Jack Hunter
Charleston City Paper
January 6, 2011
These days, the term “national security” is a lot like the word “racism.” It has been applied so liberally for so long that its usage is now meaningless. Definitions require a limited and fixed meaning. If everyone is a racist, then no one is. If every government action is about national security, then nothing is.
Former Surgeon General Richard Carmona announced this month that obesity “affects our national and global security.” We also learned this month that the Department of Homeland Security believes that “climate change has the potential to accelerate and intensify extreme weather events which threaten the nation’s sustainability and security.” Being fat is a matter of national security? And global warming as well? Really?
The entire WikiLeaks debate has hinged upon the question of whether or not the whistleblower group has compromised America’s national security. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says it has not, yet he has also said that “the initial assessment in no way discounts the risk to national security.”
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