GIVE ME SECURITY, GIVE THEM DEATH (via Kevin L. Whited):

The Liberty of Others (Carroll Andrew Morse, 03/18/2004, Tech Central Station)

They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.

-- Benjamin Franklin [...]

The willingness of Spain to abandon the Iraqi people after the Madrid bombings demonstrates the existence of an option for trading liberty for security not anticipated by Franklin. Franklin assumed the existence a dangerous human inclination to sacrifice one's own liberty in pursuit of security. Over the past several decades, however, a different source of liberty that can be traded away has been discovered. The liberty of others has been identified as a tradable commodity. [...]

Alas, the option of destroying the terrorists' ability to wage war is too unsophisticated for the internationalists of Old Europe. By cutting and running from Iraq, the Zapatero government rejects the strategy of destroying of terror networks at their source and joins Old Europe in the search for a solution based upon multilateral agreements and international law. Despite what may be good intentions, Zapatero's withdrawal does not advance the rule of law. No just law requires individuals or nations to stand idly by while hundreds of thousands of people are tortured and murdered. On the contrary, abandoning Iraq and decrying its liberation as a mistake makes mockery of the rule of law.

Spain's March 11-based disengagement from Iraq most closely resembles the option of acceding to the demands of a foreign despot. It is more a bilateral deal with the terror masters than it is a principled stand to defend multilateralism and the rule of law. Here are the terms of the deal: Spain agrees to withdraw material support for operations against state sponsors of terror. Since the state sponsors of terrorism are also brutal dictatorships, Spain also turns its back on extending liberty to places of the world where its presence is lacking. In return for these self-imposed restraints, the Spanish government expects the terror masters to refrain from using their death squads against the people of Spain.

This is the type of deal that Benjamin Franklin warned against -- a trade of liberty for security. The acceptance of the inevitability of terrorism and the refusal to take the battle to the terrorists may well succeed in buying a little short-term security for the people of Spain; they may be spared further attacks while the terror masters seek to establish control of the foreign policy of other nations. Ultimately, in the long term, such arrangements never benefit anyone except terrorists and their leaders. At some point, the despots who give orders to the death squads will make further demands of Spain. And if Spain refuses to comply, the death squads will again be unleashed. There is no promise of security for Spain; there is only a promise of future opportunities to surrender more and more liberty.

Can't be tough on the Euros--after all not every nation commits itself to fighting despotism globally in its founding documents:

WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.

WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.

By its very terms the Declaration recognizes certain regimes to be illegitimate and makes it a duty to topple them.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 21, 2004 6:32 PM