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 bogeymen. 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.