, it can't be defined. It is a psychological state. The very phrase describes an impossibility. All boundaries in the U.S. and in every other country are porous. Planes come and go, as do ships, trains, trucks, autos, information superhighways, human relationships, and human emotions. In addition, the smaller any threat becomes, the less safe we are against it. We no longer live in the world of Mutually Assured Destruction, where our thousands of warheads aimed at the Russians protected us, psychologically, from their thousands of warheads aimed at us. Since the end of the Cold War, threats have gotten smaller and more invisible. Where is that suitcase of nuclear material? Where is that vial of anthrax? But as they have gotten less easily detected, they have also gotten more local. 9/11 is what we always think of when we think of a breach of national security, but in fact, the destruction was not national, or even city-wide, or even district wide -- although the World Trade Center was less than a mile from the New York Stock Exchange, the NYSE was only closed for six days after 9/11.

The phrase "national security" cannot mean anything in a nation of almost 10 million square miles. The Bush administration and the corporatocracy knows this perfectly well. Witness how our chemical plants have not been secured from the possibility of terrorist attack -- there are too many of them, and the likelihood of any one getting attacked is too small to make it worthwhile for either the nation or the chemical industry to fortify them. The Dubai Ports deal of a couple of years ago demonstrated the same understanding on the part of the administration, that "national security" is merely rallying cry for fear.

The Bush administration has spent some trillions of dollars (I shrink from naming a figure, since, as big as it is, it is surely a lie) to attack a nation of a mere 437,000 square miles. In doing so, they have chosen to ignore such items of U.S. national security as public health and infrastructure maintenance. The population of the U.S. is demonstrably poorer, hungrier, less healthy, more homeless, more likely to be injured in an infrastructure failure, and more likely to suffer from a weather related loss than it was before the Bush administration came into office. A huge debt means that the economy is more likely to fail. The prospects of our children for a peaceful and prosperous future are worse. Nothing that the Bush administration or the Republicans or the Military Industrial Complex has done in the last seven years of foolish incompetence and braggadoccio has benefited the nation as a whole, though it has benefited a small class of investors and government cronies. As a result of the Iraq War and the Bush attack on the Constitution, I can be afraid of the obliteration of the entire idea of the U.S. -- I am afraid of that, thanks to the tyrannies of the Bush administration and the professions of the current crop of Republican candidates -- but not of the obliteration of the U.S. itself. Indeed, the war in Iraq shows more than one thing about the idea of national security, because even though the Iraqis have been attacked by the largest military in the world, they have been damaged but not subdued. The same would be true of the U.S., no matter who attacked us.

Liberals, progressives, and Democrats recognize, at least intuitively, that "national security" is a code word for tribalism, while "human rights" is a code word for the rule of law. Governor Richardson was straightforward in acknowledging this fact, and deserves praise rather than blame, especially from a writer for Salon.

Comments

[yourstruly]

Ah Jane, I'm so glad you have a platform to speak the truth. The most dangerous words that have permeated our land are "Everything changed on 9/11." What foolishness! 9/11 showed we are vulnerable like the rest of the people who walk this planet, and too many politicians have used it as an excuse for a power grab. We still have a Constitution, but given the weak will of the Supreme Court and the Congress, some days you'd hardly know it.

Just thinking of the airport annoyances I must endure to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family depresses me. We gave up on carrying the special apple sauce we love from the farmer's market, cause it won't pass muster in the carry-on and it's sure to shatter in the checked bags. So the world will be safer? I think not.

[DMM1029]

Jane is, of course, right on. Without respect for human rights, there is no national security..­........ul­timately.

Dave McGlaughlin
Harrisburg, Pa.

[Macready]

Thank you Jane . . . "national security" is a fear mongering device geared towards the destruction of rule of law and the Bill of Rights . . . as your rightly point out: it "is a code word for tribalism, while "human rights" is a code word for the rule of law."

Richardson does deserves praise for stating this . . . rule of law respects the dignity of human life . . . values which have had no place in the neo-con agenda which favours corporatism, cronyism and perpetual war at the expense of basic human rights . . .

Rule of law must be upheld and this should have been the first priority of the new Congress . . . impeachment is part of this process . . . without rule of law fascism flourishes . . .

[SD61]

From Jane's essay:

"Guess what? There is no such thing as "national security"; it's a concept that not only hasn't been defined, it can't be defined. It is a psychological state. The very phrase describes an impossibility. All boundaries in the U.S. and in every other country are porous. Planes come and go, as do ships, trains, trucks, autos, information superhighways, human relationships, and human emotions."

Mrs. Smiley, I've liked your stuff in the past, but now you are my hero. I couldn't have said it better. I love Bill Richardson, too. Both of you come over here and let me give y'all a big, warm hug, because as you both obviously understand there is no better security measure than that in this life.

Awesome! Bravo.

[mpgarr]

I just came back from a trip out of the country---as I arrived at Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport the other day---going through customs and all the stupid crap you have to do now--take off your shoes--can't take more than 3 oz. of liquid in your carry-on baggage---it made me think--and I wanted to say it outloud but thought better of that: "Osama Bin Laden chuckles each day when he thinks of the infidels now having to go through more security checks"--

They don't really need to do much more than a few targeted attacks every so often for we in the west to get all scared and tighten the screws on ourselves each time in response to their actions---

Yeap--OBL must have lots of yucks at how we have by our own hand, continually take away our freedoms, bit by bit--we hardly did as much to constrain ourselves in the time when at any moment in the height of the cold war with the Soviets---society could end at any moment in a nuclear flash----

Statistically--the avereage American has a much greater chance of winning one of those huge MegaMillion or Powerball lotttery jackpots than we do to be a victim within our own borders of an "Islamoterroist" attack--but we do have a greater chance of being the victim of a Christofacist terrorist act.

[Swordfish]

"Human rights" are no more real than "national security." What are encoded in the Bill of Rights and other documents are "civil rights" - legally defined, written guarantees derived from political philosophers of The Enlightenment.

Our recourse is to the U.S. Constitution, not to some vague concept of "human rights." "Human rights" as a concept would not have been recognized throughout most of hisotry. Some form of "national security" would have been. The clan, the tribe, the guild, the state - these social organizations have sought to protect themselves - by arms and by laws - since the beginning of time.

"Human rights" is a new-fangled concept.

Mind you - I'm not disparaging the concept... I just think it safer to argue from written documents. In particular, I believe that the U.S. Constitution, with the Bill of Rights, is the document to which we should defer. The limits of Government are reasonably well-articulated, as are the rights of "We, the People"... and by extension of ALL people within our jurisdiction.

Referencing the comment below, the correct answer to the question, "Human rights or national security?" is, "Yes!"

Bored? visit http://alqaedanabq.blogspot.com

[kooldaddie]

What a wonderful post. Thank you for articulating what I've been afraid to say, to think, to feel. That without human rights (if Bush gets his way--and if Guilliani is able to do Bush one better) we are not a nation.

[LizM]

Exactly which debate are you talking about here?

As I recall, the subject of human rights versus national security came up in the context of Pakistan and what should be US foreign policy toward Pakistan, and the region, and how that policy should be affected by the human rights records of those regional governments toward their own citizens.

Americans aren't the only ones who cherish their human rights, you know!

In any event, Governor Richardson demonstrated the kind of political pandering to the lowest common denominator that he has made a fine art out of, on any number of issues during the course of this campaign.

[ROADRUNNER DEM]

I disagree with your premise--Part 2

BLITZER: Senator Dodd, What is more important when they clash: human rights versus national security?

DODD: Obviously, national security, keeping the country safe. When you take the oath of office on January 20, you promise to do two things, and that is to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and protect our country against enemies both foreign and domestic. The security of the country is number one, obviously. Secondly, this doesn't mean -- elections are only one note, as they say, in the tune of democracy. Be careful what you wish for. If there were totally free elections. In many of the countries we're talking about today, the Islamic Jihad or the Islamic Brotherhood would win 85 percent of the vote. That's not a great outcome for us at this point either.

BLITZER: Senator Clinton, what do you say?

CLINTON: I agree with that completely. The first obligation of the president of the United States is to protect and defend the United States of America. That doesn't mean that it is to the exclusion of other interests. And there's absolutely a connection between a democratic regime and heightened security for the United States.

BLITZER: Thank you, Senator.

**(I removed remarks by Edwards, Obama. Dodd & Clinton for space)

My opinion: because of the Constitution, Bill of Rights & subsequent Civil Rights laws, by swearing to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and protect our country against enemies both foreign and domestic", it stands to reason...t­hat human rights are being protected. It's counter-productive to put the end before the means. We must remain a nation of laws, which has served us well until the last 7 years) and the human rights that we have fought so hard for will 'once again' shine from our shores.

[ROADRUNNER DEM]

I disagree with your premise that: PART 1
"Liberals, progressives, and Democrats recognize, at least intuitively, that "national security" is a code word for tribalism, while "human rights" is a code word for the rule of law"
CNN transcript: transcripts.cnn.com/nn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0711/15/se.02.html
BLITZER: Governor Richardson­...you've suggested cutting off military aid to Pakistan so long as the Pakistani leader doesn't restore the constitution, take off his military uniform, end national state of emergency & have free and fair elections. But some are worried that cutting off military aid to the Pakistan military could undermine U.S. national security. This country has nuclear weapons, strong Taliban and Al Qaida presence. Are you worried at all that as bad as President Musharraf might be, it could get a whole lot worse over there.
RICHARDSON: Of course I'm worried, but what happened with our Pakistan policy, we got our principles wrong. We forgot our principles, we said to Musharraf: security is more important than human rights. If I'm president, it's the other way around--democracy and human rights....­I would say, President Musharraf, unless you restore the constitution, have elections in January; end the state of emergency; allow Benazir Bhutto to run; put the supreme court back -- and something else we forgot. He is supposed to go after terrorists on his border. And he has done a very weak job of doing that. I believe moderate forces can win. So, if we're on the side of democracy and human rights and of Musharraf having elections, then U.S. interests are preserved, and the Pakistani people have a democracy.
BLITZER: Let me just be precise because I want to make sure we all -- I heard you correctly. What you're saying, Governor, is that human rights, at times, are more important than American national security?
RICHARDSON: Yes...beca­use I believe we need to find ways to say to the world that, you know, it's not just about what Halliburton wants in Iraq. It's also about...ou­r values of freedom, equality. Our strength is not just military and economic.

[Swordfish]

The false dichotomy trap:
"human rights" or "national security"?

The correct answer is, "Yes!"

There is no inherent conflict between CIVIL rights, as embodied in the U.S. Constitution (including Amendments) and national security.

To the extent that there is a perceived conflict, this apparent conflict is evidence that we have, in fact, failed to secure our nation: We have failed to preserve the ideals upon which this country is based, we have failed to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

A quotation, attributed with some semblance of legitimate pedigree to Benjamin Franklin, sums up the matter nicely:
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

[poppycock]

I guess that makes Burma the Neocon’s poster child

Having their priorities correctly established

They have their National Security and their Human Rights are “on the way”

[CharlesMac]

I will try to define "national security".

National security is the greatest domestic threat in the history of our Nation.

It is the worst of beasts. It cannot be confronted, for it has no face. It cannot be reasoned with, for it has no mind.

It actions provide no service, but yield consequences.

It will serve any master who calls upon it.

It does not care what ends to which it is the means.

By far, its greatest power is that it has no end.

By far, its greatest weakness is that it is nourished each day by our irrational fear.

Until We identify it for the monster it is...

Until We call out "Evil beast!" when We hear its name spoken....

Until We become courageous and put down Our fear....

Until We starve its power out of existence.­..

"National security" will live, and Our rights and freedoms will never ever be safe from it.

As Ms Smiley points out, national security is not safety, it is, at best, the illusion of safety.

It is time to end this abomination.

[Guitarsandmore]

“Which is more important National Security or human rights?”

National Security and human rights are not mutually exclusive so don’t fall into the trap of letting some Nazi make you choose between the two. The president is sworn to uphold ALL of the constitution not just a few select passages. Anyone who claims that your rights must be surrendered in order to secure the country is 1) lying to your face and 2) too incompetent to do the job right.

Let us not let the Republican talking points shape the nature of the debate by answering ridiculous questions. The owners of CNN and the rest of the media know exactly what they are doing when they cherry pick questions so that the debate can be steered away from important issues like health care, how to end the war, social security, jobs and the vanishing middle class, illegal immigration, education, government accountability to the American people, oversight, energy independence and global warming.

Justin A. Frank, psychiatrist and author of “Bush on the couch”, describes George W. Bush as a dangerous psychopath with little or no respect for the law and a history of ignoring the rules. History will remember GW as the worst president of the United States with a penchant for getting his own way by bullying, threatening, and ignoring the law.

[puroj]

I agree wholeheartedly with you, Jane. I am continuously amazed at the number of people in this county who, the instant they are faced with any kind of threat, so quickly and readily throw out the very human rights that our forefathers fought and died for. It does indeed take courage to stand up for one's own rights and the rights of others, even in the face of danger. But I had hoped that more Americans would not knuckle under at the first hint of danger. Do they not understand the importance and frailty of human rights in the history of this country and all humankind, or are they just afraid? It's hard to know. Neither is a respectable reason.

BTW, to others posting comments who portray this as partisan: this is not a Democrat vs. Republican issue. There are plenty from both parties who would fight and die for this country and the constitution on which it was founded. And, I'm sorry to say, there are those from both parties who will give away all their rights just for the hope of someone else protecting their personal "security," whether it makes them truly more secure or not.