11 September 2001 War, Terror and Judgement

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11 SEPTEMBER 2001

War, Terror and Judgement

Books of Related Interest FUNDAMENTALISM AND INTELLECTUALS IN EGYPT, 1973–1993 David Sagiv INTERNATIONAL SECURITY IN A GLOBAL AGE Securing the Twenty-First Century Clive Jones and Caroline Kennedy-Pipe MILITARY STUDIES IN THE JIHAD AGAINST THE TYRANT The Al-Qaeda Training Manual Jerrold M.Post (ed.) RELIGIOUS RADICALISM IN THE GREATER MIDDLE EAST Bruce Maddy-Weitzman and Efraim Inbar (eds) SCIENCE, WAR AND TERRORISM From Laboratory to Open Conflict Jacques Richardson TERRORISM AND GRAND STRATEGY Paul B.Rich and Thomas R.Mockaitis TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY WEAPONS PROLIFERATION Henry Sokolski and Jim Ludes (eds) VIOLENCE AND THE SACRED IN THE MODERN WORLD Mark Juergensmeyer (ed.) ASYMMETRIES OF CONFLICT John Leech THE FUTURE OF TERRORISM Max Taylor and John Morgan (eds) TECHNOLOGY AND TERRORISM Christopher C.Harman

11 SEPTEMBER 2001 War, Terror and Judgement Editors

BÜLENT GÖKAY R.B.J.WALKER University of Keele

FRANK CASS LONDON • PORTLAND, OR

First published in 2003 in Great Britain by FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS Crown House, 47 Chase Side, Southgate, London N14 5BP This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” and in the United States of America by FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS c/o ISBS, 920 NE 58th Avenue, Suite 300 Portland, Oregon 97213–3786 Website: www.frankcass.com Copyright © 2003 Bülent Gökay and R.B.J.Walker Previously published by Keele European Research Centre © 2002 ISBN 1 899 488 89 8 (Print Edition) British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data 11 September 2001: war, terror and judgement. –2nd ed. 1. September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001 2. War on Terrorism, 2001.– 3. World politics–21st century 4. United States— Foreign relations –2001– I. Gokay, Bulent II. Walker, R.B.J. 973.9′31 ISBN 0-203-49311-7 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-58399-X (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0 7146 5505 8 (cloth) ISBN 0 7146 8403 1 (paper) Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data 11 September 2001: war, terror and judgement/editors, Bülent Gökay, R.B.J.Walker. p. cm. Originally published: Staffordshire, U.K.: Keele European Research Centre, 2002. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–7146–5505–8 (cloth)—ISBN 0–7146–8403–1 (pbk.) 1. September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001. 2. War on Terrorism, 2001–3. World politics–1995–2005. I Gökay, Bülent. II. Walker, R.B.J. HV6432.7A12 2003 973. 931–dc 21 2003043984 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher of this book.

Contents

List of Contributors

vii

List of Abbreviations

viii

Preface by Paul Rogers

x

Introduction by Bülent Gökay and R.B.J.Walker

1

1.

Reflections on 11 September Hidemi Suganami

3

2.

Invisible Cities Patrick Thornberry

13

3.

The Politics of Terrorism and ‘Civilization’: How to Respond as a Human Being Yoshikazu Sakamoto

31

4.

Identifying Limits on a Borderless Map in the First Post-Modern War Richard Falk

46

5.

War, Terror, Judgement R.B.J.Walker

61

6.

Afghanistan and the Global Environment: Turning Local Language into Global Grammar Andrew Dobson

81

7.

The United States Against the World: Oil, Hegemony, and the Militarization of Globalization Bülent Gökay

87

8.

The Response of the British Government to the Attack on America Dan Keohane

106

9.

The European Union and 11 September John Vogler

124

vi

10.

Terrorism and ‘New Wars’ Susanne Karstedt

134

11.

On Pharmacological War Larry George

149

12.

Immigration, Asylum, Borders and Terrorism: The Unexpected Victims Elspeth Guild

169

13.

Barbarians Alex Danchev

186

Index

189

List of Contributors

Alex Danchev: Professor, Head of the School of Politics, International Relations and the Environment. Andrew Dobson: Professor, Department of Government and Politics, Open University. Richard Falk: Visiting Distinguished Professor of Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Emeritus Professor of International Law and Practice at Princeton University. Larry N.George: Professor of Political Science, California State University at Long Beach. Bülent Gökay: Senior Lecturer, School of Politics, International Relations and the Environment, Keele University. Elspeth Guild: Professor, University of Nijmegen; Partner, Kingsley Napley, London. Susanne Karstedt: Professor, Department of Criminology, Keele University. Dan Keohane: Senior Lecturer, School of Politics, International Relations and the Environment, Keele University. Yoshikazu Sakamoto: Emeritus Professor of International Law, University of Tokyo. Hidemi Suganami: Professor of the Philosophy of International Relations, School of Politics, International Relations and the Environment, Keele University. Patrick Thornberry: Professor of International Law, School of Politics, International Relations and the Environment, Keele University; and Rapporteur, UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). John Vogler: Professor, School of Politics, International Relations and the Environment, Keele University. R.B.J.Walker: Professor of International Relations, School of Politics, International Relations and the Environment, Keele University.

List of Abbreviations

ABM ASEAN AWACS BP CAIR CDS CFSP CIA CNPC EC ECHO ECHR EctHR EPC ESDP EU FAIR G7 G8 GATT GDP GDR IGO IMF IRA ISAF JHA

Anti-Ballistic Missile Association of Southeast Asian Nations Airborne Warning and Control Systems British Petroleum Council on American-Islamic Relations Chief of Defence Staff Common Foreign and Security Policy Central Intelligence Agency China National Petroleum Corporation European Community European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office European Convention of Human Rights European Court of Human Rights European Political Co-operation European Security and Defence Policy European Union Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting Group of Seven Group of Eight General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Gross Domestic Product German Democratic Republic Intergovernmental Agency International Monetary Fund Irish Republican Army International Security Assistance Force Justice and Home Affairs

ix

KFOR KLA MPAC NAFTA NATO NGO OECD OPEC OSCE PoW RAF RMA RUC SADC UN UNOCAL WEU WTO

Kosovo Force Kosovo Liberation Army Muslim Public Affairs Council North American Free Trade Agreement North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Non-Governmental Agency Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe Prisoner of War Red Army Faction Revolution in Military Affairs Royal Ulster Constabulary South African Development Community United Nations Union Oil Company of California Western European Union World Trade Organisation

Preface

It might have been possible for the atrocities of 11 September 2001 to have resulted in a serious re-assessment of the western security paradigm. A remarkably powerful state had been shown to be vulnerable to a simple if carefully organized attack, demonstrating that there were significant forces at work that did not accept the diffuse western hegemony that had increasingly evolved after the ending of the Cold War. In practice, this reassessment of vulnerabilities and consequences did not happen, and an almost immediate effort was made to terminate the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, putative supporters of the al-Qaida network that was considered to be the core opponent in the ‘War on Terror’. This was then followed by the naming of several states as constituting an ‘Axis of Evil’, support for Israel in its vigorous control of the Occupied Territories, and preparations for a possible war with Iraq. By the end of 2002, it was apparent that the ‘War on Terror’ was proving very difficult to prosecute. During the course of the year there were numerous attacks on western targets in Tunisia, Yemen, Kuwait, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia and Kenya, with many more attempts intercepted. The al-Qaida network had been disrupted but remained active, and in Afghanistan itself an apparent victory was deteriorating into a situation of deep instability, with a visible absence of commitment by most western states to protracted and serious post-conflict peacebuilding. It was also a year in which initial support and sympathy for the United States across much of the world was replaced by suspicion and even overt antagonism. What was becoming widely believed was that the ‘War on Terror’ was developing into an attempt by a particularly hard-line administration to reimpose order primarily through the use of military force. By the end of the year it was as if the world community was fracturing into three constituencies. One was the United States, in concert with a handful of allied governments such as those in Australia and, to an extent, Britain, which saw the ‘War on Terror’ and the vigorous confronting of rogue states as the fundamental requirements for international security. In much of Europe there was dismay at the evidence of growing instability, especially in the Middle East, and a frank disbelief that Washington could be so supportive of the Sharon government in Israel. Not only was there a greater

xi

concern with trying to understand the root motivations of paramilitary groups such as al-Qaida, but there was also a recognition that support for these groups was not diminishing—indeed it was probably at a higher level than in the period immediately preceding the 11 September attacks. Finally, there was what might be called the ‘majority world’ across most of Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. In these environments there were many views and opinions, but a dominant theme was a growing current of anti-American sentiments as the ‘War on Terror’ escalated, especially as this was frequently exacerbated by local elites seeking to use this ‘war’ as cover for the harsher treatment of their political opponents. US efforts to regain control and establish itself once more as what has been termed a civilized hegemon running a ‘benign imperium’ was seen in a much cruder light—confirmation that the atrocities of 11 September were being used to defeat paramilitary, and other, opponents with every bit as much vigour as was demonstrated at the height of the Cold War in Latin America, Vietnam and elsewhere. Put bluntly, the US view of a civilized world of liberal market economies was seen in the majority world as the increasingly hard-line control of the world community through the use of economic, political and even military instruments. What is particularly illuminating is that opinion formers and intellectuals in the majority world have little difficulty in recognizing and understanding Washington’s view of the world, even if so many of them embrace such a directly contradictory analysis. Among the conservative thinkers and policy formulators in Washington, on the other hand, the majority world’s view would be almost unrecognizable, or at least would be considered dangerous to the point of malignity. In such circumstances, with a global system capable of deeply unstable divisions, scholars of international relations have a fundamental responsibility to attempt an analysis of current security trends from a global perspective, doing their utmost to go beyond the narrow ethnocentric view of the world that tends to permeate so much of western academe. The present volume seeks to make such a contribution to that task, gathering together scholars from Europe, North America and Asia to offer a series of analyses of the post-11 September world. Not all of them agree, and there are many different viewpoints and modes of analysis represented here. At the same time, what does permeate this volume is a serious and sustained attempt to get beyond the immediate responses to the attacks. As such, the result is a thoughtful and illuminating collection of essays of a kind that is greatly needed in the circumstances in which we now find ourselves. Paul Rogers Professor of Peace Studies Bradford University 30 December 2002

Introduction BÜLENT GÖKAY and R.B.J.WALKER

On 11 September 2001, a group of hijackers turned some commercial aeroplanes into missiles and attacked key symbols of American economic and military power. These attacks flattened the World Trade Center towers in New York and destroyed part of the Pentagon. The military, political and diplomatic responses to this attack have been profound. Moreover, both the attacks and the response to them have led to intense debate not only about the immediate causes of, and responsibilities for, this specific set of events, but also about the broader historical and structural contexts in which these events might begin to make some sense. No one predicted the tragic events of 11 September. They were not inevitable but neither did they come out of the blue. They were the product of long-term structural developments and conjunctural individual actions that might have turned out differently. There is no single cause or set of causes to explain them, and responsibilities rest in many places. What special vulnerabilities does the world of the twenty-first century have to terrorist attacks? What kind of role does the United States see itself playing as the world’s only superpower in the coming decades? How should we now characterise the conduct of the US foreign policy? How should we understand these events in relation to the dynamics of world economy? How will they effect relations between Europe and America? How do they fit into our understanding of various regional conflicts, especially of the Israeli-Palestinian situation and the place of Saudi Arabia in the global reach of American military and economic power? Whatever happened to international law and the various institutions of the United Nations? Answers to such questions are perhaps not much clearer now than they were immediately after the attacks, but one of the more positive effects of these attacks has been to stimulate much serious discussion about them, and thus about the place of violence—about changing forms of warfare, about different forms of terror, and about challenges to prevailing accounts of the legitimacy of violence in contemporary political life—in the context of emerging and in many respects dangerously unstable structures of power and authority on a global scale. Earlier versions of some of the essays in this collection first appeared in a Keele European Research Centre book, which resulted from a series of meetings and seminars at Keele University immediately after 11 September 2001.

2 11 SEPTEMBER 2001

Discussion at Keele centred especially on the extent to which these dramatic, and in many respects unprecedented, events could be understood as symptoms of farreaching trends and transformations in contemporary global politics. We have, of course, continued these discussions with colleagues in other places, and now include some additional essays by some very distinguished authorities on international relations and law in order to give a broader sense of the conversations that have been emerging over the past year. These essays do not constitute a unified perspective on what happened on 11 September 2001, and the US response to it. They are perhaps most usefully read as an experiment in writing contemporary history as it evolves. Some essays are primarily concerned to express immediate responses to the specific events of 11 September, while some struggle to make sense of these events in relation to subsequent conflicts in Afghanistan and the gradual shift towards a potential attack on Iraq that had taken centre stage by the time the book went to press in the summer of 2002. Some essays contradict others, some are quite specific, and others generalise very broadly. They all affirm, however, that there is no simple answer to difficult questions around the recent events, only a complex braid of explanatory factors that have yet to be fully evaluated. They especially affirm that no serious attempt to understand either the attacks of 11 September or the specific response to them can be made without considering the broad contradictions both in a globalizing political economy and the international system of formally sovereign states, as well as the patterns of inclusion and exclusion and the dynamics of militarization which these contradictions have generated. Like most acts of aggression, large-scale violence, and fanaticism in the contemporary world they were rooted in a sense of deep grievances that grew out of these contradictions. We would like to thank the journal Alternatives: Global, Local, Political and the Keele European Research Centre for providing assistance with organising the Keele seminars and with the preparation of this volume, and Farzana Shain for designing the cover illustration. Keele July 2002

1 Reflections on 11 September HIDEMI SUGANAMI

‘Just about every crime—whether a robbery in the streets or colossal atrocities—has reasons, and commonly we find that some of them are serious and should be addressed’.1 ‘But the mourning had barely begun, when the highest leaders of the land unleashed a spirit of revenge. They put out a simplistic script of “good versus evil” that was taken up by a pliant and intimidated media. They told us that asking why these terrible events had happened verged on treason’.2 I presented a paper on the events of 11 September at an Open Forum organised by my colleagues at Keele about a month after the incident. Titled simply ‘Comments on the Attack on America’, the paper summarised my immediate reactions to the events and my thoughts on the matter over the previous month. I prefaced my presentation by remarking that I did not usually comment, in public, on current affairs. They are, by definition, current, the future was uncertain; I liked certainties, and therefore comments on current affairs were not my kind of thing. But here, I said, was an exception—because I was deeply worried about the way the United States appeared to be responding to the incident at that time. Most of my concerns were shared by the other Open Forum speakers, Rob Walker and Patrick Thornberry, and, to a great extent, it appeared, by the audience—although one member of the audience felt that I was, with the other members of the panel, underestimating the need to deter future terrorist attacks by the use of force proportionate to that end. It turns out that at least some of my immediate worries were exaggerated, although, I hasten to add, there was no way of knowing at that time, for anything like certain, that any of my views would turn out to have been overly pessimistic.3 And, in any case, the worst of my worries—mutual intensification, in scale and frequency, of terrorist/anti-terrorist attacks and counterattacks— remains a distinct possibility. The future, as always, is uncertain, but looking back at the past several months, I cannot help feel that at least one thing is now transparent to all: the unilateralism and remilitarization of what Robert Hunter Wade, among many others, has called ‘The American Empire’.4

4 11 SEPTEMBER 2001

But now let me return to the thoughts that I had on the incident—already over a year ago—and restate my views as I hold them at present. THE TRAGEDY IN CONTEXT In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks in the United States on 11 September, between 5,000 and 7,000 people were thought to have been killed; the estimated number was subsequently reduced to around 3,000— still, undoubtedly, a massive loss of innocent lives. The victims were innocent in the commonly accepted sense that they were civilians carrying out their day-to-day business without any intent to harm others. And some of them were, of course, firefighters trying simply to rescue the victims. This was an extraordinary incident. I had never seen anything so spectacular on the TV screen. I do not say ‘spectacular’ because I am disrespectful of the lives lost or insensitive to the sufferings of the victims, their friends or relatives. But producing and broadcasting visual images of the sort that millions of TV viewers all over the world must have watched on that day, unable even to blink, and the collective act of watching them intently, necessarily turned the events into a spectacle. This must have been one of the aims of the attack’s planners. Distastefully, though not unintelligibly, there were also those in the streets of Palestine or Pakistan, who were reported, again on the TV screen, as no less than rejoicing over what was to them unapologetically a spectacle. My own immediate reaction to the events was not so much to mourn the loss of so many thousands of innocent lives as to think of the everydayness of cruelty inflicted on many more thousands of innocent people all over the world. It seemed that many of those I spoke to around my university campus had a similar reaction. Thousands of people are dying everyday not necessarily because they are wilfully targeted as victims by their killers, but as a consequence—at least partly—of the workings of the global system dominated economically, politically, and militarily by the United States and its allies.5 The thousands of deaths in the United States constituted an extraordinary event. It took place in two prominent power centres of the world, New York City and Washington, DC—conspicuous, prosperous, and eminently secure (or so it seemed). It was wilfully brought about, and it was almost incomparably newsworthy. It is hard in fact to think of a historical parallel. Deaths by the thousands in other, far less conspicuous, largely impoverished, parts of the world do of course receive media attention, but only very selectively and occasionally— precisely because they are part of the everyday reality and because, by and large, these deaths are not brought about wilfully. But we could not responsibly say that structural mega-deaths are categorically less objectionable than wilful mass murders. As I watched and watched again the spectacle of the two passenger aeroplanes, now transformed into weapons of mass murder and destruction, guiding themselves into the World Trade Center buildings one after the other, I

REFLECTIONS ON 11 SEPTEMBER 5

also began to see in my mind’s eye geometrically very similar TV images from many months back—of an Israeli missile attack demolishing Palestinian police headquarters in retaliation for the murder of an Israeli soldier by a Palestinian mob. The attacks on 11 September, then, were perhaps also a hyper-escalatory phase in the so far endless chain of retaliatory use of violence in the tragic circumstances of the Middle East. Palestinian suicide bombings and Israeli counterattacks show no definite sign of abatement, and, if anything, the events of 11 September and the American ‘War on Terrorism’ appear to have contributed to entrenching both sides more deeply in their violent mutual definitions. What seemed to me tragic about the events of 11 September, however, was this: so many innocent lives were sacrificed in an attempt (at least partly) to make the people of the United States realise the everydayness— either on the global plane or in parts of the Middle East—of severe insecurity and suffering, but such an attempt has had the opposite effect: the overwhelming American response was to talk in the language of ‘restoring our freedom’, meaning, primarily, the freedom of the American people to live their everyday lives without fear, the consequence of which has been remilitarization and the spread of anti-liberal tendencies.6 RESENTMENT AND POLITICS ‘Explain to me. You are the expert. I don’t understand. Why do they do it?’, a neighbour demanded of me on the afternoon of the 11th. I do not in fact claim any specialist knowledge in the area of motivational analysis, but— and this may well be due to my lack of expertise in the field—I never actually felt that the motives of the terrorists were particularly puzzling. Plainly, to my mind, they were moved by their fanatical hatred, rooted in the intense resentment they felt towards the Americans. Of course, many of the victims were not American, but this could be explained away as damages collateral to their chosen aims. Maybe they never concerned themselves with such niceties—given that they were themselves to die for their cause. The intense resentment on their part is in turn an outcome of a combination of a number of things: their fundamentalist disapproval of aspects of American (and more broadly Western) culture;7 their sense of near impotence in the face of the overwhelming might of the United States; their view of the wrongs done to their kind (however this may be defined) whether directly by the United States or by the American-dominated world system;8 and, on top of all that, the seeming obliviousness on the part of the American leaders and people of all such things. Resentment is a poisonous, consuming emotion, and it is about time that analysts of motives in world politics should take it into account, in addition to all the standard explanatory concepts—national interest, expected utility, insecurity, honour, or identity.9 To say that the attackers were motivated by their intense resentment against the Americans is not to imply that the attacks had no rationale as a means to an

6 11 SEPTEMBER 2001

end. The fact of terrorism itself does not, of course, reveal to us the rationale behind it—for terrorism is not a doctrine about any particular end. It is a doctrine about a means to an end, according to which it is legitimate for the users of force (whether they be ‘terrorists’, guerrilla fighters, regular soldiers or other state agents) to resort to illicit forms of violence (often, though not necessarily, indiscriminate) intended primarily to terrorise the opponent in pursuit of some military gains or political concessions. The terrorism/non-terrorism divide is thus somewhat uncertain, and does not necessarily coincide with the legal line of demarcation between ‘terrorists’ and other users of force. The bombing of Dresden or the mass rape of Muslim women in Bosnia was terroristic as were the IRA’s bombing campaigns. So, what might have been the gains or concessions the attackers on 11 September had hoped to obtain from the United States through their indiscriminate killings of thousands of innocent civilians? This is a difficult question to answer for the perpetrators never even identified themselves, let alone made any demands for concessions. Now practically everyone accepts that the multinational terrorist group, al-Qaida, led by Osama Bin Laden, was responsible for the attacks, although it might be remembered that the US bombing of Afghanistan began without sufficient incriminating evidence being presented to public scrutiny. Be that as it may, the attackers’ choice of their targets would seem to indicate that their aims were to express symbolically their determined refusal to be overwhelmed by the economic power and the military might of America. But such actions would make sufficient political sense only if they were part of a larger campaign effectively to undermine American hegemony. And that was precisely what was foremost in many of our minds in the immediate aftermath of 11 September, as it seemed sensible then not to discount the possibility that the events of that day constituted a beginning of a series of pre-planned attacks on the United States and its allies, rather than just an isolated incident—terrifying though it was in its psychological effect and damaging to the American economy and prestige. However, apart from just one other incident, in which a passenger aeroplane nearly blew up on its way from Paris to Miami, and a pathetic incident in Florida where a 15-year-old committed suicide by flying his light aircraft into an office building, there have been no incident so far to suggest that a long-lasting antiAmerican/Western terrorist campaign had just begun. What has happened instead is an apparent beginning of the American Empire striking back—for it was no less than a ‘War on Terrorism’ that the United States has declared under President Bush, eagerly supported ‘shoulder to shoulder’ by Prime Minister Blair. It is at this point that we should briefly revisit the issue of motives and draw attention to the presence of a different, more political, interpretation of the events of 11 September. According to this view—favoured by Noam Chomsky10 among others—far from being a simple and straightforward manifestation of an anti-


American resentment, the attack was a product of a risky but clever calculation; a trap. According to this interpretation, the aim of al-Qaida leadership was precisely to lure the United States, through an irresistible provocation, into embarking on a campaign against Islamic fundamentalism. This would be to the advantage of the fundamentalists— inasmuch as it would force some of the precarious regimes in the region, most notably the ruling house of Saudi Arabia, to side with the United States, thereby delegitimising themselves further in the eyes of the local population and thus strengthening the cause of the fundamentalists. This interpretation is compatible, of course, with the thought that the rise of fundamentalism itself is a manifestation of intense resentment against the circumstances of the world dominated by the West and in particular by the United States, and, more specifically, against the Western/American influence in the politics of the Middle East. FIGHTING TERRORISM Nothing I have said so far is intended to condone the attacks on 11 September. Clearly, some response was needed; ‘doing nothing’ was here inconceivable. But what was, and is, troubling, is the United States’ explicitly and repeatedly stated intent to fight against terrorism (though, unsurprisingly, their focus is specifically on the anti-American variety). The obvious problem here is that terrorism is not a people inhabiting a particular space under a government, and we cannot therefore wage a war against it in a literal sense. We can try to bring particular terrorists to justice, or bring justice to the terrorists and those who harbour them, but this is not the same as wiping out terrorism as a doctrine or practice.11 But let us confine our attention to the specific case at hand—for if the United States fails in this case, there is little hope of it obtaining any success in its much wider aims. What might be, or might have been, an appropriate way to respond to the events of 11 September such that it secures a satisfactory outcome in this case and contributes to reducing terrorist attacks in the future? My chief criticism of the United States has been its increasingly transparent tendency to consider itself above the law. This does not necessarily mean that, in its fight against the Taliban and al-Qaida, the United States has consistently acted in such a way that its blatant violation of international law is for everyone to see. Rather, what is troublesome is the apparent presumption, on the part of the United States leaders, (1) that because its use of force is retaliatory, punitive and preventive, its legality need not seriously be questioned, and (2) that it can decide when to comply with the law in carrying out this round of war against terrorism. Similar features may have been noted from time to time in the American (or any other Great Power) attitude towards international law especially with respect to the use of force, but that is no excuse. If it is terrorism that America and its

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allies wish to fight, they must be anti-terroristic in their own approach, and being anti-terroristic means, among other things, that they must act, and must be seen to act, within the law. In my view, the American attitude so far has been too cavalier and counterproductive in the long run. For one thing, the right of self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter does not permit states to use force in a retaliatory, punitive or preventive mode. What the United States should have done is to obtain the Security Council’s decision, under Chapter 7, that Afghanistan’s policy constituted a threat to peace, that it must surrender Osama Bin Laden for trial, and that force should be used as a sanction against Afghanistan if it were to refuse to do so. Those who were captured in combat should be treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention and those captives suspected of membership of al-Qaida brought to a fair trial. What has in fact happened is the resort to force by the United States, whose legality remained largely unquestioned, and the capture of those suspected of alQaida membership, to whom the United States has unilaterally denied a PoW status. How these captives are actually treated in their prison is secondary to the much more fundamental issue—the apparent readiness on the part of the American leadership to assume that, whatever others may say or feel about the matter, it is they who will decide how the captives are to be treated, judged or punished. America, the victim now acts as the policeman, the prosecutor, the judge, the prison governor and, if necessary, the executioner.12 It may be objected to this line of thinking that it is politically naïve. When the State is under attack by internal terrorists (with or without an external support), its government will at times act in a manner whose legality is dubious. It may even resort to extra-legal countermeasures claimed to be necessary. If this is domestically ‘the done thing’, why apply a more stringent criterion internationally to a government when it reacts against external terrorists? What we have here is not a routine circumstance, but a case of emergency, and in emergency what is necessary must be done. What else can ‘sovereignty’ mean? My response is that no sovereign states are above international legal duties; that the United States’ use of force in the current case goes beyond what is permitted in emergency under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter; that America’s unilateralist stance contributes in the long run to undermining the legal foundation of international interactions, which in fact could have been strengthened, had the United States acted more consonantly with its basic principles. Instead, we observe, exceptions are rapidly becoming the rule—force will be used as and when the United States considers it suitable, in retaliation, prevention or pre-emption.13 Nonetheless, it may be felt, that the massive overpowering of the Taliban, and apparently also of al-Qaida, within Afghanistan indicates that America has largely achieved its primary goals in Afghanistan itself. President Bush, who has enjoyed enormous popularity within the United States, has spoken of the next targets—Iran, Iraq and North Korea—said by him to form an ‘Axis of Evil’.14


This, however, suggests to me that the world is not necessarily more secure than it was a year ago. The picture is more complex. To be sure, the Taliban has been destroyed and in its place, thanks to the remarkably speedy United Nations-sponsored Bonn summit on the future of Afghanistan, an interim government was set up, led by Hamid Karzai, who is now the elected Head of State. A 1,500-strong British International Security Assistance Force, deployed in the Kabul region, may have added some stability to the war-torn society, and several leading industrialised countries of the world, meeting in Tokyo, have pledged massive economic aid for Afghanistan’s reconstruction. However, the British assistance in peace-keeping would not increase, despite Karzai’s plea, due to the already serious problem of over-extension, and, indeed, all but 300 of the 1,500 British International Security Assistance Force and the entire 1,700-strong British commando brigade were withdrawn.15 The pledge of economic aid, desperately needed for the country’s reconstruction, was made conditional on all its warlords and ethnic groups contributing to the goals of the Bonn agreement to form a power-sharing government,16 and the United States has declined to commit itself to giving any aid beyond the current fiscal year.17 Unfortunately, though not surprisingly, there are ample signs of factional conflict outside of Kabul, and the future of this once ‘failed state’ is uncertain, to say the least; a slide back into chaos is a rather more likely scenario.18 The al-Qaida network itself may have been destroyed, though there is no conclusive evidence yet to show this; on the contrary, American intelligence is said to believe that tens of thousands of potential terrorists have been trained by al-Qaida in Afghanistan since 1996 and ‘are now spread throughout the world’.19 And senior US government officials are reported as saying that a ‘new alliance of terrorists, though loosely knit, is as fully capable of planning and carrying out potent attacks on American targets as the more centralised network once led by Osama Bin Laden’.20 Although this particular episode may have taught a lesson to some potential terrorist attackers on America, it could also have made others more determined to rise up or fight on, and there just seems no way of either being, or making, sure that terrorism, aimed directly at the United States or not, will decline from now on. Their next weapons are perhaps unlikely to be hijacked aeroplanes again, but may be biological, chemical, or nuclear. Meanwhile, the United States has entered a period of remilitarization and militaristic assertiveness as witnessed by President Bush’s State of the Union address,21 intensifying hostility towards the United States in various parts of the Middle East.22 It is also reported that the United States is involved in the campaign against Muslim terrorist groups in the Philippines, suggesting that its talk of ‘War on Terrorism’ has not been idle.23 A recent disclosure suggests that President Bush had given the CIA and US special forces authority to use lethal force to capture or kill the Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein,24 and the war to oust him is now imminent. And all this on top of a serious curtailment of civil liberties in the United States and Britain under the banner of anti-terrorist

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security measures,25 while the underlying problems such as global poverty and repression in the Middle East continue to remain virtually untouched. CONCLUSION Robert Hunter Wade ends his aforementioned article by the following observation: The US and its allies can stamp out specific groups by force and bribery. But in the longer run, the structural arrangements that replicate a grossly unequal world have to be redesigned, so that markets working within the new framework produce more equitable results. Historians looking back a century hence will say that the time to have begun was now.26 In a similar vein, Immanuel Wallerstein, while not believing ‘that America and Americans are the cause of all the world’s miseries and injustices’, observes none the less: ‘I do believe they are their prime beneficiaries. And this is the fundamental problem of the US as a nation located in a world of nations’.27 How might this problem be addressed? We cannot be sure. But if we do not ‘allow our sensitivities to be hardened in the struggle to survive’, there lies: …the possibility, which is far from the certainty, of a more substantively rational world, of a more egalitarian world, of a more democratic world— of a universality that results from giving and receiving, a universality that is the opposite of globalization.28 Our responsibilities are grave. NOTES 1. Noam Chomsky, 9–11 (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2001), p. 24. 2. See ‘Not In Our Name: We Don’t Deny our Consciences’, The Guardian, 14 June 2002, p. 20; reproducing a statement issued by prominent American critics of ‘War against Terrorism’. 3. An eminently euphoric view, around the time of the fall of the Taliban, is found in Polly Toynbee, ‘Peace in Our Time: The Positives Outweigh the Rest— Afghanistan is Free and America Remains Engaged with the World’, The Guardian, 19 December 2001, p. 20. 4. See Robert Hunter Wade, ‘The American Empire’, The Guardian, 5 January 2002, p. 18; originally published in International Herald Tribune. In this article, Wade points to the American domination of the globalised economy as a root cause of fundamentalist terrorism aimed directly at the United States. 5. This is not to ignore the more direct victims of US hegemony. See Chomsky, 9–11, pp. 84–9.


6. Immanuel Wallerstein reports in his essay on 11 September that, in the United States, there is a widespread denunciation of those who even try to explain why the events occurred: ‘Explanation is considered justification and virtual endorsement of terror’. See Wallerstein, ‘America and the World: The Twin Towers as a Metaphor’, http://www.ssrc.org/sept11/ essays/wallerstein_text_only.htm. See also ‘Not In Our Name’. 7. In making this observation, it is not my intention to subscribe to the pernicious general thesis of the ‘Clash of Civilisations’ associated with Samuel Huntington. 8. US policy and attitudes towards the Arab-Israeli/Palestinian-Israeli conflict, US military presence in Saudi Arabia and perceived US domination of Saudi Arabia, and impact of US sanctions against Iraq for over a decade seem especially pertinent in this context. I owe this interpretation to my colleague, Dan Keohane. 9. There was an interesting article in The Guardian by Ian Buruma, who compared the motives of the attackers to those of the self-sacrificing pilots of Imperial Japan during the Second World War. This was by far the better use of the Japanese analogy than the quite unhelpful parallel, drawn immediately by some, between 11 September and the Pearl Harbor— although the American reactions to the two cases were indeed rather similar. Buruma, however, may have underestimated the extent to which young Japanese pilots in 1944 were forced by peer pressure into volunteering to join the suicide missions; and, correspondingly, it is not so easy to be sure of the motives of the individual suicide attackers on 11 September. Yet, it would seem undeniable that, in both cases, intense resentment against the United States, and the West more broadly, was a condition that made it possible to conceive of participating in such an extreme form of violence. The motives of the attackers, however, may not be the same as those of Osama Bin Laden and his close associates (supposing that they were directly involved in planning the attack). 10. Chomsky, 9–11, passim. 11. Note the different senses of the word, ‘justice’ here. The formulation was President Bush’s. 12. See Adam Roberts, ‘Even our Enemies have Rights. Britain Must Stand Up for Them’, The Independent, 20 January 2002. 13. See ‘The Bush Doctrine Makes Nonsense of the UN Charter’, The Guardian, 7 June 2002, p. 18; ‘Bush Gives CIA Green Light to Kill Saddam’, The Guardian, 17 June 2002, p. 15. 14. International Herald Tribune, 31 January 2002, pp. 1, 3. 15. ‘Visiting Karzai Pleads for More Troops’, The Guardian, 1 February 2002, p. 16; ‘Mission Unaccomplished: How 3,000 Crack British Troops Failed to Find the Enemy’, The Guardian, 20 June 2002, p. 3. 16. ‘Kabul’s £3 billion Aid Package Tied to Democracy’, The Guardian, 23 January 2002, p. 15. 17. ‘Building a Nation: Afghanistan’s Future Remains at Risk’, The Guardian, 22 January 2002, p. 17. It is reported that the Afghan government has so far received only $45 million out of an internationally-pledged annual budget of $400 million. See ‘Secret Deals Boosts Afghans’ Interim Leader’, The Guardian, 3 June 2002, p. 12; ‘Meanwhile in Kabul: The Outside World Must Keep its Promises’, The Guardian, 10 June 2002, p. 19.


18. ‘A Slide into Chaos: If Western Strategists were to Ask Themselves whether the New Afghanistan Looks Better than the Old One, the Answer Would Have To Be No’, The Guardian, 10 December 2001, p. 17. 19. These are President Bush’s words in his State of the Union address of 30 January 2002. See ‘Bush Assails an “Axis of Evil”’, International Herald Tribune, 31 January 2002, p. 3. He may, of course, be exaggerating the threat in order to justify his militant policy against terrorism. 20. ‘The West is Walking Away from Afghanistan—Again’, The Guardian, 24 June 2002, p. 18. 21. International Herald Tribune, 31 January 2002, pp. 1, 3. 22. ‘Arab States Seethe at “Slap in Face” from Bush’, The Guardian, 1 February 2002, p. 16. 23. ‘US Takes War on Terrorism to Philippines’, The Guardian, 1 February 2002, p. 17. Furthermore, President Bush’s reference to Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an ‘Axis of Evil’ suggests that America’s ‘War on Terrorism’ could in principle be aimed at ‘terror weapons’ states. 24. ‘Bush Gives CIA Green Light to Kill Saddam’, The Guardian, 17 June 2002, p. 15. 25. See Richard Norton-Taylor, ‘The War Against Terrorism is Making Villains of Us All’, The Guardian, 22 February 2002, p. 16; Ronald Dworkin, The Real Threat to US Values’, The Guardian (Saturday Review), 9 March 2002, p. 3. 26. Hunter-Wade, ‘The American Empire’. 27. Wallerstein, ‘America and the World’. 28. Ibid., p. 13.

2 Invisible Cities1 PATRICK THORNBERRY

INTRODUCTION The UN General Assembly proclaimed 2001 as the Year of Dialogue among Civilisations.2 In the wake of the World Trade Center and Pentagon bombings, the attack on America, and the attack on the cities, we have been treated to a jumble of discourses, ‘dialogue’ of a sort. Media favourites have included: • • • • • • • • • • • •

War Just War Jihad Crusade Clash of Civilisations Western superiority and the inferiority of others Terrorism Islamic terrorism Triumphant Liberalism Intolerant Liberalism The defence of democracy Manichean discourses of good and evil

Some of these discourses were dropped, notably President Bush’s deployment of ‘Crusade’,3 a term capable of evoking the demons of history in the Middle East. ‘Just war’ and ‘Jihad’ appear to have endured, enjoying a complementary if not symbiotic relationship.4 Statesmen have taken pains to avoid the hypothesis of wars of religion5 and ‘the clash of civilisations’,6 and even if the Prime Minister of Italy expressed confidence in the superiority of the West, he issued a (partial?) retraction soon afterwards. Triumphalism is to be avoided but remains a temptation for Western leaders and public. Legal analyses emerged rapidly in the present crisis in the face of the burgeoning discourse of ‘security’,7 and the discourse of international law and human rights gained some ground. The paper briefly examines key areas of international law figuring in debate, not all of which have attracted great media attention. The analysis addresses:


1. ‘Armed attack’ and other grounds for the US (‘Allied’) bombing of Afghanistan. 2. The role of the UN Security Council. 3. Judging the perpetrators. 4. Implications of the events. Among interweaving issues, the problematique of the international lawyers is also addressed, struggling for a space between apology and Utopia,8 between the gates of ivory and the gates of horn. LEGAL GROUNDS FOR ARMED ATTACK?9 The Charter of the United Nations incorporates notions of self-defence, individual and collective, and collective security through the UN Security Council. Widely regarded as expressing a principle of customary international law, and of ius cogens—peremptory norms of general international law10— Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter forbids the use or threat of force in international relations ‘against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations’.11 Article 51 furnishes an exception, and is argued as a basis for ‘Allied’ action. It reads in part: Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations until the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. A key phrase is ‘if an armed attack occurs’, suggesting ex facie the appropriateness of self-defence as a response. Self-defence is not, in any case, to be interpreted broadly: as an exception to Article 51, it is caught by the principle that ‘exceptions to a rule should be interpreted narrowly’. If there is a right of self-defence, it must be exercised proportionately—a notion captured in the nursery rhyme of the ‘four and twenty tailors’ who ‘went out to kill a snail’—and also necessary.12 Traditional concepts of necessity and proportionality are expressed in the case of The Caroline,13 where it was agreed by the parties (the USA and Great Britain) that self-defence may only be exercised when ‘the necessity of that self-defence is instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation’. There was plenty of time for deliberation after 11 September before the bombing started. The ‘traditional’ concepts of necessity and proportion ality are generally read into the UN Charter, though they are not specifically mentioned therein. Their utility is that they provide grounds for distinguishing self-defence from legally prohibited retaliation; a second rationale is that if an immediate response is not forthcoming, the second limb of Article 51 should operate, with the matter turned

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over promptly to the Security Council. Gaja correctly emphasises that the use of self-defence as justification for action ‘does not preclude intervention by the UN Security Council. On the contrary, it requires it.’14 ‘Anticipatory self-defence’ is another concept that finds no place in the UN Charter. The logic of the Charter is compelling: what is to be avoided is the ‘remote sensing’ of threats and taking allegedly preventive and dangerous action, though international law is not so much of a suicide club as to require that states wait for a nuclear holocaust to descend upon them before reacting.15 The self-defence concept practised by the United States has sometimes relied on anticipatory self-defence, and is perhaps moving again in that direction, prefaced by identification—‘remote sensing’—of specific countries as an ‘Axis of Evil’.16 However, the context of the UN Charter is an attack by one state on another, despite the open-ended phrase ‘if an armed attack occurs’. The Charter is a ‘worldly’ text,17 and its ‘world’ is essentially that of inter-state relations. Even abstracted from its ‘world’, the text of the Charter makes the derivation clear, and it is an elementary point of interpretation that you interpret a whole text, not merely a phrase, so Article 51 is to be read in the context of the rest of the text regarding standing violation of international criminal law.18 Despite this, NATO, in the language of its Secretary-General, Lord Robertson, had few qualms about invoking ‘armed attack’ as a legal platform: We know that the individuals who carried out these attacks were part of the worldwide terrorist network of al-Qaida, headed by Same [sic] Bin Laden and protected by the Taliban. On the basis of this briefing, it has now been determined that the attack against the United States on 11 September was directed from abroad and shall therefore be regarded as an action covered by Article 5 of the Washington treaty, which states that an armed attack on one or more of the ‘Allies’ in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.19 It may of course be the case, as Drumbl suggests, that, in fact, ‘no nation appears to have attacked the US’.20 But, if Article 51 is to be regarded as germane despite the caveats, the ‘international element’ requires explanation and justification as appropriately ‘international’—unless we are prepared to accept the absurd notion that an attack by terrorists entitles a state to lash out at any target anywhere, disregarding all system proprieties. Leaving this nightmare scenario aside, the logic of an Article 51 approach demands that we identify the ‘attacker’ State. The wrath of the ‘Allies’ duly fell on Afghanistan. The Taliban government was accused (variously) of ‘aiding and abetting’, ‘harbouring’, ‘sheltering’, or even ‘in breach of its responsibility to take reasonable measures to prevent its territory being used to launch attacks against other states’.21 The document issued by the UK government, entitled ‘Responsibility for the Terrorist Atrocities in the United States, 11 September 2001’, drew the conclusion that Bin Laden and al-Qaida,


‘were able to commit these atrocities because of their close alliance with the Taliban regime, which allowed them to operate with impunity’.22 States are not strictly liable under international law for everything emanating from their territory. In the case of non-state actors, a test of ‘effective legal control’ is generally deemed to apply before responsibility is engaged.23 So, in the Nicaragua case, the International Court of Justice held that, despite the fact that the USA had helped to equip, organize and train the ‘Contra’ rebels against the government of Nicaragua, this level of support did not warrant the conclusion that the acts of the Contras were imputable to the USA. Whether the Taliban government ever exercised such effective control over Osama Bin laden and the al-Qaida network remains a matter of ‘factual’ conjecture. Or did Bin Laden control the Taliban?24 A particular, generalisable problem thus suggests itself for state responsibility: how does it (or should it) apply to weak or ‘collapsed’ states which have no real possibility of controlling powerful terrorist networks? It may be the case that security discourses will attempt to force the attenuation of the Nicaragua standard. If an attenuated doctrine were to be applied in the case of Afghanistan, a wider range of actors would already be implicated, though even a cursory reflection on who might thus be implicated suggests some alarming possibilities.25 As legal justifications, we ought to rule out of court humanitarian intervention (the suggestion that the bombing of Afghanistan was a guns and roses exercise) and pro-democratic intervention. However, there are echoes of both in the statements and speeches of the intervening States, and in Resolutions of the Security Council. Hence the emphasis on human rights and the need to ‘rescue’ the Afghan people from their own government. We can sense a whiff of selfdetermination in distinctions drawn between people and government—the ‘peoples’ of Afghanistan and their miscreant Taliban government.26 THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL As indicated above, Article 51 of the UN Charter implies that self-defence is essentially a ‘holding’ provision until the UN Security Council takes action. What of the Security Council? Two Resolutions passed rapidly in the wake of 11 September are particularly relevant: Resolution 1368 (2001) and Resolution 1373 (2001);27 para. 6 of Resolution 1373 established a Counter-Terrorism Committee to monitor the Resolution. The first of these two Resolutions describes the attack as ‘a threat to international peace and security’, and recognises ‘the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence in accordance with the Charter’. Both points are reaffirmed in Resolution 1373. A key provision in 1373 is the recalling of the phrases of General Assembly Resolution 2625 (XXV) of 1970 that every state, ‘has the duty to refrain from organizing, instigating, assisting or participating in terrorist acts in another state or acquiescing in organized activities within its territory directed towards the commission of such acts’. The placing of the action in these contexts is interesting, though the Resolutions do not draw

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conclusions in terms of activating an armed response or authorizing one. They describe rather than recommend in this sense, though the description and legal categorization would be a conceptually necessary prelude to any action. Resolution 1373 is not expressly directed to military action but seeks to strike at the roots of terrorist finance. The implications of self-defence are not argued out in the text. There is in particular no reference to ‘armed attack’ in the Resolutions, only to ‘terrorist attack’, without any attribution of the terrorist attack to a concrete author. It seems clear that the Security Council in these Resolutions has not explicitly authorized the use of force in self-defence, even if it did not interdict reliance of self-defence. The USA and the UK maintain that their actions are ‘consistent with’ the UN Charter and with relevant Resolutions of the Security Council.28 This looks like the Kosovo ‘polo mint’ argument all over again: claims of ‘consistency’ with the UN Charter, perhaps ‘synergy with’ the Charter or other terms in pari materia, substituting for the absence of clear legal authorization.29 One effect of Resolutions 1368 and 1373 is that the Security Council ‘keeps a foot in the door’ and has not ceded its role to action by the US and ‘Allies’—in para. 8 of Resolution 1373, the Security Council ‘expresses its determination to take all necessary steps in order to ensure the full implementation of this Resolution, in accordance with its responsibilities under the Charter’. Subsequent Resolutions indicate that the Security Council ‘remains actively seized of the matter’.30 However, no condemnation of the action of the intervening powers is forthcoming in subsequent—post-bombing—Resolutions of the Security Council. On the contrary, the opprobrium of the Security Council is reserved to the Taliban, though not the Afghan people.31 Do we sense that, as in Kosovo, the Security Council has once again taken a back seat—at least as far as the military action is concerned? Apart from the question of humanitarian aid, the Security Council effort focuses intensively on the aftermath.32 UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, stated: It is vital that the international community now work harder than ever to encourage a political settlement to the conflict in Afghanistan. The United Nations is actively engaged in promoting the creation of a fully representative, multi-ethnic and broad-based Afghan government.33 The programme is endorsed by, inter alia, Security Council Resolution 1378, expressing support for a new and transitional administration leading to the formation of a government of Afghanistan, both of which should be ‘broadbased, multi-ethnic an fully representative of all the Afghan people and committed to peace with Afghanistan’s neighbours’, and should respect ‘the human rights of all Afghan people, regardless of gender, ethnicity or religion’, as well as respecting Afghanistan’s international obligations including that of ‘cooperating fully in international efforts to combat terrorism’.34 The Resolutions affirm the Council’s commitment to the ‘sovereignty, independence, territorial


integrity and national unity of Afghanistan’,35 and the ‘inalienable right of the Afghan people themselves freely to determine their own political future’.36 JUDGING THE PERPETRATORS If there are doubts concerning an Article 51 ‘armed attack’, there was at least a ‘criminal attack’, or a ‘terrorist attack’, since the systematic slaughter of so many in New York and Washington suggests itself at the very least as ‘ordinary’ crime, and strongly as terrorist crime. Classification as ‘criminal attack’ as opposed to ‘armed attack’ takes us into different conceptual terrain, away from the geography of Article 51, raising complex questions of jurisdiction,37 extradition and punishment. The characterisation of the conflict determines the range of options for bringing the perpetrators of 11 September to justice. In the initial stages of events—pre-bombing—the most appropriate justice model to be invoked would be that applicable to ‘terrorists’. The model was perhaps clouded by the initial idiomatic usage of ‘war’ by the USA—the war against terrorism, analogous to the ‘War against Drugs’. A ‘War against Terrorism’ is an openended commitment, making about as much sense as declaring a ‘War against Crime’. On the other hand, as was pointed out above, there is a symbiotic relationship between ‘war’ and ‘holy war’ so that it would initially have made sense for the USA to prosecute those connected with 11 September as criminals, rather than justify the claims and self-descriptions of the holy warriors through invocation of the discourse of ‘war’. PRISONERS OF WAR? With the attack on Afghanistan, ‘war’ it was, or ‘armed conflict’ to use the less picky, modern term, and international armed conflict at that, giving rise to arguments about prisoners of war, war criminals, etc. In a move which has created widespread alarm, the USA declined to ascribe prisoner-of-war status to detainees spirited from Afghanistan to the US military facility (Camp X-Ray) at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.38 The US administration prefers the term ‘unlawful combatants’, an attribution that draws the following comment from Judge Goldstone: [This] is not a term recognised by international law. They [the US administration] get it from the US Supreme Court in a case in 1942, which dealt with six German spies who were landed in civilian clothes by a submarine on Long Island. They were captured before they committed any criminal offences in the United States and Roosevelt did not want to treat them as prisoners of war or as common criminals. The US Supreme Court invented this category of unlawful combatants and they were tried by a military commission and executed.39

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Combatants entitled to prisoner-of-war status under Article 4 of Geneva Convention III 1949 include the organised armed forces of a state and also ‘members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organised resistance movements, belonging to a party to the conflict’. Conditions are attached to the recognition of such persons as prisoners of war: there must be a command structure; arms must be carried openly; and operations must be conducted in accordance with the laws of war. Non-recognition of the government of Afghanistan does not alter the prisoners’ status. Article 5 provides that in cases of doubt, prisoners shall be treated as prisoners-of-war, until such time as their status has been decided by a competent tribunal: implying that governmental fiat that they are or are not prisoners of war is not an adequate legal strategy. The interrogation of prisoners by the US authorities also goes beyond the principles of the Convention;40 and trial by special commissions as opposed to ‘normal’ military courts is also legally unsound.41 As with the UN Charter, the USA claims that it will act consistently with the Geneva Conventions42—this is, however, less than an acceptance of the Conventions as a matter of legal obligation.43 It may be recalled that the Geneva Conventions are not the only fair treatment and trial standard applicable to the USA. Articles 7, 9, 10 and 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the USA is a party, set out basic standards of human rights governing arrest, detention, and trial. While, apart from Article 7,44 these articles are not protected from derogation ‘in times of public emergency which threatens the life of the nation’,45 certain procedures must be followed if measures may infringe human rights guarantees,46 and the Human Rights Committee (the treaty body which monitors the Covenant) has stated that all detainees should be treated with humanity and with respect for their inherent dignity and that no circumstances justify deviating from fundamental principles of a fair trial.47 Aspects of the treatment of detainees have aroused widespread public concern,48 as have prospects of trial and possible infliction of the death penalty by specially constituted military tribunals.49 It may be observed that international human rights standards implicate all forms and methods of trial whether national or international. TERRORISM CONVENTIONS In the case of the ‘crime, not war’, or ‘terrorism, not war’, scenarios an outrage had occurred on the territory of the USA, making it legally permissible according to the territorial principle of jurisdiction for US courts to try the offenders, if the USA could bring them before its courts. Alternatively, the USA could persuade other states to extradite the suspects, assisted where relevant by the provisions of one or other of the international conventions against terrorism—there are 12 such UN conventions dealing with various aspects of terrorism; four of these conventions are connected with aviation.50 There is no guarantee that US courts would get the opportunity to ‘do the job’: a consistent treaty proposition is


‘extradite or punish’—i.e. states’ parties agree to prosecute offences or extradite to a state that will prosecute. ‘Philosophical’ or ‘political’ considerations will not prevent the application of the convention to its particular subject-matter: thus the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings 1997 provides in Article 5 that acts proscribed by the convention ‘are under no circumstances justifiable by considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or similar nature’.51 In a historic Resolution—number 1269 of 1999—the Security Council, in its first Resolution to address terrorism in general, looked to international cooperation to address the phenomenon, and called on states to take steps to deny safe havens to those who plan, finance or commit terrorist acts, by ensuring their apprehension and prosecution or extradition. Work goes on in the area of nuclear terrorism. What the international community lacks is a comprehensive convention against terrorism, and a definition of terrorism that can carry the day. Many efforts to achieve a definition have been clogged up by arguments about terrorists and freedom fighters—reflecting the influence of the principle of selfdetermination. Siren voices suggest no definition is needed: that we already have enough to go on in legal terms. In debates in the General Assembly, many governments looked forward and declared willingness to work towards a comprehensive convention.52 How this willingness will translate into action is anyone’s guess. CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY There are, of course, other possible bases of jurisdiction besides the territorial,53 and some are provided by relevant conventions: crimes against humanity54 is one such basis. It seems tolerably clear that the concept of a crime against humanity has detached itself from the straitjacket of the Nuremberg tribunal,55 and is now broadly represented as a free-standing category of international criminal law, so that it does not require a ‘connection’ with armed conflict. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, speaking in Dubrovnik date on 8 October, stated that: Those responsible for these cruel deaths [the attacks] must be made individually accountable for the crimes against humanity they perpetrated. To plan and execute such attacks using civilian aircraft intended to kill the maximum number of civilians crosses a line. It is a crime against all human kind and all of us have an interest in seeing that those responsible are punished. The victims and their relatives have a right to expect that all countries will co-operate in finding those responsible at all levels and in ensuring that they are brought to justice.56 Crimes against humanity attract individual criminal responsibility. If the attack of 11 September is a crime against humanity, the jurisdiction to prosecute

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offenders is universal. Drumbl argues that the universal basis of jurisdiction is particularly appropriate ‘insofar as nationals of 81 countries perished in the attacks’.57 International standards relating to planning and conspiring, instigating, aiding and abetting crime, etc., are probably adequate to trap the networks of support for the attackers of 11 September, even if those who crashed the planes are beyond the reach of the law. TRIAL: THE INTERNATIONAL OPTION Besides the ‘national’ options to pursue criminals,58 there is also the ‘international’ option, or a number of such options. Inter alia, we may note that international tribunals do not operate the death penalty, and many governments refuse to extradite to the USA if it were in prospect before a US court.59 There are many contemporary examples of the use of the tribunal, which has come to represent a trend in international law. Many models are available: The Hague and Rwanda Tribunals established by the Security Council; the International Criminal Court, a specially constituted Lockerbie-type tribunal; or something sui generis. While no permanent international institution is yet in a position to prosecute offenders, it would seem particularly appropriate for the Security Council acting under Chapter VII of the Charter to follow the example of The Hague and Rwanda tribunals in view of its determination that the events constitute a threat to international peace and security.60 At the time of writing, there seems little enthusiasm in the United States for such a course of action, and Camp X-Ray fills up with detainees from the conflict. IMPLICATIONS The Spirit of Unilateralism The above are some of the ‘options’ and ‘arguments’ of international law, addressed with only a modest degree of detail—we can confidently predict that the events of 11 September will occasion much more detailed analyses, as well as investigations, retellings, ceremonies, dramatizations, Hollywood movies, etc. The question for this paper is the significance of the events for international law —its systems and discourses, and its priesthood. While all but a few continue to deplore the events of 11 September, the US response has occasioned considerable disquiet among governments (sometimes masked by the courtesies of diplomacy),61 NGOs, international lawyers and concerned citizenry. The narrow argument for the rule of law is that the West must be seen to demonstrate its ‘moral superiority’ over its opponents and certainly over al-Qaida and the (apparently) vanished and vanquished Taliban: hence, the need to abide by a range of international norms and to observe the proprieties of inter-state relations, international humanitarian law and human rights. In terms of its cavalier


approach to armed action, the manner of keeping the UN Security Council on the sideline, and apparent inattention to international humanitarian law (‘laws of war’) and human rights law, the USA has been ploughing a path that may serve to weaken international norms and structures on which nations and peoples depend. The need to ‘strike back’ as a psychological phenomenon can be readily understood and even elicit a degree of sympathy; but, apart from the crafting of an immediate and rather flimsy ‘coalition of the willing’, the approach has been in essence unilateral rather than multilateral—an outlook that seems to appeal to US policy-makers.62 Some elements of the ‘rapprochement’ have already unravelled—notably that of Iran, relegated from supporter of anti-Taliban action to an object of vilification in President Bush’s Manichean discourses on the ‘Axis of Evil’. The Multilateral Spirit In terms of legal principle, there is already discussion of whether the events have ‘modified’ customary law. The USA in particular has been engaged for some time in a process of attempting to ‘stretch’ norms relating to armed conflict,63 as well as backing out of inconvenient conventional (treaty) obligations.64 The process continues, and minds will not be set at rest by the present course of events. Changes promoted by a single state or group of states do not meet the test of consensus that is a necessary condition for a change of international principle. The contemporary spirit of international law is multilateral and multidimensional —a conception implicated in Cassese’s plea for underpinning our structures by reference to ‘general principles of law’ with moral and structural dimensions.65 Some international norms should in any case be resistant to changes in state practice: many including the present author would now reject the notion that changes in inter-state practice can ‘legitimate’ violations of fundamental human rights. On the other hand, it is clear that the growth of international terrorism challenges some of the fundamental categories of international law—armed conflict; territory; responsibility; self-determination. A ‘War against Terrorism’ may not be an international conflict—a ‘war’—in the eyes of the law, but it raises equally difficult challenges for states on how to calibrate their response in order to stay within legality and respect the human dimensions of conflict.66 A terrorist ‘network’ percolates through state boundaries like water through a sieve.67 The ‘network’ may have a stranglehold on governments and people alike and when it is broken the people will be victims once more. The form of international terrorism represented by al-Qaida is not the sort for which charitable exceptions are made—the freedom fighters, the liberation armies— even if they claim ‘liberation’ of a sort. Existing concepts of international law appear less than adequate to describe the ontology of the ‘network terrorist’ let alone respond to it. Whatever is legally to be ‘done about terrorism’ must respect human rights, provide outlets for legitimate dissent, respect cultures, and result from an inclusive process of dialogical multilateralism with inputs from

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international civil society. Normative imagination must now be at a premium, and the scepticism of a Sextus Empiricus against the closing of minds.68 RIGHTS, RESPONSIBILITY AND THE CITY We may relate our points to a consideration of the causes of the events: the ‘why’ question which, to the credit of our media, is not entirely squeezed out, though many would perhaps prefer ‘not to reason why’. One of the contexts for the rage in the Islamic world is the perception of the double standards of Western powers. There is, for example, little or no cloak of legality for the continuation of aggressive ‘Allied’ actions in Iraq, or for Israel in relation to the Palestinians. The commitment of the West to spreading ‘democracy’ is apparently not inconsistent with toppling inconvenient regimes. What we do has effects in the world, whether we speak of the acts of persons or states. Terrorists do not emerge out of a pure fog of ‘hatred of freedom and democracy’: there are reasons; there are contexts for understanding that can co-exist with condemnation of acts of terror. This not a religious war, but there is the (internally contested) use of Islam as a language of the dispossessed.69 This suggests that the ‘justice’ required by events is not simple defence or retribution or deterrence; it is not exhausted by bringing to trial and meting out punishments. Justice ‘also encompasses social justice, that is, eradication of deep social inequalities such as poverty, economic, social and cultural underdevelopment, ignorance, lack of political pluralism and democracy’.70 In the contemporary discourse of international law, justice translates into the language of human rights. On the relevance of the human rights dimension, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights points out that: The international human rights agenda is relevant to tackling not just the symptoms evidenced in acts of terrorism but the deeper causes at their root during times of threat or insecurity, it is even more important to hold firmly to the fundamental values of the rule of law and the safeguarding of human rights If I were to encapsulate in a simple word the goal of the entire international system of human rights, it would be the word prevention. If human rights are respected, if basic education, housing and health care are secure, if there is freedom for men and women to earn their living and rise their families, not only are human rights violations prevented, but conflict, terrorism and war can be prevented also.71 The rights talk can in turn be linked to an ethic of responsibility72—a responsibility to care, a responsibility to protect, and to provide the conditions for human flourishing. We care for New York and those who die; we share the grief of the families and the horror of the events. We should also care for the other cities, invisible but real nonetheless, not only the cities of our memory, desire or imagination, and make them visible and their inhabitants flourish. We


owe nothing less to the victims of New York. I take the poet Derek Mahon to express some of this sentiment with reference to the hidden corners of the world, the cities of the dispossessed, all cities, when he wrote of one city that the ‘The things that happen in the kitchen houses and echoing back streets of this desperate city should engage more than my casual interest, exact more interest than my casual pity’.73 If we in the West casually dismiss the cities of the world, we are all diminished by this injustice, and they will exact their interest. NOTES 1. From Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities (London: Pan Books/Picador, 1979). 2. The United Nations Year of Dialogue among Civilizations was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in 1998—by Resolution 53/22, November 1998; reaffirmed by Resolution 54/113 of February 2000. Resolution 53/22 was proposed by the Islamic Republic of Iran and invited: Governments, the United Nations system, including the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, to plan and implement appropriate cultural, educational and social programmes to promote the concept of dialogue among civilizations, including through organizing conferences and seminars and disseminating information and scholarly material on the subject.

It followed the International Year for the Culture of Peace in 2000, for which UNESCO acted as the lead UN agency. 3. Hwyel Williams, ‘Crusade is a Dirty Word’, The Guardian, 19 September 2001: Today we suffer the consequences not just of an 800-year-old crusading tradition but also an 80-year-old effect: the joint British-American dismantling of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War. We designed maps and invented states. We dreamt up national identities where none had existed and the states were designed to be feeble. In this horror, we truly stand ‘shoulder to shoulder’ with the United States. 4. Among many accounts, see the text-based account of ‘Jihad’ in Oliver Leaman, A Brief Introduction to Islamic Philosophy, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999), esp. pp. 135–43. David A.Westbrook, ‘Islamic International Law and Public International Law: Separate Expressions of World Order’, Virginia Journal of International Law, 33 (1993), pp. 819–97, is a useful point of reference for the lawyer. 5. Among many such statements, see the speech of the UK prime minster to Parliament on 4 October 2001, which included the claim that ‘the atrocity appalled decent Muslims everywhere and is wholly contrary to the teachings of Islam’: text on http://www.pm.gov.uk/news

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6. A phrase almost invariably associated with Samuel Huntington: ‘The Clash of Civilizations’, Foreign Affairs (August 1993), pp. 22–49. 7. Appropriate for the information age, exchanges among international lawyers have been facilitated by Internet discussion—the author has drawn on websites maintained by Jurist and by the European Journal of International Law. The UN also has a dedicated site following events post-11 September. 8. The reference is to Martti Koskenniemi, From Apology to Utopia: The Structure of International Legal Argument (Helsinki: Finnish Lawyers’ Publishing Company, 1989). 9. See the detailed commentary by Helen Duffy, Responding to September 11: The Framework of International Law, Interights, October 2000 at: (Part I) (Part II) 10. Articles 53, 64 and 71 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 1969. 11. ‘Certain portions of ius cogens are the subject of general agreement, including rules to the use of force by states’, Ian Brownlie, Principles of Public International Law, 4th edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 515. 12. Nicaragua v US, International Court of Justice 1986, para. 176. 13. 1837. 14. Giorgio Gaja, ‘In What Sense Was There an “Armed Attack”?’ European Journal of International Law Discussion Forum (2001); http//www.ejil.org/forum_WTC/ ny-gaja.html 15. Discussed extensively in Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice, October 1996. 16. President Bush’s State of the Union Message, 29 January 2002. 17. See Bill Ashcroft and Pal Ahluwalia, Edward Said (London/New York: Routledge, 1999), pp. 1–48. 18. Neither the Rome Statute nor the Statute of the Tribunal for Rwanda limits the concept of crimes against humanity to a connection with war. In as far as this is the case with the Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, this has been interpreted by the Appeals tribunal of The Hague was a jurisdictional rather than a substantive, conceptual limitation—see Duffy, Responding to September 11, n. 167. 19. Statement by Lord Robertson, 2 October 2001; preceded by a general NATO statement to the same effect on 12 September 2001. Antonio Cassese comments on the NATO position that ‘the preferred this avenue to that of centralized use of force under the authority of the Security Council… Terrorism is also disrupting some crucial legal categories of international law’, European Journal of International Law Discussion Forum, Section 3, p. 2; http//www.ejil.org/forum_WTC/nygaja.html 20. Ibid., p. 7 (emphasis added). 21. Professor Robert F.Turner, Jurist website, 8 October 2001. 22. Point 1—document available on http://www.pm.gov.uk/evidence.htm. It is stated elsewhere in the document that the al-Qaida and the Taliban have a close and mutually dependent alliance’ (point 4), and that Bin Laden ‘could not operate his terrorist activities without the alliance and support of the Taliban régime (ibid.) 23. Nicaragua v US, paras. 86–93. 24. This raises the interesting question of whether the network could be regarded as a ‘de facto organ of state’, engaging state responsibility under Article 4(2) of the Draft Articles on State Responsibility adopted by the International Law Commission on 3 August 2001. The problem is canvassed by Gaja, ‘In What Sense


25. 26. 27.

28.

Was There an “Armed Attack”?’, p. 2. There is perhaps an element of this notion in the UK document on responsibility (see above) approving (in point 19) an anonymous statement that the Taliban and Bin Laden were ‘two sides of the same coin’. Mark Drumbl, ‘Judging Terrorist Crime, Taliban Guilt, Self-Defence, and Western Innocence’, Jurist website, 2001 p. 9. See below, on Resolutions of the UN Security Council. On 12 September and 28 September 2001, respectively. Reference should also be made to Security Council Resolution 1267, which condemned Bin Laden for sponsoring international terrorism and operating a network of terrorist camps, and demanded that he be surrendered to justice. The Taliban responded by claiming that no evidence existed against Bin Laden. See, for example, the statement by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw (Foreign and Commonwealth office website, 11 October 2001): We have effective endorsement of the Security Council for this military action very great care, quite properly, has been taken with extensive legal advice on both sides of the Atlantic to ensure that this action is consistent with Article 51.

29. P.Thornberry, ‘“Come, Friendly Bombs”: International Law in Kosovo’, in Michael Waller, Kyril Drezov and Bülent Gökay (eds), Kosovo: The Politics of Delusion (London: Frank Cass, 2001), pp. 43–58. 30. This aspect is the subject of an optimistic appreciation by Pierre-Marie Dupuy, who argues that, on the basis of Security Council Resolutions, ‘the UN aims to play a decisive role in the management of a crisis that it would be wrong to consider as falling, legally speaking, under the exclusive control of the United States’. ‘The Law After the Destruction of the Towers’, European Journal of International Law Discussion Forum, p. 2; http//www.ejil.org/forum_WTC/ny-gaja.html 31. Resolution 1378 of 14 November 2001 condemns the Taliban: …for allowing Afghanistan to be used as a base for the export of terrorism by the al-Qaida network and other terrorist groups and for providing safe haven to Usama [sic] Bin Laden, al-Qaida and others associated with them.

The Resolution expresses the Council’s support for ‘the efforts of the Afghan people to replace the Taliban regime’. The preamble to Security Council Resolution 1390 of 16 January 2002 reaffirms the Council’s unequivocal condemnation of the attacks of 11 September, expresses its determination to prevent all such acts, and notes ‘the continued activities of Usama [sic] Bin Laden and the al-Qaida in supporting international terrorism, and [the Council’s] determination to root out this network’. 32. See in particular the set of conclusions and recommendations in Peter Marsden, Afghanistan: Minorities, Conflict and the Search for Peace (London: Minority Rights Group, 2001).

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33. Speech of 8 October 2001. 34. See also Resolution 1383 of 6 December 2001, which includes a reference to the Bonn Agreement of 5 December 2001 on provisional arrangements in Afghanistan pending the reestablishment of permanent government institutions. 35. Resolutions 1378 and 1383: preamble. 36. Resolution 1383: preamble. 37. Usefully summarized by Drumbl, ‘Judging Terrorist Crime’. 38. There has since been some movement from the rigid position of non-applicability of the Geneva Conventions: see n. 43 below. 39. Judge Richard Goldstone, ‘POWs or Common Criminals, They’re Entitled To Protection’, The Guardian, 30 January 2002, pp. 14–15, esp. p. 14. He adds that, ‘If they are not prisoners of war, they’re simply common law criminals. In either case, they’re entitled to some sort of due process’. 40. Article 17 of Geneva Convention III provides that the prisoners may not be subject to any coercion in order to extract information from them and are entitled to disclose only their names, age and rank or position within the armed forces. They may not be subject to punishment or reprisals. 41. Adam Roberts, ‘Even Our Enemies Have Rights: Britain Must Stand Up For Them’, The Independent, 20 January 2002. A prisoner of war should not be prosecuted by the detaining power for fighting on behalf of their armed forces, though serious violations of ‘the laws of war’ may be subject to prosecution. 42. ‘We have indicated that we plan to treat them in a manner that is reasonably consistent with the Geneva Conventions, to the extent that they are appropriate’. Donald Rumsfeld, US Defence Secretary, cited in Roberts, ‘Even Our Enemies Have Rights’. 43. Emphasis added. States parties to the Geneva Conventions are bound to ‘ensure respect for’ their provisions—Article 1, Geneva Convention IV. The USA and Afghanistan are parties to the Conventions. On 7 February 2002, the US administration shifted its position, purporting to distinguish between the rights of Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners. However, the legal implications of the policy change are unclear: it appears that ‘Neither group will be given prisoner-of-war status’. The Guardian, 8 February 2002. Amnesty International (ibid.) commented that: ‘This partial compliance with the Geneva conventions is a half-measure and continues an arrogant policy of pick and choose with regard to the laws of war’. 44. Article 4.2. of the Covenant prohibits derogation from this basic protection against torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The prohibition of torture is widely regarded as being prohibited under customary international law and the doctrine of ius cogens. 45. Article 4.1. of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. 46. In particular, under Article 4.3. of the Covenant, a notice of derogations should be entered. At the time of writing no such notice has been received by the UN Secretariat, which may of course indicate the US view that its actions are consistent with obligations under the Covenant. 47. Human Rights Committee: General Comment No. 29, On States of Emergency. 48. For expressions of disquiet emanating from NGOs and concerned individuals worldwide, see the article by Senator Joseph Lieberman, The Washington Post, 2 January 2002.


49. For an examination of the tribunals, see Jordan Paust, ‘Military Commissions: Some Perhaps Illegal, But Most Unwise’, on Jurist website, 14 November 2001. 50. Convention on Offences and Certain other Acts Committed on Board Aircraft 1963 (The Tokyo Convention); Convention for the Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft, 1970 (The Hague Convention); Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation 1971 (The Montreal Convention); Protocol on the Suppression of Unlawful Violence at Airports, etc. 1988. For a full list, see http://www.untreaty.un.org/ English/Terrorism.asp 51. Besides other regional conventions, The Arab Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism 1998 (The Cairo Convention), and The Convention of the Organization of the Islamic Conference on Combating International Terrorism 1999 (The Ouagadougou Convention), are noteworthy. Article 2a of the latter convention provides that, ‘Peoples’ struggle including armed struggle against foreign occupation, aggression, colonialism, and hegemony, aimed at liberation and selfdetermination in accordance with the principles of international law shall not be considered a terrorist crime’. The preamble to The Ouagoudou Convention recites that member states of the Islamic Conference, ‘Abiding by the lofty, moral and religious principles particularly the provisions of the Islamic Sharia as well as the human heritage of the Islamic Ummah’, etc., adopt the Convention. 52. The main debate took place from 1 to 5 October 2001. See also General Assembly Resolution 56/1, 12 September 2001. Work on a comprehensive international antiterrorism convention is now under way before the General Assembly’s Ad Hoc Committee on Terrorism (established in 1996); at the time of writing, the definitions of terrorism (Article 2 of the draft) has not been resolved. 53. According to the position paper of the Australian section of the International Commission of Jurists, although, ‘the United States clearly has jurisdiction, it is simply not appropriate for the victim to be also the prosecutor and judge and jury’. European Journal of International Law Discussion Forum, para. 46; http// www.ejil.org/forum_WTC/ny-gaja.html 54. Defined in Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as: Any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack: (a) murder; (b) extermination (k) other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.

See, in general, Geoffrey Robertson, Crimes against Humanity: The Struggle for Global Justice (London: Allen Lane/Penguin Press, 1999). For a cautious approach to the use of the Rome Statute as a measuring device, see Alain Pellet, ‘No, This Is Not War!’, European Journal of International Law Discussion Forum (2001); http//www.ejil.org/ forum_WTC/ny-gaja.html. It may be noted that the USA was one of the states opposing the specific inclusion of terrorism in the Rome Statute as a crime against humanity. Although policy following adoption of the Statute

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was one of hostility, the USA signed it on 31 December 2001; the signature has not been followed by ratification. At the time of writing, there are 50 states parties to the Rome Statute. 55. When it was limited by the Tribunal to acts committed in connection with war crimes or crimes against peace. 56. See the website of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Press Releases. 57. Ibid., p. 15. 58. See the suggestion by Drumbl on securing an Afghan/Islamic input into processes and institutions of trial, ‘Judging Terrorist Crime’, pp. 16ff. 59. The broad ‘European’ view on this issue is expressed in the ‘Declaration for a European Death Penalty-Free Area’ adopted by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on 9 November 2000. Inter alia, the Declaration reminds states ‘that have applied or wish to apply for membership [of the Council of Europe] that a commitment to abolish the death penalty within a precise time-frame is a basic condition for accession’. The deterrent effect of the prompt establishment of a tribunal to bring the 60. perpetrators to justice cannot be underestimated Those who would prefer to see Bin Laden and his accomplices assassinated rather than brought to justice should consider that not only would that be potentially unlawful under international law but would give Bin Laden the martyrdom he so desires.

Position Paper of the Australian Section of the International Commission of Jurists, paras. 49 and 50. The ‘threat to international peace and security’ is reaffirmed in Security Council Resolution (1390) of 2002. 61. ‘We are threatened today by a new simplism which consists in reducing everything to the war on terrorism’, remarks of the Foreign Minister of France, Hubert Vedrine; cited in The Guardian, 7 February 2002. 62. See the summary by Jean Bricmont, ‘Quelques questions à l’empire et aux autres’, Le Monde, 27 September 2001. The recent disengagement by the USA from the Durban World Conference against Racism, August–September 2001, is only one such case. 63. Such as those relevant to its intervention in Kosovo. 64. Bricmont, ‘Quelques questions’. 65. Ibid., section 4. 66. ‘Without the clear separation of war and terrorism, there will be no meaningful progress towards a definition of terrorism and, more importantly, no chance to implement meaningful measures to combat terrorism’. Terrorism and Human Rights, progress report prepared by Kalliope Koufa, Special Rapporteur, UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/2001/31, para. 71. 67. There is a determined attempt by some governments to link ‘terrorism’ exclusively with opposition to governments in power. However, ‘terrorist states’ are also identified—mainly by the USA. Koufa reminds us that the ‘régime de la terreur’ was originally used to describe state terrorism in the French revolution—Terrorism and Human Rights, paras 36–41.


68. ‘Those who are properly called dogmatists think they have discovered the truth; academic philosophers have said that the truth cannot be apprehended; and the sceptics persist in their investigations’; cited in A.J.Ayer and J.O’Grady (eds), A Dictionary of philosophical Quotations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), pp. 419–20. 69. See the recent study by Steve Bruce, Fundamentalism (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000). 70. Cassese, European Journal of International Law Discussion Forum, Section 3, p. 2. section 4, p. 3; http//www.ejil.org/forum_WTC/ny-gaja.html 71. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, speech in Boston, MA, 6 January 2002. 72. Mary Midgley, ‘Towards an Ethic of Global Responsibility’, in Tim Dunne and Nicholas J. Wheeler (eds), Human Rights in Global Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 160–74; The Responsibility to Protect, Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, (Ottawa: International Development Research Centre, December 2001). 73. ‘Spring in Belfast’, in Derek Mahon, Collected Poems (Loughcrew, Oldcastle: The Gallery Press, 1999), p.13.

3 The Politics of Terrorism and ‘Civilization’: How to Respond as a Human Being YOSHIKAZU SAKAMOTO

On 11 September 2001, I was in Britain. Shocking pictures were shown day by day: I was particularly frightened by the two that came out in the London Sunday Times on 16 September. I stared at them transfixed, but at the same time unable to bear the sight. One was a large photo of a group of about 30 people, leaning out of the windows of what might have been near the hundredth floor of the World Trade Center and trying to escape from the flames and smoke about to engulf them. The other prominently featured image was of a man who had jumped from a window and was plummeting head first toward the ground beneath. The pictures of the collapsing World Trade Center were horrifying. But the two images that stay with me most are not ones of buildings, but those of men and women during the final moments of their lives. I was shocked by the terror since I witnessed it as the death of human beings—the indiscriminate murder of innocent people. To me, it did not matter which country or ethnic group they belonged to. It was plainly the death of human beings. In contrast, President George W. Bush declared that the deaths resulted from a war against America, and that it was the United States that would win a war on terrorism. Many Americans also saw the 11 September victims exclusively as citizens of their own nation. The Stars and Stripes inundated New York City and elsewhere in the United States. Here we find a fundamental difference in terms of the perspective from which to look at the terrorist attacks. No doubt, we agree on our opposition to terrorism. But from whose point of view do we oppose it? Is it from the viewpoint of the United States, or any other country for that matter? Or is it from the perspective of humanity? In this context, we must examine the following three points. WHOSE ANTI-TERRORISM? First: the identity of the actors who wage the ‘war’ against terrorism. In his congressional address on 20 September 2001, President Bush stated, ‘This is not just America’s fight. This is the world’s fight. This is civilization’s fight… We ask every nation to join us’. A number of commentators hastily judged that this

32 THE POLITICS OF TERRORISM AND ‘CIVILIZATION’

was an indication of a shift in US policy from unilateralism to multilateral internationalism. Was this an accurate reading of the American stance? Historically, US foreign policy has been characterized by a pendulum swing between isolationism and universalistic interventionism. The former takes the view that ‘America by itself is the world’, and the latter that ‘the world should be made American’. Despite the apparent contrast, the two are both sides of the same coin, namely, the thesis that ‘America can be equated with the world’. The apparent ‘shift’ in US policy since 11 September must be closely examined in the context of this traditional American mindset. The crux of the matter is: To what extent is the United States able to relativize itself when defining its place in the world? President Bush insisted in the congressional address that ‘every nation in every region’ must decide: ‘either you are with us [the United States] or you are with terrorists’. This remark revealed yet another instance of the USA’s view of itself as the absolute good. Reminiscent of the US Cold War rhetoric—‘the Free World versus Communism, good versus evil’—he frequently equates ‘freedom, democracy, and justice’ with ‘America’. Undoubtedly his claims are based on the tacit, or self-evident, premise that American definitions of these concepts are of universal validity. The reason for the US call for ‘international co-operation’ in response to terrorism that time concerned the impracticality of ‘unilateral’ handling of matters such as intelligence, banking regulations, surveillance and detention in order to counter terrorist activities. In its reaching out for the co-operation of other nations, the United States was consistent in giving priority to the protection of US interests. Further, while a number of countries support the anti-terrorist stand for various reasons, the citizens of the United States stand out for their extreme patriotic fervour. This is yet another manifestation of the Americacentric stance. Even without the approval of the UN Security Council, and without the active support of its allies, the United States doubtless would have started its ‘war’ in the remote periphery of Afghanistan on its own (with Prime Minister Tony Blair along for the ride). This is ‘unilateralism’ determined to execute its universal interventionism even by itself; this same unilateralism led the US government to the notion of trying Osama Bin Laden, not in an international court, but in an exclusively US military tribunal separate from the US legal system. Yet, it must be recognized, at the same time, that history offers few examples of so many countries co-operating with the United States. How should we interpret the participation of such a large number of nations in the campaign against terrorism, Bin Laden and al-Qaida? Does it mean that there has emerged a universal consensus against terror from the viewpoint of humanity? This is the second question we must address.

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THE POLITICAL GAME OF ‘INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION’ There are two types of countries that take an anti-terrorist stand. One comprises those countries, in Europe and elsewhere, where human rights and democracy are firmly consolidated. The other includes anti-democratic, authoritarian countries that go along with anti-terrorism because they wish to suppress the active movements of ethnic minorities and political dissidents on their own soil. For instance, the Russian government confronted by Chechen independence movements, and the Chinese facing a Uighur challenge, normally uphold the principles of ‘national sovereignty’ and ‘non-interference with domestic affairs’ in opposition to US interventionism. This time, however, they willingly backed US military expedition to Afghanistan, and were exceptionally in agreement on the UN Security Council. Similarly, Afghanistan’s neighbors, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan —all known for being dictatorial, oppressive, and corrupt, towards which the United States had taken a critical stand before 11 September—nevertheless fell in with the United States because of their common fear of Islamic resistance movements. For other Middle Eastern countries—from Saudi Arabia with its rigid monarchy, to Egypt with its considerably secularized republic—chiming in with the anti-terrorist rhetoric lends rationale to their oppressive practices as they ruthlessly suppress anti-regime movements. The same applies to anti-democratic regimes in other parts of the world. Both democratic and anti-democratic countries agree as far as opposition to terrorism is concerned. Thus, it is small wonder that the USA’s anti-terrorism campaign earned the support of such an overwhelmingly large number of states; for the latter type of regime, ‘anti-terrorism’ was an indulgence for their antidemocratic transgressions. In the end, we must ask from whose perspective do we define ‘terrorism’ and ‘anti-terrorism’? Further, the ‘anti-terrorist grand alliance’ of these disparate countries will not prevent other old or new conflicts from coming to the surface once the ‘war’ is over, or if it is prolonged. Another aspect of international anti-terrorism is the rhetorical manipulation that made the concept escalate from opposition to the specific terrorist incidents of 11 September—unacceptable by any standards—to a ‘War against Terrorism’ in general. This quibbling was further complicated by the lack of universally accepted, clear, definition of ‘terrorism’. This conceptual ambiguity resulted in two types of problem for the United States. First, there is the ambiguity shown by the United States in its stand against measures taken by other countries to suppress movements for national selfdetermination. On 15 October 2001, National Security Advisor, Condoleeza Rice, stated: At the forthcoming APEC meeting, President Bush intends to tell the leaders of Russia, the People’s Republic of China, and other Asian nations


that he supports their anti-terrorism effort at home, but they must draw a line between legitimate dissent and genuine terrorism and not trample human rights.1 Reportedly, Bush communicated this message to Chairman Jiang Zemin and other leaders. Yet, for political considerations, no specific mention was made of the bearing of this message on the fact that Russia and China aim at taking advantage of the US anti-terrorist campaign to legitimize their own oppressive policies toward ethnic separatist and independence groups such as the Chechens and the Uighurs. Further, the United States and Western Europe rejected the Arab proposal made at the United Nations to exclude movements for national self-determination and liberation from the concept of terrorism. Consequently, a new anti-terrorist treaty was stalled. Second, the ambiguity of the US position was revealed by another country which turned the US campaign to its own advantage. When President Bush, in an effort to obtain the support of Islamic nations for his new war, stated on 2 October that the United States was not against the establishment of a Palestinian state, the Israeli government was infuriated, comparing the Bush administration to the appeasers in the face of Hitler, and claiming that its fight against the Palestinians was exactly the same as that of the US against Afghan terrorists. If Israel’s assertion were correct, it would mean that the US anti-terrorist campaign was on a par with Israel’s problematic Palestinian policies. If Israel was wrong, then the US policy of supporting Israel was also mistaken. Paradoxically, it was the Statement of the Israeli government, a close ally of the United States, which insinuated that the US actions might contain elements of oppression against the struggle for self-determination. In short, this political game of anti-terrorism blurred, wittingly or unwittingly, the distinction between ‘state-sponsored terrorism’, which is generally geared to the internal and/or external defense of the State power structure, on the one hand, and ‘anti-state terrorism’, which includes the indigenous armed struggle of the oppressed people, on the other. It was thanks to this ambiguity in the concept of terrorism, however, that the extensive ‘global alliance against terrorism’ came into being, or appeared to come into being. Terrorism and anti-terrorism must, therefore, be defined in terms of specific political contexts. It is entirely understandable that American citizens should have felt extraordinary rage at the cruel terrorist attacks. However, if that anger is based on an American perspective, and if the ‘broad international support’ backing the American anti-terrorist policies includes that of a large number of regimes that are antithetical to democracy and human rights, then it is uncertain to what extent the US stand can be considered of universal validity. In turn, how could the United States claim that its ‘war’ was universally justifiable? The third question to address thus concerns whether the ‘war’ the USA resorted to as a means to attain the generally justifiable goal of antiterrorism can be considered to be generally justifiable.


THE ‘LEGALITY’ OF THE USE OF FORCE Legal criticism was made that the US military engagement in Afghanistan was a violation of international law because it did not conform to Article 51 of the UN Charter which refers to, ‘the inherent right of individual or collective selfdefense if an armed attack occurs’, and provides that ‘measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defense shall be immediately reported to the Security Council.’ This judgment is valid so far as a conflict between states is concerned. But a large-scale terrorist attack like the 11 September incident is of a different kind of conflict not envisaged by the UN Charter. Nonetheless, the United States, while claiming that this was a ‘new type of war’, invoked the ‘old’ conventional provision of ‘individual self-defense’, as did its NATO allies citing the traditional concept of ‘collective defense’ in order to legalize and legitimize their actions. Thus, neither the indictment nor defense was well founded. But when the Security Council resolved on 12 September that, ‘it expresses its readiness to take all necessary steps to respond to the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001’, and when UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, immediately following the commencement of US bombing in Afghanistan, indicated general approval of the US strikes in the light of the Security Council resolution and stated that there was no need for a new resolution, the debate on the legality of US actions was de facto brought to a close. In my opinion, Kofi Annan’s statement condoning the American use of force set a questionable precedent for the United Nations. But his reactions served to justify the US military expedition, making the legal debate practically irrelevant. At the same time the situation was such that, if the United States had sought official approval of its use of force, it was certain that Russia and China would have cast their votes in favour, thus strengthening the legality of US air strikes. But the United States did not seek UN official approval because that would have tied its hands in subsequent military operations. This was yet another example of American unilateralism, giving priority to a military option of its own design rather than to the question of international law. This implies that there is an important difference between the lawful use of force based on approval from the United Nations and the international community, on the one hand, and the military course the United States actually took, on the other. The use of force in and of itself is not the issue. What we must question is the way military action was taken. Five years ago, I wrote as follows, though with direct reference to ‘humanitarian intervention: Heretofore, if, through a series of trials and errors, progress is made on the international acceptance of common norms and rules it is possible that


multi-national collaboration will increasingly assume the character of police action rather than military action.2 In other words, as civil society cannot be maintained without police of some sort, we need an apparatus at the international level that will perform police functions. Some people questioned whether the 11 September incidents should be classified as acts of war or as crimes. Clearly, the acts were criminal in nature. But it is also clear that, in dealing with crimes, there must be an agency with coercive power able to arrest and try the suspects. If the US policy aimed at employing beyond national boundaries such coercive force in the form of ‘war’ against the non-state actors located in a territory where no authoritative government existed and no regular legal arrangements for extradition applied, the distinction between crimes and war would not have much relevance for all practical purposes. The more pressing question concerns the conditions an international ‘police action’, as distinct from conventional military actions, must meet. At least the following two conditions must be fulfilled. LEGAL REQUIREMENTS FOR A ‘NEW WAR’ The first condition is that there are laws, norms and rules based on the general consensus of the international community, and that nations act in accordance with them, including acts designed to ensure their enforcement. Further, not only the goals but also the means to attain them must be in conformity with those laws, norms and rules, and each nation must bear legal accountability in the event that the means employed are against the law. How does this apply to the US anti-terrorist action? One of the fundamental principles of present international law is, as provided in the UN Charter, that all nations ‘shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means’. If this were the goal of the United States, it would have proceeded in a different manner. For example, it might have supported the tightening of the UN embargo on the transport of weapons into Afghanistan from other countries, Pakistan in particular. At the same time, the United States could have secured the consent of the Taliban and the Northern Alliance for the stationing of an international protection force consisting of troops from Islamic countries so that humanitarian emergency aid to the Afghan people would be safely implemented and would enhance popular aspiration for cease-fire and peace. In the interim, the United States could have encouraged Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries to bring intensified diplomatic pressure to bear on the Taliban to turn over Osama Bin Laden. It had taken several years of negotiation before the Yugoslav government turned over Slobodan Milosevic to the Hague court. If the United States was prepared for a ‘long war’ against terrorism, as stated by President Bush, it should at least have shown its intent to engage in long-term diplomatic deals to induce the Taliban to turn over Osama Bin Laden. To that end, the United States could


have taken advantage of many post-11 September signs of rift within the Taliban forces, Pashtun warlords, and religious leaders. Instead, it only raised the stakes by, for instance, high-handedly approving the policy of assassinating Osama Bin Laden. It is doubtful that such moves can be considered wise diplomacy, conducive to a ‘peaceful settlement of disputes’. Second, while international public opinion seemed to have largely accepted that US military response was unavoidable, a large number of people posed an agonizing question: ‘How can we justify a “war” that has resulted in so many civilian fatalities and injuries?’ The US air strikes and troop movements led to countless refugees, internal and international, and to difficulties in delivering relief aid that would avert starvation and death of so many Afghan civilians, including children and the aged. In what way did this differ from terrorism? No doubt, the Afghan civilian victims outnumbered the 3,000 lives lost in New York City. If the United States claims that its military actions were legitimate and legal, then it must also take legal responsibility for civilians who were injured or killed as ‘collateral damage’ just as a police force does when an officer kills or injures an innocent person in the course of executing its mission. Should the United States recognize that the use of force will be justifiable only when it agrees to compensate the innocent civilian victims and to bring those responsible to justice, then it might call this a ‘new war’, one that sets a new precedent for international law. It may possibly be difficult to ascertain the identity of the perpetrator when a bomb strays from its target and accidentally hits civilians. Precisely for that reason, however, it is essential to take responsibility for the consequences, by at least paying compensation to the innocent victims. Even if the compensation is to be paid en bloc rather than individually, it must be made unmistakably clear that the money paid is legally accountable ‘compensation’, not charitable ‘aid’. If the rules of ‘new war’ set by George W. Bush were based on the idea that it is right to cross international borders in pursuit of terrorists and hold them accountable to the law, then, by the same token, is it not right to demand the United States pay compensation to Afghan civilian victims transnationally? And shouldn’t Japan and other countries co-operating in the US military incursion also accept ‘burden sharing’ in paying the compensation? We live in an age which is ripe for raising such questions in the name of humanity and ‘civilization’. STRUCTURAL ROOTS OF TERRORISM So far, I have examined, in connection with the ‘war in Afghanistan’, the problems involved in the US stand, the realities of ‘international co-operation’, and the damage incurred by the US military strikes. At the same time, it is obvious that terrorism cannot be tolerated. The fanaticism and violence of terrorists are absolutely incompatible with democracy and civil society. Yet, we must admit that complete eradication of terror is a near impossibility, just as it


would be utopian to imagine that crime could be entirely done away with. The question we must address, therefore, is how to minimize the incidence of terror by changing the societies that give rise to the population sympathetic to the cause upheld by terrorists. Many have singled out poverty as the main cause of terrorism. In my view, however, terrorism is the product of oppressive political and social structures, of which poverty is a component, and the corresponding political and social consciousness of being oppressed. These oppressive structures in today’s world have three dimensions. First, the global political and military dominance of the United States and its allies and the global dominance of global capital have given rise to global disparity and oppression. Second, and related to this, there are national/internal structures of disparity and oppression, most notably in many developing countries. Third, there is the transnational structure of inequity and discrimination faced by an enormous number of people who move to more ‘advanced’ countries in an effort to escape from the dual pressures of global and internal domination. Statistics compiled by the United Nations and many other organizations testify to the fact that the world we live in today constitutes a huge pyramid characterized by inhumane disparity and oppression. As information dissemination is globalized and the disadvantaged people become increasingly aware of the global inequities and inequalities, it is natural that a growing number of the marginalized should harbor anger and resentment. I have elsewhere commented on the likelihood of urban unrest around the world as the result of the outrage and despair of disadvantaged people under the condition of inequitable global marketization, noting that, ‘While the incidence of inter-state conflict and war will decrease, the ubiquitous urban unrest may possibly become a World War III in the twenty-first century’.3 Although I envisaged a world war that cuts across national boundaries, the inhumanity of the 11 September terrorist attacks went beyond anything I had ever imagined. At the same time, I felt quite uncomfortable when I heard someone characterize the terror as a ‘challenge against civilization’ or a ‘war against civilized society’. Of course, it is antithetical to civilization. But we must ask simultaneously: ‘What do we mean by “civilization”?’ Does our ‘civilization’ not rest upon the global structure of inequity and oppression which we ignore so long as it does not harm our vested interests? Of the many observers and media people in Japan who have commented on terrorism, none (that I know of) has tackled it as part of our own problem, that is, as intrinsic to our way of life called ‘civilization’. Rather, they have treated terrorism as the subject of analysis and policy making, or as the object of military campaign. I have yet to see an account of the causes of terrorism that refers to our own mindset and the modality of our ‘civilization’. This is what has made me deeply uncomfortable. President Bush said in his Congressional address: ‘Americans are asking, why do they hate us? They hate our freedoms—our freedom of religion, our freedom


of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other’. I was astounded by this remark, and wondered if he truly believed that his statement would prove convincing to other peoples of the world. There are a number of people, particularly in the developing countries, who do not accept the means used by terrorists but find their objective and intent understandable. These people ‘hate’ America because, while it firmly protects freedom, human rights, and democracy for itself, America has collaborated in the murder and the silencing of those in the developing countries who fought against their oppressive, corrupt regimes in pursuit of freedom, human rights and democracy. Further, America’s ‘global standard’ is seen as having widened the gap between rich and poor and eroded the ‘freedom to disagree’ with America in defence of one’s own cultural values. As far as its continued emulation of American ‘civilization’ is concerned, the Japanese mindset is equally problematic. ‘CIVILIZATION’ AND ‘JUSTICE’ I emphasize the need for soul searching about the nature of ‘civilization’ because I believe we stand at a turning point in post-Second World War history. A shift in the conception of war signals this change as war has often been evoked as a battle between ‘civilization and barbarians’, between ‘justice and the forces of evil’. I will spell out the centrality of the notions of ‘civilization’ and ‘justice’ as they apply to the latter half of the twentieth century. In the Second World War, the Allies vanquished uncivilized Nazism and Japanese militarism in defense of civilization and justice. The subsequent Cold War led to the split of the Allied Powers’ civilization and justice into two incompatible realms. In the post-Cold War phase, we tended to condemn ‘state socialism’ in outright negative terms. But, in reality, many intellectuals and workers in the West had regarded the Russian Revolution as the advent of a ‘new civilization’, and many people in the ‘Third World’ viewed socialism as bearing the promise of a just society. Otherwise, it would be incomprehensible why the Cold War could have lasted as long as a half century. Underlying the ideological power of state socialism was the deep rage and despair that emerged as the result of the failures of the twentieth-century capitalism and market economy, culminating in the Depression in the North and the post-independence economic dependency of the South. The end of the Cold War led to the ‘triumph’ of the market economy and liberal democracy and subsequently to the ‘New World Order’ under which a single vision of civilization and justice dominated. The establishment of the ‘New Order’ was exemplified by the Gulf War: because Iraq embarked on an anachronistic ‘old war’ by openly invading the territory of another state with its regular army, it was easy for the international community to condemn Saddam Hussein as an ‘uncivilized’ barbarian. The multinational forces, with the virtual blessing of the United Nations, presented themselves as the fighters for ‘justice’.


The definition of justice was unequivocal, and ‘uncivilized’ Iraq was expelled from civilized world order. Things changed radically with the occurrence of Yugoslavian ‘ethnic cleansing’ and NATO bombing. Those who asserted in unison that the ethnic cleansing must not be glossed over because it was a gross violation of human rights divided on whether NATO bombing, which led to civilian casualties, that is, to another form of the infringement on human rights, was justifiable. A division emerged within civilization itself, no longer ‘between the civilized and the uncivilized’. On 11 September 2001, the uncivilized terrorists tore into ‘civilization’, and the situation turned into a new phase. But the ‘roots of terrorism’ as distinct from ‘terror’ itself raised the question whether the Western ‘civilization’ which has so far embodied ‘justice’, is not anti-civilizational insofar as it remains indifferent to the global structure of appalling inequity and oppression. It is in this sense that the terror is a ‘challenge to civilization’ and the ‘justice’ of democracies of the North is coming under question. This is why Bush’s repeated insistence that ‘justice shall be done’ and America is conducting a ‘just war’ sounds hollow to many who doubt whether it is the right answer. Precisely because the problems are fundamentally structural, Bush must say the United States is waging an ‘endless war with an invisible enemy’. THE BACKLASH FROM SOUTH TO NORTH It is often said that the terrorists have taken advantage of the democratic freedom of the North for their anti-democratic purposes. Although this is not wrong, terrorism should be considered as a manifestation of the much deeper structural backlash underway on four dimensions. First, there has been the counter-flow of large numbers of immigrants and refugees from South to North, reversing the historical trend of ruling officials and labour force moving from the metropoles to colonies. By settling in the countries in the North these people, while confronting discriminatory, repressive practices, are altering the character of the national identity and national culture of the recipient countries. Second, a backlash can be seen in the development of nuclear weapons by the nations in the South. Twenty years ago, I invited an African friend, for whom I have great respect, to a conference held in Japan. He argued, ‘It is only when we have developed nuclear weapons that we can get the First World to take seriously the poverty in the Third World and the enormous North-South disparity’. When I criticized him for making this kind of inhumane remark at a conference where Abomb survivors were present, he refused to retract his statement. I also pointed out that ‘it is unrealistic to assume that nuclear weapons of the South will be targeted only on the North, and it will amount to the self-denial of the justice of the South if these weapons are directed against other nations of the South’. Yet, the point he made has continued to stick in my mind.


Third, the backlash can take the form of terrorism using biological, chemical or nuclear weapons, which would involve a large number of civilian casualties in the North—undeniably the worst and most dreaded type of protest. Naturally, I loathe the idea of such inhumane, demonic, slaughter of innocents. At the same time, I cannot help but also remember the words of despair my African friend uttered. Finally, the world information and communication order—which is dominated by the mass media of the North, such as CNN, BBC, AP and Reuters—has been challenged by the recent moves in the South intended to disseminate internationally information compiled from the perspective of global peripheries, mostly using internet networks. The most dramatic example of this kind of backlash was a series of interviews with Osama Bin Laden disseminated by the Qatari satellite television, Al Jazeera. The fact that the Bush administration attempted in vain to suppress the telecast, in violation of the very principle of the ‘freedom of speech and press’ it professedly espouses, illustrates the backlash of the free information flow, now from South to North. The backlash on these four dimensions all speak of actions meant to render visible to the society and civilization of the North the very existence of the peoples of the South. The world is entering a phase of South-North backlash. Do our societies in the North respond to this challenge by closing ourselves or by making ourselves open to it? This is one of the fundamental questions raised by the ‘roots of terrorism’. The sort of stance that we should take toward the 11 September incidents has to be determined in this world-historical context. DIPLOMACY TO SHOW THE ‘RISING SUN’ Clearly, Japan’s reactions to the terrorist incidents were deeply affected by what may be called the ‘Gulf War syndrome’. This posture stemmed from the ‘humiliation’ the Japanese government felt when its monetary contribution of as much as US$13 billion was not appreciated by the United States, nor by Kuwait because, as a consequence of constitutional constraints, it did not send troops. In reality, however, none of Japan’s neighbors in East Asia, or South Asia west of Indonesia and Malaysia, which has a significant Islamic presence, was calling at that time for a Japanese military expedition to the Gulf. Further, I later heard one eminent Latin American ambassador to the United Nations say at a UNsponsored conference, ‘There was no need for Japan to become militarily involved. Its response was adequate’. What, then, do the Japanese government and media mean by the ‘international community’, which, in their view, was disappointed with the lack of Japan’s military contribution? Do they not tend to disregard the voices of many nations other than the United States? This UScentric worldview is not only removed from the reality but is also diplomatically counterproductive in the light of the remarkably growing weight Moslems carry in today’s international community.


Of course, I appreciate the strong interest the Japanese government showed in playing an active role in promoting the peace and reconstruction of Afghanistan, as it did for the implementation of the peace accords on Cambodia in the 1990s, but the situation in Afghanistan is far more complex and difficult than that of Cambodia. Afghanistan is characterized by the rivalry of diverse ethnic groups and warlords. Further, it is surrounded by not only major powers such as Russia and China, but also Iran, India, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, most of which countries share with Afghanistan ethnic groups who reside on both sides of the borders. On top of that, a complex conflict of interest related to the oil and natural gas reserves in the Caspian Sea region is involved. These complications did not exist in the case of the Cambodian peace. At an international academic conference held in Japan six years ago, I warned of the danger of the ‘Balkanization of Asia’ because Asia is characterized by a wide variety—or even heterogeneity—in terms of traditional cultures, religions, legacies of colonialism, and the levels and modes of economic development as well as the vested interests in the energy resources located in the Caspian Sea region, which is likely to become a ‘Middle East’ in the twenty-first century. If the current international efforts fail to bring about peace and the reconstruction of Afghanistan, it will become internally ‘Balkanized’; and it is not inconceivable that the repercussions might reach far beyond its borders like a tidal wave. This must be avoided at all cost since the absence of peace in Central Asia will have a profoundly adverse effect on the Eurasian continent, including Japan. Japan has attached so much importance to hosting an international conference of donors for the reconstruction of Afghanistan, held in January 2002, in order to demonstrate Japan’s presence before the international community through its ‘Rising Sun diplomacy’. But the Japanese government must not trivialize the task. Instead, it should be willing to throw itself in earnest into efforts that will truly contribute to rebuilding devastated Afghanistan even if the role it plays should remain inconspicuous. While Japanese products and the signboards of Japanese corporations have a strong presence throughout the world, Japan’s diplomacy has seldom shown an active profile. This is probably the other side of the same coin shown in Prime Minister Koizumi’s peculiar commitment to the active diplomacy of ‘showing the flag of Rising Sun’ in unreserved support of Bush’s war against terrorism. Most distressing is the sense that there is no real will to grapple with the basic problem of the ‘roots of terror’. Instead, the Cabinet and the Diet dealt only with the symptoms of terrorism through the participation in the multinational military force abroad and the tightening of security control at home. The true question we must ask ourselves is whether Japan can be called a ‘civilized’ society if we are content to ignore the reality that one out of five people on earth suffers the ‘subhuman survival’ of poverty and hunger while we enjoy affluence. If our political system is predicated on the practice that democracy and human rights


‘end at the sea shore’, is it not a fake democracy that runs counter to the rights of humanity? THE CASE FOR A ‘HUMAN SECURITY CORPS’ To consider what Japan should do to tackle the root causes of terrorism, I return to the debate we had at the time of the Gulf War. I then supported the idea put forward by the opposition parties that, instead of dispatching troops, Japan should make a non-military contribution by establishing a corps for peacekeeping and peace-building activities broadly defined, devoted not only to the maintenance of order but also to humanitarian aid and social and economic reconstruction and development. As the result of the bureaucratic opposition of the Defense Agency to the creation of an independent organization for peace-keeping, as well as the cooling of enthusiasm on the part of the opposition parties due to the end of the campaign, the Japanese people missed the opportunity to thoroughly examine what a non-military contribution would be like. When the 11 September terrorist incidents occurred, the Japanese government forged ahead with a ‘military contribution’ as if to fill the vacuum left in the wake of the Gulf War experience. In a similar vein, neither the leftist opposition parties nor citizen groups that stood against both ‘terror and military retaliation’ offered a viable alternative. To avoid repeating Japan’s wasted experience since the Gulf War, we must seriously consider what form of non-military organization we should create. In fact, we know that, in order to grapple with poverty and human rights violation in the global periphery in support of the initiatives taken by indigenous, local NGOs, we must extend assistance in the areas of medicine, education, environmental protection, sustainable economic development, human rights, particularly those of women and children, and so forth. In rough outline, Japan should establish a unique public organization based on co-operation and the division of labour between the government and citizens, including professionals, senior and mid-career people as well as youth. Citizens should be at the centre of this national project, and the government should provide financial support but, in principle, not interfere with the decisions and activities of participating citizens. The key question is whether the government has the will to do so. This organization will not be an instrument of the nationalist diplomatic display of Japan’s presence but a ‘Human Security Corps’ to serve the rights and interests of humanity. If a Japanese, without waving the flag of the ‘Rising Sun’, can earn the trust of the people of other nations, that will become an invaluable moral resource that will ultimately contribute to the national interest of Japan. If Japan will thereby persistently show its human presence at ordinary times, Japan can keep calm at times of international crisis without worrying about the need to demonstrate its national presence. With full confidence, Japan will thus find its own way to shoulder its responsibility in the world.


In order to sustain a ‘Human Security Corps’ that will continue to make humanitarian contributions over a long period; however, the State and society of Japan will have to transform themselves from within in at least two ways. First, we must train a large cohort skilled in many languages and knowledgeable about diverse cultures, that are non-Western. Japan is said to have played an important role in peace-making in Cambodia; but it is questionable how many Japanese involved in that process were able to communicate with the Cambodian people in the native Khmer language. The training of people for a Human Security Corps will require a radical change of Japan’s educational system, especially at the university level and in foreign language education. Curricula for lower education should include the teaching of history from the perspective of humanity, not Japan-centric national history. The media will also need to reexamine the way it reports and its underlying subconscious prejudices and oversights. Second, Japan must be more open to immigrants and refugees as well as foreign students. I remember well how strange I felt when, upon my return from a stay in the United States, I looked out at the students in my class and found that they all had the same colour of skin and hair (this was in the days before not a few of them began to dye their hair!). In my view, one of the sources of the vitality of American society lies in the fact that there is always a significant segment of the people, if in the minority, which seeks to overcome the tensions generated by its multi-racial, multi-cultural structure. In contrast, Japan does not hold enough allure to make people, young people in particular, in other countries want to live and make their life’s work here. Many come only for short-term employment to earn money. There are considerable obstacles, including the rigid immigration laws, which discourage foreign immigrants and refugees to Japan. As for Afghan asylum seekers in 2001, for instance, only three out of 78 applicants were recognized as refugees. Will the Japanese population lose its vitality as it turns into an aged, homogeneous Japanese nation, consisting of the self-professed ‘Yamato race’? If Japan is a society that fails to attract people abroad to come and cohabit as its equal citizens, how can it nurture citizens who will go abroad and entice the local people to treat the Japanese as acceptable fellow humans? By making ourselves more multi-cultural at home, we will create a society able to prepare citizens to do a positive work in other societies of ‘alien’ cultures. For Japan to transform the substance of its own education, culture, and society, there is no easy path. Yet the question posed by ‘roots of terror’ is whether or not we can so transform our own ‘civilization’. NOTES The Japanese original was published in the monthly journal, SEKAI [The World], January 2002. English version posted on www.Iwanami.co.jp/jpworld/ top.html, February 2002.


1. Condoleeza Rice, quoted in Edwin Chen and Ching-Ching Ni, ‘War Tops Bush Trip Agenda’, Los Angeles Times, 16 October 2001. 2. Soutaika no jidai [The Age of Relativization] (Tokyo: Iwananami Shoten, 1997). 3. ‘Sekai shijoka e no taiko koso’, Sekai, 652 (September 1998), p. 65ff. An English version was published as, ‘An Alternative to Global Marketization: East Asian Regional Cooperation and the “Civic State”’, Alternatives, 24, 2 (1999), p. 154ff.

4 Identifying Limits on a Borderless Map in the First Post-Modern War RICHARD FALK

Two requirements governed my initial thinking about an appropriate response to the attacks of 11 September: first, the urgent need for effective action by the US Government that would greatly reduce the threat of future mega-terrorist incidents; and, second, the necessity of recognizing the appropriate legal, moral, and political limits that apply to waging such a defensive war. Since 12 September, I have grown increasingly concerned with the gross mishandling of this response pattern, especially the blending of a necessary response to a persisting mega-terrorist threat with the intensification of a pre-existing American empire-building project of global proportions. Because the territorial parameters of warfare seem of secondary importance in understanding and evaluating both of these dimensions of American policy it seems appropriate to identify the originality of this multi-layered globalism by resorting to the admittedly slippery terminology of post-modernism. Such a conceptualization is further reinforced by al-Qaida mirror image: a concealed non-territorial dispersion of presence, a non-negotiable assault on American power and its citizenry, and an aspiration to supersede states in the Arab and Muslim world with the re-establishment of a multi-national Islamic umma as a prelude to the eventual Islamizing of the entire world. Superficially, Osama Bin Laden’s visionary politics resemble most closely pre-modern political solutions, but on further reflection, such an interpretation is not satisfactory. Considering the wider historical circumstances, the technologies of conflict being deployed on both sides, and the impossibility of achieving a reversal of time, the term post-modern, if carefully delineated, fits this Islamic utopia, and its encounter with the West, and specifically the United States, better than any alternative vocabulary. The most important and relevant alternative would be ‘globalization’, which is also vague and variously construed. The point of departure for the analysis presented here is to draw attention to the specifics of the disjuncture in world politics generated by the 11 September attacks. An important part of this effort is to contrast post-11 September with the prior economistic decade that followed the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the ending of the Cold War. For this geopolitical disjuncture, the terminology of globalization seemed more clarifying and substantive than relying on a purely chronological label such as ‘the post-


Cold War world’. Post-modern, although having nothing explicitly in common with the cultural explorations associated with ‘postmodernism’ (such as deconstruction and the critique of meta-narration), seems suitable, given the proximity of the disjuncture with respect to the formidable overhanging legacy of modernity, and the failure of the new reality to assume a definite and enduring form that might warrant the adoption of a defining name. To limit misunderstanding, the spelling of ‘post-modern’ is relied upon for this presentation, emphasizing the temporal meaning of ‘after modernity’, and lessening the likelihood of confusion with the various cultural claims of ‘postmodernism’ as it bears on literary criticism, philosophic interpretation, and the humanities in general. In important respects the global war against terrorism and the accompanying empire-building project could be considered as non-economistic forms of globalization, but this would lead to serious confusions, and a tendency to sidestep the significance of the American-led renewal of, and rationale for, hegemonic geopolitics under the guise of the war against global terror. The contention here is subtle and somewhat complicated, as there is coupled with the rejection of American empire-building claims, a genuine appreciation of the need for a comprehensive response to the ongoing mega-terrorist threat posed by alQaida. Disentangling these two concerns, especially in the face of their deliberate intermeshing by American political leaders, is a formidable task, first for analysts of the global scene, and then, even more so, for both oppositional politics in the United States and elsewhere, and for an intermediate, third force diplomacy that walks the tightrope between resisting the imperial transformation of statism and joining with America in the effort to minimize the mega-terrorist threat. As Ken Booth and Tim Dunne point out, the attacks on America are known around the world simply by reference to 11 September, a moment in time, and not by reference to place, which had been characteristic of disjunctive events in the modern era: consider Munich, Pearl Harbor, the Berlin Wall.1 Part of the waning of modernity involves this displacement of space by time, with a large part of the empire-building enterprise designed to control the future rather than to colonize specific units in space. Within the frame of the argument set forth here, the 11 September label amounts to a post-modern signature that confirms the view that the imagery of borderless war is appropriate, with the idea of border referring primarily to space, but in this sense also to time. As has been noted by Howard Zinn, Gore Vidal and others, the Bush delineation of the war goals amount to the declaration of perpetual war, or worse, a crusading war of extermination directed at all that is designated as evil in this world by Washington policy-makers. This chapter will proceed first to examine the case for recourse to war against Afghanistan and beyond, and then consider the empire-building perspective as delineated by George W.Bush, particularly in the speech given to graduating cadets at West Point in June 2002.

48 IDENTIFYING LIMITS ON A BORDERLESS MAP

THE CASE FOR ‘WAR’ War is designated as ‘war’ to call attention to the double reality: there exists a patriotic climate of ultra-nationalism and mobilization of attention and resources that resembles war as traditionally understood, and there have been combat operations undertaken in various settings, especially up to now in Afghanistan. At the same time, the threat posed cannot be treated as subject to elimination by denying it the use of specific territory, or primarily by relying on military tactics and battlefield results. A reconfiguration of psycho-political space seems like the only assured path to victory in this war, which would have the effect of confining the appeal of visionary politics and establish the credibility of more constructive means than mega-terrorism to fulfill religious and cultural aspirations. And so the template of war as it was understood in modernity, needs to be drastically adapted to the template of post-modernity. At the same time, despite this effort, the novelty of this challenge to the idea of modernist war should not be overstated. Transnational wars of liberation and resistance that became so prominent in the course of decolonization prefigured the new struggles associated with global networks and hegemonic states: the Vietnam War was mainly won by the Vietnamese off the battlefield, even though the stakes of the conflict were the control and borders of a traditional sovereign state. As stated at the outset, the need for a prompt and effective American response is taken for granted, given the gravity of the harm inflicted on 11 September by the form of an armed attack, the persistence of the threat posed by the proclaimed intentions and apocalyptic leadership of Osama Bin Laden, the demonstrated capability of al-Qaida to carry out such missions in the future, the dramatic failures of prior reliance on law enforcement techniques to apprehend and punish, and most of all, to deter perpetrators of major terrorist acts, and the inadequacy of intelligence warnings and preventive actions by governmental security agencies to provide societal protection. In essence, it would have been impossible for the government of the United States to retain its legitimacy and credibility with the American people (and elsewhere) if it had not responded as effectively as possible to the 11 September attacks. Indeed, it is a modernist imperative that sovereign states lose their viability as soon as their capacity to provide basic security against external and internal attacks is undermined. Particularly a large and dominant state, such as the United States, which devotes such major resources to its military and intelligence capabilities, and was widely accepted as a global leader, was under great pressure to act decisively in the face of such unprecedented attacks on its homeland. The only open question was how to translate this need for action on behalf of security into policy directives that would be effective against the distinctive reality of this entirely new kind of enemy. Al-Qaida was not an enemy state, but was constituted as a ‘network’ with an operational ‘presence’ in 60 or more countries, including quite possibly the United States, and an apparent ability to shift invisibly its locus of its operations depending on circumstances, without much regard to international boundaries.


Al-Qaida was never formally or openly associated with any particular state or geographical area, even Afghanistan; it was a network superimposed on the territorial organization of world order, operating on the basis of flows of information, money, and weapons. This organizational form had been pioneered by corporations and bans entering the world economy and by criminal syndicates seeking a multinational base of operations. The novelty of al-Qaida was to fuse this networked organization to a messianic mission. The early decision by the Bush administration to launch a war against Afghanistan, as the first phase of an effective response, was politically almost inevitable, and generally convincing as an immediate priority. There seemed to be strong evidence of the presence of Bin Laden and al-Qaida headquarters in Afghanistan, a presence facilitated and supported by the Taliban regime. This regime was the embodiment of the most severe variant of Islam ever introduced into the governing process of a modern state, and it was this oppressive model of Islamic life that evidently represented the visionary goal of al-Qaida terrorist activity for the entire Muslim world. The Taliban leadership was symbiotically linked to al-Qaida and its leadership. Osama Bin Laden has been quoted on several occasions as expressing his admiration for Taliban-style rule as correctly embodying and prefiguring a desired Islamic political order. There have also been several journalistic assessments—including by Ahmed Rashid, the respected author of Taliban —of the degree to which Mullah Mohammed Omar has accepted the visionary orientation toward the United States articulated by Osama Bin Laden.2 As of late December 2001, the Afghanistan War has met its main early stated objectives, and seemingly reduced significantly al-Qaida’s capabilities to engage in global terrorism and seriously tarnished its image of being an organization that was a credible opponent of the United States in the context of a military and civilizational encounter. Although the US Government did not rely on a rationale of humanitarian intervention, a beneficial side-effect of its military operations has been to emancipate the peoples of Afghanistan from cruel and brutal rule, with improved opportunities of rescue from immediate threats of mass starvation and the deeper conditions of extreme poverty that afflict most of the population, having been worsened by 25 years of war. As this prior set of conditions in Afghanistan seemed irrelevant to the decision to supersede the Taliban, it can be questioned as to whether the provisionally positive effects on the country should be taken into account in evaluating the arguments pro and contra the war itself. I would maintain that beneficial (or detrimental) effects are relevant, particularly in the face of criticism about civilian casualties and the absence of a convincing legal link between the 11 September attacks and Taliban responsibility. The changes brought about in Afghanistan have by no means extinguished the 11 September threat, but it has at the very least decisively weakened al-Qaida’s capacity for mega-terrorist activities originating from the one location in the world where al-Qaida presence was manifest. It was this presence in Afghanistan that made it seem highly reasonable to attribute responsibility to this particular


sovereign state for al-Qaida mega-terrorism, thereby vindicating recourse to war against it. The goals of this war were not only to destroy al-Qaida presence and weaken its overall capabilities, but to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden and as much of the leadership as possible. It was also a plausible extension of the international law right of self-defense to set out to end Taliban rule in Afghanistan and replacing it with a government that would not allow its territory to be used as a base for global terrorism. The prospect that Afghanistan in the future would be more likely to respect the basic human rights of its people is an incidental benefit not directly relevant to the rationale for war. Unfortunately, this encroachment on the sovereign rights of Afghanistan took place without a specific mandate from the United Nations Security Council, and without much evident consideration and public explanation by the US Government about such casualties was not an official priority, especially when compared with the huge attention given to individual Americans who died or were wounded in the combat theatre, even as a result of accidents. Secondly, there seemed to be little effort by the United States to use its influence to ensure that its Afghan allies on the ground acted in accordance with the international law of war when dealing with their domestic adversaries. The American role in failing to restrain Northern Alliance forces from massacring Taliban prisoners of war, especially in the course of controlling the makeshift prison at Mazar-eSharif has been criticized by respected European journalistic observers, and the criticism seems convincing.3 A BROADER MANDATE? Where the ‘just war’ framework seems most relevant to interpreting the megaterrorist challenge is with respect to the pursuit of just goals, and the extent to which these goals are validated by their genuine linkage to the just cause associated with an effective response to the al-Qaida threat. In this context, the ongoing debate within American government and think tanks about the military extension of the war to Iraq illustrates the problem. To wage war against Iraq seems to widen the agenda beyond the al-Qaida threats to encompass countries that are treated as hostile to the United States, and potentially capable of possessing and possibly using weaponry of mass destruction. Whether any kind of genuine Iraqi military threat to neighbors exists is questionable, but to the extent that it does, it is not a threat that can be linked to the mega-terrorist campaign waged against the United States. It is arguable that at some point Iraq will be capable of mounting a regional threat against Saudi Arabia and Israel as a result of its acquisition of weaponry of mass destruction, but such claims seem implausible. It should be recalled that Iraq at full strength in the 1980s was stymied by Iran caught up in revolutionary turmoil, and that after a decade of sanctions the Iraqi military capability of Iraq is one-third of what it was a decade ago.4


Iraq behaves as a normal country in the sense of being deterable by retaliatory threats, and has been ‘kept in its box’ since the end of the Gulf War. Besides, there are many problems associated with an American recourse to war against Iraq: it would not likely be supported by a global or regional consensus, it would likely cause widespread devastation and much loss of life, it would divert energies and weaken diplomatic and intelligence efforts to destroy the al-Qaida cells dispersed around the world, and it would exhibit a disrespect for sovereign rights and for prohibitions on recourse to war contained in the UN Charter and modern international law. It should be emphasized that the core rule bearing on the use of force is that recourse to war is only justified if a matter of self-defense, and that self-defense is restricted legally to a proportionate response to a prior armed attack. Without an Iraqi attack, self-defense cannot be properly claimed. And unlike al-Qaida, Iraq as a territorial state, does not pose a challenge that makes preventive and anticipatory action of a pre-emptive nature justifiable. Going to war against Iraq would also produce domestic turmoil in the United States, especially if the war caused heavy casualties and was not quickly ended. Such a development would also end the impressive degree of international unity supporting the American response to al-Qaida, and awaken suspicions in the Islamic world that an inter-civilizational war was underway despite the reassurances of American leaders to the contrary. The most plausible interpretation of just goals would limit post-Afghanistan operations to the nonmilitary domain of intelligence operations, cooperative law enforcement, diplomatic leverage, and financial interdiction. In these undertakings the efforts would be directed toward both the identification and destruction of al-Qaida cells, allowing for some blurred boundaries between what is al-Qaida, and other political organizations that share al-Qaida visionary goals and methods. Such efforts would contribute to the counter-terrorist objective of restoring American security and weakening terrorist operations of ‘global reach’. For this reason, a second limitation of great importance would be to refrain from efforts to destroy political movements that engage in armed struggles associated with limited, national ends. One thinks here, of course, first of Hamas and Hezbollah. Hamas, in particular, has openly avowed suicidal attacks on Israeli civilian targets, and has caused great loss of life, as well as generated acute anxiety related to future attacks. But here the context is one in which Israel has also directed its military power in such a way as to wage war against civilian Palestinian society in a manner that relies on modes of violence that are flagrant violations of international humanitarian law and are best conceived of as a species of terrorism undertaken by a state. The best evidence of this Israeli violence is the numbers of Palestinian women and children killed in recent months, which far outweighs the number of Israeli victims of the suicide bombers. Such an assertion is not meant to excuse the violence on either side, but it does call attention to the need for action on both sides if the issue of terrorism is to be constructively addressed.


Hezbollah’s main violence was directed at dislodging the Israeli army of occupation in Southern Lebanon that remained illegally present since 1982. Such uses of force do not qualify as terrorism by most accepted definitions, and are certainly not to be confused with the transnational mega-terrorism of 11 September. To suppress Hamas/Hezbollah in the setting of the unresolved Israel/ Palestine dispute is to frustrate still further the Palestinian struggle to achieve self-determination, and it would certainly feed the anti-American resentment that already abounds in the Arab world. As a result, it might actually increase the threats of future anti-American terrorism, as well as confuse public opinion about the portion of the American response that was justified and necessary. These adverse impressions are made more likely by the refusal of the United States to mount any serious opposition to Israeli military operations that produce such great suffering for Palestinian civilian society, inducing the despair and extremism that is then translated into terrorist action by militants. At this point, although the US government is keenly aware of the non-military aspects of responding effectively to 11 September, it has focused almost all public attention on its military response. Such a focus has made considerable sense in relation to Afghanistan, but will not subsequently. And months later, the reports from Afghanistan and Pakistan of aftereffects casts some doubt on earlier victory claims. It now appears that al-Qaida and Taliban forces, while conceding control of the State, were never fully defeated, and may yet regroup to fight on another day. It also seems that their most prominent leaders are mostly alive and in hiding. Beyond this, the pro-American Mushareff government in Pakistan has been badly destabilized as a consequence of its siding with the US in the region, and may well be replaced by a far less cooperative leadership. The US Government has consistently emphasized the effectiveness of its response, mainly without even bothering to acknowledge the relevance off limits. The White House has encouraged a surge of patriotism that is resistant to self-criticism. As a result, there is some tendency to downplay the risks of an American military over-reaction, as well as a disposition to neglect the challenge of the deeper roots of terrorism. Influential pundit-scholars, most notably Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami, have argued that weak resolve by the United States in the past has encouraged terrorists to take bolder action, and that the best mode of response is one that exhibits a maximal resolve.4 But this kind of approach mirrors Osama Bin Laden’s outlook, and could quickly plunge the world into the enduring darkness of an inter-civilizational struggle. We can and must act to avoid this bleak outcome, and yet not lose sight of the mega-terrorist menace, and what can be done to protect against it. This line of analysis suggests that the response to 11 September in the postAfghanistan phases should substitute police methods for war and a reliance on military methods. The military instrument is too blunt, too premised on seeking out and destroying a territorial adversary, and too indifferent to the political surroundings giving rise to mega-terrorist undertakings. The fundamental tactical mistake after Afghanistan has been to push the war against global terror into a


statist template despite the non-territorial character of the al-Qaida network. This mistake has been most manifest in the effort by the Bush administration to shift the main theater of combat to the rogue states (also called the ‘Axis of Evil’ countries) despite the lack of significant linkage to the mega-terrorist threat. Such a shift reflects the widening of the American foreign policy agenda beyond the prevention of future terrorism to the implementation of a project to achieve a durable form of global dominance. Indeed, the originality of this historical moment is the acute tension between these moves toward global dominance and the 11 September exposure of acute American vulnerability to attack by a nonstate network animated by extremist goals. George W. Bush’s speeches provide many texts for the study of this interface between war against terrorism and American geopolitical ambitions, but none is more revealing than the address given to graduating cadets at West Point in June 2002. President Bush’s West Point address has mainly attracted attention so far because it is an especially full articulation of a new American strategic doctrine of pre-emption. The radical idea being touted by the White House and Pentagon is that the United States claims the right to attack militarily any state that is seen as hostile, and makes moves to acquire weaponry of mass destruction, whether nuclear, biological, or chemical. The obvious initial test case for pre-emption is Iraq, which is being continuously threatened with an American attack to achieve a regime change, either on the model of the displacement of the Taliban in Afghanistan, or proceeding differently. Washington’s war plans have been blatant, although apparently not yet been finalized, and whether the intimations of war, despite the numerous objections having been voiced by neighboring governments and European allies, are to be taken literally is still somewhat uncertain.5 What is certain, and scary, is a new approach to the use of international force that is being adopted by the United States beneath the banner of counter-terrorism and in the domestic climate of fervent nationalism that has existed in America since the 11 September attacks. This new approach repudiates the core idea of the United Nations Charter (reinforced by decisions of the World Court in The Hague), which is a prohibition of any use of international force that is not undertaken in self-defense after the occurrence of an armed attack across an international boundary or pursuant to a decision by the UN Security Council. When Iraq conquered and annexed Kuwait in 1990, even without any UN authorization, Kuwait was legally entitled to act in self-defense to recover its territorial sovereignty. And the United States and others were able to join Kuwait in bolstering its prospects, thereby acting in what international lawyers call collective self-defense. Back in 1956 when the American commitment to this Charter effort to limit the discretion of states to the extent possible was still strong, the US Government surprised its allies and adversaries, by opposing the Suez Operation of Britain, France, and Israel because it was a non-defensive use of force against Egypt despite the provocations associated at the time with Nasser’s anti-Israeli, anti-West militancy, including allowing Egyptian territory


to be used as a base area for launching trans-border attacks against Israel. This legal commitment had been evolved by stages in the period after World War I, and when the surviving leaders of Germany and Japan were prosecuted for war crimes. At Nuremberg, Crimes Against the Peace, were declared worse even than the atrocities committed in the course of the war. The task of the Charter was to give this rejection of war-making as clear guidelines as possible, which explains why international force is prohibited in general as a security option of states (Article 2(4)), with the single exception a clearly delimited right of self-defense (Article 51). In the mid-1980s, for instance, when the United States claimed that Sandinista efforts to help overthrow the existing government in El Salvador allowed it to act in collective self-defence, a strong majority of the World Court refused to accept the argument. At the time this judicial response angered and embarrassed the Reagan White House to the extent that it withdrew in pique its acceptance of the compulsory jurisdiction of the World Court, and has never tried to adopt a more constructive stance. In this sense, American refusal to conduct its foreign policy in conformity to the UN Charter and international law is not new. What is new is extending its claims to initiate a major war without any pretense of responding in the spirit of self-defense, and doing so, in defiance of world public opinion as well as international law as generally understood. Pre-emption, in contrast, validates striking first, not in a crisis, as was done by Israel with plausible, yet contested, justification in the 1967 War when enemy Arab troops were massing on its borders after dismissing the UN war-preventing presence. Whether an Arab attack was contemplated remains controversial to this day, but Israeli claims of anticipatory self-defense seemed reasonable given all the surrounding circumstance. In contrast, the Bush doctrine rests its claims on shadowy intentions, alleged potential links to terrorist groups, supposed plans and projects to acquire and transfer weaponry of mass destruction, and anticipations of possible future dangers. It is a doctrine without limits, without accountability to the UN or international law, without any dependence on a collective judgment of responsible governments, and, what is worse, without any convincing demonstration of practical necessity. It is true that the reality of the mega-terrorist challenge requires some rethinking of the relevance of rules and restraints based on conflict in a world of territorial states. The most radical aspects of the al-Qaida challenge are a result of its non-territorial, concealed organizational reality as a multi-state network. Modern geopolitics was framed to cope with conflict and relations among sovereign states; the capacity of a network with modest resources to attack and wage a devastating type of war against the largest state does require an acknowledgement of a different structure of security that will need to be constructed by a post-modern geopolitics. Post-modernity refers here to preoccupations that can no longer reduced to their territorial dimensions. This contrasts with ‘modernity’ born internationally in 1648 at the Peace of Westphalia with the emergence of the secular sovereign state, and a world


politics that could be understood by reference to territorial ambitions and defense. The 11 September didn’t initiate post-modern geopolitics. Globalization did, with its shift in the locus of authority from state to market, its reliance on non-territorial information technology to coordinate behavior on a global scale, and the prominence accorded such non-state arenas of authority as the World Economic Forum. What Osama Bin Laden and George W.Bush did was to give post-modern geopolitics a turn toward war and conflict, back to issues of conquest, violence, and security. On the Bin Laden side the focus was on nonterritorial empowerment via mega-terrorism, tactics designed to realize through struggle a culminating vision of an Islamic umma replacing the modern, Westerninspired structure of distinct sovereign states. On the Bush side the emphasis was on carrying the retaliatory war to the networked enemy concealed in some 60 countries, while taking the opportunity to declare war on all those non-state forces around the world that were engaged in armed struggle, that is, a war without a territorial enemy and waged in disregard of international law and outside the purview of the United Nations, which are from this perspective outmoded modernist modes of global governance. Establishing a new kind of American-led non-territorial global empire provided the framework for US global ambitions; there is nothing new about pursuing imperial ambitions. What is new and innovative, is seeking empire, in the sense of control and dominance, without territorial expansion, and on a scale that encompasses the entire planet. To respond to the threat of mega-terrorism does validate some stretching of international law to accommodate the reasonable security needs of sovereign states. Prior cross-border military reactions to transnational terrorism over the years by the United States, India, Israel, and others, were generally tolerated by the UN and international public opinion because they seem proportionate and necessary in relation to the threats posed, and the use of force relied upon was in its essence reactive, not anticipatory. International law was bent to serve these practical imperatives of security, but not broken. However, the Bush doctrine of pre-emption goes much further, encroaching on highly dangerous terrain. It claims a right to abandon prudent rules of restraint, and of law, patiently developed over the course of centuries, governing the use of force in relation to territorial states, not networks. To propose abandoning the core legal restraint on international force in relations among states is to misread the challenge of 11 September. It permits states to use force non-defensively against their enemies, thereby creating a dreadful precedent for the future. There is every reason to think that ‘containment’ and ‘deterrence’ remain effective ways to approach a state that threatens unwarranted expansion. There is no evidence to suggest that Iraq cannot be deterred. On the contrary, the whole pattern of Iraqi behavior in relation to its war against in Iran in the 1980s, as well as its conquest and annexation of Kuwait in 1990, were based on a rational calculation of gains and losses that when proved incorrect, led in the Gulf War to a reversal of policy, withdrawal and an acceptance of international demands. Brutal and oppressive as is the regime in Iraq, it was accepted until 1990 as a geopolitical


ally of the United States. As a state, under Saddam Hussein’s rule Iraq has acted and behaved normally for a state that seeks to exert regional influence, ruthlessly seeking opportunities for expansion, but retreating and acquiescing under pressure. Iraq is surrounded and threatened by superior force, and any attempt to lash out at neighbours or others would almost certainly result in the immediate and total destruction of Iraq, which would mean the end of Saddam Hussein and his regime. There is no reason whatsoever to think that deterrence and containment will not succeed in relation to Iraq, even should Baghdad manage to acquire some amount of biological, chemical, or nuclear weaponry. Deterrence and containment succeeded in relation to the Soviet Union for more than four decades under far more demanding circumstances. If considered objectively, Iraq at present is far more threatened than threatening. It is likely that its acquisition of weapons of mass destruction is intended mainly for defensive purposes, to deter the very attack upon its political independence that is being so openly threatened by the United States in recent months. Such threats are themselves flagrant violations of the Charter conception of relations among sovereign states, as threats to use force are explicitly prohibited. What is at stake with pre-emption, as tied to the ‘Axis of Evil’ imagery, is more hidden and sinister. What is feared in Washington, I think, is not aggressive moves by these countries, but their acquisition of weaponry of mass destruction that might give them a deterrent capability with respect to the United States, and others. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has enjoyed the luxury of being undeterred in world politics. It is this circumstance that makes the Bush ‘unilateralism’ particularly disturbing to other countries, and needs to be understood in relation to the moves of the Pentagon, contained in a report leaked in December 2001, to increase US reliance on nuclear weaponry in a variety of strategic circumstances. At West Point Bush declared with moral fervor that ‘[o] ur enemies…have been caught seeking these terrible weapons’. It never occurs to our leaders that these weapons are no less terrible when acquired by the United States, especially when their use is explicitly contemplated as a sensible policy option, and given the recollection that the United States has never to this day apologized for the use of atomic bombs against Japanese cities in 1945. There is every reason for others to fear that when the USA is undeterred it will become again subject to ‘the Hiroshima temptation’, to threaten and use such weapons for military and strategic advantages in the absence of any prospect of retaliation. And Bush goes further, combining empire with utopia, reminding his West Point audience that: The twentieth century ended with a single surviving model of human progress based on non-negotiable demands of human dignity, the rule of law, limits on the power of the state, respect for women and private property and free speech and equal justic and religious tolerance.


The clear intention is to suggest that America is the embodiment of this model. And while Bush does concede that ‘America cannot impose this vision’, he does propose that it ‘can support and reward governments that the right choices for their own people’, and presumably punish those that don’t. Not only does the United States claim a right of global dominance, but it also professes to have the final answers for societal well-being, seeming to forget its homeless, its crowded and expanding prisons, its urban blight, and countless other domestic reminders that we may not be the best of all possible worlds, and especially not, for all possible peoples. This vision of post-modern geopolitics is underwritten by a now familiar strong message of evangelical moralism. Bush notes that ‘[s]ome worry that it is somehow undiplomatic or impolite to speak the language of right and wrong. I disagree’, and adds, ‘[m]oral truth is the same in every culture, in every time, in every place’. Such moral absolutism is then applied to the current global realities. Bush insists that: [W]e are in a conflict between good and evil, and America will call evil by its name. By confronting evil and lawless regimes we do not create a problem, we reveal a problem. And we will lead the world in opposing it. Aside from occupying the moral high ground, which exempts America from selfcriticism or from addressing the grievances others have with respect to our policies, such sentiments imply a repudiation of dialogue and negotiation. As there can be no acceptable compromise with the forces of evil, there can be no reasonable restraint on the forces of good. We may lament fundamentalism in the Islamic world and decry the fulminations of Osama Bin Laden, but what about our own? In contemplating this geopolitical vision for the future, one wonders about what happened to presidential candidate Bush’s rhetoric about the importance of ‘humility’ in depicting America’s role in the world. Of course, he was then trying to downsize the humanitarian diplomacy attributed (mostly wrongly) to Clinton/ Gore, but the contrast in tone and substance is still striking. One wonders whether the heady atmosphere of the Oval Office has fed these geopolitical dreams, or whether our president, so known for his lack of foreign policy knowledge, has been manipulated into a crusading mode by bureaucratic hawks who seized the opportunity so tragically provided by 11 September. In fairness, many influential Americans share this dream of a borderless global empire, but adopt less forthright language. For instance, the respected military commentator, Eliot Cohen, writing in a recent issue of Foreign Affairs, suggests that: [I]n the twenty-first century, characterized like the European Middle Ages by a universal (if problematic) high culture with a universal language, the US military plays an extraordinary and inimitable role. It has become,


whether Americans or others like it or not, the ultimate guarantor of international order.7 To make such an assertion without apology or justification is to say, in effect, that the imperial role of the United States is no longer in doubt, or even subject to useful debate. To acknowledge that it makes no difference whether Americans or others support this destiny is to reveal the fallen condition of democracy and the irrelevance of international public opinion. Along similar lines of presupposition, Stephen Biddle, in the same issue of Foreign Affairs, observes in relation to the problems of the Balkans and, specifically, Kosovo that ‘Americans do well in crusades’ but ‘they are not suited to the dirty work of imperial policing to secure second- or third-tier interest’.8 Such an outlook makes the fact of an American global empire a foregone conclusion, and it is significant that Foreign Affairs has itself recently used its influential pages to endorse this shift from an era of globalization to an era of American global dominance.9 Such a line of interpretation has also been supported by such prominent British historians as Paul Kennedy and Niall Ferguson, who compare the American imperial prospect with that of past empires, reinforcing the argument that no prior empire possessed such comprehensive dominance.10 But pre-emption and double standards were not the only troubling features of this post-modern geopolitical outlook outlined in the West Point speech. There is, first of all, the issue of global dominance, a project to transform world order from its current assemblage of sovereign states in the direction of a post-modern (that is, non-territorial) global empire administered from Washington. Bush misleadingly assured the graduating cadets that ‘America has no empire to extend or utopia to establish’, and then went on to describe precisely such undertakings. The President mentions that rivalries of the past among states have arisen because of their efforts to compete with one another, but insists that the future will be different because of American military superiority: ‘America has, and intends to keep, military strengths beyond challenge, thereby making the destabilizing arms races of other eras pointless, and limiting rivalries to trade and other pursuits of peace’. The worldview here is breathtaking, and overtly imperial, nothing less than to remind all states that the era of self-help security is essentially over, that America is the global gendarme, and that other states should devote their energies to economic and peaceful pursuits, leaving overall security, and the identification and punishment of enemies, in Washington’s hands. One can only wonder at the reaction of foreign ministries around the world, say in Paris or Beijing, when confronted by this language that dramatically diminishes traditional sovereign rights, as well as by the reinforcing moves to scrap the ABM Treaty, to build a missile defense shield, to plan for the weaponization of space, and to dictate to the UN conditions for peacekeeping operations that exempt American personnel for accountability to the International Criminal Court.


Whether it is Bush at West Point, or the more sedate writings of the American foreign policy elite writing for each other, or for that matter intelligent and progressive criticism, we must proceed from the post-modern need to address a menacing non-state adversary concealed in a network that is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere. These new circumstances definitely call for new thinking that adapts international law and global security to these new challenges in an effective and constructive manner. But the adjustments called for by Bush do not meet the specific challenge of mega-terrorism, and unleash a variety of dangerous forces. Instead, what is needed is new thinking that sees the United States as part of a global community that is seeking to find appropriate ways to restore security and confidence, but builds on existing frameworks of just war, legal restraints and works toward a more robust United Nations, and does not claim for itself an imperial role to make up and enforce the rules of world politics as it goes along. Given the bipartisan gridlock that has gripped the United States since 11 September, positive forms of new thinking will almost certainly come, if it comes, from pressures exerted by the citizenry situated abroad and in the United States outside of Washington. As citizens everywhere we have never faced a more urgent duty to make this happen. NOTES 1 See Ken Booth and Tim Dunne (eds), Worlds in Collision: Terror and the Future of Global Order (London: Palgrave, 2002), p. 1. 2 See Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000); see also Roland Jacquard, In the Name of Osama Bin Laden: Global Terrorism and the Bin Laden Brotherhood (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), esp. pp. 37–53; and Peter Begen, Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World Osama bin Laden (New York, NY, 2001), esp. pp. 143–66. 3 For representative European expressions of concern see Adam Roberts, ‘Crisis in Kunduz: The Coalition Must Make It Clear That Surrendering Troops Will Be Treated Humanely’, The Guardian, 24 November 2001 (www.guardian.co.uk/ comment/story/ 0,3604,605132,00.html); Editorial Board, World Socialist Website, ‘US War Crime in Afghanistan: Hundreds of Prisoners of War Slaughtered at Mazar-I-Sharif’, 27 November 2001; Editorial, ‘America’s Killing Hour’, Wall Street Journal, 21 November 2001. 4. For this assessment offered by a think tank specialist advocating war against Iraq, see Ranan R.Lurie, ‘Don’t Dither as Hussein Builds Nuclear Devices’, LA Times, 9 July 2002, p. B13. 5. See Bernard Lewis, ‘The Revolt of Islam’, The New Yorker, 19 November 2001, pp. 50–63, esp. pp. 60–3; Lewis, ‘Did You Say “American Imperialism?”’, National Review, 17 October 2001, pp. 26–30. Fouad Ajami, ‘The Uneasy Imperium: Pax Americana in the Middle East’, in James F.Hoge, Jr and Gideon Rose (eds), How Did This Happen? Terrorism and the New War (New York, NY: Public Affairs, 2001), pp. 15–30.


6. Washington has been blowing the trumpets of war loudly. See Eric Schmitt, ‘US Plan for Iraq is Said to Include Attack on Three Sides’, NY Times, 5 July 2002, pp. Al, A6. 7. Eliot A.Cohen, ‘A Tale of Two Secretaries’, Foreign Affairs, 81, 3 (May/June 2002), pp. 33–46, esp. p. 46. For an even more forthright statement on America’s imperial destiny see Thomas Donnelly, ‘The Past as Prologue: An Imperial Manual’, Foreign Affairs, 82, 4 (July/August 2002), pp. 165–70. 8. Stephen Biddle, ‘The New Way of War? Debating the Kosovo Model’, Foreign Affairs, 81, 3 (May/June 2002), pp. 138–44, esp. p. 139. 9. The most comprehensive account, although avoiding the language of empire, was highlighted as lead article. See Stephen G.Brooks and William C.Wohlworth, ‘American Primacy in Perspective’, Foreign Affairs, 81,4 (July/August 2002), pp. 20–33. 10. See Paul Kennedy, ‘Maintaining American Power: From Injury to Recovery’, in Strobe Talbott and Nayan Chandra (eds), The Age of Terror: America and the World After September 11 (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2001), pp. 53–79 and Niall Ferguson, ‘Clashing Civilizations or Mad Mullahs: The United States Between Informal and Formal Empire’, Ibid., pp. 115–41.

5 War, Terror, Judgement R.B.J.WALKER

The most profound challenges provoked by the suicidal and murderous assault on the Twin Towers in Lower Manhattan and the Pentagon in Washington, DC, have been made to prevailing accounts of political judgement. What are we to make of these dramatic acts of violence? On what grounds were we able to make sense of them, to fit them into established expectations about how the world was unfolding after the turn of the millennium? On what grounds were we able to respond to them as challenges to prevailing accounts of legitimate political action: as acts of violence that, while contravening most people’s sense of the general illegitimacy of violence, nevertheless occurred in a world in which most people’s lives ultimately rest on a willingness, sometimes tacit, sometimes explicit, to deploy violence on an even greater scale than we saw on one stunning day in September? On what grounds were we encouraged to make sense of them by the narratives that, after a day or so of frantic conceptual scrambling, began to cohere in the official briefings and newsrooms? On what grounds are we now able to reflect on our ability to respond to the place of violence in contemporary political life given the capacities for violence and counter-violence expressed in this specific series of events? Many responses to such questions have been offered by political actors and commentators across the spectrum of established political and ethical debates. Thankfully, not all have been as crude as those used to justify the military action taken by the Bush, Blair and many other governments. Nor, also thankfully, has it been easy to attain credibility by articulating equally crude indictments of these governments’ violent responses to violence. Unless one has been entirely blind to the conflicting and conflictual patterns of contemporary world events, or prepared to accept the extraordinary self-righteousness expressed both in these specific events and in most of the official reactions to them, our responses to all this violence necessarily draws us into some very difficult questions about the grounds on which we now make political judgements, or have our judgements made for us by those who claim all authority to make political judgements. In some places at least, the recourse to easy moralisms on any side of the debate has become a sure sign of political and ethical bankruptcy. I take this to be one of the few positive things that can be said in relation to these events and their immediate aftermath. Yet, while we may be cautiously positive about the degree

62 WAR, TERROR, JUDGEMENT

to which many people have been able to resist the easy moralisms preferred by so many political elites, finding any kind of secure ground on which to develop more responsible political judgements has become very difficult, both in relation to this specific set of events and to the dynamics of the contemporary international/global (dis)order more generally. First, some of the more difficult questions we now confront are familiar and have long made modern thinkers a little uncomfortable; though perhaps not uncomfortable enough. They grow out of established accounts of assumptions about the necessity and ethical legitimacy of violence in a world of modern sovereign states. They rest ultimately on the fundamental hypocrisy, the institutionalized double standards, through which the modern world in general, and liberals in particular, have tried to make claims about universal standards of truth and justice while defending their own nation-state’s parochial claim to truth and justice. God, or civilization, or virtue is always on someone’s side, and we have come to know all too well what this means for those who are not. Second, some have to do with the difficulty of interpreting the structural dynamics of power and authority in the contemporary global order. The Bushes and the Blairs may speak as if they are acting in a world of sovereign states, and shape their rhetoric accordingly, but we, and they, know enough about globalization, militarization and inequalities on a global scale to discount their rhetoric; though probably not enough to come up with a more coherent account of a world that has become much too complex to comprehend in the simplistic categories of the speech-writers and international relations textbooks. Third, consequently, even those who are used to dealing in the established hypocrisies of modern political life find themselves in difficulty attempting to respond to the events of 11 September on the basis of forms of internationalism that—while especially popular among statesmen, lawyers, academics and commentators in Europe and many other places— seem to rest on assumptions about how the world is organized politically that don’t quite fit most people’s instincts about what is going on. This is where the difficulties of judgement are most intense. Whatever the specificities of 11 September, they have to be understood as part of a broader pattern of events that express profound challenges to established accounts of legitimate violence in a system of modern sovereign states. These challenges are not new. Nevertheless, the kind of crisis precipitated by the dramas of that day offer a degree of insight into processes many people vaguely sense yet elude even the most sophisticated forms of political analysis. Groping in the blinding light of new world orders, unfolding globalizations, a new liberal peace and an apparently victorious civilization, a flash of darkness exposes new pacts with violence, and still more violence. Here I want to make some brief comments about each of these three sources of uncertainty about our grounds for judgment before concluding with an even briefer comment about the relationship between the difficulty of making judgments in this case and a broader set of concerns about the possibility of meaningful political practice under contemporary—perhaps hegemonic, perhaps


quasi-imperial, in some respects quite familiar but in others quite perplexing— conditions. Many judgments have been articulated about the significance of the specific events of 11 September, some wise, some quite irresponsible. Judgments about these judgments vary. In my view, wisdom has generally combined some sense of a tradition of internationalism with a sense that these specific events must be placed in some broader historical and structural context, while irresponsiblity has been cloaked in the familiar garb of nationalist hypocrisy masquerading as universal morality. In the end, however, much of the difficulty of making judgements in this case arise from a broader fragility in the established internationalist consensus and from patterns of historical-structural transformation that have been challenging established accounts of legitimate authority for quite some time. MODERN HYPOCRISIES The attacks on New York and Washington rightly provoked outrage in most, though not all, places. Indeed, for many people, the grounds for judgement were as clear and firm as can be imagined. For most Americans, hit for the first time with such violence within their own territories, and on such symbols of political power and authority, outrage remains the only serious ground for judgement. In the USA, especially, political judgement has been powerfully shaped by an elemental ethic of revenge. This ethic has been amplified by crudely manipulative mass media, by profound incomprehension among many, but certainly not all, Americans of their effects on the wider world, by a variety of distinctively American cultural traits, and by the mobilization of nationalist and patriotic sentiments in a daunting exercise in something like state-building. This ethic has in turn served to legitimize massive displays of military and diplomatic power and to delegitimize any politics that challenge the sovereign decisions of the Bush regime. There is no doubt that at that specific moment of crisis, and for some months thereafter, politics was condensed to an awesome decisionism: a decisionism, it must be said, that recalls all too many of the worst moments of twentieth-century history. An emergency was declared, an enemy was defined, violence was unleashed; democracy was once again subordinated to the claimed necessities of state. Still, political life is never so simple, even in a state of emergency, and even for what looks like the greatest of Great Powers. What kind of emergency was this? And for whom? What kind of decision was made, what kind of violence was unleashed, with what kind of ambition, and what kind of legitimacy? As many commentators noted almost immediately, events like this do not appear through magic or devilry. They are episodes in a broader series of events, processes, stmctures, necessities and freedoms. Decisions that respond to the specific event alone risk a loss of political judgment and its replacement with, in the terms Max Weber used to capture the defining contradiction of modern political life at the end of the First World War, an ethics of commitment.1


Unsurprisingly, the primary critical responses to the immediate ethics of revenge that seemed to drive the Bush regime was to contextualise, to draw attention to other outrageous displays of violence, many with explicit and brutally unapologetic American involvement. They sought to unravel various patterns of historical and structural causation that might somehow explain the violence that simply did not make sense to many people except in the religious categories of good and evil: categories that privilege a theology of saved and damned over all the political categories that the modern world has constructed so carefully so as to avoid the degeneration of politics into wars of religion and ethical conviction. Here we get right to the heart of the problem. Appeals to self-righteous conviction have long been understood to be effective ways of mobilizing support for political ends, especially in moments of crisis. Yet, at least since the end of the seventeenth-century wars of religion in Europe, even since the emergence of Renaissance humanism challenged the primacy of religious authority in the name of a secular political community, one of the primary ambitions of modern politics has been to avoid the reduction of politics to any simple ethics of conviction. This is why the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 at the end of the Thirty Years War, a war fought primarily on religious grounds, is so often seen as the basic founding moment of modern international relations. Wars of religion are said to be especially nasty, and modern accounts of international relations are predicated on the assumption that it is possible to ameliorate their nastiness by constructing purely secular institutions and forms of statecraft resting on more prosaic forms of self-interest and pragmatic accommodation. In practice, of course, religious or quasi-religious sentiments have often threatened to swamp a purely secular power politics. Both nationalism and the ideological struggles of the Cold War period expressed very powerful even though secularized forms of religious conviction and self-righteousness, bringing extraordinary levels of violence and militarisation to societies that prided themselves on their civilization and enlightenment. Modern secular life is not immune to the dynamics of self-righteousness usually associated with religious conflicts. The twentieth-century experience of mass destruction offers an awesome warning to all those shameless commentators who offered simplistic accounts of Islam as the source of all contemporary troubles or who tried to pretend that liberal modernity has not been complicit with violence. Nevertheless, the hopes of modern internationalism have rested on a gamble that the structures of the modern system of secular sovereign states—peace-loving democracies as we are encouraged to call them—remain strong enough to prevent yet another eruption of ideological fervour. The events of 11 September 2001 marked a moment at which this gamble came to seem exceptionally risky once again. It seemed risky not only because violence was unleashed on parts of an American/global order in the name of a specific religion, but also because the response of the Bush regime, the identification of all opposition to Bush the Younger’s own political agenda as evil, as susceptible to the all purpose and highly mobile status of ‘Terrorist’, goes


against the grain of every traditional account of what it means to act in a responsible way in a modern system of sovereign states. While it is possible to see how the appeal to good and evil works politically —as a tactic in a state of emergency, as a procedure to promote nationalism, patriotism, state building and the shoring up of quasi-democratic regimes— it is also possible to see how it works to undermine all semblance of responsible politics in a modern system of secular and democratic states. This is a dynamic that goes back right to the beginning of the modern statessystem. It is expressed in the tension between judgements rooted in some kind of private or religious ethics and an ethics rooted in the preservation of a state capable of sustaining a human community of ethical people, and of a statessystem that can guarantee a variety of ethical possibilities in the form of those diverse cultures that make up the community of nations. It is a dynamic that was played out yet again in the wake of the attacks: between the extreme nationalism, or something like it, of most of the Bush administration and Colin Powell’s more internationalist tendencies; between Bush and most of the European states; and in Tony Blair’s attempt to hold onto both positions simultaneously, or to pretend that good internationalism is the same as the defence of good against evil. Blair, of course, can be understood as a clever political player, playing the wellestablished role of intermediary between the USA and Europe. He can also be read as someone who is personally driven more by an ethics of conviction than by an ethics of political responsibility. In either case, the degree with which he has been able to fudge the central contradiction between an ethic of conviction that he is on the side of some universal morality and an ethic of responsibility within a pluralistic system of sovereign states tells us about a more important dynamic than one small politician’s career, or one small state’s place in the world. Many of the difficult questions of judgement in this case might indeed be understandable in terms of something like Weber’s distinction between an ethic of responsibility and an ethic of conviction. Those who urged caution in the resort to violence, or the importance of maintaining an international coalition, or the need to respect established procedures of international law, or the need to contextualize one violent event in relation to the many other violent events that remain a normal part of everyday life for so many people, have tended to make judgements on the ground of international responsibility. Others who thought that this was simply a matter of good and evil were opting for something else: perhaps the righteous nationalism and patriotism of their own state; perhaps for a set of values they believed should apply to every person on the planet; or, the difficult and very dangerous case, for both. Bush, and even Blair, have been forthright proponents of the latter position, the always-difficult case. Sometimes this has been the prerogative of the leaders of ‘hegemonic’ states, those states that were more equal than other states, and with more responsibility for maintaining some semblance of international order. Sometimes this has been the prerogative of ‘revolutionary’ states, those which


sought to impose their own values more widely as a condition of their own hoped-for hegemonic status. The obvious danger of both hegemonic states and revolutionary states, of course, is that in seeing themselves as more equal, and more righteous, than other states, they see themselves in terms of empire rather than of system of states. Hence, the more daunting difficulties of political judgement in this case: it is not only that we can try to respond to one violent assault and its violent aftermath by replaying the familiar struggle between righteous conviction and international responsibility, but that the very ground on which this way of formulating judgements about political judgement may be in the process of giving way to something else. This possibility has been canvassed many times before, not least in relation to the classic eras of Pax Britannica and Pax Americana, but it has been canvassed with renewed vigour since the end of the Cold War. In this context it has been canvassed especially in the form of a claim to humanitarianism made up from a combination of selected aspects of right-based liberalism and the more benign accounts of globalization as a process that is finally taking us away from that old-fashioned world of competing nation-states with its impossible choice between an ethics of conviction and an ethics of responsibility. Predictably, these claims have been challenged as a simple imposition by the most powerful; challenges that have had limited purchase given their popularity with the most thuggish of dictators seeking legitimacy under a fig leaf of state sovereignty, but challenges nevertheless that warn against any simplistic shift from a pluralistic community of nations to any New World Order, or Democratic Peace, or End of History ordained by a small elite of highly militarized governments acting in the name of the common good. It is possible that we are living in a world in which all states are democratic and peace-loving, all in control of their own domestic affairs and yet, miraculously, all at one with the kinds of convictions so proudly espoused by Bush and Blair. Or at least, it is possible that with just a bit more help, and a bit more violence, this is the world that is just around the corner, just as soon as we rid ourselves of a few more thuggish dictators, and a few more of those who don’t quite believe that Bush or Blair represent the last word in humanitarian virtue. Relying on something like this story, we might restore some solidity to the ground on which we make political judgements. Bush will come to be known as a great internationalist. The multilateralism associated with Powell and articulately defended by intellectuals of the old foreign policy establishment like Joseph Nye,2 rather than the revolutionary unilateralism of Donald Rumsfeld and others, might eventually be judged to be the proper way of articulating America’s place in the global political order. Stranger things have happened. But of all the stories currently going around about where in the world we are now, it has to be said that this one is not the most obviously persuasive.


STILL MORE VIOLENCE The hardest part of analysing any political event is deciding where to begin. Some people hanker after some ‘big bang’ that explains everything. Political actors count on the frailties of human memory. To all but the most naive, it was immediately clear that no serious commentary could begin with 11 September 2001. To do so, would be to underestimate both the significance of this specific set of events, and the complexity of the processes that gave rise to them. If part of the difficulty of making judgements in this context can be framed in terms of the traditional tension between an ethics of conviction and an ethics of responsibility, a further part can be framed in terms of the increasing difficulty of interpreting the broader context in which contemporary claims about an ethics of responsibility might now be understood. There have been some obvious obstacles to any such understanding. The passions of the moment always tend to cloud our analytical judgements. It has also been very difficult to get basic information, and the information we do have is so obviously corrupted by the dynamics of the mass media and the demands of propaganda, especially given the convergence between technologies and practices of information and communication with new forms of military strategy, tactics and weaponry. Moreover, it has been all too easy to appeal to situations we think we understand in order to make sense of events that seem to defy understanding. Many analogies have been deployed to make sense of these events in relation to the presumed lessons of history. The analogies initially favoured by US and UK politicians referred to a cancer that had to be cut out and to the attack on Pearl Harbour, but these were soon challenged by more complex and more worrying references: to a great iceberg of which 11 September was but a small tip; or a very unstable structure of tectonic plates; or 1914; or aspects of Europe in the 1920s and 1930s; or, even, the fall of the Roman Empire. The more that commentary sought grounding in the lessons of history, the more history seemed a treacherous guide to a situation that attracted at least as many claims about novelty as about continuities. The standard images of wars between states seemed to be especially misleading, as they have been for some time, recent assaults on Iraq and Serbia notwithstanding. Was this a proper war? Or was it a crime? If it was a war, precisely what states were at war with each other? If it was a crime, precisely who was it a crime against —America? Humanity? Modernity? Liberalism? Confusion increased as the response to a specific act of violence quickly morphed into a range of other conflicts. Even for a more than usually engaged public, it was difficult to keep an eye on the ball partly because there were so many balls and partly because it was not clear either what the game was or where exactly it was being played. The response to specific terrorists became both a generalized ‘War against Terrorism’ (promising a broader war against all and sundry, beginning with Iraq), and a specific intervention into a civil war in Afghanistan (promising yet another exercise in ‘state-building’; itself building on


a longer and often dubious story about ‘failed’ and ‘rogue’ states and inviting worries about the troubled relation between failed/rogue states and military intervention). By early November, the defining voices seemed to have switched from the more internationally oriented State Department to the more intransigent militarists at the Pentagon and among Bush’s closest advisers, and extraordinary military force was unleashed on the terrain of Afghanistan, a place between places. Yet the clarity with which power was centralized and authorized in Washington at the expense of an internationalist coalition, or of any role for regional states, or the United Nations, only made the interpretation of events more difficult and contestable; or perhaps easier, and even more contestable. That destruction was rained on those specific sites in Washington and New York points to the broad structures of meaning in which these sites had acquired massive symbolic value. That 11 September provoked a ‘War on Terror’ anywhere in the world points to the broad global context of these specific events. That the enemy was so quickly identified as Bin Laden/al-Qaida already points to a much broader and tangled web of conflicts whose centre might be a specific somewhere —Saudi Arabia according to the discourses of immediate causation; Afghanistan according to the discourses of immediate location; Palestine/Israel according to the discourses of proximate injustice; or the geopolitics of oil; according to the discourses of underlying interest—but also with an indiscriminate everywhere where ‘Terror’ might be found. There have been many ways of attempting to draw a more complex picture of the context in which the events of 11 September might be understood and assessed. Seven broad forms of analysis can be identified fairly easily. All have some reasonably obvious bearing on how we might try to make sense of the 11 September attacks and their aftermath, but it is far from clear how they might converge on some more comprehensive picture. First, we might try to understand the geopolitics of a specific region as a crucial site of global geopolitical structures. Here we might focus especially on Saudi Arabia, recognising that while physically expressed on the territories of the USA and Afghanistan, both the assault of 11 September and many features of the civil war in Afghanistan had their most immediate source in dynamics played out there. Or, on the festering sore of the Israeli terror state and the endless cycle of violent Palestinian resistance to decades of colonialism, the massive scandal and counter-scandal through which a broader set of injustices in the region have been interpreted. Or, on Pakistan as another major state implicated in the organization of specific terror networks. Or, on various attempts to depict a complex pattern of alignments and realignments, including those involving Iraq, Iran, various ex-Soviet republics, Somalia, Sudan and Russia. Second, we might try to recognise that this complex regional geopolitics is intricately connected to regional aspects of a changing international political economy. Here we might point to the geopolitics of energy supply, especially in relation to relative importance of oil in the Arab world and in the Caspian basin,


both in the short and long terms. Or, to the imperatives of a globalizing market economy subject to recession and the imperatives of consumption, to the global organization of financial flows, informal economies of wealth creation of all kinds, not least those involving both criminal and terrorists organizations, and a shift in the role of the state and interstate institutions of governance in managing a certain kind of world economy. Third, there is a need to understand regional aspects of a changing international political order in which the logic of a multicentric states-system is in tension with the logic of global hegemony driven partly by the US state and partly by the dynamics of global capital. Here we are liable to come up against one of the great conceptual challenges confronting all forms of contemporary political analysis. This challenge is helped neither by the widespread tendency to treat ‘America’ and ‘global capital’ as unitary and intensely conspiratorial actors pulling all the strings on the world political stage; nor by the apparent paradox that, in some respects at least, the USA can be understood less as a global hegemon than as perhaps the only state that can still plausibly claim to resemble the old internationalist imagery of an autonomous sovereign state pursuing its own national security. At the very least, it seems clear that we are witnessing a profound change in the character of the old tension between international or multilateral order and Great Power hegemony. Within the USA, this change is expressed as a modulation from the old tension between multilateralism and unilateralism in the sense of isolationism, to a tension between multilateralism and unilateralism in the sense of global hegemony. The usefully double meaning of the term unilateralism—as both a withdrawal from international responsibilities and the equation of international responsibilities with purely national interests—has long provided a helpful way for American foreign policy to fudge one of the central contradictions of modern international politics in this respect. Many people have rightly become suspicious that a unilateralist rhetoric legitimizing a national defence has now finally pushed well beyond the conventions of a hegemonic power within an international system to something much closer to a hegemony subordinating an international system to its own unilateralist—imperialist—form of global order.3 Hence, the increasing structural tensions between the USA state and the multilateralist conventions still urged by Europe; tensions that had been increasing in any case, not least after the war over Europe’s eastern borders waged against Serbia by the USA on Europe’s behalf and in relation to the demands of EU enlargement, the development of ideas about a EU security policy and so on. Hence, also, Blair’s attempts to make a seamless equation between the multilateral and unilateral aspects of the coalition. Moreover, lingering in the background, is the apparent realignment of Russia with the West as well as the tension between the USA and China and all the other longer-term considerations that had, among other things, persuaded powerful American elites to push for new forms of missile defence systems that threaten to undermine all progress on the reduction of weapons of mass destruction.


Fourth, these three considerations lead by an all too direct path to some familiar observations about the broader pattern of violence in the contem porary world. Many figures might be cited here, but I will choose just one: the death toll in the US A from the 11 September attacks was only about one per cent of the estimated average number of people killed world-wide from political violence each year in the 1990s; political, that is, in terms which exclude those who die from economic exclusions/exploitations or ecological collapse. It is in this context that one can understand the massive levels of hypocrisy in which we are all implicated and which connect us all, willingly or unwillingly, to forces that were at work both in the attacks and in the responses to them. Here we might pause to remember the largely unreported massacres from the Gulf War, the direct effects of the ongoing siege of Iraq, the Srebrenica massacre, and the millions who died in Afghanistan over the past two decades; or, perhaps especially, the ongoing production and trade in weapons that is so central to the everyday production of social life in supposedly civilized parts of the world. The numbers are always contestable, of course, and there will always be someone to justify this or that mass killing, this or that shipment of weapons, this or that investment in the local community that survives on the production of killing machines. What seems quite incontestable and unjustifiable, however, is the ongoing militarization of all societies, including—and in some respects, especially— those that claim to be bastions of liberty and international virtue. It is hardly news that violence breeds violence, and that the more we continue on the path of national security with missile defences and the rest, the less security anyone will have anywhere. Hence, all the demands for some kind of human security rather than national security that have been developed over the past two or three decades, and the claim that we have been living through some especially virulent symptoms generated by pathological forms of militarization on a global scale. Fifth, this is related to a need to understand the changing forms of violence in the contemporary world. Much of the recent debate about security and military affairs has been taken up with a well-publicized shift from overtly international wars to civil wars in the so-called ‘failed states’, on the one hand, and the development of mobile and communications-intensive (netcentric/infocentric) technologies, on the other. Claims about the threat of terror are inseparable from both. The violence unleashed on Afghanistan may well have been military but it has not been a conventional war between states, and the proper way of associating whatever went on there with the resort to terror is no doubt going to be a matter of endless conjecture. Sixth, we might try to understand a range of large-scale globalizing changes that both contribute to, and are an effect of, all of the above. Here we might focus on the novelty of a global, rather than an international, political economy; or a global, rather than an international, political order; or an emerging political system of inter-urban networks rather than of the old nation states; or the dynamics of long-term climate and environmental change. In all cases, whatever


globalization might involve, it diverges considerably from the popular image of a move towards some kind of supranationality involving the demise of states, and probably involves an unprecedented proliferation of constantly changing networks and profound reworking of the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion. In this respect, and whatever its substantive appeal to an old-time religion, alQaida, like the ‘war’ waged against it, expressed a highly contemporary world of networks and flows familiar to analysts of organized crime, finance, information, and the movements of peoples. Finally, we might begin to acknowledge that interpretation and judgement will be influenced by where one is, by one’s location within the structures of international or global order. It may be, for example, that much of the debate between European defenders of multilateralism and the kind of unilateralism preferred by most of the Bush regime turns on a concern about a shift from international to some kind of imperialism, but many peoples have long experienced various kinds of imperialism as the natural order of things. Judgements about legitimate violence that assume a world of equal and sovereign states are likely to sound especially hollow in places where the most obvious facts of life are inequality and the continuing reproduction of inequality in the name of a globalizing liberal capitalism. There is, after all, more than one way to analyse the normalized and institutionalized hypocrisies of the contemporary global order, hypocrisies that cannot be ignored either in attempts to explain the events of 11 September or in the challenges they present to prevailing accounts of political judgement. WAR BY OTHER MEANS All these, and other, starting points offer potentially endless scope for analysis and debate. The way I have begun to sketch the various directions in which these lines of analysis might have been taken may give some sense of the structures and forces I would especially want to emphasize; but also of the scope for disagreements about what would count as a persuasive explanatory narrative. More significantly, however, they also imply a series of overlapping and mutually reinforcing challenges to some fundamental principles of modern political life, especially as these principles are expressed in the structures and determinations of the states-system that has been the primary enabling condition of modern political life for some centuries. Modern theories of international relations usually begin with some version of the observation that the states-system is fragmented and thus governed in only the most rudimentary way. The consequence is a sequence of more or less peaceful periods of accommodation and adjustment between states and periods of violent change as various states became more powerful; that is periods of war, which has traditionally been seen as necessary for adjusting to change in a system without an overarching source of governance, and thus as legitimate. This is the basic idea that still comes through in images of the great wars of the twentieth


century—the wars that some still want to fight but anyone with any significant memory of that century knows are now either impossible or insane. Behind this familiar, if increasingly archaic, account of the organization of modern political communities in a states-system are two very basic principles that are still very much with us. There is the principle that the states-system must be organized on more or less rational secular terms; wars must only be fought to pursue pragmatic and materialistic state interests, and not to ensure the universal adherence to any religious or quasi-religious doctrine. There is also the principle that the states-system must not be allowed to relapse into the kinds of empires from which modern states managed to free themselves in order to claim their right of sovereign self-determination. Things have not stood still since the emergence of the modern states-system, and these two principles have been under massive challenge from the beginning. On the one hand, explicitly secular practices have often come to be driven by what looks very much like religious fervour, by an ethics of conviction. The worst excesses of nationalism come to mind here, as do some aspects of fascism and the ideological dynamics of the Cold War era. But many, apparently more benign, tendencies must also be understood in this context, as when we are encouraged to think that we might all be humans united by a common bond of universal brotherhood, even sisterhood; think humanism, universal peace, progress, modernization, and Blair’s speech to the Labour Party in Brighton. In either case, we can see the consequences of the great pact we have made with ourselves as moderns, of our claim to be human, ethical, somehow nearish to God—even when denying His, Her or Its existence. In this pact, we are all good humans except when confronted by, say, Napoleon, Hitler, the Communist Threat, Third World revolutionaries, the Islamic hordes, or, most recently, the terrorists; in which case, God help them. We might feel righteous in making any of these exceptions, but when driven to extremes, our righteousness is precisely a self-righteousness. For all our attachment to various moralities, we are always prepared to make an exception, and to believe that violence, mass violence, is legitimate. God, or at least reason, common sense, civilization, the society that can be both religious and moral without being fanatical, and all the other synonyms for our version of the good, the true and the beautiful, is on our side. In the conventional story, ‘our side’ is interpreted as a national or statist identity of some kind, though the play of friend and enemy has not always been completely contained by the structures of the states-system. We know about our hypocrisies. We often worry about them. At moments of crisis especially, however, we let our hypocrisies loose upon the world. On the other hand, the principle of the sovereign equality of states has long been in tension with the realities of hegemony and Great Power domination (Pax Britannica, Pax Americana, colonialisms and neo-colonialisms, a Cold War between two superpowers), the rise of a globalizing capitalist economy and now the emergence of just one superpower, or hyperpower, or global hegemony, or perhaps some new kind of empire. This tension is expressed, for example, in the


institutional distinction between the General Assembly and the Security Council of the United Nations. It is now unclear whether we are to understand the primary dynamics of political life in relation to some kind of states-system (the great game, the balance of power, the rules of multilateralism, and so on), with the USA playing the role of hegemonic great power, or in relation to an empire read partly in relation to ‘America’ and partly in relation to ‘globalization’ or ‘postmodernity’. According to the conventional wisdom of modern internationalism, we are supposed to expect that when the hypocritical logic of the modern states-system meets the logic of a universalizing empire we are likely to be in trouble. It is not unreasonable to think that we may be living in such a moment, and have been doing so for some time. Again, 11 September appears to be just an episode of a longer story, but in this case it is a story that goes to the heart of the most basic principles through which we have claimed to make sense of our possibilities as modern political beings. It is no doubt possible to keep on telling the story of modern internationalism. We are, it might be said, witnessing a hegemonic power seeking to be the Great Power responsible for sustaining order in a world beset with revolutionary—and, in this case, explicitly religious—fervour. In the process it also generates a certain kind of fervour, perhaps a bit too ‘religious’ in flavour, but ultimately positively expressed as an understandable nationalism, or perhaps a patriotism; and, in any case, harnessed to its international partners in a properly international system that is still capable of maintaining the basic principles of modern political life. This is the great hope of all internationalists, the hope that permits various traditions of liberalism to find some accommodation with yet another resort to mass violence and the support of dubious allies. The difficulty here arises from three suspicions. First, the suspicion that for the Bush regime, internationalism has become a convenient fig leaf for an imperialist form of unilateralism, complete with an array of client states who may whine ungratefully but remain unable to compete on a level playing field of international order. Second, that what some prefer to interpret as the legitimate patriotism of a hegemonic power has turned into a quasi-religious ideology of universal superiority. Third, the suspicion that where conventional fears about hegemons focus on the danger of revolutionary or quasi-imperial states mobilizing quasi-religious ideologies of nationalism and patriotism in order to generate absolutist distinctions between friends and enemies in a totalizing war between states, we have been witnessing signs of a struggle between the saved and the damned, or the civilized and the barbarian, inscribed less on the territorial space of the modern states-system than in a globally articulated and territorially contingent space between competing civilizations. In this context, we see, in part, fears of a return to a world that is, in the modern political imagination, associated with life before the Treaty of Westphalia, with wars of religious or quasi-religious fanaticism; fears that are triggered as much by the Bush’s presidential speeches as by videos of Bin Laden. We also see fears of the kind of distinctions between the supposedly


civilised and the supposedly barbarian that go back much further in time and are remembered less in relation to the conventions of the modern states-system than to 500 years of crusades, conquests, colonialisms and civilizing missions of all kinds. The most striking feature of Bush’s declarations of war has been that they have been understandable less in relation to a sovereign capacity to declare a state of emergency, a capacity to suspend all norms of everyday behaviour, in relation to another sovereign state, than in relation to an enemy that is essentially intangible and disconnected from any territorial state and which can be projected almost at will onto any convenient territories, bodies and peoples. This may be sovereignty, but it is not sovereignty as we are supposed to know it. And if this is not sovereignty as we are supposed to know it, then we may either hope that internationalism will eventually rescue us from the unilateralist or forthrightly imperialist America, whether as championed by a small clique of fanatics or driven by huge historical forces, or face up to the ways in which the basic rules of the modern states-system, and the internationalist institutions that have made this system workable despite the necessary recurrence of wars, are now really breaking apart in a serious way.4 This point can be made, not only in relation to the spatial logic of a system of modern states, but also to the temporal logic of what we have come to call modernization. For all the appeal to tradition and Islam, the phenomenon we call Bin Laden has been a production of (late or even post-) modernity. He expresses yet another instance in a long line of modern inventions of tradition used to challenge those who have adapted modernity to their own purposes. The standard image here is that of Frankenstein, and it is not so far from trying to understand Bin Laden as a phenomenon to remembering the contradictions built into modern nationalism or the fascist state. Bin Laden grew out of social conditions in which modernization did not mean the gradual process of democratization many fondly imagine to have led ‘the civilized West’ to where it is now, but the collusion of this civilized West, or at least specific parts of it, in sustaining anti-democratic states for its own purposes. Hence, the acute tension between the more or less modernist regimes of states in this region and the various forms of social antagonism that have become increasingly expressed in what many would characterize as pathological or fundamentalist forms of Islam, though they have also been expressed in attempts to articulate a Pan-Arab resistance to various forms of colonialism. At the very least, it is a mistake to assume that the events of 11 September were aimed simply, or even primarily, at the USA; rather than, say, against the House of Saud and all it stands for as an expression of modernist authoritarianism, and as an agent of global/ American political and economic hegemony. What might be said of Saudi Arabia might also be said, with important variations, in relation to Egypt, Iran, Syria, Iraq, the Gulf States, and so on. By this route we end up with the specific dilemmas of Afghanistan; the combination of a rich but militantly anti-modern Saudi, possibly in association with Islamic Jihad and others, and a


society massively wrecked by the predations of many outsiders, including the world’s most highly modernized societies. Whatever one might say about the specific peculiarities of Bin Laden, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, al-Qaida, or the Taliban, it is crucial to understand that they express social contradictions and forces that arise from intense social struggles against globally articulated forms of economic, military and political power. As such, they resonate not only with a socalled ‘fundamentalist’ or ‘extremist’ retreat into some imagined age of the Prophets, but also with many characteristically modern, liberal, feminist and other progressive critiques of the arbitrary and undemocratic forms of government in the region. However outrageous, 11 September was not aimed simply at ‘America’, but at the destabilization of massively corrupt forms of politics in a region in which ‘America’, among others, is the great friend of corrupt regimes. Much of the debate, even critical debate, around this conflict is portrayed as if the options are a simple matter of good and evil, of modernity or barbarism, of the West versus Islam, of ‘America good’ or ‘America bad’. In many places, however, the primary—and much more telling— response has been less to invoke simple Manichean dualisms than to point to blatant forms of hypocrisy: the hypocrisy of the most powerful who have set up the system to their own advantage and then resort to bombs and self-righteousness when it backfires on them; and the hypocrisy of the less powerful who have bought into the system and colluded so as to sustain corrupt regimes and generate the conditions under which extremists respond with violence to widely acknowledged injustices. These hypocrisies play out in many contexts. Authoritarian regimes are unlikely to give up their monopoly on oil wealth, and the Americans are not going to give up on cheap and dependable oil supplies. But the positive consequence of stressing patterns of hypocrisy is that analysis shifts from theologies of good and evil to attempts to understand a world of contradictions and relations, not least in relation to what we so easily characterise simply as modernity as some kind of benign condition. The thinker who has largely presided over how we think about modern war over the past century has been Carl von Clausewitz. He is most famous for the notion that war is the continuation of politics by other means; by which he was referring, in part, to the need to ensure that war was conducted in relation to some kind of political rationality rather than driven by the uncontrollable passions of post-Napoleonic nationalism allied with rapidly modernizing technologies.5 In this respect, Clausewitz was working within an understanding of a world of states; states in which the normal practices of politics could be conducted at home but could not apply in relations with other states, for which one had to prepare for the state of war, or the state of emergency, for the use of other means. Much of the history of the twentieth century can be read in relation to the question of whether this distinction between a rational world of politics and a world of ‘other means’ could be sustained. Clausewitz’s understanding of rationality


was informed by the philosopher Hegel, and depended on a claim about the general direction of human progress, at least human progress within the modern rational state. By the early twentieth century, this kind of progressive rationality had come to seem a bit dubious. Max Weber was developing a powerful account of the peculiar dialectic of modern rationality through which the greater the grip of a rationalizing instrumental efficiency, the greater the appeal to irrational value commitments—an account that may say something about the experience of extermination camps and nuclear deterrence, the bloodbath of a supposedly progressive century, and the hypocritical moralizing of a modernity that prefers to deny its responsibilities for mass violence.6 Carl Schmitt subsequently offered cryptic reminders that whatever the pretensions of liberals, democrats and other progressives, the modern State depends on an arbitrary and always potentially violent capacity to define those who are violent.7 Perhaps more disturbingly still, Walter Benjamin looked ahead to see not war as politics by other means but politics as war by other means: the excep tionalization of the norm; the inscription of a war-like violence into the practices of daily life; and, perhaps, even the attempt to securitize everything everywhere.8 These are all rather depressing thinkers, but they do get at some of the profound paradoxes of a modernity that has brought both progress and despair, inclusion for some and exclusion for others. Again, their insights might be taken in many directions. Conventional accounts of international relations, for example, assume that the positive side of modernity can be experienced within states and we just have to put up with, or somehow mitigate, the violence between states that makes the good life at home possible. Conventional accounts of modernization give this story a temporal spin and identify the good life with some mid-Atlantic ideal and then insist on the necessity of violence, or limits on democracy, or IMF conditionality, as the price of moving towards this ideal. In either case, we can get some sense of the spatial and temporal dynamics in which the forces of a regional-global geopolitics and political economy get worked out in relation both to a modernizing state with all the usual authoritarianisms and corruptions and a globalizing hegemon/empire expressing every hypocrisy that can be packed into stories about modernity as a perfectly benign journey to an enlightened future. The conventional wisdoms that are generally lined up to respond to this more critical and depressing account of modernity tend to rest on hopes for the supposedly free market or some kind of cosmopolitanism, whether of republics or individual subjects, articulated in relation to some kind of universal reason; some combination of Adam Smith and Immanuel Kant. Again, these wisdoms used to be given an internationalist twist. All universals could find expression in the selfdetermining jurisdictions of sovereign states, the place where normal everyday life could unfold, helped along by a bit of modernization from above or external intervention if necessary. Sam Huntington, once the great teller of stories about the necessities of modernizing states, put a popular name to the shift away from that old story to the new world of competing civilizations.9 But civilizations


don’t co-exist in a system of states. They don’t have political systems either. While there may be very few, if any, positive things to say about Huntington’s scholarship, he does have a very good nose for the decisive transformation, even if he does give it a misleading name. Huntington makes a very good apologist for an empire in need of a snappy historical script. AFTER THE SLACK Over the decade or so before the planes hit, the fall of the Berlin Wall had become the ground on which claims about a rapidly changing world had become the new currency of scholarly and policy-making credibility. The freezer was unplugged, allowing the accumulated rot to smell and threaten. The New World Order was announced: to be followed by the Coming Anarchy, the Conflict of Civilizations, the promise of Globalization, and all the rest. It seemed that we were living through an era of transitions, of multiple trajectories, a world that had become much looser and differentiated than the rigid divisions of the Cold War. Insofar as one can appeal to slogans, I prefer to think of it as an ‘Era of Slack’, a loose proliferation of trends punctuated by the occasional attempt to bring some discipline to a few selected slackers—Iraq and Serbia most notably—though not others. The 11 September generated a rapid tightening of this slack, a tightening that was more dramatic and determined than had happened in relation to the Gulf War or the redrawing of European boundaries after the dissolution of Yugoslavia. The lines have been pulled tight again, but, crucially, they are being drawn less around a world of sovereign states than around something else: a worldwide defence of civilization against a worldwide threat of ‘Terror’. Nevertheless, between 1989 and 2001, the grounds of political judgement had shifted. Where the Cold War had still been understandable in terms of a basic distinction between friends and enemies, articulated on the ground of sovereign states, this distinction is now articulated in relation to something dramatically different. To look for some broader context in which to situate the events of 11 September is not to evade the need to condemn those who resorted to such violence. I have no doubt that these actions constituted an enormous crime, and ought to be dealt with as such. The really terrible thing is that it was an enormous crime among many enormous crimes, and as we know all too well, some of the worst criminals have been our friends, even our heroes; indeed, we are still recruiting them. Worse, some of the greatest crimes against humanity have been generated by huge social forces that destroy the lives of vast numbers of people every day; forces on which some of us thrive at other people’s expense, and against which we have absolutely no legal recourse. We cannot take whole economic, social, cultural or religious systems to court, and we cannot bomb them out of existence. We confront a political problem, not just a legal or an ethical one. Like it or not, arresting or exterminating those who were directly responsible for 11 September is not going to solve the problems of which these events are a symptom.


We are likely to see a continuing resort to self-righteous fanaticism on both sides. On one side, is a fanaticism generated by extremes of violence, injustice, and exclusion, sustained by the bizarre invention of religious dogmas, and led by networks of people who have benefited both from our own indulgence and willingness to manipulate others to kill for us and from their own long experience of wars of resistance against colonialism. On the other side, is a fanaticism sustained by self-righteous belief in civilizational superiority as well as by much less civilized forms of superiority. Both are dangerous, and both have to be opposed. Some of the world’s most dangerous people hide out in the mountains, and others have legitimate access to the most devastating weapons of mass destruction the world has ever known. The late great Thomas Hobbes had a fairly good idea of the way those who claimed to protect us were always liable to do us serious damage.10 This basic insight is now much more disturbing than it was in the age of the English Civil War. We are also likely to see attempts to revive various forms of internationalism or multilateralism as various states seek both to support the American campaign against terrorism (not least because terrorism is directed at them, in many cases even more so), and also to resist further slippage from a pluralistic states-system to unilateral empire. Hence, the insistence on coalitions and consensus, and, hopefully, resistance to the crazy slope that runs from taking out Bin Laden to taking out Saddam and other highly selective undesirables. In the end, however, the events of 11 September and their aftermath point to a multiplicity of dangers in a world in which prevailing accounts of power, authority, and security are making the world a seriously unsafe place for everyone. It is becoming increasingly difficult and costly to assume we can organize and control the world by drawing the line, both physically and metaphorically, between here and there, this state and that state, America and the Middle East, between the included and the excluded, the citizen of this state and the citizen of that state, the nice people here, the weird or dangerous foreigner there. The most basic assumptions of the internationalist position are increasingly shaky, as a look at the pattern of refugees, financial flows, the drugs trade, the organization of terrorist cells, the organization of military force, and all the rest, have begun to suggest so clearly; though this certainly does not seem likely to prevent various states from seeking to police the line between included and excluded with ever greater degrees of discrimination. The extremists on both sides believe we can and must draw the line, and they do it in the most simplistic way possible. It is especially troubling that the crusading language that so many public figures have endorsed in relation to Islam is only an extreme form of the crusading moralism that all kinds of people have used to cover up and legitimise intolerable everyday violence generated by global patterns of economic and military practice. The road to hell is has been very brightly polished with good intentions. Any attempt to draw the lines tightly, to paint the world as either a conflict of religions or as a play of the great game of sovereign states, is going to make a bad situation worse. One can fear that we are back either to some even more


awful version of the Thirty Years War or to the final collapse of modern politics into the demands of a self-righteous empire; or both. One can hope, with the internationalists, that these fears are overdrawn. But both spectres mask a complex geopolitical and geoeconomic transformation that goes far beyond the search for specific terrorists in Afghanistan or anywhere else. This is the context in which we should be talking about emerging forms of legal order, more creative forms of cultural relations, and dramatically less scope for a marriage between a globalizing market and a revival of Social Darwinism on a global scale. The tragedy of our times is not that we don’t know how to talk about such things but that our capacities to do so are increasingly divorced from the political processes that might allow us to do so in a meaningful way. In the meantime, General Sharon receives the blessings of the most powerful; the multilateralists are sounding very, very worried; very basic questions about legitimate authority in a rapidly changing world are increasingly difficult to answer; and everyday politics is indeed increasingly becoming the continuation of war by other means. There is certainly a problem here, but it does not go by the name of ‘Terror’. NOTES 1 Max Weber, ‘The Profession and Vocation of Politics’, in Peter Lassman and Ronald Spiers (eds), Weber: Political Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). 2 Joseph S.Nye, Jr, The Paradox of American Power: Why the World’s Only Superpower Can’t Go It Alone (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). 3 Evidence for such suspicions can be found, not only in the more volatile comments emerging from Bush and his advisors, but in the kind of analysis expressed in Stephen Brooks and William Wohlforth, ‘American Primacy in Perspective’, Foreign Affairs, 81, 4 (July/August 2002), pp. 20–33. 4 The most provocative recent discussion of this possibility is Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), which develops an analysis that both converges and diverges with the underlying argument informing my analysis here. See Richard Falk, Lester Edwin J.Ruiz and R.B.J.Walker (eds), Reframing the International: Law, Culture, Politics (New York: Routledge, 2002); Michael Cox, Tim Dunne and Ken Booth (eds), Empires, Systems and States: Great Transformations in International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Robert Biel, The New Imperialism: Crisis and Contradiction in North/South Relations (London: Zed, 2000). 5 Carl Von Clausewitz, On War, Michael Howard and Peter Paret (trans.) (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984) [originally published 1832]. 6 Hence Weber’s concern, in ‘Politics as a Vocation’, with the kind of politician, or man, or personality, who could live up to these spiritually difficult modern times. 7 Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, translated with an Introduction by George Schwab and New Foreword by Tracy Strong (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996) [originally published 1932]; and Schmitt, Political Theology:


Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty, translated by George Schwab (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985) [originally published 1922]. 8 Walter Benjamin, ‘On the Critique of Violence’, fragmentary translations in Illuminations, edited with an Introduction by Hannah Arendt (New York: Schocken Books, 1969). 9. Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (London: Penguin, 1997). 10. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Richard Tuck (ed.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

6 Afghanistan and the Global Environment: Turning Local Language into Global Grammar ANDREW DOBSON

‘“You know your government,” he says, “all the Americans I meet are good people, but your government’s foreign policy is so bad. It’s not good, you know, for a country to be hated by so many people”’. (Ahdaf Soueif, The Map of Love)1 On the 12 September 2001, the day after the attack on the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers in New York, the School of Politics, International Relations and the Environment at Keele University, UK (where I then worked), began a twoweek summer school for European doctoral students of environmental politics and policy. As we gathered, the atmosphere was sombre, and I opened the session by reflecting my immediate reaction to the previous day’s events: that the world felt different on the 12 September to how it had felt the day before. This was a view shared by most of us present —and it could not have been more wrong. Now it is clear that the paths and patterns of power set weeks, months and even years ago have not changed direction but have, rather, been marked more clearly and more crudely than ever before. For a brief few weeks after 11 September a few of us clung to the belief that the attacks on New York and Washington would occasion a fundamental review of American (read United States of America) foreign policy that would seek to deal with the fundamental causes of resistance to American style globalisation. The more days that went by without the expected massive retaliation, and the more frantic European diplomacy, in the shape of British Prime Minister Tony Blair became, the more the naïve amongst us (myself included) really thought that a turning point might have been reached. Bad memories of American intransigence over the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty, biological weapons agreements, American deter mination to press ahead with the ‘Star Wars’ defence system, and the suggested reneging on the AntiBallistic Missile Treaty, all began to recede in the belief that the Bush administration would take stock of its situation and realise that elevating unilateralism to an objective of foreign policy rather than a means to achieving foreign policy objectives (and even that was bad enough) was a grave mistake. How sadly and completely have us poor naïfs been disabused since then. For me, the moment of truth was not 11 September but 7 October, when the bombing of

82 AFGHANISTAN AND THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT

Afghanistan began. The sound and fury of the bombing, and the right and proper resistance to it, obscured the deepening divisiveness of American foreign policy initiatives being pursued in its shadow. In this sense, American and British bombing was not only a means to the end of specific objectives in Afghanistan, but also a means to much more general ends. This was—and is—the systematic pursuit of a particular view of globalisation by means of war. Let me take two instances of initiatives pursued by the United States of America while the bombs were falling, and try to build an analysis of the role of the Afghanistan campaign in the creation of an (American) global environment. The two initiatives in question were the latest round of World Trade talks, under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), in Doha, Qatar, and the most recent stage of the Kyoto agreement on climate change, in Marrakech, Morocco. Both of these events took place in November 2001, but even an avid observer of the news would have been forgiven for not noticing, so intensively was our attention focussed on events in Afghanistan. Let me take the WTO talks first. In introducing the talks, the Prime Minister of Qatar said that while he welcomed trade liberalisation, he also noted that ‘80 per cent of the world’s population consumes 15 per cent of the world’s resources and 20 per cent consumes 85 per cent of them’. It is not so much the imbalance in the terms of trade I want to point to here, though, but the systematic imbalance in the terms of negotiation. On the face of it there is no imbalance in the terms of negotiation, as the WTO is quick to point out. This is because, as the WTO proudly proclaims, the organisation’s decisions are taken by consensus. This is much more equitable than a simply majority system of voting, says the WTO, since even the smallest and least powerful participant in negotiations can scupper an agreement through using what is effectively the power of veto. The reality, of course, is somewhat different. The most elementary game theory shows that consensus decisionmaking only works in the way the WTO suggests when all participants are equally powerful. As the WTO itself recognises, though, ‘not every country has the same bargaining power’. In cases where governments refuse to come on board, the WTO continues by saying, rather darkly, that, ‘reluctant countries are persuaded by being offered something in return’. The key orientating question here is: ‘What can you offer a country that already has everything?’ What can you offer the United States of America if it refuses to play ball with everyone else? The answer, as the Bush administration has gleefully recognised, is nothing. The United States of America is in such a pre-eminently powerful position that it does not have to think in terms of bargaining, of partnerships. In a way, indeed, it does not have to think at all. Internationally, the United States is in the same position as the oil industry in the United States itself. As Edward Goldsmith has recently commented, ‘the oil industry in the US…no longer has to lobby the government, it is the government’.2 In the same way, the United States has no need to strike international bargains with the international community because it makes the international community’s rules. Inventing the category of ‘unlawful combatant’ to designate the prisoners held at Camp X-Ray in Cuba was simply


the most bare-faced of a string of unilateral and illegal moves made by the Bush administration post-11 September. This explains why any hopes some of us had that the bombing of Afghanistan might be accompanied by serious efforts to understand the causes of the attacks on the Twin Towers, have been so cruelly dashed. Unilateralism dulls the political senses, and makes the powerful lazy. It also helps to explain the cavalier way in which the United States has left others to clear up the mess made in Afghanistan. It needed no partnership in war— beyond the fig leaf provided by Great Britain—and it has no intention of partnering in the ‘peace’. The WTO, then, prides itself on being a multilateral organisation. Fine. But how is it supposed to cope with fundamentalist unilateralism? The key point is the structural imbalance at work in the world today: some countries can only behave multilaterally, while the powerful ones have the luxury of both multilateralism and unilateralism at their disposal. This takes me to the second event that took place as the bombs were falling on Afghanistan—the Marrakech talks on the Kyoto protocol. It is now common knowledge that the aim of the protocol was, and is, to limit the emissions of the six gases that are most clearly responsible for global warming. The outcome of the talks in Marrakech came nowhere near to satisfying the demands of the environmental movement—nor, indeed, of the International Panel on Climate Change, which recommends a 60 per cent cut in 1990 greenhouse gas emissions by 2012. The Kyoto protocol, even if fully adhered to, will only produce a 5.2 per cent cut, delaying warming that would have occurred in 2094 to 2100—just a six-year respite. Despite the relatively feeble nature of the agreement, of the 39 countries that started out on the long road from Kyoto in 1997, only 38 reached Marrakech in 2001. There are no prizes for guessing which one dropped out along the way. Despite the fact that the US with just five per cent of the world’s population produces a quarter of the world’s greenhouse gases—11 times as much per head of population as China, 20 times more than India, and 300 times more than Mozambique—despite all this, the USA claims that the Kyoto protocol is ‘unfair’, since it exempts developing countries and is against the USA’s best economic interests. Instead of standing shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the world over global warming, as it demanded the rest of the world did after the Twin Towers attack on 11 September, the USA has embarked on a fossil fuel bonanza that will increase its greenhouse emissions by an estimated 35 per cent.3 George Bush’s National Energy Policy calls for between 1,300 and 1,900 electricity plants, the easing of regulations on the siting of power plants and refineries, the opening up of parts of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil and gas exploration, a cut in resources for renewable fuels of some 27 per cent, and a cut in federal investment in energy efficiency measures. It is commonly argued that Bush is returning favours accrued during his election campaign, to which various oil, coal, gas and utility companies contributed some $50 million. These connections and favours, and the ways of life and thinking that go with them, surely are linked to


America’s withdrawal from the Kyoto protocol negotiations. Likewise, the Bush administration’s determination to pursue a fossil-fuelled economy at everincreasing levels of consumption is intimately connected with the Afghanistan campaign itself, as Bülent Gökay points out elsewhere in this book (Chapter 7).4 But neither of these points captures the profundity of what the WTO, Kyoto and Afghanistan stories tell us. When George W.Bush’s administration pulled out of the Kyoto talks, critics dubbed the Bush administration ‘isolationist’. Unfortunately for the rest of us it wasn’t—it was unilateralist, and unilateralism is the privilege granted only to the rich and powerful. This privilege brings with it great responsibility—a responsibility for international justice which the USA, in its current incarnation, is utterly incapable of discharging. What the events of the past few months have shown us is that unilateralism has been elevated by the Bush administration from a means for pursuing foreign policy to the main aim of foreign policy itself. In this regard the attacks on the Twin Towers provided a bejewelled opportunity to push ahead with a hegemonic game plan at a speed the administration itself could not have dreamt of. Again, the naïve amongst us thought that the shoulder-to-shoulder favour granted America by the rest of the world after 11 September would be returned via a reconsideration of the US stance on the Kyoto treaty, for example. This vain hope reckoned without both the pusillanimity of other governments—and especially the British one —and without the most fundamental fact of all: that only one country in the world at present has the luxury of choosing at will between multilateral co-operation and unilateral fiat. Everything suggests that when presented with the opportunity to choose between these two in the future, the United States will always opt the latter. I have heard well-intentioned American commentators suggesting that the events of ‘9/11’ pushed the Bush administration into welcome co-operation with the international community, in contrast to its unilateralist stance before the Twin Towers attack. This is not how things look from outside the USA. America’s reneging on the ABM treaty and the Kyoto treaty, and its determination to press ahead with Star Wars are all decisions that were taken post-September 11, not before. In casting around for a way of making sense of these developments, and in particular the asymmetries of power at work in them, we cannot do much better than the Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva’s searing critique of globalisation.5 In all but one respect, to which I shall return shortly, Shiva’s analysis is an accurate reflection—even an accurate anticipation, given when it was published—of the forces at work in world politics before and after 11 September 2001. This is her view of globalisation: The ‘global’ in the dominant discourse is the political space in which a particular dominant local seeks global control, and frees itself of local, national and international restraints. The global does not represent the universal human interest, it represents a particular local and parochial interest which has been globalized through the scope of its reach. The


seven most powerful countries, the G7, dictate global affairs, but the interests that guide them remain narrow, local and parochial.6 The two key points here are, first, the idea of a dominant local transforming that local into a ‘global’ and presenting that global as if it were in the general interest of humanity; and, second, the way in which in order to achieve this, the dominant local must free itself of ‘local, national and international restraints’. This is exactly what the United States has accomplished, as I say, through its elevation of unilateralism from an arm of foreign policy to an aim of foreign policy. Shiva goes on to say that: The notion of the ‘global’ facilitates [a] skewed view of a common future. The construction of the global environment narrows the South’s options while increasing the North’s. Through its global reach, the North exists in the South, but the South exists only within itself, since it has no global reach. Thus the South can only exist locally, while only the North exists globally.7 This captures the asymmetries at work in the world’s power plays. Globalisation is a luxury afforded only to the rich and powerful. And not only is it that the rich and powerful have both local and global options open to them, they also have the biggest prize of all in their grasp: the possibility of transforming their local into everyone else’s global. These asymmetries turn appropriate assignations of rights and responsibilities on their head, since: [T]here are no reflexive relationships. The G7 can demand a forest convention that imposes international obligations on the Third World to plant trees. But the Third World cannot demand that the industrialized countries reduce the use of fossil fuels and energy. The ‘global’ has been so structured, that the North (as the globalized local) has all rights and no responsibility, and the South has no rights, but all responsibility.8 Shiva seems to me to be right in all but one respect here: she underestimated the hegemonic strides that the USA would make in imposing its view of the ‘good life’ on the rest of the world. Of course the interests of the G7 countries are closer to one another than they are to those of India or Angola, but the United States is opening its own ‘interest deficit’ in respect of those countries one would suppose closest to it. The Kyoto fiasco would seem to suggest that the key point is not that the Third World ‘cannot demand that the industrialized countries reduce the use of fossil fuels and energy’, but that while most of those industrialized countries are going to try to do so, they are powerless to prevent the United States from taking off into the fossil fuel stratosphere. Shiva makes us aware that it is not only that the riches made possible through globalisation are unfairly shared out, but also that the very possibility of ‘being global’ is unequally distributed.


Events since 11 September make us aware that this inequality is much starker than some of us ever thought. While Kyoto, Afghanistan and the WTO are all of a piece, therefore, it is perhaps the first of these that provides the most striking metaphor for what is at work today in the world. Global warming is, as its name suggests, a global phenomenon. But this Apollo 11 description, offered from a distance of 20,000 miles, obscures the asymmetrical capacities of countries to frame and influence the phenomenon. As Shiva says, some countries can only act locally while others can act locally and globally. Only one country, though, can presently act in such a way as to impose its local view of the good life on the rest of the world. What better issue could there be through which to illustrate this imperious power than one in which local language so immediately becomes global grammar? Bush explained his rejection of the Kyoto agreement in the following terms: ‘a growing population requires more energy to heat and cool our homes, more gas to drive our cars’.9 A quaint bit of American parochialism? No way. America’s backyard is unavoidably the rest of the world’s rubbish tip. Global warming has arrived at precisely the moment at which there is a ‘global’ power ready and willing to use it as a means to the end of determining how we should all think, speak and act. This is not an option open to the vast majority of the planet’s governments—and nor is the decision to hunt down the world’s most wanted man to whichever particular small portion of the planet he ends up inhabiting. NOTES 1. Ahdaf Soueif, The Map of Love (London: Bloomsbury, 1999), p. 230. 2. Goldsmith, Edward, ‘“A Question of Survival”: The Ecologist Report. Climate Change: Time to Act’, The Ecologist, 31, 9 (November 2001), pp. 46–7. 3. Retallack, Simon, ‘“We’ve Saved Kyoto! (Shame about the World’s Climate)”: The Ecologist Report. Climate Change: Time to Act’, The Ecologist, 31, 9 (November 2001), pp. 18–22. 4. Bülent Gökay, ‘Introduction: Oil, War and Geopolitics from Kosovo to Afghanistan’, Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans, 4, 1 (May 2002), pp. 5– 13. 5. Vandana Shiva, ‘The Greening of Global Reach’, in O.Thuatail, Gearóid Dalby, Simon Dalby et al. (eds), The Geopolitics Reader (London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 231–6. 6. Ibid., p. 231. 7. Ibid., p. 233; emphasis in the original. 8. Ibid, p. 234. 9. I am grateful to Mathew Paterson for drawing my attention to this quotation.

7 The United States Against the World: Oil, Hegemony, and the Militarisation of Globalisation BÜLENT GÖKAY

‘Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; Who rules the World-Island commands the World’. (Halford Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality, 1919)1 The attacks on 11 September and following American operations in Afghanistan have raised a host of questions, and touched a broad array of ongoing structural and conflictual developments about world politics. There is a fairly widespread consensus that ‘everything changed’ on the day four airliners were hijacked and nearly 3,000 people murdered. It has been claimed that ‘the attacks on the United States (have incalculable consequences for domestic politics and world affairs’ with ‘profound effects on the US economy as well as the world’.2 It was described as ‘a wake-up call against the background of a period of indolence and self-satisfaction’ .3 The new world order’, we were told, ‘is at war and everything is changed utterly —borders, cultures, powers, America, Middle East, Asia, China, Australia’.4 ‘The events of 11 September’ were ‘a terrible reminder that freedom demands eternal vigilance’.5 But, there is much less agreement about how to define the main features of this change. One conclusion drawn by Robert Keohane is ‘an understanding that new threats create new alliances’, and that the US ‘has greater need for commitments from other states now than it had before 11 September’.6 A similar trend has been pointed out by Steve Smith: The 11 September terrorist bombings will be to usher in an era where US foreign policy is more multilateral than before, an era that indicates both the essential interconnectedness of world politics and the fact that the US can neither act as world policeman nor retreat into isolation.7 Others put emphasis on globalisation, and claim that ‘the old idea of international governance (is now an actual possibility’.8 Similarly, Achilles Skordas, like so many others, sees a move ‘towards a disciplined international system of “benevolent hegemony”’ after 11 September.9 Some others read in 11 September and the following events a clear indication of an impending crisis of the world capitalist system in general, and the US power in particular. What they


are seeing in the recent events is ‘the death throes of a dying capitalism’.10 Yet, some others are increasingly concerned with the identity questions as the main aspect of the recent events, and a ‘clash of civilisations’ narrative of the relationship between the West and Islam has occupied centre stage. ‘11 September’, in the words of Anatol Lieven, ‘has ushered in a struggle of civilisation against barbarism’.11 It was described as an attack by ‘a fanatical group on civilised societies in general’.12 This article is an attempt to contribute to understanding the reasons behind the US operations in Afghanistan. It concentrates on the political economic motives, actions and their consequences of the major actor of the post-Cold War world, the USA. The essay sets out to answer a basic question: ‘How can one read the recent war in Afghanistan as symptomatic of far-reaching structural trends in world politics?’ My argument is premised on two closely related observations. The first is that the link between the US operations in Afghanistan that began on 7 October 2001 and the events of 11 September is less self-evident than it at first appears. In other words, the plans for the American offensive in Afghanistan were not formulated in response to 11 September, but existed prior to the terrorist attacks in the USA. Therefore, it could be argued that the attacks on 11 September provided the USA with the opportunity to enter Afghanistan to further extend a project that had already started months, if not years, earlier. The 11 September simply set off an explosion that was already in the making. If history had skipped over 11 September, and the horrific events of that day had never happened, it is very likely that the US would have gone to war in Afghanistan anyway.13 My second observation is derived from an understanding of the special geostrategic significance of Afghanistan. Why Afghanistan? Afghanistan occupies a strategic position in the geopolitical landscapes in general, and the geopolitics of the oil and natural gas resources in particular. Afghanistan has been in an extremely significant location spanning South Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East. In addressing this issue, I will outline the economic and political significance of the international competition over oil and natural gas reserves of the region, central Eurasia, in which Afghanistan is located. In my opinion, the US administration has significant political/ military and economic reasons to try to turn Afghanistan into a base for American military operations in the region. There can be no doubting Afghanistan’s strategic importance to the USA. WERE THE US MILITARY OPERATIONS IN AFGHANISTAN SIMPLY A RESPONSE TO THE ATTACKS OF 11 SEPTEMBER? We have been told many times after 11 September that the day America was attacked ‘is a defining moment for humankind’,14 and ‘everything changed’ on that tragic day, and the world will never be the same again.15 The US military

THE UNITED STATES AGAINST THE WORLD 89

operations in Afghanistan, by this account, were hastily improvised in less than a month as a direct response to the attacks in America. My premise is that the decisions shaping the US military campaign in Afghanistan show a remarkable continuity based on an ongoing, pre-11 September evolution in approaches to global system. I argue that the Bush administration was seeking a war in Afghanistan as a means for achieving global geopolitical goals. The causes for the war in Afghanistan cannot be found by looking only at 11 September and the events of the last few months —the roots are much broader and deeper. To see the whole picture we must return to the central fact of recent history—the fall of the state-socialist regimes in 1989. The way the US exercised its hegemonic power in the world politics in relation to its military operations in Afghanistan was very much a continuation of a policy started at the end of the Cold War. In other words, there was a significant change in the world power configuration, but this happened not on 11 September 2001, but at least ten years earlier, with the collapse of the Soviet bloc. In the words of Eric Hobsbawm, the collapse of the Soviet power in world politics ‘destroyed the (system that had stabilized international relations for some 40 years’.16 The dramatic and unprecedented events that took place in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in 1989–91 radically transformed geopolitical and geoeconomic contexts of the world politics. The geopolitical context was transformed because with the dismantling of the Soviet Union in 1991, the bipolar structure of global politics disappeared together with the Cold War. The collapse of the Warsaw Pact has created a zone of conflicting interests stretching from Germany in central Europe to China in East Asia. In the absence of the other superpower, the USA has found itself the master of a new world, in which it enjoys unassailable dominance. At a second level are major regional powers that are pre-eminent in areas of the world, but none is likely to match the US in the key dimensions of power—military, economic, and technological—that secure global political dominance. This global dominance does not simply derive from the USA’s quantitatively greater military power. It derives from how this military might is deployed politically to shape the political and economic context of world politics. The USA has the ability to control, through its military power, political leverage and its control over globe’s significant economic resources, the regional peripheries of its major allies. No less important was the transformed geo-economic context. Countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have opened for big multinational corporations to flood in, to exploit the natural resources and to invest in their development, thereby transforming the conditions for capital accumulation since 1991. The collapse of the Soviet control over the natural and human resources of this strategic region has resulted in the emergence of a high-stakes game of money and politics that includes such heavyweight players such as the USA, Russian, and Chinese governments, along with the world’s biggest multinational corporations.


Eurasia, the vast lands between China and Germany, has emerged as the world’s axial super continent, which is now serving as the decisive geopolitical chessboard, both for political/military and economic reasons. Eurasia accounts for 75 per cent of the world’s population, 60 per cent of its GNP, and 75 per cent of its energy resources. Collectively, Eurasia’s power overshadows even America’s.17 On the level of global economic relations, the lure of enormous oil reserves in the Caspian Sea basin has made the region the focus of fierce competition between multinational companies and the governments of powerful states. The geopolitics of the region is therefore a significant matter. On a lighter note, it is even the setting and plot device for the latest James Bond movie. The leading political power in this competition is the USA, whose military spending is greater than all the military spending of the next 13 countries ranked beneath it. Yet, the US share of the world trade and manufacturing is substantially less than it was during the Cold War. Since the end of the Cold War, the USA has been facing a decline in its economic strength relative to the European Union, and East Asian economic group of Japan, China and the Southeast Asian ‘tigers’. The major US interventions since 1989 should be viewed not only as reactions to ‘ethnic cleansing’ or ‘international terrorism’, but opportunistic responses to this post-Cold War geopolitical picture. This is one central reason why military power is now so often the choice of the US administration.18 Andre Gunder Frank, in an article written in June 1999, identified this strategic trend in post-Cold War US foreign policy as ‘Washington sees its military might as a trump card that can be employed to prevail over all its rivals in the coming struggle for resources’.19 Unimpeded access to affordable energy has always been a paramount strategic interest of the US administration, and so far the USA is the domi nant power in controlling the oil and gas resources of Eurasia. The leading position of the USA stems from its ability to control the sources of, and transport routes for, crucial energy and other strategic material supplies needed by other leading industrial states. Because of its position in the Middle East and its sea and air dominance in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Indian Ocean, the USA has so far been enjoying a strong military and political command. For reasons both of world strategy and control over natural resources, the US administration is determined to safeguard this dominant position and their permanent role in Eurasia. The immediate task of the US administration in ‘volatile Eurasia’ has been described as ‘to ensure that no state or combination of states gains the ability to expel the US or even diminish its decisive role’.20 Stated US policy goals regarding energy resources of Eurasia include breaking Russia’s monopoly over oil and gas transport routes, promoting US energy security through diversified supplies, encouraging the construction of multiple pipelines that go through US-controlled lands, and denying other potential powers dangerous leverage over the Central Asian oil and natural gas resources.21


The attack on America on 11 September provided an added incentive to the US administration to increase its grip over the region as well as to remind the world of America’s capacity for political-military control. Indeed, what happened on 11 September could have come out what seemed to be the ‘wild fantasies’ developed by American strategic analysts as they sought to justify a new active military role in the post-Cold War world.22 During the 1990s, great efforts were spent in imagining new ‘worst case scenarios’ stemmed from new post-Soviet threats. US security planners have come up with all sorts of ‘evil’ new ways of possible threats, from chemical warfare to biological weapons, and from hijacked vehicles and truck bombs to cyber-terrorism (jamming 911 services, or shutting down electricity or telecommunications, or disrupting air traffic control, etc.). Particular importance has been given to the notion of ‘rogue states’ that own ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ and sponsor terrorism. To defend the US interests against all these new, and mostly imaginary, threats, new hi-tech combat techniques have been developed and employed during the 1990s. America’s supremacy in bombs and planes and satellites and tanks has made the prospect of US casualties remote. Main aspect of this new US military performance is based on the use of high technology either directly to attack an enemy, or to support a proxy, say some Iraqi Kurdish groups in northern Iraq, the KLA in Kosovo, or the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. The rapid victory—in the Gulf War ten years ago, in Kosovo in 1999, and in Afghanistan recently—at a minimal cost to American lives has helped to lay the ghost of Vietnam. It is interesting that the map of ‘terrorist sanctuaries’ and so-called enemy rogue states is ‘a map of the world’s principal energy resources’.23 A few days before 11 September, the US Energy Information Administration documented Afghanistan’s strategic ‘geographical position as a potential transit route for oil and natural gas exports from Central Asia to the Arabian Sea’, including the construction of pipelines through Afghanistan.24 The life-and-death struggle to monopolise energy resources lies at the heart of this struggle, because oil remains the lifeblood of modern world economy. Superpower status naturally requires control of oil at every stage —discovery, pumping, refining, transporting, and marketing. The Washington-based American Petroleum Institute, voice of the major US oil companies, called the Caspian region ‘the area of greatest resource potential outside of the Middle East’.25 Dick Cheney, Vice-President to George Bush, speaking of the Caspian Sea basin in 1998 when he was working for the oil industry, commented, ‘I cannot think of a time when we have had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian’.26 Oil is clearly not the only force in action, but it is an important piece of a complicated political/military and economic struggle. Afghanistan has long had a key place in US strategic plans to secure control of the vast oil and natural gas resources of Eurasia.


OIL AND NATURAL GAS RESOURCES OF EURASIA The Caspian Sea basin has received considerable attention over the past ten years, both because of its potential as a significant source of oil and natural gas for world markets, and because of the international competition that has emerged over the control of its resources. The Caspian, which is the world’s largest inland sea, is roughly 700 miles from north to south and 250 miles across, lying directly between the states of Central Asia and the Transcaucasus. It is a salt-water body, connected to the Black Sea by the Volga and Don rivers, the artificial Volga-Don canal, and the Sea of Azov, a branch of the Black Sea. Before the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, only two independent states—the Soviet Union and Iran— bordered the Caspian Sea basin. Now, five states—Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Russia—adjoin the region. The Caspian Sea basin of Central Asia, located in the centre of Eurasia, is a region of complexities, rich in the diversity of peoples, nations and cultures. The cultural and historical heritage of the region goes back further than many European countries. The region has always had a romantic appeal for foreigners. Thousands of years ago the routes connecting northern and Eastern Europe with Asia Minor and the Greek colonies passed through here. The Argonauts were the first ‘foreign tourists’, so to speak, to visit the Black Sea coast of the Caspian region. Prometheus—who brought fire to mankind in defiance of Zeus—was said to have been chained to a cliff in the region.27 The attraction of the region in modern times is related to its natural resources, especially the vast oil and natural gas reserves. From antiquity to the midnineteenth century, the region was one of the best-known oil regions in the world. Before the arrival of the Russians, petroleum extraction was very primitive: for centuries, petroleum traders had to extract the petroleum with rags and buckets. The tsarist government anticipated the modern petroleum industry, and it drilled a well for oil at what is now the giant Bibi-Eibat field in Azerbaijan in 1871. It was towards the end of the nineteenth century when the area had its first contact with Western capital. The rich oil potential in the region attracted important foreign companies. By the late 1800s, two competing families came to invest in the Caspian oil industry. The Nobel brothers arrived on the scene first, to be followed by the French branch of the Rothschild family.28 In 1898 Russia became the largest oil-producing country, and held this position until 1902. At the beginning of the twentieth century, more than 50 per cent of the world’s oil was produced in the Caspian region.29 After the Russian Empire ended and a revolutionary government was set up in Russia, the region endured a period of turmoil during the Russian Civil War until the Bolsheviks seized control in the Caspian region in 1921.30 With Stalin’s First Five-Year Plan in 1927, the Soviet State assumed full responsibility for central planning, determining the sites and method of extraction, as well as the amount of production and modes of transport. In 1928, oil production surpassed the former 1901 peak. The Soviet oil industry grew substantially during the First and


Second Five-Year Plans. The vast majority of the production came from the Caspian region.31 The oil from this region played a major strategic role during the First and Second World Wars. Protecting the oil fields of the Caspian was an Allied priority in the First World War. During the Second World War, oil from the Caspian Sea basin was an essential target of Hitler’s expansionist policies. Following the 1939 German-Soviet Pact, Soviet oil from the Caspian Sea basin accounted for a third of Germany’s imports. Hitler’s attempt to secure the oil wells of the Caspian collapsed in the face of the fierce resistance of the Red Army. As a result of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the vast oil and gas resources of the region have been opened again to Western companies, and the governments of the powerful states of the West have designed policies to influence this competition. A race has begun amongst the powerful transnational corporations of the world to secure control over the black gold of the region. It is believed that the world’s largest reservoir of untapped oil and gas is to be found in the southern republics of the former Soviet Union—Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. Even though the reports over possible and confirmed reserves of mineral deposits differ widely, the interest in the region is enormous.32 A recent US Department of Energy report says that global energy consumption will grow 60 per cent by 2020, and that oil is expected to remain the world’s dominant source of energy.33 At stake in this contest are billions of dollars in oil and natural gas revenues and the vast geopolitical and military advantages that fall to the power(s) which gain(s) a dominant position in the region. Two basic questions loom over the future of this important resource: who owns the rich oil and natural gas resources? And who will have the control over the transportation of the Caspian oil and gas to world markets? The answers will greatly contribute to shape the re-configuration of the world economy in this century and the international order that governs it. At stake in this competition is far more than the fate of the resources of the Caspian Sea basin of Central Asia. Caspian oil is ‘non-OPEC oil’, meaning that supplies from this region are less likely to be affected by the price and supply policies applied by the oil-exporting cartel.34 Flows of large volumes of Caspian oil through non-OPEC lands would erode the power of OPEC, as well as its ability to maintain high oil prices and to use oil as a mode of political blackilometreail.35 US strategists do not simply want to obtain oil, which is a simple matter if one has money. They want to eliminate all potential competitors, safeguard the area politically and militarily, and control the flow of oil to the big world markets in the West and in Southeast Asia. The transfer of oil from the Caspian-Caucasus to world markets is no easy matter, primarily because the Caspian Sea is landlocked. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, multinational oil companies and governments of the leading world powers have woven a tangled web of competing pipelines. Players on this rigged grand chessboard are BP and


Amoco (which merged in 1998), UNOCAL, Texaco, Exxon, Pennzoil and Halliburton. It is the ‘pipeline map’ around the oil and natural gas resources of the region that connects the Balkans region to Afghanistan.36 PIPELINEISTAN: FROM THE BALKANS TO AFGHANISTAN The Balkans is considered to be central to the ‘pipeline map’, because oil destined for Western Europe must pass through them at one point or another.37 During the 1999 Kosovo war, some of the critics of NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia alleged that the USA and its allies in the West were seeking to secure a passage for oil from the Caspian Sea. This claim was mocked by the British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, who observed that ‘there is no oil in Kosovo… there is only some dirty lignite’.38 This observation was, of course, true but irrelevant to the claim. The oil reserves of the Caspian are a long way from the Balkans, but the routes by which this oil must come to the markets in the West are not. In 1997, BP and the Texas Halliburton Company proposed a pipeline that would go from Burgas in Bulgaria through Skopje in Macedonia to Vlore, a port in Albania.39 This would be one of the shortest and least expensive of the possible routes. All these give the necessity of security in the Southeastern Europe an additional direct economic importance, adding to the primary strategic concerns that stand behind the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. Geography makes the Balkans region a key stepping stone to oil interests in Eurasia.40 It was claimed that the main globalistic objective of the US-led NATO operations in Kosovo was to pacify Yugoslavia so that transnational oil corporations could secure the oil transportation route from the Caspian Sea through Yugoslavia, into Central Europe.41 After the NATO’s bombing campaign in March 1999, the US spent $36.6 million to build Camp Bondsteel42 in southern Kosovo. The largest American foreign military base constructed since Vietnam, Camp Bondsteel was built by the Brown and Root Division of Halliburton, the world’s biggest oil services corporation, which was run by Dick Cheney before he was made Vice-President in the Bush Jr administration.43 Camp Bondsteel was created in the image of small town America, and features a fitness centre, movie theatres, bowling alleys and fast food restaurants where young soldiers go to relax after a hard day’s work. Camp Bondsteel—now an enormous, self-sufficient city with ‘downtown,’ ‘midtown’ and ‘uptown’ districts, with barracks, command centres, helicopter maintenance buildings, a water treatment plant, a library, a chapel, and the best-equipped hospital in Europe—was named after an American officer who performed bravely in Vietnam. Bondsteel is the lynchpin in the control of the oil route to European markets, located close to vital oil pipelines and energy corridors presently under construction, such as the US-sponsored Trans-Balkan oil pipeline. On 2 June 1999, the US Trade and Development Agency announced that it had awarded a


half-million dollar grant to Bulgaria to carry out a feasibility study for the pipeline across the Balkans.44 Rivalries being played out here will have a decisive impact in shaping postcommunist Eurasia, and in determining how much influence the US will have over its development.45 This situation has worldwide and not just regional consequences. For instance, the expansion of US influence in Eurasia poses a direct and immediate threat to China, the power which Washington views as its main competitor for influence in Eurasia. The expansion of the Chinese economy is directly dependent on access to petroleum. China’s oil needs are expected to nearly double by 2010, which will force the country to import 40 per cent of its requirements, up from 20 per cent in 1995.46 Driven by a burgeoning demand for energy, the Chinese government has made securing access to the largely untapped reserves of oil and natural gas in the Caspian region a cornerstone of its economic policy. China’s focus is the construction of a 2,800-mile network of gas and oil pipelines running from China’s western province of Xinjiang to the major east coast metropolis of Shanghai. In 1997, the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) acquired the right to develop two potentially lucrative oilfields in Kazakhstan, outbidding US and European oil companies. Feasibility studies are also underway for the construction of over 2,000 miles of gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Xinjiang by the state oil holding company, PetroChina Co. This east-west pipeline is China’s biggest infrastructure project after the Three Gorges Dam.47 China’s influence in the Caspian oil politics has increased as a result of a recent business deal in Azerbaijan: two subsidiaries of CNPC bought the 30 per cent stake owned by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in two oil fields, the Kursangi and Karabagli fields, in Azerbaijan for US$52 million as part of China’s move to diversify its resource base.48 Theoretically, oil and gas pipelines to China from Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan could be extended to link into the pipeline networks of both Russia and Iran. This model has been dubbed the ‘Pan Asian Global Energy Bridge’, a Eurasian network of pipelines linking energy resources in the Middle East, Central Asia and Russia to Chinese Pacific coast. China’s pipeline network has the potential to bring about a significant strategic realignment in the region. Central Asia with its huge reserves of oil, and natural gas, and strategic position is already a key arena of sharp rivalry between the USA, major European powers, Russia, Japan and China. All of the major powers, along with transnational corporations, have been seeking alliances, concessions and possible pipeline routes in the region. In the midst of this increasing competition, open conflict between the superpower USA and important regional power China seems highly likely, because US presence in Central Asia is a serious blow to China’s interests and security.49 Another significant regional power, Russia, controls most of the export routes of the Caspian oil at the moment. In the words of Russian Defence Minister, Igor Sergeev, in November 1999, ‘the West’s policy is a challenge to Russia with the


aim of weakening its international position and ousting it from strategically important regions’.50 Disputes over oil were at the heart of Russia’s earlier decision to go to war against Chechnia in December 1994, because its sole operational pipeline for Caspian oil, which goes directly through troubled Dagestan and Chechnia, was under threat from the Islamic separatist forces of Chechnia. It can therefore be argued that Russia has important geo-economic reasons for establishing a firm control over Chechnia, and these are essentially related to Russia’s worries over the control of the resources of the Caspian.51 Russia’s concerns over Chechnia grew as a result of the US-NATO war against Serbia and the subsequent NATO occupation of Kosovo. Tensions with Russia escalated in the course of Russia’s military campaign in Chechnia soon after. The Russian intervention in Chechnia in 1999 was meant to be a warning to the USA and NATO, and the other candidates likely to rebel against Russia in the post-Soviet space, that Russia was still a mighty military force to be reckoned with. There are recent suggestions that there may be a quid pro quo between the USA and Russian administrations with Russians providing intelligence support to American troops in Afghanistan and the US turning a blind eye from a brutal Russian occupation in Chechnia.52 It has been claimed after 11 September that ‘the carnage in Chechnya [Chechnia] now became a front-line of the battle fought by the entire international community against terrorism’ .53 The US has a very wide range of instruments essentially derived from its structural control over the political-military and economic context of global interstate system. In Eurasia, the US administration sees its military might as a trump card that can be employed to prevail over its rivals in the struggle for political hegemony and resources. Powerful geopolitical and geoeconomic interests are fuelling the American war drive. Some commentators argue that the real motive for America’s determination to operate in Afghanistan is related to its direct interest in the natural resources of Central Asia.54 If the Balkans is a major key to transportation of the vast Caspian oil reserves, Afghanistan is another key.55 Experts say that Afghanistan with its strategic location offers the most convenient route for pipelines. The 491-kilometre oil and gas pipelines across Afghanistan that would carry Caspian Sea basin’s oil and natural gas south to the Pakistani coast on the Arabian Sea would reduce US dependency on the volatile Gulf oil zone controlled by the OPEC.56 In 1998, the UNOCAL consortium, the USAbased oil company, had started negotiations with the Taliban government to build the trans-Afghan pipeline; and the disgraced Enron Corporation, one of Bush’s biggest campaign backers, undertook a feasibility study for a $2.5 billion oil pipeline project on behalf of the UNOCAL.57 On 10 September 2001, Oil and Gas Journal, a USA-based oil industry publication, reported that Central Asia represents one of the world’s last great frontiers for geological survey and analysis: …offering opportunities for investment in discovery, production, transport and refining of enormous quantities of oil and gas resources. Central Asia


is rich in hydrocarbons, with gas being the predominant energy fuel. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, especially, are noted for gas resources, while Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan are the primary oil producer.58 Frank Viviano, of the San Francisco Chronicle, wrote on 26 September: The hidden stakes in the war against terrorism can be summed up in a single word: oil. The map of terrorist sanctuaries and targets in the Middle East and Central Asia is also, to an extraordinary degree, a map of the world’s principal energy sources in the twenty-first century (It is inevitable that the war against terrorism will be seen by many as a war on behalf of America’s Chevron, Exxon, and Arco; France’s TotalFinaElf; British Petroleum; Royal Dutch Shell and other multinational giants, which have hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in the region.59 Within a week of the commencement of war in Afghanistan, the Bush administration discussed the shape of a post-Afghan government to do deals over oil and gas pipelines. The New York Times reported on 15 December that, ‘the State Department is exploring the potential for post-Taliban energy projects in the region, which has more than six per cent of the world’s proven oil reserves and almost 40 per cent of its gas reserves’.60 President Bush’s appointment of a former aide to the UNOCAL, Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad, as special envoy to Afghanistan, is particularly interesting in this context.61 The nomination underscores the real economic and financial interests at stake in the US military campaign in Afghanistan.62 Khalilzad comes from an aristocratic Afghan family with ties to the King. He was a special advisor in the Reagan administration, involved in sending Stinger missiles to the Islamic muhajadeen to use against Soviet troops in the 1980s. He became undersecretary of defence in the first Bush administration in the early 1990s. Khalilzad is intimately involved in the long-running US efforts to obtain direct access to the oil and gas resources of the region. As an adviser for UNOCAL, Khalilzad drew up a risk analysis of a proposed gas pipeline from the former Soviet republic of Turkmenistan across Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Indian Ocean. Richard Butler, an American diplomat in residence at the Council on Foreign Relations, has explained this as ‘the war in Afghanistan (has made the construction of a pipeline across Afghanistan and Pakistan politically possible for the first time since UNOCAL and the Argentinean company Bridas competed for the Afghan rights in the mid-1990s’.63 So many business deals, so much oil and natural gas, all these giant multinationals with powerful connections to the Bush administration. It doesn’t add up to a conspiracy theory, but it does mean that there is a significant money subtext to the ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’.64 In the words of Zoltan Grossman, ‘it is not a conspiracy; it is just business as usual’.65 It is far too soon to digest or analyse the full meaning of the recent events, and the exact outcome of the present manoeuvres in Eurasia, and its impact on the


global strategic equation is not yet clear. But, the increasingly heavy involvement of the US administration, significant regional powers, and transnational corporations in the area underscores the central importance of the oil and natural gas resources of the region and the potential for sharp conflicts over the control of the resources.66 The growth of regional antagonisms will be heightened, not attenuated, as the region is integrated more into the global system of production and trade.67 We are before the recomposition of the geostrategic map, not only of Eurasia, but also of the world, in a manner not seen since the highest moments of colonialism. As the stakes in this competition for control increase, the risk of dangerous clashes becomes a threatening reality.68 The region has four nuclear-armed countries—Russia, China, Pakistan and India69— making it a dangerous potential flashpoint of global significance. America’s war in Afghanistan has already upset the delicate balance of enmity between old foes India and Pakistan, who have fought three major wars in the recent past, and increased the militarisation of the entire Asian region.70 A real risk of military confrontation continues in South Asia: as India and Pakistan simultaneously mass soldiers at their border and to escalate the conflict in Kashmir. Since the end of the Cold War, Washington has deliberately contributed to fuelling the India-Pakistan conflict. The USA has military cooperation agreements with both India and Pakistan, and keeps selling weapons to both countries. Sanctions against both Pakistan and India —imposed after their nuclear tests in 1998—were dropped by President Bush immediately after 11 September. While India and Pakistan are moving along the dangerous line of a nuclear war, the US and its allies are quietly laying gas pipelines, selling weapons and pushing through their business deals. DEFENDING AMERICA’S GLOBAL HEGEMONY From the collapse of the former Yugoslavia and various post-Yugoslav wars, to American/NATO responses to numerous political and economic crises in the post-Soviet space, and more recently to America’s ‘War on Terrorism’ in Afghanistan, there is an important underlying thread. Although these various wars and conflicts have/had certain regional dimensions, they are primarily the US response to the opportunities and challenges opened by the demise of the Soviet Union. All have been connected to one big central course of action: the manoeuvres of the USA, and its allies in Europe, over the division of resources and political/military control of Eurasia. All these interventions have enabled the USA to gain a strong foothold in the lands between Europe to the west, Russian Federation to the north, and China to the east, and turn this strategic region increasingly into an American ‘sphere of influence’.71 The strengthening of this global control is as much about politics as economics. As William Wallace summarises, this ‘hegemony rests upon a range of resources, of hard military power, economic weight, financial commitments, and the soft currency of hegemonic values, cultural influence and prestige’.72 It


is not just the scale and power of its military might. The US hegemony also rests on the ability to homogenise the political cultures of its allies around sets of ideological values and cultural perceptions constructed to serve US interests. Most of these are symbolic structures loosely connected to the Second World War experience embodying such highly sensitive symbols as ‘Hitler’, ‘genocide’, ‘ethnic cleansing’, ‘totalitarianism versus freedom and democracy’, ‘individual rights’, etc.73 With the demonisation of political Islam during the Gulf War and after, ‘Islamic fundamentalism’, and recently the ‘Axis of Evil’, have been added to these as the dominant hate themes. This value structure has been repeatedly and effectively embedded within the Western political cultures through repeated international polarisations and military interventions after the end of the Cold War, from the military campaigns in the Gulf to various Yugoslav wars, and finally to military operations in Afghanistan. Following the US ‘victory’ in Afghanistan, hundreds of prisoners were shipped to an American concentration camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. There they have been held against all conventions of war and international law. Evidence of their alleged crimes has yet to be produced. Meanwhile, in America, more than 1,000 people of Muslim background have disappeared. No one has been charged! Taken together, these military-political, economic, and cultural capacities of the American power, the foreign policy autonomy of its allies has been reduced to near zero. Within this emerging culture of new imperialism, a sharply increased level of xenophobia and racism aimed at those who are ‘uncivilised’ has become the order of the day, and the so-called intelligentsia in Western world, conservatives and liberals alike, boldly echo the preferred euphemistic triumph of ‘Western civilisation’. The USA is exploiting the dismantling of the Soviet bloc most aggressively. It is inserting itself into the strategic regions of Eurasia and anchoring US geopolitical influence in these areas to prevent its competitors from doing the same. The ultimate goal of the US strategy is to establish new American spheres of influence and eliminate any obstacles that stand in the way. At the level of economic control, involved in the re-integration of the post-Soviet space into world capitalist system is the absorption, by massive transnational corporations, of large investment in valuable natural resources of Eurasia that are vital to the USA and its allies. The vast oil and natural gas resources of the Caspian Sea basin are now being practically divided among the major multinationals.74 This is the fuel that is feeding renewed militarism, which leads to new wars of conquest by the USA and its allies against local opponents, as well as ever-greater conflicts among the USA and major regional powers, such as China and Russia. Were any of its adversaries—or a combination of adversaries—to effectively challenge US supremacy in this region, it would call into question the US hegemony in world affairs. For the USA, the most effective way to enforce world domination is through use of its mighty military machine. This is the key to understanding the development of global politics since the end of the Cold War. America’s war against the Taliban in Afghanistan is the latest in a series of wars


of aggression that have been played out in this strategically significant super continent. The recent war in Afghanistan has significantly increased the US hegemonic control over the lands of Eurasia. The US administration is using the attacks of 11 September to carry out its foreign policy agenda on a truly impressive scale. Bush’s ‘War on Terrorism’ has resulted in the projection of US military power even further into the region. Under the cover of this war, Central Asia is splattered with new American fortresses, the Pacific and Indian Oceans are patrolled by aircraft carriers and accompanying fleets of awesome size. Hundreds of US Special Operations Forces have been shipped off to the Philippines to train the government soldiers in active combat with the Islamic Abu Sayyaf guerrillas. US Special Forces are also being sent to the former Soviet Republic of Georgia where a small number of Arab and Chechen fighters are supposedly hiding out. One of the lasting consequences of the ‘War on Terrorism’ could be what amounts to a military encirclement of China. The US military power ‘is now dominant and its limitations are minimal’.75 Never in history has the military supremacy of a single power been so big.76 All these are significant developments regarding the security architecture of the post-Cold War world. The expansion of the US hegemonic control, however, did not start with the attacks of 11 September, but had already been in place since 1989.77 The hijacked planes crashing into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have provided an additional rational for the unilateral action to the US administration to increase its political/military control in this region. The Bush administration seized on the terror attacks of 11 September as a welcome pretext for implementing long-advocated policies in Eurasia. Anti-terrorism has replaced anti-communism as the new millennium’s all-purpose rationale for providing US military/political and economic expansion over the globe. Therefore the key to understanding the events of the recent developments after 11 September lies in the post-Cold War realities and dynamics of US global hegemony. The defence of American economic and geopolitical interests worldwide was the main underlying reason for the American ‘war against terrorism’. ‘ENDLESS WAR’: MARCHING INTO THE ABYSS Events since 11 September are reminiscent of Orwell’s 1984. This war can go on indefinitely because, unlike the previous wars—the First World War, the Second World War, or even the Cold War—it involves no clear-cut and measurable criteria of success. Indefinitely here is just another word for forever. In George Orwell’s last novel, 1984, the enemy, the hate figure, is Emmanuel Goldstein, who is said to control spies and saboteurs. Goldstein is the primal enemy. All crimes, all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of him. Goldstein is the Osama Bin Laden figure in Orwell’s novel, an extremely elusive person who is never seen, never captured, but believed by the leadership of Oceania (a fictitious superpower, an amalgamation of North America and Western Europe) to be ‘still alive and hatching his conspiracies:


perhaps somewhere beyond the sea, under the protection of his foreign paymasters…’78 Since Goldstein is never captured, the battle against his crimes, treacheries, sabotages must never end: The heretic, the enemy of society, will always be there, so that he can be defeated and humiliated over again…. Goldstein and his heresies will live forever. Every day, at every moment, they will be defeated, discredited, ridiculed, spat upon—and yet they will always survive.79 NOTES 1. H.Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality (New York: W.W.Norton, 1962), p. 150 [original publication in 1919]. Mackinder refers to Eurasia as ‘World-Island’, and uses the term Heartland to refer the region around the Caspian Sea basin (regions surrounded roughly by the Volga, the Yangtze, the Arctic and the Himalayas). 2. John Hinkson, ‘High Towers, High Stakes, High Risks’, Arena Magazine (October– November 2001), p. 55. 3. Henry Kissinger, ‘Foreign Policy in the Age of Terrorism’, transcript of the 2001 Ruttenberg Lecture, The Centre for Policy Studies. 4. Guy Rundle, ‘The New World Order Under Siege’, Arena Magazine (October– November 2001), p. 2. 5. M.Thatcher, ‘Islamism is the New Bolshevism’, The Guardian, 12 February 2002. 6. Robert Keohane, ‘The Globalisation of Informal Violence’, Social Science Research Council, ‘After 11 September’, http://www.ssrc.org/sept11/essays/ keohane, p. 1. 7. Steve Smith, ‘The End of the Unipolar Movement: 11 September and the Future of World Order’, Social Science Research Council, ‘After 11 September’, http:// www.ssrc.org/sept11/ essays/smith, p. 1. 8. Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereria, ‘Beyond Conflicting Powers’ Politics’, Social Science Research Council, ‘After 11 September’, http://www.ssrc.org/sept11/essays/ bresser, p. 1. 9. A.Skordas, ‘Militant Liberalism’, openDemocracy, 18 September 2001. 10. M.Berman, ‘Waiting for the Barbarians’, The Guardian, 6 October 2001; I.Wallerstein, ‘America and the World: The Twin Towers as Metaphor’, Social Science Research Council, ‘After 11 September’, http://www.ssrc.org/sept11/ essays/wallerstein, p. 8 11. Anatol Lieven, ‘The End of NATO’, Prospect (December 2001), p.15. 12. Samuel Huntington in an interview, given by S.Alam, ‘Clash of Civilisations’, Counter Punch (17 December 2001). 13. The ‘surprise’ attacks of 11 September came as no surprise to intelligence agencies. In June 2001, the German intelligence agency warned the CIA that Middle Eastern-based terrorist groups were planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack important symbols of the US (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 14 September 2001).


14. D.Held, ‘Violence and Justice in a Global Age, openDemocracy, 14 September 2001. 15. Barry Eichergreen, ‘US Foreign Economic Policy After 11 September’, Social Science Research Council, ‘After 11 September’, http://www.ssrc.org/sept11/ essays/eichergreen, p. 1; T.G.Ash, ‘The Beginning of the Twenty-first Century’, openDemocracy, 11 September 2001. 16. Eric J.Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914–1991 (New York: Vintage, 1994), pp. 9–11. 17. C.Clover, ‘Dreams of the Eurasian Heartland’, Foreign Affairs, 78 (March/April 1999), p.9. 18. Since the collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe, the USA has been involved in virtually non-stop military operations: an invasion of Panama in 1989; the First Gulf War in 1990–91; Somalia in 1992–93; Bosnia in 1995; the Second Gulf War (the air war) in 1998–99; the bombing campaign in Kosovo and Yugoslavia in 1999; and, finally, Afghanistan in 2001. 19. A.G.Frank, ‘NATO, Caucasus/Central Asia Oil’, Fourth International World Socialist website, 16 June 1999, p. 1. 20. Z.Brzezinski, ‘A Geostrategy for Asia’, Foreign Affairs, 76, 5(September/October 1997), pp. 50–64. 21. US Energy Secretary, Bill Richardson, telling Stephen Kinzer, ‘On Piping Out Caspian Oil, US Insists the Cheaper, Shorter Way Isn’t Better’, The New York Times, 8 November 1998. 22. Homi Bhabha remarks that each of the ‘unimaginable’ actions of 11 September has already been celebrated repeatedly in Hollywood. (Quoted in L.Segal, ‘Get Real’, The Guardian, 27 November 2001.) 23. F.Viviano, Oil and Gas Journal online, 10 September 2001. 24. M.Cohn, ‘The Deadly Pipeline War: US Afghan Policy Driven by Oil Interests’, Jurist (7 December 2001), p. 1. 25. M.Cohn, ‘Cheney’s Black Gold’, The Chicago Tribune, 10 August 2000. 26. Quoted in The Guardian, 23 October 2001. 27. J.McLaurin, Sketches in Crude Oil (Harrisburg, PA: Horace MacFarland Company, 1896), p. 8; E.W.Owen, Trek of the Oil Finders (Tulsa, OK: American Association of Petroleum Geologists, 1975), p. 1. 28. R.W.Tolf, The Russian Rockefellers: The Saga of the Nobel Family and the Russian Oil Industry (Washington, DC: Hoover Institute Press, 1976), p. 141. 29. B.Gökay, ‘The Background: History and Political Change’, in B.Gökay (ed.), The Politics of Caspian Oil (London: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 1–19. 30. B.Gökay, A Clash of Empires: Turkey between Russian Bolshevism and British Imperialism, 1918–1923 (London: I.B.Tauris, 1997), pp. 73–6. 31. M.I.Goldman, The Enigma of Soviet Petroleum (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1980), p.21. 32. C.Fenyvesi, ‘Caspian Sea: US Experts Say Oil Reserves Are Huge’, RFE/RL (5 May 1998). 33. 26 March 2002, Energy Information Administration Reports, Washington DC 20585, http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/index.html. 34. OPEC is the Saudi-dominated organisation of oil exporting countries. 35. B.Shaffer, ‘A Caspian Alternative to OPEC’, The Wall Street Journal, 11 July 2001.


36. S.Parrott, ‘Pipeline Superhighway Replaces The Silk Road’, RFE/RL (19 November 1997). 37. D.Yannopoulos, Athens News, 28 September 2001. 38. Robin Cook, interviewed by John Lloyd, New Statesman, 5 July 1999, p. 19. 39. G.Monbiot, ‘A Discreet Deal in the Pipeline’, The Guardian, 15 February 2001. 40. Business Week, 19 April 1999; E.D.Zemenides, ‘The Next Balkan War’, National Strategy Reporter, 7, 3 (Fall 1997); Oil and Gas Journal online, 10 May 1999. 41. B.Schwarz and C.Layne, ‘The Case Against Intervention in Kosovo’, The Nation Magazine (19 April 1999); P.Gowan, ‘The Euro-Atlantic Origins of NATO’s Attack on Yugoslavia’, in T.Ali (ed.), Masters of the Universe (London:Verso, 2000), pp. 3–45. 42. The base is so huge that KFOR soldiers who are in active service in the former Yugoslavia joke, ‘What are the two things that can be seen from space? One is the Great Wall of China, the other is Camp Bondsteel’. According to leaked comments to the press, European politicians now believe that the US used the bombing of Yugoslavia specifically in order to establish Camp Bondsteel. See http:// www.realitymacedonia.org.mk/web/news_page.asp?nid=1838 43. M.Cohn, ‘Pacification for a Pipeline’, Jurist online, 27 April 2001. 44. P.M.Wihbey, ‘Looking at Balkans Route for Caspian Crude’, United Press International online, 23 June 1999. 45. ‘Race to Unlock Central Asia’s Energy Riches’, BBC World News online, 29 December 1997. 46. Oil and Gas Journal online, 4 January 2002. 47. Ibid. 48. Reuters, 23 January 2002. 49. R.Norton-Taylor, ‘The New Great Game’, The Guardian, 5 March 2001. On 11 September 2001, a high level Chinese delegation was in Pakistan to discuss economic co-operation with the Taliban (V.Cheterian and P.Rekacewicz, ‘Unbalancing Power from the Gulf to China’, Le Monde Diplomatique, 8 November 2001, p. 9). 50. Reported in the New York Times, 15 November 1999. 51. A.Towner, ‘The Russians, Chechens and the Black Gold’, in Gökay, Politics of Caspian Oil, pp. 199–215. 52. J.Rarey, ‘May God Forgive Them’, http://www.watchmanjournal.org/000217.html 53. Georgi Derluguian, ‘Recasting Russia’, New Left Review, 12 (NovemberDecember 2001), p. 28. 54. S.Yechury, ‘America, Oil and Afghanistan’, The Hindu, 13 October 2001; ‘Control of Central Asia’s Oil is the Real Goal’, The Telegraph, 25 October 2001. 55. ‘Afghan Pipeline: A New Great Game’, BBC News online, 4 November 1997. Robert Keohane fails to see the strategic significance of Afghanistan for the USA when writing on 11 September: ‘On traditional grounds of national interest, Afghanistan should be one of the least important places in the world for American foreign policy.’ (‘The Globalization of Informal Violence’, Social Science Research Council, ‘After 11 September’, http://www.ssrc.org/septl 1/essays/ keohane, p. 14.) 56. A.Quader Chowdhury, ‘Western Oil Interests in Central Asia’, The Independent, 16 January 2002. 57. OnLine Asia Times, 6 October 2001.


58. 59. 60. 61.

62.

63.

64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69.

70. 71.

72.

73.

74. 75.

Oil and Gas Journal, 10 September 2001. San Francisco Chronicle, 26 September 2001. New York Times, 15 December 2001. Khalilzad had been an under-secretary of defence under George Bush Snr and has worked as a defence analyst for the Rand Corporation. He was born 50 years ago in Mazar-I Sharif and brought up in Kabul as part of Afghanistan’s Dari-speaking elite, before travelling to Lebanon and then to the USA in the 1970s to complete his education in political science. At the National Security Council, Khalilzad worked for the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, who had served on the board of the Chevron Corporation as an expert on another central Asian state with major oil reserves, Kazakhstan. (K.Sengupta and A. Gumbel, ‘New US envoy to Kabul Lobbied for Taliban Oil Rights’, The Independent, 10 January 2002.) Hamid Kharzai, the head of the post-Taliban Afghan interim government, also acted, for a while, as a consultant for the American oil company UNOCAL, at he time it was consider ing building a pipeline in Afghanistan. Bridas Petroleum of Argentine competed with the UNOCAL for the Afghan pipeline project in the late 1990s. R.Butler, ‘A New Oil Game, With New Winners’, The New York Times, 18 January 2002. ‘West Plans Oil Pipeline via Afghanistan’, Kazakh Commercial Television, Almaty, given by Financial Times Limited, 25 December 2001. Z.Grossman, ‘New US Military Bases’, ZNet, 5 February 2002. ‘A Dangerous Addiction’, The Economist, 15–21 December 2001. Time Magazine, 12 November 2001; Observer, 7 October 2001; Explorer, February 2000. B.Gertz, ‘India, Pakistan Prepare War’, The Washington Times, 31 December 2001. M.MacDonald, ‘India, Pakistan Buy Time, But War Still Lurks’, Reuters, 2 January 2002; R.Fisk, ‘War Disturbs the most Dangerous Political Tectonic Plate in the World’, Independent, 8 October 2001. H.Kissinger, ‘New World Disorder’, Newsweek, 24 May 1999; T. Straus, ‘The New Battlefield’, http://www.monitor.net/monitor/0112a/newbattlefield.html The ‘temporary’ US bases in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Caspian States appear to be putting down roots. US military ‘tent cities’ have now been established in 13 places in the states bordering Afghanistan. More than 60,000 US military personnel now live and work at these forward bases. New airports are being built and garrisons expanded. (W.Arkin, Los Angeles Times, 6 January 2002; and G.Monbiot, The Guardian, 12 February 2002.) W.Wallace, ‘Living with the Hegemon: European Dilemmas’, Social Science Research Council, ‘After 11 September’, http://www.ssrc.org/sept11/essays/ wallace, p. 9. Peter Gowan provides a comprehensive analysis of this process, around the events of NATO’s attack on Yugoslavia in 1999. See Peter Gowan, ‘The Euro-Atlantic Origins of NATO’s Attack on Yugoslavia’, in Ali, Masters of the Universe, pp. 30– 45; and ‘Contemporary Intra-Core Relations and World Systems Theory’, Paper Presented in June 2000, Ukraine Centre, University of North London. The New York Times, 8 March 1992. P.Rogers, openDemocracy, 22 January 2002.


76. P.Beaumont and E. Vulliamy, ‘Armed to the Teeth’, The Observer, 10 February 2002; B. Jones, Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, AMBONews, 111 February 2002. 77. A.G.Frank, ‘Nato, Caucasus/Central Asia Oil’, Fourth International World Socialist website, 16 June 1999. 78. G.Orwell, 1984 (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 2000), p.14 [first published in 1949]. 79. Ibid., pp. 280–1.

8 The Response of the British Government to the Attack on America DAN KEOHANE

This chapter’s review of the response by the British government to the attack on the USA starts by setting out how the UK administration and other British politicians depicted the attack and what causes they identified. Second, it provides a context, embracing British foreign and security policy before the event, to explain why the UK responded in the way it has. Third, the paper briefly discusses the diplomatic, political and security aspects of the Britain’s reaction. And, finally it considers the coherence of the UK response. THE INITIAL VIEW OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT AND POLITICAL PARTIES In the hours and days immediately after the attack of 11 September, the British government and other UK political actors were at one in articulating responses of great horror at the scale and nature of the attack, deep sympathy with the victims and solidarity with the American people and government.1 The attack also aroused profound concerns about further onslaughts by networks such as the alQaida. These anxieties were based on the gross underestimation by UK and US intelligence agencies before 11 September of the capacity of al-Qaida group to organise an attack as complex and destructive as that on the USA, involving the willingness of those involved to sacrifice their own lives. In the first few days after the event, it was depicted by British political leaders as a wicked, indefensible and barbaric attack by fanatical terrorists on ‘basic democratic values…and on the civilised world’.2 The event was usually portrayed as a unique adventure rather than as the culmination of a series of wellplanned attacks on US targets throughout the world going back a decade. Mr Blair observed that the terrorists had no respect for human life or for liberal values and on the contrary inflicted great damage on these principles while Britain and other Western countries were devoted to these standards.3 He offered a contrast between the ‘fanatics’ who would use ‘chemical, biological and even nuclear weapons of mass destruction’ on the one hand, and the British people on the other who believe in ‘in reason, democracy and tolerance’.4 The prime minister also suggested that the attack was a ‘tragedy of epoch-making proportions’ as it had claimed the lives of at ‘least 100 British citizens, and


maybe many more’, while foreign secretary Jack Straw described the attack as an ‘event of huge and almost unparalleled historical significance’.5 Mr Straw, along with other politicians commented that the number of UK casualties made it the worst instance of terrorism against British people in half a century. Lord (Paddy) Ashdown, the former Liberal Democrat leader, magnified the event by describing it as ‘an attack of global terrorism on the centres of global power and the heart of global capitalism’.6 By contrast, two veteran politicians from Northern Ireland, Ian Paisley(Democratic Unionist leader) and John Hume (the Social Democratic and Labour Party leader) questioned the scale of the attack. They reminded an uninterested Commons that the atrocity in New York was ‘very minor’ in comparison with the proportion of the population killed by terrorism in Northern Ireland.7 As to identifying the cause of the attack in the weeks after the event, British politicians were almost at one in declaring that the UK Muslim community had no responsibility for the attack on the USA. They were mindful of the fragile state of community relations in parts of the UK, as indicated by race riots in Bradford and Oldham a few months earlier, and aware of al-Qaida’s efforts to promote fear and hatred between Muslims and Western countries. Conservative former foreign secretary, Lord Howe made the point that ‘To blame all Muslims for this crime would be as absurd as to blame all Catholics for the violence in Northern Ireland’, and many members of both Commons and Lords, aware of the severe backlash against UK Muslims after 11 September, warned against the dangers of stigmatising the Muslim community by use of the description ‘Islamic terrorists’.8 Some months after the attack, the assumed noninvolvement of British Muslims with al-Qaida and terrorist activities came into question. This shift derived from the detention of a few Muslim UK citizens by the US forces in Afghanistan, subsequently transported to the US base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, the awareness that perhaps 100 British Muslims had joined the Taliban (in Afghanistan) and from media reports9 indicating that Britain is ‘a key indoctrination, staging and logistics centre for al-Qaida’.10 The main focus of politicians’ explanation of the event focused around two poles. On one side is the analysis that locates the event as a product of severe deprivation, oppression and exclusion experienced particularly by the people in the Middle East and by a greater part of mankind in the rest of the Third World. Prominent exponents of this perspective include Labour MPs—long critical of US foreign policy—such as Tam Dalyell and George Galloway. In the House of Commons debate in September 2001, Mr Dalyell asserted that there is a ‘pool of talent’ in the Middle East who are growing up ‘absolutely to loathe the United States and Britain’, and willing to do ‘desperate and evil things’ due to ‘very aggressive American foreign policy’ especially vis-à-vis the decade of bombing and sanctions against Iraq.11 Mr Galloway observed that ‘Arabs and Muslims believe, and they are right to believe, that we do not consider their blood as valuable as our own. Our policy over decades of our history makes that abundantly clear’.12 In addition, the overwhelming US support for Israel in

108 THE RESPONSE OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT

contrast to the lack of American sympathy for the Palestinian cause, is regarded as a fundamental source of grievance against the West. Other MPs who were not as critical of US foreign policy, accepted that Western economic, military, and cultural hegemony is perceived in the Middle East and beyond as deeply oppressive and humiliating. These perceptions, which are further enhanced by Western support for authoritarian regimes in the region, are thought to provide highly favourable conditions for the emergence of terrorist responses. Thus, Liberal Democrat spokesperson, Menzies Campbell, Labour chairman of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, Donald Anderson and Conservative ex-foreign secretary Lord Hurd agree that a fertile ground for terrorists is provided by the deep sense of unresolved and unrecognised grievance in Middle Eastern countries.13 Prime minister Tony Blair shared much of this approach. Thus he commented that the chaos and strife generated by ‘wrongs unrighted, of disputes left to fester for years or even decades, of failed states, of poverty and deprivation’, result in ‘humanitarian tragedies, centres for trafficking in weapons, drugs and people; havens for criminal organisations; and sanctuaries for terrorists’.14 Except for the House of Commons Select Committees on Defence and on Foreign Affairs, relatively few members of the either house of parliament focused on two primary sources of grievance articulated by Osama Bin Laden. These concerned the acceptance by the Saudi regime, the guardian of the Holy Places, of non-Muslims (i.e. Americans) on its soil and the very existence of Israel.15 A different analysis of the causes of the attack was proffered by politicians from the main parties—although it is most prominent among Conservatives. This interpretation concentrates on the fanaticism of the hijackers, their grotesque action and the non-negotiability of their demands. It accepts that the economic and political conditions in the Middle East provide an environment auspicious for the growth of terrorism. In the words of Michael Ancram, the Conservative foreign affairs spokesperson, international terrorism is like a virus that is ‘murderous, calculating, increasingly sophisticated and progressively more dangerous’. While claiming to be ‘about idealism, that concept is invariably distorted and perverted in the psychopathic terrorist mind’.16 He described the attack on the USA as an assault on ‘the whole free world—the whole civilised world’ and a ‘crime against humanity’.17 Virtually all British politicians, and especially prime minister Blair, vehemently rejected suggestions that there was justification for the attack of 11 September. Many insisted that even if some of the perceived or legitimate grievances were removed, terrorism could still occur. THE CONTEXT FOR THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT RESPONSE A number of factors had a major part in shaping the response of the British government to the attack, besides the established reaction to terrorist incidents in the UK. These factors include London’s perspective on the attack and how it


impinged on UK security and on Anglo-American relations, its view on Britain’s role in the world and assumptions about international relations and world politics. For some three decades, British governments of both major parties, dealt with serious terrorist incidents in Northern Ireland and the mainland due to the breakdown of relations between the two communities and the collapse of Nationalists’ confidence in British governance. In their declared ‘war’ against terrorism from the early 1970s, British governments limited basic rights, introduced special laws and courts, and instituted internment without trial. This approach was reversed in the 1990s when prime minister John Major and his successor Tony Blair sought to reconcile the two communities by addressing the causes of the conflict as articulated by the political parties and by paramilitary groups and their political representatives in Northern Ireland.18 Throughout the Troubles, successive British governments sought—not always with complete success—to persuade the US administration and Congress to support Britain’s policy on terrorism and on Northern Ireland, particularly because the Republican paramilitary forces obtained extensive aid from the USA. At the end of the 1990s, London secured strong and very positive US involvement in negotiating cross-community institutions in the province.19 In the Strategic Defence Review of 1998, which was more limited than the strategic and security review promised in Labour’s 1997 general election manifesto, the Blair government acknowledged the dangers of ‘new and horrifying forms of terrorism’.20 However, although political violence linked to Northern Ireland was on the wane, terrorism connected with the province—such as the operations of the Real IRA—were still regarded as the principal concern of UK intelligence and security agencies with other groups being judged to be less threatening. That assessment was also fostered by the assumption of the Review that ‘today there is no direct military threat to the United Kingdom or Western Europe’.21 In the aftermath of the publication of the Review, Bruce George, Labour chairman of the House of Commons Defence Select Committee commented on its failure to address ‘asymmetric threats’, and ‘other weapons which the weak may choose to deploy against the strong’.22 To underline his point he quoted the comment of the US secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, that the bombing of US embassies in East Africa is ‘unfortunately, the war of the future’.23 The foreign policy of the two Blair administrations (1997–2001; 2001–) that shaped the Strategic Defence Review, exhibits extensive continuity with that of John Major’s Conservative administration. However, it is quite distinctive on topics such as the international community, humanitarian intervention, morality and Britain’s international role including relations with Europe. During the Kosovo conflict, Mr Blair’s ‘doctrine of the international community’ speech in Chicago (April 1999), touched on issues not usually discussed by leading British politicians.24 He posited the existence of an international community and he argued for spreading ‘our values’ of liberty, the rule of law, human rights and an open society and suggested reforming the UN Security Council.25 Mr Blair’s


speech implies that countries like Britain and the USA—that is the major rich Western states—speak for the international community and can persuade and, where necessary, induce others to accept their perspective. The Blair government has indicated a serious commitment to strengthening the rules and values of the international community (or society) in a series of measures applied with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Thus, it carried forward measures seeking to reduce poverty and debt in developing countries; supported the establishment of an international criminal court and the war-crimes tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda; used British forces in Bosnia to detain persons suspected of war crimes; and arrested the Chilean ex-dictator, Augusto Pinochet. It also adhered to the Ottawa Convention on landmine sales and manufacture and to the EU armssales code of conduct. However, the core of Mr Blair’s Chicago speech was a plea for a modification of the key principle of non-intervention that he linked to the ruin brought on the peoples of Yugoslavia and of Iraq by, respectively, Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein. The rationale for, and the timing of, his proposal could plausibly be seen as an initiative with the dual purpose of enhancing whatever legitimacy NATO’s military intervention in Yugoslavia enjoyed, given that it lacked the imprimatur of the UN Security Council approval, and to prepare for future cases where intervention was deemed necessary. Mr Blair argued for a new framework permitting intervention in cases of genocide, which ‘can never be a purely internal matter’, to deal with cases ‘of massive flows of refugees, which unsettle neighbouring countries’, and when regimes ‘are based on minority rule’ as in the case of South Africa.26 These far-reaching changes in the rules of international society advocated by the prime minister were to be guided by five major conditions. Nevertheless, they constitute a sharp break with the tradition of pragmatic British foreign policy. They also underline how the Blair government judges that notions of sovereignty are of diminished relevance and significance in a globalised world, a point also expressed in Mr Blair’s assertion that ‘foreign policy and domestic policy are part of the same thing’.27 One of the most striking characteristics of the approach of the prime minister and his administration’s foreign policy on humanitarian issues is moral righteousness—as is evident in the response to the ethnic cleansing by the Yugoslav authorities in Kosovo. When that crisis erupted, Mr Blair was determined not to repeat what he perceived as the shameful appeasement by NATO (including the British Conservative government) of Yugoslavia over Bosnia, which meant ‘over 200,000 people lost their lives, and two million people were made homeless’.28 The crusading stance of the Labour government on Kosovo owed much to the passionately held view that it was a vital test of a commitment to protecting human rights and to defending civilised values. This commitment, which is a core element in the pledge by the UK to be a ‘force for good in the world’,29 was promulgated in the early months of the first Blair government30 and reiterated in the Strategic Defence Review of 1998. In


September 1999, foreign secretary Robin Cook commented that in cases such as Kosovo: To know that such atrocities are being committed and not to act against them is to make us complicit in them, and to be passive in the face of such events is to make it more likely they will be repeated.31 Since May 1997, the two Blair administrations have, like their Conservative predecessors, sought to maximise UK influence on the international stage. Over these five years or so, the rhetoric of the government has stressed two themes in British foreign policy, the one concentrating on political economy and the other on security. With regard to the former, Britain is depicted as especially sensitive to the accelerating globalisation of economics, politics, security, and much else. It is portrayed as a particularly effective operator because it encourages and works with emerging global trends and eschews anachronistic narrow nationalism. In contrast with earlier generations of British socialists and social democrats, and with more enthusiasm than socialist parties in most other European countries, Mr Blair considers national government nowadays has no choice but to accept and harness the power of global markets operating in a ruthlessly competitive environment. Thus Britain is required to act as partners with such forces and actors so as to make the UK economy more efficient.32 On security issues, Britain proclaims it holds a pivotal position on the international stage.33 This is assumed to derive particularly from close intelligence, military and diplomatic ties with the sole superpower, the USA. It is also supposed to spring from its influential place in major international organisations such as the UN Security Council, NATO, the EU, G8 and the Commonwealth as well as other assets it enjoys such as the English language, a strong economy and well-designed development assistance programmes. This role is believed to be considerably enhanced by the effective working relationships of prime minister Blair and other senior UK figures enjoy with leaders of major countries; which, in 2001–2002, included president Putin of Russia and president Musharraf of Pakistan.34 In the Kosovo conflict, the Blair government judged the UK was particularly effective in using its connections with key actors and its military and diplomatic resources to advance both its humanitarian values and the international agenda. Thus, when the USA was attacked, prime minister Blair, who revels in the role of war leader, identified a unique opportunity to demonstrate anew Britain’s assumed pivotal international role. For decades Britain had sought maximum influence on the formation of US foreign policy that, in turn, required the UK to strain every nerve to maximize its usefulness to Washington.35 From the start of the presidency of the George Bush in 2001, Mr Blair sought to be his ‘closest European ally, the leader he called first’.36 Besides the strong ties of history, culture, language, politics and family between the USA and UK, the two countries have notably strong economic


links. Thus, the USA is Britain’s biggest trading partner, each is the biggest single investor in the other, and the USA is the country—in the words of foreign secretary Jack Straw—‘which twice in the space of 25 years… came to our rescue when we were in far more parlous circumstances’.37 Accordingly, if Britain was not strongly supportive in America’s hour of need, it was judged that the UK would lose an invaluable and irreplaceable foundation for its international power and influence and, in future crises, it would not be able to look for succour across the Atlantic. THE RESPONSE OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT On the 11 September 2001, the only question the British government leadership felt it should consider was the form and extent of UK support for the USA. This point was accentuated when countries lacking Britain’s close affinity with the USA voted unanimously in support of UN Security Council resolutions that condemned the attack and required far-reaching responses from the international community. When America’s ‘inexperienced and insular new president’, faced his darkest hour, Mr Blair’s ‘first instinct was to reach out, to stand shoulder to shoulder with Bush’.38 Given that the US response to the attack was certain to have major implications for the UK, the British prime minister and his colleagues judged they had the most compelling reasons to support that country, although public solidarity with Washington might attract the hostile attention of terrorist networks. Mr Blair’s instinct to stand by the USA came from his assumption that it was right to do so and as his friend and adviser Peter Mandelson noted, ‘we will only influence America if we stand four-square behind America at this time’.39 The prime minister calculated that ‘only the most voluble expressions of solidarity with the United States would purchase any influence over the White House’.40 A few weeks after the attack, in his Leader’s speech to the Labour Party annual conference, Mr Blair set out a grandiose Wilsonian vision of the kind of global community he wished to construct, which subsumed issues of security and terrorism.41 In that address, Mr Blair identified an ‘extraordinary moment for progressive politics… This is a moment to seize. The kaleidoscope has been shaken. The pieces are in flux. Soon they will settle again. Before they do, let us reorder this world around us’. Weeks later the prime minister restated this point in noting ‘New alliances are being fashioned. New world views formed’.42 In his conference speech, Mr Blair called for action in the UN, EU, G8, NATO and other forums, using the ‘world acting as a community’, to produce social justice and prosperity for the dispossessed, from Gaza to Afghanistan, giving special mention to Africa—‘a scar on the conscience of the world’—and noting the importance of good governance. The speech also referred to Britain’s role of, supposedly, defending democracy in Sierra Leone, expressed regret that the international community did not prevent genocide in Rwanda and called on the West to correct its ignorance of Islam and for parts of Islam to end its prejudice


against the USA. The Blair conference speech, which had considerable similarities with his ‘doctrine of the international community’ address of April 1999, gave the impression that as the global issues it discussed were strongly inter-related, effective responses had to treat them together rather than as separate topics. Moreover, as terrorism is seen as the symptom of intense alienation, resentment and failure, any hope of defeating it demands an attack on those underlying conditions. At the centre of Mr Blair’s vision of a re-ordered world is Britain’s relations with the USA and that country’s disposition towards his vision. Thus, Britain pursued an overarching strategy that endeavours to do everything possible in military, intelligence and diplomatic terms to demonstrate its understanding of, and support for, the US in the campaign against terrorism. The British government was acutely aware that before 11 September, the president, and even more so highly influential and articulate members of his administration, vehemently rejected adherence to further international agreements and favoured withdrawal from existing international obligations, unless these were deemed to be unambiguously in the interest of the USA. In late 2001, London hoped that due to the need for effective partners in the counter-terrorism campaign, on issues like law enforcement, intelligence-exchanges and financial tracking, the USA might be nudged in ‘the direction of sustained diplomatic involvement in a messy world’43 not entirely on its own terms. A second important element of the British government’s strategy was the effort to contribute to building an international ‘coalition of the willing’ against terrorism. In the twenty-first century, the USA enjoys a pre-eminent position in economic, military and technological capacities, enabling it to reach out to make friends and ‘purchase allies’ as it did in the Gulf conflict of 1990–91.44 But the UK had access to other assets that might induce some countries in the Middle East, south Asia and elsewhere to contribute to the anti-terrorism campaign. These included historical ties with particular countries, the readiness of London to approach more accessible elements within the government of states such as Iran, whom president Bush depicts as part of an ‘Axis of Evil’, and especially the determination of the prime minister to persuade uncertain governments in countries such as Russia of the benefits available from joining the coalition. In the months after the attack on the USA, Mr Blair was the most prominent and articulate exponent of the coalition strategy and policy and a principal propagandist for the case against al-Qaida and the Taliban. The latter role included an insistence on the need for inter-faith understanding, especially between Christians and Muslims, something Mr Blair has promoted in the UK for some time. A third dimension of Britain’s strategy adverts to the contribution of its Special Forces and marines to the war in Afghanistan, which London initially viewed as a hub of the global terrorist network. In military terms, the British involvement in the war (supplying the base at Diego Garcia and refuelling aircraft, sending up to 1,700 Royal Marines in April 2002, dispatching UK


Special Forces, attacking by cruise missiles and monitoring by reconnaissance aircraft) was a relatively minor factor. The involvement of the Royal Marines in the campaign against the remaining al-Qaida and Taliban forces was ‘the largest [UK] military deployment for combat operations since the Gulf conflict.45 However, lacking reliable intelligence about al-Qaida and Taliban fighters, the Marines had relatively little to show for their efforts to engage the former except a suggestion that those fighters were deterred from engaging British forces and in June 2002 the government announced their return to the UK. After Western diplomatic demands on the Afghan Taliban government failed to secure the surrender of Osama Bin Laden in late September, US bombing in Afghanistan starting in October 2001. It excited intense questioning of the use of force, especially among UK Muslims,46 and it also led to widespread demands for a pause in the campaign. Many within and outside the British Muslim community agreed with Labour MP Alan Simpson that ‘in a country as fractured, complex and poor as Afghanistan, bombing will simply produce more terrorists than it kills’.47 It involved immensely high risks of killing civilians in hospitals, mosques, Red Cross warehouses and elsewhere, thereby alienating opinion, particularly—but not only—in Muslim countries. Similarly, the use of cluster bombs by US aircraft excited much concern among Labour, Liberal Democrats, Scottish Nationalist and Plaid Cymru MPs as did the expectation that the pursuit of the military campaign would greatly diminish the supply of food by aid agencies to millions of starving Afghans.48 In the conditions obtaining in Afghanistan, it seemed prudent for the US to follow the advice of Afghan leader, Abdul Haq, to use psychological pressures, especially money to remove the Taliban leadership.49 The USA did use bribery as a major instrument to change the regime but relied especially on the bombing campaign. As the war seemed to tail off at the start of 2002, there was a great deal of controversy in the UK concerning the status and treatment of al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners (from Afghanistan) held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. British politicians expressed unease with the assertion of US leaders that while the prisoners were being treated humanely, the US was not required to treat ’unlawful combatants’ as prisoners of war according to the Geneva convention.50 Along with the UK pledge of £200 million for the reconstruction of Afghanistan and the supply of food under the auspices of the Department of International Development, Britain sent about 1,800 military personnel to Kabul, to lead the UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). The ISAF, which is under overall US command, has assisted the Karzai government by providing a degree of security in and around Kabul, eliminating anti-personnel land mines, training components of an Afghan national guard, advising the Afghan police and contributing to many aid projects. Originally the UK troops were expected to lead the ISAF for three months; this was subsequently extended until June 2002, when the decision was announced for the return to the UK of most members of the British contingent. The British debate on this force, and related issues elucidated significant divisions between the government and the


Conservative leadership, the government and UK military leaders, and between the UK and the USA. The Conservative party, which is strongly supportive of the coalition’s anti-terrorism campaign, questioned the wisdom of using noncombatant military personnel in the ISAF in Kabul, while simultaneously contributing soldiers (Special Forces and Royal Marines) for war operations in the same unstable divided country, and some Conservatives questioned the commitment of European countries to the campaign.51 The doubts of the Conservatives about the conflicting roles of UK military forces in Afghanistan was not the only issue of debate about the British forces in that country. The US disinterest in Afghan nation-building differs from the view of the Blair government which deems such a long-term involvement essential to avoid the errors of neglect made by the West in earlier decades. Nevertheless, Britain’s decision to withdraw most of its successful ISAF contingent from Kabul places a question mark over the UK commitment to stabilising Afghanistan. Consistent with the government view, the UK Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) commented that military action by itself could not defeat terrorism and warned against the counter-productive effects of widening the campaign against terrorism.52 In December 2001, the CDS and four of his predecessors publicly expressed concern about the capacity of Britain’s under-funded and overstretched armed forces to adequately sustain existing operations. They articulated deep anxiety about the political and military sense of UK forces taking on additional roles, in line with Mr Blair’s vision, in the dangerous and unpredictable conditions obtaining in Afghanistan and in other failed states. The point of their warning was underlined when the government greatly increased Britain’s military commitment in Afghanistan from April 2002, but this increase was reversed within a few months. The group of former Chiefs of Defence Staff warned that further obligations, would exhaust the UK forces unless they received much larger budgets, and as peers like Liberal Democrat Lord Wallace noted, that undertaking such tasks would be rendered nugatory without muchincreased resources for targeted aid and development.53 For Britain, the immediate bureaucratic response to the attack on the USA involved a commitment to more effective co-ordination (domestically, with the USA and at EU level) between agencies in intelligence and security, the police, air transport, immigration and asylum and banking. It also included the decision by government to effect a major shift in the staffing, resources and priorities of security agencies towards tracking down those involved in terrorist activities and preventing such attacks on British targets.54 In June 2002, the government proposed the rapid mobilisation of a reaction force (totalling 6,000 volunteers) drawn from UK volunteer reserves in the event of a terrorist attack upon targets in Britain. Such attacks might involve chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons, or more probably ‘radiological materials which, when combined with conventional explosives, can produce radiological contamination’.55 This proposed reaction force was one part of what the government designated ‘A New Chapter to the Strategic Defence Review’.56


In terms of public debate in Britain, most controversy focused on legislation introduced supposedly to diminish the risk of terrorism, by the enactment of the extensive Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (2001). That Act was preceded by the Terrorism Act of 2000, which led to the banning of 16 UK-based Islamic organisations before the attack on the USA. Among many contentious provisions contained in the Act of 2001, the most controversial is that providing for internment without trial for non-citizens of the UK, which required the UK to suspend its obligations under the European convention on human rights.57 Debate also surrounded comment by politicians regarding the attitude of British Muslims towards the attack on the USA and the war in Afghanistan. Ex-prime minister Lady Thatcher, complained that UK Muslim clerics were not sufficiently explicit in condemning the attack on the USA,58 but few politicians agreed with her. The Blair government has endeavoured, to persuade British Muslims to marginalise extreme voices in their community and in Jack Straw’s words to acknowledge ‘that the military campaign in Afghanistan defended the very values of tolerance and diversity without which peaceful coexistence is impossible’.59 ASSESSING BRITAIN’S RESPONSE Insofar as the prime minister’s speech to Labour’s annual conference and his other statements represents the policy and aspiration of the government,60 Britain agrees with the analysis proffered by historian Michael Howard and many others that, ‘The terrorists activities can be minimized by transforming the conditions in which they flourish’.61 Mr Blair appears to espouse an evangelical belief in the power of the ‘community of nations’ operating through the UN, its agencies and other international organisations, to transform the economic, social and political desolation of failed states such as Afghanistan. These failures ‘infect’ neighbouring states and on 11 September they imposed devastating costs on a country thousands of miles away, albeit the sole superpower.62 Britain espouses the objective of minimizing further acts of al-Qaida-inspired terrorism and simultaneously promoting the integration of failed states in international society, and by implication favours assisting failed communities within states, as a key requirement for diminishing terrorism. That integration entails dealing with the grievances (political, economic and social) and deep-rooted feelings of rejection, alienation and discrimination held by Muslims in the Middle East, within the UK and elsewhere. In the period since the attack, Britain’s policy response may be assessed by identifying how far it has advanced the twin objectives of diminishing terrorism and enhancing integration and by reviewing the extent to which it has reconciled these separate but inter-related purposes. Britain’s progress in seeking the reordering of international relations can be monitored by considering its role in reshaping alliances since 11 September. Starting with the counter-terrorism objective, the British government has acted domestically to diminish the risk of a


catastrophic terrorist attack on the UK. Internationally, the UK has been a close and loyal supporter of the USA-dominated campaign, and thus is better placed than most members of the coalition to influence US policy. Because the events of 11 September evoke powerful emotions among US citizens and politicians, the impact of allies depends substantially on the extent to which their approach coincides with US sentiment. The view that Britain, the junior partner of the USA, exerted some influence is tentatively supported by the comment of president Bush that ‘America has no truer friend than Great Britain. Once again, we are joined together in a great cause’.63 Britain expressed solidarity with and moral support for the USA in a number of ways, such as the initial statements of Mr Blair, the visits by British leaders to New York and Washington, ‘Mr Blair’s worldwide advocacy on America’s behalf’,64 when he was perceived as a articulate and energetic propagandist for the anti-terrorism cause, and Britain’s military contribution to the war in Afghanistan.65 Thus, within the US decision-making process, Britain gained ‘a stake in the struggle but also a voice in the policy’.66 In the weeks immediately after the attack, their counsel strengthened the case made by advocates of restraint within US government. In the early part of 2002, despite intense and widespread opposition within the Parliamentary Labour Party, prime minister Blair indicated willingness to consider using force, along with the USA, to prevent ‘rogue states’ from developing weapons of mass destruction.67 With regard to the dominant set of grievances expressed by Arab and Muslim opinion against the West, those involving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the perceived impact of sanctions against Iraq and the presence of US forces in Saudi Arabia, Britain judges that Washington holds a dominant voice. While a determined EU can use important aid and investment ties with Middle East states and the Palestinians to influence regional conflicts, European states, including the UK, are much less inclined than the USA to view those disputes through the prism of the attack of 11 September. Given that the UK had not experienced a major attack by the al-Qaida or associated networks, it is not surprising that compared to the USA, Britain allocates a much lower level of level of resources to the ‘war on terrorism’ and that that campaign has a much weaker impact on UK domestic and foreign policy. London and Washington also differ in their perspective towards the utility of international institutions in general and towards the value of dealing with the causes of terrorism by integrating collapsed states. Mr Blair’s vision of the community of states engaging in nation-building is not shared by the Bush administration. The main focus of the US government is to do with defending the homeland, dealing with the remnants of al-Qaida and Taliban forces in Afghanistan, eliminating like-minded terrorist networks in other countries and undermining certain ‘rogue’ states such as Iraq.68 Thus, the most unilateralminded US administration of recent decades, is quite willing to selectively use international institutions, such as the UN, to advance its anti-terrorist strategy and may take some account of the preferences of other coalition members. But


the USA allocates a low priority to using the ‘moral power of the world acting as a community’ (Mr Blair’s words, which parallel those of ex-president Clinton) to transform the economies and the societies of failed states.69 Likewise, in dealing with prisoners, including UK citizens, arrested in Afghanistan and subsequently transferred to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, the two countries differ on the importance in responding to terrorism by strict adherence to the provisions of the Geneva convention. Since the attack, the USA has greatly increased military spending while not enhancing the level of development aid by a similar percentage. Accordingly, the comment by UK international development secretary, Clare Short, that before 11 September the US was ‘rather insular’, as indicated by the fact that it ‘is the smallest contributor of aid among OECD countries’, remains a valid assessment.70 Thus, the two allies hold rather disparate perspectives on the importance of, and the best means to, promote nation-building and peacebuilding, which Britain considers offers the best prospect of diminishing opportunities for networks like al-Qaida. A glimpse of the US-UK gap was evident in the high priority that the British government gave to sending forces to stabilise Kabul as the Taliban regime was defeated, while the US did not allocate forces thereto. Other tensions are also manifest within Britain’s approach to the counterterrorism campaign. Mr Blair is a prominent figure in setting up an inter-state coalition against international terrorism, which includes countries with oppressive records on human rights, such as Saudi Arabia. The same prime minister, advocated lowering of the obstacles confronting humanitarian intervention and he favours the re-ordering the globe on the basis of Western values, both courses which if taken seriously would be unwelcome to those states.71 Britain’s policy of internment without trial—under the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act, 2001—may, like its predecessor in Northern Ireland, turn out to be ineffective and counter-productive. The targets of the law are refugees from Middle Eastern Muslim countries that severely restrict human rights and civil liberties. This law, along with other pressures, principally affects British Muslims, who frequently experience economic and social disadvantage. UK Muslims faced demands by British politicians and media to show their loyalty by supporting the war in Afghanistan and observe the refusal of the US government to treat prisoners who are Muslims in accord with international norms, a stance that the UK does not support. British Muslims have long experience of racial discrimination, which since 11 September has been exacerbated by religious prejudice. Thus, the result is highly detrimental in achieving the declared aims of the UK to integrate British Muslims into the wider community. Since 11 September, Britain has made significant contributions to modifying inter-state relations and policies. The prompt offer of support by Britain and other countries to the USA encouraged Washington to construct and maintain a coalition to counter terrorism, which may have softened the unilateralist instincts


of the Bush government, albeit for a relatively short period. Mr Blair made every effort to sustain the international coalition by encouraging the US to accept offers of military assistance from NATO members and other states and, in sharp contrast with Washington, he sought to include states, like Syria and Iran, whose outlook on terrorism and legitimate struggle differs sharply from that of president Bush. British endeavours to improve relations between the West and both Russia and Pakistan, along with other pressures, produced a positive outcome, although the crisis in Indo-Pakistani relations (involving issues of terrorism) undermined the improved ties between the Musharraf regime and the West. Within the EU, Britain has supported a range of measures to enhance cooperation on issues like the rapid extradition of suspected terrorists between member-states. Britain’s long experience with terrorism and avoidance of a direct attack in September 2001 does not mean it can be sure of escaping an onslaught in the future. Since 11 September, the measures taken by the UK on intelligence and other relevant capacities is an acknowledgement that Britain is relatively vulnerable to very serious onslaughts. More widely, the issue-area of security is one where Britain assumes it is well placed to exercise a pivotal influence on the international stage. However, the dominant role of the USA, espousing deeply embedded unilateralist instincts, leaves the UK in a weak position to advance prime minister Blair’s vision (expressed in October 2001) of wide-ranging measures to address the causes of terrorism. Instead London’s anxiety, above all else, to maintain a close relationship with Washington, requires the UK to treat the symptoms rather than the causes of the attacks on US targets and interests. NOTES 1. See statements by the prime minister about the attack on the USA on 11 September and 12 September 2001, http://www.number10.gov.uk/news.asp?newsld=2545 & Section Id=32. See also the Commons debate at House of Commons, Official Report, 14 September 2001. 2. These were the terms used by prime minister Blair in Commons debate. See House of Commons, Official Report, 14 September 2001, Col. 604. 3. Ibid., Cols 605–6. 4. Ibid., Col. 606. 5. Tony Blair’s statement is listed at House of Commons, Official Report, 14 September 2001, Col. 605; and Jack Straw’s comment at the same source, Col. 617. 6. House of Lords, Official Report, 14 September 2001, Col. 22. 7. House of Commons, Official Report, 14 September 2001; Col. 631 for comment of Mr Paisley, and Col. 614 for Mr Hume’s statement. 8. Lord Howe’s speech is listed at House of Lords, Official Report, 14 September 2001,Col. 19. UK Muslims were reported to have suffered about 300 assaults in the three months after 11 September, often seemingly directly related to that event. Source is Angelique Chrisafis, ‘Under Siege’, The Guardian Weekend, 8 December


9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

14. 15.

16. 17. 18. 19.

20. 21.

22. 23. 24.

25. 26. 27.

28. 29.

2001, pp. 22–6, esp. p. 23. See also Khalid Mahmood, a Labour MP who is a Muslim, in House of Commons, Official Report, 14 September 2001, Cols 648–9. See for example Jason Burke, Martin Bright, Anthony Barnett et al., ‘How Bin Laden network spread across Britain’, The Observer, 20 January 2002, pp. 5–7. Jonathan Stevenson, ‘Britain’s New Terrorism Problem’, Wall Street Journal Europe, 15 November2001,p. 4. House of Commons, Official Report, 14 September 2001, Col. 632. Ibid., Col. 640. Mr Campbell’s speech is listed at House of Commons, Official Report, 14 September 2001, Col. 625, Mr Anderson at Col. 630. For Lord Hurd’s prescient observations in 1998, see ‘British Foreign Policy in the aftermath of the Cold War’, RUSI Journal, 143, 6 (December 1998), pp. 6–10. Speech by the prime minister at the Lord Mayor’s banquet, 12 November 2001, http://www.number10.gov.uk/news.asp?newsld=2996 See Peter L.Bergen, Holy War Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2001), pp. 19–24. A few months after the attack, the House of Commons Defence Select Committee issued The Second Report: The Threat from Terrorism, HC348 (London: HMSO, 2001). House of Commons, Official Report, 4 October 2001, Col. 698. Ibid., 14 September 2001, Col. 621. See John Major, John Major: The Autobiography (London: Harper Collins, 1999), ch. 19. John Dumbrell, A Special Relationship: Anglo-American Relations in the Cold War and After (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2001), ch. 9. The Irish government was also a key actor in reaching the Good Friday agreement of 1998. The Strategic Defence Review, Cm. 3999 (London: HMSO, 1998), para. 9. Source for quotation, para. 3. In The Strategic Defence Review, the domestic side of security gets a relatively brief discussion compared with the external. See, for example, ch.3 on defence missions and tasks. Bruce George, ‘Political perspectives on the outcome of the SDR’, RUSI Journal, 143, 5 (October 1998), pp. 26–30, esp. p. 27. Ibid. See speech by the prime minister to the Economic Club of Chicago on the ‘Doctrine of the International Community’, http://www.fco.gov.uk/news/ speechtext.asp72316 on 22 April, 1999. For a critical analysis of the language used by Mr Blair in this speech, see Norman Fairclough, New Labour, New Language (London: Routledge, 2000), ch. 5. The ‘Doctrine of the International Community’ speech. Ibid. Quotation from speech by prime minister in Bangalore on 5 January 2002, . For a discussion of Mr Blair’s proposal to modify the principle of non-intervention, see Christopher Hill, ‘Foreign Policy’, in Anthony Seldon (ed.), The Blair Effect (London: Little, Brown and Co, 2001), ch. 16. Interview by Tony Blair, ‘A New Generation Draws the Line’, Newsweek, 133, 16 (19 April 1999), p. 41. The promise to be a ‘force for good in the world’ appears in a number of statements on British foreign and security policy. See, for example, The Strategic Defence Review (London: HMSO, July 1998) Cm. 3999, para. 19 and speech by


30. 31.

32. 33.

34.

35.

36. 37.

38.

39. 40. 41. 42. 43.

44.

prime minister Blair to confederation of Indian industry, Bangalore, 5 January 2002, at http://www.ukindia.com/visits/speeches/ speech01.asp See Robin Cook, ‘Human Rights into a New Century ‘, 17 July 1997, at http:// www.fco. gov.uk/texts/1997/jul/hrspeech.txt Robin Cook speech to the Fifty-fourth Session of the United Nations General Assembly, 21 September 1999, at http://www.fco.gov.uk/news/speechtext.asp? 2823 See Tony Blair, The Third Way: New Politics and the New Century, Fabian Pamphlet No. 588 (London: Fabian Society, 1998) For an analysis of the notion of pivotal state, see Richard Little, ‘Conclusions: The Ethics and the Strategy of Labour’s Third Way in Foreign Policy’, in Richard Little and Mark Wickham-Jones (eds), New Labour’s Foreign Policy: A New Moral Crusade (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), esp. pp. 257–8. Lord Inge commented that Lord Guthrie, the former Chief of Defence Staff, was a friend of General Musharraf and had ‘a key part in helping Pakistan to come on side during this very important time’. House of Lords, Official Report, 17 December 2001, Col. 45. On British inputs to US foreign policy see, for example, Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheavel (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson and Michael Joseph, 1982), pp. 278– 86. Peter Riddell, ‘Wasn’t that Lloyd George I just spotted at No 10?’, The Times, 17 December 2001, p. 14. See Jack Straw in House of Commons, Foreign Affairs Select Committee, Uncorrected Evidence of Rt Hon Jack Straw, 20 November 2001, Paras 41 and 43. Available at http:// publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200102/cmselect/cmfaff/327/ uc32702.htm In a statement on 11 September, Mr Blair, asserted, ‘We, therefore, here in Britain stand shoulder, with our American friends in this hour of tragedy, and we, like them, will not rest until this evil is driven from the world’. See ‘US Attack: Prime Minister’s Statement’, at http://www.number10.gov.uk/news.asp?News!d=2545. Section id=32. According to one report, it took Mr Blair ‘about half an hour to settle Britain’s strategy after he received the news of September 11 attacks’. See J.F.O.McAllister, ‘A Gift of War’, Time (22 October 2001), p. 50. House of Commons, Official Report, 14 September 2001, Col. 626. For a note on Mr Blair’s thinking see McAllister, ‘A Gift of War’. Andrew Rawnsley, ‘His Greatest Gamble’, The Observer, 4 November 2001, p. 31. Tony Blair, ‘The Power of Community can Change the World’, The Guardian, 3 October 2001, pp. 4–5. Ibid. Mr Blair’s later comments were made at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet, 12 November 2001, at http://www.number10.gov.uk/news.asp?newsID=2296 McAllister, ‘A Gift of War’. See also comments by prime minister Blair in April 2002 when he advocated a full engagement by the USA on the basis of enlightened self-interest. Prime minister’s speech at the George Bush Senior Presidential Library in Texas, 7 April 2002, at http://www.number 10.gov. uk/news.asp? newsID=3931 The term ‘purchase friends’ comes from Tony Judt, ‘The War on Terror’, The New York Review of Books, 20 December 2001, pp. 102–3.


45. Geoff Hoon, Secretary for Defence, House of Commons, Official Report, 18 March 2002, Col. 39. 46. See Marsha Singh, Labour MP, House of Commons, Official Report, 16 October 2001, Col. 1072; and J.Elliott and M.Chittended , ‘Divided Loyalties on the Home Front’, The Sunday Times , 4 November, 2001, p. 6. 47. House of Commons, Official Report, 8 October 2001, Col. 831. 48. In the House of Commons debates on 16 and 24 October the worries about bombing and the use of cluster bombs were fully articulated. See Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn’s question about cluster bombs and aid supplies, House of Commons, Official Report, 24 October, 2001, Cols 277–8; international development secretary, Clare Short on humanitarian issues, House of Commons, Official Report, 24 October 2001, Cols 288–9; and on the same day, Jenny Tonge, Liberal Democrat spokesperson on international development, Cols 290–1. On 16 October, Scottish National Party MP, Alex Salmond, demanded an early end to the military campaign while Labour MP George Galloway expressed vehement opposition to the campaign on that day. For Salmond see House of Commons, Official Report, 16 October 2001, Cols 1101–2 and for Galloway see Cols 1111–12. 49. Abdul Haq, ‘US Bombs are Boosting the Taliban’, The Guardian, 2 November 2001, p. 20. Abdul Haq was killed in Afghanistan at the end of October 2001. 50. See E.MacAskill, R.Norton-Taylor and J.Borger, ‘UK Dilemma over Treatment of Captives’, The Guardian, 18 January 2002, p. 4. 51. See Bernard Jenkin, House of Commons, Official Report, 19 December 2001, Cols 306–8; and the same speaker, House of Commons, Official Report, 20 March 2002, Cols 328–32. On the preference of the Conservatives for the USA over the Europeans, see Lord Howell, House of Lords, Official Report, 17 December 2001, Cols 19–20. 52. BBC News, ‘UK Defence Chief Hints at Split’, 11 December 2001 at http:// news.bbc.co.uk/ newsid-1703000/1703077.stm; and R.Norton-Taylor, ‘A Warning Shot across the Bows’, The Guardian, 12 December 2001, p.17. 53. See speeches by four former Chiefs of Defence Staff: Lords Bramall, Craig, Guthrie and Inge in House of Lords, Official Report, 17 December 2001, at, respectively, Cols 49–52, 56–9, 43–4, 44–7. See also speeches in the same official report by Conservative Lord King, ex-defence secretary, Cols 52–5, and Liberal Democrat Lord Wallace, Cols 21–5. 54. See Intelligence and Security Committee: Annual Report 2001–2002, Cm. 5543 (Norwich: HMSO, 2002), esp. pp. 32–5. 55. The Seventh Report (Session 2001B2002) of the Foreign Affairs Committee: Foreign Policy Aspects of the War against Terrorism, HC Paper, 383 (Norwich: HMSO, 2002), para. 177. 56. See A New Chapter to the Strategic Defence Review: The Role of the Reserves in Home Defence Security: A Discussion Document (London: Ministry of Defence, 2002) on the proposed reaction force. For the discussion paper issued on the revision of the Strategic Defence Review, see The Strategic Defence Review: A New Chapter (London: Ministry of Defence, 2002). See http://www.mod.uk/issues/sdr/ new chapter/pubdisppr.htm 57. House of Commons, Home Affairs Committee, Session 2001–2002, First Report: The Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill, HC 351, 19 November 2001, at http:// www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200102/cmselect/cmhaff/351/35104.htm


58. J.McCue, J.Bale and P.Webster, ‘Thatcher Speaks Out on Terror’, The Times, 4 October 2001, p.1. 59. Speech by foreign secretary, Jack Straw, to the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, Oxford, 25 January 2002 at http://www.fco.gov.uk/news/speechtext.asp.5827 60. The speech may be an attempt to give hope to alienated people or an example of a ‘dilettante who develops temporary obsessions which he drops as quickly as he picked them up’. Sarah Spencer, ‘Road Paved with Good Intentions’, Tribune, 18 January 2002, pp. 8–9. 61. See Sir Michael Howard, ‘Will it be World War III?’, Daily Mail, 24 September 2001, p. 13. 62. British leaders have also noted that most of the heroin on British streets comes from Afghanistan. 63. Text: Bush address to Congress, 21 September 2001’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/ english/ world/americas/newsid-15550001/1555641.stm 64. This description of Mr Blair’s role is given by an unnamed author in the weekly newspaper, The Economist. See ‘Britain and America: Who Gains?’, The Economist, 29 September 2001, p. 35. 65. See Hugo Young, ‘Blair’s Role on the World Stage Will Win No Applause’, The Guardian, 25 October 2001, p. 22 66. Source, G John Ikenberry, ‘American Grand Strategy in the Age of Terror’, Survival, 43, 4 (Winter 2001), pp. 19–34, esp. p. 30. See also Stryker McGuire, ‘Onward Christian Soldier’, and ‘Blair for the Record’, in Newsweek, 3 December 2001, pp. 42–54; ‘Britain and America: Who Gains?’; McAllister, ‘A Gift of War’. 67. Prime minister’s speech at the George Bush Senior Presidential Library, 7 April 2002, http://www.number 10.gov.uk/news.asp?newsID=3931 68. R.Cowan, ‘This Was the Day We Were Told Would Never Happen, and It Has’, The Guardian, 24 October 2001, p. 1; and R.Cowan, ‘How September 11 Forced the Pace’, The Guardian, 23 October 2001, p. 3. 69. Mr Blair’s approach to the issues arising from 11 September is relatively close to that of ex-president Clinton. See Mr Clinton’s Dimbleby lecture, ‘The Struggle for the Soul of the Twenty-First Century’, 14 December 2001, http://www.bbc.co.uk/ arts/news-comment/ dimbleby/clinton.shtml 70. Clare Short, House of Commons, Official Report, 21 November 2001, Col. 303. 71. For a cogent example of this criticism, see Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie, in House of Commons, Official Report, 1 November 2001, Cols 1047–50.

9 The European Union and 11 September JOHN VOGLER

This series of essays seeks to interpret the immediate consequences of 11 September in terms of longer-range developments in the world system. Three such developments may be identified without much difficulty or controversy. First, it has been evident for some time that serious questions have to be asked about the continuing capacity of sovereign states, not only to provide order and security for their inhabitants, but also to manage an increasingly interconnected global economic system. Much attention has focused on the growth and role of NGOs and what some have chosen to call ‘global civil society’. At the other end of the scale the inadequacy of individual national markets has been reflected in the creation of large scale trading blocs, notably the EU and NAFTA but also Mercosur and ASEAN. To declare the demise of the nation state as the preeminent form of political organization would be premature, but over the last 30 years there is clear evidence of an exponential increase in the number of nonstate actors. They may not yet be alternatives to the state but they cannot be discounted in any serious study of contemporary world politics. A second, and intimately related, trend since the middle of the twentieth century has been the resort to multilateral solutions to security, economic and environmental problems. At first this was very much a means of constructing a Western bulwark against the Soviet Union in the Cold War. The monuments to this effort are the IMF and the multilateral trading rules of the GATT/WTO system—the latter now extended to China. Yet in many other areas the multilateral effort also bore fruit: in arms control; in human rights; and, latterly, in the attempt to construct environmental regimes to combat stratospheric ozone loss, desertification and climate change. The extent and impact of multilateralism can best be ascertained by making comparisons with the world of the 1930s where avowedly unilateralist and autarchic approaches held sway. Multilateralism cannot be divorced from the third development, which is structural. The structure of the inter-state system has since 1945 been clearly characterised by the hegemonic position of the United States. Bipolarity during the Cold War was always skewed and one-dimensional. At the outbreak of that conflict the United States was responsible for approximately 50 per cent of world GDR Such complete economic preponderance was to erode, as European and Japanese economies revived but even during the economic and political trials of

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the 1970s, it is now clear in retrospect, that concerns over the loss of US hegemony were misplaced. The collapse of the USSR and the way in which US corporations seized the commanding heights of the new information economy meant that during the 1990s the United States appeared to enjoy a position of structural dominance with few, if any, historic parallels. At the beginning of the era of American dominance, the Roosevelt and Truman administrations had consciously used their hegemonic position to create the architecture of post-war multilateralism. This was not so much an act of altruism but of enlightened economic and strategic self-interest and the same basic approach was maintained to a greater or lesser extent throughout the Cold War and arguably into the Clinton Administration (although Congressional obstruction was already taking its toll). The arrival of George W.Bush’s administration in January 2001 appeared to set a new course in policy. The President and his more articulate spokespersons were brutally explicit in their rejection of the multilateralist legacy. Where Clinton had temporised there was now to be a national missile defence system irrespective of Allied objections. Most symbolic of all, the United States would now denounce its signature to the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. THE EUROPEAN UNION The emergence of the European Union reflects all three of the developments outlined above. From its origins in the 1951 Treaty of Paris setting up the Coal and Steel Community, it represented one solution to the incapacity of nation states. In this it was encouraged and supported by a multilateralist United States. The establishment of the European Economic Community in 1958 ensured that, in one respect at least, it would be an international actor. The construction of a customs union involved the granting of exclusive external trade competence to the Community and its agent the European Commission. Parties to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade now found themselves negotiating, not with six trade ministers, but with one External Relations Commissioner. The progress of the European project for economic integration and its process of progressive enlargement are well known. By the 1970s the EC was clearly something of an economic giant, capable of equalling the United States in terms of the scale of its market and the volume of its trade. Yet, as was readily admitted, it remained a political and military pygmy. Attempts to co-ordinate some form of common foreign policy were to follow (the EPC), culminating in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty on European Union. The new Union was to comprise the old European Community (Pillar I), a new Common Foreign and Security Policy (Pillar II), and a new Justice and Home Affairs dimension (Pillar III). By the beginning of 2002 the EU was also a fully-fledged monetary entity with the euro a potential rival to the US dollar and the prospect of significant eastern enlargement imminent.


These developments have occurred so rapidly, and are in many ways so unprecedented, that it is difficult to determine what they amount to in terms of the changing nature of actors in the international system.1 Opinions vary: • For international lawyers the EC is an international organisation sui generis. • For US Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, speaking in the summer of 2001, the EU is ‘this struggling piece of real estate, a nonentity that is not easy to deal with’.2 • For John Ruggie it is no less than ‘…the world’s first post-modern political form’.3 One may add to this the fact that the EU is continually redefining both itself and the meaning of Europe. It does this through the enlargement process (Turkey has finally been given applicant status while an application from Morocco was rejected). Within the next few years the Baltic republics, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and Cyprus are scheduled to become full members. Beyond this are the other candidate countries and states like Norway, which although not members or candidates, are within into the European Economic Area. All are now incorporated into the foreign policy ‘common positions’ of the Union.4 The identity of the EU is also subject to construction by outsiders. The Union does not have personality in international law; only the European Community can formally join an international organisation or sign a treaty. However, in dayto-day political discourse, the Union is increasingly treated as if it were a single entity; something that has been encouraged by the creation of the post of High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy—its first occupant being Dr Xavier Solana. THE EUROPEAN UNION AND 11 SEPTEMBER What does the aftermath of 11 September tell us about the EU in relation to the three developments in the international system sketched out at the beginning of this article? A reading of the UK press would suggest that there is very little to be learned. The focus was inevitably upon the use of military force by the United States with Britain in a supportive role. The EU has, of course, been notoriously deficient in military muscle. During the 1990s the continuing conflicts in the Balkans posed a stark challenge to the Union, which it was simply incapable of meeting in any but a civil capacity. Both in Bosnia and Kosovo, it was the United States at the head of its NATO Allies that was required to provide military ‘solutions’ to an essentially European set of problems. In October 2001 it was the national diplomacy of Prime Minister Blair in building an international ‘antiterrorist’ coalition that held public attention in the UK. The apparent disarray of the European Union provided a backdrop to national military action and diplomacy. Britain, France and Germany were portrayed as going their own way


in defiance of the protests from smaller Member States of the EU. To use the European terminology, there was substantial ‘inconsistency’ between Member States and it seemed more than probable that they might exhibit the same kind of disarray that had characterised their response to the Iraqi attack on Kuwait a decade earlier. CIVIL POWER EUROPE Much of the commentary about the military inadequacies of the EU misses the central point about what the Union has become and the role that it has increasingly played in the international system. In contrast to the United States, its great trade partner and adversary, it is an actor wedded to a multilateral approach along almost every conceivable dimension of international relations. It was itself founded upon an alternative and functionalist conception of security whereby the enmity between France and Germany was to be resolved through compound processes of economic and social integration. This is a model that EU representatives continue to promote in their dealings with other regional organisations such as Mercosur or SADC, or in the Barcelona process for cooperation between the states of the Mediterranean. Security and stabilisation through economic integration also constitute much of the underlying rationale for the Eastward enlargement of the Union in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War. The EU is a political entity of enormous complexity. In its external relations it is a multifaceted and ‘variable geometry’ actor that can change its form during a single negotiation as competence passes from the Community to the Member States represented by the Presidency and back again. The principal tension in the Union’s emergent foreign policy is between Pillar I and Pillar II. Pillar I, the European Community, comprises trade, agriculture, fisheries and development aid. It is here that the Union appears most clearly as a single actor given the leading role of the Commission and the extensive trade and aid instruments that may be deployed in support of EU objectives. Pillars II and III, established at Maastricht are, by contrast, intergovernmental and the CFSP is led by the Member State holding the rotating presidency of the Council of Ministers. Effective external action often requires that Pillars I and II work together; for example, in the imposition of economic sanctions in support of the political objectives of the CFSP. This is not always easy given the ambitions of the Commission to defend and extend the competence of the Community and the countervailing suspicion of Member States over potential losses of sovereignty, not to mention the constant variations between the national interests of the Member States. In the diplomacy immediately following 11 September the requirement for inter-pillar co-operation was manifested in a four-person ‘Troika’! It comprised the Presidency (the Belgian Foreign Minister), the next Presidency (the Spanish Foreign Minister), the High Representative for the CFSP (Xavier Solana) and the Relex Commissioner representing the Community (Chris Patten).


While these arrangements are often a source of irritation, and sometimes bewilderment, for outsiders they should not obscure the fact that the EU can be an actor of some potency, remarkable for the sheer scale and diversity of its activities in the world system. On 21 September 2001, an Extraordinary European Council authorised a very wide range of measures both internal and external in solidarity with the United States but also to cope with the causes and consequences of terrorist action. The foundation was provided by the Single Market and the trade and economic competencies of the Community, and there were measures to stabilise financial markets and provide assistance to European airlines. In the context of 11 September it should also be noted that there is now a common approach to justice and home affairs (JHA). Thus an important element of the EU’s response was a series of internal measures providing for a common arrest warrant, a common definition of terrorism, action against money laundering, enhanced intelligence co-operation and the preparation of civil protection measures against biological and other attacks. Externally, the EU was involved in a range of intensive multilateral activities that are indicative of the continuing role played by the Union in international affairs. In the field of development aid the EU can lay claim to being—when EC aid and Member State aid is aggregated—the largest donor. There are, of course, problems as revealed in the charges levelled at the Santer Commission. The record is probably better for the immediate humanitarian assistance administered by ECHO and the Commission has also developed a role in post conflict reconstruction in the Balkans. The Union was, before 2001, a major donor to projects in Afghanistan (usually working through NGOs) and to the surrounding successor states to the Soviet Union. In 2001, total aid administered by the Commission to Afghanistan and to displaced persons outside the country amounted to 102 million. When combined with Member States’ own programmes the total rises to 314 million.5 The greatest source of influence available to the EU lies through the manipulation of its extensive web of trade preferences. Such links exist with well over 100 countries that enjoy some degree of special access to the Single Market. Relevant activity included concessions to Pakistan explicitly related to the ‘international campaign against terrorism’ in the EU-Pakistan Co-operation Agreement of 24 November 2001. As part of a co-ordinated strategy the intensification of political dialogue and economic and financial co-operation was also undertaken with Iran, India, the Central Asian Countries and the Gulf Cooperation Council States.6 At the same time, the Union continued to support efforts to re-start the Middle East peace process. In this respect it is worth noting that the EU remains the major financial supporter of the Palestinian Entity (it funds school teacher’s salaries, for example), and has attempted to use some economic leverage against Israel in respect of the ending of preferential access to the Single Market for Israeli-labelled goods exported from settlements in the West Bank and Gaza.7 The diplomatic context of this trade-related activity was an extensive series of ministerial and Troika visits during October 2001 to


Washington, Moscow, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria—in a coalition-building effort which was at least as extensive and probably more influential than the much better publicised efforts undertaken by the British Prime Minister. SUPERPOWER EUROPE? The approach taken by the EU to the events of 11 September impresses because it is essentially civilian and multilateral in character and self-consciously attempts to consider the bases for stability and reconciliation once the Special Forces and the bombers have moved on. It is also surely correct to place emphasis upon the resolution of the Middle East conflict, without which ‘international terrorism’ will never be eradicated. Despite the manifest significance of the Union in international economic, environmental and humanitarian affairs, it is fairly commonplace to argue that it can never become a fully recognisable international actor or perhaps, to use Tony Blair’s phrase, a ‘superpower’, without acquiring its own dedicated military capability. After the collapse of the American-supported European Defence Community experiment in 1954, Cold War politics in Europe was characterised by a clear division of labour between the European Community, responsible for economic and social integration, and NATO, responsible for military deterrence and defence. In the wider meaning of the term both were involved in the provision of security but even though each had headquarters in Brussels there was no contact between them. The ending of the Cold War and doubts about the continuing role of NATO led the Union into a new concern with orthodox military security expressed in the CFSP provisions of the Maastricht Treaty of European Union. There was also an attempt to provide a more concrete ‘European Security and Defence Identity’, separate from the United States, through the Western European Union. Suffice it to say neither amounted to a great deal and in the most humiliating way the Europeans found themselves completely dependent upon United States military capability when force was required in Bosnia and Kosovo. The latter conflict during 1999 appears to have effected a sea change in the attitudes of Member States and strengthened their resolve to develop a real EU military capability under the new European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). At the time of the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon the Union had established the ‘headline goal’ for its own 60,000-strong rapid reaction force and was busy creating a dedicated political-military structure for the Council in Brussels. There were numerous problems involving US approval, the utilisation of NATO assets and the attitude of Turkey within the alliance, but the EU force was declared to be ‘operational at the lower end of the Petersberg Tasks’ by the EU Laeken summit at the end of 2001. It should be noted that such tasks, originally devised for the WEU, involve a very low level use of military force.


The Union was obviously not yet in a position to offer direct military support to the United States in its campaign in Afghanistan. For a moment it appeared as if NATO might become involved and Article 5 of the 1949 Washington Treaty was invoked for the first time in response to the 11 September attacks. This commits Parties to the alliance to come to the assistance of any of their number that is subject to external attack. The net effect appears to have been limited to the despatch of NATO AWACS aircraft to the continental United States to cover for similar US aircraft that had been sent to the theatre of military operations in Central Asia. Far from demonstrating the irrelevance of a dedicated European military capability in circumstances where Member States, including the UK, were prepared to join the US coalition on a national basis, 11 September appears to have provided substantial additional impetus to the ESDP. The development of military capability was suddenly given the ‘highest profile’ by the Council ‘something that had been ‘inconceivable’ in the past.8 Addressing defence ministers Javier Solana declared: Now, more than ever, it is of the utmost importance to reiterate atthe highest political level, our joint commitment to the agreed capability objectives. Defence ministers should be the driving force in that respect. Real progress has to be made and new projects identified in order to fill: …the gaps… The 11September events add new responsibilities for the CFSP. The fight against terrorism does not make the Petersberg Tasks less relevant. But we must be aware of the pressure on resources as some countries might want to develop additional capabilities concerning military and police responses to terrorism. We might have to be ready to take up more responsibilities in peacekeeping missions on shorter notice than originally envisaged, if the international context so requires. Therefore, we must place additional emphasis on our preparations for operational readiness.9 The road to generating a fully operational ESDP that might conceivably supplant the United States’ role in European defence will doubtless be long. It will involve difficult questions relating to the reduction of national forces and increases in defence budgets. The procurement of European military equipment is likely to be particularly troublesome as the long-drawn out process of funding development of a common heavy-lift aircraft, the Airbus military variant, has demonstrated. There are numerous unanswered questions, particularly relating to assumptions about the utilisation of NATO assets. However, the EU is now firmly set upon the course of obtaining its own military capability. In retrospect, this may come to be seen as a near-inevitable consequence of the ending of the Cold


War and the realisation that while the United States was prepared to underwrite European military security within a multilateral context for over 50 years, this commitment could not be sustained into the twenty-first century. The events of 11 September may well be regarded, along with the war in Kosovo, as precipitants of such change. This change should not, however, be misinterpreted. There is neither the intention nor the technological capability to rival the United States. Furthermore, in the light of both the Kosovo and Afghan experiences the force likely to be deployed will be limited and very much an adjunct to the Union’s existing policies for conflict prevention. It can thus be said with some certainty that the EU will not become a superpower, at least not of the old type. CONCLUSION Three developments in the international system were noted at the outset. The first was the emergence of non-state actors. Al-Qaida itself is, of course, a transnational entity and one against which it is particularly difficult for states to wage war. The concepts and conventions developed over hundreds of years of inter-state military engagement appear to be more and more inappropriate. It was clearly possible to attack and remove the Taliban government in Afghanistan and to kill or capture numbers of al-Qaida supporters and destroy their primitive facilities. Yet, it would be fanciful to suggest that this has solved the problem of terrorism. The real bases of terrorism are to be found deep in the structures of the contemporary world system: in economic deprivation and gross inequality; in the consequences of economic and media globalisation; and in the continuing Middle East conflict and the oil-dependence of industrialised societies. A onedimensional application of military instruments, even by the greatest of states, is largely irrelevant to treating anything but the symptoms of terrorism. Instead a non-state entity, the EU, may be more appropriate to dealing with the causes of 11 September. Commissioner Patten summed this up well: If there is any institution in the world that can demonstrate the benefits of multilateralism, of arguing about fish quotas or budgets, rather than murdering one another, it is the European Union.10 In terms of the second development in the international system, the response to 11 September indicates clearly that it is the European Union that maintains the multilateral approach. Unfortunately, on a whole range of issues, including the establishment of an international criminal court, the approach of the United States continues to appear one-dimensional and unilateralist in character. The third development concerns the hegemonic position of the United States since 1945. There is no intent on the part of the Union to challenge the military dimension of this hegemony. The creation of the ESDP is essentially indicative of European awareness that US military support may no longer be forthcoming.


Similarly, the whole response of the EU to the 11 September attacks was predicated upon support for, and solidarity with, the American people and a desire to assist the US government in dealing with terrorism. The Transatlantic relationship is a very close and interdependent one but it also has its antagonisms. While US military predominance is accepted and usually welcomed, there are other dimensions where hegemony is challenged. In the weeks following 11 September two important multilateral occasions were overshadowed by events in Afghanistan. The launching of a new WTO trade Round at the Dohar Ministerial Meeting provides a context in which the EU is in almost every respect the equal partner and frequent antagonist of the United States. As significant was the final agreement at Marrakesh to proceed, without the United States, to the ratification and implementation of the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. As in a number of other environmental negotiations, the lead was taken by an assertive European Union. The symbols of US hegemony were the target of the 11 September attacks. In strictly military terms that hegemony remains and is being asserted. However, there are other dimensions of contemporary international relations, clearly relevant to removing the causes of terrorism, where US hegemony is, to say the least, contested and where there has been an abdication of US leadership. It is along these multilateral dimensions, involving the reform of the global economy, the building of security communities and the avoidance of environmental disaster that the European Union has begun to demonstrate its distinctive approach and capabilities. NOTES 1. See the author’s attempt to do this in C.A.Bretherton and J.Vogler, The European Union as a Global Actor (London: Routledge, 1999). 2. AFP, Khaleej Times, 22 July 2001. 3. J.G.Ruggie, ‘Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations’, International Organization, 47, 1 (1993), pp. 139–74, esp. p. 140. 4. See, for example, http://ue.eu.int/newsroom, 16 November 2001: ‘Declaration by the Presidency on behalf of the European Union, the Central and Eastern European countries associated with the European Union, the associated countries Cyprus, Malta and Turkey and the EFTA countries, members of the European Economic Area, concerning restrictive measures against the Taliban and amending Common Position’, 1996/746/CFSP, 2001/56/CFSP and 2001/154/CFSP 5. European Commission, Action by the European Union Following the Attacks on 11 September, DN: MEMO/01/327 2001–10–15, http://www.europa.eu.int 6. Council Conclusions, 17 October 2001. 7. I.Black and A.Osborn, ‘EU gets tough on Israeli exports’, The Guardian, 13 November 2001, p.8. 8. Briefing, Council Secretariat Brussels, 24 October 2001. 9. Summary of an intervention by Xavier Solana at the informal meeting of Defence


Ministers Brussels, 12 October 2001, 10. Commission Statement to the European Parliament, Rt Hon Chris Patten, Strasbourg 2 October 2001, http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations

10 Terrorism and ‘New Wars’1 SUSANNE KARSTEDT

A NEW WORLD ORDER? ‘11 September has changed the world’—but did it really? Before we start to explore the new world order, or declare the old one coming to an end, it might be helpful to look back at events that happened at the beginning of the last century, less than 100 years ago. It was only four years later, after the First World War, that it dawned on Europeans that the terrorist attack on the Austrian heir to the throne in Sarajevo had changed the political, cultural and social landscape of Europe and the world. Only then did they realize that the ‘lights went out in Europe’, and that the ‘long nineteenth century’— as Hobsbawm2 termed it—had come finally to an abrupt end. Obviously, we are quite incapable of assessing the ‘world-altering’ impact of events at the moment they happen. Nearly a year after 11 September, a war in Afghanistan, and in the midst of an escalating conflict in the Middle East, such an assessment seems no less difficult or more certain. The sheer scale of the 11 September attack made it seem earth shattering to us at the time. The world witnessed the attack in real time, and the vividness of the images of the planes hitting, and the towers collapsing both in slow motion and with incredible rapidity, made it in fact an event that changed the world. The attack hit the world’s hegemonic power on a hitherto unknown scale. The richest and greatest city was the victim of a handful of young men who had decided to sacrifice their own lives and those of thousands of innocent victims. The fact that 11 September outdid Hollywood symbolized in many ways how the event had an impact on the global society and culture. Not even the world’s leading factory of fiction had come up with such imagination and images, which made the event in a way unthinkable.3 This was ‘the most violent event ever to be shown instantaneously on television, which invoked a world of speed, instantaneity, copresence’,4 as well as a global threat. Though America, and its citizens, was the foremost target of the attack, the victims represented the global dimension of this terrorist attack: Britons, Germans, Japanese, Chileans, South Africans, Arabs and many others were among them. The 11 September terrorist attack claimed the largest number of victims of any single act. Its extraordinary symbolic power

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was augmented by the media; it spread fear among an entire nation; and it provoked a war in reaction. The scale of events on 11 September invoked world-historical change, a world pre- and post-11 September, the ‘dark side’, and a new path of globalization. But it is a striking fact that the terrorist attack of 11 September was in many ways not new but quite ‘traditional’. It was in many respects a ‘classical’ terror attack. In addition, the Twin Towers had been the target of an attack by the same terrorist network with the same objective eight years earlier, and in recent years, the USA and its institutions abroad had been attacked with increasing frequency. Before proclaiming a new world order, or a new turn of post-modernity it might be helpful to put 11 September into context—into a historical as well as conceptual context. This is the task I want to take up in this paper. First, I will explore the ways in which it was a ‘classic’ terrorist attack, as well as how it differed from terrorism during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Next, I will analyse the specific interactive and communicative context of the attack, which I identify as identity politics. In particular, I explore in what ways ‘New Wars’5 contribute to terrorism today, and how they establish a ‘theatre of war’ directly related to terrorist attacks, as well as a ‘sounding board’ that resonates the message of the terrorist attack. Finally, I analyse how the typical ‘waves’ of terrorism are the product of the ‘triadic’ interaction that terrorists establish between themselves, the State and its reaction, and the social movement and ‘audiences’ that they are addressing by their action. In this task, it seems crucial to identify the specific social and cultural context of the terrorist attack. One of the leading researchers on terrorism, Walter Laqueur has warned against sweeping analyses that try to identify general social, structural and cultural conditions as the root causes of terrorism.6 Thus, poverty or social inequality are not consistent causes of terrorist movements. During the waves of terrorism in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s, such causes can be definitely dismissed for Germany and Italy. In particular the ETA, the Basque terrorist movement, developed in a quite prosperous region of Spain. Neither can a consistent relationship between poverty, inequality and terrorism be found for Latin America.7 Concepts like globalization or the ‘conflict of cultures’ equally share the deficiencies of such large-scale and sweeping concepts. Presently, if not globalization itself, at least a ‘dark side of globalization’, is linked to the most recent wave of terrorism. However, the acknowledgement of the fact that the global networks and flows can be equally utilised by ‘terrorists, drug traffickers, and organized crime’8 mainly makes it perfectly clear, how distorted expectations linked to globalization have been. Given the specific symbolic nature of terrorist attacks, the analysis of ‘intermediary contexts’ seems to be more promising. Such an objective implies the examination of the actual networks, the communication strategies and the symbolic messages of a particular terrorist group, as well as the governments’ reactions toward the threat of terrorism. Terrorists are powerful players within such intermediary contexts, and they play a vital part in constituting them. The


social movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries shaped the intermediary contexts for the terrorism of their times.9 ‘New wars’ and ‘markets of violence’10 are emerging as such contexts for the 11 September attack. NEW DIMENSIONS OF TERRORISM? The 11 September shared many of the characteristics of attacks that had occurred during the last century and since their ‘invention’ at the end of the nineteenth century. Those who start their analysis of terrorism with a wide historical perspective and include the attacks of Jewish ‘terrorists’ against the Roman Empire11 2,000 years ago, ignore the fact that terrorism is a particularly modern phenomenon. Terrorists engage in a process of interaction with the powerful machinery of modern states—either nationally or internationally—the symbolic power of the terrorist attack being at the centre of this process. Terrorists have to rely on a well-developed public sphere, and the presence of the media and a mass public, to which their message can be directed and where it will be understood. Terrorism emerged together with both of these two characteristics of modern societies mainly during the last century. Terrorist actions require a common frame of interpretation and reference, though a frame that is highly contested rather than shared. Terrorism constitutes a triadic interaction and communication structure—between the terrorists, their supporters (actual as well as potential), and, finally, those who are attacked. The message of the terrorist attack, its significance and its symbolic content always appeal to both sides —to the supporters and those who are attacked. Neither the scale of the symbolic power of the 11 September attack nor the way it was enlarged by the media differed in principle from the interactive and communicative strategies developed by modern terrorism. Terrorist attacks were and are directed against those who represent the object of attack: powerful figures in the government, the economy, or the elites, or buildings that signify the core of the hated system. However, terrorist attacks do not exclusively target representatives of the ‘system,’ but are directed as well against the normal citizens and their daily life; a ‘wrong life’ within a ‘wrong’ system as Adorno famously phrased it.12 The German left-wing terrorists of the 1970s set fire to a department store to symbolise the Napalm bombing of Vietnam. Another attack by right-wing terrorists during the 1980s was directed against the ‘October Beer Festival’ in Munich, and Islamic terrorists obviously planned an attack against the Christmas Fair in Strassbourg in 2000. Palestinian terrorists often select centres of entertainment in Israel for their suicide attacks. The terrorist attack sends an unambiguous message to both the State and those audiences who are supportive of the cause: that the powerful are finally weak, and that those who have been identified as ‘enemies’ have to fear for their life anywhere. Terrorists do not hide, and they are confessors from the start. Justification of their actions is an integral part of their message, sent as a threat to those who they are attacking and as an appeal and explanation of their cause to


their actual and potential supporters. Their message is constitutive for the symbolic power of their action as well as of their own identity as members of a group, a minority, or a social movement. Terrorist attacks are designed to provoke reactions from their (potential) followers, and predominantly from the State they are attacking. From their strategic point of view, the extremely repressive reactions that all states engage in symbolically and actually reveal the very face and core of ‘the system’ and should in fact have a de-stabilizing impact. These strategic objectives were realized in some of the Latin American countries during the 1970s. Unstable democracies became military dictatorships in the course of their fight against terrorism. This did not happen in the stable democracies of Western Europe during the 1970s and 1980s wave of terrorism.13 We do not know if the terrorists of 11 September and their supporters had calculated the risk of war or intended this reaction from the USA, but the war against Afghanistan revealed for many Muslims the ‘imperialistic face’ of the USA. In Europe, the recent EU and national laws against terrorism, particularly the tightening of immigration laws, might have an impact on the situation of immigrants from Islamic countries, and elicit more consent to, and support for, the terrorist attacks among the different Islamic communities than they had had originally. European societies are taking incalculable risks of further alienating large parts of their immigrant population who originate from Islamic countries and are living increasingly in ‘parallel societies’. The divide between the Western world and Islamic countries has been deepened and enlarged on a global scale as well as within the boundaries of nation states. This was precisely the message of the 11 September attack—that this divide existed, and that a ‘clash of cultures’ was inevitable; consequently Islamic communities in Europe might become more receptive ‘audiences’ for the message of terrorists. The interaction between terrorist action and state reaction builds the triadic relationship and brings in the ‘audiences’ and potential followers of the terrorists’ cause. The terrorists who carried out the 11 September attack have been characterized as ‘coolly calculating actors’.14 In fact, planning and carrying out terrorist attacks —as well as building the edifice of legitimization and justification within a consistently developed ideological framework— require those highly intelligent and well educated men and women, who have been at the core of every terrorist organisation since the nineteenth century. The surprise of the Western world that the 11 September attacks involved mainly members of the future professional and technical elites seems to be more the result of a perspective of orientalism and imperialism.15 The terrorists of 11 September did not differ from former generations of terrorists in countries as diverse as tsarist Russia, Germany or Italy with regard to educational, social and professional background. This fact seems to be much more related to the structural characteristics of terrorism than to the specific background or religious and other ideological affiliation of terrorists. Terrorists come rarely from those groups to whom they want to direct their message.


With regard to these characteristics, the 11 September attack might be termed the most ‘successful’ terrorist attack in history, and the most ‘effective’ one, but it did not add a specific new dimension to terrorism except for its scale. Compared to terrorism during the last 100 years the new dimension seems to be the social and cultural context in which the terrorist attack was developed and took place. It was embedded and developed within a religious movement, and it is related to the context of ‘new’ or ‘privatized’ wars.16 Modern terrorism emerged as part of the dominant social and political movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: socialism, fascism and nationalism. These were explicitly and decisively a-religious and anti-religious, proclaiming bonds other than those established by religion. During the second part of the twentieth century—though not from the social, cultural and private life of the citizens—religion had increasingly disappeared from the political life of the Western world on such a scale that even quite powerful fundamentalist movements like those in the USA (including those involved in terrorist attacks) were rated as exceptions rather than characteristics of these societies.17 The conflict in Northern Ireland is situated in a field framed by religion, but it has nonetheless an equally strong nationalistic component. Consequently, the decisively religious framework of the terrorists of 11 September appeared to the Western World as anachronistic and ‘pre-modern’. The Western World was stunned by the fact that the terrorists came from a religious ‘fundamentalist’ background, and simultaneously used modern technology in a masterly way. However, this fitted into the discourse about globalization that had been inaugurated by Samuel Huntington and Benjamin Barber, in which Islam and its fundamental movements took the role of the enemy. What exactly is the role of religion, fundamentalism, and religious identity in the 11 September attack? SHAPING THE TERRORIST TRIADIC INTERACTION: POLITICS OF IDEAS, IDENTITY AND RELIGION Terrorists need and develop explicitly ‘strong’ legitimizing frameworks for their actions and for their own identity. The more common ‘techniques of neutralization,’ by which criminal offenders accept existing rules and norms but nonetheless ‘negatively’ define them as invalid for their offence and themselves, are not sufficient for their cause. Instead, terrorists need positive legitimizations that are essential for the symbolic significance of their actions, add to their mobilizing impact, and define their identity. Such positive legitimization was framed by the social and political movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, their ideologies and belief systems: it was within these frameworks, that terrorist attacks could be surrounded by the aura of ‘revolutionary action’ instead of carrying the stigma of ‘normal criminality,’ and the actors could adopt an identity as fighters for a just cause and against an unjust system. These social movements emerged as reactions against the upheavals of industrialization and modernity, but nonetheless they offered their own visions of modern society,


which were profoundly secular. Consequently, the terrorists tried to assert the definition of their actions as political crimes, and for themselves the status and identity of political actors in a political arena, what they actually became when they had eventually succeeded in changing this arena according to their objectives. Governments consistently refused this definition, particularly because of its legal consequences. Terrorist attacks were dealt with foremost as non-political and ‘normal crimes’. Rules that might restrict reactions against terrorists do not apply if terrorists are defined as ‘normal criminals’ instead of as political dissidents or even combatants.18 However, the States’ reactions incorporated the symbolic message of the terrorist attacks, and simultaneously evoked the danger for the established political and social order. This kind of ‘dual response’ engendered the development of specific laws against terrorism and of treatment within the criminal justice system, which made terrorists de facto political prisoners. The combination of legal and political reactions justified and legitimised special prosecution, special trials and in particular special conditions of imprisonment for terrorists. Reactions often incorporated elements of ‘internal warfare’ that could expand into actual civil war.19 The specific measures established in prosecuting, bringing to trial and finally imprisoning the members of the German RAF or the IRA in Northern Ireland show how the ‘primacy of politics’ overruled established laws. The typical ‘overreaction’ of European states during the wave of terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s was the result of a combination of legal and political reactions. In fact, in Germany, the laws that should ensure strong surveillance and control in the fight against terrorism, and that restricted civil liberties resulted in one (!) arrest (the others were found by chance, and a large proportion after reunification in the former GDR). The respective laws were finally withdrawn,20 only to be resurrected after 11 September. According to all we presently know from what the terrorists of 11 September left behind—their wills, instructions and private letters—they defined themselves not as political actors but as ‘warriors,’ and actors in a theatre of war. The Holy War, in which they participated, is exactly not a ‘mere continuation of policy by other means, as Clausewitz21 had defined the logic of modern wars, but a negation of politics. It is a strategy of ‘identity politics,’ but not a means of ‘politics of ideas’ as the terrorism of the last century can be described. The 11 September attack is linked to the ‘new wars’ of identity politics, both strategically and symbolically.22 Without doubt, religion is dominant within the belief system of the 11 September terrorists, and provides a strong and positive legitimation. But it can be reasonably doubted if religion as a reservoir of motives has a decisively different impact, or can be rated as a stronger motivational and mobilizing force than political ideologies.23 Strategies of terrorism—even under the primacy of politics—are partially characterized by redemptive and utopian ideas, though these will take a specific shape and become dominant in the case of terrorism


motivated by religion.24 What is more important here is the fact that at the end of the twentieth century religious movements have become powerful social and political forces throughout the world. The Evangelical upsurge in Latin America and Christian fundamentalism in North America, and the Islamic religious movements in Asia, Africa and Europe seem to be the most powerful and politically influential ones.25 In particular, they are related to a number of violent ethnic and political conflicts that have predominantly flared up in the respective regions. The religious movements within Islam are intricately linked to the ‘New Wars’.26 Both combine into the specific context of the 11 September attack. Just as the social movements of the nineteenth and twentieth century functioned as models and ‘sounding boards’ for the terrorists of those times, so do the contexts of the religious movement and of the ‘new wars’ for the message of the 11 September terrorists. New wars offer powerful strategies of identity politics and legitimization, and much more than a mere logistic and technical infrastructure for terrorism. NEW WARS, THE PRIVATIZATION OF WARFARE AND TERRORISM Most of the terrorists of 11 September came from Saudi Arabia, and only a minority was recruited from countries like Yemen, Algeria, Palestine and Lebanon, where the population had suffered from ‘new’ and ‘privatized’ wars during the last decades. Therefore, new wars had not provided the context of early experience and life for the majority of the terrorists, but they obviously got their religious and technical training in those countries, where such wars were raging for decades, like Afghanistan and Sudan. However, the political and social structure of Saudi-Arabian society seems to have played a role in the recruitment and motivation of the terrorists. The autocratic state that denies the responsibility of those in power, and participation to those who are governed, had been the target of terrorist attacks during the last decade. Since 11 September, a steep increase in violence and civil strife has been observed.27 The opposition movements and dissident groups share the vision that Islam and its values are under attack, both at home and internationally.28 In addition, most of the 11 September terrorists came from ethnic minorities from the periphery of Saudi Arabia that were excluded and discriminated against.29 It is not clear how much this specific situation in Saudi Arabia contributed to the initial motivation of the terrorists. However, it is obvious that they were shaped by the Islamic religious movement and trained within the context that was established by the new wars. Mary Kaldor uses the designation ‘new wars’ not for the revolution of the technology of warfare, but for the revolution of social relationships that have dominated theatres of war worldwide since several decades. During the era of the Cold War, they were rated as ‘low-intensity-conflicts,’ notwithstanding the fact


that, civil wars included, more than 100 million lives were lost in such warfare. Other authors have conceptualized this type of warfare as ‘informal’ or ‘privatized’ wars.30 Although the privatization of violence seems to be their most important characteristic it is hard to differentiate between private and public violence, between state- and non-state violence (in particular in cases where the State is powerless or even non-existent), between formal and informal violence. New wars have elements of pre- as well as of post-modernity. From the perspective of ‘old wars’ new wars are ‘degenerate warfare’,31 or, using the terminology of Michael Ignatieff, ‘irregular wars’.32 Both concepts describe best one of the defining features of new wars: the loss of the regulating framework that had been forced on modern warfare, slowly and arduously. New wars develop where the power of national states, that had defined the logic of modern warfare during the last two centuries, has deteriorated. Presently, they take mainly place in Africa, Afghanistan and other countries in Asia, as well as in Europe in the Balkans region. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Clausewitz had in particular defined what modern war was not. It was not a way of life for armies of mercenaries or for the noble and feudal classes, and not a question of honour and respect. Modern war was in its own way rational and in the hand of politicians (however irrational these might have been). It was subordinated to political aims, and as such, it could be termed rational—as a means toward an end. Clausewitz himself included other forms of war, and established a continuum of more or less ‘political’ wars.33 Modern warfare was not ‘private,’ but in the hands of the governments of (national) states; they needed at least some legitimacy from those who carried the burden. This logic of modern war was complemented in the twentieth century by a framework of regulation of warfare, the most important parts of it establishing the difference between combatants and noncombatants, and defining the status of prisoners of war.34 New wars are, in contrast, ‘privatized’, and they have returned to warfare as a way of life. They involve ethnic groups, warlords with private armies, and guerrilla fighters. Organized crime and drug cartels are an integral part of these wars, and often become involved as one of the fighting parties. Consequently, warfare is a private business for those involved. The re-feudalization of warfare brings back the values of honour and respect. It becomes a way of life for young men, mostly the only opportunity in a desperate economic situation, and the only way of achieving status in a society that is dissolving into its smaller components —families, ethnic and religious groups. It determines the social and cultural context of the life of young people, who often are recruited as children for the war, since these play a decisive role in the highly mobile and networked warfare. The journalist Ahmed Rashid35 describes how the Taliban got their only education in Koran schools, and how they were introduced into a male ‘society of warriors’. Religious faith was intricately intertwined with the identity of ethnic groups, in Afghanistan as well as in other new wars.


The specific context of privatized war and its pre-modern and feudal structural components are the result of a typical set of goals, methods of warfare and ways of financing them.36 Identity politics—the mobilisation of ethnic and/or religious affiliation for a (violent) claim to power—define the goals of new wars. Identity politics rely as much on traditional affiliations, as they invent traditions and develop hybrid forms of religious and ethnic identity, often without a dominant role for religion. As Ignatieff argues, religion seemed to have ‘triggered inauthentic feelings’ in the Balkans wars, and an artificial particularism.37 However, with religious movements on the upsurge religion actually provides identity and a cause in ethnic conflicts, independent of the role of religion in the everyday life of the combatants. However, in the war in Afghanistan, Islam seemed to be more the uniting, universal force in contrast to the particularistic interests of the ethnic groups and warlords. In privatized wars, a central structure of command (and respective responsibility) is missing; instead, warfare is characterised by a decentralised, networked and mobile strategy, which integrates the diverse groups —from warlords to drug cartels—through confrontation and co-operation, both changing in the course of war. All regulations of modern warfare being absent, the result is an extremely high loss of lives. The fragmented structure of the new wars is linked to the global illegal economy, which corresponds to these particularistic and feudal structures.38 Drug trafficking and organized crime, the international weapon trade, as well as diasporas of ethnic groups in rich countries, provide financial resources. The internal sources for financing the war are secured by extortion from the civilian population, black markets and all kind of ‘taxes’. The flow of revenues from internal as well as external sources requires the continuous use of violence, so that the logic of war and violence are embedded into economic transactions. In these ‘markets of violence’ exchanges are violent in every respect. The terrorists of 11 September were linked in several ways to the new wars. The attack was a powerful demonstration of cultural and religious identity, and as such part of identity politics already established by the wars in Afghanistan and on the Balkans. Their strategy was based on networks, mobility and the use of modern communication technology, and mimicked many of the strategies of new warfare. They seem to have used the sources and routes of financial transactions established by these wars.39 The new wars provided the cultural context for their patterns of motivation and legitimisation. War as a way of life defined the role of the warrior that they had adopted. The rhetoric of war that they used, has not exclusively religious roots, but is in many ways embedded into the culture of new wars. The terrorists’ role model will be accepted and understood by the many, who live in such a situation of war. Their action fed back to this context in decisive ways, and the attack resonated with the patterns of this context. The ‘collective conscience’ that has unfolded in such ‘theatres of war’ (including Palestine/Israel) can absorb and mirror back the message.


ISLAMIC MOVEMENTS, NEW WARS AND TERRORISM In comparison to their proportion among the world population, Islamic countries and Islamic ethnic groups have been involved in a disproportionately high number of new wars.40 The causes range from the specific geopolitical situation of these countries to the instability of their governments and administrations, which emerged under the pressure of globalisation. New wars develop where global interests are involved, and their duration and intensity is determined by geopolitical and economic interests, and closely linked to the global illegal economy. What is the role—if at all—of Islamic fundamentalist movements in such conflicts? The dialectic relationship between global capitalism and religious fundamentalism is not restricted to Islamic religious movements. According to scholars like Berger and Barber, fundamentalist movements—with their return to traditional sources of religious authority and their ‘defiance of what others have termed the Zeitgeist’41—as much reflect the forces of modernization and globalization as they are a reaction against them. The Islamic revival is not restricted to the less modernized sectors of societies, but to the contrary, mostly flourishes in the cities with a high degree of modernization and among those groups that are the vanguard of the modernization process.42 Yet, there are great differences, and religious and political distinctions to be made between Islamic movements. Some of them are profoundly pro-democracy and pro-pluralism, as the powerful revival movement in Indonesia, while these sort of ideas are only held by a minority in Saudi Arabia.43 Islamic movements are shaped by the specific combinations of social, cultural and political factors in the different countries and regions of the Islamic world. Notwithstanding these differences, Islam is a religious force that unites governments and social movements or dissident groups as it provides a common language and ‘framing’ for both of them.44 In recent decades, political regimes in Islamic countries have been disproportionately, though variously, authoritarian and non-democratic.45 The lack of the division between religious and political institutions integrates identity politics into domestic and foreign policies in a specific way that seems to be conducive to the emergence of new wars. In a group of 40 countries, Islamic nations were consistently characterised by anti-egalitarian and collectivistic cultural patterns that are related to higher levels of violence among populations.46 Such patterns, additionally supported by what has been termed ‘Islamic familialism’47 are favourable to the emergence of violent conflicts between groups. The traditional social and cultural structure of Islamic countries is not at all inimical to globalization, but to the contrary can be very successful, in particular in the global economy where neo-feudal patterns flourish.48 The process of modernization in the age of globalization does not render the traditional social structures and institutions of Islamic societies obsolete or defunct, but gives them


a new role and function in the globalized world. When Islamic fundamentalism seeks to preserve the traditional values and structures of society, this is not only a reaction against modernization and globalization, but as much an adaptation to the new patterns evolving in the global economic world. Both—reaction against and adaptation to globalization—might explain the appeal and success of Islamic fundamentalism among the young, the well-educated and professionals, and the business middle classes who often have received their education in Western countries. Islamic fundamentalist movements provide a universal and unifying vision of Islam, even in the midst of ethnic conflicts and highly particularistic societies. The unifying potential of Islamic fundamentalism was first proved in the war in Afghanistan, but spread to other theatres of war as in the Balkans. Islamic universalism is a powerful link between fundamentalist movements and the new wars in Islamic countries. The terrorists of 11 September could rely on a universal idea of Islam, which simultaneously was related to the pursuit of identity politics in the theatres of new warfare. They reached out to the community of Islamic countries as well to those who lived under the conditions of new wars. Their message could be received by dissident groups and emerging social movements all over the Islamic world, and give them a common cause and ‘framing’, notwithstanding their differences in religious beliefs and political objectives. WAVES OF TERRORISM: WHAT COMES AFTER 11 SEPTEMBER? During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, terrorism came in waves, and this seems to be an essential feature of terrorism. Waves of terrorism are the result of the dynamics that evolve within the triadic interaction pattern between the terrorist group, their supporters and the reactions from governments that have a decisive role in the process. Presumably, the high visibility and the symbolic power of the terrorist attack trigger off a process of modelling and imitation among the followers. Terrorist groups will elicit support and recruit new members as long as their message is powerful enough and resonates with the experience and daily life of potential supporters. Repressive reactions by the State, which target the group itself as much as the potential supporters and social movements, might easily contribute to the legitimacy of the cause and to the recruitment of new members into the terrorist groups.49 This might in particular increase the exclusion and alienation of those parts of the population in which the terrorists are embedded, and from which they get support. The State’s reaction might well alienate future elites and powerless groups simultaneously. Deterrent reactions directed against the terrorists and potential recruits becomes a double-edged sword; their immediate impact might be an increase of terrorist attacks, and an affirmation of the terrorists’ cause.50 They can in particular prolong the wave if new generations of terrorists rally around the cause of


fighting repressive measures, violations of human rights and ‘warfare’ against terrorists. Such new generations emerged in Germany and Italy during the 1970s and 1980s, or were recruited into the ETA in the Basque region. However, the violence of the terrorist attack of 11 September seems to have scared the middle classes away from the cause of Islamic fundamentalism, notwithstanding their close links to Islamic religious movements and the role of religion in their daily lives. Moderate Islamists now seek the alliance with the secular opposition and are beginning to develop a Muslim democracy movement.51 Both terrorist action, and government reaction, have to maintain a fragile balance when attempting their objectives, and the development of each wave of terrorism depends as much on this balance as on the relationship between action and reaction. The reaction of the USA to 11 September was new in many respects— perhaps more so than the attack itself. During the last century, governments’ strategies against terrorism consisted of police operations that in some cases included the military forces. The USA started a war that was conducted as a police operation within a theatre of irregular warfare. The aim of the war was declared as bringing the members of the al-Qaida to justice; which left the question open if they should be treated as regular or irregular combatants, or as ‘suspects’. Subsequently, the USA has not yet defined the status of the prisoners of war they made during the military operations in Afghanistan: these are not treated as prisoners of war, nor as suspects in detention. The involvement in an irregular war leaves such decisions at the discretion of the USA, and exempts them from international and national laws to a considerable degree. The definition of ‘rogue states’ owed much more to the rhetoric of criminal prosecution than to political objectives (and has undergone some changes since then). Though some of the imminent targets of the war seem to have been achieved, the USA contributed to irregular warfare and participated in it. New conflicts and wars have flared up in the region, partially fuelled by those who fled from Afghanistan. The wave of terrorist attacks, of which 11 September is the most outstanding event, started more than a decade ago. Insofar as the theatres of new warfare have contributed to this wave they will certainly continue to serve as a cultural context and ‘resonance board’, as reservoirs for recruitment and strategies of legitimization, as markets of violence and as source of financial resources and transactions. The involvement of the world power, the USA, in these conflicts makes the further development of the present wave highly unpredictable. Two factors add to this unpredictability as to which turn the present wave of terrorism will take: first, the reactions of the European governments, in particular the implementation of new laws of surveillance and control that target immigrants from Islamic countries; second, the situation in Islamic countries. How these will contribute to the containment or prolongation and intensification of the present wave is hard to assess. The worldwide triadic interaction that the 11 September


attack established has many imponderables, and this in fact is a new dimension of terrorism. It seems to be the more reasonable and potentially successful strategy to establish a ‘policy of containment’ of new wars that involves the international community, international institutions and national states. Any efforts to contain and stop the ‘new wars’ will include measures to disrupt their links with the global illegal economy and organized crime. Terrorism is essentially a strategy to give voice and legitimacy to the cause of the powerless, and the significance and symbolic power of terrorist actions partly rests on how successfully they can achieve this. Strategies of containment, therefore, will include measures to empower those to whom terrorist actions give a voice, but not to repress such a voice. Consequently, pressure exerted on Islamic states to increase surveillance and control, and to restrict civil liberties further, can easily fire back. If implemented in autocratic states, they will prevent the development of democratic and institutional structures of participation, and they will further the disempowerment of large parts of the population. Instead, support for the development of democratic societies will contribute more to the containment of the terrorist wave. European governments need to follow such lines by increasing their efforts to integrate the large Muslim communities within their borders. They have to become multi-cultural societies that allow for difference but prevent the development of ‘parallel societies’. The multiplicity of actors and objectives involved makes it hard to assess which course will be taken and be successful in the containment of the present wave of terrorism. It might take us more than the four years that the Europeans needed to assess the impact of the 1914 terrorist attack in Sarajevo to find out if 11 September changed the world—and in which direction. NOTES 1 My thanks to John Braithwaite, Australian National University, and Ruth Jamieson, Keele University, for helpful comments on this paper. 2 Hobsbawm, Eric J., The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century 1914–1991 (London: Abacus, 1995). 3 However, one year later, it has become obvious that there were warnings about an imminent attack on vital institutions in the USA. 4 Larry Ray, ‘Introduction to the Rapid Response to 11 September,’ Sociological Research Online, 6, 3 (2000), www.socresonline.org.uk/6/3/introduction 5 Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars (Cambridge: Polity, 2001) [Reprinted with a new Afterword]. 6 Walter Laqueur, Terrorismus: Die globale Herausforderung (Frankfurt-am-Main: Suhrkamp, 1987). 7 Jennifer S.Holmes, Terrorism and Democratic Stability (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001).


8 Chris Rumford, ‘Confronting “Uncivil Society” and the “Dark Side of Globalisation”: Are Sociological Concepts up to the Task?’ Sociological Research Online, 6, 3 (2001), www.socresonline.org.uk/6/3/rumford 9 Peter Waldmann, Terrorismus: Provokation der Macht (München: Gerling Akademie Verlag 1998); Susanne Karstedt, ‘Theorien zur Erklärung terroristischer Bewegungen,’ in E. Blankenburg (ed.), Politik der inneren Sicherheit (Frankfurtam-Main: Suhrkamp, 1980), pp. 196–237. 10. Georg Elwert, ‘Rational und lernfähig’, Der Überblick, 37, 3 (2001), pp. 1–8. 11. See Waldmann, Terrorismus. 12. Theodor W.Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment (London: Verso, 1999). Actually, Adorno said that there is ‘no right life within the wrong’. 13. See Holmes, Terrorism and Democratic Stability, on Latin America; and Paul Wilkinson, Terrorism versus Democracy: The Liberal State Response (London: Frank Cass, 2001), on European responses. 14. See Elwert, ‘Rational und lernfähig’. 15. A good example of such a perspective are Stephen Vertigans and Philip Sutton, ‘Back to the Future: ‘Islamic Terrorism’ and Interpretations of the Past and Present,’ Sociological Research Online, 6, 3 (2001), www.socresonline.org.uk/6/3/ vertigans.html 16. See Kaldor New and Old Wars; and Michael Ignatieff, The Warriors’ Honor (London: Vintage, 1998). 17. Benjamin Barber, Coca Cola und Heiliger Krieg, 2nd edn (Bern: Scherz 1997); Peter Berger, ‘Secularism in Retreat’, The National Interest, 46 (1996), pp. 3–12. 18. Christopher Daase, ‘Zum Wandel der amerikanischen Terrorismusbekämpfung,’ Mittelweg 36, 6(2001), pp. 35–48. 19. See Holmes, Terrorism and Democratic Stability. 20. Fritz Sack and Heinz Steinert, Protest und Reaktion. Analysen zum Terrorismus, 4, 2 (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1984). 21. Carl Von Clausewitz, On War (London: Penguin Books, 1982), p. 119. 22. See Kaldor, New and Old Wars. 23. For a discussion of terrorism as part of the new religious movements during the last two decades, see Jean-Francois Mayer, ‘Cults, Violence and Religious Terrorism: An International Perspective’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 24 (2001), pp. 361–6. 24. Ibid. 25. See Berger, ‘Secularism in Retreat’. 26. See Kaldor, ‘New and Old Wars’; and Ignatieff, The Warrior’s Honor. 27. ‘Die Brutstätte des Terrors’, Der Spiegel, 10 (2002), pp. 132–8. 28. Mamoun Fandy, Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent (London: Macmillan 1999). 29. See ‘Die Brutstätte des Terrors’. 30. David Keen, ‘When War Itself is Privatized’, Times Literary Supplement, December 1995, pp. 3–7. 31. Martin Shaw, ‘War and Globality’, in: H.-W.Jeong (ed.), The New Agenda for Peace Research (Dartmouth: Aldershot, 1999), pp. 61–79. 32. See Ignatief, The Warrior’s Honor. 33. See Clausewitz, On War, p. 120. 34. See Ignatieff, The Warrior’s Honor, ch. 5.


35. Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven, CT; Yale University Press, 2001), ch. 8. 36. See Kaldor, New and Old Wars, p. 6. 37. See Ignatieff, The Warrior’s Honor, p. 55. 38. Susanne Karstedt, ‘Knights of Crime: The Success of “Pre-Modern” Structures in the Illegal Economy’, in S.Karstedt and K.D.Bussmann (eds), Social Dynamics of Crime and Control: New Theories for a World in Transition (Oxford: Hart, 2000), pp. 53–68. 39. Friedrich Schneider, ‘Die Finanzströme islamischer Terror-Organisationen: Vorläufige Erkenntnisse aus volkswirtschaftlicher Sicht,’ 2001, www.economics.uni-linz.ac.at/ members/schneider/ 40. Samuel P.Huntington, The Clash of Cultures (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001), pp. 415–19. 41. Berger, ‘Secularism in Retreat’, p. 6. 42. Ibid. 43. Fandy, Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent. 44. Ibid., p. 248 45. Bassam Tibi, Krieg der Zivilisationen (Hamburg: Hoffmann and Campe, 1995). 46. Geert Hofstede, Culture’s Consequences, 2nd abridged edn (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1984); Susanne Karstedt, ‘Die moralische Stärke schwacher Bindungen: Individualismus und Gewalt im Kulturvergleich’, Monatsschrift für Kriminologie und Strafrechtsreform, 84 (2001), pp. 226–43. 47. Fandy, Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent. 48. See Karstedt, ‘Knights of Crime’; Alain Minc, Das neue Mittelalter (Hamburg: Hoffmann and Campe, 1994). 49. Karstedt, ‘Theorien zur Erklärung terroristischer Bewegungen’. 50. John Braithwaite, ‘Thinking Critically About the War Model and the Criminal Justice Model for Combating Terrorism’, Paper given at the British Conference of Criminology, Keele University, July 2002. 51. Interview with Gilles Kepel ‘Bin Laden muss sich zeigen’, Der Spiegel, 26 (2002), pp. 120–1.

11 On Pharmacotic War LARRY GEORGE

Memory is contested space. The conscious remembrance of things past, whether by individuals or communities, always takes the form of an imprecise and contested sedimentation of signs, images, and representations—the product of a continual psychological and political struggle over what to highlight and what to repress. Memory is also, paradoxically, oriented towards the future. While we normally think of memories as artefacts, as more or less straightforward recollections of things past, actual memories are renewed and re-constructed at the moment with the future in mind. Lewis Carroll, as usual, put it best: ‘It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards’. Nowhere is this more evident than with official remembrances—ceremonial public recollections and recallings of past events whose continuing importance and historical status is signalled by the fact that they are not just remembered, but memorialised or commemorated, and their anniversaries ceremonially revisited by future generations. The constructed character of remembrances is particularly obvious during those periods when certain memories, and the images and symbolic resonances connoted by them, are continuing to serve as political instruments—as tools or tactical weapons available for ideologically or politically defined ends—and in which no settled, uncontested, official narrative or standard historical interpretation of the events that provide the raw materials for those memories has coalesced. The question of how to memorialise or commemorate the events of 11 September 2001 illustrates this point well. ‘9/11’ continues to engage the attention of American political leaders, partisan activists, media commentators, and others seeking to ensure that their own interpretations of the events of that day, and the political meanings that they wish to attach to them, will become or remain part of an historical narrative available for deployment in future domestic and international political contests. This will remain the case at least so long as the remembrances of those events, and of the ‘War on (and of) Terrorism’ that followed in their wake, continue to play a central role in the unfolding historical struggle to determine whether the current international military and diplomatic unilateralism of the Bush administration will successfully issue in the establishment of an American imperium, and whether a global hegemonic war of some form will accompany that historical process.


Should such a war occur, it will be likely take the form of a pharmacotic war— a Glaubenskrieg, or war between representatives of opposed, but mutually implicated, belief systems, energized by transcendental rage and performatively enacted against demonized internal scapegoats and external enemies in order to install or restore one or another form of righteous political and sacred order. The term ‘pharmacotic’ derives from the ancient Greek words pharmakos and pharmakon, which referred, respectively, to the demonized target of sacrificial violence (the pharmakos), and to drugs and other substances which functioned simultaneously, and paradoxically, as both medicines and poisons (the pharmakon). Pharmacotic wars are highly symbolic and ritualized affairs, and are energized by the same impulses to collective violence that have historically given rise to vigilante reprisals, lynchings, state executions, mob killings, and ancient rituals involving human sacrifices. They involve the politically motivated demonization of a designated public enemy, who symbolically represents disordering dangers perceived to be threatening the body politic, and the pursuit and punishment of this demonized foe, in both its internal and external manifestations. Pharmacotic wars are understood by the community’s political leaders to be temporarily restorative of public order, loyalty, and patriotism, while being at the same time potentially dangerous to the long-term stability and vitality of the polity. They function, in other words, as both medicine and poison for the body politic. The paradoxical notion that war can be both a disorder of the body politic, and a source of health and vigor for the state, is an ancient one. The theme of Aeschylus’ crowning tragedy, the Oresteia, is the threat posed by cyclical sacrificial wars of vengeance to political health and stability, and Goethe called war ‘a disease in which the juices that serve health and recovery are wasted to nourish something alien and unnatural’.1 Ideological militarists, on the other hand, from ancient Assyrian emperors2 through twentieth-century American politicians3 have celebrated the preparation for war, and the warrior ethic that accompanies it, as a tonic for social decay and feebleness, a stimulus to public virtue, and a cure for political disorder. The drug of war can, of course, also be addictive, particularly for certain kinds of polities. A society that continually prepares for, and regularly engages in, warfare generates permanent institutions and associated political interest groups that depend on militarism for their survival and prosperity. Military themes, symbols, images, and heroic narratives increasingly permeate the political culture of such states.4 Patriotism comes to be repre sented symbolically in the form of military images and war tropes—flags, battle anniversaries, war memorials, and martial anthems—and its opposite with dissent against the nation’s militaristic political economy and political culture. The governments of such states are drawn to war as a means for displacing domestic political problems and increasing the authority and resources of the state. As Randolph Bourne put it:

ON PHARMACOLOGICAL WAR 151

In times of peace, we usually ignore the State in favor of partisan political controversies. The State is reduced to a shadowy emblem, which comes to consciousness only on occasions of patriotic holiday. The republican state has almost no trappings to appeal to the common man’s emotions. With the shock of war, however, the State comes into its own again. The moment war is declared, the mass of the people, through some spiritual alchemy, become convinced that they have willed and executed the deed themselves. They then, with the exception of a few malcontents, proceed to allow themselves to be regimented, coerced, deranged in all the environments of their lives, and turned into a solid manufactory of destruction toward whatever other people may have come within the range of the government’s disapprobation.5 In a similar vein, Jean Bethke Elshtain has observed that: War retains the power to incite parts of the self that peace cannot seem to reach. Our deeply rooted conviction, sustained by veterans of battle fronts and home fronts and transmitted to others is that wars—good wars that unite us—offer a communal endeavor, the sharing of sacrifice and danger. Modern society appears to have found no other way to initiate and sustain action in common with others on this scale.6 Both modernizing and postmodernizing states periodically find irresistible the temptation to draw on the uniquely restorative and politically unifying power of war. War, then, is at one and the same time poisonous, medicinal, and addictive. It is both a contagious disease of the body politic, and an addictive drug with a unique capacity to temporarily restore political health. The polysemous ancient Greek word pharmakon strangely captures all of these apparently contradictory senses and meanings: remedy and addictive drug, medicine and poison.7 This suggests an illuminating trope for the political function of war: war functions like a pharmakon for the body politic. War is, in this sense, pharmacotic. Pharmacotic wars resemble collective ritual sacrifices. More precisely, such wars are commonly structured like the Ancient Greek sacrificial ritual of the pharmakos. In Athens and other ancient Greek city-states, specially designated human victims, known as pharmakoi (sing. pharmakos) were ritualistically sacrificed by being killed or expelled from the polis. These ritual purgings had a politically cathartic and unifying function—to ‘cleanse’ and ‘purge’ these societies of internal disorder and remove troublesome dissenters (such as Socrates) and other political ‘impurities’, to frighten restless political minorities, and to restore the authority and legitimacy of the polity over its members.8 Like the pharmacotic ritual, modern war generates political legitimacy, unanimity, and obedience by exciting mass psychological responses.9 These reactions take on


forms similar to individual psychological responses to traumatic events, such as catharsis, projection, reaction formation, condensation, and of course aggression. The political symbolization and narratization that accompany war tap into the same deep cultural reservoirs of embodied archetypes and collectively experienced meanings that fed ancient rituals of collective victimization, demonization, and ultimately human sacrifice itself.10 Pharmacotic wars create political power out of that aspect of the collective unconscious that is structured not, as in Jacques Lacan’s formulation, like a language, but rather, as in the words of Phillipe Sollers, like a lynching.11 War sanctifies politics. It enables governments to breach the wall separating the realm of the holy from the profane world of everyday politics. War sacralizes political struggles by transubstantiating the blood shed by compatriots and enemies, as well as by innocent scapegoats and demonized dissenters, into various kinds of fungible political power. Belief in an omniscient, omnipotent, and mysterious deity conspires with what Derrida calls the ‘mystical foundations of political authority’ to render political cultures that have developed within monotheistic religious communities particularly susceptible to this process.12 This is particularly so for political communities like the contemporary United States and many Islamic states, which have inherited both a long history of political violence, as well as a public rhetoric and political culture imbued with the symbolism of profound religious commitment, but which are experiencing secular trends towards diminishing enthusiasm for ancestral faiths, articulated with periodically resurgent fundamentalist attempts to reimpose theocratic authority over the political community.13 Pharmacotic sacrificial violence is also mimetic. A parallel process unfolds in the community of the designated enemy, typically leading to escalating cycles of violence and counter-violence. In some cases, one side is vanquished, and the impulse driving the pharmacotic war is cathartically resolved for the victorious polity, while the humiliation, political derangement, and material consequences of the defeat of the other community sow the seeds for future pharmacotic violence. In other cases, the conflict can persist indefinitely, with each side reciprocating the belligerence of the other, through iterated, escalating cycles of ritualized demonization, victimization, and scapegoating, punctuated by periodic incidents of actual large-scale pharmacotic bloodshed. Emmanuel Goldstein’s fictional treatise ‘The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism’, which describes the logic behind the perpetual, ritualistic wars among Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia in George Orwell’s 1984 imaginatively illustrates this reciprocal process —a dialectic that Mary Kaldor, among others, recognized operating in the Cold War struggle between East and West, as well.14 Some highly militarized societies, including most famously the Aztecs, have sometimes actually maintained a state of essentially permanent artificial war against the remnants of already defeated enemy armies, both in order to preserve the martial vigor of their warrior castes, and to provide victims for pharmacotic sacrifices.15


Like other forms of collective violence, the enactment and performance of politically sanctioned military operations abroad, and particularly of symbolically charged wars against sacralized and demonized enemies, attracts otherwise disunified compatriots or coreligionists into a powerful, if transient, symbolic community. Such violence is both cathartic and politically originary— it can give rise to new political bodies, or rejuvenate and reanimate declining ones. Periodic performances of such ritualistic violence literally ‘re-create the community by re-enacting a process of community disintegration and regeneration, through a unanimous victimage’.16 As Western political-military literature from Homer to Shakespeare to Tom Clancy remind us, war, more than any other human enterprise, can channel political division and civil strife into sacred patriotic unanimity. As Aeschylus recounts Athena’s parting lesson for her beloved eponymous polis, in the concluding scene of the Oresteian Trilogy: ‘The blood of man till dust has drunk its fill; let all together find joy in each other; and each both love and hate with the same mind as his blood brother; for this heals the wounds of mankind’. Or, in Rene Girard’s paraphrase, ‘Unanimous hatred is the greatest medicine for a human community’.17 Pharmacotic violence is not infrequently tolerated, encouraged, and sometimes even orchestrated for political purposes, by both authoritarian and democratic governments.18 Some wars are more pharmacotically driven than others, so that we might usefully refer to wars that derive their primary motivating energy and power from the politically orchestrated desire to shed sacrificial blood for symbolic purposes—such as vengeance, purgation, the termination of collective existential humiliation or the experience of existential impotence, or the extinction of collective existential rage—as pharmacotic wars. Such wars permit governments to draw on the singular capacity of sacralized bloodshed to unify political communities and generate fungible political power, by orchestrating symbolically charged military operations against demonized foreign enemies, while scapegoating real or constructed domestic threats to internal security. In pharmacotic wars, ‘symbolic’ factors such as heroic victories and defeats, ritualized ideological struggles, politicized religious conflicts, and other contests involving the affective identities, psychological dispositions, and symbolic allegiances—the ‘hearts and minds’—of allies and adversaries, take precedence over geostrategic, economic, or other traditionally understood ‘interests’ as stakes of the war. Although prolonged pharmacotic wars can aggravate internal political, economic, and social problems, in the short term they typically strengthen executive power, while creating unparalleled political advantages and opportunities for governing parties, coalitions, and officials. The temporary patriotic unity generated by such wars can be exploited in order to enhance support for incumbents, distract the public from governmental incompetence, corruption, or misbehaviour, pass controversial laws and implement controversial programmes, silence political opponents and dissidents, reward favoured constituencies, and to accomplish other partisan or parochial goals. So common are such practices that in recent years the abuse of the ‘rally round the


flag’ syndrome by US presidents and other political figures for ideological, partisan, or other politically self-interested ends has become something of a popular cliché (as in the 1998 Barry Levinson film Wag the Dog). But wars, especially protracted pharmacotic wars, can also be extremely dangerous for an incumbent government, and for the polity as well. Wars waste lives and treasure, and while a nation may for a time be willing to expend these in pursuit of victory over a hated foe, unless that enemy continues to pose a clear and present threat to the nation’s people or interests, popular support for incurring those costs will tend to weaken over time. As it does, unless victory is assured or a satisfactory end to the conflict is negotiated, the lives and resources already consumed in the war will increasingly be counted against the government. The patriotic fervour generated by the war, fleeting in the best of times, can quickly begin to dissolve or even reverse, and if the war becomes sufficiently unpopular the government and its actions may even become stigmatized by association with it. In some cases, popular opposition to a war may become intense enough that a leader, a party, a government, or an entire political system may fall. The persistence of pharmacotic violence into the twenty-first century reminds us that all modern polities are politically descended, however distantly, from communities that practiced sacrificial pharmacotic rituals, and suggests the extent to which those communities remain haunted19 by the originary structuring effects of those practices. The simultaneous pharmacotic exploitation of domestic scapegoating practices and war against demonized foreign enemies has of course been prevalent in contemporary authoritarian polities, from Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, to Apartheid South Africa, to the 1970s military dictatorships of Chile and Argentina, and, more recently, a number of states in Africa, Asia, the middle East, and the Balkans, to name only some of the most obvious examples of the phenomenon. In all of these states, repressive governments shore up their power by symbolically identifying various internal scapegoats with their own political enemies, both at home and abroad, and then periodically demonizing and punishing these pharmacotic victims, while intermittently waging real or virtual wars against designated external foes. In recent decades such practices have become common in many countries throughout the Islamic world, as both religious regimes, as well as secular capitalist and state socialist governments, have sought to placate domestic opponents and resist encroachments from external rivals through such means. The result—manifested in recent years with exponentially escalating consequences—has been a cycle of increasing internal political discontent fuelling a range of revivalist Islamist movements in several countries, including several—like al-Qaida, Hamas and the Taliban—which have recently conducted highly symbolic, calculatedly provocative pharmacotic violence of their own.20 However, these sorts of pharmacotic scapegoating practices are also disturbingly common in nationalistic gesellschaft democracies, such as the postmodernizing capitalist political communities of the twenty-first century


global north, as well as within countries like China, Indonesia, Nigeria, and many other rapidly, but unevenly modernizing nation-states of the global south. The political effects of this pattern are readily visible in the periodic incursions, and even occasional recent electoral victories, of far-right and quasi-fascist movements in Europe, India, Israel, and elsewhere. Given its idiosyncratic political history, the United States has been particularly vulnerable to the temptation of pharmacotic violence, both domestically and abroad. Socially constructed around a puritanical and superficially communitarian political culture, and presided over by a state apparatus that is, in comparison with other developed capitalist states, relatively weak, decentralized, and largely incapable of tempering the excesses or ameliorating the deleterious effects of the accumulating externalities associated with the country’s under-regulated laissezfaire market economy, the history of the United States has been punctuated by periodic outbursts of lynchings, political scapegoating, race riots and uprisings, police repression of dissent, domestic terrorist movements, and recurring messianic wars.21 This pattern of pharmacotic violence reflects a characteristic, although hardly unique, national predisposition towards what Richard Slotkin has called ‘regenerative violence’ as a temporary remedy for the country’s recurring political afflictions and difficulties.22 Ritualistic patterns of pharmacotic violence and war recur throughout American history, and typically follow a prescribed scenario. The pharmacotic dimensions of US wars tend to unfold along the lines of tragic narrative, and in conformity with the deep structure of ritual pharmacotic sacrifice. The community faces a political crisis. A violent, symbolically resonant violation occurs (or is manufactured)—a Boston Massacre, a Fort Sumter, a Lusitania, a Pearl Harbour, a Tonkin Gulf, an 11 September. Innocents perish, and other innocents are endangered. An external enemy is identified and demonized, and a punitive military operation is conducted against the designated foe by heroically narratized warriors. The nation’s leaders are temporarily deified and placed beyond political criticism. An internal scapegoat is identified and symbolically linked to the foreign enemy, and then persecuted, symbolically vilified, and punished, while at the same time a potential victim (or ‘e/scapegoat’) from the home community is freed through heroic action or miraculously escapes harm. The internal and external wars sublimate domestic political tensions, while at the same often aggravating their causes and postponing their resolution, thereby sowing the seeds for future pharmacotic wars. SEPTEMBER 11 AND PHARMACOTIC WAR There are substantial grounds for concern that the events of 11 September 2001 mark the beginning phase of an international cycle of violence that could easily develop into a catastrophic, even apocalyptic, pharmacotic war. At minimum, the terrorist attacks of that day, and the US ‘War on Terrorism’ that followed in their wake, signal a new level of organized violence capability on the part of groups


like al-Qaida and other declared enemies of the United States, as well as a robust predisposition on the part of the US to use military, rather than diplomatic, political, economic, or other measures to reduce the threat of this violence. This inclination towards military solutions is not limited to the Bush administration or to the Republican Party: a Democratic administration under an Al Gore presidency would almost certainly have responded to the attacks of 11 September in a similar manner to the Bush administration. As in the early stages of most other US military actions abroad, the ‘War on Terrorism’ has so far been broadly supported by the American public. Continued support for this war, and for the extension of the war into Iraq or elsewhere, will depend primarily on the interplay of three factors. The first of these has to do with the longstanding and tenacious, although potentially reversible, unwillingness of the American public to accept even relatively limited US casualties in any foreign conflict. The second factor is the likelihood of other future large-scale terrorist attacks on US soil. The third factor concerns the domestic political impact of the escalation of pharmacotic violence between the Bush Administration and militant Islamist extremist groups like al-Qaida. Since roughly the Tet Offensive of 1968, US public opinion has been increasingly indisposed to accept US military casualties in foreign conflicts, even where the government has committed substantial political capital to convincing the public that real and significant US interests are at stake in those conflicts. The public has been willing to accept the deployment of large-scale US forces into harm’s way only when threat of a foreign adversary developing nuclear or other weapons that could directly threaten US civilians (as was widely publicized at the outset of the Persian Gulf War), or the demonstrated ability of a foreign state or non-governmental organization to directly harm American citizens at home (as in the case of al-Qaida), are present. Under other circumstances, US leaders have repeatedly encountered severe difficulties in enlisting the US population in large-scale foreign military interventions, whether for geopolitical (as in Central America in the 1980s), or humanitarian (as in the Balkans and Africa during the 1990s) goals. Even when American citizens, military personnel, or embassies have been directly attacked abroad (as in several hijackings, bombings and other incidents between the 1970s and 1990s), US military responses have been limited almost entirely to targeted air strikes and other narrowly focused military actions, intended in part to strictly limit US casualties. This political reality has severely constrained the capacity of even strongly militaristic and interventionist US presidents, including Reagan and both Bushes, to effectively implement policies of unilateralist militarism abroad. It has also significantly informed the ongoing reconfiguring and reorganization of the US military, commonly referred to as the RMA (Revolution in Military Affairs),23 which is driven to a substantial extent by the goal of developing hightech US stand-off forces that can accurately target and destroy enemy positions or assets with minimum US troop deployments and minimum US casualties. For the most part, the reforms associated with the RMA proved partially successful in


the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan conflicts (although even in the latter case both the leadership and cadre of al-Qaida largely escaped apprehension24). Lessons from the Balkans, Somalia, and elsewhere are much less clear. Precisely because one of the goals of the RMA is to reduce domestic political pressures on US civilian leaders conducting foreign military operations (by reducing US casualties), however, these cases do not provide much evidence regarding the reserve willingness of the American public to accept the sacrifices that would accompany a larger pharmacotic war. Nor do they imply definitive conclusions regarding the likely political and diplomatic effects of such a war abroad. In some cases, the use of increased hightech weapons results in fewer ‘collateral’ casualties even among civilians in target countries—a logical, but distant second corollary goal of the RMA— but mistakes are bound to occur and in a large-scale pharmacotic war, these will inevitably lead to loss of civilian life among precisely those populations among whom groups like al-Qaida recruit their members. In addition, the tactical transformations accompanying the RMA create such a severe conventional military disadvantage for US adversaries that the response to the asymmetric military situation in which they find themselves will almost certainly involve the increased use of terrorism and other direct threats to US political and civilian targets. The less vulnerable US military forces are, the more US adversaries are likely to increase attacks against US political targets, and even US civilians—both for strategic reasons and in reciprocal retaliation—as Russia has discovered following the Chechnya war. If the incidence of such attacks increases, and American security and prosperity are seen as directly threatened by them, then US popular opposition to the largerscale use of US military force abroad will likely weaken and perhaps evaporate, resulting in a powerful psychological impetus towards pharmacotic war. The third factor concerns the political implications of pharmacotic war for US domestic politics. Here the evidence to date is mixed. For the most part, the attacks of 11 September have, as might be expected, been politically beneficial for the Bush administration and its constituencies in the military-industrial sector, the Republican Party, and among conservative American political forces more broadly. But on specific issues, particularly those involving legislative battles with the Congressional Democratic opposition, the administration’s political allies have enjoyed much less of an immediate political boost than might have been expected.25 At the level of symbolic politics, on the other hand, 11 September has substantially shifted the political psychology of the US population in favour of a more generally conservative ideological reorientation. The attacks themselves traumatized Americans and lent legitimacy to conservative calls for greater military spending, increased monitoring and surveillance of the population, suspension of basic civil rights and liberties, and expanded police powers, while isolating and weakening organized dissent against both domestic and foreign administration policies. The prestige of the military, of the executive branch, and most evidently of the president himself were significantly enhanced by the government’s response to the attacks. This has, for example, enabled the


administration to shore up Republican support and make inroads into key swing vote populations, particularly in several pivotal electoral districts which are only weakly Democratic-identified. And it has shielded from political criticism or perhaps even Congressional investigation key Republican interest groups—such as oil firms linked to suspect Middle East networks, or the National Rifle Association, who were able to prevent the Justice Department from sharing with the FBI and other anti-terrorism investigators information about private gun ownership, even by undocumented resident aliens.26 To date, however, the Bush administration has yet to commit itself and the nation to the energetic pursuit of a pharmacotic approach to the ‘War on Terrorism’, even when and where intensifying the rhetorical vilification of Muslims, domestic opponents of the ‘War on Terrorism’, and other potentially demonizable groups or individuals might have enhanced its political capital. Pressures towards pharmacotic war have not materialized as fully as many feared in the weeks and months immediately following 11 September 2001. This is not, however, to understate the evidence that a pharmacotic response to those events was and remains a real possibility. Indeed, several of the events that unfolded in the period following 11 September point to the likelihood of a fullscale pharmacotic war erupting and spinning out of political control, should further large-scale attacks on US civilians occur. Perhaps the first symptom that a pharmacotic process was underway following 11 September was the spate of demonizing and scapegoating attacks directed against American Arabs and Muslims after the terrorist attacks, which were accompanied by calls for retributive vengeance and retaliation against Muslims, including Muslim civilians, abroad. As CAIR, MPAC, and other Muslim civil rights groups have long maintained, the cultural and psychological grounding that enabled and encouraged such attacks had been culturally nurtured by years of almost unrelentingly negative depictions of Arabs, Muslims, and persons of Middle Eastern origin generally in numerous US television programmes, popular novels, and Hollywood films. The physical attacks included widespread incidents of vandalism, death threats, and other hate crimes, violent assaults, and even murders,27 and thousands of verbal and physical assaults were directed against Arab-Americans and Muslim-Americans. The media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) quoted many examples of American public figures, writers, pundits, and others calling for overwhelming, and often wildly disproportionate, retaliation against Muslims, who were immediately assumed to be responsible as a group for the attacks.28 This abuse of ArabAmericans and Muslim-American follows Rene Girard’s description of the ritualized sacrifice of the pharmakos, which involved the projection of a specific set of characteristics onto the scapegoated victim, who was then sacrificed in order to restore the health and unity of the community. In Girard’s account, the pharmakos—the surrogate victim—‘appears as a monster’, as one who had once been, but is ‘no longer regarded in the same way as other members of the community’. The pharmakos is typically a stranger living within the community


who resembles or can be symbolically linked to the real (or perceived or constructed) threat to the community’s unity and political integrity. The unfolding political manifestations of the American pharmakos since 11 September have been complex and fascinating. American conservatives linked to the Bush administration are aware of the political tightrope that 11 September has placed them on. On the one hand, the pharmacotic patriotism and rallying effect both increases the political capital available to Bush for sponsoring favoured domestic policies, and encourages public support for the administration’s unilateralist foreign military and security policy goals. On the other hand, however, the administration is aware of the danger that the ‘War on Terrorism’ could quickly develop into a pharmacotic war of civilizations between the United States and Islam as a whole—a war which would conceivably undermine, not increase, US influence in the oil regions of the Middle East and Central Asia, while exposing Americans to further terrorist attacks and increasing the need for further intensification of domestic police surveillance and political repression. While many on the American right are more than willing to court these political dangers, the president must consider the impact of such policies on the entire electorate, and particularly on the decisive swing voters who will determine his and his party’s political fate. While these swing voters—for example, working-class white women and residents of closely contested suburban counties—have generally rallied behind Bush since 11 September, they would be unlikely to fall in line behind a costly and ambitious expansion of the ‘War on Terrorism’ of the sort projected and favoured by unilateralists within the administration. American conservatives, as a result, have been dancing a fine political line between the temptation to capitalize on the pharmacotic energy generated by 11 September, on the one hand, and the desire to restrain and channel, and rhetorically shape those pharmacotic impulses among the public, on the other. Following the attacks, for example, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, in a particularly appalling—although perhaps unsurprising, as disciples of fundamentalist sects which interpret the pharmacotic sacrifice of Jesus Christ from the viewpoint of a wrathful Old Testament God who demands regular propitiation for disobedience—rhetorical faux pas, immediately sought to capitalize on the political fundraising and proselytizing opportunity created by 11 September, by blaming pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays, lesbians, and liberals for the attacks. Conservative syndicated columnist Ann Coulter called for the military overthrow of Islamic governments and the forcible conversion of Muslims to Christianity. But both the official administration and general public reaction to these events has been much more semiotically open-ended. Falwell and Robertson were widely rebuked, even by conservative pundits, and Coulter was fired from the conservative National Review—a magazine known for its often vicious Muslim- and Arab-baiting—for her remarks. The Bush administration, for both partisan political and diplomatic reasons, as well as out of concerns about maintaining public order, reached out overtly to the American


Muslim and Arab communities (who had strongly supported Republican candidates in the 2000 election), successfully quelling for the most part the emerging groundswell of pharmacotic scapegoating directed against those groups. In the wake of the US military operation in Afghanistan, the complex symbolic politics surrounding the legal situation of John Walker Lindh, Zacarias Moussaoui, Richard Reid, and Jose Padilla, as well as the prisoners of the Afghanistan held in Guantanamo, also suggest how wary the administration is of the ‘War on Terrorism’ being transformed prematurely into a pharmacotic civilizational conflict between the United States and Islam generally. None of this has, however, restrained the Bush administration from pursuing its emerging ‘grand strategy’, which entails an ambitiously reassertionist and unilateralist national security agenda—a programme that increasingly appears to entail the extension of the ‘War on Terrorism’ to include not only destroying alQaida’s Afghanistan bases, but also: • A long-term ‘nation-building’ US military presence in Central Asia, the policing of the region’s oil fields and pipelines, and the establishment of at least 11 new US military bases there. • Strengthening ties with the military dictatorship of Pervez Musharaf, thereby drawing the US further towards direct involvement in the nuclear tinderbox conflict over Kashmir-Jammu. • Providing security for a pipeline from the Caspian Sea oil fields to the Arabian Sea, in order to bypass Iran. • US military involvement in the civil war in Georgia and the emerging Islamist rebellion in Uzbekistan, and perhaps other central Asian nations. • US involvement in, or at least support for, Moscow’s repression of the Chechen rebellion and Israel’s continued policy of expanding settlement and military occupation of the West Bank. • Possible US involvement in the Philippine government’s conflict with Islamist rebels. • Increased US support for the Saudi royal family and other repressive, undemocratic regimes, whose policies are primarily responsible for the rise of al-Qaida and other similar groups. • The transformation of the failed US counternarcotics programme in Colombia (and by implication, in Ecuador and Peru as well) into a front of the ‘war on terrorism’. • Reversal of recent trends towards moderation and normalization of relations with North Korea and Iran. • An armed invasion of Iraq. These sorts of actions and policies will not only likely lead to further regional instability, but will increase, not decrease, the pharmacotic pressures towards further terrorist attacks against US civilians, including almost certainly attacks involving weapons of mass destruction at some point.


It is also clear that, even though the president’s dubious ‘Axis of Evil’ includes North Korea, and although the administration seeks to capitalize on popular anger and revulsion against terrorism to expand US military involvement into non-Islamic settings—most notably Colombia—the prominence of Muslim countries and groups on the current list of American enemies suggests how readily the ‘War on Terrorism’ could suddenly become a pharmacotic religious war—a Glaubenskrieg, or war between adherents of opposing faiths. Such a war would pit an American government—more heavily influenced by overtly Christian political interest groups and more reliant on a religiously traditionalist and militantly theo-political rhetorical vocabulary than any in modern US history—against an intensely Manichean and violently rejectionist version of Islam, one whose status and influence will only increase within the Muslim communities of the world as the ‘War on Terrorism’ comes to be defined in more and more religious terms. Any resulting conflict will be agnatic—i.e. a violent confrontation among cultural cousins, anthropologically the most violent of antagonisms. Should such polarization along theo-political lines coincide with further terrorist attacks against the US, or with further US military operations within the Islamic world (particularly if either of these results in large numbers of civilian casualties), the pressures towards a pharmacotic catastrophe will likely prove overwhelming. PREVENTING PHARMACOTIC WAR Fortunately, the political and social pressures that are currently driving both the United States and much of the Islamic world towards a potentially catastrophic pharmacotic war are probably not yet beyond recovery. Mounting a successful resistance to such a war will, however, be difficult. It will have to involve not only substantive, progressive reforms on the part of both national governments and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), but sustained and concerted political pressures by a variety of groups and organizations operating outside the channels of ordinary politics, as well. While a precise listing of such institutional reforms and constitutive political pressures is still impossible, any such strategy would likely have to include, without being limited to: • Reduction of US government assistance to the repressive, authoritarian regimes currently ruling over large Islamic populations in countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Pakistan, and Indonesia. • Eventual withdrawal of US military forces from Saudi Arabia. • Reduction of US dependence on imported oil from the Middle East region (only political factors prevent the US from, for example, reinstating the ban on exporting Alaskan oil to the far East, along with the adoption of a program of energy conservation and alternative energy production to replace the share of US oil imported from the Middle East and reduce American fossil fuel dependency more generally).


• The use of the United States’ diplomatic leverage in a more balanced way to encourage a genuinely equitable two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. • The negotiation of a more equitable system for distributing the profits from the global fossil fuel market. • A substantial increase in US and OECD educational, medical, cultural, and other humanitarian foreign assistance to the West Asian region, particularly that earmarked to non-military state agencies and NGOs, while reducing US military ties to the region. • The reversal of several extremely dangerous Bush administration security policy innovations adopted in the wake of 9/11, including most obviously the administration’s abandonment of the UN Charter’s prohibitions against military pre-emption across international borders, and the revised strategic policy favouring increased US reliance on ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons in a growing range of potential international situations and circumstances.29 • An increase in US support for international legalism and an enhanced US role in international legal institutions, including most importantly the International Criminal Court, while recognizing at the same time the limitations of narrowly legalistic solutions to the unfolding pharmacotic crisis.30 Avoiding the danger of a pharmacotic ‘clash of civilizations’ between the USA and Islam will also likely entail a more realistically nuanced approach by both Western governments and progressive groups towards unfolding political developments within predominantly Muslim countries. While some Western analyses of Middle East politics have been sensitive to the highly problematic local political conditions left behind by centuries of short-sighted, largely selfinterested, European and American policies in the region, followed by decades of failed secular authoritarian states, often supported erratically by one or another of the Cold War superpowers during the most of the post-colonial period, most Western analyses have focused almost exclusively on the vexing dilemmas created by the desire to balance pressures towards liberalizing reforms versus fears that such reforms will create openings for Islamist extremists to come to power. But such approaches both overstate the popular support within most Islamic countries today for liberalization along Western lines, and underestimate the potential political viability of more moderate and democratic Islamist forces within the region—forces whose ideological values may legitimately disturb Western liberals, but which nevertheless are seeking, in the words of Ray Takeyh, ‘to harmonize imaginatively Islam’s injunctions with democracy’s imperatives’.31 A greater attention to the potential challenge that such movements could pose to a downward spiral into pharmacotic war might encourage Western progressives to lend critical support to the political efforts of some of these moderate Islamist groups and movements, while at the same time confronting and engaging them on questions having to do, for example, with the scope and nature of legitimate critical and scholarly inquiry, artistic freedom, the


rights of women, gays and lesbians, and other issues around which profound disagreements between even moderate Islamists and Western liberals and progressives are likely to persist for some time.32 The adoption of any of these proposals for reducing the likelihood of pharmacotic war would, of course, imply the abandonment of the Bush Administration’s vision of a unilaterally constructed American global imperium within the framework of the much-touted Revolution in Military Affairs. As a result, the administration does and will continue to oppose each of these initiatives, and implementing any of them would likely require either a 2004 Republican electoral defeat, or else an improbable sudden and dramatic awakening of US public opinion and a firm commitment on the part of Democratic legislators to implementing such reforms. Unfortunately, the coalitional structure of American party politics also works against substantive changes in US Middle East Policy, since any movement towards reform will be hampered by the influence of the pro-Israel lobby within the Democratic Party, and by the successful courting by the Republican Party of Arab-Americans and Muslim-Americans (who voted overwhelmingly for Bush in 2000) during the past decade—a trend which leaves those groups both politically isolated from potential progressive allies and vulnerable to manipulation by the administration. Political pharmacosis aggravates these difficulties, as the power and influence of the executive branch are enhanced by the short term rallying effect provoked by the 11 September attacks and President Bush’s conduct of the ‘War on Terrorism’ to date.33 At the same time, however, it should also be recognized that, for the moment at least, the danger of a protracted war driven by pharmacotic cycles of violence is limited by several factors. First, notwithstanding short-term poll results, the US public remains profoundly indisposed to accept large numbers of sustained military, much less civilian, casualties, in a prolonged, nebulous conflict against an elusive and only vaguely defined enemy. The strategic implications of a pharmacotic war in the Middle East also obviously collide with other important US interests in that area. In addition, although George Bush currently enjoys a temporary opinion poll boost as a result of the pharmacotic energy generated by the events of 11 September, large numbers of Americans continue to harbour significant doubts and reservations about his excessively religious rhetoric and his ties to the religious right. And although the administration has been somewhat successful in capitalizing politically on this pharmacotic support,34 Bush’s own limited personal charisma and increasingly evident inattention to facts, his questionable electoral legitimacy, his embarrassing military record, and his still unproven long-term leadership capabilities continue to restrict his ability to fully exploit these events for narrowly partisan political ends. Such factors will make it difficult for his staff to nurture any cult of personality around him capable of tapping into images of pharmacotic heroism. The ‘chicken hawk’ personal military service records of most of the Republican leadership, who, like Bush, avoided military combat service during the Vietnam War through various means


available only to Americans from privileged backgrounds, also undermines the American right’s stature as potentially heroic pharmacotic war leaders.35 The large-scale incorporation of religiously, culturally, and racially diverse immigrant populations into the United States population over the past three decades has also, for the moment, created a deep demographic cushion of multicultural diversity that will restrain any effort to impose any sort of racialized or overtly religious form of patriotic unity on the country. In addition, the growth patterns characteristic of the 1990s US economy significantly diminished the resentment and hostility that tends to accompany widespread unemployment, bankruptcy, and recession, and which have typically provided the seedbed for organized mass scapegoating of vulnerable internal minority populations. (A protracted recession may, of course, reverse these reasons for optimism.) And, while jingoism and racism obviously remain political realities in the twenty-first century United States, the most likely constituency for mobilization behind any nationalistic pharmacotic scapegoating movement—the ‘angry white male’ militia movement of the early 1990s—was severely politically discredited by the Oklahoma City bombing and subsequent publicity surrounding its own involvement in domestic terrorism. At the same time, the globalization of the US economy has created a situation where those most likely to benefit politically from an international pharmacotic military conflict and a more authoritarian domestic political order would find that the constraints associated with such developments would significantly undermine the competitiveness of US firms within that global economy, and will thus reduce the support of powerful constituencies for such policies. And, finally, over the past few decades a diverse, progressive, populist, grassroots political opposition has emerged within the United States—a tendency which on several measures enjoys the general support of a substantial fraction (perhaps as much as a quarter to a third)—of the US population. Despite their general marginalization by the media and mainstream politicians, these progressive groups, and the grassroots democracy of resistance they practice, may well prove strong enough to withstand pressures towards pharmacotic nationalism and war, at least for the time being. Any effective struggle against pharmacotic war will require simultaneous action at several levels of political involvement, including focused participation in ordinary electoral politics, co-ordinated lobbying efforts by organized antiwar groups, and large-scale national and international mass mobilizations, along with creative micropolitical strategies involving affinity group actions, NGO campaigns, and probably even other, more confrontational forms of ‘extraordinary’ political action, including perhaps mass resistance actions and civil disobedience campaigns. The enormous challenges facing any such efforts can hardly be overstated, especially when confronted with an institutional foreign policymaking system as insulated from public accountability as the American system is, particularly under the severely politically disabling conditions created by intensifying concentrations of corporate control over the flow of information


to mass US audiences, and by the recent spate of legislation and executive orders targeted against domestic dissent and political opposition issued by the US government since 11 September. The most promising response to the danger of pharmacotic war remains, then, the revitalization of a multitrack, media-savvy politics of principled non-violent resistance, informed by the cultivation of what William Connolly has called an ‘ethos of pluralization’, along with the rekindling of activist democratic political virtu.36 As Hannah Arendt and others have shown, war and other forms of organized violence tend to render politics mute. Resistance to the escalation of this conflict into a catastrophic pharmacotic war will thus have to involve clearing a viable public space for political action, ranging from interrogating the rhetoric of the war on terrorism, to challenging scapegoating practices at every opportunity, to cultivating new democratic forms of what Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt have called ‘constituent power’,37 both within the country and across international borders. In assessing the impact of the various efforts by the diverse range of groups that are slowly mounting a resistance to pharmacotic war, it must be stressed that the primary positive effect of such actions is to signal to likeminded opponents of pharmacotic war within the Islamic world that substantial numbers of Americans, along with others in the West, reject and oppose current trends towards such a pharmacotic ‘clash of civilizations.’ The immediate goal of an anti-pharmacotic politics, in other words, is to undermine the cultural and social foundations that encourage xenophobia and militarism in both regions, while giving aid and comfort to those on both sides of the increasingly precarious lines of articulation between the two ‘civilizations’ who recognize that pharmacotic war is not inevitable, but that to prevent it will require a sophisticated understanding of its character and dynamics, and a new kind of politics capable of challenging it. NOTES 1. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, ‘Conversation with Friedrich Wilhelm Riemer’, in Conversations of Goethe (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 1998), p. 82. 2. Leo Bersani and Ulysse Dutoit, The Forms of Violence: Narrative in Assyrian Art and Modern Culture (New York: Schocken Books, 1985). 3. See Catherine Lutz’s fascinating study, Homefront: A Military City and the American Twentieth Century (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2002), pp. 33–6 and passim. 4. On the militarization of US society during the twentieth century, see Barbara Ehrenreich, Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War (New York: Holt, 1997); and Michael S.Sherry, In the Shadow of War: The United States since the 1930s (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995). 5. Bourne, ‘The State’ in War and Intellectuals: Collected Essays, 1915–1919 (New York: Harper and Row, 1964) p. 69.


6. Jean Bethke Elshtain, Women and War (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1995), p. 10. 7. Jacques Derrida, Dissemination (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1981), pp. 61–171; Kenneth Burke, On Symbols and Society (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1989), pp. 294–302; Walter Burkert, Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1983); Burkert, Greek Religion (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. 82–4; Burkert, Savage Energies: Lessons of Myth and Ritual in Ancient Greece (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2001); J.G.Frazer, The Golden Bough (New York: Macmillan, 1922), pp. 624–86; H.G. Liddell, Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1889), pp. 1593–4. 8. Burkert, Greek Religion; Derrida, Dissemination, pp. 128–34; Larry N.George, ‘The Fair Fame of the Dead’, in Frederick M.Dolan and Thomas L.Dumm (eds), Rhetorical Republic (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993), pp. 61–82; Jean-Pierre Vernant and Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece (New York: Zone Books, 1990). 9. Sam Keen, Faces of the Enemy (New York: Harper and Row, 1986). 10. Rene Girard, Violence and the Sacred (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977); Connie Zweig and Jeremiah Abrams, Meeting the Shadow (New York: Putnam, 1991). 11. Andrew J.McKenna Violence and Difference: Girard, Derrida, and Deconstruction (Urbana and Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1992). 12. R.Scott Appleby, The Ambivalence of the Sacred (Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000); Karen Armstrong, The Battle for God (New York: Ballantine, 2000); Jacques Derrida, Acts of Religion (New York: Routledge, 2002); Hent De Vries, Religion and Violence (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002); Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000); Martin E.Marty and R.Scott Appleby (eds), Fundamentalisms and the State (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1993). 13. On the political impact of fundamentalisms in the US and the Islamic world, see Aziz Al-Azmeh, Islams and Modernities (London: Verso, 1993); Tariq Ali, The Clash of Fundamentalisms (London: Verso, 2002); Joel Beinin and Joe Stork, Political Islam (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997); Robert Bellah and William McLoughlin (eds), Religion in America (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1968); Chip Berlet and Matthew Lyons, Right-Wing Populism in America (New York: Guilford, 2000); Sacvan Berkovitch, The American Jeremiad (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978); David Campbell, Writing Security (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1992); David Cantor, The Religious Right: Assault on Tolerance and Pluralism in America (New York: Anti-Defamation League, 1994); Thomas Dumm, Politics of the Ordinary (New York: New York University Press, 1999); John Esposito, The Islamic Threat (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); Esposito and Azzam Tamimi (eds), Islam and Secularism in the Middle East (New York: New York University Press, 2000); Roxanne Euben, Enemy in the Mirror (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999); Mark Huband, Warriors of the Prophet: The Struggle for Islam (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999); Isaac Kramnick and R.Laurence Moore, The Godless


14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

Constitution: The Case against Religious Correctness (New York: Norton, 1997); Anouar Majid, Unveiling Traditions: Postcolonial Islam in a Polycentric World (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000); Benny Morris, Righteous Victims (New York: Vintage, 2001); Malise Ruthven, Islam and the World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000); Anthony Shadid, Legacy of the Prophet (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001); Milton Viorst, In the Shadow of the Prophet: The Struggle for the Soul of Islam (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001). For a compelling discussion of the role of religion in contemporary American politics, see William Connolly, Why I am not a Secularist (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1999). George Orwell, 1984 (New York: Random House, 1999); Mary Kaldor, The Imaginary War (Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 1990). Inga Clendinnen, Aztecs: An Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). Robert G.Hamerton-Kelly, Violent Origins: Ritual Killing and Cultural Formation (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987), p. 127. Hamerton-Kelly, Violent Origins, p. 126. Hent De Vries and Samuel Weber (eds), Violence, Identity, and Self-Determination (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997); James Der Derian, Virtuous War: Mapping the Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Network (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001); Paul Dumouchel, Violence and Truth (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002); Barbara Ehrenreich, Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War (New York: Holt, 1997); Richard J.Golsan, Rene Girard and Myth (New York: Routledge, 2002); Robert L.O’Connell, Ride of the Second Horseman: The Birth and Death of War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); Lawrence A.Trittle, From Melos to My Lai (London: Routledge, 2000). Jacques Derrida, Specters of Marx (London: Routledge, 1994); Wendy Brown, ‘Specters and Angels’,ch.7 of her Politics out of History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001). As a non-specialist in the politics of Islamic societies, I have found the following sources, along with the sources cited in note 13 above, informative: Gilles Kepel, The Trail of Political Islam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002); John Cooley, Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America, and International Terrorism (London: Pluto Press, 2000); Yossef Bodansky, Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America (New York: Random House, 2001); John Murphy, Sword of Islam (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2002); Roland Jacquard, In the Name of Osama Bin Laden (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002); Ahmed Rashid, Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002). Michael Bellesiles (ed.), Lethal Imagination (New York: New York University Press, 1999); David Courtwright, Violent Land (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996); Ronald Gottesman and Richard Brown , Violence in America (New York: Scribner’s, 2000); Richard Brown, Strain of Violence (Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 1975). See on this the works of Richard Slotkin, Regeneration through Violence (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1973); The Fatal Environment (New York; Harper Collins, 1985); and Gunfighter Nation (New York: Athenum, 1992).


23. John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, Networks and Netwar: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 2001); Michel Feher, Powerless by Design: The Age of the International Community (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000); Ian O.Lesser et al., Countering the New Terrorism (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1999); Rahul Mahajan, The New Crusade: America’s War on Terrorism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2002); Michael O’Hanlon, Technological Change and the Future of Warfare (Washington, DC: Brookings, 2000); Bruce Sterling, ‘Peace is War’, Wired (April 2002), pp. 76–89. 24. Michael O’Hanlon, ‘A Flawed Masterpiece’, Foreign Affairs, May-June 2002. 25. Richard E.Cohen, ‘Checking and Balancing’, National Journal, 20 April 2002. 26. Fareed Zakaria, ‘Freedom vs. Security’, Newsweek, 8 July 2002, p. 26. 27. Duncan Campbell, ‘350 Revenge Crimes after September 11’, The Guardian, 26 June 2002. 28. FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), ‘Media Advisory: Media March to War’, 17 September 2001; 29. Richard Falk, ‘The New Bush Doctrine’, The Nation, 15 July 2002, pp. 9–11. 30. For a more detailed critique of narrowly legalistic solutions to the problem, see Larry George, ‘The Pharmacotic War on Terrorism: Cure or Poison for the US Body Politic?’. Theory, Culture, and Society, 19, 4 (2002), pp. 163–88. 31. Ray Takeyh, ‘The Lineaments of Islamic Democracy’, World Policy Journal (Winter 2001/2), pp. 59–67; Joyce M.Davis, Between Jihad and Salaam (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1999). 32. See Esposito and Tamimi, Islam and Secularism in the Middle East. 33. This factor has been widely viewed as contributing significantly to the US Republican Party’s surprisingly decisive midterm election victory in November 2002. 34. James A.Barnes, ‘Democrats See Red’, National Journal, 16 March 2002. 35. Bill Berkowitz, ‘“Chicken Hawks” Defend the Roost’, Working For Change, 18 March 2002. 36. Bonnie Honig, Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993); William Connolly , The Ethos of Pluralization (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1995). 37. Antonio Negri, Insurgencies (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1999); Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000).

12 Immigration, Asylum, Borders and Terrorism: The Unexpected Victims of 11 September 2001 ELSPETH GUILD

Immigration, asylum and national security have traditionally had an uneasy relationship.1 The right of citizens to the limitation of arbitrary exercise of state power is rarely extended in full to non-nationals. It is never extended to the right not to be expelled.2 Among the principles that inform national security is the link which citizenship represents between the State and the individual as one of allegiance. The failure of the individual to respect this link in its most extreme form may result in treason, one of the crimes for which the most severe penalties have traditionally been reserved.3 A foreign national does not owe this duty of loyalty to the State, so in the logic of national security he or she does not enjoy an equivalent protection from arbitrary state action based on security concerns. When, following the 11 September attacks in the USA, it became apparent that the persons suspected of perpetrating the attacks were foreigners in the USA the issues of immigration and asylum became engaged. The fact that the alleged perpetrators of the attacks were of Arab origin, apparently nationals of countries outside the USA and the European Union, created a link between foreignness and threat which would be central to the response in many ways. The focus encompassed the interaction of terrorism, borders and movement of persons. The transformation of US internal security by the new concept of homeland security is central. The convergence of sovereignty, territory and security is the essence of the US strategy in the war against terrorism. The letter of 16 October 2001, from President Bush to the President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, regarding the security imperatives of the USA as regards action in the European Union, demonstrates this interest clearly. Many of the areas where the US President requests action are related to the securing of EU borders with respect to the movement of persons to and from the USA.4 There has been a further change in the nature of security that engages the nexus of territory, movement of persons and terrorism. A sovereign state, the USA, has declared war on terrorism, an activity that is primarily non-state in nature.5 Thus, instead of a state enemy, the USA is faced with individuals working more or less closely together but not encompassed in the trappings of statehood. Thus the offensives on the one side, at least in this war, are attacks by individuals subject to immigration controls. The framework of movement of persons, in particular of Arab origin, across borders is no longer the natural manifestation of trade,

170 IMMIGRATION, ASYLUM, BORDERS AND TERRORISM

commerce and tourism. Rather it is the field of threat both criminal and military. The definition of the border as a place of the danger of criminal activity and military invasion takes on increased importance. Hence, immigration controls take on a new significance in the war on terrorism. The link among these individuals is no longer perceived as based on nationality or the fact of belonging to one state, but rather on ethnicity and religious conviction. This transformation of the face of the enemy into an individual identifiable on the basis of racial profiling has been one of the most controversial of the post-11 September effects. In this chapter I will look at the issue from the perspective of three categories of foreigners: long-term residents and their interest in security of residence; asylum seekers and refugees and their interest in security from return to persecution; and foreigners and borders, the transformation of security of identity. To understand what is at stake in this discussion it is critical first to examine the forces which are at work, on the one hand, in closing the borders to movement of foreigners, and, on the other hand, to keeping them open. NATIONAL SECURITY AND THE LOGIC OF BORDERS The 11 September attacks transformed the face of the foreigner into a prima facie face of terrorism. President Bush’s declaration of war against terrorism had the consequence of placing the foreigner firmly on the territory of a military threat in addition to a police threat. The identity threat came directly from the Muslim specificity that was placed on the foreigner. Thus the political will for closure against foreigners as threats of high magnitude was apparent in the USA and throughout Europe, personified by Muslims. However, against this designation of the border as a place of danger and the foreigner as the manifestation of threat, two logics create a contrary tension, those involving economic liberalism and international human rights. So, while the construction of the foreigner as a threat justifies the adoption of action and measures to close the border and expel foreign nationals, industrial and commercial interests in freer borders and human rights obligations have also been pushing in the other direction. The principal reason behind the arguments for the closure of borders is related to national security. Foreigners are variously represented as threats: 1. Of a military nature—the hordes at the borders are a threat to national security as they invade the country. 2. A public policy threat for policing—foreigners are criminals or in agreement with criminals and crossing the border is tantamount to committing criminal acts or at least puts the individual into the category of persons who are suspected of possible participation in criminal acts. 3. An identity threat which expresses itself as requiring the integration of foreigners so that they will be more like us and less like foreigners.


4. A social welfare threat—foreigners seeking to cross the borders are a threat to the social welfare systems that they intend to access. All of these faces of threat are engaged in the arguments about closure at the border. The concept of national security is carefully guarded at the national level in order that it can be used flexibly to provide a response to any of the manifestations of the border as a place of danger, which is most relevant to national politics at the moment. At this moment, the logic of military threat initiates calls for the closure of the border but the presentation of the military threat as Muslim men extends into the field of identity threat, thereby generating increasingly shrills demands for greater integration efforts by immigrants. Principles of economic liberalism demand freer borders with fewer controls not only on goods and services but also on persons moving as part of their manufacture, delivery and consumption. The opening of the Dohar round of negotiations of the World Trade Organisation, stressing in particular the need to extend the General Agreement on Trade in Services, which includes the movement of natural persons, clearly evidences the strength of this perspective. Open borders are considered an economic imperative that includes movement of persons. Within the European context, the discussion regarding the greying of Europe, the demographic transformation which threatens to leave the dependency ratios of the aged to the working population partially inversed, has participated in promoting this perspective of commercial interest in freer borders. Shortages of highly skilled and indeed low-skilled workers in various parts of Europe have resulted in the presentation of legislation or programmes to simplify and accelerate foreign labour migration to the EU. At the time of the 11 September attacks in the USA, a number of EU states (notably Germany, the UK and to a more limited extent France) were in the process of considering changes to liberalise labour migration. The European Commission had published an ambitious proposal for a directive on labour migration that, if adopted in its current form, would provide for a substantial liberalisation of labour migration for nationals of third countries (hereafter third country nationals) to all of the Member States. The principles of economic liberalism regarding movement of persons, finds specific expression in the EC Treaty on free movement of persons. Substantial rights of free movement for nationals of the Member States and their family members of any nationality to move, reside, work and be protected from expulsion were created. The right to protection against exclusion or expulsion of the beneficiaries of EC law is set at a high level. Only where the individual’s behaviour can be shown to be a threat to the ongoing public security of the host state and in circumstances where in respect of the same activities by a national of the State coercive measures are taken, can exclusion, restriction or expulsion be justified.6 A current case pending before the European Court of Justice encapsulates the tension within this legal framework of a right to move and national security. The


legality of the exercise of a power to make a limitation on places of residence in respect of a national of another Member State results directly from this terrorism concern. The defendant, Mr Olazabal, a Spanish national of Basque origin, fled to France and sought asylum there. Although his claim to exercise his free movement right under EC law was rejected he found work and remained in France. On account of allegations of terrorist activities that have not resulted in criminal conviction, Mr Olazabal was made subject to a restriction order in France prohibiting him from living near the French-Spanish border. The Advocate General in his opinion, in no way questions the right of the Spanish individual to live in France as a worker irrespective of his failed asylum claim.7 The strict interpretation of the meaning of public policy and security as regards the entry and residence of individuals in Community law also extends to the third country national family members of citizens of the Union exercising free movement rights, Turkish workers in the Member States protected under the subsidiary legislation of the EC-Turkey Association Agreement,8 and nationals of the Central and Eastern European countries who enjoy a right of selfemployment in the Member States under the Europe Agreements.9 Principles of fundamental human rights place an imperative of open borders on EU Member States in certain circumstances. First, the Geneva Convention relating to the status of refugees 1951 and its 1967 Protocol places substantial limitations on state sovereignty with respect to the closure of borders. The Geneva Convention obligation is not to expel any person back to their country where he or she fears persecution on the basis of race, religion, nationality, membership of a social group, or political opinion. This means that anyone seeking protection, arriving at the territory of a state, cannot be sent back to his or her country of origin until, and unless, an examination of any claim to asylum has been determined. However, the Geneva Convention states that its provisions do not apply to any person about whom there are serious reasons for considering that he or she has committed a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity, as defined in the relevant international instruments; or if he or she has committed a serious non-political crime outside the country of refuge prior to his or her admission; or if he or she has been guilty of acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations. This exclusion clause is contained in Article 1F of the Geneva Convention. A second provision, Article 33 (2) states that protection against refoulement (that is, return to the country where persecution is feared) may not be claimed by refugees in respect of whom there are reasonable grounds for regarding them as a danger to the security of the country in which they are, or who, having been convicted by final judgment of a particularly serious crime, constitute a danger to the community of the host country. The discussion regarding prosecution of refugees for crimes against humanity or war crimes has been spurred primarily by Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; in particular in her statement to the UN Human Rights Commission on 20 March 2002. Her contention is that respecting


human rights is a core component of enhancing security. Her vision of a world in which rule of law plays a central role in security through the international pursuit of those who commit crimes, and the enforcement of law, creates a very different framework for the anti-terrorism fight. The co-operation of states in the fight against terrorism does not take as the starting place the exclusion from the territory of alleged or feared terrorists, but rather their arrest and trial in the interests of international security and solidarity. Her voice, together with that of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the OSCE Commissioner for the Protection of Minorities, has not yet had much echo at the USA, EU or Member State level. The vision of territorial protection, for the moment at least, appears to be informing the relationship of terrorism, borders and movement of persons. However, the obligations of European states in the human rights field relating to movement of persons across borders do not stop at the protection of refugees under the Geneva Convention. The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) also creates obstacles to the exclusion and expulsion of foreigners from the territory of signatory states. As regards persons who fear torture, or inhuman or degrading treatment in their country of origin, the ECHR places an absolute prohibition on their return (Article 3 ECHR).10 This obligation is in addition to the duties on states contained in the Geneva Convention and is wider as there is no exceptional proviso like Article 1F or 33(2) to permit states to derogate. Article 5 ECHR, which will be a venue of struggle for foreigners in the UK, prohibits states from detaining individuals indefinitely without charge or sentence or without a possibility of return to their country of origin. Thus, foreigners who are at serious risk of torture in their country of origin cannot be sent back there, no matter whether they are terrorists or not, but neither can such persons be placed in indefinite detention without charge or sentence without breaching the ECHR. The ECHR also creates duties on states not to expel foreign nationals where such an expulsion would constitute an interference with their right to family and private life in the host country. Here the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has developed rapidly over the past ten years, primarily in relation to young criminals, nationals of North African countries who have lived most of their lives in Belgium or France and have most of their family connections in those countries.11 This line of jurisprudence has increased the security of residence of foreign nationals in Council of Europe countries against which those states may not offend. The decision of the ECtHR in June 2002 on the right of a foreigner not to be expelled, confirmed the priority of the right to family life even where allegations of terrorist activities (which are not the subject of criminal proceedings) are made by the State.12 The tension between open borders for trade, expressed in and required by EC law for certain categories of persons and in fundamental human rights law for others on the one hand, and the pressure for closure of borders for national security reasons on the other, is nonetheless under intense scrutiny following the events of 11 September.


TERRORISM IN THE EUROPEAN UNION Terrorism is by no means a clear category in law let alone in practice in the Member States. In fact, the UN Special Rapporteur on Terrorism and Human Rights notes that studies show there are some 109 different legal definitions of the term ‘terrorism’ which have been put forward between 1936 and 1981.13 While some Member States, most notably the UK, have a long history of anti-terrorism legislation, other Member States have none: for example, the Netherlands. The EU has now adopted a common position on terrorism that includes a definition but which definition tends to be circular.14 In the European Union context, terrorism has been very much a national concern that has engaged states’ own nationals and perhaps nationals of other Member States (with the exception of France). The most intractable of terrorist concerns in the EU at the moment is the situation in the Basque country, primarily a concern of Spain but also to a lesser degree of France. This situation has led to very substantial concerns about the rule of law in Spain in particular. The development of the GAL in the 1980s— the state-sponsored terrorists who engaged in extra judicial killing of ETA members—resulted in the conviction and imprisonment of a former Minister of Interior in 1995.15 The political framework of the response to terrorism permitted so wide a margin of action by the State that constitutional norms were disobeyed, the rule of law was disregarded and in the name of national security the State commenced extra-judicial killing.16 The second most important source of terrorist concerns in Europe arises in the UK as a result of the long-standing disputes in Northern Ireland. The political result in the UK of designating the IRA as terrorists appears, unfortunately, to be surprisingly similar to that in Spain. The revelation in the BBC programme Panorama in June 2002 regarding the Stevens 3 Inquiry17 into the killing of human rights solicitor, Patrick Finucane, in Belfast in 1989 indicates the British State implication in the killing.18 Again, the rule of law appears to have broken down in the face of the allegation of terrorism. The most outstanding victim is the State itself. Terrorism also has a long history in Italy. The terrorism kidnapping and killing of Aldo Moro in Milan by the Red Brigade in 1978 received wide attention. However, even 25 years later, allegations of state involvement have not been put to rest. In particular, the cell of the Red Brigade that killed Moro has been the subject of many allegations regarding state infiltration.19 In Germany, the State engagements with terrorism have been very much on the basis of national concerns; and those designated as terrorists have been German nationals. More specifically, the Baader Meinhof group was made up of German nationals, who had engaged in numerous terrorist activities before being convicted and sentenced in Germany and subsequently managing to commit suicide collectively while in high security prisons.20 The only EU Member State where terrorist attacks within the country have been linked to third country nationals is in France where terrorism wears the face


of North Africa. However, the intensifying concern about the practice of torture by French military in Algeria during the independence war, most recently in the form of the trial of General Aussaresses,21 and recent newspaper reports about Le Pen’s involvement in torture in North Africa22 indicates just how interlinked the issue of rule of law and terrorism are. The bombing in Auckland, New Zealand, of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior, on 10 July 1985, by French secret service officials, which resulted in the death of a photographer, was perhaps one of the most highly publicised acts of state terror abroad and raised very serious concerns about control within France.23 In the less tense field of Corsica, the term terrorism is less loosely applied though the mechanisms of exceptionalism have been very much in evidence, not least in the trials relating to the involvement of the Gendarme in the burning of a beach restaurant in 1998 with the intention of blaming the event on the Corsican independence movement.24 The designation of criminal activities as terrorist permits the State to act in ways that would otherwise not be countenanced. One enters the field of exceptionalism that acts like a magnetic field drawing those within its sphere ever deeper into a logic of state security which accepts no limitations. Once the drift from rule of law commences, all too often it ends in the State’s complicity in torture, extra-judicial killings and subversion of democracy. What do we know about terrorism in Europe? We know that it results from disputes; not least near borders where the parties are by and large nationals of the State involved. The European experience with terrorism in the second half of the twentieth century has had little to do with foreigners. How then does terrorism interact with movement of persons? In the EU the right of free movement of persons has taken on a substantial significance. From the end of the transitional period for the free movement of workers in 1968 to the lifting of intra-Member State border controls within the Schengen Implementing Agreement in 1995, nationals of the Member States have become increasingly comfortable with their rights to move and reside. Indeed, this is so much the case that attempts to reintroduce border controls are politically so unpopular as to fail to achieve momentum even at national level. For example, one of the options considered as a response to 11 September 2001, and heightened security concerns in the EU, was the reintroduction of border controls on persons. This possibility was quietly abandoned. Although terrorism is perceived as a threat related to the movement of persons, in the EU context it does not often result in measures closing the borders. For instance, in the UK Northern Ireland situation, one of the constant complaints of the security services was that terrorists moved back and forth across the UK-Irish border to escape. The degree of co-operation provided by the Republic of Ireland was subject to substantial criticism particularly as regards the flight of suspected terrorists across the border. However, at no point did the UK government reintroduce systematic passport controls at the border between the UK and the Republic of Ireland. This is not to diminish the importance both in law and practice of the permanent roadblocks and identity checks at some of the


land border crossing points between the countries. Although the UK maintains its border controls with all the other EU Member States on the grounds that entry into the Schengen arrangements of abolition of border controls would have negative effects on security in the UK, the main border source of security issues in the UK, the UK-Irish border, is not the site of systematic identity checks. Turning to Spain and France: this border too has been the subject of substantial friction around the issue of terrorism and movement of persons. The Aznar Protocol to the Amsterdam Treaty provides that, subject to various conditions, nationals of one Member State may not be refugees within the territory of another Member State. This protocol is a direct result of the movement of Spanish nationals from Spain and in particular the Basque region to other Member States, notably Belgium and France, and seeking asylum there. Thus, within the European experience of terrorism, borders and movement of persons before 11 September, while the link has been made the political will to act on the definition of the border as a place of terrorist threat has been lacking. Borders and their crossing are questions of rights of individuals and elements central to market liberalisation. They are not permitted to take on significances that interfere with these primary functions. This is not to say that there were not pressures to this end. From the mid-1990s the justice and interior ministries expressed an interest in linking borders and terrorist threats. However, this approach was resisted elsewhere either at national level or within the EU structures themselves. MAKING THE TERRORISM-IMMIGRATION LINK The history of immigration in the EU Member States since the oil crisis of 1973 has been twofold. On the one hand, there has been the opening of the borders completely for the movement of nationals of the Member States and their family members of any nationality. Even though the accession of new Member States has always triggered anxieties about massive movements of persons (for instance in France when the UK joined, in Germany when Greece joined, in France, Germany and the UK when Spain and Portugal joined) none of these have occurred. On the other hand, there has been the closing of the border to third country nationals on the basis of protection of domestic labour markets, i.e. saving jobs for own nationals. The struggle that this has generated has been between third country nationals resident in the EU Member States seeking security of residence, protection against expulsion and family reunification and attempts by Member States to exclude and expel them. Thus, is it not surprising that the creation of an EU-wide secure residence status for third country nationals accompanied by rights of free movement within the Union was one of the most vocal and co-ordinated of demands from NGOs in the lead up to the renegotiation of the EU Treaties which resulted in 1997 in the Amsterdam Treaty.25 While the enabling power to create such a status was included in the EC Treaty thereafter, no time limit was placed on its


achievement. At the European Council meeting in Tampere in October 1999, the Council committed itself to achieving such a status and declared that it would seek to approximate the position of Europe’s long resident third country nationals with Community nationals. The Commission introduced a proposal on a secure residence status for third country nationals in March 2001, which would include, if adopted in the form proposed, a right to take employment in any Member State after a period of five years residence.26 After 11 September, the Commission did not amend this proposal directly though it indicated that it was willing for changes to be made. In the interaction of terrorism and security of residence, the Commission appeared to accept the principle that the Member States should have extended powers on the grounds of national security. In addition, the Commission added a new ground for refusing or withdrawing family reunification on the grounds of public order risks.27 Thus, two tendencies are apparent in the work of the Commission after 11 September: first, a greater degree of flexibility towards demands of the Member States to retain control in the field thus a weakening of the Community coherence in the project; second, a diminution of the protection of the individual third country national where a Member State raises the question of national security. At the national level, the reaction also intensified exceptionalism as a rule where terrorism is raised in respect of third country nationals long resident in the Union. In Germany, Italy and the UK national provisions permitting expulsion on grounds of suspicion of terrorism were adopted. There was also a good deal of legislative opportunism at work as well during this period. In Germany, for instance, a provision was put in the law to allow third country nationals to be expelled because they knowingly gave false information to get their residence status. It would appear that the government wanted this power for reasons other than terrorism and attached it to the terrorism measures as a good vehicle to get it through parliament. In Italy the mechanisms for expulsion were speeded up to permit the State to expel third country nationals faster and with truncated remedies. In the UK new measures were introduced to permit the withdrawal of residence permits on the basis of certification by the minister of a terrorism threat. If the Member States had in mind to adopt the EU proposal on long resident third country nationals then the measures which they adopted at national level could not apply to persons who would enjoy the protection of the draft directive. This would mean that only third country nationals who had been resident in the State for less than five years could be caught directly by the new national law measures. It is curious to note that in both France and Germany legislation was already under consideration on 11 September 2001, into which anti-terrorism measures were inserted. In Germany the original legislation was designed to give effect to the new immigration policy of Germany, the most important transformation of thinking on immigration in any of the large EU Member States in many years. The acknowledgement that Germany is a country of immigration and the adoption of legal measures to give that acceptance effect had begun in


September 2000 with the setting up of an official inquiry into immigration policy in Germany. The resulting Süsmuth Report was published in the summer of 2001 and laid the foundation for the change. The establishment of a labour migration programme to encourage admission of skilled workers into the technology sectors in 2000 presaged the new legislation. The anti-terrorism provisions sit uncomfortably in this framework of opening up Germany to migration. In France the legislation was not related to immigration but rather to addressing the sense of insecurity that became a central theme of the electoral campaigns in the spring and early summer of 2002. The anti-terrorism measures inserted into a bill already before parliament on 11 September had mainly to do with search powers of the police. The impression is that the excuse of terrorism permitted the inclusion of coercive measures that had been rejected as too extreme when the legislation was prepared into the bill before parliament, and its adoption without great dissent. While the new powers of search are not directed against long-resident third country nationals, there is concern about a racially oriented subtext. When the police are no longer required to justify the reason for carrying out searches there is no longer a control over whether such searches are carried out on a basis that discriminates on the grounds of race. It is the young French nationals of Maghreb origin, and young Maghreb men in the suburbs, who are the focus of the measures on insecurity. By defining the issue as one of security rather than immigration and its sub-text race, a variety of criticisms could be avoided. It should be remembered that at the time a Socialist goverament was in power in France. MAKING THE TERRORISM-ASYLUM LINK Asylum has dominated European policy-making on movement of persons since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The rise in numbers of asylum seekers entering the EU —reaching a high in 1992 of 675,460—had consequences in policy that are still being felt in 2002. The fact that UNHCR felt it necessary to issue a press release on 31 May 2002 to remind the EU Member States that in 2001 the number of asylum applications received within the territory was half what it had been in 1992 indicates just how far public perceptions about asylum have drifted from their realities. As regards terrorism and asylum, the first issue to be considered is the impact at EU level. The Commission’s proposed directive on temporary protection of displaced persons was adopted in December 2001.28 No change was made to the text on grounds of the fight against terrorism. Rather, there was a suggestion, in October, that the directive might be applied before formal adoption to open a temporary protection scheme for Afghan asylum seekers. This did not happen. Another directive, on minimum standards of reception conditions, also was adopted in June 2002 without change. This directive is aimed at creating a level playing field of reception conditions for persons seeking protection in any of the Member States.


On the EU table, and under discussion in the asylum field, were two more problematic proposals: a directive to replace the Dublin Convention on allocation of responsibility for asylum seekers among the Member States; and, most importantly in this field, a proposal for a directive on qualifying as a refugee. The proposal for an allocation system as regards asylum seekers has not been amended as a result of the terrorism debate. However, at EU level, as at national level, the question of qualifying as a refugee became central. In December 2001, the Commission published a working document on safeguarding internal security and international protection obligations in which it raised for further discussion the principle that a person seeking protection from persecution can be excluded from refugee status on the grounds of active voluntary membership in terrorist organisations. The central problem with this approach—as became clear in the UK reaction—is that refusing to determine an asylum application does not relieve states of their duties under Article 3 ECHR not to return persons to countries where there is a serious risk they will suffer torture. Thus, if a state refuses to consider an asylum application but the individual comes within the category of Article 3 ECHR, then the State cannot remove the individual. If the State considers that there are security reasons for refusing asylum it is nonetheless left with an individual against whom expulsion is not an option. The theme of determination of asylum applications was picked up at the national level most strongly in the Netherlands where, as one of its anti-terrorism measures, the government announced the allocation of extra resources for the resolution of those asylum applications that could be designated as excludable for national security reasons. In Germany, this approach was inserted into the new legislation—exclusion would take place before examination of the asylum claim. This appears (mistakenly in my view) to make administrative sense, as the resources needed to determine an asylum claim can be otherwise deployed if the individual can be excluded immediately from the system without a decision on the protection claim. However, it makes no sense in human rights terms, as the individual is left without a determination of his or her status. In the longer term it makes no sense for the society, as it leaves individuals in limbo within the State. This result led the UK to the next step—indefinite detention. In the UK, the government considered it necessary to detain indefinitely persons whom they considered a security risk but against whom expulsion action could not be taken. The logic of this result is apparent—there are individuals who are dangerous; but their claims for protection (or on other grounds, for instance family or level of integration) mean that they cannot be expelled. Thus to protect society they must be detained indefinitely. In order to pursue this line of logic the UK was required then to derogate from the right of liberty of the person in the ECHR and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as these international obligations prohibit indefinite detention. The flaws in this logic are equally impressive. The first, which applies to all issues of expulsion and terrorism, is that by expelling an individual, national security is enhanced. However, if the individual is expelled to a country that permits him or her to


carry on terrorist activities without hindrance then no country’s national security is enhanced by the expulsion. Indeed, the opposite may be true. More problematic for the international community in general was the example of yet another Western state failing to take seriously its international obligations. The arguments regarding the US obligations under the UN Charter as regards the war against terrorism have been set out elsewhere.29 The UK approach of derogating from inconvenient human rights guarantees sets at least an equally poor example for the rest of the world: this point was amply and forcefully made by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, in February 2002. Asylum also became increasingly linked with terrorism through the new technologies. The EU regulation establishing a common database of fingerprints for asylum seekers, which had been adopted two years earlier,30 was awaiting agreement on implementing measures31 when 11 September 2001 became a date tied to terrorism. At the Member State level, the gathering of information, including fingerprints on asylum seekers, was intensified and the controls on exchange of information were loosened. Nowhere was this more evident that in Germany, where the whole emphasis of the fight against terrorism in the new legislation revolves around tracking individuals, knowing who people are, where they are, and being able to manipulate this information through searches by profile and share the results. In the Netherlands the step was taken to permit, under restricted circumstances, the use of asylum seekers’ fingerprints, taken in pursuit of the asylum application, in relation to criminal investigations. This may allow the police to resolve criminal matters in which an asylum seeker32 is involved as they have access to a tool—fingerprinting—that is not available in respect of the general public. The proportion of clear-up rates of crimes by asylum seekers is likely to increase in relation with the rest of the population, thus confirming the belief that asylum seekers are criminals. Other technological projects were also presented as part of the solution to terrorism. In the Netherlands and Germany biometric data collection was strongly promoted as the way forward. Similarly, the rules on destruction of data regarding asylum seekers after its use have been relaxed. Foreigners, and in particular asylum seekers, no longer have the benefit of removal of their data from the databases once their files are completed. All the time periods for retention of data have been substantially extended. Great emphasis has been placed on the creation of lists of terrorists, a phenomenon that has proliferated. The consequences of databases of suspected terrorists are, by and large, unclear. The intentional lack of clarity on their legal status is nowhere more clearly illustrated than in the list of terrorists whose funds must be frozen. The UN Resolution 1373 includes the list of persons and organisations whose funds must be frozen. This was translated into EU Regulation 2580/01, which requires the freezing of funds of the persons listed. As a regulation in EU law, it has direct effect in the legal orders of the Member States. It also has a clear legal status. Persons affected adversely by the regulation are able to challenge its validity before the Court of First Instance, as


has been done on three occasions. The Court of First Instance has already been called upon to consider whether expedited treatment is required, on the basis that some Swedish nationals—formerly Somali nationals who had sought protection in Sweden and were then naturalised there—named in the Regulation, and their families, have been made destitute as a result of the regulation freezing their funds and have had no chance to present their arguments as to why they should not be so treated. The Court noted that as some public assistance was, by the time of the first hearing, being made available to the families, expedition was not required and the matter will proceed to a full hearing in due course.33 The consequences of being on other terrorist lists are cloaked in legal uncertainty, the hallmark of national security. In the linking of terrorism, asylum and immigration, the normal legal security that derives from the right of freedom of the person is excluded. The State can detain people on grounds of terrorism without a duty to bring criminal charges that carry with them all the civil liberties protections central to constitutional settlements. Because these are foreigners, fundamental rights are no longer necessarily subject to adjudication in the criminal courts. They are shifted into the limbo of immigration and asylumrelated procedures. Not least because of this shadowland, where immigration and asylum procedures, terrorism allegations and criminal law fail to intersect, the division of competence between the national and the EU levels is muted. MAKING THE TERRORISM-BORDERS LINK Finally, the question of borders, their controls and persons seeking to cross them is under transformation. This was an area of particular concern in the letter from President Bush to President Prodi of October 2001. President Bush requested greater co-operation in border controls in transit areas and exchange of information, assistance on return of inadmissible persons from the USA through or to Europe, greater flexibility on expulsion and extradition, and greater emphasis on border security. This is a field of common EU law where the UK has traditionally opted out of measures, preferring to maintain its parallel universe of independent border controls. At the EU level, numerous measures have been proposed and adopted, amending and adapting the Schengen acquis to provide for greater exchange of information about persons entering and passing through the EU territory. This includes: new measures on visa formats;34 visa stickers for unrecognised entities;35 a decision to revise the list of visa national countries before the end of the year;36 and the introduction of a common identification system for visa data.37 Numerous amendments were made as well to the Common Consular Manual and the Common Border Manual under delegated powers which the Council gave itself in 2001.38 Notwithstanding the fact that borders and their controls for the movement of persons for short stays are an exclusive Community competence, both Germany and the Netherlands brought in new measures to exclude persons and, in the case of Germany, to refuse visas. France remained silent on this issue, perhaps


respecting the competence of the Community institutions in the field. The UK followed in its separate world of border controls the other Member States, stressing the need for terrorism-related measures to be taken into account in determining visa applications and entry at the border. It is in this field of applications to cross the border, either from a distance, in the form of visa applications, or when physically arriving at the external borders, that the new technology interests become most acute. The difference between being a national of a country on the EU visa white list (i.e. no visa is required for a short stay), and the black list (i.e. mandatory visas are required for all entry into the EU), is becoming increasingly important. As the Commission explained in its memorandum to the Visa Regulation, the criteria for putting countries on the black list includes the consideration that their nationals include persons who might be a security risk to a Member State.39 The profile of terrorism—Muslim and male—finds a homeland in the visa list. Virtually all the countries in which the inhabitants are predominantly Muslim are on the black list. However, it is not reasonable to refuse visas to all men from Muslim countries. Not least, the logic of economic liberalism makes this difficult. Thus, the emphasis is on checking and controlling the candidates before giving them visas, then tracking them throughout their stay in the EU territory. However, a state cannot keep track of individuals unless it can effectively and reliably identify them. Here, new technologies form an alliance with policy demands regarding certainty of identity of third country nationals who are prima facie risks as identified in the Visa Regulation. Amendment to the visa format Regulation at EU level now requires a photo to be inserted as part of the sticker that is the EU visa. In the Council’s Action Plan on illegal migration, on 28 February 2002, the possibility of fingerprints being added was flagged. A feasibility study is called for on an identification database on visas that might include details of all applications for visas that have been made, the status of whether they were granted or refused, and the tracking of individuals within the Union. These proposals echo the infamous Austrian Presidency Strategy Paper of 1 July 1998, which was widely criticised as seeking to transform the perspective of movement across borders in the EU to one of threat, risk and menace. Among the proposals, then, was a database of all visa applications and support for third countries to set up population registers so that the EU would be able to return persons to those countries more easily. At that time, the discussion revolved primarily around the individual’s right to define, express, or have respected, his or her identity in the form of nationality. This arose not least from the fact that a number of Member States were increasingly irritated by applications for asylum from individuals who claimed to be nationals of one country but whom the Member State was convinced were nationals of another country in respect of which no reasonable fear of persecution could be made out. This conflict presupposes the reality of the link of loyalty inherent in citizenship. At the time of the Austrian Strategy Paper, the emphasis was on assisting third countries to establish effective population registers so that there


would be clear evidence of where in nationality terms an individual belongs. The definition of identity in the form of citizenship and nationality was still a concept for regulation between countries. However, what was still accepted in 1998, but now seems to be changing with the introduction of the catalyst of terrorism, is the right to define legal identity.40 It is now the document that is issued by an EU Member State that defines the identity of the individual; the visa, not the document on which the visa is placed, the passport. Documents issued by non-Member States are no longer definitive for determining identity. The document issued by the Member State, i.e. the visa, contains all the information required to establish identity. The Union takes over the task of identifying all persons who seek to come to the Union and determines where they belong. Thus, a database on visas and their status becomes increasingly relevant to the issue. The Member State is then able to track third country nationals’ movements and control where they go and what they do. The new readmission agreements that the Community is settling with third countries specifically contain provisions which require the third country to readmit to their state on expulsion from the Union third country nationals who held a valid visa or residence permit on their territory or who, after entering the third country’s territory, lawfully proceeded to enter a Member State unlawfully.41 Just as the war against terrorism is not a war against a state but against individuals, so nationality becomes irrelevant as a determinant of an individual’s status as it is related to the State, an entity that is no longer central. It is for the EU to identify and provide identity documents to individuals. These take the form of short-stay visas and contain all the information and indeed the only reliable information about the individual’s identity and where he or she belongs. This is so much the case that these visas can be attached to documents which are not recognised, i.e. identity documents of unrecognised entities (Regulation 333/ 2002) because it does not matter whether some other state has sought control of the identity of the individual.42 This does not mean that the war against terrorism has dispensed with the need for states. Rather, the role of states has changed. Only a few states are needed that are sufficiently stable as to be the objects of readmission agreements, so that unwanted, dangerous and risky individuals can be sent somewhere else and that somewhere else can place sufficient controls on these individuals to prevent their re-entry back into the Union. It is, rather, the concepts of citizenship, allegiance and belonging expressed in the form of nationality that has become less relevant.43 This perception of individuals depends on a substantial technological investment to put in place the mechanisms to identify and track people. The EU measures to do this appear to be in the process of being incorporated into the revised Schengen Information System and related databases. The 11 September 2001 has participated in the transformation of individuals from nationals of countries to which they owe loyalty and from which they can expect protection to individuals stripped of Westphalian protection. This process did not start with 11 September, but the individualisation of threat, menace and


risk has privileged this devaluation of nationality. The right of the individual to protection from his or her state of nationality—which is central to the idea of civil liberties—is being discarded. The refuge of the individual against abuse of power in the EU is increasingly only to be found in international human rights instruments. NOTES 1. In this chapter I have relied on research carried out during 2001/2 at the University of Nijmegen on legal responses to terrorism in the fields of immigration and asylum law. This research will be published in 2002. 2. Except in some very specific categories where the foreigner is considered as a national because of such strong political links. 3. Indeed, in the UK, this was among the last crimes for which the death penalty was abolished. 4. For full text of letter see www.statewatch.org/news/2002/feb/useu.pdf 5. Of course, there is much discussion on the use of the discourse of war in this context, see Anthony Cassese, ‘Terrorism is also Disrupting Some Crucial Legal Categories of International Law’; and A.Pellet, ‘No, This is not War!’; both of which are on the European Journal of International Law wesbite: www.ejil.org/ forum_WTC 6. C-348/96 Calfa, 19 January 1999. 7. C-100/01 Olazabal, A-G Opinion 25 April 2002. 8. C-340/97 Nazli, 10 February 2000. 9. C-268/99 Jany and Others, 20 November 2001. 10. Chahal v UK (1996) 23 EHRR 413. 11. See, for instance, Beldjoudi v France (1992) 14 EHRR 801. 12. Al-Nashif v Bulgaria (50963/99), EctHR, 20 June 2002. 13. Untitled Working Paper by K.Koufa, 26 June 1997 (E/CN.4.Sub.2/1997/28) para 17. 14. ‘Council Common Position of 27 December 2001: on the application of specific measures to combat terrorism’, Official Journal of Law (hereafter OJL), 344 (28 December 2001), pp. 0093–0096. 15. José Barrionuevo—Minister of the Interior, from 1982 to 1988, under the Gonzalez government in Spain—was convicted by a court in the first instance in 1995 for his involvement in the GAL affair on 26/11/95. He was thereafter also convicted of kidnapping and imprisoning Segundo Marey (part of the GAL operations) on 17 July 1998. 16. Jean-Paul Hanon, Étude comparé des concepts et des doctrines de maintien de l’ordre et d’intervention anti-terroriste en Europe (Allemagne, Espagne, Italie, Grèce et Irlande du Nord) et aux Etats Unis) (Paris: DAS/CPGN, 2002). 17. UK Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner, John Stevens, was invited to conduct an independent inquiry into the murder of Finucane by the Royal Ulster Constabulary in 2000. Mr Stevens had already conducted two investigations into police irregularities in the RUC in Northern Ireland.


18. Report from the Stevens Inquiry: www.statewatch.org—the leaked texts have been placed in their entirety on the Statewatch website. Also see BBC Panorama, 19 June 2002. 19. A.Stanley, ‘Agony Lingers: Twenty Years After the Moro Killing’, New York Times, 9 May 1998. 20. http://www.baader-meinhof.com/ 21. BBC News Monday, 26 November, 2001, 13:53 GMT French General on Trial over Algeria. 22. R.Rappaport, ‘Jean-Marie Le Pen, un tortionnaire,’ Le Monde, 25 Juin 2002. 23. http:archive.greenpeace.org 24. T.Sancton, ‘Cracks In The Corsican Code’, Time.com, 31 May 1999. 25. See in particular the campaign of the Brussels based NGO, the Migration Policy Group, in 1996/7. 26. COM(2001)127: this was a process and series of press releases and meetings. It culminated in a report by I.Chopin and J.Niessen, Proposals for Legislative Measures to Combat Racism and to Promote Equal Rights in the European Union (London: CRE, 1998). 27. The UK has so far decided to remain opted out of this measure. 28. OJL (2001) L 212/12. The UK has opted into this measure. 29. Michael Byers, ‘Terrorism, the Use of Force and International Law after 11 September’, ICLQ, 51 (April 2002), pp 401–14. 30. Regulation 2725/2000, OJL (2000) L 316/1. 31. Regulation 407/2002, OJL (2002) L 62/1. 32. Or former asylum seeker. 33. T-306/01 Abdirisak Aden order Court of First Instance 07/05/2002. 34. OJL (2002) L 53/7 35. OJL (2002) L 53/4 36. Paragraph 30, Presidency Conclusions, Seville 21 and 22 June 2002. 37. Ibid. 38. Regulations 789/2001 and 790-/2001, OJL (2001) L 116/2 and 5. 39. Elspeth Guild, ‘Moving the Border of Europe’, Inaugural Lecture, University of Nijmegen, 2000. 40. Of course, events are part of a continuum. In early readmission agreements in the 1990s, Member States sought to require third countries to take back onto their territory third country nationals who had passed through their territory to arrive in the EU Member State. 41. For example, the EC-China Readmission Agreement 2002 Council Doc 8518/02 Article 3. 42. John Torpey’s work on the passport as the mechanism for the establishment of a monopoly over the legitimate movement of persons provides an interesting contrast. His presentation of the role of passports is still based on a Westphalian vision of states which now appears to be in transformation; see John Torpey, The Invention of the Passport (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 43. Except, of course, for citizens of the Union.

13 Barbarians ALEX DANCHEV

Barbarian

1. Etymologically. A foreigner, one whose language and customs differ from the speaker’s. 1549 Compl. Scot. xiii. 106, ‘Euere nation reputis vthers nations to be barbariens, quhen there tua natours and complexions ar contrar til vtheris [i.e. each other]’. 1611 BIBLE I Cor. xiv. 11, ‘I shall be unto him that speaketh, a Barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a Barbarian unto me’. 1827 HARE Guesses (1859) 325, ‘A barbarian is a person who does not talk as we talk, or dress as we dress, or eat as we eat; in short, who is so audacious as not to follow our practice in all the trivialities of manners’. 1862 Macm. Mag. Nov. 58, ‘Ovid…laments that in his exile at Tomi he, the polished citizen, is a barbarian to all his neighbours’. 2. Historically. (a) One not a Greek. (b) One living outside the pale of the Roman empire and its civilization, applied especially to the northern nations that overthrew them. (c) One outside the pale of Christian civilization. (d) With the Italians of the Renaissance: one of a nation outside Italy. 1604 SHAKS. Oth. I. iii. 363, ‘A fraile vow, betwixt an erring Barbarian and a super-subtle Venetian’. 1607 Cor. III. i. 238, ‘I would they were Barbarians…not Romans’. 1628 HOBBES Thucyd. 9, ‘The Athenians… expecting the coming of the Barbarian’. 1660 STANLEY Hist. Philos. (1701) 307/2, ‘Of Men some are Grecians, some Barbarians’. 1846 ARNOLD Hist. Rome II. xi. 364, ‘The inhabitants of the left or eastern bank of the Rhone were…no longer to be considered barbarians, but were become Romans both in their customs and in their language’. 1863 MAYOR in Ascham’s Scholem. 242 ‘Christoph. Longueil of Malines, the one “barbarian” to whom the Italians allowed the title of “Ciceronian”’. 3. A rude, wild, uncivilized person. (a) Sometimes distinguished from savage (perhaps with a glance at 2). (b) Applied by the Chinese contemptuously to foreigners.

BARBARIANS 187

1858 in Merc. Mar. Mag. V. 302, ‘The character “I” (“barbarian”) not to be applied to the British Government, or to British subjects, in any Chinese official document’.1 What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum? The barbarians are due here today. Why isn’t anything going on in the senate? Why are the senators sitting here without legislating? Because the barbarians are coming today. What’s the point of senators making laws now? Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating. Why did the emperor get up so early, and why is he sitting enthroned at the city’s main gate, in state, wearing the crown? Because the barbarians are coming today and the emperor’s waiting to receive their leader. He’s even got a scroll to give him, loaded with titles, with imposing names. Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas? Why have they put on bracelets with so many amythysts, rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds? Why are they carrying elegant canes beautifully worked in silver and gold? Because the barbarians are coming today and things like that dazzle the barbarians. Why don’t our distinguished orators turn up as usual to make their speeches, say what they have to say? Because the barbarians are coming today and they’re bored by rhetoric and public speaking. Why this sudden bewilderment, this confusion? (How serious people’s faces have become.) Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly, everyone going home lost in thought? Because night has fallen and the barbarians haven’t come. And some of our men just in from the border say there are no barbarians any longer. Now what’s going to happen to us without barbarians? Those people were a kind of solution.2 What has made it impossible for us to live in time like fish in water, like birds in air, like children? It is the fault of Empire! Empire has created the time of history. Empire has located its existence not in the smooth recurrent spinning time of the cycle of the seasons but in the jagged time of rise and


fall, of beginning and end, of catastrophe. Empire dooms itself to live in history and plot against history. One thought alone preoccupies the submerged mind of Empire: how not to end, how not to die, how to prolong its era. By day it pursues its enemies. It is cunning and ruthless; it sends its bloodhounds everywhere. By night it feeds on images of disaster: the sack of cities, the rape of populations, pyramids of bones, acres of desolation. A mad vision yet a virulent one: I, wading in the ooze, am no less infected with it than the faithful Colonel Joll as he tracks the enemies of Empire through the boundless desert, sword unsheathed to cut down barbarian after barbarian until at last he finds and slays the one whose destiny it should be (or if not his then his son’s or his unborn grandson’s) to climb the bronze gateway to the Summer Palace and topple the globe surmounted by the tiger rampant that symbolizes enternal dominion, while his comrades below cheer and fire their muskets in the air.3 It was not the globe but the towers that toppled, and the madness was virulent indeed. NOTES 1. The Oxford English Dictionary, Vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), p. 945. 2. C.P.Cavafy, ‘Waiting for the Barbarians’, in Collected Poems (trans. Edmund Keely and Philip Sherrard) (London: Chatto & Windus, 1990), pp. 14–15. 3. J.M.Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians (London: Vintage, 2000), p. 146.

Index

Abu Sayyaf guerrillas, 99 Albania, 94 Adorno, Theodore, 135 Amoco, 93 Afghanistan/Afghan, ix, 1, 5, 7, 8, 9, 13, 15, 16, 18, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 42, 43, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 53, 67, 70, 74, 78, 81, 82, 83, 85, 86, 87, 88, 90, 91, 93, 115, 125, 141, 142, 144, 145, 156, 159; government, 17; war in, 48 Africa/African, xi, 40, 154, 156 Ajami, Fouad, 52 Al Jazeera, 41 Alaskan oil, 161 Albright, Madeleine, 109 Algeria, 140, 174 al-Qaida, ix, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 14, 15, 21, 32, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54, 68, 70, 105, 114, 115, 130, 131, 145, 154, 155, 156, 157, 159 Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 1 America/American, xi, xi, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 30, 31, 34, 38, 39, 40, 43, 45, 47, 49, 50, 51, 52, 56, 58, 62, 63, 64, 67, 69, 72, 78, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90; anti-American, xi, 6, 51; Empire, 3, 46, 149; pro-American, 52 American Petroleum Institute, 91 Amsterdam Treaty, 175, 176 Ancient Greece, 150 Ancram, Michael, 107 Anderson, Donald, 107

Angola, 85 Annan, Kofi, 17, 34 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, 58, 81, 84 Apollo 10, 85 Arab/Arabia, 45, 54, 74, 99, 134, 158 Arabian Sea, 91, 159 Arco, 97 Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, 83 Arendt, Hannah, 164 Argentine, 97, 154 Argonauts, 91 Ashdown, Paddy, 106 Asia/Asian, xi, 33, 86, 154 Asia Minor, 91 Associated Press (AP), 41 Athens, 150 Atlantic, 90 Auckland, 174 Australia, ix, 86 Austrian Presidency Strategy Paper, 182 ‘Axis of Evil’, 8, 14, 22, 52, 55, 113 Azerbaijan, 91, 92, 93 Aznar Protocol, 175 Azov, Sea of, 91 Aztecs, 152 Baader Meinhof, 174 Baghdad, 55 Balkans, 57, 93, 94, 142, 144, 154, 156 ‘Balkanization of Asia’, 42 Barbarians, 185–7 Barber, Benjamin, 137, 143 Basque, 134, 144, 171, 173, 176

189


Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA), 134, 144, 173 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), 41, 174 Beijing, 58 Belfast, 174 Belgium, 173, 176 Benjamin, Walter, 75 Berger, S., 143 Berlin Wall, 46, 76, 178 Bibi-Eibat, 92 Bible, 185 Biddle, Stephen, 57 Black Sea, 91, 92 Blair, Tony, 6, 31, 60, 61, 64, 65, 66, 71, 80, 105, 107, 126 Bolsheviks, 92 Bond, James, 89 Bonn summit, 8 Booth, Ken, 46 Bosnia, 5, 129 Boston Massacre, 155 Bourne, Randolph, 150 Bradford, 106 Bridas, 97 Brighton, 71 Britain/Great Britain/British/UK, ix, 8, 13, 15, 16, 30, 53, 57, 67, 80, 81, 82, 93, 105, 106, 115, 170, 172, 173, 176, 177, 179, 181, 186; British International Security Assistance Force, 8 British Petroleum (BP), 93, 94, 97 Brown and Root Division of Halliburton, 94 Brussels, 129 Bulgaria, 94 Burgas, 94 Bush, George W., 6, 8, 9, 12, 22, 30, 31, 33, 36, 37, 38, 40, 41, 42, 47, 48, 52, 53, 55, 55, 56, 57, 58, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 70, 73, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 91, 149, 156, 157, 162, 163 Butler, Richard, 97 Cable News Network (CNN), 41 Cambodia, 42, 43

Camp Bondsteel, 94 Camp X-Ray, 18, 21, 82 Campbell, Menzies, 107 Carroll, Lewis, 148 Caspian Basin/Caspian Sea, 42, 68, 89, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 99, 159 Catholics, 106 Central America, 156 Central Asia, 42, 87, 91, 93, 128, 159 Central Europe, 94 Chechen, Chechnia, 32, 33, 95, 96, 99, 157, 159 Cheney, Dick, 91, 94 Chevron, 97 Chile, 154 China, Chinese, 32, 33, 35, 42, 69, 83, 86, 88, 89, 94, 95, 97, 99, 154, 185, 186 China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), 95 Chomsky, Noam, 6 Christ, Jesus, 159 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 9 Ciceronian, 185 Clancy, Tom, 152 ‘Clash (Conflict) of Civilisations’, 12, 77, 164 Clausewitz, Carl von, 75, 141 Clinton, Bill, 56, 117 Cohen, Eliot, 57 Cold War, ix, xi, 31, 39, 46, 55, 64, 65, 71, 72, 77, 88, 89, 98, 100, 124, 129, 130, 140, 152, 161; post-Cold War, 87, 89, 90 Colombia, 159, 160 Common Border Manual, 181 Common Consular Manual, 181 communism/communist, 31, 71 Connolly, William, 164 Contras, 15 Cook, Robin, 93 Corsica, 174 Coulter, Ann, 159 Council of Europe, 173, 176, 181 Court of First Instance, 180 Court of Justice, 15 Crusade, 12 Cuba, 18, 82, 98, 106, 117 Cyprus, 125

INDEX 191

Dagestan, 95 Dalyell, Tam, 107 Defense Agency, 42 Democratic Peace, 66 Derrida, Jack, 151 Diego Garcia, 113 Dohar Ministerial Meeting, 131, 170 Dresden, 5 Drumble, Mark, 14, 20 Dublin Convention, 178 Dubrovnik, 20 Dunne, Tim, 46 East Asia, 41, 88, 89 Eastasia, 152 Eastern Europe, 88, 89, 91, 171 Eastern Mediterranean, 90 Ecuador, 159 Egypt/Egyptian, 32, 53, 74, 161 Elshtain, Jean Bethke, 150 El Salvador, 54 End of History, 66 English Civil War, 78 ‘Era of Slack’, 77 Eurasia/Eurasian, 42, 88, 89, 90, 91, 97, 152 Europe/European, ix, xi, xi, 14, 32, 33, 57, 61, 64, 67, 69, 70, 88, 91, 169, 175, 178; diplomacy, 80 European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 95 European Commission, 168, 169, 171, 172, 176, 177, 178 European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), 172, 173, 178 European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), 173 European Court of Justice, 171 European Union, 89, 111, 123–38, 168–94; Regulation 2580/01, 180 Exxon, 93, 97 Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), 158 FBI, 158 Ferguson, Niall, 57 Finucane, Patrick, 174

Florida, 6 Foreign Affairs, 57 Fort Sumter, 155 France, 53, 171, 173, 175, 176, 177, 178, 181 Frank, Andre Gunder, 89 Frankenstein, 74 G7, 84, 85 Gaja, Giorgio, 14 Galloway, George, 107 Gaza, 112, 128 Geneva Convention, 7, 18, 171, 172 German Democratic Republic (GDR), 139 German-Soviet Pact, 92 Germany/German, 18, 88, 89, 138, 139, 144, 170, 174, 176, 177, 178, 178, 179, 181; spies, 18 George, Bruce, 109 Georgia, 99, 159 Girard, Rene, 152, 158 Glaubenskrieg, 149, 160 Goethe, 149 Gökay, Bülent, 83 Goldsmith, Edward, 82 Goldstein, Emmanuel, 100, 152 Goldstone, Judge Richard, 18 Gore, Al, 56, 155 Grecians, 185 Greek/Greece, 91, 176, 185 Greenpeace, 174 Grossman, Zoltan, 97 Guantanamo Bay, 18, 98, 106, 114, 117, 159 Gulf States, 74 Gulf War (Persian), 39, 42, 50, 55, 70, 90, 98, 156; syndrome, 41 Halliburton Company, 93, 94 Hamas, 51, 154 Hardt, Michael, 164 Haq, Abdul, 114 Heartland, 86 Hegel, 75 Hezbollah, 51


‘Hiroshima temptation’, 55 Hitler, Adolf, 33, 71, 92, 98 Hobbes, Thomas, 78 Hobsbawm, Eric, 88 Hollywood, 158 Homer, 152 House of Saud, 74 Howe, Lord, 106 ‘Human Security Corps’, 42, 43 Hume, John, 106 Huntington, Samuel, 76, 137 Hussein, Saddam, 9, 39, 55, 78 Ignatieff, Michael, 141 India, 55, 83, 85, 97, 128 India-Pakistan conflict, 97, 118 Indian Ocean, 90, 97 Indonesia, ix, 41, 154, 161 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 18, 178 International Criminal Court, 58, 161 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 76 International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, 115 Iran, 8, 21, 68, 74, 91, 118, 128, 159 Iraq, ix, 1, 8, 23, 39, 50, 53, 55, 67, 68, 90, 91, 155, 159 Ireland (Republic of), 175 Irish Republican Army (IRA), 5, 138 Islam, Islamic, Muslim, 6, 32, 33, 48, 56, 73, 74, 78, 87, 142, 151, 156, 159, 160, 162, 181; fundamentalism, 6, 98, 143, 144, 145; Jihad, 74; terrorism, 12, 106, 136; umma, 45, 55; utopia, 45; world, 23 Israel/Israeli, ix, 4, 23, 33, 50, 51, 53, 54, 55, 107, 159; Israeli-Palestinian situation/dispute, xi, 51, 68, 116, 142, 161 Italy/Italian, 12, 144, 177, 181 Japan/Japanese, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 53, 89

Kabul, 8, 9, 115 Kaldor, Mary, 140, 152 Kant, Immanuel, 76 Karabagli fields, 95 Karzai, Hamid, 8, Kashmir, 97, 159 Kazakhstan, 91, 93 Keele European Research Centre, 1 Kennedy, Paul, 57 Kenya, ix Keohane, Robert, 86 Khalilzad, Zalmay, 97 Khmer, 43 Koizumi, 42 Kosovo, 16, 57, 90, 93, 94, 129, 130 Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), 90 Kurds/Kurdish, 90 Kuwait, ix, 41, 53, 55, 126, 161 Kyoto Global Warming Treaty, 80, 82, 83, 84,85, 124, 132 Labour Party (British), 71 Lacan, Jacques, 151 Laqueur, Walter, 134 Latin America, xi, 41 Le Pen, Jean-Marie, 174 Lebanon, 140 Levinson, Barry, 153 Lewis, Bernard, 52 Liberal Democrat, 106 Lieven, Anatol, 87 Lindh, John Walker, 159 London, 30 Long Island, 18 Lower Manhattan, 60 Lusitania, 155 Maastricht, 127 Maastricht Treaty, 125, 129 Macedonia, 94 Mackinder, Halford, 86 Maghreb, 178 Mahon, Derek, 23 Major, John, 109 Malaysia, 41 Marrakech, 81, 82, 131 Mazar-e Sharif, 49

INDEX 193

Miami, 6 Middle Ages, 57 Middle East/Middle Eastern, ix, xi, 4, 6, 9, 12, 32, 42, 78, 86, 87, 90, 91, 154, 157, 158, 161, 162, 163 Milan, 174 Milosevic, Slobodan, 36 Moro, Aldo, 174 Morocco, 81 Moscow, 159 Moussaoui, Zacarias, 159 Mozambique, 83 Munich, 46 Musharraf, General Pervez, 52, 118, 159 Napoleon, 71 Nasser, 53 National Review, 159 National Rifle Association, 157 Nazism, 39 Nazi Germany, 154 Negri, Antonio, 11 Netherlands, 173, 178, 179, 181 ‘New World Order’, 39, 66, 77 New York, xi, 3, 17, 23, 30, 36, 62, 68, 80, 106 New York Times, 97 New Zealand, 174 Nicaragua, 15 Nigeria, 154 Nineteen Eighty Four, 100, 153 Nobel, 92 Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), 21, 42 North Africa, 173, 174 North America, xi, 14, 100 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 14, 34, 39, 93, 94, 111, 128, 129, 130 North Korea, 8, 159, 160 Northern Alliance, 36, 49, 90 Northern Ireland, 106, 117, 139, 175 Nuremberg (tribunal), 20, 53 Nye, Joseph, 66 Oceania, 100, 152 Occupied Territories, ix

‘October Beer Festival’, 136 Oil and Gas Journal, 96 Oklahoma City bombing, 163 Old Testament, 159 Oldham, 106 Omar, Mullah Mohammed, 48 ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’, 97 Oresteian Trilogy, 152 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 161 Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), 172 Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), 93, 96; non-OPEC, 93 Orwell, George, 100, 152 Osama Bin Laden, 5, 7, 9, 14, 15, 31, 32, 36, 41, 47, 48, 49, 52, 56, 68, 73, 74, 78, 100 Oval Office, 56 Pacific, 90 Padilla, Jose, 159 Paisley, Ian, 106 Pakistan, ix, 3, 36, 42, 52, 97, 97, 118, 128, 161 Palestine/Palestinian, 3, 4, 23, 51, 68, 107, 136, 140; state, 33 Pan Asian Global Energy Bridge, 95 Panorama, 174 Paris, 58 Pashtun, 36 Patten, Chris, 127, 131 Pax Americana, 65, 72 Pax Britannica, 65, 72 Pearl Harbour, 46, 67, 155 Pennzoil, 93 Pentagon, xi, 12, 53, 60, 67, 99 Peru, 159 PetroChina Co., 95 Philippines, 99, 159 Portugal, 176 post-modernism/post-modernity, 45, 46, 72, 73 post-Napoleonic, 75 Powell, Colin, 64, 66


Prisoner of War (PoW) status, 7 Prodi, Romano, 168, 180 Prometheus, 92 Qatar, Qatari, 41, 81 Rainbow Warrior, 174 Rashid, Ahmed, 48, 141 Reagan, Ronald, 54, 97 Red Army, 92 Red Army Faction (RAF) in Germany, 138 Red Brigade in Italy, 174 Reid, Richard, 159 Renaissance, 63, 185 Reuters, 41 Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), 156, 157, 162 Rice, Condoleeza, 33 ‘Rising Sun’, 42 ‘Rising Sun diplomacy’, 42 Robertson, Lord, 14 Robertson, Pat, 159 Robinson, Mary, 20, 172, 179 Roman Empire, 67, 135 Romans, 185 Roosevelt, 18 Royal Dutch Shell, 97 Ruggie, John, 125 Rumsfeld, Donald, 66, 125 Russia/Russian, 32, 33, 35, 42, 68, 69, 89, 90, 91, 92, 97, 99, 118, 157; Civil War, 92; Empire, 92; Federation, 98; Revolution, 39 Rwanda, 21, 112 San Francisco Chronicle, 97 Sandinista, 54 Sarajevo, 146 Saudi Arabia, xi, 6, 32, 50, 68, 116, 140, 161 Schengen Implementing Agreement, 175 Schmitt, Carl, 75 Second World War, 39, 92, 98 Serbia, 67, 69

Sergeev, Igor, 95 Sextus Empiricus, 22 Shain, Farzana, 1 Shakespeare, William, 152 Sharon, Ariel, 78 Shiva, Vandana, 84, 85 Sierra Leone, 21, 112 Simpson, Alan, 114 Skopje, 94 Skordas, Achilles, 87 Slotkin, Richard, 154 Smith, Adam, 76 Smith, Steve, 86 Social Darwinism, 78 Socrates, 151 Solana, Xavier, 125, 127, 129 Sollers, Phillipe, 151 Somalia, 68, 156, 180 Soueif, Ahdaf, 80 South Africa, 110, 134 South Asia, 41,87 Southeast Asia, 93 Southern Lebanon, 51 Southeastern Europe, 94 Soviet/Soviet Union (USSR), 88, 89, 91, 97, 124, 128; ex-Soviet, 68, 93 Spain, 134, 173, 175, 176 Stalin, Joseph, 92 ‘Star Wars’, 81, 84 Strassbourg, 136 Straw, Jack, 106 Sudan, 68 Summer Palace, 187 Sunday Times, 30 Süsmuth Report, 177 Sweden, 180 Syria, 118 Tajikistan, 32, 42 Takeyh, Ray, 162 Taliban, ix, 7, 8, 14, 15, 16, 21, 22, 36, 48, 49, 53, 74, 96, 99, 106, 114, 141, 154 Tet Offensive, 156 Texaco, 93 Thatcher, Margaret, 115 The Hague, 21;

INDEX 195

court, 36, 53 Third World, 39, 40, 71, 85 Thirty Years War, 63 Thornberry, Patrick, 2 Three Gorges Dam, 95 Tokyo, 8 Tonkin Gulf, 155 TotalFinaElf, 97 Trans-Afghan pipeline, 96 Trans-Balkan oil pipeline, 94 Transcaucasus, 91 Tunisia, ix Turkey, 129, 171 Turkmenistan, 32, 42, 91, 93, 95, 96, 97 Twin Towers, 60, 80, 82, 83, 84, 134 Uighur, 32, 33 United Nations, xi, 8, 33, 35, 38, 39, 41, 55, 58; Charter, 7, 8, 13, 14, 16, 18, 34, 36,50, 53, 54, 161, 179; General Assembly, 12, 16, 20, 72; High Commissioner for Human Rights, 20, 23, 172, 178, 179; Resolution 1373, 180; Secretary-General, 17; Security Council, 7, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 31, 32, 34, 49, 53, 72, 111; Special Rapporteur on Terrorism and Human Rights, 173 United States/US/USA, ix, xi, xi, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 40, 41, 43, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54, 55, 55, 56, 57, 58, 62, 64, 67, 68, 69, 72, 74, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 144, 145, 151, 154, 157, 162, 163, 179; Department of Energy, 93; foreign policy, xi; Justice Department, 158; Special Operation Forces, 99; State Department, 67; Supreme Court, 18; Trade and Development Agency, 94; UNOCAL Corporation, 93, 96, 97 Uzbekistan, 32, 42, 96, 159

Venetian, 185 Vidal, Gore, 46–8 Vietnam/Vietnamese, xi, 47, 90, 94, 136; War, 47, 163 Visa regulation (EU), 181 Viviano, Frank, 97 Vlore, 94 Volga River, 91 Volga-Don canal, 91 Wade, Robert Hunter, 3, 9 Wag the Dog, 153 Walker, Rob, 2 Wallace, William, 98 Wallerstein, Immanuel, 10 ‘War against Drugs’, 17, 159 ‘War on Terror(ism)’/‘War against Terrorism’, ix, xi, 17, 22, 31, 42, 67, 68, 97, 99, 155, 158, 159, 159, 160, 162 Warsaw Pact, 88 Washington, DC, xi, 3, 17, 47, 55, 57, 58, 60, 62, 67, 68, 80, 89, 91, 94; Treaty, 14, 129 ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’, 90 Weber, Max, 63, 65, 75 West/Western, 5, 6, 12, 21, 23, 24, 33, 39, 40, 45, 69, 74, 87, 92, 93, 94, 160, 162, 179; anti-Western, 6; non-Western, 43 Western Europe, 100 West Bank, 128, 159 West Point, 47, 53, 55, 57, 58 Westphalia (Peace of), 54, 63, 73 Westphalian protection, 183 White House, 52, 53, 54 World Economic Forum, 55 World-Island, 86 World Trade Center, xi, 4, 12, 30, 80, 99 World Trade Organisation (WTO), 81, 82, 83, 85, 131, 170 World War I/First World War, 53, 63, 92, 100 World War III, 38 Xinjiang, 95


Year of Dialogue, 12 Yemen, ix, 140 Yugoslavia, 39, 93, 94 Zeitgeist, 143 Zemin, Jiang, 33 Zeus, 92 Zinn, Howard, 46

11 September 2001 War, Terror and Judgement

Eric Hufschmid 11. September 2001

One Day in History: September 11, 2001

Hintergründe der Anschläge vom 11. September 2001

One Day in History: September 11, 2001

11 September and its Aftermath: The Geopolitics of Terror

War Terror

The War on Freedom: How and Why America was Attacked September 11, 2001

The Day That Was Different: September 11, 2001

11 сентября 2001

September 11, 2001 (Turning Points in U.S. History)

Harper Collins One Day in History September 11 2001

The Economist - 29 September 2001

The Economist - 01 September 2001

The Economist - 08 September 2001

The Economist - 15 September 2001

The Economist - 22 September 2001

Judgement

Judgement

Inductive Logic Programming: 11th International Conference, ILP 2001, Strasbourg, France, September 9-11, 2001. Proceedings

Intelligent Virtual Agents: Third International Workshop, IVA 2001, Madrid, Spain, September 10-11, 2001. Proceedings

Judgement

11: The Psychology of Terror

Judgement

America's War on Terror

Judgement

Judgement

Judgement

Judgement

Peace Movements and Pacifism After September 11

Der 11. September ein Untersuchungsbericht

11 September 2001 War, Terror and Judgement

Eric Hufschmid 11. September 2001

One Day in History: September 11, 2001

Hintergründe der Anschläge vom 11. September 2001

One Day in History: September 11, 2001

11 September and its Aftermath: The Geopolitics of Terror

War Terror

The War on Freedom: How and Why America was Attacked September 11, 2001

The Day That Was Different: September 11, 2001

11 сентября 2001

September 11, 2001 (Turning Points in U.S. History)

Harper Collins One Day in History September 11 2001

The Economist - 29 September 2001

The Economist - 01 September 2001

The Economist - 08 September 2001

The Economist - 15 September 2001

The Economist - 22 September 2001

Judgement

Judgement

Inductive Logic Programming: 11th International Conference, ILP 2001, Strasbourg, France, September 9-11, 2001. Proceedings

Intelligent Virtual Agents: Third International Workshop, IVA 2001, Madrid, Spain, September 10-11, 2001. Proceedings

Judgement

11: The Psychology of Terror

Judgement

America's War on Terror

Judgement

Judgement

Judgement

Judgement

Peace Movements and Pacifism After September 11

Der 11. September ein Untersuchungsbericht

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