© 2006, UrbisMedia
Only a fool would think he can defeat a concept. A fool tilting at windmills. But then, a fool, the president of the United States, is exactly what we have.
It has been remarked often enough in these pages that the war in Iraq is a terrible mistake born of the “perfect storm” of 9-11, the machinations and plans cabal of neo-cons in the Bush administration and, of course, the simple mind of the president himself. How these were spun to terrorize the public and its representatives into the all but dictatorial powers of the executive to pursue a “global war on terror,” the GWOT, is now painfully well known, if not painfully corrected.
The issue now, for a public clearly weary of a disastrous war, is when will it end. But if this is a GWOT, and we must, as Bush drones on, “stay the course” until it is won, how will we know when we have won ?
How do we usually know when a war is over. The enemy is vanquished, or surrenders, their territory is subdued and controlled. It’s over, there’s a VE-Day, or a VJ-Day. Our former enemies now become our “friends,” or at least their nations do. We felt better, safer, victorious.
So how will we know when to celebrate V-GWOT Day? Well, it’s “global” isn’t it; if it wasn’t, the war on Iraq sure made it global. So there’s a long way to go—we haven’t even got Iraq near to under control, Afghanistan is on its way back to Taliban-stan, and we’re three years into the GWOT at nearly a half trillion bucks already, 2,500 dead Americans (18,500 mutilated), uncounted Iraqis, and a lot of people who hate us.
It is possible to capture and kill terrorists. You can find them wherever they are, and do just that. It might take time (see the movie, Munich , for example), but it can be done, effectively, and will very little, if any, collateral damage. Or, you can flatten a whole country, kill tens of thousand of innocents, to kill people who might be terrible , but really aren’t the terrorists you should be pursuing. They’re just handy, and you remember that the last time, you beat them handily.
Now the whole thing twists absurdly. The terrorists now come to you because you have come to them. And they start killing you, which you can use as your confirmation that there areindeed terrorists in Iraq. But then, to kill them, you must ferret them out from the local populace, who become collateral damage, and now, before you can say GWOT three times, you are the terrorists.
And, perversely, in the process you have made more terrorists—not just there, but almost everywhere. Now you are really in a pickle. Some of these global terrorists start pushing your buttons. The wacky North Korean flips you the bird and says his nuke missile can reach you. The wacky Iranian with the name the Bush won’t even attempt to pronounce (hey, that’s linguistic terrorism, ain’t it?). So where do you take your global war next? Making war on terrorism, it turns out, at least by killing terrorists, is like herding cats. You kill the terrorists, but not the terrorism.
Terror is as fundamental a concept to human behavior as (and sometimes the closest to) disciplining your child. It’s been with us since the beginning. It has been given different names, like the Crusades, the Pax Romana, and Pax Britannica, but its just terrorism. It uses threat, fear, and ultimately violence, to produce a result—compliance, submission. It’s used by virtually every social institution: insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, religions, political parties. In everyday behavior people ride around on Harleys, sport angry tattoos, to try to be terrifying, to cover their weaknesses. Terror is everywhere. It is about dominance, by demonstration, by intimidation, but not annihilation. It is perhaps because we are so familiar with it that we are fearful of it. If the other guy is willing to go further in getting his way than you are, willing to even kill himself, then that is terrifying.
The justificatory rhetoric like to characterize terrorism as a disease, as if we could wipe it out like we did small pox, by containing it and burning it out, or how we might attack with an anti-biotic and kill it. But it isn’t a disease. It is spread by word of mouth, by image, by blog, and of course, by fear. You cannot “make war” on terrorism any more than you can make war on drugs. People will always be interested in altered states will always be interested in altering the balance of power. Terrorism cannot be defeated by war, because it is a form of war.
So can the GWOT be won? Of course not. It’s just a stupid piece of rhetoric that uses, what else, its own form of terrorism—if we don’t win then they win! It’s a dangerous and destructive piece of rhetoric because it obscures the underlying reasons that people engage in terrorism. By implying that there is some sort of human sub-species, like a deadly virus or a cancer (you’ve heard the metaphors a thousand times) entire peoples become characterized as inferiors and infidels, distant and demonized.
We are convinced of our own purity. Why do they hate us, the naïve, ignorant, and downright stupid bemoan. Maybe some of them do hate us just because we are of a different faith, or have different social values—often this is the way we hate them—but there are more who have come to hate us because we exploit them, occupy their lands, drain their resources, and insinuate our faith and values into their societies. I was as angered and vengeful as the next person at seeing Palestinians dance in the streets on 9-11— but we need to try to understand why . I need to remain angry every time a terrorist blows up innocent people; but I need to get angry when American soldiers kill innocent people.
Can it be that peoples of the world want so different lives and societies from one another that they must terrorize one another? What people would not want to observe the following ten desiderata:
• We wish to live in peace and freedom from fear
• We wish to practice our faith without interference from other faiths
• We wish our children to have a better life than us
• We wish to be treated with equality and respect
• We wish to control the destiny of our own bodies
• We wish to have decent health care and quality education
• We wish to be productive and be free from want
• We wish to control or own social and political lives
• We wish to have the hegemony of our own lands and resources
• We wish these same for all others, and for the desiderata to be observed and respected by all others.
OK, that’s just a quick draft. The 10 th is sort of a version of the old “Golden Rule,” or the Second Commandment of the Mosaic Ten. But the point is that I don’t know anybody in their right mind who would not want these things, wherever they are from and whatever faith they have. Sure there could be some quibbling, and some possible additions, but, they are a good starting point to find a basis on which we are all somewhat the same. Anybody who would not want these things needs some help, and anybody who would deny them to somebody else, well, watch out; like I said, we will always have terrorism, especially if we try make war on an “-ism” rather than its perpetrators.
V-GWOT Day? Don’t hold your breath.
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©2006, James A. Clapp (UrbisMedia Ltd. Pub. 6.25.2006)