Don't Let the Neocons Call It a 'War on Terror'
The Subtance
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
Posted on July 21, 2006, Printed on July 21, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/39235/
There's never been a global war on terror. It's a sham, a ruse. The conflict that's broken out between Israel and Hezbollah shows us, again, how important it is to articulate that. It's a real war, and it has both neocons and Islamic extremists praying that it will escalate into the global Clash of Civilizations that they've long lusted after.
Bush and Congress gave Israel the green light to pummel Lebanon for a while because "Israel is fighting a brave battle in a dangerous front in the War on Terror." And what can we, as Americans, really say about that? After all, we accepted the idea (some of us grudgingly) that there was a global "War on Terror" ourselves -- why shouldn't Lebanon be the next front?
When the media and our political class accepted the war frame, the hawks got a blank check. Everything that followed -- invasions, illegal surveillance and prisoners held in limbo, are all expected during times of war. Once we went to "war," resisting those policies became an uphill fight. War talk justifies powerful states responding to terrorist or insurgent attacks with disproportionate force. That makes the hawks feel macho and will likely create a whole new generation of potentially violent radicals who hate our guts.
We should have fought the "War on Terror" narrative from the beginning. Calling it a "war" is a numerical error, not an ideological difference. There are a few tens of thousands of potentially violent extremists dispersed around the world. They're not gathered in large groups, and you can't distinguish them from ordinary civilians. That makes it fundamentally an intelligence and law enforcement problem (which may require some military support).
But it goes further than that. There's no global war between East and West because there are no discrete sides. First of all, there's no 'Us.' The Western democracies agree that terrorism is a problem, but they are perfectly divided about how to address it. The United States and Israel stand alone in their "wars," the Russians have their "war" with the Chechens and the rest of the world does what simple logic dictates: investigate terror cells and arrest the participants. Sometimes security forces kill them. They've had quite a bit of success.
What's more, we don't really care about Islamic extremism per se. We are no more allied with the Russians in their war with Chechen separatists than we have been with the Chinese as they've cracked down on Islamic groups in Xinjiang. Where U.S. "interests" aren't involved, we're indifferent.
Much more important -- and so many Americans don't get this -- there's no "them." The image of a well-organized global Islamic insurgency is a fantasy. Al Qaeda was one of a dozen Islamic extremist groups that emerged in the 1990s, and Bin Laden was one of a few dozen influential and charismatic militant leaders. Individual groups were fighting separate, distinctly domestic battles; Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya opposed the Egyptian government, Hezbollah was formed to beat back the Israeli occupation of Lebanon, the Group Islamique Armé rose up to topple Algeria's government, and so on.
All of those conflicts had their own unique contexts and histories, and almost all of those movements had legitimate gripes with some rather unsavory governments. Most Americans couldn't tell you what the struggle between the Philippine government and Abu Sayyaf is all about, and why should they? That battle has little to do with us, as so many of them don't. Some of these "terror groups," remember, were called "freedom fighters" when they were pointed at the Soviets or their client states.
In that landscape, Al Qaeda was unique in one important way: Bin Laden, like his neocon counterparts, saw the world gripped in an existential struggle between East and West. He was jockeying for position with dozens of other movements, none of which were based on a broad, global effort against the United States and its allies. Bin Laden focused on US support for the Saudi government, for Israel, for Egypt's repressive regime (a government that imprisoned and tortured tens of thousands of political Islamists) and he preached that the United States was the head of the snake. First defeat America, and then all those individual, national and very particular battles could be won.
This was not an easy sell. Messing with the U.S., it was widely acknowledged, was not a terribly smart course of action, and many militants had a narrowly focused hatred of their own domestic ideological opponents. It also didn't sit well with Bin Laden's hosts. As Jason Burke writes in his excellent book, Al Qaeda, "it is important to recognize that [Islamist movements] in Yemen and Afghanistan, and the regime in the Sudan, have roots in local contingencies that pre-date Bin Laden." They used the sheik and allowed themselves to be used by him, but their conflicts, too, were domestic in nature. In early 1996, the Sudanese government approached the United States and Saudi Arabia and offered to turn Bin Laden over to their security services. They refused. In May of that year, he returned to Afghanistan, where he had developed a reputation fighting the Soviets.
Here we come to a crucial part of the story of the rise of international Islamism -- a narrative the American media has been criminally complicit in ignoring. In August of 1998, independent groups loosely affiliated with Al Qaeda attacked U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. Rather than treating the attacks as a security problem that cried out for better intelligence, Bill Clinton reacted by using the tools of war, launching over a hundred cruise missiles at Sudan and Afghanistan in Operation Shortsighted Violence ("Infinite Reach"). The missiles were primarily for domestic consumption -- to deflect attention from Monica's cum-stained dress and to assuage the bloodthirsty right -- and had little effect on violent extremists. But they did knock out Sudan's only pharmaceutical plant, precipitating a disease epidemic that killed tens of thousands of people -- a story ignored by the Western press.
Meanwhile, the Taliban had grown weary of Bin Laden's shtick. They were sick of his public attacks against the "crusaders and Zionists," and while the Taliban's leaders were terribly provincial, they understood that the heat Bin Laden was bringing down on them wasn't helping their cause. Remember, this was a group that was negotiating with Texas oilmen from Unocal to install a major pipeline in Afghanistan; they wanted foreign investment and recognition.
In mid-1998, the Taliban, like the Sudanese before them, cut a deal to turn Bin laden over to Saudi Arabia, where he would be tried for treason and in all likelihood executed. All that the Taliban asked in return was for a group of religious authorities loyal to the Saudi government to issue a statement justifying the move under Islamic law -- a mere technicality.
In July of that year, the deal was confirmed and, in early September, two planes landed in Kandahar carrying Prince Turki and a group of Saudi commandos to collect Bin Laden. But the deal had run into a snag three weeks earlier, when the United States had launched its cruise missiles. The Saudis arrived only to be told the deal was off and to be dressed down by Taliban leader Mullah Omar. The strikes had changed everything.
The missile attack was a disaster with far-reaching consequences. Those Tomahawks validated all of Bin Laden's claims. The United States, it seemed, really was unconcerned with the deaths of thousands of innocent Muslims. Hundreds of extremists who had come to Afghanistan to train for their local fights in Kashmir or the Philippines or wherever suddenly flocked to Al Qaeda, convinced that Bin Laden's epic struggle against the West was their own.
They didn't necessarily share his priorities, but our military response showed he had gotten to us, and he became a hero. It was the beginning of of a trend that continues today: the United States, where political leaders explain complex geopolitical issues in simple binaries (freedom-loving/terror-loving) and are unable to differentiate between a war and a law enforcement problem, stumbles blindly into a full-blown attack on a sovereign country -- pressed ever forward by its psychotic and racist right wing -- with disastrous and unintended consequences. Iraq wasn't the first, and Bush didn't start it -- Clinton did.
9/11 was destined to happen one way or another, even if Bush had paid attention to that famous briefing at his ranch in Crawford. That's because the fuse that set off 9/11 was laid out decades ago in the Reagan era. His administration joined the Saudi regime (and Pakistani intelligence) in promoting an extremist form of Islamic fundamentalism to counter the Soviets in Afghanistan and the Pan-Arabists in the Gulf -- and it was lit by Clinton's fireworks display.
After 9/11, we could have knocked the hell out of Al Qaeda and fractured the delicate coalition that Bin Laden had managed to cobble together after the East Africa bombings. Instead, we launched a "war" on terror, and we again proved to a receptive audience that we're the enemy they should focus on. Abu Ghraib, Iraq, Gitmo -- these are recruiting posters for global Jihad.
We may yet end up with a unified opponent against whom we can fight a global war. But if we do, it will be one of our own making. It'll be because we didn't nip the war talk in the bud.
An earlier version of this article first appeared in The Mix. Read the original here.
Joshua Holland is an AlterNet staff writer.
© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/39235/
Comments
There is a global counterinsurgency campaign.
Posted by: wli on Jul 21, 2006 2:41 AM [Report this comment]
This remains even without a global Islamic insurgency. Look at what the neocons are doing, not what they're saying. And look right here in the US:
1. attacking those who protest against Bush's policies
2. attacking pacifists
3. attacking vegetarians
4. attacking gays
5. attacking alter/anti-globalization activists
6. massive spying campaigns against dissidents
7. implementing draconian police state measures
8. ideological screening in govt. and at US borders
9. extensive propaganda campaigns
10. inducting ultra-right-wingers (esp. neo-Nazis) into the military en masse to train them for a war at home
There is a domestic counterinsurgency campaign in progress, and the US is not the only country doing it. Contrary to what publicly-touted notions of counterinsurgency are, these campaigns are highly political in nature. By no means are they limited to suppressing violent uprisings; they're meant to suppress particular political views and constituencies -- universally those on the left.
The global counterinsurgency campaign is an extension of the same across US-aligned countries in tandem with "regime changes" for the few remaining rejectionist regimes.
At this point I should furthermore clarify "counterterrorism." In early counterinsurgency literature, this meant quite a different thing from the notion peddled for public consumption. It explicitly referred to "terrorism," attacks on civilians intended to stimulate fear and panic, carried out by counterinsurgency forces as a counterweight to the "terrorism" of the "insurgents." The presumption, which was known to be false up-front, was that the only way the insurgents could acquire public support was by terrorizing the population that supported them. In such a manner, gruesome torture and massacres were rationalized in counterinsurgency campaigns across Southeast Asia and Latin America so that the terror inflicted upon the populace by "insurgents," such as union organizers and schoolmarms sympathetic to the plight of the poor, would be overridden by the greater terror of death squads. The tactics such as I describe are well-known to be in use in Iraq to anyone who's paying the slightest attention (c.f. e.g. the big article on the "Salvador option" and the "NATO option" quasi-rebuttal to it; also note Negroponte).
The issue is not so much whether the neocons are actually going about attacking something, but what they're actually attacking. The name "War on Terror," is, of course, deceptive, but that doesn't mean that there's nothing to which it refers.
Let's stop using the language
Posted by: polyquat50 on Jul 21, 2006 3:33 AM
It's time to say we don't buy the argument by refusing to use the language. No more 'war on terror', collateral damage', 'military intelligence', 'illegal aliens' etc etc. It's time to write the dialogue in our own terms. Call a spade a spade.
» RE: Let's stop using the language Posted by: maxpayne
sickofskeaze
Posted by: ladybug1@carrollsweb.com on Jul 21, 2006 3:54 AM
Ever ask yourself where Israel's artillery, planes etc are coming from? And all the other weapons we see blowing up daily in the middle east? From the good old USofA's military-industrial complex Ike warned us of during his Presidency. They are raking in billions if not trillions from all the wars formented by the criminal cabal in the White House. I count Cheney too as he spends more time in the WH than Bush does, burrowed in his "secret undisclosed location"
War on?
Posted by: colinmeister on Jul 21, 2006 3:55 AM
The "War on Terror" smacks of a Reagan era war - the "War on Drugs".
We can all see how successful the "War on Drugs" has been by the massive reduction in the number of illegal drug use which has taken place since this war was declared - NOT! It is still hard to drive through some US inner cities without being offered drugs in exchange for cash when stopping at a red light.
One eagerly awaits the outcome of the "War on Terror", will it be as successful as the "War on Drugs"?
» I agree. Posted by: pol
There is a war on, whoever started it
Posted by: Bobsays on Jul 21, 2006 4:14 AM
I agree that the war on terror is led by idiots and has been badly handled. Complaining about the terminology is like the dead end the left got itself into over identity politics. While the war rages around the world, and people are being killed, the left wants to find new terminology for the war. Leave it to the university semiotics departments.
The left should be first engaging with the threat of islamic fundamentalism and second coming with an alternative plan to deal with it. Thirdly, find an ally (easy enough - there are states who don't line up with either party) and get them to carry out this alternative strategy. If it reduces the threat, then lets broadcast that as a best practice. But I will not listen if it involves leaving women to be persecuted, or islamic terrorists to roam free and attack.
I think most people are open to alternative strategies. Let's hear them!
» RE: There is a war on, whoever started it Posted by: Chickensh*tEagle
» RE: There is a war on, whoever started it Posted by: Lizmv
really are
Posted by: rsaxto on Jul 21, 2006 4:39 AM
But there really are terrorists running around loose and the top three world terrorists are Cheney, Bush and Putin. But there is a nonviolent way to rid the world of these immoral terrorists: IMPEACH THEM! Then interpol and other police organizations can mop up the last vestiges of terrorists.
[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »]
Neocon and Islamic extremesists
Posted by: deo508 on Jul 21, 2006 5:18 AM [Report this comment]
"It's a real war, and it has both neocons and Islamic extremists praying that it will escalate into the global Clash of Civilizations that they've long lusted after."
Neocons and Islamic extremists are historical babies having both been born with the advent of the insipient invention of a nightmare called Zionizm. Neocon extremist make up a small part of Izraeli and American society while Muslim extremists make up a small part of Islam. How are they able to dominate and dictate to the world their narrow minded objectives so easily?
» RE: Neocon and Islamic extremesists Posted by: maxpayne
Another possibility for the "war on terror"
Posted by: nbrown on Jul 21, 2006 5:24 AM
Joshua,
You say the "war on terror" isn't a real war, as properly defined. I agree with you on that.
But let's consider something else for a moment. What if the "war on terror" is just an umbrella term for many wars? The first examples being Afghanistan and Iraq. Next, maybe the government will send people to die in Iran or Syria, further deepening its grip in the energy center of the world.
Also, the "war on terror" isn't a neocon term: it is shared by politicians in both parties. And beyond simple words, its execution is supported by both parties. Even Russ Feingold wants war with Iran and/or Syria. Kerry said he would have invaded Iraq even without WMD. Hillary Clinton is participating in rallies for Israeli terrorism.
It would do people a lot of good, I think, to recognize that the Democrats aren't on their side. We need to begin developing new, creative, and decentralized alternatives to the electoral status quo.
» RE: Another possibility for the "war on terror" Posted by: maxpayne
The US and Israel are in occupation mode, not war
Posted by: maxpayne on Jul 21, 2006 5:44 AM
War is a distraction used to keep the "cut and run" weapon in handy. If they were really honest by admitting that it's nothing more than failed occupations, it would have been harder for them to use the "cut and run" weapon against dissenters. I hope the dissenters pick up on this and reframe the issue.
Blinded by the light
Posted by: blackinjun on Jul 21, 2006 5:58 AM
Dear Joshua or Jesus, whatever:
I think you should stop with your misdirection too... This idiocy IS a war on terror for christians and their neocon buddies....Xtians are terrorized that Islam is the fastest growing religion in america..
http://www.iol.ie/~afifi/BICNews/Islam/islam21.htm
Chickenshit Bush
Posted by: shangrilalad on Jul 21, 2006 5:59 AM
BUSH 'PLAYFULLY' slaps Rep. Al Green at NAACP convention.
That was hard slap and a cheap shot, which shows that Bush is a punk.
Bush has this one right... It's a "War on Terra"
Posted by: xbj on Jul 21, 2006 6:20 AM
Their own private little joke.
Terra being short for "Terra Firma", latin for "Planet Earth."
And believe that this is a war, by the cabal that took over the United States, against the entire rest of Planet Earth. Because these morons have effectively alienated every single last one of our allies, and united every single last one of our enemies against us.
And the countries that were on the fencepost, as it were, like Russia and China? The ones that could have gone either way?
Uh, no longer allies. Not by a long shot. In fact, planning all out nuclear and nonconventional war against the US as we speak the second this insane cabal nukes Iran out of desperation or at the point of Israeli blackmail. One way or another, the US loses their "War on Terra".
There's never been a global war on terror. It's a sham, a ruse.Don't Let the Neocons Call It a 'War on Terror'
When the media and our political class accepted the war frame, the hawks got a blank check. Everything that followed -- invasions, illegal surveillance and prisoners held in limbo, are all expected during times of war. Once we went to "war," resisting those policies became an uphill fight. War talk justifies powerful states responding to terrorist or insurgent attacks with disproportionate force. That makes the hawks feel macho and will likely create a whole new generation of potentially violent radicals who hate our guts.
We should have fought the "War on Terror" narrative from the beginning. Calling it a "war" is a numerical error, not an ideological difference. There are a few tens of thousands of potentially violent extremists dispersed around the world. They're not gathered in large groups, and you can't distinguish them from ordinary civilians. That makes it fundamentally an intelligence and law enforcement problem (which may require some military support).
First of all, there's no 'Us.' The Western democracies agree that terrorism is a problem, but they are perfectly divided about how to address it. The United States and Israel stand alone in their "wars," the Russians have their "war" with the Chechens and the rest of the world does what simple logic dictates: investigate terror cells and arrest the participants. Sometimes security forces kill them. They've had quite a bit of success.
Much more important -- and so many Americans don't get this -- there's no "them." The image of a well-organized global Islamic insurgency is a fantasy. Al Qaeda was one of a dozen Islamic extremist groups that emerged in the 1990s, and Bin Laden was one of a few dozen influential and charismatic militant leaders. All of those conflicts had their own unique contexts and histories, and almost all of those movements had legitimate gripes with some rather unsavory governments.
Here we come to a crucial part of the story of the rise of international Islamism[.]... In August of 1998, independent groups loosely affiliated with Al Qaeda attacked U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. Rather than treating the attacks as a security problem that cried out for better intelligence, Bill Clinton reacted by using the tools of war, launching over a hundred cruise missiles at Sudan and Afghanistan in Operation Shortsighted Violence ("Infinite Reach"). The missiles were primarily for domestic consumption -- to deflect attention from Monica's cum-stained dress and to assuage the bloodthirsty right -- and had little effect on violent extremists.
The missile attack was a disaster with far-reaching consequences. Those Tomahawks validated all of Bin Laden's claims. The United States, it seemed, really was unconcerned with the deaths of thousands of innocent Muslims. Hundreds of extremists who had come to Afghanistan to train for their local fights in Kashmir or the Philippines or wherever suddenly flocked to Al Qaeda, convinced that Bin Laden's epic struggle against the West was their own.
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
Posted on July 21, 2006, Printed on July 21, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/39235/
There's never been a global war on terror. It's a sham, a ruse. The conflict that's broken out between Israel and Hezbollah shows us, again, how important it is to articulate that. It's a real war, and it has both neocons and Islamic extremists praying that it will escalate into the global Clash of Civilizations that they've long lusted after.
Bush and Congress gave Israel the green light to pummel Lebanon for a while because "Israel is fighting a brave battle in a dangerous front in the War on Terror." And what can we, as Americans, really say about that? After all, we accepted the idea (some of us grudgingly) that there was a global "War on Terror" ourselves -- why shouldn't Lebanon be the next front?
When the media and our political class accepted the war frame, the hawks got a blank check. Everything that followed -- invasions, illegal surveillance and prisoners held in limbo, are all expected during times of war. Once we went to "war," resisting those policies became an uphill fight. War talk justifies powerful states responding to terrorist or insurgent attacks with disproportionate force. That makes the hawks feel macho and will likely create a whole new generation of potentially violent radicals who hate our guts.
We should have fought the "War on Terror" narrative from the beginning. Calling it a "war" is a numerical error, not an ideological difference. There are a few tens of thousands of potentially violent extremists dispersed around the world. They're not gathered in large groups, and you can't distinguish them from ordinary civilians. That makes it fundamentally an intelligence and law enforcement problem (which may require some military support).
But it goes further than that. There's no global war between East and West because there are no discrete sides. First of all, there's no 'Us.' The Western democracies agree that terrorism is a problem, but they are perfectly divided about how to address it. The United States and Israel stand alone in their "wars," the Russians have their "war" with the Chechens and the rest of the world does what simple logic dictates: investigate terror cells and arrest the participants. Sometimes security forces kill them. They've had quite a bit of success.
What's more, we don't really care about Islamic extremism per se. We are no more allied with the Russians in their war with Chechen separatists than we have been with the Chinese as they've cracked down on Islamic groups in Xinjiang. Where U.S. "interests" aren't involved, we're indifferent.
Much more important -- and so many Americans don't get this -- there's no "them." The image of a well-organized global Islamic insurgency is a fantasy. Al Qaeda was one of a dozen Islamic extremist groups that emerged in the 1990s, and Bin Laden was one of a few dozen influential and charismatic militant leaders. Individual groups were fighting separate, distinctly domestic battles; Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya opposed the Egyptian government, Hezbollah was formed to beat back the Israeli occupation of Lebanon, the Group Islamique Armé rose up to topple Algeria's government, and so on.
All of those conflicts had their own unique contexts and histories, and almost all of those movements had legitimate gripes with some rather unsavory governments. Most Americans couldn't tell you what the struggle between the Philippine government and Abu Sayyaf is all about, and why should they? That battle has little to do with us, as so many of them don't. Some of these "terror groups," remember, were called "freedom fighters" when they were pointed at the Soviets or their client states.
In that landscape, Al Qaeda was unique in one important way: Bin Laden, like his neocon counterparts, saw the world gripped in an existential struggle between East and West. He was jockeying for position with dozens of other movements, none of which were based on a broad, global effort against the United States and its allies. Bin Laden focused on US support for the Saudi government, for Israel, for Egypt's repressive regime (a government that imprisoned and tortured tens of thousands of political Islamists) and he preached that the United States was the head of the snake. First defeat America, and then all those individual, national and very particular battles could be won.
This was not an easy sell. Messing with the U.S., it was widely acknowledged, was not a terribly smart course of action, and many militants had a narrowly focused hatred of their own domestic ideological opponents. It also didn't sit well with Bin Laden's hosts. As Jason Burke writes in his excellent book, Al Qaeda, "it is important to recognize that [Islamist movements] in Yemen and Afghanistan, and the regime in the Sudan, have roots in local contingencies that pre-date Bin Laden." They used the sheik and allowed themselves to be used by him, but their conflicts, too, were domestic in nature. In early 1996, the Sudanese government approached the United States and Saudi Arabia and offered to turn Bin Laden over to their security services. They refused. In May of that year, he returned to Afghanistan, where he had developed a reputation fighting the Soviets.
Here we come to a crucial part of the story of the rise of international Islamism -- a narrative the American media has been criminally complicit in ignoring. In August of 1998, independent groups loosely affiliated with Al Qaeda attacked U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. Rather than treating the attacks as a security problem that cried out for better intelligence, Bill Clinton reacted by using the tools of war, launching over a hundred cruise missiles at Sudan and Afghanistan in Operation Shortsighted Violence ("Infinite Reach"). The missiles were primarily for domestic consumption -- to deflect attention from Monica's cum-stained dress and to assuage the bloodthirsty right -- and had little effect on violent extremists. But they did knock out Sudan's only pharmaceutical plant, precipitating a disease epidemic that killed tens of thousands of people -- a story ignored by the Western press.
Meanwhile, the Taliban had grown weary of Bin Laden's shtick. They were sick of his public attacks against the "crusaders and Zionists," and while the Taliban's leaders were terribly provincial, they understood that the heat Bin Laden was bringing down on them wasn't helping their cause. Remember, this was a group that was negotiating with Texas oilmen from Unocal to install a major pipeline in Afghanistan; they wanted foreign investment and recognition.
In mid-1998, the Taliban, like the Sudanese before them, cut a deal to turn Bin laden over to Saudi Arabia, where he would be tried for treason and in all likelihood executed. All that the Taliban asked in return was for a group of religious authorities loyal to the Saudi government to issue a statement justifying the move under Islamic law -- a mere technicality.
In July of that year, the deal was confirmed and, in early September, two planes landed in Kandahar carrying Prince Turki and a group of Saudi commandos to collect Bin Laden. But the deal had run into a snag three weeks earlier, when the United States had launched its cruise missiles. The Saudis arrived only to be told the deal was off and to be dressed down by Taliban leader Mullah Omar. The strikes had changed everything.
The missile attack was a disaster with far-reaching consequences. Those Tomahawks validated all of Bin Laden's claims. The United States, it seemed, really was unconcerned with the deaths of thousands of innocent Muslims. Hundreds of extremists who had come to Afghanistan to train for their local fights in Kashmir or the Philippines or wherever suddenly flocked to Al Qaeda, convinced that Bin Laden's epic struggle against the West was their own.
They didn't necessarily share his priorities, but our military response showed he had gotten to us, and he became a hero. It was the beginning of of a trend that continues today: the United States, where political leaders explain complex geopolitical issues in simple binaries (freedom-loving/terror-loving) and are unable to differentiate between a war and a law enforcement problem, stumbles blindly into a full-blown attack on a sovereign country -- pressed ever forward by its psychotic and racist right wing -- with disastrous and unintended consequences. Iraq wasn't the first, and Bush didn't start it -- Clinton did.
9/11 was destined to happen one way or another, even if Bush had paid attention to that famous briefing at his ranch in Crawford. That's because the fuse that set off 9/11 was laid out decades ago in the Reagan era. His administration joined the Saudi regime (and Pakistani intelligence) in promoting an extremist form of Islamic fundamentalism to counter the Soviets in Afghanistan and the Pan-Arabists in the Gulf -- and it was lit by Clinton's fireworks display.
After 9/11, we could have knocked the hell out of Al Qaeda and fractured the delicate coalition that Bin Laden had managed to cobble together after the East Africa bombings. Instead, we launched a "war" on terror, and we again proved to a receptive audience that we're the enemy they should focus on. Abu Ghraib, Iraq, Gitmo -- these are recruiting posters for global Jihad.
We may yet end up with a unified opponent against whom we can fight a global war. But if we do, it will be one of our own making. It'll be because we didn't nip the war talk in the bud.
An earlier version of this article first appeared in The Mix. Read the original here.
Joshua Holland is an AlterNet staff writer.
© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/39235/
Comments
There is a global counterinsurgency campaign.
Posted by: wli on Jul 21, 2006 2:41 AM [Report this comment]
This remains even without a global Islamic insurgency. Look at what the neocons are doing, not what they're saying. And look right here in the US:
1. attacking those who protest against Bush's policies
2. attacking pacifists
3. attacking vegetarians
4. attacking gays
5. attacking alter/anti-globalization activists
6. massive spying campaigns against dissidents
7. implementing draconian police state measures
8. ideological screening in govt. and at US borders
9. extensive propaganda campaigns
10. inducting ultra-right-wingers (esp. neo-Nazis) into the military en masse to train them for a war at home
There is a domestic counterinsurgency campaign in progress, and the US is not the only country doing it. Contrary to what publicly-touted notions of counterinsurgency are, these campaigns are highly political in nature. By no means are they limited to suppressing violent uprisings; they're meant to suppress particular political views and constituencies -- universally those on the left.
The global counterinsurgency campaign is an extension of the same across US-aligned countries in tandem with "regime changes" for the few remaining rejectionist regimes.
At this point I should furthermore clarify "counterterrorism." In early counterinsurgency literature, this meant quite a different thing from the notion peddled for public consumption. It explicitly referred to "terrorism," attacks on civilians intended to stimulate fear and panic, carried out by counterinsurgency forces as a counterweight to the "terrorism" of the "insurgents." The presumption, which was known to be false up-front, was that the only way the insurgents could acquire public support was by terrorizing the population that supported them. In such a manner, gruesome torture and massacres were rationalized in counterinsurgency campaigns across Southeast Asia and Latin America so that the terror inflicted upon the populace by "insurgents," such as union organizers and schoolmarms sympathetic to the plight of the poor, would be overridden by the greater terror of death squads. The tactics such as I describe are well-known to be in use in Iraq to anyone who's paying the slightest attention (c.f. e.g. the big article on the "Salvador option" and the "NATO option" quasi-rebuttal to it; also note Negroponte).
The issue is not so much whether the neocons are actually going about attacking something, but what they're actually attacking. The name "War on Terror," is, of course, deceptive, but that doesn't mean that there's nothing to which it refers.
Let's stop using the language
Posted by: polyquat50 on Jul 21, 2006 3:33 AM
It's time to say we don't buy the argument by refusing to use the language. No more 'war on terror', collateral damage', 'military intelligence', 'illegal aliens' etc etc. It's time to write the dialogue in our own terms. Call a spade a spade.
» RE: Let's stop using the language Posted by: maxpayne
sickofskeaze
Posted by: ladybug1@carrollsweb.com on Jul 21, 2006 3:54 AM
Ever ask yourself where Israel's artillery, planes etc are coming from? And all the other weapons we see blowing up daily in the middle east? From the good old USofA's military-industrial complex Ike warned us of during his Presidency. They are raking in billions if not trillions from all the wars formented by the criminal cabal in the White House. I count Cheney too as he spends more time in the WH than Bush does, burrowed in his "secret undisclosed location"
War on?
Posted by: colinmeister on Jul 21, 2006 3:55 AM
The "War on Terror" smacks of a Reagan era war - the "War on Drugs".
We can all see how successful the "War on Drugs" has been by the massive reduction in the number of illegal drug use which has taken place since this war was declared - NOT! It is still hard to drive through some US inner cities without being offered drugs in exchange for cash when stopping at a red light.
One eagerly awaits the outcome of the "War on Terror", will it be as successful as the "War on Drugs"?
» I agree. Posted by: pol
There is a war on, whoever started it
Posted by: Bobsays on Jul 21, 2006 4:14 AM
I agree that the war on terror is led by idiots and has been badly handled. Complaining about the terminology is like the dead end the left got itself into over identity politics. While the war rages around the world, and people are being killed, the left wants to find new terminology for the war. Leave it to the university semiotics departments.
The left should be first engaging with the threat of islamic fundamentalism and second coming with an alternative plan to deal with it. Thirdly, find an ally (easy enough - there are states who don't line up with either party) and get them to carry out this alternative strategy. If it reduces the threat, then lets broadcast that as a best practice. But I will not listen if it involves leaving women to be persecuted, or islamic terrorists to roam free and attack.
I think most people are open to alternative strategies. Let's hear them!
» RE: There is a war on, whoever started it Posted by: Chickensh*tEagle
» RE: There is a war on, whoever started it Posted by: Lizmv
really are
Posted by: rsaxto on Jul 21, 2006 4:39 AM
But there really are terrorists running around loose and the top three world terrorists are Cheney, Bush and Putin. But there is a nonviolent way to rid the world of these immoral terrorists: IMPEACH THEM! Then interpol and other police organizations can mop up the last vestiges of terrorists.
[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »]
Neocon and Islamic extremesists
Posted by: deo508 on Jul 21, 2006 5:18 AM [Report this comment]
"It's a real war, and it has both neocons and Islamic extremists praying that it will escalate into the global Clash of Civilizations that they've long lusted after."
Neocons and Islamic extremists are historical babies having both been born with the advent of the insipient invention of a nightmare called Zionizm. Neocon extremist make up a small part of Izraeli and American society while Muslim extremists make up a small part of Islam. How are they able to dominate and dictate to the world their narrow minded objectives so easily?
» RE: Neocon and Islamic extremesists Posted by: maxpayne
Another possibility for the "war on terror"
Posted by: nbrown on Jul 21, 2006 5:24 AM
Joshua,
You say the "war on terror" isn't a real war, as properly defined. I agree with you on that.
But let's consider something else for a moment. What if the "war on terror" is just an umbrella term for many wars? The first examples being Afghanistan and Iraq. Next, maybe the government will send people to die in Iran or Syria, further deepening its grip in the energy center of the world.
Also, the "war on terror" isn't a neocon term: it is shared by politicians in both parties. And beyond simple words, its execution is supported by both parties. Even Russ Feingold wants war with Iran and/or Syria. Kerry said he would have invaded Iraq even without WMD. Hillary Clinton is participating in rallies for Israeli terrorism.
It would do people a lot of good, I think, to recognize that the Democrats aren't on their side. We need to begin developing new, creative, and decentralized alternatives to the electoral status quo.
» RE: Another possibility for the "war on terror" Posted by: maxpayne
The US and Israel are in occupation mode, not war
Posted by: maxpayne on Jul 21, 2006 5:44 AM
War is a distraction used to keep the "cut and run" weapon in handy. If they were really honest by admitting that it's nothing more than failed occupations, it would have been harder for them to use the "cut and run" weapon against dissenters. I hope the dissenters pick up on this and reframe the issue.
Blinded by the light
Posted by: blackinjun on Jul 21, 2006 5:58 AM
Dear Joshua or Jesus, whatever:
I think you should stop with your misdirection too... This idiocy IS a war on terror for christians and their neocon buddies....Xtians are terrorized that Islam is the fastest growing religion in america..
http://www.iol.ie/~afifi/BICNews/Islam/islam21.htm
Chickenshit Bush
Posted by: shangrilalad on Jul 21, 2006 5:59 AM
BUSH 'PLAYFULLY' slaps Rep. Al Green at NAACP convention.
That was hard slap and a cheap shot, which shows that Bush is a punk.
Bush has this one right... It's a "War on Terra"
Posted by: xbj on Jul 21, 2006 6:20 AM
Their own private little joke.
Terra being short for "Terra Firma", latin for "Planet Earth."
And believe that this is a war, by the cabal that took over the United States, against the entire rest of Planet Earth. Because these morons have effectively alienated every single last one of our allies, and united every single last one of our enemies against us.
And the countries that were on the fencepost, as it were, like Russia and China? The ones that could have gone either way?
Uh, no longer allies. Not by a long shot. In fact, planning all out nuclear and nonconventional war against the US as we speak the second this insane cabal nukes Iran out of desperation or at the point of Israeli blackmail. One way or another, the US loses their "War on Terra".
posted by JimG at 9:25 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home