The National Security Strategy of the United States of America

From “Braving The New World” by Thomas Bateman and Roger Pep.
Article 4: The National Security Strategy of the United States of America

June 13th, 2007
From Concepts to Reality (POLI 1100)

This article is about the National Security Strategy which is a political document that was issued by the Bush Administration following the attacks of September 11th. It provides key ways in which terrorism is present in today’s world and reasons why it is so. In the documents, there are descriptions of what freedom consists of, who should benefit from the ideas of freedom and ways in which freedom can be reached on a world scale. The documents also describe terrorism as a way to limit the freedoms of Americans and people of the world on a global scale.

This document, however, is written from a very American perspective. In the editor’s note, it is stated that the National Security Strategy says that “the United States makes itself secure by making the world like itself.” This essentially says that freedom can only come in one definition and that is an American freedom. If a nation does not follow the same ideals as America does and America has a problem with that, it will force its ideas of freedom on that nation thus removing and possibly restricting their ideas of what makes freedom.

The document itself contains some points to which I initially had some thoughts that conflicted with it. The first was with the line “America will hold to account nations that are compromised by terror, including those who harbor terrorists – because the allies of terror are the enemies of civilization” (31). If terrorism is as widespread and apparent in countries of the world as we are made to believe, it seems odd that the country receiving the most focus was coincidentally the same country that houses oil. The Bush Administration has been accused of attacking Iraq for the purposes of oil and not for the purposes of bringing freedom to its people, as had been, at one point, stated as the reason. Whether or not the invasion was mainly to attain the oil, the initial reason was to remove, from the hands of Iraq, the Weapons of Mass Destruction, which have never been found.

In relation to this is that situation involving North Korea. What is known and has been declared by the country itself is that North Korea does have or are working on having nuclear weapons, some of which have been tested, thus providing evidence that they are a threat to global stability should they ever decide to use them. However, looking at it from the surface, North Korea has nothing of significant value that the US would be interested in to the extent that Iraq has. And like Iraq under the reign of Saddam Hussein, North Korea is presently known to have one of the world’s worst cases of human rights for its citizens. The document claims that it will fight for freedom and the basic rights of people around the world, but it would seem that only applies to nations that have something of interest for America to gain.

Another part of the document that got me thinking was a section in regards to freedom. It states that “Freedom is the nonnegotiable demand of human dignity; the birthright of every person – in every civilization. Throughout history, freedom has been threatened by war and terror; it has been challenged by the clashing wills of powerful states and the evil designs of tyrants; and it has been tested by widespread poverty and disease” (32).

This leads me to one question. What is freedom?

I believe that freedom is something that depends on perspective. The American belief of freedom is much different than that of Europe, Asia, Africa and even here in Canada. Freedom can mean freedom of religion or freedom from religion; freedom from freedom itself in the sense that if we have ultimate freedom, we have no laws and no limitations and thus could result in a collapse of society. Therefore, what we see as freedom could be looked at as a specific set of protective limitations. So limitations set on Canadians are different as a society in comparison to the limitations imposed on Americans as their idea of freedom.

In Canada, for example, the idea of “freedom of speech” is slightly different than the American “freedom of speech”. And even among certain groups of people, the idea of freedom is different between the two nations that otherwise, could be viewed as very similar on a world scale. To give a quick example, in Canada, homosexuals have the freedom to marry under the law and have protective laws from hate crimes committed on them whereas in America, it is religion that has the freedom against marrying same-sex couples and a recent proposal for hate-crime legislation for protection of homosexuals may be vetoed by President Bush should the situation arise. This is due to a possible restriction of “freedom of speech” of certain religious groups (A). The same “freedom of speech” that, depending on perspective, may promote a form of terrorism toward a specific group of individuals.

And another question that arises from what freedom is has to do with individuals of Muslim faith that have had experienced restrictions on their freedom since 2001. There have been many cases of detaining Muslims on the grounds that they were suspected of terrorist involvement only to find the allegations false. A well known example in Canada is that of Mahar Arar, who was detained in September 2002 in New York, imprisoned in Syria for nearly a year where he was tortured continuously until his release in October 2003 (B). Where was the desire for basic human rights during this and other similar situations? Are there exceptions to the unwritten rules? Who determines them?

This begs the question again: What is freedom and in whose perspective is freedom the correct definition?

Another thought that popped into my mind while reading this document has to do, again, with perspective, in relation to what terrorism actually is. In North America, most of us would perceive the attacks on the World Trade Centre to be that of terrorism while few of us would consider the American-led attack on Iraq not to be. But if we consider, for a second, the people behind the attacks, the men that hijacked the planes that crashed into those buildings, are probably, in some way and by some people, viewed as heroes and martyrs as they fight against the so-called “evil ideals and values” of America. And in return, we view the soldiers in Iraq fighting for “freedom” and democracy as heroes and martyrs. In both cases, people are dying for things they believe in. Who’s to say which belief is right and which belief is wrong if we are only accustomed to think in the only way that we have been taught to believe.

The ideas and principles in the society that we grow up in shape our system of beliefs and what we think to be right and wrong in the same way that others believe in their own system of beliefs that are not shared by what we believe. When it comes down to it, terrorism as a source can come from opposing nations and people whose beliefs conflict with our own but in turn terrorism can also come from ourselves when we, as a nation and society, try to impose our system of beliefs on those same people. It all comes down to perspective and the willingness to see from the perspective of the very people whose beliefs we disagree with may help us in the long run to understand and not to change, but to accept their beliefs and values. Otherwise, enforcing our own beliefs is limiting freedom and limiting freedom is terrorism.

References

A. Simon, R. (2007, May 4). Los Angeles Times. Received on June 13th, 2007, from http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-hate4may04,0,3438099.story?track=mostviewed-homepage

B. Mayer, J. (2005, February 14). The New Yorker. Received on June 13th, 2007, from http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/02/14/050214fa_fact6