Abstract

Under the Banner of the 'War' on Terror

When United States President George W. Bush called U.S. citizens to enlist in his "war on terror," very few citizens could have grasped the all-encompassing consequences of the proposition. It overwhelmed the country, in fact deranged society's normal processes and purposes with a brilliantly seductive political message: Terror pre-empts everything else. What this President effectively accomplished was to restart the cold war, albeit under a new rubric. The justifying facts are different and smaller, but the ideological dynamics are remarkably similar--a total commitment of the nation's energies to confront a vast, unseen and malignant adversary. Terrorism is not an enemy; it is a method of using violence to gain political objectives. Terror campaigns are cruel by nature but in some instances are regarded as righteous, when the violence is used to liberate oppressed peoples from colonial rule. The trauma of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, stimulated infinite possibilities for worry--some quite plausible, but most inspired by remote what-if fantasies. A society bingeing on fear makes itself vulnerable to far more profound forms of destruction than terror attacks. The "terrorism war," like a nostalgic echo of the cold war, is using these popular fears to advance a different agenda--the re-engineering of U.S. life through permanent mobilization. Now that the war in Iraq has gone so badly and public doubts are growing rapidly, many more Democrats and even some Republicans are willing to attack the President's management, but still do not challenge the breadth and nature of his "war" commitment. U.S. foreign policy has been stood on its head. Every complexity and volatile force in global affairs has been redefined as subsidiary to terrorism. Iraq will surely leave behind a public distaste for pre-emptive war, but given the vast and unknowable "threat," it would be irresponsible for military leaders not to prepare for the next war.