Homeland security is a moral hazard

I wrote this an for a while there was no example of the attitude that I advocate to security. Then the Norwegian massacre occurred and the Norwegian people responded by standing for more freedom, more openness, more democracy. That’s what I mean when I say that a society must strive for the minimum of security that it needs, not the maximum it can have.

Suppose that you’re a young member of a family – a fairly traditional family – and one day dad says: “You know, the world has become a really dangerous place. In order to keep you safe we have to install bullet-proof windows and 24-hour security”.

What do you make of that? Well, there are four explanations.

• Dad is a hero. He’s a judge in a high-profile corruption case. You need the protection for noble reasons, and you need courage.
• You live in a really rough neighbourhood and need the protection just because the family is well off, which is sad and cause for thought.
• Dad has his priorities misplaced. Maybe he’s too afraid of other people, or maybe he needs to care for the family more in other ways.
• Dad is a gangster. He knows just why there may be bricks or bullets coming through the window and, in order to continue being a gangster, he needs to arrange security.

If dad is your government, especially the government of the United States, I think the last explanation is most likely.

You’re in a gangster family. It may look cosy and civilized at home, and dad may be treating you and mom very well, but on another part of the neighborhood dad’s goons are breaking the arms of anyone who tries to develop in a socialist way (Vietnam), sell its oil to the wrong people (Iraq), or simply stand up and defy the racket (Serbia).

That may cause bricks, or even bullets, co come flying through the window. That’s why you need Homeland Security. The honorable TSA who protects you in good faith, and the high-tech scanner, are there so that dad can continue being a gangster while having a normal family life. Domestic security is a moral hazard.

Yes, I do regard the US troops in the gulf as goons. The same goes for the ones that a long time ago brutalized Vietnam, and most other smaller deployments with few exceptions. Although I appreciate the risk that they take, and realize that many if not most consider that they are making a heroic sacrifice, I just see them as unfortunate. They’re sometimes misguided and usually powerless ordinary people put in a terrible position by profiteering elites, like most soldiers in history. That may be too bleak a reality, but a reality it is. I feel some compassion for the troops as well as their victims, but no support.

Please also understand that although I’m naming the US state as the gangster, I don’t wish to imply that Americans, or their officials, are a bad stock of people. The previous world gangster was Britain, and the last one before them on a comparable scale was the Romans. Various lesser gangsters do the same thing. America just happens to be the top don right now. People are morally equal the world over, and people in power are usually the worst ones everywhere. It’s the function of domestic security as a moral hazard that I want to comment on.

Since WW2, what the US troops and policies do is uphold US interests, and in the case of the Third World that means aggressive “we win, you lose” interests. The pattern is consistent from Truman to Bush. The global standing and conduct of the US was different up to WW2, and Obama hasn’t so far started a gangster venture of his own.

Mostly the victims of the racket are weak and decent folk, like Latin America, so when the goons come nobody talks about it. The muslim world has proved to be a defiant family business. Maybe the stakes over the world’s last remaining oil are too high, maybe religion and identity are strong, or maybe they just have unruly sons. Anyway, after extortion had gone on for some time, someone through a brick through the gangster’s window. That was back in 2001, and the bloody reprisals are just ending.

Yes, although on a human scale September 11 was a terrible murder, on the scale of global power it was a brick through the window. It was a way of saying “fuck you” like when some unknown person in Edinburgh sent a brick through the window of Fred Goodwin, ex boss of the Royal Bank of Scotland, for profiteering at the expense of the bank and society.

At the level that terrorism happens today, thankfully, it’s resentment. Somebody is immensely angry or feels (wrongly in general) that causing some pain to the gangster or his family will improve matters. That goes for terrorism against superpowers – terrorism over occupied territory is a different game. Terrorism with weapons of mass destruction would be the equivalent of gang warfare.

The point of all this is that domestic security is a moral hazard, and its strength is an indicator of unethical state conduct. It allows the state to make enemies without fear of repercussions. If security is high, you can be confident that enemy-making is well and good, and going to continue. Unless you want the gangster lifestyle, making enemies of ordinary people is both immoral (the things you do to them) and unproductive. No family would really want to have that kind of relationship with the world, and no state should either.

What, then, is to be done? Should Homeland Security be scaled back so that terrorists can kill people more easily to express their resentment? No. I’m not suggesting that the level of security can be used as an independent variable. You need whatever security you need. However, Homeland Security should be used as an indicator. Remember that during Bush they were fond of using that color-coded scale? That ugly theater prop was surprisingly fitting, in a way.

First, security is not to be celebrated. Any official demand for security must be questioned. If the executive asks for additional security measures, ask them what they did to need them. A genuine need for security is shame. If the state makes a good case that the enemies are genuine, then the public must see it as a problem to live in a state that has real enemies.

The US media have shown some agility in portraying terrorists both as criminal extremists and as irregular enemy combattants, using whatever metaphor suits. They have portrayed the problem of world security as irrational. Terrorists are mad. They blow people up because they have views that don’t even fit into a world order of the present time. Well that’s not accurate. They have recognizable demands and criminal methods, like the Somali pirates. The media don’t portray the pirates as mad, and neither are the terrorists. Both are sane and in the wrong.

The media also assert, especially using September 11 as an example, that we’re at the stage of gang warfare. That the enemies of the US are out to commit genocide, and that if they had access to weapons of mass destruction they would use them. That message is deeply unproductive. We’re at the stage of bricks through the window (bad as it is, when it means that innocent people are murdered). The claim that a weak nation is willing to let genocidal acts be committed against a strong has not been demonstrated, is in my view false, and to propagate this myth is morally reckless.

Secondly, the real problems of political security need to be tackled. Large parts of the world’s population should not be enemies of the US, or whoever might be the top superpower at another time. Policies that make these people, mostly poor people, hate the masters of the world must be changed, and that means, to be blunt, no more coercion of wealth and power away from the poor and towards the rich. That in turn means a less extravagant lifestyle, or at least consumption, for the ex-gangster’s family. It does mean bringing the lives of the best and the worst off closer together, and if you are the spoilt child of the gangster family that will take some disillusionment. Material compromise is needed here, in order to achieve harmony and progress.

Of course, there will always be a few people who take extreme views at odds with their community. That might be said of neo-nazi or libertarian terrorists native to the West, for example. These should be approached as criminals, which also means with due process and respect for human rights. Some such extremists may be found in the Middle East, or anywhere really, even in a world order that is just. However, Interpol and not Homeland Security would be the right agency to guard against them.

When the world superpower stops doing evil, it needs also to do some good. There’s plenty of resentment built up around the world, and it will fade with the generations, but it would be better if it fades faster. America (and Europe, and China) must be seen to lead the world and bring it to a good place, and that means actually doing things that are good for the world. It doesn’t just mean better PR. The same wish is expressed by many, for reasons that are not only to do with security.

Then, when the world is more just and the United States is seen in a positive moral light, security should actually be scaled back. This is a difficult one. Security is sticky. No-one wants to be the politician who cuts back on security just before people get blown up. To some extent, security has to rise steadily in response to the technical sophistication of extremists, but it’s far above the curve today. When foreign public resentment is reliably low, and an honest assessment of threat shows the need for security to be genuinely low, excess security should actually be trimmed off.

Security should be at the lowest, not the highest, level consistent with safety because that is the correct moral incentive to any government. The government whose citizens are protected no more than those of any other people around the world is one that is acting morally – not because fear of terrorism holds the state hostage but because an undertaking to its own people to function without the moral hazard of perfect security is an undertaking to function morally.