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The War on Terror Does Not Exist
By Stephen Dufrechou
NEWS JUNKIE POST
Nov 8, 2009
The “War on Terror” does not exist. It never has. We only perceive the West’s current conflict, against Islamic Fundamentalism, as a “war on terror” because it has been framed as such. The very language we use to discuss this conflict—the terms, the definitions—was chosen by U.S. political leaders. The language was then adopted by every media outlet in America. And it has therefore structured every imaginable discourse since—from debates on the nightly news, to coffee shop arguments between co-eds. It has also informed, shaped, and driven almost every US domestic and foreign policy since 9/11. And as such, this horrifically false vocabulary has completely distorted reality for the entire population of the United States. Our politicians and citizens, thus, have been debating an illusion. But this illusion was necessary, from one perspective. To name “Islamic fundamentalism” as the enemy was not only seen as implying a US Holy War—but, also, to do so could the potentially force American society into social collapse. And this may still happen.
The False Language
Let us start with the terminology. The very concept of a “war on terror” is nonsensical and self-contradictory. War, itself, is terrorism. Remember the minimal definition of “terrorism” is this: the use of fear and intimidation to psychologically paralyze an enemy into submission, in order to achieve strategic and political ends. This phenomenon has been implemented by the US, through one means or another, in every war the United States has ever fought. Terrorism is a tactic used in any war. And it need not even cause deaths—as long as it achieves “fear and intimidation” in the enemy. Thus, the American military’s own “Shock and Awe” strategy, in the 2003 Iraq War, is a perfect example of terrorism. In the end, to declare “war on terrorism” is as absurd as declaring a “war on air power”.
So, this global conflict is not a war “on terror”. And history shows the anomaly in using such a phrase. In past global conflicts, The United States always named the specific ideology of the enemy. For instance, in WWII the nemesis was fascism; in the Cold War the nemesis was soviet communism. This made political sense. It focused on the belief system of the enemy, which ideologically distinguished the enemy’s philosophy from that of United States’. It made the conflict’s division clear and understandable. But we do not get that kind of clarity with “war on terror”.
Let us clarify the issue further. The Taliban and Al Qaeda are currently the focal targets for the US War on Terror—along with other ideologically linked organizations. And the ideology that links them is “Islamic Fundamentalism”. Thus, we arrive at an accurate term for this conflict: “War on Islamic Fundamentalism”, like war on “fascism” or “communism”.
But the Bush Administration was cleaver in this respect. It knew the potential public relations disaster it could have if it adopted this clear language. Hence it chose the flawed “Terror” verbiage. After all, political rhetoric, containing both “Islamic” and “War on”, could give the impression that the Christian US was waging a Holy War. Incidentally—as Noam Chomsky has pointed out—this logic also led the Administration to toss North Korea into the “Axis of Evil”, to avoid having only Islamic Middle Eastern nations under this label.
But there is an even more precarious reason why “Islamic Fundamentalism” could not—and has not— been officially fingered. And this reason is more pressing toady than it was during the Bush Years, given the increasing irrational vitriol of the American Right—that is: officially declaring “Islamic Fundamentalism”, as the conflict’s target, could open the door to fostering social collapse and chaos, in the United States. The truth is in the details. We’ll have to examine the origins of fundamentalism, itself.
The Twin Fundamentalisms
In 2005, the BBC aired a three-part documentary called, “The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear”. The film was not aired in the US, but it is available to purchase or view on the internet. And in a very clear sense, it is obvious why this documentary was never run on American TV. “The Power of Nightmares” demonstrates that Islamic Fundamentalism and the Neoconservative movement are two sides of the same coin.
The Islamic Fundamentalist movement and the Neoconservative movement began separately, independent of each other. One in the Mid-East, the other in America. But both were reactions to the failures of Western modernity to create a world of sane social orders. At least, initially they were.
The idealistic project, which began with the French and American revolutions, to create a world of harmonious societies—based on the Enlightenment ideals of “reason” and “individualism”—had failed by the 1950’s. In light of two world wars, the Great Depression, the rise of totalitarianism, and the Holocaust, such a failure of social sanity was obvious. The result of this failure was almost universal social fragmentation, in the East and the West. Such a state of affairs, combined with postwar angst, fostered the seeds of social rebellion, which exploded in the 1960’s. Joan Didion summed up this reality with her phrase, “The center was not holding”.
Indeed, the environment of political resistance, combined with cultural decadence, forced political hopefuls to invent new ideologies that would again stabilize society. In the East, that ideology was Islamic Fundamentalism, in the West: Neoconservativism.
Both movements abandoned the modern focus on “reason” as a political unifier. Instead, they appealed to culturally irrational slogans and ideals, like “nationalism”, “cultural pride”, “religious consensus”, and “political strength”, for example. But in both cases, in the East and West, the populations were not buying the new rhetoric. Few were listening. Thus in both cases, the movement became ugly.
The Islamists adopted political violence, to force their societies under their control and away from Western modernity. The Neoconservatives adopted political scare tactics, to end the counter-culture and to regain social order—through manufactured fear and mis-education. Islamic fundamentalism assumed the philosophy of jihad, and the Neoconservatives began over-exaggerating the Cold War Soviet threat. Since 9/11, Americans are now sadly familiar with jihad. But they are less so with the misinformation of the “Red Scare”, during the Cold War. Evidence of this misinformation can best be seen in the—now declassified—National Security Council Memo 68 (NSC 68). And all these ugly tactics eventually worked in forcing the respective societies under new control.
The Neoconservatives soon infiltrated the Republican Party of America. The “Neocon” influence persuaded the GOP to begin systematically courting Christian Fundamentalists as a political base. These fundamentalists—commonly called “Evangelicals” or the “Christian Right”—played seamlessly into the Necon’s program of political unity-through-irrationality. Meanwhile, the Islamic Fundamentalists became increasingly political. Thus, by the 1980’s, the world would come to see the birth of twin, dueling fundamentalisms. Both movements soon became hallmarked by a fusion of political imperialism and irrational, religious dogma. Therefore, fascism—which each movement initially abhorred—had been reinvented and adopted by both movements.
Fundamentalism is fundamentalism. The “Islamic “and “Christian” brands are merely two manifestations of the same dysfunctional psychology. And this fact brings us to the point. After 9/11, the Bush Administration could not label “Islamic Fundamentalism” as the philosophy of enemy. Doing so held the potential to underscore this simple truth: the foundation of the enemy’s ideology was also the foundation of the Neoconservative Christian Fundamentalist’s.
If that truth was publically expressed, we can imagine the social implosion that would (and still can) result in America.
With Very Little Distinction
Fundamentalism, Islamic or Christian, is a symptom of Authoritarian psychology. This fact has most recently been demonstrated in Chris Hedge’s book, “American Fascists” and John W. Dean’s “Conservatives Without a Conscious”.
The Authoritarian personality-type has failed to sever the psychological ties of dependency with the parents, before physical adulthood is reached. The result is a biologically-mature adult, who (unconsciously) relies on other individuals and external sources to serve as the authoritative role of the initial parental units. And through this shared psychology, Christian and Islamic Fundamentalists are even further connected. Both groups identify scripture as their sole source of authority, at the exclusion of all other sources.
This identification of scripture—of the Qur’an or the Bible, respectfully—as the supreme and only authority is called an “intratextual” belief-system. That means the ‘content’ of the scripture has replaced the ‘content’ of the initial parental presence. Because fundamentalists have failed to develop higher cognitive learning skills, they are incapable of understanding scripture symbolically or allegorically. And since they failed to develop “coping skills”, all ideas outside of their literal reads of scripture enrage them. Thus, science, philosophy, and psychology are “evil” or “heretical”. In fact, their strict adherence to scriptural literalism is the glue which holds their fragile psychology together. This is why questioning their belief-system pushes them towards anger, towards psychosis.
It is crucial to note the psychological distinction, separating the American Christian Fundamentalist movement from its Islamic counter-part. American Christian Fundamentalists have been socialized, from childhood, into the “liberal democratic” values of American society. This means that they have incorporated, into their underdeveloped psychology, the obedience to Western laws and etiquette. This has largely prevented them from entering into the level of violence, typical of Islamic Fundamentalist organizations. But this fact has not completely prevented Christian Fundamentalist violence from manifesting. Key examples are the Christian terrorist bombings of US abortion clinics of the 1990’s, or the cases where Christian Fundamentalist parents murder their sick children by refusing them medical care, claiming life and death is a matter of “God’s Will” alone.
And we should never forget that what unifies George W. Bush and Osama Bin Laden is not just their authoritarian psychology, but also that they both believe the voice of God, Himself, commanded them to go to war. Both have said their orders come not from reason, but from a “higher power”.
These facts have led psychoanalyst Slavoj Zizek to say:
“As for the ‘clash of civilizations’, let us recall the letter from the seven-year-old American girl whose father was a pilot fighting in Afghanistan: she wrote that—although she loved her father very much, she was ready to let him die, to sacrifice him for her country. When President Bush quoted these lines, they were perceived as a ‘normal’ outburst of American patriotism; let us conduct a simple mental experiment and imagine an Arab Muslim girl pathetically reciting into the camera the same words about her father fighting for the Taliban—we do not have to think for long about what our reaction would have been: morbid Muslim fundamentalism which does not stop even at the cruel manipulation and exploitation of children … Every feature attributed to the Other is already present at the very heart of the USA. Murderous fanaticism? There are in the USA today more than two million Rightist populist ‘fundamentalists’ who also practice a terror of their own, legitimized by (their understanding of) Christianity.”
Zizek’s thoughts are worth discussing.
Stephen Dufrechou is a college professor in Memphis, TN. He is a regular contributor to News Junkie Post.
The War on Terror Does Not Exist | NEWS JUNKIE POST
Related Articles
By Stephen Dufrechou
NEWS JUNKIE POST
Nov 8, 2009
The “War on Terror” does not exist. It never has. We only perceive the West’s current conflict, against Islamic Fundamentalism, as a “war on terror” because it has been framed as such. The very language we use to discuss this conflict—the terms, the definitions—was chosen by U.S. political leaders. The language was then adopted by every media outlet in America. And it has therefore structured every imaginable discourse since—from debates on the nightly news, to coffee shop arguments between co-eds. It has also informed, shaped, and driven almost every US domestic and foreign policy since 9/11. And as such, this horrifically false vocabulary has completely distorted reality for the entire population of the United States. Our politicians and citizens, thus, have been debating an illusion. But this illusion was necessary, from one perspective. To name “Islamic fundamentalism” as the enemy was not only seen as implying a US Holy War—but, also, to do so could the potentially force American society into social collapse. And this may still happen.
The False Language
Let us start with the terminology. The very concept of a “war on terror” is nonsensical and self-contradictory. War, itself, is terrorism. Remember the minimal definition of “terrorism” is this: the use of fear and intimidation to psychologically paralyze an enemy into submission, in order to achieve strategic and political ends. This phenomenon has been implemented by the US, through one means or another, in every war the United States has ever fought. Terrorism is a tactic used in any war. And it need not even cause deaths—as long as it achieves “fear and intimidation” in the enemy. Thus, the American military’s own “Shock and Awe” strategy, in the 2003 Iraq War, is a perfect example of terrorism. In the end, to declare “war on terrorism” is as absurd as declaring a “war on air power”.
So, this global conflict is not a war “on terror”. And history shows the anomaly in using such a phrase. In past global conflicts, The United States always named the specific ideology of the enemy. For instance, in WWII the nemesis was fascism; in the Cold War the nemesis was soviet communism. This made political sense. It focused on the belief system of the enemy, which ideologically distinguished the enemy’s philosophy from that of United States’. It made the conflict’s division clear and understandable. But we do not get that kind of clarity with “war on terror”.
Let us clarify the issue further. The Taliban and Al Qaeda are currently the focal targets for the US War on Terror—along with other ideologically linked organizations. And the ideology that links them is “Islamic Fundamentalism”. Thus, we arrive at an accurate term for this conflict: “War on Islamic Fundamentalism”, like war on “fascism” or “communism”.
But the Bush Administration was cleaver in this respect. It knew the potential public relations disaster it could have if it adopted this clear language. Hence it chose the flawed “Terror” verbiage. After all, political rhetoric, containing both “Islamic” and “War on”, could give the impression that the Christian US was waging a Holy War. Incidentally—as Noam Chomsky has pointed out—this logic also led the Administration to toss North Korea into the “Axis of Evil”, to avoid having only Islamic Middle Eastern nations under this label.
But there is an even more precarious reason why “Islamic Fundamentalism” could not—and has not— been officially fingered. And this reason is more pressing toady than it was during the Bush Years, given the increasing irrational vitriol of the American Right—that is: officially declaring “Islamic Fundamentalism”, as the conflict’s target, could open the door to fostering social collapse and chaos, in the United States. The truth is in the details. We’ll have to examine the origins of fundamentalism, itself.
The Twin Fundamentalisms
In 2005, the BBC aired a three-part documentary called, “The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear”. The film was not aired in the US, but it is available to purchase or view on the internet. And in a very clear sense, it is obvious why this documentary was never run on American TV. “The Power of Nightmares” demonstrates that Islamic Fundamentalism and the Neoconservative movement are two sides of the same coin.
The Islamic Fundamentalist movement and the Neoconservative movement began separately, independent of each other. One in the Mid-East, the other in America. But both were reactions to the failures of Western modernity to create a world of sane social orders. At least, initially they were.
The idealistic project, which began with the French and American revolutions, to create a world of harmonious societies—based on the Enlightenment ideals of “reason” and “individualism”—had failed by the 1950’s. In light of two world wars, the Great Depression, the rise of totalitarianism, and the Holocaust, such a failure of social sanity was obvious. The result of this failure was almost universal social fragmentation, in the East and the West. Such a state of affairs, combined with postwar angst, fostered the seeds of social rebellion, which exploded in the 1960’s. Joan Didion summed up this reality with her phrase, “The center was not holding”.
Indeed, the environment of political resistance, combined with cultural decadence, forced political hopefuls to invent new ideologies that would again stabilize society. In the East, that ideology was Islamic Fundamentalism, in the West: Neoconservativism.
Both movements abandoned the modern focus on “reason” as a political unifier. Instead, they appealed to culturally irrational slogans and ideals, like “nationalism”, “cultural pride”, “religious consensus”, and “political strength”, for example. But in both cases, in the East and West, the populations were not buying the new rhetoric. Few were listening. Thus in both cases, the movement became ugly.
The Islamists adopted political violence, to force their societies under their control and away from Western modernity. The Neoconservatives adopted political scare tactics, to end the counter-culture and to regain social order—through manufactured fear and mis-education. Islamic fundamentalism assumed the philosophy of jihad, and the Neoconservatives began over-exaggerating the Cold War Soviet threat. Since 9/11, Americans are now sadly familiar with jihad. But they are less so with the misinformation of the “Red Scare”, during the Cold War. Evidence of this misinformation can best be seen in the—now declassified—National Security Council Memo 68 (NSC 68). And all these ugly tactics eventually worked in forcing the respective societies under new control.
The Neoconservatives soon infiltrated the Republican Party of America. The “Neocon” influence persuaded the GOP to begin systematically courting Christian Fundamentalists as a political base. These fundamentalists—commonly called “Evangelicals” or the “Christian Right”—played seamlessly into the Necon’s program of political unity-through-irrationality. Meanwhile, the Islamic Fundamentalists became increasingly political. Thus, by the 1980’s, the world would come to see the birth of twin, dueling fundamentalisms. Both movements soon became hallmarked by a fusion of political imperialism and irrational, religious dogma. Therefore, fascism—which each movement initially abhorred—had been reinvented and adopted by both movements.
Fundamentalism is fundamentalism. The “Islamic “and “Christian” brands are merely two manifestations of the same dysfunctional psychology. And this fact brings us to the point. After 9/11, the Bush Administration could not label “Islamic Fundamentalism” as the philosophy of enemy. Doing so held the potential to underscore this simple truth: the foundation of the enemy’s ideology was also the foundation of the Neoconservative Christian Fundamentalist’s.
If that truth was publically expressed, we can imagine the social implosion that would (and still can) result in America.
With Very Little Distinction
Fundamentalism, Islamic or Christian, is a symptom of Authoritarian psychology. This fact has most recently been demonstrated in Chris Hedge’s book, “American Fascists” and John W. Dean’s “Conservatives Without a Conscious”.
The Authoritarian personality-type has failed to sever the psychological ties of dependency with the parents, before physical adulthood is reached. The result is a biologically-mature adult, who (unconsciously) relies on other individuals and external sources to serve as the authoritative role of the initial parental units. And through this shared psychology, Christian and Islamic Fundamentalists are even further connected. Both groups identify scripture as their sole source of authority, at the exclusion of all other sources.
This identification of scripture—of the Qur’an or the Bible, respectfully—as the supreme and only authority is called an “intratextual” belief-system. That means the ‘content’ of the scripture has replaced the ‘content’ of the initial parental presence. Because fundamentalists have failed to develop higher cognitive learning skills, they are incapable of understanding scripture symbolically or allegorically. And since they failed to develop “coping skills”, all ideas outside of their literal reads of scripture enrage them. Thus, science, philosophy, and psychology are “evil” or “heretical”. In fact, their strict adherence to scriptural literalism is the glue which holds their fragile psychology together. This is why questioning their belief-system pushes them towards anger, towards psychosis.
It is crucial to note the psychological distinction, separating the American Christian Fundamentalist movement from its Islamic counter-part. American Christian Fundamentalists have been socialized, from childhood, into the “liberal democratic” values of American society. This means that they have incorporated, into their underdeveloped psychology, the obedience to Western laws and etiquette. This has largely prevented them from entering into the level of violence, typical of Islamic Fundamentalist organizations. But this fact has not completely prevented Christian Fundamentalist violence from manifesting. Key examples are the Christian terrorist bombings of US abortion clinics of the 1990’s, or the cases where Christian Fundamentalist parents murder their sick children by refusing them medical care, claiming life and death is a matter of “God’s Will” alone.
And we should never forget that what unifies George W. Bush and Osama Bin Laden is not just their authoritarian psychology, but also that they both believe the voice of God, Himself, commanded them to go to war. Both have said their orders come not from reason, but from a “higher power”.
These facts have led psychoanalyst Slavoj Zizek to say:
“As for the ‘clash of civilizations’, let us recall the letter from the seven-year-old American girl whose father was a pilot fighting in Afghanistan: she wrote that—although she loved her father very much, she was ready to let him die, to sacrifice him for her country. When President Bush quoted these lines, they were perceived as a ‘normal’ outburst of American patriotism; let us conduct a simple mental experiment and imagine an Arab Muslim girl pathetically reciting into the camera the same words about her father fighting for the Taliban—we do not have to think for long about what our reaction would have been: morbid Muslim fundamentalism which does not stop even at the cruel manipulation and exploitation of children … Every feature attributed to the Other is already present at the very heart of the USA. Murderous fanaticism? There are in the USA today more than two million Rightist populist ‘fundamentalists’ who also practice a terror of their own, legitimized by (their understanding of) Christianity.”
Zizek’s thoughts are worth discussing.
Stephen Dufrechou is a college professor in Memphis, TN. He is a regular contributor to News Junkie Post.
The War on Terror Does Not Exist | NEWS JUNKIE POST
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