war's over, everybody go home
May. 2nd, 2011 10:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
intertribalWhat I immediately thought of after I heard The Big News (I was watching Cupcake Wars on the Food Network, which did not cut away to any breaking news report, so I heard it from fengi on LJ first) was "what now." Is the war on terror over? I think your answer to that depends on what you think "causes" terrorism, or why you think terrorism exists. By this measure I figure that moderates are most likely to think the war on terror is over. A crime/offense took place (9/11), we had to go after the person responsible (Bin Laden), and now that person is dead - the end. Justice is served, the slate has been washed clean, now we can start over with "peaceful dialog" (this was a comment on the NYT... made me laugh, I had to say, the idea that enemy death -> peaceful dialog. Trying to imagine Bin Laden saying that after 9/11, you know, like, "well, now that the towers have fallen, I hope we can have a peaceful dialog with you guys." What an empty gesture).
But the right isn't going to think the war on terror is over - after all, Islamofascism still exists, and that causes terrorism, and until the entire religion is wiped out, terrorists will still exist, and we will still be at risk. And the left isn't going to think the war on terror is over - because military, political, and economic policies that encourage terrorism either directly (funding terrorists) or indirectly (blowback) will continue, so terrorism will continue. From a long-term view, it's hard to believe "terrorism" will ever be vanquished. Guerrilla warfare will never be vanquished either. It's a strategy of waging asymmetric warfare, not a cult. But I guess the moderates will have a field year speculating about what this means for Obama's re-election and we'll be throwing around words like "murderous militant" and "enemy of democracy" (this was from one of Nebraska's representatives, Lee Terry. I really doubt Lee Terry has a firm understanding of what democracy actually is, based on this statement), etc. The domestic political scientists and politicians and pundits will be going nuts pretending they have any clue what goes on internationally in their efforts to forecast What This Means For America, and this isn't a conversation I'm really interested in.
So this is pretty much Anti-Climax of the century, for me. Hadn't we all moved past this, in our justification of Iraq and Afghanistan? Hadn't we all adopted new excuses: liberating women, liberating civilians from dictators, spreading democracy, making the world safe - and then, fixing what we broke? I thought that good old revenge was already off the table. But now we're back to Square 1, apparently, and in U.S. history books of the future the occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan will be a few long paragraphs, no more than a textbook page, under the title Response to 9/11. Then maybe whatever happens next - wherever we go next, in our war on terror - will be under the next entry, another few paragraphs. Hundreds of thousands of people killed: the "response."
Also, I've read some comments that the U.S. turned itself into a monster in order to respond to 9/11, but I don't know about that. I think it's a nice fantasy, that America was some kind of stoic Lady Liberty prior to 9/11 and then was transformed into Hel the Hag by a massive act of violence, good girl gone bad. But it's hard to say that after reading a book like Overthrow or Shock Doctrine. Foreigners have been waking up to find themselves in secret torture cells with a CIA agent for decades. Let's not forget that, even though it would be easier to. It is frightening, really frightening, to look at the news in the context of the history of U.S. foreign policy. Maybe that's why a lot of political scientists don't like to do it.
So, anyway: some historic-centric links.
Juan Cole: I was also dismayed by the propagandistic way the White House promoted its war on and then occupation of Iraq. They only had two speeds, progress and slow progress. A big bombing that killed hundreds was "slow progress."... I think if Bush had gone after Bin Laden as single-mindedly as Obama has, he would have gotten him, and could have rolled up al-Qaeda in 2002 or 2003. Instead, Bush’s occupation of a major Arab Muslim country kept a hornet’s nest buzzing against the US, Britain and other allies.
Chris Hedges (that paragraph about the empathy the US received after 9/11 is incredibly true, and incredibly sad, in retrospect):
But the right isn't going to think the war on terror is over - after all, Islamofascism still exists, and that causes terrorism, and until the entire religion is wiped out, terrorists will still exist, and we will still be at risk. And the left isn't going to think the war on terror is over - because military, political, and economic policies that encourage terrorism either directly (funding terrorists) or indirectly (blowback) will continue, so terrorism will continue. From a long-term view, it's hard to believe "terrorism" will ever be vanquished. Guerrilla warfare will never be vanquished either. It's a strategy of waging asymmetric warfare, not a cult. But I guess the moderates will have a field year speculating about what this means for Obama's re-election and we'll be throwing around words like "murderous militant" and "enemy of democracy" (this was from one of Nebraska's representatives, Lee Terry. I really doubt Lee Terry has a firm understanding of what democracy actually is, based on this statement), etc. The domestic political scientists and politicians and pundits will be going nuts pretending they have any clue what goes on internationally in their efforts to forecast What This Means For America, and this isn't a conversation I'm really interested in.
So this is pretty much Anti-Climax of the century, for me. Hadn't we all moved past this, in our justification of Iraq and Afghanistan? Hadn't we all adopted new excuses: liberating women, liberating civilians from dictators, spreading democracy, making the world safe - and then, fixing what we broke? I thought that good old revenge was already off the table. But now we're back to Square 1, apparently, and in U.S. history books of the future the occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan will be a few long paragraphs, no more than a textbook page, under the title Response to 9/11. Then maybe whatever happens next - wherever we go next, in our war on terror - will be under the next entry, another few paragraphs. Hundreds of thousands of people killed: the "response."
Also, I've read some comments that the U.S. turned itself into a monster in order to respond to 9/11, but I don't know about that. I think it's a nice fantasy, that America was some kind of stoic Lady Liberty prior to 9/11 and then was transformed into Hel the Hag by a massive act of violence, good girl gone bad. But it's hard to say that after reading a book like Overthrow or Shock Doctrine. Foreigners have been waking up to find themselves in secret torture cells with a CIA agent for decades. Let's not forget that, even though it would be easier to. It is frightening, really frightening, to look at the news in the context of the history of U.S. foreign policy. Maybe that's why a lot of political scientists don't like to do it.
So, anyway: some historic-centric links.
Juan Cole: I was also dismayed by the propagandistic way the White House promoted its war on and then occupation of Iraq. They only had two speeds, progress and slow progress. A big bombing that killed hundreds was "slow progress."... I think if Bush had gone after Bin Laden as single-mindedly as Obama has, he would have gotten him, and could have rolled up al-Qaeda in 2002 or 2003. Instead, Bush’s occupation of a major Arab Muslim country kept a hornet’s nest buzzing against the US, Britain and other allies.
Chris Hedges (that paragraph about the empathy the US received after 9/11 is incredibly true, and incredibly sad, in retrospect):
The flip side of nationalism is always racism, it’s about self-exaltation and the denigration of the other.
I was in the Middle East in the days after 9/11. And we had garnered the empathy of not only most of the world, but the Muslim world who were appalled at what had been done in the name of their religion. And we had major religious figures like Sheikh Tantawy, the head of al-Azhar – who died recently – who after the attacks of 9/11 not only denounced them as a crime against humanity, which they were, but denounced Osama bin Laden as a fraud … someone who had no right to issue fatwas or religious edicts, no religious legitimacy, no religious training. And the tragedy was that if we had the courage to be vulnerable, if we had built on that empathy, we would be far safer and more secure today than we are.
We responded exactly as these terrorist organizations wanted us to respond. They wanted us to speak the language of violence. What were the explosions that hit the World Trade Center, huge explosions and death above a city skyline? It was straight out of Hollywood. When Robert McNamara in 1965 began the massive bombing campaign of North Vietnam, he did it because he said he wanted to “send a message” to the North Vietnamese—a message that left hundreds of thousands of civilians dead. These groups learned to speak the language we taught them. And our response was to speak in kind. The language of violence, the language of occupation—the occupation of the Middle East, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—has been the best recruiting tool al-Qaida has been handed.
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no subject
Date: 2011-05-02 03:37 pm (UTC)The line of thought I started on (but with much silliness, so it was good that I took it down), was about asymmetric power struggles, and how you can't help [right? can I admit to this? it's not just me, right?] being kind of fascinated when ONE PERSON merits that much attention and energy and dollars and lives and still manages to outwit the superpower for 10 years.
It doesn't mean I approve of him. (Okay, CIA dudes who are stuck reading LJ for a job?)
The manipulation of the symbolic value of bin Laden's death is enlightening/disconcerting/expected....
no subject
Date: 2011-05-02 03:44 pm (UTC)