American Kampf

According to the Moscow Times, it is nothing less than an American Mein Kampf -- “it” being the “Rebuilding America’s Defenses -- Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century” a think-tank report from the New Citizenship Project, an offshoot of the conservative Bradley Foundation, a branch of Rockwell Automation, a former defense contractor.

For those who think of Mein Kampf as nothing but a racist rant, the comparison is inapt. For those who remember Hitler's book as an outline and argument for German geo-political hegemony, the comparison is not off the mark. The difference would be that whereas Mein Kampf spoke of dominating Europe for 1000 years, Rebuilding American’s Defenses speaks of controlling the world for a hundred.

The Report’s essential thrust is straightforward and hard: We won; We Rulez; It’s Gonna Stay that Way. The Report draws an unstated but boorishly obvious analogy between the United States and the Roman Empire. With little surprise, its thesis, argument and conclusion is that Pax Americana must be supported by American legions posted around the world and ready to cut the wheat whenever it grows too tall --- to quote Dionysus of Syracuse.

But it is what is lacking from the Report that reveals how miserably it falls short of the analogy it grasps at. There is not a word, not a single word, about Ara Pacis. Why, there isn’t even an iota about the sublimity of American Opera. Cecille B. de Mille may titillate adolescent males with images of clanking and trampling legions but the Augustan Peace, as it was known, was not made great and enduring by engines of war.

If the Roman Empire commands our historical respect now it is because in its day it galvanized the aspirations and consent of the Mediterranean world. Far more than legions, it was the diffusion of prosperity and cross cultural interchange that made for the Roman peace. It was to this that the Altar of Peace hailed with its embracing image of the goddess Roma suckling her infants, uniting East and West, conjoining farming with commerce, the ox and the lamb -- an image which was later morphed into the mothering spirit of Christian Civilization.

The difference between a thug and a statesman is the latter’s subordination of force to some greater goal that commands the aspirations and assent of the ruled. For the thug, and for the Orwellian State power is an end in itself. The report for America’s New Century draws no distinction between Augustus and Attila. It offers nothing more than an Altar of Power.

The Report’s preamble states the matter thus:

“As the 20th century draws to a close, the United States stands as the world’s most preeminent power. Having led the West to victory in the Cold War, America faces an opportunity and a challenge: ... Does the United States have the resolve to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests?

“[What we require is] a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts the United States’ global responsibilities.

“Of course, the United States must be prudent in how it exercises its power. But ... [i]If we shirk our responsibilities, we invite challenges to our fundamental interests.”

What these “principles” and “interests” are, the Report does not say. Apart from one vague allusion to “liberty and democracy”, the switching ad hoc from one term to the other leads to the conclusion that the report’s authors see no real distinction between a principal and an interest. There is certainly no hint that the vexatiousness of having to choose between one and the other has ever crossed their minds.

The Report is more specific when it comes to what it calls “key findings”.

“This report, proceeds from the belief that America should seek to preserve and extend its position of global leadership by maintaining the preeminence of U.S. military forces. ... The challenge for the coming century is to preserve and enhance this “American peace.”

The Report chastises the Clinton administration for jeopardizing this peace by failing to maintain “sufficient military strength” and it goes on to list the main military muscle programs it wants to see established. The Report continues,

“Fulfilling these requirements is essential if America is to retain its militarily dominant status for the coming decades. ... The true cost of not meeting our defense requirements will be a lessened capacity for American global leadership and, ultimately, the loss of a global security order that is uniquely friendly to American principles and prosperity."

Of course these “findings” are not findings at all but simply conclusionary assertions. In the realm of bureaucratic and legislative reports, “findings” refer to the facts and circumstances of a situation or problem which need to be addressed. For example, the inability of 78% of college graduates to distinguish between a finding and a conclusion, would constitute a factual finding leading to a proposed revamping of college curricula.

Here, however, what is listed as an objective factual finding is simply the “belief” that America should continue to be top dog. American preeminence and power is attached to no other goal or aim or undertaking other than the maintenance of power seen as a good in itself.

The authors apparently regard this belief as so self-evident that it is sufficient to state, vaguely, further on that since the collapse of the Soviet Union there has been “no shortage of powers” seeking to undermine American leadership. “Like a boxer between championship bouts,” the report explains, America has rested and enjoyed the good life; but this is bad. It is bad because, the findings are “that America should seek to preserve and extend its position of global leadership.”

The role of the military in the post Cold War era is “to secure and expand the ‘zones of democratic peace;’ to deter the rise of a new great power competitor; defend key regions of Europe, East Asia and the Middle East; and to preserve American preeminence through the coming transformation of war made possible by new technologies.”

All disciplines (as they are rather comically called) have a certain babble and cant which the disciples expect to hear and which lulls them into the conviction that they are engaged in some kind of dialectic rather than an articulated form of barking. Thus, at this point, past preamble, introduction and findings, it is well to ask exactly what the Report has offered over and beyond being written in some sort of knowing, authoritative style. Not much. It has told us that American power must be preserved and extended as a premise, means and end.

Having established the principle and interest of American preeminence, the Report outlines “four missions” of defense policy. These four missions are not framed as particularized military responses to distinct sets of geo-political issues. They are represent rather a sliding scale (“variables”) of military strikes and responses adjusted to the single and indiscriminate purpose of perpetuating and extending American global rule

According to the Report, the first of these missions is to insure “the safety of the American homeland.” The second is to retain “sufficient forces able to rapidly deploy and win multiple simultaneous large-scale wars” in Europe, East Asia, “the Middle East and surrounding energy producing region.” The third mission consists in maintaining a “constabulary” capacity by means of military outposts and “continuing no-fly-zone and other missions in Southwest Asia. ” The fourth is to introduce “advanced technologies into military systems” including “the prime directive .. . to design and deploy a global missile defense system” among other things.

The layout of these missions is somewhat misleading in that they appear to follow a traditional region-by-region defense hierarchy. The impression given is that they fall into two broad categories: a missile defense system defending the “homeland” on the one hand and military operations “elsewhere” on the other. Elsewhere, in turn, appears to divide into conventional, continental wars on the one hand and misc. ops. here and there to keep order among the natives, on the other.

However, that is not the Report’s framework notwithstanding the utterly bizarre reference to miscellaneous missions in Southwest Asia -- as if the third mission involved someplace other than “the Middle East and surrounding energy producing region.” It doesn’t. What the Report contemplates, in so far as the Middle East is concerned, is both large scale theatre wars and constabulary missions.

The Report also makes clear that these so called constabulary missions are not peacekeeping occupations after the sturm und drang. On the contrary, “[t]hese constabulary missions are far more complex and likely to generate violence than traditional ‘peacekeeping’ missions.” These missions “demand forces basically configured for combat.” While they should be equipped “with special language, logistics and other support skills” and while they should include their own intelligence components, “their first order of business is... to establish security, stability and order” for which reason they “must be regarded as part of an overwhelmingly powerful force.”

It is an odd constabulary that generates violence and what the report envisions is something in the order of a geo-political SWAT team. A combative strike force, less and leaner than “full-theatre” army groups, but one nevertheless fully complemented by naval, air and missile forces, capable of smashing enemy deterrence and establishing the stability and order of pax americana in any given region, at will.

Nor is SWATing seen as anything distinct in kind from missile defense. The Report is clarion clear in its call for “[b]uilding an effective, robust, layered, global system of missile defenses” as “a prerequisite for maintaining American preeminence.” The layering would allow for missile defenses to be projected from elsewhere than the homeland and forms the ballast of the “overwhelming” force which the constabulary spearheads.

Stripped of the man-as-machine jargon, the four missions boil down to being able to smash and blast at what ever degree of force desired simultaneously if need be anywhere in the world.

Nor is this capacity seen as aimed at maintaining geo-political balances. The very term “balance” implies an equilibrium between contending forces. But the Report makes repetitively clear that the only balance it is concerned with is America’s undeterred preeminence....which is of course not a balance at all. Although the report carefully avoids talking about preemptive regime changes, it leaves little doubt that American preeminence should be pro-assertive. Thus, the curiously inverted meaning given in the report to the word deterrence.

Through the end of the Cold War, “deterrence” and “containment” were peas in the same strategic pod. They referred to defensive measures calculated to defend against and prevent attack or expansion. However, in the newspeak of the report, deterrence becomes a bad thing and refers to a state’s ability to resist American advances:

“In the post-Cold War era, America and its allies, rather than the Soviet Union, have become the primary objects of deterrence and it is states like Iraq, Iran and North Korea who most wish to develop deterrent capabilities.”

A marvel of historical and linguistic inversion the sentence implicitly espouses the abandonment of any obeisance to the notion that American military policy is essentially defensive. If we have become “objects of deterrence” it is because our military policy is “projective”. Thus, what turns these states into “rogue regimes” is that they are a threat to the United States, and what makes them a “threat” is that they might be “capable of cobbling together a minuscule ballistic missile force” which would make it more complex and difficult for the United States to project its power or “assert[ ] political influence abroad.”

“[W]eak states operating small arsenals of crude ballistic missiles, armed with basic nuclear warheads or other weapons of mass destruction, will be a in a strong position to deter the United States from using conventional force, no matter the technological or other advantages we may enjoy. Even if such enemies are merely able to threaten American allies rather than the United States homeland itself, America’s ability to project power will be deeply compromised.”

“Building an effective, robust, layered, global system of missile defenses is a prerequisite for maintaining American preeminence.”

To be clear in case one got lost: the purpose of a missile “defense” system is to project American power against rogue regimes that don’t get in line. Clearly, a no first use policy would take the intimidating bite out of this global maw of iron teeth; so while the report may not announce verbatim the nuclear first use policy announced by the Bush Administration earlier in 2002 it does so by implication notwithstanding the layered double-talk.

Once it is understood that the capacity for deterrence by others is a thing to be defeated, the nature of the “constabulary” also comes into focus.

Rather gratuitously at this point, the Report notes that “past Pentagon war-games have given little or no consideration to the force requirements necessary not only to defeat an attack but to remove these regimes from power and conduct post-combat stability operations.” In other words, in addition to “kick em out” and Pentagon’s military mission should be expanded to include “grind em down”.

Nor should there be any illusion of Pax Americana as somehow reflecting an international consensus. It is American preeminence we are talking about here. Thus, the Report states that the constabulary forces “demand American political leadership rather than that of the United Nations.

"Nor can the United States assume a UN-like stance of neutrality; the preponderance of American power is so great and its global interests so wide that it cannot pretend to be indifferent to the political outcome in the Balkans, the Persian Gulf or even when it deploys forces in Africa."

In this new world order, “diplomacy” (which the report mentions about twice) is little more than the demand before the punch.

Lest anyone think that there might be some limitation on American power projection based on the nature of geo-politics as the balance of forces at an inter-national level, the Report goes on to state that American preeminence includes maintaining “the general stability of the international system of nation-states relative to terrorists, organized crime, and other “non-state actors.” Enter the FBI as a global actor.

As if the foregoing were not sufficient evil for the day, the Report boldly goes where not even Mein Kampf dared to soar. American rule will not be limited to Earth. “The ability to assure access to space, freedom of operations space medium, and an ability to deny others the use of space” – must be an essential element of our military strategy.” “Space power” the report crows will be to the 21st century what sea power was to the 19th and to Teddy Roosevelt’s Big Stick.

The Report’s imperious reach does not end in outer space. It sinks its purview into cyberspace as well. “Any nation wishing to assert itself globally,” the report says, “must take account of this other new “global commons.”

“The Internet is ... playing an increasingly important role in warfare and human political conflict. From the early use of the Internet by Zapatista insurgents in Mexico to the war in Kosovo, communication by computer has added a new dimension to warfare. Moreover, the use of the Internet to spread computer viruses reveals how easy it can be to disrupt the normal functioning of commercial and even military computer networks. Any nation which cannot assure the free and secure access of its citizens to these systems will sacrifice an element of its sovereignty and its power.”

The conflation of two distinct issues -- viruses and ideas -- deserves attention. Although it may be a tad hyperbolic to associate a worm with the loss of sovereignty, one can assume for the sake of argument that a State has a police interest in insuring a virus-free internet. But the Zapatista use of the internet to publish their grievances and demands is quite a different matter. Free speech -- the publishing of one’s propaganda of choice -- was and remains one of the principal purposes of the Internet.

The Report seeks to entirely pervert this purpose. In the report’s view, the internet is simply another “dimension of warfare” and its use is something to be discussed in the same breadth as computer viruses.

The Report makes a brief and almost snide obbligato to a “host of legal, moral and political issues” involved before going on to make clear its view that:

“Taken together, the prospects for space war or “cyberspace war” represent the truly revolutionary potential inherent in the notion of military transformation.”

Oh wow...kewl. But having betrayed perhaps a little too much excitement, the report returns to its tone of feeling-less jargon:

“These future forms of warfare are technologically immature, to be sure. But, it is also clear that for the U.S. armed forces to remain preeminent and avoid an Achilles Heel in the exercise of its power they must be sure that these potential future forms of warfare favor America just as today’s air, land and sea warfare reflect United States military dominance.”

What are “these potential future forms of warfare”? That the military (or anyone for that matter) has a legitimate interest in protecting itself against viruses, hacking, code cracking etc. is beyond question. And because it is beyond question that is not what the Report is talking about. Nor is it talking about using computers to control missiles, calculate trajectories and so on. No; it is talking about "cyberspace war" and this can only mean controlling information and using mis-information.

When the Report speaks of the sovereign obligation to “assure the free... access” to the internet it means to includes assuring freedom from hearing the dissenting views of “insurgents” and providing a “safe-surfing” that favors America’s preeminence and power.

When the Report speaks of “the coming transformation of war made possible by new technologies” it is not simply talking about such nifty stuff like laser guided bullets and bombing cities with sticky goo but rather of finding ways to militarize as many things as possible, including data and information which will be subordinated to strategic goals where once they were thought of as servants of truth.

In the end, the Report is more interesting for what it does not say than for its 90 pages of circular and tedious formulations of the need to perpetuate and project preeminence and power. Not once does the Report reference any other higher or even just other value than having and extending power. It does not address world poverty. It does not address sustainable growth and ecological issues. It does not address, even in the tired panaceas of neo-liberalism , how America might provide some Ara Pacis which commands the hopes and relieves the miseries of the world. The report does not even address the narrower more selfish needs of assuring energy production and delivery.

It may well be the case that the world would be better off if everyone took to heart Socrates’ dictum that it is better to suffer evil than to commit it. But that postulation will not get very far around the beltway; and no “realist” would argue that the United States should not think about and plan for clobbering the other guy. But among reasonable men, clobbering is a means not an end; and by this is meant that it is calibrated and conditioned to a spectrum of goods and tradeoffs. The complete absence of any discussion of ends indicates that in the view of the Report’s authors the means of power is and end itself. Nor can a discussion of ends be sloughed off on the grounds that the only immediate concern was tools because means cannot be analyzed without reference to the requirements of the ends they are meant to subserve.

The absence of any discussion of values other than power per se makes the reader all but gasp for some raison d’etre behind layered, global, space positioned missile defenses backing up massive insert and destroy constabularies. The Report offers little more than open ended hints.

One of the interesting features of the report is the assumptions it makes concerning future theatres of operation. The Report is silent on Latin America and makes only one brief passing mention of Africa. It evidently considers the first to be under heel and the second to be unimportant.

The sense one gets from the report is that aside from our treaty obbligatos, the report does not envision any serious military exigencies in Europe. Although it mentions Europe as a potential major theatre there is little up front discussion of where any threat might come from or why the hostilities would erupt, given that the report acknowledges the demise of the Soviet Union. The clue is in the Report’s reference to the creation of a new “American security perimeter in Europe removed eastward.” The use of the word “remove” is cute. No doubt one could hear chuckles coming from the PNAC headquarters on Park Avenue. What is meant, obviously, is rolling back the Russian sphere influence and replacing it with a cordon sanitaire stretching from the Baltic states, through the Balkans and into the Caucasus and Central Asian underbelly. While the Report apparently thinks that the Russian will roll over like docile circus animal, it acknowledges a potential for all hell breaking loose in Europe.

The Report's next stated area of concern was the Pacific/East Asia theatre. However, it proffers no analysis of Sino-American relations nor any reasoning for its conclusion that the preponderance of American military force should refocused and redeployed toward the Far East. Bearing in mind Napoleon’s famous dictum , one can accept, at least in theory, that if a future “full theatre” threat to United States exists it would very likely come from China. One does not have to be a think-tank expert to realize that China, far more than North Korea and far more than the once Soviet Union, has the potential to present a military and economic challenge to America. Such a threat, involving economic and military factors with countries and locations as removed as India, Australia, Japan and Mongolia, would be rife with complexities, none of which are given even the most superficial analysis, other than to say that over the long term we should prepare to blow the hell out of the Far East.

Instead the Report tarries at length in what it disingenuously calls “Southwest Asia." Why so coy? It is hardly surprising that the Middle East would be designated as a possible theatre of conflict. What is noteworthy is that the Report does not make a single mention of Israel or of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Instead the Report asserts that instability in the region is entirely due to the “rogue” states of Iraq and Iran.

Astonishingly enough, the Report makes no claim that Iran or Iraq were supporting “terrorism”. It makes no claim that they were currently (September 2000) developing any kind of weapon of mass destruction, although it suspected they probably would like to. Instead the Report tacitly assumes the success of no-fly zones and daily bombing runs over Iraq. In final analysis the Report concedes that neither rogue Iraq nor rogue Iran present any serious danger to the United States, stating both candidly and cryptically “While none of these operations involves a mortal threat, they do engage U.S. national security interests directly, as well as engaging American moral interests.”

Moral interests? It is almost too much even for black comedy. What could possibly be meant?

“In the post-Cold War era, America and its allies, rather than the Soviet Union, have become the primary objects of deterrence and it is states like Iraq, Iran and North Korea who most wish to develop deterrent capabilities. Projecting conventional military forces or simply asserting political influence abroad, particularly in times of crisis, will be far more complex and constrained when the American homeland or the territory of our allies is subject to attack by otherwise weak rogue regimes capable of cobbling together a minuscule ballistic missile force. Building an effective, robust, layered, global system of missile defenses is a prerequisite for maintaining American preeminence.”

Evidently the Report was so preoccupied with dancing around the Ally Who Shall Not Be Named, that it broke one of its ellipses. (Doubletalk can get confusing, but the Soviet Union was never an “object of deterrence” given the altered meaning of the word in the sentence.) What the paragraph says is that states like Iraq, Iran and North Korea are threats (to us) because they wish to be able to deter threats to themselves. Accepting for the sake of argument that another countries defensive capacities constitute a threat, the question remains how and in what way those capacities would amount to a threat to the United States? The answer given is that threat arises “when the American homeland or the territory of our allies is subject to attack by otherwise weak rogue regimes capable of cobbling together a minuscule ballistic missile force.”

Parsing the rationale, the Report argues that the American “homeland” could be subject to “minuscule ballistic missiles” cobbled together by “rogue regimes.” In other words, we should be concerned (on a prioritized basis) that North Korea or Iran or Iraq will launch a jumbo fire-cracker at the United States.

It is simply beyond inane and it contradicts the previous acknowledgement that Iran, Iraq and North Korea’s “deterrent” capacities do not present any “mortal” threat to the United States. There is only one state that could suffer any damage (if that) from garage-made mini-missiles. “America” got tossed into the disjunctive threat equation simply as a way of masquerading that the Report’s focus was on Israeli security in which, it asserts, we have a “moral” interest.

Thus while the Report asserts U.S. global and inter-planetary power projection as a pre eminent good anywhere anytime, the near-term geo-political interests it singles out is (1) the encirclement of Russia (including control over the energy regions in the Caucasus) and (2) the protection of Israel by destroying Iraq and Iran’s deterrent capacities.

The Report was finished in September 2000. It is not shy in its criticism of Clinton’s policies and assumes rather confidently that the next administration would be amenable to the “findings” presented.

The confidence of its authors was not misplaced. “The safety of the American homeland” has now become the Office of Homeland Security. The “rogue states” of Iraq, Iran and North Korea, have emerged as the Axis of the Evil. The Bush Doctrine on nuclear weapons has fleshed out the meaning of “nuclear superiority is nothing to be ashamed of”. The Defense Department’s Office of Disinformation has given us a taste of “future forms” of information warfare; and the Patriot Act has given us a taste of just how difficult and complicated the administration considered that “host of legal, moral and political issues” concerning privacy and free speech. Last but not least, the administration’s lust for war with Iraq is giving us an example of the constabulary forces in action.

©Barfo, 2002

PBS News Hour Buries Map of What Israel Offered

Despite repeated requests the Public Bullshit System News Hour refuses to publish a MAP of Israel's supposedly "generous" to Arafat at the Camp David Summit. Instead, the News Hour accepts the Israeli provided "contextualization" of events and like an obedient drone repeats the Israeli version of events.

In this (longish) letter Barfo barfs back and lambasts PBS for being such slavish imbeciles.

©Barfo, 2002

Bound & Gagged -- The Policy, not the Rag

About a month ago when we were rounding up the Taliban, we Chipsters read on CNN.com that the surrendered or captured fighters were being led off to their place of detention "shackled, blindfolded and gagged".  Gagged?

Say what? Has SM become part of official policy or is some "logistical planner" rather pulsing up a sweat at his desk while he draws up these protocols?

Dragging off captives shackled is about as old as dragging off captives. As far as I know, dragging off captives shackled and blindfolded became a practice during the Vietnam War, although I am sure it had been done to isolated individuals before that time. But gagged? The procedure served no purpose other than to humiliatingly, depersonalize by an act of dominance barely removed and metaphorically close to rape.

Reassuringly enough, the story was accompanied by a blurry dark foto showing some bars and an "enemy" kneeling before someone standing. More recently, as Taliban members have been transported farther, the Pentagon has placed a gag on the press. Apparently, CNN broadcast pictures of the detainees being led about in jump suits and shackles, but since then the Pentagon has prohibited any more such pictures. The pressure must have been fairly intense because we can't find pictures clipped from the broadcast anywhere on CNN's web page. In fact, all one sees is fascinating pictures of guard towers, barbed wire and MPs. With a cynicism quite worthy of Goering, the government says that the prohibition is designed to spare the detainees "public humiliation" in accordance with Geneva Protocols. It is well understood that those provisions are aimed at preventing the dragging of prisoners through howling mobs, putting them on stages or cages in the public square and so on. They have nothing to do with press coverage. More saliently, those same protocols prohibit humiliation whether private or public and keeping prisoners in open air cages would seem to be a serious violation of the standards of treatment we purport to follow.

As one has no doubt read, there have been contradictory information on whether all or some of these Taliban were drugged for the flight to Guantanamo. What is clear is that they were ear-plugged, goggle-blinded, shackled near to immobile and given a bottle to piss in. Rumsfeld has justified this torture-by-sensory deprivation on the grounds that these brutes are so vicious they would "gnaw through the cables" of the airplane just to bring it down. Really! At any rate, it must have been quite a trip, since it was reported that, on arrival, the plane was cleaned up and "disinfected".

It was equivocally reported that, on arrival, some of the Taliban might possibly have "resisted" by falling to the ground or perhaps their legs were weak. Guards were seen yelling at them but this, it was said, was due to the earplugs. Musta been mighty strong earplugs or were the hapless prisoners drugged after all?

And what have these men done to deserve this treatment -- supposing this kind of treatment is deserved by anyone? As far as I can recall Afghanistan was a sovereign country. It was controlled, up to 90% by the Taliban. Under international law that made the Taliban the de facto government of that country. At the very least, it qualified for recognition as a recognized belligerent, which usually occurs when one warring party controls some "significant" portion of territory.

The general rule is also that the de facto government becomes the de jure one, although there is no requirement that it be officially recognized by any other sovereign state, because the cardinal rule of all international law is that you can't tell a sovereign what to do, unless he agrees to be told. It was for this "reason" that the U.S. could withhold recognition of Communist China for 30 years. At any rate, no matter how one cuts it and regardless of U.S. recognition or lack of it, the Taliban could not be characterized as a band of bandits or partisans. They had acquired some status between recognizable belligerent and official government; and what that means is that the individual Taliban qualify as POWs.

And what did any of these individuals do to be classified as criminals? I have heard nothing to show that any of them had any hand in the 9/11 bombing. Rather, as part of a belligerent party or government, they fought (for a while) against foreign parties invading their country. But in the American view, this is a criminal act. So... if we were to go to war with un-recognized Cuba, and its army were to fight back and loose, we could drag it off to some "detention" center in Georgia?

But even supposing that the Taliban are criminals, it is astonishing to see the government take the position that criminals can be treated like factory or circus animals. (Not that animals should be treated that way either).

Well....in the long perspective of "the crimes, vices and follies that comprise the history of mankind" (Gibbon) it is all a relatively small thing; but a small thing that is deeply disgusting and which betrays a depravity of mind that pervades our government.

Stupidities - Vol MCCCCLX, Part II, ch. 19

Puritannia Becomes the Fourth Person of the Holy Trinity.

President Bush urged the Peoples of the world, in UN assembled, to join Puritannia's fight against terrorism and warned that, he who is not with Us is against Us.

Buckle under all ye nations; the Almighty rules from Washington.

Britannia Strikes another Blow For Freefrom and Infantilism.

Home Secretary David Blunkett unveiled yet another anti-terrorism law-pack which he urged Parliament to pass without delay (or, presumably, any due and deliberate thought). According to BBC, the Home Secretary told the Commons that its "first job was to defend the public's rights and freedoms." Lest one might have wondered what freedoms those were, the secretary clarified that "the most basic right of all was the right to live in safety, free from the fear of attack."

Yes, men, "the right to be safe", to be protected, guarded, provided for and sheltered from all viscitudes of life snuggled into Big Mama's breast. But that is not all... all we wee uns have the right to be free from emotional distress, inconvenience, and any hoblgoblin we may conjure up. Goooooh.

Government certainly has a duty to protect against various evils, but to invert that into a right to be safe is a canard to make it sound as if we are gaining a freedom instead of loosing it.

More from the Hysteria Front.

Bin Laden's possible possession of or access to bio-nuclear weapons was a hot topic in most of the world's media. The only real interest here was how the story was reported.

According to CNN, Bin Laden "claimed" to have such weapons although USGOV denied it saying only that it had "credible information" Bin Laden had attempted to obtain them. CNN reported Bin Laden as saying "I wish to declare that if America used chemical or nuclear weapons against us, then we may retort with chemical and nuclear weapons. We have the weapons as a deterrent." CNN then quoted President Bush as responding, "These same terrorists are searching for weapons of mass destruction, the tools to turn their hatred into holocaust. They can be expected to use chemical, biological and nuclear weapons the moment they are capable of doing so." Noting the Bin Laden had called on the US to "live and let live" CNN capped the story with another presidential quote "This is an evil man that we're dealing with, and I wouldn't put it past him to develop evil weapons to try to harm civilization as we know it."

El Pais, on the other hand, reported the story by writing simply that Bin Laden said he would use nuclear or biological weapons only if the United States used them. In other words: Bin Laden disclaimed any involvement with the anthrax mailings and went on to reassure Puritannia's denizens that he, at any rate, will NOT resort to nuclear or biological attacks.

It clearly suits neither CNN's ratings nor USGOV's enlightenment campaign to focus on the real message; but what a difference the uncluttered truth makes!

Morris Dees Fesses up to being a Govamint Steppinfetchit.

A year ago, I logged on to the Southern Poverty Law Center's web page. Bannering some quote from Martin Luther King, the home page explained that SPLC was dedicated to fighting hatred and intolerance against various minorities. The page went on to explain that, in accordance with this self-set mission, the SPLC gathered information on fringe and hate groups that espoused "views hostile to minorities and the government."

Whooooaaa, Bessie! What's this "...and the government"? It's one kettle of fish for a private group to lobby for tolerance of other private groups and, even, to keep track of those who lobby or agitate to the contrary. It's quite a different kettle of fish to combat, seek laws against, and spy on those who are "hostile" to the government.

One didn't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out the ol Silver Platter was making the rounds again. Years back when only the federal government was prohibited from using the fruits of illegal searches and seizure, federal agents blythly laid back and let state police do the door smashing, rummaging and rousting. The evidence was then passed on to the feds on a "silver platter". Break down doors? Not us! Lordy forbid! But far be it from us to inquire where these lucious grapes got picked!"

So....ol Morris Dees was doing Stepnfetchit for the Feds. (Those old enough may recall from days when racial caricatures were not forbidden who dem dat Step-and-Fetch-It he was.) That was my hunch at any rate.

Well the other night during a CNN discussion on domestic terrorism, Dees said outright that the SPLC continued to "monitor" skinheads, militiamen, kluxers and other hate groups and "of course" the FBI "relied on us."

Don't you feel safe and freefrom, knowing that government is not only ubiquitous but hidden as well?

©Barfo, 2001

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Deus lo Vult!

Intoxicated with self-righteousness and fired with bellicosity we are rushing headlong forward without the least circumspection or doubt. This is the surest way to disaster.

People talk about “evil” as if it were no more than the label for things we do not like to varying degrees of distaste, disgust, revulsion, anger and abhorrence. Evil ends up being simply that which is opposed to us and which we oppose. But that partial view of evil is only partially correct.

I remember an itinerant guru some years back saying something to the effect that modern man thought of the devil as merely a metaphor. “No, no,” he said, “it is not that way; the devil really does exist.” I think he then laughed and added, “He even has horns and a tail!” The point to be taken was that evil is not just an “act” but truly a force -- its own presence in the world.

But if evil is a force abroad in the land, then it can affect us as well as our enemies. And by “affect” I do not mean as innocent victims but as guilty actors. In other words, evil can victimize us by making us too its beelzebubs.

The older I get the less inclined I am to laugh at medieval monks throwing holy water on a fire. The first thing medieval man would have done when confronted with a shocking conflagration that was so unexpected as to be like “an act of God or perchance the Devil” was to cross himself protectively. The second thing he would have done would have been to examine his conscience to ask what sin he had committed to bring such evil upon himself. Only then would he embark on the third step of sallying forth to wreak vengeance on the fiendish enemy who had done him wrong.

We have skipped the second step, and without examination and contrition it is an open question who is leading us whither.

Peter the Hermit rallying the Troops

The rhetoric thundering out of Washington is very much like the drumming that precedes all warful endeavours. But for obvious reasons -- including the counter rhetoric emanating from assorted caves and mosques -- it sounds most like Pope Urban II’s call for a crusade.

“Oh, race of Franks, race from across the mountains, race chosen and beloved by God as shines forth in very many of your works set apart from all nations by the situation of your country, as well as by your catholic faith ... To you our discourse is addressed and for you our exhortation is intended.

“From the confines of Jerusalem ... a horrible tale has gone forth... [A] race from the kingdom of the Persians, an accursed race, a race utterly alienated from God, a generation forsooth which has not directed its heart and has not entrusted its spirit to God, has invaded the lands of those Christians and has depopulated them by the sword, pillage and fire; ... They destroy the altars, after having defiled them with their uncleanness. They circumcise the Christians, and the blood of the circumcision they either spread upon the altars or pour into the vases of the baptismal font. When they wish to torture people by a base death, they perforate their navels, and dragging forth the extremity of the intestines, bind it to a stake; ... Others they bind to a post and pierce with arrows. Others they compel to extend their necks and then, attacking them with naked swords, attempt to cut through the neck with a single blow. What shall I say of the abominable rape of the women? To speak of it is worse than to be silent!

“Let the deeds of your ancestors move you and incite your minds to manly achievements; .... Let the holy sepulchre of the Lord our Saviour, which is possessed by unclean nations, especially incite you, and the holy places which are now treated with ignominy and irreverently polluted with their filthiness. Oh, most valiant soldiers and descendants of invincible ancestors, be not degenerate, but recall the valor of your progenitors.”

By all accounts when the Pope had finished his exhortation, all who were present, cried out, "It is the will of God! It is the will of God!" Deus lo vult! Deus lo vult!

“ When the venerable Roman pontiff heard that, with eyes uplifted to heaven he gave thanks to God and, with his hand commanding silence, said: “Unless the Lord God had been present in your spirits, all of you would not have uttered the same cry. ... Therefore I say to you that God, who implanted this in your breasts, has drawn it forth from you. Let this then be your war-cry in combats, because this word is given to you by God. When an armed attack is made upon the enemy, let this one cry be raised by all the soldiers of God: It is the will of God! Deus Vult!”

Before we in this most modern and technologically advanced nation make mockery of them silly medievals, we ought pause and take note of how medieval we ourselves -- and the Bush Administration in particular -- sound. ...And also how not.

For before Urban called upon the valiant Franks to visit devastation upon the Infidel, he exhorted them to correct their own sins first.

“For how can the ignorant teach others? How can the licentious make others modest? And how can the impure make others pure? If anyone hates peace, how can he make others peaceable? Or if anyone has soiled his hands with baseness, how can he cleanse the impurities of another? We read also that if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the ditch [Matt. 15:14]. But first correct yourselves, in order that, free from blame , you may be able to correct those who are subject to you.”

The liturgical custom of public penitence before battle dates back through the Emperor Theodosius I (379-395) to King David. The story of David is well known. Flush with victory and trusting in his own lights, David connived to cover his adultery with a betraying act of murder. Out of his own household, calamity was visited upon him leading David to publicly confess his sins in what became Psalm 51 and, later, the Introit to the mass:

Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. . . . Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean

When Theodosius, in pursuit of one of those nefarious and treacherous policies which were characteristic of the Late Roman Empire slaughtered 7,000 innocent Thessalonicans, he begged off saying that David had done as bad or worse. An implacable St. Anselm excommunicated him saying, “You have imitated David’s crime; now imitate his repentance!” After several months of very public humiliation at the cathedral door, the Emperor was received back into communion.

In the medieval mind, the shedding even of pagan blood, ran the risk of pollution and damnation. In typical medieval fashion, David’s repentance after the fact became the model for repentance before the deed. The example of Theodosius became the paradigm for acts of royal humiliation prior to coronation and for Charlemagne’s edict requiring three days’ fast prior to battle. The idea seems to have been that custom, necessity or vindication do not necessarily make the act clean, godly or right.

Modern cynics, like Cervantes or Monty Python can split our sides with the absurdities of medieval chivalry. Nobody in their right mind could possibly take this stuff seriously. Life is nasty and brutish. Chercher le banquier or at least la femme. As the French historian Guizot put it, “the middle ages, were, in point of fact, one of the most brutal, most ruffianly epochs of all time; one ...wherein the public peace was most incessantly troubled and wherein the greatest licentiousness in morals prevailed.” Indeed, after reaching Tyre, the valorous (and pre-confessed) race of Franks saw fit to catapult diseased animals and rotting human heads into the city in order to instigate a plague on the besieged. “Nevertheless,” Guizot is quick to add, “it cannot be denied that side by side with these gross and barbarous morals, there existed knightly morality and knightly poetry.... It is exactly this contrast which makes the great and fundamental characteristic of the middle ages.”

That is also the fundamental difference between then and now. The issue is not hypocrisy but idealism. The Middle Ages was in fact one of the most idealistic epochs in history. The duality of what is as against what ought to be was constantly before their eyes: the city of man, the City of God, the King’s two bodies, the “real” sun moving in a perfect uniform circle and the “merely apparent” sun being a little too forward or behind where it ought to be. As the English historian Plucknett put it, “Out of all the confusion and disaster of the middle ages there arose a unanimous cry for law, which should be divine in its origin, rendering justly to every man his due.”

In Plucknett’s view, American constitutionalism is an indelibly medieval construct:

"Where many a medieval thinker would ultimately identify law with the will of God, in modern times it would be identified with the will of the state. The medievalists in England had ended Stuart statecraft and the Constitution of the United States was written by men who had Magna Carta, Coke and Littleton before their eyes. Could anything be more medieval than the idea of due process...?

But the open ended concept of a due process we must strive to live up to is not far removed from Urban’s admonition that “if anyone has soiled his hands with baseness, how can he cleanse the impurities of another?” Both are rooted in an imperfect consciousness of perfection.

Medieval man was many things, but the one thing he was not was self-righteous. If anything, he was acutely aware of his fallibility and failings. When evil befell him, his first thought was to ask what he may have done or failed to do to bring about the misfortune. He may have followed up with generous dollops of self-justification, but at least he asked the question. We have not.

Caught in the toils of the way things are we can nevertheless be mindful of the way things ought to be and this mindfulness in turn makes us aware of the way we are. We are not full of right, but full of sin. Our own misdeeds bring misfortune upon us and lead us to rush headlong into disaster. It may be that in this imperfect world we must do imperfect things; but if we do not pause beforehand to examine ourselves honestly and humbly we become mere agents of Fury which like a fire is only interested in consuming what it burns.

©Barfo, 2001

References
Fulcher of Chartres, Gesta Francorum
Robert the Monk, Historia Hierosolymitana
Francois G.P. Guizot . A Popular History of France (1875) Volume I.
T. Plucknett, A Concise History of the Common Law, 5th Ed. (1956)

A Common Bond in Service of Rival Masters

WATCHING the almost simultaneous commemorative services at Saint Paul’s in London and the National Cathedral at week’s close, it was impossible not to be impressed by the deep bond of memory shared by the peoples of the English speaking world. It is a palpable sort of thing which is as difficult to explain to the peoples of the Spanish speaking world as it is for the collective Ibero-American experience to reverberate in us.

The United States is a very different country from England. Our Germans and Irish, Italians and Poles, myriad lesser ethnicities and Jews have all made us a distinct, raucously brash and agitated country. Although all Americans are Anglicized, it is by now exclusionarily absurd to think of the U.S. as an Anglo Saxon country. (I’m fairly sure that notion sank with the Titanic.) And yet, a Martian beholding the two services this Friday could not fail to think : “These are both stemming from some same thing.”

That sense of sameness is extraordinary if one happens to know that the St. Paul’s service was strictly C of E, whereas the Washington service was inter denominational and inter-faith. It is even more extraordinary if one compares the restrained formality of what BBC called an “informal” service with the casualness of the American which, one supposes, BBC would have characterized as a church beer bust.

The sameness I am talking is not a matter of professional definitions but of evoked and signified feelings. Beyond the vestments and vergers, beyond the processionals, I suspect the language of the soul had the most to do with it. It is not the differences the expert hears that matters but rather the cross-borrowing sameness the layman feels at home with. Immortal Invisible (London), Oh God Our Hope ... and A Mighty Fortress (Washington) are sounds which by liturgical or historical experience are part of a shared family album.... albeit an irredeemably Protestant one. (I kept on thinking how out of place the Catholic cardinals looked on either side of the Atlantic -- their red robes conjuring up a very different confluence of memories.)

The English fixed our common bond by singing the Star Spangled Banner at the beginning of the service, the Battle Hymn of the Republic toward the end and God Save the T’is of Thee at the last. The message sent was more than one of just sympathy. Whether amnesiac Americans remember it or not, the Crown certainly has not forgotten that when Churchill came a-begging for help aboard the Prince of Wales, he had the ship’s complement sing: “....Oh hear us when we cry to thee, For those in peril on the sea...” The message was, it seems to me, that the English saw it as pay-back time. They would stand with us, no questions asked.

But the second thing that was just as striking was how different the two services were notwithstanding their deep commonality. The English service bespoke the polities of religion; the American was all about religion in the service of politics. The differences were appalling.

Bush’s pseudo sermon (presumably qua ius pontifex) was pretty much a plain declaration of war. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s homily was a reminder that a just war must have a just purpose. Thus, when the English sang the Battle Hymn of the Republic the sense of it was “dying to make men free....” When the Americans sang it, to the accompaniment of belligerent blasts of brass, the sense of it was “nuking out the vintage where Bin Ladin’s grapes are stored”. It was unmistakably blood thirsty and chilling.

It was very strange seeing two things so deeply common at one level being done with such critically different spirits on the other. The Anglo-American memory is something I cannot help responding to. But my critical mind kept telling me that Washington was, yet again, abusing my responses.

Of course, it is not possible for a nation to be attacked as we were and not retaliate in some way. All the priestly prattling notwithstanding, it is a brute fact of geo politics that the nation must vindicate its honor or...as they put it in the modern world, “sustain its credibility”.

But in such times, a service such as these is more properly used as the pause before war than the as prelude to war. We need a time to calm the passions and to make space for a modicum of reflection before reaction. Dismally enough, the belligerence out of Washington is unremitting. Bush proclaims a global campaign to “whip terrorism” in a “new kind of war” while Collin Powell says we should not expect “this war” to be without casualties. Since terrorists don’t usually fight on battle fields, I think he means to includes civilian casualties. Are we really marching off into some nightmare?

©Barfo, 2001

The Devil's Bill

Dear _____

Yesterday’s shocking attacks had less to do with religious fanaticism than with a secular fundamentalism on our part which provokes acts of impotent (if spectacular) desperation in response. Predictably, root causes and the true nature of things will buried under a barrage of inflammatory invective against depraved and malignant “terrorists”. That much is to be expected. More troubling yet is my premonition that this already-announced “war on terror” will be used to undo what remains of civil liberty and stampede the populace into a police state.

1. Secular Fundamentalism.

I disagree that all religion is in essence dogmatic and intransigent and that these bombings were the product of religious fanaticism. One has to distinguish between religion and fundamentalism; and, in so far as religion is concerned, between religiously inspired policies and religion in the service of politics.

It cannot be denied that, in this past century, entirely secular movements have been among the most “fundamentalist” and intransigent. It is often said that Stalin made a religion out of communism; but this manner of speaking confuses accidental properties with substance. An ideology grounded in dialectical materialism shares nothing with an ideology inspired by faith in some divinity. If Stalin behaved like Torquemada it was not because Stalin was religious or Torquemada a communist, but rather because both shared the characteristics of intolerance and irredentism.

For the most part, present-day American fundamentalism is a religiously motivated movement that aims to impose certain values, practices and beliefs on the rest of society -- for example, abolishing of abortion, banning the teaching of evolution and prohibiting gay marriage. Without doubt this movement takes places within the political arena and aims to impact the polis. But it is not at all based on anything that might be called a political or economic analysis. It actually seeks to know nothing of those things.

In contrast, religion often provides the banner for a strictly economic and political fight. Under what flag did the Zapatistas march? Were they “fundamentalists”? For sure, as individuals, they were deeply religious, but that hardly meant that their struggle was not actually and consciously an economic one. That they marched under the banner of Our Blessed Virgen de Guadalupe in no way altered the core fact that they wanted their lands back and an end to the economic depredations of agri-business.

In such cases, religion serves as a bonding force for movements that are in reality economic or politically motivated. It could rightly be said that the Zapatistas were “intransigent” and, in fact, Madero -- the hero of the Revolution -- said it. But it was a steadfast determination that we, at least, admire and that had nothing to do with what is called “religious intransigence”. Virgen or no Virgen, the Zapatistas were simply demanding from Casesar what was not Caesar’s to have.

I mention these things because, at the outset, I think it is critical to avoid confusions between policies that have a true religious inspiration, policies that aim to enforce a religion and religion as an ‘inflammatory narcotic’ in the service of interests and policies that have non-religious motives and bases.

From what I can tell, Arab fundamentalists have no real desire to evangelize their religious beliefs and customs outside their own societies. They actually could give a damn whether American girls do or do not cover themselves. The notion bruited about that “these Arab extremists” want to force their way of life “on us” is just garbage.

No doubt, the banner of The Prophet is often hoisted over a Pan-Arabist political and economic struggle that is regional in scope. But it is essential to take stock of what is afoot under the banner. The United States and the Western World in general refuses to do so. It benefits them to dismiss legitimate economic and political complaints with epithets. This is a great mistake. Short of liquidating an entire people, these complaints are not going to disappear just because we label them “fanaticism”. These so-called extremists hate the United States not “for our way of life” but for our Government’s unilateral support of Israel and its imposition of client regimes that serve neo-liberal Western economic interests. I do not know if a compromise is yet possible; I know only that the United States has not tried it.

We should not forget that the present day phase of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was precipitated by Ariel Sharon’s putative desire to go a-sight-seeing on the Temple Mount. Like some latter day Meyer Lansky, the cynical thug mimicking the cynic gangster avowed that he was merely an aged man who wanted no more than to see the Rock of his Fathers’ Faith before closing his world-weary eyes. He knew well what he was doing.

Hanan ‘Ashrawi the Palestinian negotiator (who is an Anglican by the way) explained that at Camp David II, the Palestinians were willing to renounce their historical claim to all of Palestine and to settle for the statehood in the West Bank and Gaza and half of Jerusalem -- a 78% reduction of what they considered their land. Not only did the Israelis refuse to give an inch on Jerusalem but they even demanded critical bits and pieces of the West Bank, as well as the right to control the entire border with Jordan and to impose other limitations on sovereignty. Israel’s much ballyhooed “generous offer” gave the Palestinians little more than an Indian reservation without so much as face-saving trappings.

Not surprisingly the details of this offer have been kept secret and no U.S. media source has published any map of the proposed settlement. To do so would make hash of the trumpeted Israeli magnanimity. But if the US public is in the dark, the Palestinians are not. It would have been political suicide for Arafat to accept such humiliating and quisling terms. Had the United State truly been an “honest broker”, Clinton would have pressured Barak and not Arafat. It is obvious who holds whose balls in hand.

The United States is so far from being an honest broker that since 1993 it has consistently supported Israel’s every need and every move. If Israel wanted endless “clarifications” of the Oslo Accords until they have been clarified into oblivion, the U.S. was ready to second the motion. If Israel needed a U.N. veto, the U.S. was ready to do the deed. United States backing for Israel has been so unswerving and uncritical that to reasonable Arab eyes “steadfast supporter” seems more like “loyal agent”. If yesterday’s attacks were indeed the work of Arab operatives, it would hardly be surprising.

And today, in spite of America’s unswerving support for the Jewish State, Israeli’s leaders took advantage of the catastrophe to insinuate themselves even deeper with the U.S. “We are with you as one,” said Sharon. His unmistakable implication was that since we now know how much they have suffered we can identify with them. Idem velle, idem nolle vera amititia est! Following up on this implication, Barak got onto a wee-morning television hook up from Moscow and said, Now is the time for us to collaborate in intelligence matters. In other words, now is the time for the U.S. to give in to long standing Mossad demand for access to CIA files. So as not to let the theme get lost in the news-din, a cadre of Israeli "statesmen" and "spokes-figures" have trooped into the Media's studios to denounce Arab depravity in tones ranging from sorrow to outrage to we-told-you-so schadenfreude .

Beneath these crocodile tears, the Israeli leadership is delighted with the events which they will pump for all they are worth. But support for Israel in 1948, 1956 or even 1967 is not the same as support in 2001. Years ago Israel crossed the line that divides a suffering people from an oppressive power. There is hardly a moderate Arab who does not condemn the U.S.’s unilateral and uncritical back of Israeli stratagems and objectives. That the same disgust might raise the banner of Islam does not convert it into religious fanaticism, and the greater part of so-called Islamic terrorism could have been avoided with even a bare modicum of balance in America’s Middle East policy.

2. The Terror of War

"The United States,” said Bin Ladin, “accustomed to acting in an ambience of arrogance, has today laid down a double standard. It wants to occupy our countries, rob us of our resources, impose agents to govern us insisting that we accept all of this even if it departs from what God has revealed as just and right. If we refuse to accept these unjust impositions, they brand us as terrorists.”

You are right to take note of what Bin Laden says; however, I think his statement points to more than, being an ex CIA trainee, he knows whereof he sings. The real issue is that modern warfare has itself become an act of terrorism.

What is the difference between terrorism and lawful war? Only this: that in one the bombs fall from on high and in the other they explode from below. We would do well to recall the “non-terrorism” of Hamburg (incinerated with phosphorus bombs); Dresden (250,000 civilian dead); Nuremberg (no military objective); Cologne (same); Hiroshima/Nagasaki (150,000 casualties); Hanoi and countless napalmed Vietnamese villages.

The true myth of the Twentieth Century was that conventional war continued to adhere to the limitations imposed by Grotius in the Sixteenth. Shamefully, that was not the case. No century in human history has seen such human carnage of innocent civilians as our own. Statistics prove beyond doubt that during the Second World War it was safer to be a soldier than a civilian. At least soldiers had rations to eat and arms with which defend themselves. The overwhelming majority of casualties during that disaster were old men, women and children.

What is worse is that modern warfare makes such things inevitable. Even before the Great War it was understood that the old distinction between pacific and warlike uses of material was untenable. A fortiori a military blockade would have to besiege an entire country because, in the industrialized world, armies don’t go to war, countries do. By the time the World War broke out, all belligerents understood and openly said that the way to defeat “the enemy” was to “break” the population’s “will to resist” -- i.e. to terrorize them.

Cold War is no better. What we call “economic sanctions” are no more than euphemisms for medieval sieges, aimed at reducing the besieged to eating carrion or dying of the plague. And like any medieval siege, the strangulation can always be, and invariably is, backed up by the occasional catapult terror or air-space "patrol" bombing. When all else is avoided, political and economic objectives are achieved by assasination (Allende), torture (Videla, Stroessner, Pinochet) and stooley thugs like Somoza or Arias whose nocturnal assassination squads terrorized villagers and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of indian farmers.

Mitigations of War? Of course, the only thing that survives of that pleasant theory is the double-standard. More ominous is the fact that the modern state, whether technically at war or not, achieves its political and economic objectives through acts of terrorism. It does so because hot war is the mobilization of entire nations and cold war is a mobilization against people in their raw and primitive sovereignty.

It is hardly news; but Bin Laden knows whereof he speaks. The United States is as arrogant as it is powerful. Instead of applying itself to humanitarian ends, it pushes people around and feigns shock and indignation when they fight back. Indifferent both to their grievances and its own exploitative policies it disparages resistance as terrorism while engaging in its own ongoing wars of terror.

3. A War on Freedom

In all events, this war against terrorism on which we embark today, like the war on drugs on which we embarked years ago, cannot be won. Today our politicians in all but chorus denounce the “heinous assault against civilization and freedom;” but just you wait, tomorrow they will palaver about the required “sacrifices” and “tools” needed to defend our homes and loved ones. What sacrifices? What tools? None other than the loss of the liberty supposedly defended.

This war is nothing that can be won with a handful of battles. On the contrary, it presupposes a continuous engagement. And who is the enemy? All Arabs? No.... not all.... The American militias? Perhaps, but not always. The Irish? At times. The Basque? Could be. What the Government will have to presume is that everyone is at least a potential terrorist. In the most fundamental sense that is a presumption that is entirely antithetical to the concept of civil friendship, i.e., societas.

In present day England they have already mounted cameras on every corner in the country in order, it is said, to defend against IRA terrorism. But what this entails is that every movement anyone makes in public is made under the all seeing eye of the Command and Control Center. Worse yet, Control can zoom in and use high-def photography to snap, digitize and database your corneal imprint.

Such things are but the visible manifestation of what is in actuality a policio-military apparatus of espionage and control that is gradually being erected over us. Bit by bit, the denizens of this country have been led to accept incremental police measures, soothingly reassured at each step that -- the police being husbands and fathers themselves -- these powers will not be abused. Bit by bit, fear has been insinuated between government and the governed and, ultimately, between citizens and neighbors themselves. And, as always, fear goes shadowed with intolerance and hatred of anything different or unusual.

I remember how this country was before. It was a commonplace that the United States lacked culture, good cuisine and the art of convivencia. But it was equally recognized that America had attained an extraordinary degree of liberty unmatched in the world. Notwithstanding the Puritan extremists, the fundamentalists and the racists, this country was basically tolerant and open. No more.

Our national anthem sings that America is “the home of the free and the land of the brave”. If so it is because it is impossible to be free without being valorous. For shame, today’s Amu’rcans don’t aspire to freedom but hanker after security. Emersed in a culture of quivering, they feel “violated” by just about everything -- including cigarette smoke. They speak of “verbal assaults” as if words were as wounding as blows. Several months ago, some vandals destroyed some equipment in a local toddler playground. In emotive tones, the broadcast news reported that, confronted with this “incomprehensible tragedy” the toddlers’ parents and teachers felt it necessary to seek psychological counseling for their children in this moment of “grief”.

What has some local scandal to do with a geo-political crisis? Nothing more than that a pimple or spot can symptomise a lurking systemic disease. One has to know the art of diagnosing. If there is a tragedy here, it is that such extremist attitudes are nothing exceptional. How is it that possession of a few grams of narcotic can result in a life sentence? This fanaticism of fear rivals any religious intolerance. So what now, now that the United States has been struck by real and shocking assaults? Would that Americans would fortify themselves with a spirit of bravery; but I doubt it. Notwithstanding the double-talk, they will rush to cash-in their freedom for an illusory security.

New Yorkers have always been unlike the rest of the country; and, to date, their reaction to the attack has been remarkably sanguine. Of course, they are shocked, sombered and aggrieved, but they are not hysterical. Had these attacks taken place in Oklahoma City 50,000 Teddy Bears would have already been dragged out to line the streets -- each with its votive candle, to be sure, and no man, woman or child without a yellow ribbon. We would already be subjected to dozens of live sobbing interviews with uncomprehending “victims” wondering how “such a horrible thing could happen, here, in America! in God’s Own Country....” And needles to say such festivals of bewilderment and blubber are invariably accompanied by a din of lacrimose hymns and homilies. Alas, it is the spirit of Oklahoma and not New York that will engulf the country as politicians attune their pronouncements (and congressional choirs) to excite the populace and prepare it for the sacrifices needed in this war without an enemy or an end.

The most stupid thing about this new “war” is that the security it purports to achieve cannot be attained. It is impossible to prevent the entry of contraband or undocumented immigrants. Even should they convert the entire country into an actual prison; even should we accustom ourselves to our daily bombing of alleged “terrorist training camps” somewhere in the world; even if accept living under a regime of total vigilance and espionage -- none of this will stop a fanatic, willing to die in order to commit his “crime” or “heroic act”. What of the day when, instead of crashing a plane, someone drops some biological pill into a city’s water supply?

The problem presented by so-called terrorism is not the criminality of the act but the criminalization of the actor. What I mean to say is that the entity we call a “State” always has interests and engagements apart from its casus belli. As a result, there always exists the option and possibility of entering into negotiations with the enemy state in order to convince it that a treaty with certain terms is more convenient than war. The difference between “lawful war” and “unlawful terrorism” is not that the former is in actual fact less terrorist, but that it occurs within a larger context of regularity and stability.

The unofficial terrorist, on the other hand, is like the ordinary criminal who, precisely because he is a nobody, has nothing to loose. The singular difference is that, unlike the ordinary criminal, the terrorist’s aims are political in nature. This distinction provides a practical point of departure for recognizing him as a belligerent, negotiating and gradually assimilating him into the international regimen in such a way that he acquires greater incentives to talk for the sake of peace. But to declare war against an unseen, amorphous, invisible enemy who is given no option other than implacable hate, is a gross stupidity which can only be explained by this country’s overweening arrogance and self-righteousness. For that pride the Devil will have to be paid.

©Barfo, 2001