Five years after the only September 11 that will ever seem to matter, the world is awakening to the potential consequences of the Bush Administration’s apocalyptic reaction to the events of that most horrible day. Public opinion in Europe and the United States is growing toward consensus: President Bush’s all-or-nothing “war on terror” is itself a grave threat to global stability in the 21st century.
The 9-11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington were so horrifying the early tone of absolutism adopted by the Bush Administration seemed natural enough. Nobody blanched when on September 14, 2001 President Bush intoned, “every nation in every region now has a decision to make: Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.” In his greatest fit of hyperbole, President Bush declared that the aim of America’s war on terror was to “to rid the world of evildoers”?
This desire is understandable, even admirable, as a visceral reaction to the events of September 11. Who wouldn’t want to rid the world of people capable of such atrocities?
As an objective of government policy, however, this declaration of intent invites tragedy. This is not the language of military war; it is the language of religious apocalypse. Never mind whether great nations are capable of serving as global police; President Bush has tried to ordain the United States the world’s avenging angel.
By portraying the 9-11 terrorists not as political extremists employing barbaric tactics, but instead, quite simply, as “evildoers,” the Administration has framed the matter so that any who would oppose American foreign policy invite the accusation of accommodating evil. Afghanistan’s Taliban regime fit this bill nicely, of course, as does Iraq’s Saddam Hussein – and the United States is obviously capable of winning wars against regimes such as these.
But these kinds of military victories merely underscore the deeper question: how can any nation win a “war” on terror? What would constitute victory in this so-called war? The overthrow of the Taliban regime has not brought an end to terrorism. Neither has the ouster of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Would a change of regime in Saudi Arabia? Or in Libya? Or in Iran? Or in North Korea? Or in Cuba? Or in all the nations allegedly comprising the so-called “axis of evil”?
The cold, cruel fact is that terrorism would not end if the United States overthrew every regime tied in any way to all groups using terror as a political tactic. Nations and quasi-national militia are not the only practitioners of terror, so vanquishing nations and militia – the realistic objective of war – cannot vanquish terrorism. The Bush Administration can “preempt” all the “potential aggressors” it wants. Still there will be terrorists in the world.
Some will say the phrase, “war on terrorism” is a metaphor – like the war on drugs, or the war on illiteracy. But the Bush Administration apparently believes it can really wage this war through a series of military campaigns. Rhetorically it has linked its military efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq to an ill-defined war for which there is no plausible end-game and to an apocalyptic aspiration to cleanse the world of evil. As President Bush put it on November 6, 2001: “[we are] at the beginning of our efforts in Afghanistan. And Afghanistan is the beginning of our efforts in the world.”
This is the hard and bitter truth of America’s reaction to the nightmarish events of September 11, 2001: President Bush took Osama Bin Laden’s bait. His administration has responded to a heinous act of jihad by declaring an American crusade.
Throughout the Arab world militants and fanatics are convinced (and are working hard to convince their compatriots) that the two wars are flip sides of the same coin. Administration protestations to the contrary cannot outweigh the weight of evidence proffered by U.S. foreign policy.
Things might have been different had the Administration presented its military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq as limited wars and necessary means to disabling specific and credible threats. Putting an end to terrorism writ large could have been identified as a goal to be achieved only, if ever, in the maddeningly imperfect realm of international politics. And the presumptuous goal of ridding the world of evil could have been left in the hands of God.
But by failing to frame these larger challenges as complicated matters of geopolitics and cosmic morality, and by pretending instead that American military power can somehow magically resolve them, the Bush Administration has joined a fight that could endure for years, perhaps generations, to come.
It may not be too late to escape this fate. Saddled with the absolutes of good and evil, the American “war on terror” is beginning to sink in the swamp of geopolitical realities.
Perhaps on a September 11 in the not-too-distant future an American President will have the courage to jettison the “Bush doctrine” which divides the world into opposing camps and forces our allies and friends and potential friends to chose between “us” and “them.” Perhaps on this new day an American President will declare to the family of nations: “America is not at holy war. America does not want a holy war. To a holy war there is no end.”
The 9-11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington were so horrifying the early tone of absolutism adopted by the Bush Administration seemed natural enough. Nobody blanched when on September 14, 2001 President Bush intoned, “every nation in every region now has a decision to make: Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.” In his greatest fit of hyperbole, President Bush declared that the aim of America’s war on terror was to “to rid the world of evildoers”?
This desire is understandable, even admirable, as a visceral reaction to the events of September 11. Who wouldn’t want to rid the world of people capable of such atrocities?
As an objective of government policy, however, this declaration of intent invites tragedy. This is not the language of military war; it is the language of religious apocalypse. Never mind whether great nations are capable of serving as global police; President Bush has tried to ordain the United States the world’s avenging angel.
By portraying the 9-11 terrorists not as political extremists employing barbaric tactics, but instead, quite simply, as “evildoers,” the Administration has framed the matter so that any who would oppose American foreign policy invite the accusation of accommodating evil. Afghanistan’s Taliban regime fit this bill nicely, of course, as does Iraq’s Saddam Hussein – and the United States is obviously capable of winning wars against regimes such as these.
But these kinds of military victories merely underscore the deeper question: how can any nation win a “war” on terror? What would constitute victory in this so-called war? The overthrow of the Taliban regime has not brought an end to terrorism. Neither has the ouster of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Would a change of regime in Saudi Arabia? Or in Libya? Or in Iran? Or in North Korea? Or in Cuba? Or in all the nations allegedly comprising the so-called “axis of evil”?
The cold, cruel fact is that terrorism would not end if the United States overthrew every regime tied in any way to all groups using terror as a political tactic. Nations and quasi-national militia are not the only practitioners of terror, so vanquishing nations and militia – the realistic objective of war – cannot vanquish terrorism. The Bush Administration can “preempt” all the “potential aggressors” it wants. Still there will be terrorists in the world.
Some will say the phrase, “war on terrorism” is a metaphor – like the war on drugs, or the war on illiteracy. But the Bush Administration apparently believes it can really wage this war through a series of military campaigns. Rhetorically it has linked its military efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq to an ill-defined war for which there is no plausible end-game and to an apocalyptic aspiration to cleanse the world of evil. As President Bush put it on November 6, 2001: “[we are] at the beginning of our efforts in Afghanistan. And Afghanistan is the beginning of our efforts in the world.”
This is the hard and bitter truth of America’s reaction to the nightmarish events of September 11, 2001: President Bush took Osama Bin Laden’s bait. His administration has responded to a heinous act of jihad by declaring an American crusade.
Throughout the Arab world militants and fanatics are convinced (and are working hard to convince their compatriots) that the two wars are flip sides of the same coin. Administration protestations to the contrary cannot outweigh the weight of evidence proffered by U.S. foreign policy.
Things might have been different had the Administration presented its military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq as limited wars and necessary means to disabling specific and credible threats. Putting an end to terrorism writ large could have been identified as a goal to be achieved only, if ever, in the maddeningly imperfect realm of international politics. And the presumptuous goal of ridding the world of evil could have been left in the hands of God.
But by failing to frame these larger challenges as complicated matters of geopolitics and cosmic morality, and by pretending instead that American military power can somehow magically resolve them, the Bush Administration has joined a fight that could endure for years, perhaps generations, to come.
It may not be too late to escape this fate. Saddled with the absolutes of good and evil, the American “war on terror” is beginning to sink in the swamp of geopolitical realities.
Perhaps on a September 11 in the not-too-distant future an American President will have the courage to jettison the “Bush doctrine” which divides the world into opposing camps and forces our allies and friends and potential friends to chose between “us” and “them.” Perhaps on this new day an American President will declare to the family of nations: “America is not at holy war. America does not want a holy war. To a holy war there is no end.”
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