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

[gro]

John Dean's Broken Government is a great book. I was surprised to learn that some fundamental extremists such as Scalia and Thomas would not apply the Bill of Rights to the states. In other words, any state could censor speech, establish an official religion, and shut down news outlets according to this judicial philosophy. It's what the neocons mean by choosing judges who believe in 'strict constructionism' or 'original intent'.
If more Republicans are elected, we will be asking that our country be destroyed from within.

[research]

Human Rights are More Important than National Security because a nation must be WORTHY to survive.

[OhPlease2007]

Human Rights -&- National Security Are EQUALLY important these days. You protect Americans but you don't physically torture anyone for intelligence purposes. I'm surprised that Bill Richardson, who has garnered support from the NRA in the past, didn't state this; he must be thinking ahead to his next political campaign when he loses in Iowa and drops out; I hear he is thinking of a senatorial bid. LOL

[joebaggadonuts]

Thank you Jane Smiley. Your voice is completely clear now, and right as rain.

[marq104]

Chris Dodd started off right. “On Jan 20th you are sworn in to uphold the constitution and to protect the nation from enemies both foreign and domestic”, then he went wrong by saying “yes, the first duty of a president is to protect the nation so national defense comes first.”

The founding fathers were very wise in putting those two things in the order they were put. If national defense comes FIRST then, like GWB, one can shred the constitution in the name of national defense. That opens the road to dictatorship. Upholding the constitution MUST come first.

[julianne]

Thank you for clarifying such an important distinction. What has been transpiring seems antithetical to any real national security agenda. We'll always remember the list of emphatic warnings received by Cheney and Bush prior to 9/11, significant warnings from many of our allies, including Russia and Israel, and also the administration's own national security advisors who subsequently resigned. Cheney and Bush ignored them all and showed absolutely no concern to take any action or even hold a meeting to discern the possible locations and mode of the foretold attack. To millions of us, they and their attorney general appeared to be criminally negligent (read the polls). From the outset, this has also appeared to be a political war against the physical and mental health of the American people, their political and public institutions, and their inalienable rights and protocols which protect us from an aribtrary and aggressive world. Concurrent to the invasion of Iraq which created a psychological and material context to further deplete and destabilize the U.S, private institutions invaded the public domains and sucked up billions in profits, as planned by Rumsfield and Cheney. Witness the historical funding of the neocon's American Enterprise Institute by Exxon-Mobil and the ensuing Iraqi oil contracts. Certainly the major funder of the AEI fully understood the relatively narrow agenda of those running his private, political foundation. Bush and Cheney terrified the American people from the get-go with their lying color code alerts and other B.S. Remember the anthrax that was tracked to a U.S. biological warfare laboratory and then loosed upon Democrat representatives that was never fully investigated? Just like the economic order and financial system being assymetrcially unbalanced, degraded, and corrupted, the education system ignored, the media further centralized by the unnatural influence of militaristic-private institutions, the dollar wrecked, and the dispartity of income rapidly becoming physically and mentally destructive to the population at large. It seems we are all now involved in pathological, private synergies that are pulling our nation down in the name of national security. In Europe they call this fascism.

[ljsfolly]

I was puzzled when the question was asked as it was one that you could tell had the ones answering National Security with their chest puffed out like it was the
American Thing" to say!! This administration has promoted such fear and ideaology based on "security" and keeping us safe that national security was thrust out like we have a obligation to provide it to ourselves. Human Rights has long been the real issues behind all American speech and beliefs and that we have "basic human rights" throughout the world. Security as is fear merely a state of mind.We all held the illusion of safety until 9/11 like those before us did with Pearl Harbor. I love that I do not stand alone in the sharing the beliefs you do. My mind and heart are more at rest now.

[AbstractImp]

Thank you for speaking out in the name of liberty.

Jefferson fought for you, Lincoln fought for you - our fathers and grandfathers fought and died for those of us who believe in the Bill of Rights, not for the scum that steal elections so they can steal from the treasury, ignore the helpless when they suffer misfortune, send our children off to die in illegal wars, slaughter a million without just cause, and claim to be "spreading democracy".

I am not afraid. I am an old man. I will live out the rest of my little life as if my rights remain intact.

I will not succumb to dictatorship or to theocracy. My rights are not sanctioned by god or by dictators but by me.

Take my rights away and you make me a terrorist. I refuse to live as the likes of Bush-Cheney-Rove tell me I should live.

Imprison me as an enemy combatant for wanting to preserve liberty. Dig deeper the black hole of your "legacy".

Shoot me if you wish, Mr Bush. I will gladly give up my life to start the rebellion that brings down you and all that you stand for.

I would rather die with my rights than live as a scared rabbit under a hateful dictator.

I am not afraid for me. But I am afraid for the next generation. They will be confronted by the rats and skunks of our system, who only seek office so as to destroy our nation.

If someone calls you un-American for wanting to protect liberty - then you know who your enemy is.

Are you "secure" if you cannot speak? Are you "secure" if you cannot write? Are you "secure" if you cannot think?

There is a great liar telling you to give up your rights so that you will be "safe". But will that make you safe ... from your real enemy?

And we all know who is the enemy of freedom today....

[GuiltyByStander]

Of course the question was unanswerable in a "yes or no" during the debate. Another TV trap -- and your thoughtful essay proves it.

However, I think that "security" is closer to the correct answer in that context than "human rights."

A US President makes a promise in the Oath of Office. Maybe it's the wrong thing to ask or less than should be asked, but it's what _is_ asked now and the question that these candidates may have to accept. Biden and Dodd, along with Obama and Clinton seem to know their Constitution. One of them, Biden, still teaches it in law school.

Human rights, as you point out so well, are not just for American humans. But other humans do persist in choosing rights other than those we choose. So far, though I believe -- and you believe -- they should be universal, they are not.

American human rights are the tractable issue in this election. What is the point along the range of insecure to secure where American human rights reach their highest point? We'll never know for sure because, again as you point out, it's not a political question.

I was raised in a county that never assumed individual rights the way American tradition frames it. Canada now has a Charter of Human Rights, but it gives way to common good on many occasions. At the moment, I suggest that I would be freer and would enjoy more human right there than I do here. How odd.

[leftbehind2000]

Thank you Jane. You hit the nail on the head. The walking deads on CNN after the debate suggested as well that Richardson gave the wrong answer (as I remember, it was about the only thing they said regarding his performance).

So why is human rights considered merely a "liberal" value? Isn't it an American value? What would Lincoln say? Or Kennedy? Actually, in a cockeyed way, isn't it Bush's stated value as well? After all, once WMDs proved to be phantom, wasn't the adjusted excuse for war to liberate Iraq from the Hussein regime?

While I won't likely be voting for Richardson, his answer notching him up a few levels in my mind.

[HansB]

I agree with the emotional gist of this article but not with the careless way words are used and even defined.

Human rights is NOT a code word for the Rule of Law. What kind of nonsense is that? There were no "human" rights in Jefferson's day. There was slavery and the non-enfranchisement of women, quite in accordance with the law and the Rule of Law. The US Bill of Rights may have acted as an inspiration but it was NOT the primary codification of human rights - certainly internationally everyone would agree that the crown goes to the Geneva Conventions, followed by other international conventions some of which the US, by the way, has not signed.

The reason human rights usually go hand in hand with the Rule of Law, is because they need to be enforced by the courts. But that's assuming that such rights are actually included in the law. When they are not, no court can help you, Rule of Law notwithstanding.

And national security is NOT a code word for tribalism, even if the argument of national security is often misused by whoever controls the executive branch of government. National security - safety from attack whether external or internal - can be invoked in very diverse countries just as easily as in ethnically pure ones. Remember the Latin American dictatorships?

[yooper2]

Another well written and truthful article.Keep up the good work. To be asked to give up some freedoms for security is unadulterated BS. Shame on Tom Grieve for his article!

[rhutcheson]

This article made me a fan of Jane Smiley.

[realitytrumpsbull]

So, like if you were in charge of NashlSkirty,
would you enforce the immigration laws, or
not? Do you approve of the idea of handing out
money to people, especially people in other
countries, out of your fellow americans'
wallets? Or, do you kind of just daisy-chain
all that together so you can cry crocodile
tears to get Congress to mint off ANOTHER
trillion dollars? Sounds like communism to me,
'hand up' is different from 'handout'. The
reason that a lot of our big cities are so
screwed up is because things like immigration
laws have been neglected for DECADES. If
you're going to be serious about any discussion
about national anything, there needs to first
be a good discussion about enforcing standing
federal laws. Or, conversely, abolishing them.
9 trillion and counting...your move!
Dollarpeso, here we come!
LOL

Oh, and building a road isn't 'national
security', it's a public works thing, you
know, put down the donut and go drive the
bulldozer etc...

[TRYKER]

Most pointedly, that either/or gotcha ploy was strictly neocon jazz and should have been greeted with absolute defiance by the candidates, with a loud "Shame on you Wolf" to boot.
Denial of human rights, as we have seen a la Gitmo, have resulted in LESS national security a la increased recruiting of terrists.
If US had considered Iraqis human rights, we would not have killed 1 million!
Iraqi national security certainly was not improved by denying human rights.
If human rights had been considered in NAFTA, our nation would not have been over-run by the impoverished seeking survival.
If human rights had been primary, we wouldn't have The Patriot Act or MCA which undermine those rights under the guise of national security.
Using their answers to lambaste those candidates was as unexcuseable as the stoooopid question.