How Keeping Us Safe Doesn't: The Terrible Domestic Perils Of A Permanent War Footing

[cali]

Last edited Wed Aug 7, 2013, 08:42 PM - Edit history (2)

Being ever at war, presents the greatest danger to democracy. Attempting to strike a balance between the prevention of attacks on the U.S. and its interests overseas and the preservation of our civil liberties and democracy is doomed to fail if we are endlessly on a war footing. Being in a state of war has institutionalized paranoia and fear and that has not served us well.

In 2006, James Fallows wrote: "A state of war encourages a state of fear". Fallows went on to quote the author of the book "Trapped in the War on Terror":

“The War on Terror does not reduce public anxieties by thwarting terrorists poised to strike,” writes Ian Lustick, of the University of Pennsylvania, in his forthcoming book, Trapped in the War on Terror. “Rather, in myriad ways, conducting the antiterror effort as a ‘war’ fuels those anxieties.” John Mueller writes in his book that because “the creation of insecurity, fear, anxiety, hysteria, and overreaction is central for terrorists,” they can be defeated simply by a refusal to overreact. This approach is harder in time of war. ".

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/09/declaring-victory/305124/7/

7 years have elapsed, giving us some time to assess the argument that the War on Terror is more counterproductive than productive when it comes to eradicating dangers to our democracy.

Fallows argued that the U.S. should declare victory and shift from a war footing. He didn't mean that we should ignore dangers of attacks, but that overreaction to threats that are not nearly as great as some in government portray, is the far greater threat.

Dismantling civil liberties under the auspices of the imperative of "keeping us safe" is inevitable under a permanent war footing. That's become clear in the years since 2007 when Fallow's wrote his prescient article. He suggested then that the U.S. declare victory in the War on Terrorism and dismantle the war footing that's been in place since 9/11.

There are those that argue that our civil liberties haven't been impinged on let alone dismantled in the years since 9/11. There are always those who, for whatever reasons, refuse to acknowledge reality.

In March, before NSA abuses were revealed and the attention of the nation turned to surveillance, U.S. News and World Report published an article which contained the following paragraphs:

<snip>

Since 9/11, Republican and Democratic administrations have been hiding their warfare procedures behind a veil of classification and bureaucracy while steadily increasing their ability to both spy on the private communication of American citizens and kill people based on the president's sole discretion. The judgment of Congress and the president was intended to inform major decisions on foreign policy and national defense in order to protect the rights and liberties of Americans under the Constitution. When secrecy shields government accountability and transparency, it short circuits our democratic process. Currently, the U.S. government operates in the absence of checks and balances when the president and his lawyers can claim that the courts and the Congress cannot rule or set standards on whether its robust executive power violates constitutionally protected Due Process rights. The collateral damage unleashed on foreign civilians by means of war is egregious, but the altering of the structure of institutions dedicated to protecting our liberties is yet another upsetting implication of our permanent state of war.

Texas A&M University Professor Christopher Layne writes in "Kant or Cant: The Myth of Democratic Peace" that the greater the external threat a state faces or believes that it does, the more autocratic its foreign policy making process will be and the more centralized its political structures will become. Layne argues that external threats necessitate a powerful governmental apparatus to mobilize resources for national security purposes; in turn, the more likely these states are to adopt statist forms of democracy or even authoritarian structures. As we have witnessed with past conflicts, and especially since 9/11, war concentrates power in the executive branch and thus expands the limits placed on our constitutional republic.

<snip>
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2013/03/14/perpetual-war-makes-obamas-drone-abuses-possible

It is well past time to end The War on Terrorism.

[cali]

1. kick for the hell of it.

[LWolf]

2. K&R