Under the Banner of the 'War' on Terror (Page 4)

The government has invited private enterprise to come up with the technological fixes for terror--a familiar American response to complex problems--and untold billions are on the table as incentive. The bureaucratic chaos and lack of priorities at the Department of Homeland Security has frustrated many business contractors, but a crudely improvised "industrial policy" is emerging. The "terrorism war" directs major economic stimuli to key sectors--arms manufacturing, information technology, pharmaceuticals, biotech research and, of course, security hardware. Government has indemnified manufacturers of antiterror devices against consumer lawsuits, just in case the gadgets fail to work. Many other interests are clamoring for a piece of the action. The development capital provided by taxpayers to these "war" industries can be thought of as "terror pork."

Altogether, the momentous alterations in government and society derive from Bush's unilateral announcement of an uncharted war. One should not assume the President himself fully grasped all of the many consequences in advance, any more than his team understood what they were getting into in Iraq. But no matter. "War on terror" is a political slogan--not a coherent strategy for national defense--and it succeeds brilliantly only as politics. For everything else, it is quite illogical.

An important question remains for Americans to ponder: Why have most people submitted so willingly to a new political order organized around fear? Other nations have confronted terrorism of a more sustained nature without coming thoroughly unhinged. I remember living in London briefly in the 1970s, when IRA bombings were a frequent occurrence. Daily life continued with stiff-upper-lip reserve (police searched ladies' handbags at restaurants, but did not pat down the gentlemen). We can only speculate on answers. Was it the uniquely horrific quality of the 9/11 attacks? Or the fact that, unlike Europe, the continental United States has never been bombed? For modern Americans, war's destruction is a foreign experience, though the United States has participated in many conflicts on foreign soil. Despite the patriotic breast-beating, are we closet wimps? America's exaggerated expressions of fear may look to others like a surprising revelation of weakness.

My own suspicion is that many Americans have enjoyed Bush's "terror war" more than they wish to admit. Feeling scared can be oddly pleasurable, like participating in a real-life action thriller, when one is allied in imagined combat with a united country of brave patriots. The plot line is simple--good guys against satanic forces--and pushes aside doubts and ambiguities, like why exactly these people are out to get us. Does our own behavior in the world have anything to do with it? No, they resent us because we are so virtuous--kind, free, wealthy, democratic. The contest, as framed by Bush, invites Americans to indulge in a luxurious sense of self-pity--poor, powerful America, so innocent and yet so misunderstood. America's exaggerated fear of unknown "others" is perhaps an unconscious inversion of its exaggerated claims of power.

The only way out of this fog of pretension is painful self-examination by Americans--cutting our fears down to more plausible terms and facing the complicated realities of our role in the world. The spirited opposition that arose to Bush's war in Iraq is a good starting place, because citizens raised real questions that were brushed aside. I don't think most Americans are interested in imperial rule, but they were grossly misled by patriotic rhetoric. Now is the time for sober, serious teach-ins that lay out the real history of US power in the world, and that also explain the positive and progressive future that is possible. Once citizens have constructed a clear-eyed, dissenting version of our situation, perhaps politicians can also be liberated from exaggerated fear. The self-imposed destruction that has flowed from Bush's logic cannot be stopped until a new cast of leaders steps forward to guide the country. This transformation begins by changing Presidents.

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