Terrorism is a problem, as Walter Laqueur notes, that “has rarely been absent from history” and a threat, as Philip Heymann observes, that “cannot be completely eliminated.”[26] Its sources are intensely complex in their political, economic, social, cultural, and religious dimensions of grievance, and they will never be fully resolved, for ethnic conflict, nationalism, imperialism, revolutionary ideology, economic exploitation, poverty, religious fervor, and political alienation are not finite problems, especially as they reassert themselves against the continuing presence of empire in the post-Cold War “power vacuums left by the collapse of the old order” of U.S.-Soviet rivalry.[27] One characteristic is constant, however: whether the source of violence is cultural, ideological, religious, economic, and/or state terrorism, the “us-them” dichotomy is “paramount in the thinking of terrorists” and counter-terrorists.[28] Herein lays the key to the terrorist trap and the problem of escalating violence insofar as it is within our power to widen our circumference of understanding and develop a more serviceable attitude toward the problem at hand.
In its most extreme form, the form it has taken in our own time of defending Western civilization against Islamic revolution (and vice versa), the dichotomization of “us vs. them” in a dramatization of “good vs. evil” is a call to cosmic war. This is no ordinary political strategy or statement but instead a public performance of violence that serves as a symbolic assertion of empowerment. It is what Mark Juergensmeyer calls “performance violence,” which must be understood and analyzed as symbol, ritual, and drama. “In speaking of terrorism as ‘performance,’” he emphasizes, we are “not suggesting that such acts are undertaken lightly or capriciously. Rather, like religious ritual or street theater, they are dramas designed to have an impact on the several audiences that they affect.” It is a drama that promotes “satanization” of the enemy, a ritual that transforms death into salvation, a symbolization of cosmic struggle that prolongs the battle endlessly, and a legitimization of unlimited escalations of violence to the point of utter extermination of the evil Other.[29] And it is an attitude assumed by all the parties to terrorism – domestic, international, and state sponsors of violence against civilians to achieve political aims. Each side enacts its own performance violence in response to the Other’s enactments, reinforcing one another in an escalating dance of death. Not only does this reciprocal satanization of enemies by both sides mark everyone as legitimate targets of escalating violence – because even civilians are considered to be consenting and contributing members of one evil order or the other – but it also renders Americans all the more prone to the myopia of empire, less capable of self critique, and thus increasingly vulnerable to destruction by instruments of our own making. By ritualizing the “us-them” divide, we become unwitting agents of our enemy’s designs. Osama bin Laden’s jihad is an immediate case in point.
In his fatwa of February 23, 1996, bin Laden declared war against Americans for occupying Muslim holy lands and because of America’s “barbaric treatment of Muslim people during its war against Saddam Hussein,” citing in particular the killing of thousands of innocent civilians by U.S. bombs. Later, in an interview with ABC news in 1998, he referenced the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as further evidence of U.S. terror and evil. Thus, “every American man, woman, and child” was deemed a legitimate target of al Qaeda’s righteous warriors.[30]
The spiral of reciprocal violence is apparent here. Add yet another twist, and one can see the potential for even a greater blunder by the U.S. when we take bin Laden too literally and react too predictably. That is, as Michael Scott Doran argues, bin Laden has no expectation or intention of defeating the United States, per se, but is baiting the U.S., banking on a predictable reaction that will further his primary goal of fomenting an Islamic revolution within the Muslim world.
This is an exercise in performance violence, a piece of political theater of the kind David Fromkin suggests is “aimed at creating fear in order that the fear, in turn, will lead somebody else – not the terrorist – to embark on some different program of action that will accomplish whatever it is that the terrorist really desires.” In this case, Doran believes, “Osama bin Laden sought – and has received – an international military crackdown, one he wants to exploit for his particular brand of revolution.” In his script, “America, cast as the villain, is supposed to use its military might like a cartoon character trying to kill a fly with a shotgun,” and the Islamic community “will find it shocking how Americans nonchalantly cause Muslims to suffer and die.” Their ensuing outrage will advance the cause of Islamic revolution against secular governments in Arab countries and especially Saudi Arabia and thus embroil the U.S. in an “intra-Muslim ideological battle.”[31] Just as al Qaeda terrorists used our own training facilities to learn how to fly our own civilian aircraft into our own buildings that then collapsed on themselves to kill so many of our fellow citizens, bin Laden has set a trap in which we are to use our own military might inadvertently to help bring down more secular and less radical Arab regimes and supporters in the Middle East – regimes which are neither paragons of liberal democracy themselves nor invulnerable bulwarks of stability against revolutionary forces.
How do we begin to disentangle ourselves from this self-perpetuating, self-defeating, and dangerously escalating cycle of performance violence? Given that terrorism thrives on overreaction, it is imperative that we respond wisely according to democratic principles, for terrorists gain a victory when “we begin to live our lives in constant fear . . . and take measures that erode our basic democratic values.”[32] Our aim has to be one of protecting life while maintaining “the liberties necessary to a vibrant democracy” and the civic health of a diverse nation.[33] An attitude of war all too easily trumps a healthy regard for civil liberties and human rights, and an overemphasis on the rhetoric of “us vs. them,” reinforced by sweeping condemnations of terrorism as evil incarnate, achieves little of value even as it works against the democratic value of accommodating pluralism.[34] We have to recognize that war in general and killing Osama bin Laden in particular will not make terrorism disappear and that it may very well even fan the flames of global terrorism.[35] Already, as Michael Doran has observed, “many Muslims who do not belong to bin Laden’s terrorist network consider the United States to be on a moral par with Genghis Khan.”[36] Our emphasis, then, should shift from escalating the violence to encouraging a contest of ideas.[37] Pluralism is an enemy of extremism.[38] The time has come to shed the vestiges of a Cold War mentality and the habits of unilateralism, to relax the “suffocating embrace” of empire, and to rely more heavily on diplomacy and leadership by example than military force and economic bullying.[39] Achieving a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for example, would amount to an affirmation of pluralism, a blow to bin Laden’s interests and objectives, and an advance toward identifying a significant number of Muslims and their interests with those of the U.S.[40]
Too much emphasis on the methods of war ignores the complexities of the threat in its multiple dimensions and gets us all the more deeply entangled in the terrorist trap of escalating performance violence for dubious political purposes. The particular policies we might adopt to reduce our over-reliance on military measures and to increase our emphasis on law enforcement, intelligence gathering, diplomacy, multilateralism, and economic assistance as principal means of countering terrorism must be crafted in a context of renewed respect for pluralism and democratic principles at home and abroad so that we don’t define patriotism and national unity narrowly in opposition to an evil Other. Otherwise, we risk compounding the motives for terrorism rather than de-escalating the cycle of victimization and violence against unsuspecting and defenseless civilians. Adopting a wider and subtler perspective over the method of caricature is the most realistic antidote to the hubris of empire and the best attitude for responding wisely to the exigencies of our time. Terrorism is a heinous but maddening act. Instead of just exterminating every viscous killer in an upward spiral of performance violence, we should ask probing questions about the manner of our defense in order to preserve the integrity of our quest. Preserving freedom and promoting democracy are just that complicated.
Coping Democratically with Terrorism
If we adopt a more comprehensive view of the realities of terrorism, rather than continuing to fixate piously on a vain and doomed attempt to eradicate evil, how might we respond differently in order to decrease the otherwise escalating cycle of performance violence against civilians? That is, what are the implications of a revised attitude toward terrorism, an attitude that takes into account the complexities of terrorism’s causes and the limitations of military and other methods of counterterrorism on which we have become so overly dependent within the restricted framework of a war on terrorism? What better options exist, if we think outside the limits of our present profile of terrorism and corresponding military mindset? If we recognize our own complicity in the problem? If we acknowledge that empire – our considerable economic, cultural, and military presence and influence throughout the world – is a continuing reality and a compelling reason to enact democratic values instead of succumbing to the arrogance of power or wishing away the responsibility of exercising constructive leadership? And if we accept the challenge and demonstrate the courage to practice democracy in a pluralistic world here and now, rather than restrain, defer, and suspend it until a future time in a hypothetical world where it supposedly will become safe to practice after human diversity and divisions have somehow disappeared? What, then, is the wider range of our options for coping with terrorism sensibly as a strong and democratic people residing necessarily in a deeply conflicted world – a people who understand that diversity is the condition and the challenge of democracy, not its risk and ruin? Beyond the prevailing caricature of terrorists and terrorism, how might we begin to address this problem at home and abroad more democratically and less coercively?
Modifying Expectations
Modifying our expectations is the first crucial step toward developing an effective response to terrorism. Thinking in terms of a “war” against terrorism is a recipe for demoralization and self-defeat. In the words of Paul Pillar, a former deputy chief of the Counterterrorist Center of the CIA and executive assistant to the CIA director, “If there is a ‘war’ against terrorism, it is a war that cannot be won. Counterterrorism, even though it shares some attributes with warfare,” he continues, “is not accurately represented by the metaphor of a war.” It has no fixed enemies, no clear beginning, nor any prospect of closure, final victory, or internal collapse of the adversary. It is more like a continuous public health campaign than a war, where threats “come in many different forms, some more virulent than others. Some of the threats are waxing; some are waning. Some are old; others are very new.” Just as progress is made against one disease, a different strain or new type of disease appears on the scene. Disease itself is never conquered; we’ll never live in a disease-free world. Likewise, terrorism as a whole “cannot be ‘defeated’ – only reduced, attenuated, and to some degree controlled.” To hope for more is to set unrealistic expectations that can only damage public morale with each new terrorist attack. Rather than winning a war, Pillar argues, our standard for counterterrorist policy should be to save lives without compromising national interests, compromises that range from violating civil liberties and human rights to reinforcing Islamic distrust of the U.S. and rankling our allies. Without ever accepting terrorism’s legitimacy, we must learn to expect that it will continue to be a part of our lives.[41]
Accordingly, Americans should expect policies that are flexible, adaptive, multifaceted, and responsive to a wide range of immediate, emerging, and long-term terrorist threats, that emphasize a combination of diplomacy, international cooperation, intelligence gathering, economic assistance, police work, and criminal prosecution over a preponderance of military means, and that eschew the temptation of national leaders “to use emotional or simplistic themes that, although effective at drumming up [public] support in the short term, may reduce the political room for maneuver when it comes to the more complex and delicate issues in counterterrorism.”[42] Just as the world does not reduce to a simple dichotomy between good and evil, an effective response to terrorism cannot be premised on “absolute solutions and a rejection of accommodation, [compromise], and finesse.”[43] Nor can we reasonably judge any serviceable policy by the explicit or implicit criterion of eradicating the threat. |
