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There need not be an actual threat, in fact. It could be entirely imaginary, concocted by vested interests or state authorities to quell public suspicion that issues are not what they are being portrayed as. The threat can also be all too real, often neglected by those responsible for national security until it literally bursts upon the scene, striking down dozens or even hundreds, or in the case of cataclysmic events like 9/11 taking thousands at a single stroke.
The issue of national security is fickle at best – sometimes in the forefront, sometimes in the background – but always present to one degree or another. Its elusive nature permits it to be misused as a tool to benefit decision makers far more than those affected by such decisions. Burma, Thailand and the United States are cases in point.
Recently in the United States there has been considerable clamoring – principally from the Republican Party with which this writer is registered – to absolutely prohibit serious inquiry into the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp and the former administration’s complicity in the widespread abrogation of human rights. The matter should be kept secret to protect national security, we are told.
The reasons being offered to the gullible among us for not opening multiple cases against the Central Intelligence Agency – and thus senior members of former U.S. President George Bush’s administration – are centered on the need to protect national security.
In Thailand, the issue of national security has been paraded before the nation, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the world in dealing with lese majeste cases, in resisting the influence of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and in promoting what is called “national unity,” which is really national conformity.
In Burma, national security was so important to the survival of the country that over ten years ago Aung San Suu Kyi had to be robbed of her democratic election victory by a military junta that is currently pretending to create a democratic roadmap for the devastated country. In Burma national security is so vital that the Nobel laureate had to be kept under house arrest to ensure that she did not take any part in Burma’s puppet elections.
Of course national security is often a very real issue and concern. When Thailand’s current Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Therbsuban failed to protect the prime minister from having his car smashed to bits by “red shirt” protestors of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship in Pattaya earlier this year, it would have been a good time to bring up the issue of national security. But it seems that Suthep did not receive one word from the prime minister that reflected on his possible negligence.
There is some question as to whether Thailand’s national security is being protected by a military that buys an aircraft carrier that it cannot afford to operate, on the one hand, and cannot justify the need for, on the other. As well, during Thaksin’s seven years in power, no one really knows how many billions of dollars were robbed from the public coffer by friends, family and minions. Surely all the money that ended up missing had some effect on current national security. Surely.
Looking at the issue of national security on a global level, one can assess that it has probably, nation by nation, deteriorated over the past decade or two for multiple reasons. One might conclude that it is not so much national security that is the issue, but rather how this stratagem is used by state authorities and special interest groups to silence debate, muffle speech, and malign those of goodwill who expose the follies of those who do not really care for what happens to the likes of you and me.
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(Frank G. Anderson is the Thailand representative of American Citizens Abroad. He was a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer to Thailand from 1965-67, working in community development. A freelance writer and founder of northeast Thailand's first local English language newspaper, the Korat Post – www.thekoratpost.com – he has spent over eight years in Thailand "embedded" with the local media. He has an MBA in information management and an associate degree in construction technology. ©Copyright Frank G. Anderson.)
