On Schoolboys and Empire
By: Michael ConnorsWednesday 8 February 2006
New Matilda
Sore hands. That is all I could think about when I watched US President George Bush deliver his State of the Union address at the beginning of this month. The assembled Republicans clapped and clapped. They were, I think, ecstatic that the President was keeping to the script and not wandering off into folksy sentences with no ending and no beginning; sentences that seem to walk gimp-like into traps set by Bush himself.
It was as if each correctly delivered sentence truly was worthy of an ovation — I almost stood up myself. Or perhaps they were clapping because Bush promised two basic things: to bring liberty to the world and to cut social security.
Listening to Bush, I couldn't help but detect the influence of famous British historian Niall Ferguson, the chap who has a turn-of-the-century schoolboy interest in Empire. He's sad that Britannia no longer rules the waves. He wants to make sure the Americans continue to do so.
Let's get personal. There are plenty of reasons not to like Ferguson: he is annoyingly clever at making dangerous ideas sound intelligent, and he's handsome (just look at his website). He writes books that reach large audiences, despite his scholarly tone. And he has been described by Time magazine as 'one of the world's 100 most influential people.'
Ferguson, who has a good gig going at both Oxford and Harvard Universities, also does the 'wife bit' at the end of the acknowledgements pages in his books. This is when the male author apologises for his unforgivable neglect, but assures the loved wife she was the inspiration behind the work. This broadly translates as: 'I was a thorough shit, but without putting you through hell the book wouldn't have happened.'
I wish Ferguson's wife had been a little less tolerant and insisted he stay human; then we might have been spared his recent tragic eulogy to the United States, Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire (Penguin 2005)
Ferguson's previous work has included a study of Empire in general, and it seems that the archival dust set off an itch to play imperial counsel, a modern-day Rudyard Kipling to the Bush Administration.
And this brings me to the real reason not to like Niall Ferguson. In Colossus, he argues that the United States ought to have declared a willingness to use the nuclear option during the Korean War and — this is where the book has laxative qualities — he now seeks to influence US foreign policy.
Regarding Vietnam, Ferguson is strictly in the gung ho camp, arguing that a more ruthless approach ought to have been taken. He favourably quotes Admiral Moorer that the US in Vietnam, ‘should have fought the enemy in the north, where everyone was the enemy, where you don't have to worry whether or not you were shooting friendly civilians'.
This is not just a history lesson, of course, nor is it just a good illustration of the Rumsfeldian ‘unknown unknowns' — who knows what might have happened had we just shot everyone, we just don't know. The point of the history lesson (Ferguson is pedagogical to the point of self-righteous pedantry) is to rally the US to stay the course in Iraq. And not just there.
He wants the US to realise its potential as a liberal empire, unleashing a wave of freedom and markets across the world. This will require more occupations, and presumably more wars. If he takes out US citizenship and consorts in the right company (the luminaries who populate his acknowledgements pages suggests he's already been doing that) then it's time to take cover.
Ferguson is for an empire that takes root. Before freedom, comes order and trusteeship. Instead of short-termism and heading home after a war, the US should commit to stay (wherever) and embed new norms — over a generation, if necessary. The US should, in short, declare and proudly embrace its empire and invite applications for membership from worthy supplicants.
Ferguson identifies a flaw in his own argument. It's kind of big: the American people don't like Empire very much. This is actually the major point for him — it's as if the rest of the world doesn't exist. The American masses, he argues, need to acquire a new political culture, or the 'will to power': the desire to dominate. Without this, when US body bags pile up they'll pressure the government to pull out. Also, America should start nurturing its elite youth to the task of Empire. He's not sure they are up to it.
Also, problematically, while ‘Americans like security ... they like social security more than national security'. Like any good fiscal conservative, Ferguson wants to see a readjustment of entitlements to ensure that the American Empire stays on its feet and doesn't fall as a consequence of the fiscal ineptitude entailed in lavishing the poor and retired with care. It won't be the barbarians that bring down the Empire but the unwell, aged and lazy, Ferguson avers.
So can the Americans pull it off? Can they sort out the internal mess and then rule benightedly over a world eager for its civilising influence? On this, Ferguson moves to his comical Blimpian conclusion:
Writing in the dying dies of the Clinton Administration, I concluded …
the greatest disappointment facing the world in the 21st century [is] that the leaders of the one State with the economic resources to make the world a better place lack the guts to do it.' Little did I imagine that within a matter of nine months, a new president ... would embark on a policy so similar to the one I had advocated. The question has ceased to be about guts, it is now about grit.
I imagine Ferguson's tea cosy verily shook as he typed these lines. On that point, Ferguson brings to mind that other pagan-worshipper of US power, Greg Sheridan, from The Australian newspaper. Oh, the burden of the White man…
Now since Osama bin Laden has obviously been doing some reading, having cited William Blum's Rogue State as a good reference for students of American Empire, it would not surprise me if his next pronouncement draws insight from Ferguson. What one dangerous extremist gives, another can take.
It would, I imagine, go along these lines:
The infidel Ferguson, zealot of Empire, has laid bare the limits of US ambition and control. We now lay down our weapons knowing that the fast food nation has no will to power: its citizens' indigent need for social security will bring down the mighty imperial Big Mac. May you drown among a rising tide of pension cheques. Handrails will not save you. We thank the infidel Ferguson for showing us the way. Now we will wait for the rotting zombie carcasses of the baby boomers to feed on the flesh of your crusader youth. We can wait, this cave is going nowhere.
Now to follow recent standards in American political debate, we can deduce from Ferguson's insights that those who oppose social security cuts in the US, including the League of Geriatrics opposing pension reform, really are the fifth column in the 'War on Terror.' There are probably al-Qaeda agents infiltrating such movements.
Perhaps our own Prime Minister can lend Dubya a hand by sending him a copy of the sedition laws?
Showing posts with label Imperialism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Imperialism. Show all posts
September 8, 2007
Bring Back Saddam
Cartoon by http://www.fionakatauskas.comBring Back Saddam
By: Michael Connors Wednesday 12 October 2005
New Matilda
Iraq is the victim of a contrived accident. Like a bicyclist run over by a driver drunk-with-power, the country has been shoved off to hospital. The media hangs around and records the miraculous recovery as newly empowered citizens cross ballot papers and frame a constitution. The drunk driver hangs around, promises recompense and rehabilitation (in between killing
By: Michael Connors Wednesday 12 October 2005
New Matilda
Iraq is the victim of a contrived accident. Like a bicyclist run over by a driver drunk-with-power, the country has been shoved off to hospital. The media hangs around and records the miraculous recovery as newly empowered citizens cross ballot papers and frame a constitution. The drunk driver hangs around, promises recompense and rehabilitation (in between killing
insurgents) while the bicyclist's family finds the driver's presence repugnant and unwanted. As he is thrown out of the hospital, the driver says, 'But the bicycle was faulty, it was going all over the place.' And the family says, 'Just go.' Some people don't know when it's time to leave.
It is increasingly the case that those on the Left who support the invasion of Iraq use the term 'fascist' to describe Saddam's regime and legitimate the presence of the Coalition of the Willing. This usage draws on the proud Left-tradition of anti-fascism in the 1930s. Saddam Hussein might have been going all over the place, but he was not a fascist. Nasty, brutal, disturbed, megalomaniac, one-time ally of the West - yes. Fascist, no.
Some amount of history needs to be read before using the term 'fascist'. A bit of Machiavelli wouldn't hurt either. The truth is that if the currents of international politics had changed, Saddam would have had a lavish welcome at the US presidential ranch rather than having to hide down a hole. Given the mess that Iraq is in, it is my belief that the US government would welcome Saddam back if they could get away with it: an approach something along the lines of 'Saddam is dead, long live Saddam'. Certainly a more compliant, less belligerent Saddam, but Saddam more or less - the kind of soft-nationalist dictator the US has always supported when it suited them.Oh, what order he could bring, what relief, and what oil would flow!
The problem is he is irredeemable. When you've done propaganda to the extreme, it's hard to turn back the screws. So the search is on, no doubt, for a new hard man.Before some readers get all sensuous about the poetical wording of the Iraq constitution and hope for a better future, the reality is that the constitution is simply part of the fringe festival. The main game is elsewhere.Given the state of Western intelligence, does anyone know what is going to happen when Iraq collapses under the weight of civil war, and Afghanistan keeps groaning but is largely ignored?
My bet is that we should watch Samuel P Huntington for a view of future US policy. Huntington, America's most famous conservative intellectual, has a knack for capturing the shifting paradigms of US government group-think.He has had three public incarnations as the mouth of conservative America. The first was in the 1960s in his book, Political Order in Changing Societies. This was the heyday of counter-insurgency and programs of modernisation in the Third World.
His basic idea was that if poor nations were to modernise (and be pro-Western), they required iron-cast institutions. In Huntington's view, this meant the military leading politics. In short, his approach was order before liberty. When counter-insurgency and repression failed to quell rising labour and social movements worldwide, the US moved towards low-intensity democracy (elections with death squads in Central America, for example) as a form of social pacification. Huntington then became the prophet of democracy, arguing for its spread in his book, The Third Wave. But this was not a Fukuyama-type argument about the end of history, with liberal democracy representing the highest form of political and ethical order. Rather, Huntington was still a Cold War warrior and democracy was his chosen weapon.
His current incarnation is as the prophet of his book The Clash of Civilizations. Over time, his argument hasn't gone down well, other than among simpletons and journalists looking for column fillers. Even President Bush has moved away from the infantile idea that coherent civilisations are at each others' throats as in a perennial cockfight. In the interests of being able to speak to and win over moderates within Muslim communities, Bush has been willing to withdraw his own civilisational cock from the ring. Now it's about 'good' and 'bad' Muslims, not a clash of civilisations.
So what now, Prophet Huntington? My bet is that as people grow old they return to their primal first political thoughts. And for Huntington, that was order before liberty. The environment is ripe for such a return.In the 1990s there was some genuine hope among US liberals that democracy was the wave of the future. The doctrine of 'democratic enlargement' was embraced by the Clinton Administration, and the US placed great hope on the expansion of markets and democracy. Which came first depended on political expediency. So in China, it was best to support economic liberalisation and integration with the world market as a catalyst for the growth of liberal political forces. In other places, pressure for democratisation was more forceful, but always twinned with economic liberalisation.This democratic moment has receded. The invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq, so-called forms of democratic imperialism, are not a continuation of that impulse from the 1990s. Rather they are a bloody imitation advancing new geo-strategic interests, which return the American State to its belligerent foreign posture of the 1960s.One thing is clear from the democratic imperialism of the Bush years you cannot invade a country with its own dynamic complexity and reshape it according to Western prescription. President Bush may well think he has a God-given mission to create democratic forms of rule in the Middle East, but in the attempt to redraw the political boundaries of that region, he has unleashed political forces well beyond his control. When hubris successively meets reality, policy changes even as the presidential PR machine shouts out the same messages about democracy. Huntington's original message 'order before liberty,' must be re-echoing through the halls of power right now.
The pro-invasion 'Left' such as Christopher Hitchens and Pamela Bone, often say because the anti-invasion Left opposes Bush, it wants to see the failure of the democratic experiment in Iraq. This is wrong. The flourishing of democracy in Iraq, as a viable political system, requires the emergence of political forces that seek genuine social change both nationally and internationally. It would also involve undoing the economic hatchet job of the US Administration that has opened the country to corporate cronyism. Should such democratic forces emerge, that would be a victory for democracy, and a failure for Bush.
It is increasingly the case that those on the Left who support the invasion of Iraq use the term 'fascist' to describe Saddam's regime and legitimate the presence of the Coalition of the Willing. This usage draws on the proud Left-tradition of anti-fascism in the 1930s. Saddam Hussein might have been going all over the place, but he was not a fascist. Nasty, brutal, disturbed, megalomaniac, one-time ally of the West - yes. Fascist, no.
Some amount of history needs to be read before using the term 'fascist'. A bit of Machiavelli wouldn't hurt either. The truth is that if the currents of international politics had changed, Saddam would have had a lavish welcome at the US presidential ranch rather than having to hide down a hole. Given the mess that Iraq is in, it is my belief that the US government would welcome Saddam back if they could get away with it: an approach something along the lines of 'Saddam is dead, long live Saddam'. Certainly a more compliant, less belligerent Saddam, but Saddam more or less - the kind of soft-nationalist dictator the US has always supported when it suited them.Oh, what order he could bring, what relief, and what oil would flow!
The problem is he is irredeemable. When you've done propaganda to the extreme, it's hard to turn back the screws. So the search is on, no doubt, for a new hard man.Before some readers get all sensuous about the poetical wording of the Iraq constitution and hope for a better future, the reality is that the constitution is simply part of the fringe festival. The main game is elsewhere.Given the state of Western intelligence, does anyone know what is going to happen when Iraq collapses under the weight of civil war, and Afghanistan keeps groaning but is largely ignored?
My bet is that we should watch Samuel P Huntington for a view of future US policy. Huntington, America's most famous conservative intellectual, has a knack for capturing the shifting paradigms of US government group-think.He has had three public incarnations as the mouth of conservative America. The first was in the 1960s in his book, Political Order in Changing Societies. This was the heyday of counter-insurgency and programs of modernisation in the Third World.
His basic idea was that if poor nations were to modernise (and be pro-Western), they required iron-cast institutions. In Huntington's view, this meant the military leading politics. In short, his approach was order before liberty. When counter-insurgency and repression failed to quell rising labour and social movements worldwide, the US moved towards low-intensity democracy (elections with death squads in Central America, for example) as a form of social pacification. Huntington then became the prophet of democracy, arguing for its spread in his book, The Third Wave. But this was not a Fukuyama-type argument about the end of history, with liberal democracy representing the highest form of political and ethical order. Rather, Huntington was still a Cold War warrior and democracy was his chosen weapon.
His current incarnation is as the prophet of his book The Clash of Civilizations. Over time, his argument hasn't gone down well, other than among simpletons and journalists looking for column fillers. Even President Bush has moved away from the infantile idea that coherent civilisations are at each others' throats as in a perennial cockfight. In the interests of being able to speak to and win over moderates within Muslim communities, Bush has been willing to withdraw his own civilisational cock from the ring. Now it's about 'good' and 'bad' Muslims, not a clash of civilisations.
So what now, Prophet Huntington? My bet is that as people grow old they return to their primal first political thoughts. And for Huntington, that was order before liberty. The environment is ripe for such a return.In the 1990s there was some genuine hope among US liberals that democracy was the wave of the future. The doctrine of 'democratic enlargement' was embraced by the Clinton Administration, and the US placed great hope on the expansion of markets and democracy. Which came first depended on political expediency. So in China, it was best to support economic liberalisation and integration with the world market as a catalyst for the growth of liberal political forces. In other places, pressure for democratisation was more forceful, but always twinned with economic liberalisation.This democratic moment has receded. The invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq, so-called forms of democratic imperialism, are not a continuation of that impulse from the 1990s. Rather they are a bloody imitation advancing new geo-strategic interests, which return the American State to its belligerent foreign posture of the 1960s.One thing is clear from the democratic imperialism of the Bush years you cannot invade a country with its own dynamic complexity and reshape it according to Western prescription. President Bush may well think he has a God-given mission to create democratic forms of rule in the Middle East, but in the attempt to redraw the political boundaries of that region, he has unleashed political forces well beyond his control. When hubris successively meets reality, policy changes even as the presidential PR machine shouts out the same messages about democracy. Huntington's original message 'order before liberty,' must be re-echoing through the halls of power right now.
The pro-invasion 'Left' such as Christopher Hitchens and Pamela Bone, often say because the anti-invasion Left opposes Bush, it wants to see the failure of the democratic experiment in Iraq. This is wrong. The flourishing of democracy in Iraq, as a viable political system, requires the emergence of political forces that seek genuine social change both nationally and internationally. It would also involve undoing the economic hatchet job of the US Administration that has opened the country to corporate cronyism. Should such democratic forces emerge, that would be a victory for democracy, and a failure for Bush.
The End of Bushisms
The End of Bushisms?
By: Michael ConnorsWednesday 13 July 2005
New Matilda
The London bombings are unexceptional in a world laid to waste by imperial ambition. Such massacres and criminal murder are commonplace. What made them exceptional (and 9/11, Madrid, Bali) is that they happened to 'us'. Our tragedies are always capital 'T'. Rarely is civilian loss of life in Iraq, Afghanistan and other fronts in the 'War on Terror' spoken about by leaders of the 'Coalition of the Willing'. When it is covered on television news, wooden ritualistic expressions of sorrow are offered before programming quickly moves to entertainment news.
In his first speech after the bombings, British Prime Minister Tony Blair looked wounded. It's as if there was no available script to gloss over the lives of his own subjects. Momentarily, we witnessed a leader feeling pain. The more such bombings occur, and there is no reason to believe that a repressive and security driven campaign can stop them, Blair and leaders will get used to it. A new ritualistic sorrow-script will be written for 'us', and delivered with the same sincerity reserved for the collateral damage of some other place.
When Blair delivered his second speech from the G8 summit, world leaders gathered behind him in a show of solidarity. Some looked like guilty parties in a shabby police line-up. It was as if the London bombings had, with all their murderous flare, illuminated a decade of wrong doing that had, in the famous words of Chalmers Johnson, delivered a payload of 'Blowback'. You can't go on a crusade, wrapped up as a war for freedom, to restructure global politics and not expect home causalities. That's why Prime Minister Howard, who has thrown Australia into this crusade, says it can happen here. He knows it will, unless we are very, very lucky.
A week before the London bombings, US President George Bush, in his address to the nation, looked desperate to regalvanise support for the misnamed 'War on Terror'. Even his own party is turning. Two years ago, Bush, in one of the most successful manipulations of reality, managed to get people to see connections between terrorists and Iraq, Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. He managed to wrap up US global ambitions in the comfort blanket of a great war of good against evil. Now, all these Bushisms are beginning to look every bit as dowdy as propaganda films. After the bombings, Bush, also at the G8, drew attention to what he saw as the difference between his pals at the G8 and the evil-doers: '…the contrast couldn't be clearer between the intentions and the hearts of those of us who care deeply about human rights and human liberty, and those who kill, those who've got such evil in their heart that they will take the lives of innocent folks.'
That Bush's words used to move people to patriotic fervour and collective narcissism can not be denied. Now they flat-line. Now that the lies of Iraq are on the mortuary table, the Bush of 2005 isn't as bankable as an anchorman for propaganda, nor is his machine as capable of mass deception. As Bush's moment passes, it's time to declare a War on Error. The only causalities in this war will be egos, lies, sloppy reporting, and hidden agendas.In his book Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam British journalist Jason Bourke recalls wanting to report on possible sales of enriched uranium in Peshawar by Russian smugglers in 1998. An editor told him that the story would be published only if a 'bin-Laden' link was present, presumably to make it newsworthy. These days, establishing a bin-Laden link is as easy as simply asserting one.
The first error is a category error. Terrorists (anyone fighting the US and its allies) are deemed to be sub-human and irrational. To try and understand them and their cause is to risk being labelled an appeaser. But this is not just cynical prejudice, it is deeply rooted.In a wonderful new book, Imperial Delusions, Carl Boggs notes how Hollywood has mentally prepared us for the War on Terror. Its caricature of mad Arabs seething with existential rage is embedded in the Western psyche. In some ways, we have always known Osama bin-Laden. We already knew him when we were kids curled up at home watching movies. He was the terrorist that the stars-and-stripes action hero annihilated. We cheered. Well before the attack on the twin towers, the collective West had established a pattern for dealing with the 'terrorist'.
The second error is to ignore history. By inflating the terrorist threat, we lose so much. Historically, complex conflicts around the world, resulting from legitimate grievances, are interpreted through the prism of the 'War on Terror'. This makes it easier for governments to crack down. In Uzbekistan, the government justifies its crackdown on protestors on the basis that Islamic extremists were orchestrating events. In Malaysia, the government attempts to suggest significant links between the political opposition party, PAS, and Al-Qaeda. In Thailand, intra-state contest and violence over resources and territory is often attributed to jihadists. Russia and China are in on the bandwagon. Separatist movements in those countries are seen as just one more expression of terrorism. The War on Terror as it is presently understood promotes repression, not peace and reconciliation.
The third error is to allow a legitimate concern with terrorism to be used to advance other agendas. Under the guise of the War on Terror, the US state has expanded its global presence, establishing military bases in Central Asia and the Middle East. The US has made efforts to reestablish a presence in Southeast Asia, in an effort to respond to China's overtures to the region. The US now has troops in the Philippines, has established a Counter-Terrorism Intelligence Centre in Thailand and has begun to re-engage with the Indonesian military. It is important to link the War on Terror with more global foreign policy objectives. In the early 1990s the US state was coming to terms with its sole superpower status. Then Defense official, Paul Wolfowitz, wrote a draft Defense Planning guidance that emphasized the need for the US to ensure that no global or regional rival emerge.Under the current Bush administration, this basic objective drives foreign policy and the expansion of US bases. There is nothing secretive about this – a survey of relevant documents, discussions within policy circles, and even the US National Security Strategy of 2002 makes clear the overriding imperative of US global hegemony.
Why then, does this objective have to hide under the cloak of the war on terror?The answer is that foreign policy is beyond the democratic realm. Foreign policy remains one of those areas where mandarins and politicians believe in the necessity of aristocracy. The unwashed masses are not to be trusted with shaping international order. Instead, they are offered whitewashes in a mixture of half-truths and outright lies. Talk of evil is easier than winning majorities with talk of hegemony, balance of power and resource security. It is true that the London bombings may for a time regalvanise the 'War on Terror' - but only as toxic drugs give temporary respite to terminal disease.
The War on Error, waged by millions of people who see through the hubris of imperial interest, demands that instead of infantilizing the public with metaphors of good and evil, governments should tell the public what they tell each other behind closed doors. Were it so, the world might be a safer place. After all, if the War on Terror was brought into question most people would not condone the bombing of innocent citizens who happen to live in states judged hostile by the President of the United States. The War on Error can save as many lives as the War on Terror can take.
By: Michael ConnorsWednesday 13 July 2005
New Matilda
The London bombings are unexceptional in a world laid to waste by imperial ambition. Such massacres and criminal murder are commonplace. What made them exceptional (and 9/11, Madrid, Bali) is that they happened to 'us'. Our tragedies are always capital 'T'. Rarely is civilian loss of life in Iraq, Afghanistan and other fronts in the 'War on Terror' spoken about by leaders of the 'Coalition of the Willing'. When it is covered on television news, wooden ritualistic expressions of sorrow are offered before programming quickly moves to entertainment news.
In his first speech after the bombings, British Prime Minister Tony Blair looked wounded. It's as if there was no available script to gloss over the lives of his own subjects. Momentarily, we witnessed a leader feeling pain. The more such bombings occur, and there is no reason to believe that a repressive and security driven campaign can stop them, Blair and leaders will get used to it. A new ritualistic sorrow-script will be written for 'us', and delivered with the same sincerity reserved for the collateral damage of some other place.
When Blair delivered his second speech from the G8 summit, world leaders gathered behind him in a show of solidarity. Some looked like guilty parties in a shabby police line-up. It was as if the London bombings had, with all their murderous flare, illuminated a decade of wrong doing that had, in the famous words of Chalmers Johnson, delivered a payload of 'Blowback'. You can't go on a crusade, wrapped up as a war for freedom, to restructure global politics and not expect home causalities. That's why Prime Minister Howard, who has thrown Australia into this crusade, says it can happen here. He knows it will, unless we are very, very lucky.
A week before the London bombings, US President George Bush, in his address to the nation, looked desperate to regalvanise support for the misnamed 'War on Terror'. Even his own party is turning. Two years ago, Bush, in one of the most successful manipulations of reality, managed to get people to see connections between terrorists and Iraq, Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. He managed to wrap up US global ambitions in the comfort blanket of a great war of good against evil. Now, all these Bushisms are beginning to look every bit as dowdy as propaganda films. After the bombings, Bush, also at the G8, drew attention to what he saw as the difference between his pals at the G8 and the evil-doers: '…the contrast couldn't be clearer between the intentions and the hearts of those of us who care deeply about human rights and human liberty, and those who kill, those who've got such evil in their heart that they will take the lives of innocent folks.'
That Bush's words used to move people to patriotic fervour and collective narcissism can not be denied. Now they flat-line. Now that the lies of Iraq are on the mortuary table, the Bush of 2005 isn't as bankable as an anchorman for propaganda, nor is his machine as capable of mass deception. As Bush's moment passes, it's time to declare a War on Error. The only causalities in this war will be egos, lies, sloppy reporting, and hidden agendas.In his book Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam British journalist Jason Bourke recalls wanting to report on possible sales of enriched uranium in Peshawar by Russian smugglers in 1998. An editor told him that the story would be published only if a 'bin-Laden' link was present, presumably to make it newsworthy. These days, establishing a bin-Laden link is as easy as simply asserting one.
The first error is a category error. Terrorists (anyone fighting the US and its allies) are deemed to be sub-human and irrational. To try and understand them and their cause is to risk being labelled an appeaser. But this is not just cynical prejudice, it is deeply rooted.In a wonderful new book, Imperial Delusions, Carl Boggs notes how Hollywood has mentally prepared us for the War on Terror. Its caricature of mad Arabs seething with existential rage is embedded in the Western psyche. In some ways, we have always known Osama bin-Laden. We already knew him when we were kids curled up at home watching movies. He was the terrorist that the stars-and-stripes action hero annihilated. We cheered. Well before the attack on the twin towers, the collective West had established a pattern for dealing with the 'terrorist'.
The second error is to ignore history. By inflating the terrorist threat, we lose so much. Historically, complex conflicts around the world, resulting from legitimate grievances, are interpreted through the prism of the 'War on Terror'. This makes it easier for governments to crack down. In Uzbekistan, the government justifies its crackdown on protestors on the basis that Islamic extremists were orchestrating events. In Malaysia, the government attempts to suggest significant links between the political opposition party, PAS, and Al-Qaeda. In Thailand, intra-state contest and violence over resources and territory is often attributed to jihadists. Russia and China are in on the bandwagon. Separatist movements in those countries are seen as just one more expression of terrorism. The War on Terror as it is presently understood promotes repression, not peace and reconciliation.
The third error is to allow a legitimate concern with terrorism to be used to advance other agendas. Under the guise of the War on Terror, the US state has expanded its global presence, establishing military bases in Central Asia and the Middle East. The US has made efforts to reestablish a presence in Southeast Asia, in an effort to respond to China's overtures to the region. The US now has troops in the Philippines, has established a Counter-Terrorism Intelligence Centre in Thailand and has begun to re-engage with the Indonesian military. It is important to link the War on Terror with more global foreign policy objectives. In the early 1990s the US state was coming to terms with its sole superpower status. Then Defense official, Paul Wolfowitz, wrote a draft Defense Planning guidance that emphasized the need for the US to ensure that no global or regional rival emerge.Under the current Bush administration, this basic objective drives foreign policy and the expansion of US bases. There is nothing secretive about this – a survey of relevant documents, discussions within policy circles, and even the US National Security Strategy of 2002 makes clear the overriding imperative of US global hegemony.
Why then, does this objective have to hide under the cloak of the war on terror?The answer is that foreign policy is beyond the democratic realm. Foreign policy remains one of those areas where mandarins and politicians believe in the necessity of aristocracy. The unwashed masses are not to be trusted with shaping international order. Instead, they are offered whitewashes in a mixture of half-truths and outright lies. Talk of evil is easier than winning majorities with talk of hegemony, balance of power and resource security. It is true that the London bombings may for a time regalvanise the 'War on Terror' - but only as toxic drugs give temporary respite to terminal disease.
The War on Error, waged by millions of people who see through the hubris of imperial interest, demands that instead of infantilizing the public with metaphors of good and evil, governments should tell the public what they tell each other behind closed doors. Were it so, the world might be a safer place. After all, if the War on Terror was brought into question most people would not condone the bombing of innocent citizens who happen to live in states judged hostile by the President of the United States. The War on Error can save as many lives as the War on Terror can take.
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