Endless War?: Hidden Functions of the 'War on Terror' - Softcover

Keen, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0745324177 ISBN 13: 9780745324173

Publisher: Pluto Press, 2006

Synopsis

Was the Iraq war really an act of goodwill to liberate people from injustice? Or was it a strategic move to maintain US dominance globally? Endless War? casts a critical light on the real motives behind war and conflict. David Keen explores how winning war is rarely an end in itself; rather, war tends to be part of a wider political and economic game that is consistent with strengthening the enemy. Keen devises a radical framework for analysing an unending war project, where the "war on terror" is an extension of the Cold War. The book draws on the author's detailed study of wars in Sudan, Sierra Leone, as well as in a range of other conflicts. It provides a new approach to conflict analysis that will be of use to students across development studies and the social sciences.

About this title

About the Author

David Keen is Reader in Complex Emergencies at the Institute of Development Studies at the London School of Economics. He has written a number of books on conflicts, famines and civil wars, including Endless War?: Hidden Functions of the 'War on Terror' (Pluto, 2006). In recent years, he has conducted extensive fieldwork in Sudan, Sierra Leone and Iraq.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Endless War?

Hidden Functions of the 'War on Terror'

By David Keen

Pluto Press

Copyright © 2006 David Keen
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-7453-2417-3

Contents

Acknowledgements, vii, 
1. Introduction, 1, 
2. Fuel on the fire: predictably counterproductive tactics in the 'war on terror', 8, 
3. War systems: local and global, 51, 
4. Elusive enemies and the need for certainty, 84, 
5. The new witch-hunt: finding and removing the source of evil, 96, 
6. The retreat from evidence-based thinking, 115, 
7. Action as propaganda, 131, 
8. Warding off the shame of powerlessness, 145, 
9. Shame, purity and violence, 160, 
10. Culture and magic, 190, 
11. Conclusion, 210, 
Notes, 220, 
Bibliography, 270, 
Index, 279, 

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Aims and argument of the book

Current tactics in the 'war on terror' are predictably counterproductive. These tactics have included the use of military offensives to combat terrorism: notably in the attack on Afghanistan, the attack on Iraq and the heavy handed suppression of resistance and use of collective punishment inside Iraq. Torture has been used in Iraq, Afghanistan, Cuba and a range of other countries, and the British government has taken the radical step of telling its diplomats they can use information obtained through torture (as long as the torture is done in some country other than Britain). International law – and often the whole concept of the rule of law – has increasingly been set aside. The counterproductive effects of such strategies are set out in Chapter 2.

During the Cold War (and also before), a militaristic state-based framework suggested that you could sensibly respond to threats with war or the threat of war. But this framework, always risky and costly, is now hopelessly out of date. This is because of the dangers posed by elusive and often decentralised international terror networks, by a proliferation of powerful weapons around the world, and by a type of violence that is continuously fuelled by widespread feelings of humiliation and anger, notably among many Muslims. These feelings in extreme cases have created a willingness to take innocent lives and to lose one's own life in the process. The problem of weapons proliferation has been deepened when suicide-killers have turned even non-weapons like planes and skyscrapers into instruments of death.

In these circumstances, trying to apply the old militaristic model to the problem of terrorism is like trying to destroy a liquid with a sledgehammer or a virus with a bullet. The idea of a centralised enemy and the focus on states – both more plausible during the Cold War – have been disastrously retained. Attacks on states are now particularly redundant and counterproductive. The growing importance of sub-national and transnational dynamics, as Carl Conetta notes, means resentments can't be sealed neatly within the 'black box' of the nation state. And a militaristic approach to terror, apart from being directly counterproductive, has also taken attention and resources away from other, more promising, approaches to dealing with terrorism.

Since terror is fuelled by anger and since terror networks are quite decentralised, trying to physically eliminate terror and terrorists is not going to work. This lesson should already be clear from civil wars. Today more than ever, we need to understand why non-state actors participate in violence and how abusive counter-terror or counterinsurgency operations tend to fuel the fire of violence.

Although it has become clear to most observers, including diplomatic and intelligence officials, that militaristic and abusive actions are proving counterproductive, they have nevertheless been adhered to (and often with renewed enthusiasm and ferocity). Why is this? Simply condemning the tactics or pointing out that they are counterproductive provides no answers here; indeed, it deepens the puzzle. The bulk of statements about the 'war on terror' are concerned either with justifying recent actions (the approach of the US and UK governments and the US 'neo-conservatives'), dismissing abuses as 'mistakes' or 'failings' (broadly, a liberal perspective), or (usually from the left) condemning the US-led coalition's behaviour as immoral and counterproductive. However, trying to explain why these counterproductive tactics have been adopted and retained is a rather different task, and may ultimately help in challenging them. Since the US-led approach has not been based on facts so much as on faith and power, it has exhibited a certain immunity to conventional empirical challenges; it is therefore particularly important to explore its inner logic and the (deluded) beliefs that sustain it.

All this becomes more urgent because George W. Bush has often stressed that the 'war on terror' is both wide-ranging and ongoing. Bush told West Point military cadets in June 2002 that the United States must be prepared to take the 'war on terror' to up to 60 countries if weapons of mass destruction were to be kept out of the hands of terrorists. Iran has been a particular target for belligerent talk, and Bush described Iran in February 2005 as 'the world's primary state sponsor of terror'. For his part, Tony Blair responded in October 2005 to the Iranian President's admittedly outrageous call for Israel to be 'wiped off the map': 'If they carry on like this, the question people will be asking us is – when are you going to do something about Iran? Can you imagine a state like that with an attitude like that having nuclear weapons?'

Chapter 3 looks for political and economic explanations for the current counterproductive tactics. It is suggested that the global 'war on terror' is a system conferring important benefits, where the aim is not necessarily to win. If the 'war on terror' is an endless war in the sense of a perpetual war, it does not appear to be an endless war in the sense that it lacks any goal or purpose. The suspicion that the 'war on terror' may have hidden functions is heightened by the succession of 'wars' of one kind or another in which the United States has declared its involvement since the Second World War. Whilst taking off from the analysis of Chomsky and others, the discussion here draws on my previous analysis of civil war as a system: where militarily and politically counterproductive tactics have been commonplace and where (contrary to common belief) the aim has not necessarily been military victory. A variety of civil wars have shown the militarily counterproductive nature (and the hidden political, economic and psychological functions) of indiscriminate counter-terror.

Chapters 4-9 explore the psychological functions of predictably counterproductive actions in the 'war on terror', and the psychological factors that have shaped the changing – and often arbitrary – definition of the 'enemy'. The book suggests that the search for magical and psychologically satisfying solutions has interacted with old-fashioned militaristic paradigms in profoundly damaging ways. Again, the intention is to examine not only why such counterproductive behaviours and unhelpful definitions of the enemy were originally adopted but also why they have been maintained. The book looks at the appeal of doomed tactics not only for leaders but also for large sections of the electorate. It emphasises the mismatch between psychologically satisfying solutions (eliminating 'the evil ones') and solutions that might actually work.

Part of the aim is to go beyond condemnation of the United States and its allies and to throw light on the thought-patterns that underpin the war on terror. Since these embody dangerous fallacies, it is important to examine their origins and assumptions, their appeal, and how they are made to appear plausible. Here, the analysis draws on Michel Foucault's insights, especially his discussion of how practices that may seem (to many) unobjectionable and obvious nevertheless embody assumptions that at a later point in history (or if we highlight a previously excluded set of voices or step outside the 'charmed circle' of policy-makers) may appear highly irrational. The analysis also draws on a number of other authors who are not usually discussed in the context of the 'war on terror', including the psychiatrist James Gilligan, the philosopher Hannah Arendt, the sociologist Susan Faludi and historians Keith Thomas and Omer Bartov.

Chapters 4-7 suggest that the 'war on terror' has provided a sense of safety and certainty that has repeatedly 'trumped' a more rational and realistic sense of what is likely to promote lasting physical security. There has been a re-birth of what I will call magical thinking, something that produces plausible (but spurious) answers to the problem of explaining suffering and plausible (but spurious) answers to the project of minimising future suffering. Magical thinking boils down to the hope that we can order the world to our liking by mere force of will or by actions that have no logical connection to the problem we seek to solve. Part of this has been a repeated resort to scapegoating – to a witch-hunt that finds someone, anyone, on whom blame can be heaped. Scapegoating can be a way to deal with trauma and bewilderment; but it provides only a temporary solution to the problem of identifying (and destroying) the enemy, and there is always a danger that the process will be repeated. The attack on Iraq followed that on Afghanistan, and even after the Iraq debacle there is still an appetite in some quarters of the US government for attacking Iran and North Korea in particular. Scapegoating is replicated not only within Western countries but also within countries targeted in 'counter-terror' operations: most notably, whilst targeting Iraq had provided an identifiable and accessible victim, the occupation of Iraq meant that 'the enemy' became once more elusive; this seems to have encouraged the targeting of more accessible enemies, including prisoners.

Bizarre systems (including witch-hunts) can be made to appear reasonable, logical, unavoidable and incontrovertible – at least for a period. In other words, magic can be made to look reasonable and rational, helping to explain how populations could be so readily mobilised into a project that is so counterproductive in terms of the expressed aim of defeating terrorism. This is partly because dissenters risk being labelled as 'enemies', partly because we often take punishment as evidence of guilt ('just world thinking'), and partly because enemies can be made to resemble one's pre-existing (and distorted) image of them. Hannah Arendt's idea of 'action-as-propaganda' is used (in Chapter 7) to explain how abusive actions have come to acquire particularly for many Bush supporters in the United States – an air of legitimacy and inevitability.

Part of the psychological function of counterproductive tactics is that they have helped to ward off feelings of shame and powerlessness. This is analysed in Chapters 8-9. Warding off shame involves finding others who will confirm you in your illusions and reassure you that your behaviour (however irrational and immoral it may appear to most people in the world) is really rational and moral after all. If and when these others refuse to confirm your illusions and to sanction your definition of enemies, they too are likely to become part of an ever-expanding category of 'enemies'. The USA's dangerous project of serial persecution has been consistently backed by the UK as well as getting sporadic support from whoever else can be flattered, bribed, cajoled or coerced into compliance. It is precisely the irrationality of this potentially endless endeavour – somewhere between Bush magic and the Blair witch project – that creates the necessity of orchestrating and bullying approval. Warding off shame and powerlessness has also involved an attempt to combat elements of apparent weakness and impurity – both in US foreign policy and in policies aimed at 'moral regeneration' at home. This response has important historical precedents.

Chapter 10 discusses a number of discourses that seem to have fed into predictably counterproductive tactics. Foucault suggests in I, Pierre Riviere that a crime cannot usefully be considered in isolation from the texts, including religious texts, in which the perpetrator and his society are immersed. Writers like Noam Chomsky and John Pilger tend to portray discourse as merely a smokescreen for power. They see distorted media coverage of the 'war on terror' as a pretty direct expression of US war-mongers' interests and as strongly reflecting US government propaganda in particular. Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber have also produced important analysis along these lines. But this is only part of the story. David Miller – in the introduction to his edited collection, Tell Me Lies – touches on an important qualification to the emphasis on 'lies' in the book's title: 'members of the elite come to believe their own lies,' he writes, 'and seem unable to break free of the operating assumptions of the system ... they come to believe that the world seen through the distorting lens of their own self interest is how the world really is'. The point is not elaborated in much detail, but it is important to try to examine the nature of these 'operating assumptions' and where they come from. As Foucault noted, officials may in some sense be trapped by dominant rhetoric, including their own. Whilst often self-serving, misconceptions also spring from a particular culture and a particular tradition, which help to sustain them in the face of mounting evidence that they are not working. Paradoxically, belief in these 'operating assumptions' seems to be strengthened by evidence of their falsity, and an interesting question is this: what kind of evidence would it take to convince Bush and Blair that they are wrong?

The question of intentions is a difficult one. Were the counterproductive effects of the 'war on terror' foreseen or even desired? It is hard to give a definitive answer. But I would like to draw on Foucault again and suggest that key leaders in the 'war on terror' have been trapped within systems of language and thought that are at once a part of a shared culture and also (as they surround themselves with those sharing similar views) partially of their own making. This helps to explain how the irrational can come to seem rational. Meanwhile, the practical political and economic benefits accruing from perpetual war have helped to ensure that challenges from within the dominant nations and their local allies are insufficient to shake up the cosy and erroneous 'truths' that have underpinned the current counterproductive approach. Although Bush, Blair and other close allies surely do not want the 'war on terror' to fail, it would seem that other priorities take precedence and help to cloud their awareness of what works and what doesn't. It is notable that, even once the (foreseeable) counterproductive effects become clear, they are still adhered to. Counterproductive tactics have become part of a dysfunctional system that not only yields certain benefits but also has a (fallacious) internal logic.

Revealingly, the idea that bad things are the responsibility of a few 'evil individuals' has informed both the tactics in the 'war on terror' and the official US response to revealed abuses like those at Abu Ghraib, which were dismissed as the work of a few 'bad apples'. The use of torture in third-party countries like Jordan, Morocco, Egypt and Saudi Arabia has also helped to preserve the idea that bad things are the responsibility of 'them' and not 'us'. These denials of responsibility are part of a persistent tendency to exaggerate the decentralization of violence in relation to one's own 'side'. Alongside this has been an enduring habit of underplaying the decentralization of violence among one's 'enemies' (the terrorists). Thus, abuses in the 'counter-terror' system (if admitted) are said to reflect a 'breakdown' in the chain of command, while the enemy's abuses are held to reflect a ruthless imposition of command. This neatly sidesteps responsibilities in the West as well as the widespread anger that informs terrorism (and Western nations' part in fuelling this anger). Not dissimilarly, during the Cold War, abuses in countries friendly to the West (if they were admitted at all) were frequently depicted as aberrations or the result of loose chains of command. A classic example was the dismissal of government-sponsored famine in Western-backed Sudan as the result of 'ancient ethnic hatreds'. At the same time, abuses in Communist-backed countries were seen as demonstrating the essence of an abusive and rigidly imposed Communist ideology. Of course, the Soviet Union could also play this game in reverse.

Part of my work on civil conflicts has involved extensive study of humanitarian aid: for example, in Sudan and Sierra Leone. When things have gone wrong with humanitarian operations (for example, relief is not delivered), this has usually either been disguised or dismissed as arising from 'mistakes' or 'failures'. But such 'failures' have typically been actively produced by a range of interests affecting relief distribution at all levels and by a range of discourses (for example, the idea that relief induces 'dependency' in the recipients) which have helped to sustain counterproductive policies and to lend them legitimacy. As Edward Clay and Bernard Schaffer (themselves influenced by Foucault) say in relation to ineffective development projects:

The ... important question is not why public policy 'fails'. It does not always necessarily or completely do so. The formulation expresses an odd reification. Public policy is, after all, what it does. The point is to explain what that is, and then see if that explanation can itself be an instrument for change and improvement.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Endless War? by David Keen. Copyright © 2006 David Keen. Excerpted by permission of Pluto Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Pluto Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0745324177
• ISBN 13: 9780745324173
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304