Terrorized by 'War on Terror'
How a Three-Word Mantra Has Undermined America
By Zbigniew Brzezinski
03/25/07 "Washington
Post' -- -- The "war on terror" has created a
culture of fear in America. The Bush administration's elevation
of these three words into a national mantra since the horrific
events of 9/11 has had a pernicious impact on American
democracy, on America's psyche and on U.S. standing in the
world. Using this phrase has actually undermined our ability to
effectively confront the real challenges we face from fanatics
who may use terrorism against us.
The damage these three words have done -- a classic
self-inflicted wound -- is infinitely greater than any wild
dreams entertained by the fanatical perpetrators of the 9/11
attacks when they were plotting against us in distant Afghan
caves. The phrase itself is meaningless. It defines neither a
geographic context nor our presumed enemies. Terrorism is not an
enemy but a technique of warfare -- political intimidation
through the killing of unarmed non-combatants.
But the little secret here may be that the vagueness of the
phrase was deliberately (or instinctively) calculated by its
sponsors. Constant reference to a "war on terror" did accomplish
one major objective: It stimulated the emergence of a culture of
fear. Fear obscures reason, intensifies emotions and makes it
easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on
behalf of the policies they want to pursue. The war of choice in
Iraq could never have gained the congressional support it got
without the psychological linkage between the shock of 9/11 and
the postulated existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
Support for President Bush in the 2004 elections was also
mobilized in part by the notion that "a nation at war" does not
change its commander in chief in midstream. The sense of a
pervasive but otherwise imprecise danger was thus channeled in a
politically expedient direction by the mobilizing appeal of
being "at war."
To justify the "war on terror," the administration has lately
crafted a false historical narrative that could even become a
self-fulfilling prophecy. By claiming that its war is similar to
earlier U.S. struggles against Nazism and then Stalinism (while
ignoring the fact that both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were
first-rate military powers, a status al-Qaeda neither has nor
can achieve), the administration could be preparing the case for
war with Iran. Such war would then plunge America into a
protracted conflict spanning Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and perhaps
also Pakistan.
The culture of fear is like a genie that has been let out of its
bottle. It acquires a life of its own -- and can become
demoralizing. America today is not the self-confident and
determined nation that responded to Pearl Harbor; nor is it the
America that heard from its leader, at another moment of crisis,
the powerful words "the only thing we have to fear is fear
itself"; nor is it the calm America that waged the Cold War with
quiet persistence despite the knowledge that a real war could be
initiated abruptly within minutes and prompt the death of 100
million Americans within just a few hours. We are now divided,
uncertain and potentially very susceptible to panic in the event
of another terrorist act in the United States itself.
That is the result of five years of almost continuous national
brainwashing on the subject of terror, quite unlike the more
muted reactions of several other nations (Britain, Spain, Italy,
Germany, Japan, to mention just a few) that also have suffered
painful terrorist acts. In his latest justification for his war
in Iraq, President Bush even claims absurdly that he has to
continue waging it lest al-Qaeda cross the Atlantic to launch a
war of terror here in the United States.
Such fear-mongering, reinforced by security entrepreneurs, the
mass media and the entertainment industry, generates its own
momentum. The terror entrepreneurs, usually described as experts
on terrorism, are necessarily engaged in competition to justify
their existence. Hence their task is to convince the public that
it faces new threats. That puts a premium on the presentation of
credible scenarios of ever-more-horrifying acts of violence,
sometimes even with blueprints for their implementation.
That America has become insecure and more paranoid is hardly
debatable. A recent study reported that in 2003, Congress
identified 160 sites as potentially important national targets
for would-be terrorists. With lobbyists weighing in, by the end
of that year the list had grown to 1,849; by the end of 2004, to
28,360; by 2005, to 77,769. The national database of possible
targets now has some 300,000 items in it, including the Sears
Tower in Chicago and an Illinois Apple and Pork Festival.
Just last week, here in Washington, on my way to visit a
journalistic office, I had to pass through one of the absurd
"security checks" that have proliferated in almost all the
privately owned office buildings in this capital -- and in New
York City. A uniformed guard required me to fill out a form,
show an I.D. and in this case explain in writing the purpose of
my visit. Would a visiting terrorist indicate in writing that
the purpose is "to blow up the building"? Would the guard be
able to arrest such a self-confessing, would-be suicide bomber?
To make matters more absurd, large department stores, with their
crowds of shoppers, do not have any comparable procedures. Nor
do concert halls or movie theaters. Yet such "security"
procedures have become routine, wasting hundreds of millions of
dollars and further contributing to a siege mentality.
Government at every level has stimulated the paranoia. Consider,
for example, the electronic billboards over interstate highways
urging motorists to "Report Suspicious Activity" (drivers in
turbans?). Some mass media have made their own contribution. The
cable channels and some print media have found that horror
scenarios attract audiences, while terror "experts" as
"consultants" provide authenticity for the apocalyptic visions
fed to the American public. Hence the proliferation of programs
with bearded "terrorists" as the central villains. Their general
effect is to reinforce the sense of the unknown but lurking
danger that is said to increasingly threaten the lives of all
Americans.
The entertainment industry has also jumped into the act. Hence
the TV serials and films in which the evil characters have
recognizable Arab features, sometimes highlighted by religious
gestures, that exploit public anxiety and stimulate Islamophobia.
Arab facial stereotypes, particularly in newspaper cartoons,
have at times been rendered in a manner sadly reminiscent of the
Nazi anti-Semitic campaigns. Lately, even some college student
organizations have become involved in such propagation,
apparently oblivious to the menacing connection between the
stimulation of racial and religious hatreds and the unleashing
of the unprecedented crimes of the Holocaust.
The atmosphere generated by the "war on terror" has encouraged
legal and political harassment of Arab Americans (generally
loyal Americans) for conduct that has not been unique to them. A
case in point is the reported harassment of the Council on
American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for its attempts to emulate,
not very successfully, the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee (AIPAC). Some House Republicans recently described
CAIR members as "terrorist apologists" who should not be allowed
to use a Capitol meeting room for a panel discussion.
Social discrimination, for example toward Muslim air travelers,
has also been its unintended byproduct. Not surprisingly, animus
toward the United States even among Muslims otherwise not
particularly concerned with the Middle East has intensified,
while America's reputation as a leader in fostering constructive
interracial and interreligious relations has suffered
egregiously.
The record is even more troubling in the general area of civil
rights. The culture of fear has bred intolerance, suspicion of
foreigners and the adoption of legal procedures that undermine
fundamental notions of justice. Innocent until proven guilty has
been diluted if not undone, with some -- even U.S. citizens --
incarcerated for lengthy periods of time without effective and
prompt access to due process. There is no known, hard evidence
that such excess has prevented significant acts of terrorism,
and convictions for would-be terrorists of any kind have been
few and far between. Someday Americans will be as ashamed of
this record as they now have become of the earlier instances in
U.S. history of panic by the many prompting intolerance against
the few.
In the meantime, the "war on terror" has gravely damaged the
United States internationally. For Muslims, the similarity
between the rough treatment of Iraqi civilians by the U.S.
military and of the Palestinians by the Israelis has prompted a
widespread sense of hostility toward the United States in
general. It's not the "war on terror" that angers Muslims
watching the news on television, it's the victimization of Arab
civilians. And the resentment is not limited to Muslims. A
recent BBC poll of 28,000 people in 27 countries that sought
respondents' assessments of the role of states in international
affairs resulted in Israel, Iran and the United States being
rated (in that order) as the states with "the most negative
influence on the world." Alas, for some that is the new axis of
evil!
The events of 9/11 could have resulted in a truly global
solidarity against extremism and terrorism. A global alliance of
moderates, including Muslim ones, engaged in a deliberate
campaign both to extirpate the specific terrorist networks and
to terminate the political conflicts that spawn terrorism would
have been more productive than a demagogically proclaimed and
largely solitary U.S. "war on terror" against "Islamo-fascism."
Only a confidently determined and reasonable America can promote
genuine international security which then leaves no political
space for terrorism.
Where is the U.S. leader ready to say, "Enough of this hysteria,
stop this paranoia"? Even in the face of future terrorist
attacks, the likelihood of which cannot be denied, let us show
some sense. Let us be true to our traditions.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to President
Jimmy Carter, is the author most recently of "Second Chance:
Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower" (Basic
Books).Click here
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