Page 2 of 2 DISPATCHES
FROM AMERICA Oil at $100 vs the 'war on terror' By Tom Engelhardt
endangering US counter-terrorism efforts in the region.Or, to return for a
moment to Charlie Gibson's loose-nuke terrorism scenario in that Democratic
debate: It was a given that neither Gibson, nor any of the Democratic
presidential hopefuls on stage would mention the single country for which such
a scenario might have an element of realism - Pakistan's neighbor, India.
But that's just par for the course, since other countries, other
peoples, except as they relate to the American "war on terror", have neither
purpose, nor reality. Without the "war on terror", without the (narrowly
defined) issue of American "insecurity", theyall qualify as just "the
elephant". And yet, as an obsession, as war policy as well as domestic policy,
banking everything on the "war on terror" has proved about as foolish, as
self-defeating, as- let's say it - mad, as anyone could possibly have imagined.
To put this Bush legacy and its significance in perspective, here's my own
fantasy scenario for you to debate:
Imagine that, by some unknown
process, the "war on terror" succeeds. Instantly. Al-Qaeda and other
like-minded terrorist and wannabe terrorist groups are simply wiped off the
face of the Earth. They cease to exist. Tomorrow. No al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia.
No original al-Qaeda (with its local admixtures) in the Pakistani tribal areas
or Afghanistan. No al-Qaedan-style car bombers lurking in London. No more
hijacked vehicles heading for American buildings or US Navy vessels. No more
trains blowing up in Madrid railway stations. No more al-Qaeda-labeled suicide
car bombs going off in Algiers, or Istanbul, or anywhere else. The end. Finis.
This would mean, of course, that the American obsession of
these last years, the "war on terror", would be ended, too. There would then be
no reason for the world to be with us or against us; no need for a Department
of Homeland Security, or draconian laws, or major surveillance programs, and so
on.
Now, we still have a few minutes left in this segment of our "debate", so let's
just keep imagining. Take a glance around the world - theoretically made
"secure" and "safe" for Americans - and ask yourself this: If the "war on
terror" were over, what would be left? What would we be rid of? What would be
changed? Would oil be, say, $60 a barrel, or even $20 a barrel? Would Russia
return to being an impoverished nearly Third World country, as it was before
2001, rather than a rising energy superpower? Would the Iraq War be over? Would
the Arctic Sea re-ice? Would Afghans welcome our occupation with open arms and
accept our permanent bases and jails on their territory? Would all those
dollars in Chinese and Middle Eastern hands return to the US Treasury? Would
Latin America once again be the "backyard" of the US? Would we suddenly be
hailed around the world for our "victory" and feared once again as the "sole
superpower", the planetary "hyperpower"? Would we no longer be in, or near,
recession? Would hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs begin flowing back
into the country? Would the housing market bounce back? Would unemployment
drop?
The answer to all of the above, of course, is resoundingly and repeatedly "no".
Essential power relations in the world turn out to have next to nothing to do
with the "war on terror" (which may some day be seen as the last great
ideological gasp of American globalism). In this sense, terrorism, no matter
how frightening, is an ephemeral phenomenon. The fact is, non-state groups
wielding terror as their weapon of choice can cause terrible pain, harm and
localized mayhem, but they simply don't take down societies like ours. The
Irish Republican Army did not take down Britain, despite years of devastating
terror bombings in central London; nor did al-Qaeda take down Spain, even with
a devastating bombing of trains entering a Madrid railway station. And neither
the British, nor the Spanish, acted as though that might happen.
The "war on terror's" greatest achievement - for American rulers and ruled
alike - may simply have been to block out the world as it was, to block out,
that is, reality. When it came to al-Qaeda's ability to cause death in the US,
any American faced more danger simply getting into a car and hitting an
American highway, taking up smoking, or possibly even (these days) going to an
American suburban high school.
A nation of cowards? Most of the things that needed to be done to make
us safer after September 11 undoubtedly could have been done without much fuss,
without a new, more bureaucratic, less efficient Department of Homeland
Security, without a new, larger US intelligence community, without pumping ever
more money into the Pentagon, and certainly without invading and occupying
Iraq.
Most societies which have dealt with terror - often far worse campaigns than
what we have experienced, despite the look of September 11 - have faced the
dangers involved without becoming obsessional over their safety and security,
without locking down their countries, and then attempting to do the same with
the planet, as the Bush administration did. In the process, we may have turned
ourselves into the functional equivalent of a nation of cowards, ready to
sacrifice so much of value on the altar of the God of "security".
Think of it: 19 fanatics with hijacked planes, backed and funded by a
relatively small movement based in one of the most impoverished places on the
planet, did all this; or, put more accurately, faced with the look of the
apocalypse and the dominating urges of the Bush administration, we did what
al-Qaeda's crew never could have done. Blinding ourselves via the president's
"war on terror", we released American hubris and fear on the world, in the
process making almost every situation we touched progressively worse for this
country.
The fact is that those who run empires can sometimes turn the right levers in
societies far away. Historically, they have sometimes been quite capable of
seeing the world and actual power relations as they are, clearly enough to
conquer, occupy and pacify other countries. Sometimes, they were quite capable
of dividing and ruling local peoples for long periods, or hiring native troops
to do their dirty work. But here's the dirty miracle of the Bush
administration: Thinking "war on terror" all the way, its every move seemed to
do more damage than the last - not just to the world, but to the fabric of the
country they were officially protecting.
Among their many "war on terror"-ish achievements, top administration officials
demarcated an area extending from the western border of China through the
territories of the former Central Asian Soviet Socialist Republics and deep
into the Middle East, down through the Horn of Africa and across North Africa
(all of this more or less coinciding with the oil heartlands of the planet),
and dubbed it "the arc of instability". Then, from Somalia to Pakistan, they
managed to set it aflame, transforming their own empty turn of phrase into a
reality on the ground, even as the price of crude oil soared.
Opinion polls indicate that, in this electoral season, terrorism is no longer
at, or even near, the top of the American agenda of worries. Right now, it
tends to fall far down lists of "the most important issue to face this country"
(though significantly higher among Republicans than Democrats or independents).
Nonetheless, don't for a second think that the subject isn't lodged deep in
national consciousness. When asked recently by the pollsters of CNN/Opinion
Research Corporation: "How worried are you that you or someone in your family
will become a victim of terrorism," a striking 39% of Americans were either
"very worried" or "somewhat worried"; another 33% registered as "not too
worried".
These figures might seem reasonable in New York City, but nationally? As the
Democratic debate Saturday indicated, the politics of security and fear have
been deeply implanted in our midst, as well as in media and political
consciousness. Even candidates who proclaim themselves against "the politics of
fear" (and many don't) are repeatedly forced to take care of fear's rhetorical
business.
Imagining how a new president and a new administration might begin to make
their way out of this mindset, out of a pre-occupation guaranteed to solve no
problems and exacerbate many, is almost as hard as imagining a world without
al-Qaeda. After all, this particular obsession has been built into our
institutions, from Guantanamo to the Department of Homeland Security. It's had
the time to sink its roots into fertile soil; it now has its own industries,
lobbying groups, profit centers. Unbuilding it will be a formidable task
indeed. Here, then - a year early - is a Bush legacy that no new president is
likely to reverse soon.
Ask yourself honestly: Can you imagine a future America without a Department of
Homeland Security? Can you imagine a new administration ending the global
lockdown that has become synonymous with Americanism?
The Bush administration will go, but the job it's done on us won't. That is the
sad truth of our presidential campaign moment.
Tom Engelhardt, who runs the Nation Institute's Tomdispatch.com, is the
co-founder of the American Empire Project. His book, The End of Victory
Culture (University of Massachusetts Press), has been thoroughly updated in a
newly issued edition that deals with victory culture's crash-and-burn sequel in
Iraq.
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