Fractured Fairy Tale: The War on Terror and the Emperor's New Clothes
2007; Naval Postgraduate School; Volume: 3; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1558-643X
Autores Tópico(s)Military History and Strategy
ResumoA version of this article is also appearing in the Minnesota Journal of International Law.The Invisible Irrationality of the War on TerrorThe War in Iraq has become politically radioactive. It is burden, not boon, to any politician associated with it. Not so the War on Terror. It continues to attract the allegiance of every politician in the country, whether as justification for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq (to win the central front in the War on Terror), or as justification for withdrawing them (to win the really crucial battles in the War on Terror at home and in Afghanistan). Both official rhetoric and practice, including wars abroad, massive surveillance activities, and colossal expenditures, have bolstered the reigning belief that America is locked in death struggle with terrorism. Since 2001 the entire country, every nook and cranny, has been officially deemed to be exposed to at least an elevated risk of terrorist attack--Threat Condition Yellow--with episodes and particular locations sometimes labeled as Orange, meaning severe risk of terrorist attack. By mid-2006 the United States had spent at least $650 billion on the War on Terror, including expenditures linked to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the three years between October 2002 and October 2005, high-ranking Department of Defense officials gave 562 speeches with some version of the word terror in their titles. That means they gave 36 percent more speeches about terrorism than about Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's signature theme (transformation of the military), twenty-two times more speeches about terrorism than about nuclear weapons, forty-three times more than about proliferation, and fifty-one times more than about ballistic missile defense. 1What is true of the government and of politicians is also true of the American public, which seems convinced of the potency of the threat and the necessity of the war. Five years after the 9/11 attacks, and despite the absence of attacks since then or of any evidence of serious preparations for an attack inside the country, 76 percent of Americans responded affirmatively to New York Times/CBS News poll that asked whether they believed ...the terrorist threat from Islamic fundamentalism is constantly growing and presents real, immediate danger to the United States, or not? Sixty percent said they thought the United States should do more to try to prevent further terrorist attacks. Seventy-four percent said they were or a great concerned about the possibility that there will be major terrorist attacks in the United States (up from 71 percent three years earlier). Thirty-five percent said they were somewhat or great deal worried that such an attack would harm them personally (a level of worry that has remained more or less constant since 2001). 2 As instructive as these answers to polls are, even more enlightening are the questions. Of the scores, probably hundreds, of polls done regarding the prosecution of the War on Terror, how it should be conducted, how well the government is doing, how important to it is the Iraq War, how much more should be done in it, it is difficult, indeed, impossible to find survey by major American polling organization that has even asked the question, Do you think there should be War on Terror?Of course popular perceptions are not molded or sustained only by the speeches and actions of government officials and politicians, nor only by the narratives and assumptions of the news media - though the news media has been major cheerleader for the War on Terror. The entertainment industry, in novels, television shows, films, and made-for-television movies has hyped the fears that fuel the War on Terror and keep it alive. Thus has the War on Terror embedded itself into popular culture. Both Hollywood and the television networks have plunged aggressively into the preparation and distribution of films and television dramas depicting threats of catastrophic terrorism. …
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