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September 15, 2006

On Weakening Rights In Order To Save Them

How easily we all have forgotten that, as Joshua Muravchik, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, points out - "The greatest victories for freedom, such as World War II, came at the temporary expense of some liberties."

DOES THE WAR against terrorism threaten our civil liberties and diminish human rights globally? This concern has reverberated through a series of scandals and revelations: Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, secret prisons, warrantless wiretaps, surveillance of bank records and more. The legislation President Bush proposed last week on the handling of terrorism suspects and on eavesdropping only fueled the fears.

But is it possible that the war on terror, aside from being necessary to our national security, will also advance the cause of human rights? Consider: The two greatest triumphs for human rights in modern times, and perhaps in history, were the Allied victory over the Axis in World War II and the West's victory over the Soviet empire in the Cold War. Each foe was not only a threat to the United States but also a monstrous enemy of human rights and liberties. To this we might add that the single greatest triumph for human rights in U.S. history was the North's victory in the Civil War.

... none of today's human rights lapses is nearly as egregious as those earlier ones. Despite the talk about the weakening of American democracy, the latitude of free speech, including against the war itself, has not narrowed. Government monitoring of phone and banking records has not led to a single persuasive allegation of information being used for nefarious purposes, as, say, J. Edgar Hoover used the fruits of FBI wiretaps. Nor has the abrogation of the rights of terrorism suspects given rise to charges that an innocent individual was being railroaded because of ulterior or capricious motives by any official. As for "profiling," the fact that air travelers of Middle Eastern mien are more likely to get patted down scarcely ranks with the internment of Japanese Americans.

... Failure in the war against terror would force us to tighten our borders and police the homeland in ways that would be much more corrosive to our liberties. And it would strengthen totalitarian jihadists in Muslim lands.

... In contrast, success will secure our own freedom and help spread liberty elsewhere.

Related: Democrats Adrift On National Security - "Wonder what national security will be like under a Democrat-controlled Congress? Wonder no more. Minority leader Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats are telling you right now, and it isn't comforting."

Posted by Richard at September 15, 2006 2:22 PM