President Obama has announced that the “buck” stops with him when things go wrong within the elaborate intelligence apparatus that supports airport security and anti-terrorism in general. But what about with respect to another type of terrorism – the kind we perpetrate on others? Is he willing to accept that “buck” as well? His predecessor certainly wasn’t. Like under Bush II, civilians have been the target of our military in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan, and, indirectly, elsewhere. According to the U.N., more than 2,000 civilians were killed in Afghanistan during the first ten months of 2009, about 450 of which are attributable to the U.S. and our allies. That number is probably low, since in every conflict the line is deliberately blurred between combatants and non-combatants, but even if we accept it at face value, 450 deaths represents a lot of suffering, disaffection, and anger. I’m not sure how it is any different to kill hundreds of peasants with unmanned drones than it is to blow up buses or passenger airliners – both are indiscriminate, heinously destructive, and criminal. Both shield the true perpetrators. And both seek to advance a political cause through faceless violence. Will Obama take responsibility for that?

It is hard to see how we as a society will ever get beyond our eagerness to resort to killing as a preferred means of foreign policy. Let’s face it – its advocacy is a great way to drum up votes if you’re a tin-pot politician. Has any national leader since Barry Goldwater sacrificed an election simply on the basis of being too much of a hawk? It has an amazingly broad appeal. I can’t tell you how many times otherwise smart people have suggested, nominally in jest, that we drop bombs on this country or that. There’s a cathartic simplicity to it. And since most Americans are blissfully unaware of the degree to which their government has meddled in the affairs of other peoples, opting for military action seems to many an appropriate response in the face of an irrationally hostile world. Why do those people hate us? we’re always asking ourselves. What the hell did we ever do to them? It is as if we are born anew each moment, perpetually free of our dark past and our equally troubling present.

Obama’s administration is, like many of its predecessors, propelled forward into bad policy by the criticisms of some very cynical voices, including some who were primarily responsible for the catastrophic failures of the last regime. It occurs to me that one of the more common Cheneyisms – that we are less safe from attack under Obama – may, in a sense, be grimly true. Cheney, Bush, and his crew nearly destroyed the U.S. empire. They led us into two disastrous wars that drained us of blood, treasure, and international credibility, to say nothing of the death and damage they dealt to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. Their idiocy at governing knew no bounds, as the destruction of New Orleans and the implosion of our economy amply demonstrated. This is well-known to the leaders of Al Qaeda, I’m certain, just as I’m sure they are aware that terror attacks (and attempted attacks) redound to the political benefit of people like Bush and Cheney. Ergo, if they attack us, they know we are likely to turn around and elect people who will surely bring this country down, and its empire with it.

Simple strategy – let your enemy destroy him/herself. Al Qaeda appears to know that one. Do we?

luv u,

jp

Thanks to the so-dubbed “underpants” bomber, the T.V. airwaves and blogosphere are all about terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, as if it’s something that just appeared out of nowhere this week. Where the hell has everyone been? I think part of the dynamic at work here is the simple fact that television news people spend a lot of their time on airplanes, and the tightened security that results from these attempted bombings is a real inconvenience to the jet set. (Me? I wouldn’t get on a plane these days unless somebody had a gun to my head.) Not sure if anyone else remembers, but a short time after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, it seemed like a lot of television commentators – the McLaughlin Group springs to mind – were complaining piteously about the demise of curbside check-in. Such an inconvenience. However will our civilization survive? (It has, somehow.) That helps to drive the news cycle a bit. I think my cousin had the perfect response at the time: That’s it, no more planes. If I don’t have to fly, you don’t have to fly. End of story. 

Most of the talk, of course, has been about how this could happen and what we can do to keep it from happening again. There has also been a lot of tough pundit talk about Yemen, as if somehow we have the capacity to mount yet another failed invasion. I think, though, that the central point of this whole episode is barely being discussed at all – the simple fact that, after eight years of war, we are still right where we were when it all started. In essence, people can still walk onto a plane and blow it up, make it crash, etc. – maybe not in precisely the same way as on 9-11, but just as devastatingly, it seems likely. So… what have we accomplished by invading two countries halfway around the world? As it turns out, less than nothing – we have, in fact, made ourselves more vulnerable to attack. It’s a classic supply-side argument, so all you Regan-lovers out there should be able to work this out. We’ve killed hundreds of thousands of Muslims, displaced millions more. There are a vastly greater number of people out there who want to see us suffer than there was in 2001. By increasing that pool, we’ve increased the likelihood of attack far beyond what our meager efforts at airline security are able to mitigate. Mission accomplished, Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and, yes, now Obama. Good going.

There is also a strong presumption on the part of the Cheneys, the Buchanans, the Lindsey Grahams, etc., against treating terrorism cases as criminal matters rather than through military means. These people seem to have no faith in our justice system whatsoever. Do they really think it’s going to be hard to convict this Nigerian guy? The system is designed to put black people in jail under pretty much any circumstances, thanks in large measure to “conservatives”. For chrissake, it took just the mere mention of terrorism for them to give Jeff Leurs 22 years in a maximum security hell hole when he set fire to 3 pickup trucks at a car dealership with no intention to cause bodily harm to anyone. This case can easily be handled in the context of our courts. The Cheneys and Buchanans of the world are eager to apply the thumbscrew as well, in the full knowledge that to do so is illegal, immoral, unethical… and ineffective. But the desire to resort to torture is such an integral part of their worldview now – it is their way of appealing to the worst in all of us.

When we made this fight against terrorism a “war”, all we did was elevate the status of a bunch of criminals to that of a world power. That obviously hasn’t worked. Let’s try another way.