Security the Progressive Way: Alternative Paths to Preventing Terrorism

John Tirman

The painful debate in liberal and progressive circles about toughening up the Democratic Party's anti-terrorism stance is missing an opportunity on homeland security issues. Despite the fact that the 2004 election hinged on Americans' concerns about domestic terrorism, the subject typically gets only unimaginative or predictable responses---spend more money for first responders; roll back the USA Patriot Act; and plug the holes in America's very holey defenses against evil doers. There is a much more attractive option: seize upon homeland security to reshape social and economic priorities.

The U.S. strategy for homeland security that has gradually emerged from the trauma of 9/11 emphasizes preventive deterrence against Muslim communities in the United States, protection of dangerous facilities, and enhanced capacity for police, fire fighters, and health professionals to respond to a terrorist attack. President Bush has consistently opted for "hardening" American society and its economy, the domestic complement to the anti-terrorism campaign worldwide. The costs---in dollars, values, and vulnerabilities---are very high, however, and the actual protection bought is uncertain.

Two alternative approaches should be considered. Both take the threat of foreign-based terrorism seriously, but insist on comprehensive and integrated policies that emphasize cooperation over fear within society. The first is to rebut the administration's hyperbolic claims about the efficacy and morality of its preventive deterrence strategy, and its homeland security hardening. The second is to propose a radical reshaping of social and economic infrastructure to reduce vulnerability and gain some important social goods in the bargain.

A "hardened" America

The hardening of society begins with Muslims in America. Terrorist-related prosecutions, harassment of Muslims and other Arab-Americans, and surveillance and disruption in these communities has included 200,000 FBI interviews, “special registration” for thousands of Muslim men, as well as hundreds of deportations. All of this has not produced evidence that there is a domestic terrorist threat lurking in American society. In fact, the 9/11 Commission report could uncover no such plot, and the nearly 400 indictments by the Justice Department are a parade of inconsequential misdemeanors or actions unrelated to al Qaeda. This is not just about civil liberties---there is a larger danger that Muslims are being targeted by federal authorities as a permanent internal threat. We are witnessing the re-emergence of a Cold War culture in a new U.S. security apparatus and compliant social and political institutions.

This is not to say there is no threat, of course---a substantial risk of large-scale attacks on America by al Qaeda persists, but from abroad, and it is growing as a result of the Iraq war.

The anti-Muslim juggernaut also twists the role of society itself in protecting ourselves from terrorism. Alienating and isolating Muslims, Arab-Americans, South Asians and other such immigrant communities is foolish on moral grounds and as a means to achieve anti-terrorism goals: what we should be fostering from these communities is cooperation, not alienation. It is an attitude now animating U.S. policy more broadly.

The administration is intentionally fostering mistrust and anxiety. Through the endless stream of higher alerts and its alarmist rhetoric, it is nurturing an ethos of fear as civic virtue. It sponsors, for example, programs in schools and in civic education that emphasize being alert to the possibility of terrorists in one's community. As Steven Heydemann and Amaney Jamal point out in a new study for the Social Science Research Council, "Through such initiatives, the Corporation for National and Community Service and other government agencies, as well as nonprofit organizations linked to these agencies, are integrating norms of homeland security as a defining element in the broader relationship between citizens and government. It is being used to reframe commitments to civic education, with a special focus on bringing homeland security themes into K-12 curricula in public schools. It is also becoming more prominent in the governance of other activities long associated with the vitality of civic life in the United States, including volunteering, community service, and charitable giving."

A recent example is the expensive "public discourse project" of a new organization promoted by 9/11 Commission co-chairs Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton---the America Prepared Campaign, which pushes an urgent, family regimen to "be ready" for terrorist attacks.

So Bush's version of homeland security---defined as a need to be watchful, suspicious, and defensive---is the core social value being promoted in federal education and other social initiatives. It seeps into popular culture, most notably in the odious television hit, "24," and combines neatly with right-wing religious ideologies. This is, to be sure, consistent: Bush is spending a colossal amount of money to toughen airport security, harden targets like the Washington Monument, and intimidate the Arab world with military force, measures that might produce marginally more security. Along the way, he is insinuating values that breed mistrust of others at home and abroad.

The progressive alternative

Democrats have largely bought into the Bush policy, though in a lighter version. The sum of John Kerry's proposals last year was to plug holes in defenses (air cargo, ports, nuclear plants, etc.) and spend more money on first responders. But there is a much more attractive and assertive set of policies available that match up well with progressive priorities. American society could be activated in ways that integrates security with a new provision of social goods, providing tangible benefits for Americans while minimizing the nation's vulnerabilities to al Qaeda and its successors.

Progressives are caught in a bind, because no one knows if the threat of terrorism is potentially catastrophic or not. How to respond? Instead of the endless social and physical hardening that gains us little and incurs enormous costs---and looks like parroting of the White House---we could pursue policies that minimizes risk and maximizes the ability to respond. Along the way, other benefits would accrue, benefits that fulfill progressive goals of equity, community, and sustainability.

Consider the nation's energy system. Today, it is a complex of petroleum-based technologies and nuclear power plants, all of which are vulnerable in some way---equally true for the petrochemicals that are overused in manufacturing and agriculture. The conventional answer to these vulnerabilities is hardening: literally, as with cement barricades and containers, or via stepped-up surveillance and other security measures. Few if any political leaders ask if the system itself needs rethinking. A large-scale investment in renewable energy and conservation, for example, would yield results that may be more expensive than fossil fuels are currently, but would bring many safety and security benefits, and less pollution. (According to reports of the testimony of the captured al Qaeda leader Sheik Mohammed, one of his strategies was to steal gasoline delivery trucks and blow them up.) It would also address the petroleum dependency that is a root stem of the terrorism threat.

The most hazardous energy facilities are located in places where poor and working class people live: they are most vulnerable, and they are least well protected. Vulnerabilities are not evenly distributed in society. When catastrophes strike the poor suffer most. Eric Klinenberg’s recent book, Heat Wave, shows graphically how a heat wave in Chicago most severely impacted the poor and elderly, and the tsunami in Asia is another grisly example. Redressing this imbalance, and improving society's overall resilience to terrorism, would include upgrading public health systems (for example, more neighborhood clinics), improving mass transit, developing alternatives to hazardous materials and their transport, and a myriad of other "infrastructure" reforms that would require social agreement to work optimally. Having local solar arrays or windmills to produce power is one example: "not in my backyard" would not apply, but strong citizen participation would. The benefits outweigh the sacrifices, however, and along the way, we would garner an increase of trust in public institutions---the sense of equity and fair play---that are essential to a long-term antiterrorist effort.

That this vast reconfiguration of how we derive and use fuel, chemicals, etc., would be costly is an understatement. Rejiggering the energy system alone would reach into the trillions of dollars, and would have to include alternatives to the internal-combustion engine. (This has to be done within 50-75 years anyway, due to declining global oil capacity.) Since 9/11, however, homeland security expenditures, both public and private, total something like a half-trillion dollars, and this does not include the costs of military interventions in the Persian Gulf since 1990.

Apart from new jobs in the security industries, these expenditures have produced little in the way of public goods or "social capital." We do not have better social or physical infrastructure, better schools, or a stronger sense of justice. We do have more encumbrances, more mistrust, more anxiety---possibly greater security---but few if any outcomes for a better society.

Consider another example of creating social goods with enhanced security: improving the public health system. Building local public clinics to deal effectively with infectious diseases, immediate and unencumbered access for the uninsured, vaccination programs, attention to children and youth, and so on, would provide protection on those specific problems, but also creates a new opportunity to reach people in the under-served areas that are most exposed to the risk of disasters and social dislocations of all kinds. Such clinics serve as educational platforms as well as health providers. And, in the process, they would demonstrate a level of caring in society that is now spotty at best.

In the unlikely event of a biological weapon attack or something similar, a layer of protection would be in place, one that not only can provide health services but would be an empowering link in an essential social network. Consider how anthrax or other "bioterror" diseases manifest themselves---often with only gradually worsening symptoms---and how reluctant uninsured people are to go to a hospital, even when they are ill. A bolstered public health system---nationwide, connected, technically sophisticated, and trained for multiple threats, terrorism included---would be a layer of defense; it would demonstrate to the public that the government is serious about reducing vulnerabilities; and it would have manifold benefits for combating other diseases and social ills.

Reducing vulnerabilities does not mean al Qaeda cannot strike America. By reducing the numbers of targets of potential catastrophe, however, and by bolstering the social and physical infrastructure of response, the possibilities for suffering a debilitating loss are reduced. But if reducing vulnerability simply means hardening, with no changes in why vulnerabilities are high, and social response is based on fear rather than a positive-sum social contract, then it will be difficult to sustain attention to and investments in homeland defenses. The "securitization" of America will remain expensive and paranoid, while the most important elements of improving security through social organization will be forfeited.

A reconstruction of energy choices, public health, mass transit, and trust in government is daunting. But a precedent for undertaking such vast social change is visible in “how we have come to manage the safety imperative over the past century,” as Stephen Flynn, a former White House security advisor, notes in his book, America the Vulnerable. Enormous strides were made in everything from flame-retardant children's clothing to food safety to handling of hazardous materials in manufacturing. The economy adapted, and in fact new industries and jobs were created to provide this added layer of safety. Over this same period, safety became a broader social concern---safety in schools, safe access for the handicapped, safety in driving, safety in the natural environment, safety in relationships. While this was hardly a seamless triumph, the safety issue was engaged broadly, in part because ordinary people could see beyond the costs and inconveniences to the benefits for themselves and their communities. As Flynn notes, if we are "smart in how we construct a security deterrent, we will achieve other benefits.”

Thinking about homeland security in this same way would give progressives a decided edge in the debate about how best to protect Americans in the age of global terrorism. Does America want to deal with vulnerabilities arising from its petroleum facilities? Then get serious about reducing petroleum dependencies. Does America want to have a truly effective first-responder system? Then get serious about dispersing and upgrading public health networks. Does America want to enhance trust in the public institutions needed to combat terrorism? Then get serious about building public institutions that deserve respect, provide services, protect civil liberties, and expand public goods. And so on.

Every war, indeed every great national challenge, not only demanded sacrifice, but has reordered social relations and yielded new public goods in return. The Second World War, for example, brought advances in racial integration, the GI Bill, and other such rewards. It is worth examining that tradition, and reinventing it, as a galvanizing core of a progressive, anti-terrorism agenda.