In the UK, we do not use the phrase "war on terror" because we can't win by military means alone, and because this isn't us against one organised enemy with a clear identity and a coherent set of objectives.
It is the vast majority of the people in the world - of all nationalities and faiths - against a small number of loose, shifting and disparate groups who have relatively little in common apart from their identification with others who share their distorted view of the world and their idea of being part of something bigger.
What these groups want is to force their individual and narrow values on others, without dialogue, without debate, through violence. And by letting them feel part of something bigger, we give them strength.
Benn is right: The war on terror formulation serves the PR purposes of a thousand different militant groups and is a strategic blunder of epic proportions. Reading Benn's comments, I was reminded of what happened when I called in to an awful right-wing talk show somewhere in central New Jersey. The guest was promoting some DVD and book about the global jihadist conspiracy and the danger it posed to us civilized Westerners. The phrase "Islamofascism" came up, and I couldn't help myself. I dialed the number, told the producer what I wanted to talk about, and waited. I got on relatively quickly, and the conversation went something like this:
HOST: "Jesse, welcome to the show."
ME: "Thanks. I just wanted to disagree with your use of the term 'Islamofascism.' I feel like it's a mistake to lump all these groups together. When you look at Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah -- they all have different goals and were formed for different reasons. Many of them aren't really about fundamentalist Islam, and it makes things more difficult when we sweep them all into the same category."
HOST: "Whoa. Jesse, Jesse. You do realize they are trying to kill you, right?"
That was it. Since I disagreed with the manner in which terrorism was being debated, I clearly didn't understand that there existed, somewhere, people who wanted to kill me. I've seen this happen a thousand times on a thousand different shows -- anyone who doesn't toe the absolutist line is told they are either naive or a traitor. If you don't admit that we are in a battle for our very existence, that our enemy is absolutely evil and we are almost absolutely good, and that the enemy hates us because of our way of life (an intentionally loose term that can be filled in on the fly -- they hate us because we vote, they hate us because we let our women wear bikinis), then you are part of the problem.
The war on terror is an intellectual framework that, thanks to its broadness, answers several tough questions in advance: Who are we fighting? Whomever terrorizes us. Whose fault is terrorism? Theirs, obviously; we're the ones fighting terrorism. When have we won? When there are no longer groups committing terrorist acts. It's unfortunate that these questions were neutered so shortly after 9/11. It would be nice to, you know, debate them.
It would also help us focus our efforts. It's tactically insane to treat Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Iranian government as parts of the same undifferentiated mass. This lack of precision, this inability to comprehend nuance, comes from the war on terror model, which postulates that the cause of terrorism is evil itself. Evil, of course, isn't reductive and can't be bargained with, so it's not worth sitting down with any of these groups.
The most tragic result of the war on terror's rickety facade has been Iraq. Imagine if, after 9/11, the administration had described the conflict in more accurate terms. Imagine if all of the cable news networks that ceaselessly flashed idiotic electrified logos touting THE WAR ON TERROR as the fall's hottest new product had instead had the temerity to question the formulation the American government presented its people. Would the Iraq war have happened if we were fighting something less vague than "terror" itself? If the proper people had questioned President Bush, had asked him, "How can you possibly link a nationalist, secular tyrant leader like Saddam Hussein to a radical pan-Islamist like Bin Laden?"? But it wasn't important enough. Terms like "Sunni" and "Shiite" and "pan-Islamist" weren't yet en vogue, because we weren't fighting anything that specific; we were fighting terror.
"Neoconservative" is used far too often, too loosely, and in too conspiratorial a manner, but the fact of the matter is that the neoconservatives -- Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Richard Perle, and Paul Wolfowitz, just to name a few -- were and are largely responsible for the war on terror and its stark, epic imagery. The BBC ran an excellent critique of the neoconservatives' role in designing the war on terror in "The Power of Nightmares," a three-part documentary that aired a few years ago and which can be watched on Google Video. It's very effective at explaining the neoconservative infatuation with big, evil, Enemies to End All Enemies. For a while, the Soviets served this role, then no one, then, after 9/11, the Islamofascists. The people who have been most influential in leading us to war in Iraq see America's destiny as nothing less (or more complicated) than fighting evil, and have never let the nuances of reality interfere with this messianic vision.
It's 2007 and we are still unable to have a mature, intelligent discussion about terrorism. I hope an American politician or two will take a cue from Hillary Benn and start to deconstruct the war on terror, which has gotten us nowhere.
(Almost forgot: I would be remiss if I failed to mention James Fallows's excellent Atlantic piece from last fall, "Declaring Victory," which expertly explains what's wrong with the U.S. approach to fighting terrorism.)
[CORRECTION: I originally had the international development secretary's last name as Bunn, not Benn, throughout the post.]
8 comments:
The same thing could be said of the label of neoconservatives. Some of them are really just prophetic evangelists, others are naive professors, oil-funded politicians, and others are armchair military reformists. For the liberal people to fight these people, it is not sufficient to just label them as neoconservative. Just because they agree on the same set of actions doesn't mean they have the same agenda.
It is a bit of a nitpick but...the International Development Secretary quoted in the article is called Hillary BENN not BUNN
Hmmm.... are you stupid?
"against a small number of loose, shifting and disparate groups who have relatively little in common apart from their identification with others who share their distorted view of the world and their idea of being part of something bigger"
What an dumb thing to say. The most important thing they have in common is ISLAMOFASCISM! Prove me wrong and I will say sorry.
Neocons? Liberals love to use this word because of the association with neo-nazis.
So, for all your grand-standing about intelligent, mature discussion and not labeling mass groups of people...you do the same thing to people you don't agree.
And that is just soooo surprising...roll eyes
Do you really think the military, cia, etc actually treat all these as the same ?
Don't you think that "war on terror" is more a necessary sound bite for the layman ?
In response to the top two comments:
If liberals use the word "neocons" because it has the same prefix as neo-Nazis, that's news to me. I was using the term in a very precise sense (my apologies if I didn't make this clear enough in the post).
Watch the BBC documentary. Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Perle have all been in government for decades and all have similar views on America's role in the world and the Straussian idea of the "noble lie." They have all consistently attempted to convince both the government and the people that our biggest enemy -- the Soviets in the '70s and '80s and Al Qaeda in the 21st century -- is all-powerful, has tentacles everywhere, and can easily destroy us if we are not eternally diligent. On multiple occassions, this crowd has clashed with the CIA regarding intelligence estimates of the intentions, capabilities, and actions of the Soviets and, later, Al Qaeda.
In short, they tend to lie about what our enemies are capable of. This stuff has been going on since the 1970s, and is the result of an epic, noble-sounding view of America's proper role. But again, I can't explain this any better than the documentary does, so I recommend it highly.
I am not "labeling mass groups" -- I am naming names very specifically and explaining the intellectual threads that connect those names.
As for whether I "think the military, cia, etc actually treat all these as the same," the short answer is no. The CIA has been consistently ignored and overridden by the neocons (Oh no! He used the word again!) -- here's a particularly distressing example that I linked to in an earlier post.
The military is not really in a position to make these sorts of distinctions. They go where they're told to go and fight against whom they're told to fight. And the infighting between the neocons and other government offices, particularly the State Department, has been well-documented as well. Had Bush listened to the right people, this war may never have gotten off the ground.
If you're cracking your knuckles and readying to type that the author is unfairly aggregating neocons, save it, his piece went WHOOSH! over your head like a 747.
His point is that you CAN lump neocons, they have a common goal; you CAN'T lump disparate Islamic groups with different goals, because they, uh, HAVE DIFFERENT GOALS. Hamas and Al Qaeda don't care about the same things, for (one) example. Neocons (a group that is proud of the appellation, by the way) DO have the same goals, outlined in PNAC documents.
And if ya gotta Google PNAC...
WHOOSH! There goes that 747 again, right over your head.
As a Westerner who has lived and worked in the Muslim world for a number of years, let me assure you that Islamofascists do have one, singular, common goal. It's called the "Ummah" and it refers to the coming day when there will be a worldwide caliphate. This is not a conspiracy theory. Please read their materials. While it is true that there are factions within Islam, there is no doubt whatsoever that they all have this one, singular goal.
The author, I am afraid, is simply wrong.
Post a Comment