The Return of Discomustachio…

Occasionally I venture into areas of debate that are slightly out of my realm of expertise. This was certainly the case when I started drawing comparisons between the “Cold War” and the “War on Terror” in this post. (My BA after all is in religious studies, not US history.) Lucky for me, I had just the guy to turn to for help in fleshing out my thoughts: my old buddy Discomustachio. He used to host a blog with a political bent similar to JSL called “Whydontyourelax”. It was funny and always informative and able to deliver a harsh reality in a matter-of-fact and digestible manner. About a year or so ago, he and I were out bar-hopping our way through Bridgeport and I was schooled (in the most welcome way) on the manner by which political remnants of the cold war still play a role in international policy. So clearly, when I started thinking about parallels between the Cold War and the War on Terror, I knew I had the guy to talk to. But rather than talking it out and regurgitating his thoughts, I asked him to write a guest post for me.  So here it is:

The Return of Discomustachio…

The Jobsite Liberal asked me some time ago to address the question of how our rights as citizens and our government’s ability to infringe on those rights have differed from the Cold War to the modern era. Due to the endless distractions that life throws at you I never really had any time to really devote to this. And then at work one day I got a fresh cup of coffee, decided to take a break (from working), and decided to have a “one-off” with this topic. So here’s a 20 minute ramble on a word doc…

In comparing the relationship of US citizens to their government and how it compares to different periods of our history deemed “crucial” or “special” it’s important to remember that, historically, this current period is like any other time in our history. The rights that we are allowed by our government and their willingness to infringe on those rights may differ depending on the threat but they will always try to balance the need to protect the nation with staying in keeping with the moral foundation of our nation’s commitment to liberty and justice. But ensuring the continuation of the system is always the mission – even if it means a certain percentage of citizens are rightfully or wrongfully denied their rights. Publicly the government may drone on about individual liberty and the rights of citizens. But in the end, as Dick Chenney once said, “Moral principle is meaningless if you lose,” (which may well be the only thing he’s ever said that I agree with).

So consider for a moment the threats we have faced over, say, the last 50 years. People in today’s world often forget that in the Cold War years the threat to the nation was complete. It was irreversible if realized. It was all encompassing and it was systemic. A nuclear war with the Soviets was something that could not be tolerated.  So, helping them was seen as the true measure of violating your relationship to your country if you were a citizen. From the government’s stand point, simply helping the Soviets could tip the balance of power, encourage them to choose general nuclear war if they felt they had a true first strike advantage, and render all principles the US supposedly adhered to meaningless as it crumbled under the weight of nuclear destruction. The need to curtail citizens’ rights were premised on preventing this eventuality; the balance needing to be struck between allowing citizens the power of constructive dissent all while ensuring the republic survives – primarily by keeping the global balance of power in place. Of course it was easy to misuse this understanding in order to further different agendas that may run counter to the spirit of allowing citizens their freedom. Consider the endless accusations by Segregationists in the American south calling MLK a Communist and arguing that his prevention from participating in public life was actually good for social order.  Back then the aim of Southern White Supremacists was to prevent Black Liberation.  Sure, it was ludicrous to infer that the Civil Rights movement actually aimed to make Alabama Kazakhstan – but the endless accusations that activists like MLK were “Communists” played all too well into the prejudices of those who were against Black Liberation in the first place. Tying Black Liberation with Communism played into the public at larges’ understanding over the world they lived in, the space that they inhabited, and the threats the world posed to them as citizens.  No one rightfully though that MLK or the Black Panthers would aid the Soviets in anything.  But the simple subconscious association with pairing the two ideologies helped opponents of Black rights continue to disrupt Black progress wherever they could.

Fast forward to today and the relationship between security and rights needs to be more intrusive and focused because the nature of the threat is entirely different. Now that the US is the only dominant power in the world – the modern day Rome – it’s entirely true to argue that destabilizing the international system is the real threat. We are the reserve currency. We are the military stabilization force for Global Corporatism. Our position on the globe just in terms of shear geography provide us with an advantage that no other nation can dream of. At the same time, the threat to that system is much more diffuse and doesn’t require our nations complete destruction to alter the balance of power. Consider the aim of Al-Qaida, which is primarily to weaken the United States enough to force it to retreat from the world, which would then, in their best case scenario, allow Muslim nations a much larger say in global affairs as they would be united under some sort of modern day Caliphate. In order make that reality possible one need not saturate North America with nuclear missiles. Our complete geographic destruction doesn’t play into it. Instead, the application of hostile force to our systemic weak points is what drives Islamic militant strategy. So, because an American born cleric who’s publicly declared war on his nation of birth (as Alwaki did before getting his ass blown in half by a predator drone) can post YouTube videos encouraging other Muslim born Americans to conduct attacks on the United States, he becomes a threat because the level of what the system can tolerate and still function has been greatly reduced in a world run by the US. In the Cold War days someone getting on YouTube (had there been one) and advocating for the Soviet Union to launch a premeditated nuclear strike against NATO, or any hostile military move, would have been deemed nuts and would have hardly been considered a threat because unless he worked in the military his ability to aid that attack was nil. He wasn’t even a pawn in that great game. But in a world in which 3 or 4 Islamist fanatics, or right wing Christian fanatics, or left wing anarchist fanatics, can launch a cyber attack that would cripple the power grid indefinitely and cause a complete destabilization of the United States and the global system along with it, “protecting the rights of citizens” has to be measured against the ability of one single solitary citizens ability to destroy our system of government, making US moral principles meaningless as we all shoot each other trying to get the last can of soup from the Jewel Osco everyone has raided in the ensuing chaos.

Of course, misusing the understanding of these threats continues today just as it did in any other “pivotal” era of this nation’s history.  Think of all of the times someone on Fox News screamed that liberals “wanted the terrorists to win” for simply questioning the rationale for invading Iraq, to say nothing of the evidence.  Think of every time MSNBC screamed that George W Bush was a “dictator” despite his never actually infringing on anyone’s rights en masse.  Sure, some folks got whisked off to Gitmo.  Some folks had the NSA listen to their phone calls to relatives in Yemen.  But those were not the actions of a dictator, just as killing American citizens who are actively aiding the terrorist enemy in Yemen via Predator drones is not dictatorial either (I’m talking to you, Rand “I love the sound of my own voice” Paul).

In the end, every individual citizen needs to figure out for themselves where they stand on issues regarding the rights of citizens vs. the need to protect the nation from those who wish for our destruction. To the individual citizen, the choice is clear. You want your rights protected and that’s the end.  Depending on your understanding of “freedom” you will rationalize what you feel is acceptable.  But that’s where the problem comes in doesn’t it?  You may feel that you should have the freedom to stockpile massive amounts of automatic weapons in some sort of need to satiate your fear of some unspecified apocalypse.  But, since you can take those weapons and give them to others who might want to conduct a mass casualty operation, like the Hutaree Militia in Michigan in 2010, are you not a threat to the system at that point?  Are you not equipped to strike at the very same weak points that groups like Al-Qaida might target?  The point is that whether or not you are some Christian Nationalist, or some hacker, or a US born Islamist, or just some guy, you have to reconcile the idea that we can’t live in a nation that protects the individual liberty of its citizenry in its entirety.  You simply can’t protect the system by protecting every single solitary citizen’s rights.  Those who are hostile to the system will take advantage of their rights in order to destabilize the system.  What one must accept is that we can either live in our imperfect society that is filled with injustice and Have’s vs. Have Not’s, or we can exist in anarchy in a world filled with injustice and Have’s vs. Have Not’s.  The difference between the two is simply that what the Haves and Have Not’s value in each system is drastically different.  You can either choose to bitch and moan on your computer in air conditioning or fight for that last can of soup at the Jewel-Osco.

I’m not spiritual but I’m a conspiracy theorist…

I’ve written once or twice about my frustration with conspiracy theorists so it’s important that I don’t sound like one in my posts. I do my damnedest to remain aware of my assumptions, implied or otherwise, in order to ensure that I don’t venture down those paths when thinking through whatever it is I’m thinking through. Guns, gold, and god; information technology, drones, and the war on terror; all lend themselves quite readily to some pretty heavy conspiracy-theorizing. But it’s not my style. The theories fit together too easily. Their general framework never really changes. Somehow, someway, they always manage to incorporate any new idea, storyline, or piece of evidence to the contrary and assimilate it into an already determined narrative. The circle of conspirators grows ever larger and, along with it, my frustration as I listen to someone close themselves into an all-too-comforting two-dimensional plane of discomfort. They amount to new age spirituality for hard economic times and I just can’t buy ’em (or, for that matter, new age spirituality but that’s a different post). They’re too neat in in a world that my experience has revealed to be pretty fuckin’ messy. (Which I guess is why I do my best to create stability and comfort for my family – so that I and we are best equipped to deal with the mess that the world – and we – can be from time to time (but that’s another post too and maybe even another blog)).

Fortunately the words I choose give a healthy assist in determining what my assumptions are. The words are imperfect. But, something I was reminded of when listening to Li Young Lee a couple weeks ago, imperfection might be their greatest strength. It’s their flaws that reveal to me what I’m thinking beneath my thoughts. For me and – I’m pretty sure – for most, the words are never quite right. They’re getting at an idea, pointing to an object, homing in on a feeling and never quite getting there – their imperfection the birthplace of art, music, and religion. This can occasionally make for some hard times in friendships, work relations, marriages and any number of other personal relationships. But what about the words we use to debate policy? The words that make up our legal structure? Our political campaigns? Maybe most significantly, what about the words that frame our campaigns of war, like the war on terror? (You didn’t think I was gonna post something apolitical, did ya?) Whether conceptual (like the wars on poverty and illiteracy) or concrete (like the wars in Iraq and Afganistan) or some amalgamation of the two (like like the war on terror), the word ‘war’ carries with it a number of assumptions. Good guy/bad guy for one. Prolonged conflict for another. Nation states and military. Killing and dying. Value and sacrifice. Protection and harm to name a few. But alongside these assumptions it also implies a coordinated attempt to overcome.

In the reading that I did for my last post I came across a piece in the generally unforgiving Counterpunch that really spoke to me when it comes to thinking about the United States’ military conflicts in Muslim countries – what we refer to in shorthand as the war on terror or as the Obama administration prefers, our “overseas contingency operations“. The author writes, “…the War on Terror is not a vast conspiracy perpetrated by those constituencies favored by it. It is, instead, a complex and confused assemblage of interlocking, overlapping, and contradictory policies, foreign and domestic. It’s a sputtering, jerry-rigged contraption with layers, scaffolding, tweaks and adjustments worthy of Rube Goldberg. Yes, we have secret memos, secret actions and secret courts. But the lion’s share of the War’s undercarriage and infrastructure grew out in the open. And thanks to Wikileaks, whistleblowers, and witnesses, we eventually come to know the secrets.”

Take a minute with that.

He goes on, “The War on Terror is a piquant stew of ideas and ideology that underwrites the vast, global deployment of American men, money, and machines. The War’s authors and enablers truly hope that Afghanistan will ‘stabilize’ sufficiently by 2014 to permit the withdrawal of most US troops. They hope that the mess they left behind in Iraq sorts itself out. They hope that air power is enough to ‘safeguard US interests’ in Libya and Mali. They believe what they say about ‘terrorist groups’ Hamas and Hezbollah. They genuinely hope that drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia make the world safer for the United States and its allies. The problem before us then is not one of sincerity or intent but of results.”

Take another minute and ask yourself what the results might be over time.

More or fewer terrorists? Greater or less liberty? Security? I’m not sure we can know one way or the other. Nor am I sure that these questions are any more or less relevant now than they were, say, during the nuclear arms campaign conceptualized as the ‘cold war‘. I’m not suggesting for a minute that we don’t question, dissent, and protest. I’m just asking that we do so with an awareness of our assumptions and that we refrain from assuming that ours is somehow a time more laden with threats to our civil liberties than times past – that we refrain from framing our conflicts in apocalyptic terms unless we’re talking about something potentially apocalyptic like, say, global warming. The war on terror – be it the variety of military actions the phrase encompasses or the PR campaign that aims to make them legitimate – is deeply, deeply flawed. But like the words I choose, I find reason to hope in it’s flaws, it’s overreaches, it’s contradictions, and its secrets. I mean, we find out about them, don’t we? (I’m talking to you conspiracy theorists.) It’s messy and much of it is greater reason for shame than it is for pride but something must be working right if the war on terror continues to reveal it’s vile and vulnerable underbelly to us.

War is not hell…

After last week’s plethora of drone related news, I can’t help but think that the JSL was really on the pulse with this one. The consensus in most of what I’ve read since then is that the so-called “white paper” was released in order to clear the way for Brennan’s nomination hearing but I’d been thinking it was released in order to get out ahead of the UN drone investigation. Well it turns out that Brennan has been endorsed by Ben Emerson, the lead UN investigator, so I’d say the Obama guys have played their hand pretty well since it seems to serve both purposes. So what do I make of it? And how do I sort it out without devolving into obligatory liberal handwringing, paranoid runnathemill conspiracy theories, or self-important moralizing bombast? (Though now that I think about it, what’d be the point of blogging at all if at least a little of each of those options weren’t still on the table?) I’ve been beating my head in all week trying to figure that out and I’m not sure I’ve gotten anywhere. I’ve started and deleted this post at least 5 times and I have just as many partial drafts typed below. I’ve read every piece on drone warfare/technology/ethics/morality I could bring across multiple reading screens. I currently have no less than fifteen tabs open on the screen in front of me in order to help jog my memory when I lose a thought. I’m beginning to think I’ve gotten in over my head. People have written powerfully about this topic and just like Barack has a much better handle on the English language than I do, so do the journalists and bloggers I’ve been reading – especially this guy. But alas I’ve set myself the task of completing at least two posts a week and I’m already one behind… so here goes.

When I think about drone warfare in an historical context, I contrast it with two developments: the end of mandatory military service and the atomic bomb. (Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s that big a deal.) Once the draft had been brought to an end, the economic elites were less and less likely to take on the burdens of war. The alleged hyper-efficiency of drone technology bears a promise quite the opposite. Instead of politely suggesting the poor, working and lower middle classes shoulder the burdens of war (as the deinstitutionalization movement of the 60s inadvertently did), drone technology offers to relieve all classes of people from such burdens – all, apparently, except a few “informed high level officials”. Whether these officials are the president and a few military and CIA officials or members of a court who will agonize over putting someone on a kill list (and bomb the piss out of them once they’ve done so) is irrelevant because war is not hell – no matter how great the agony – when it is no more real and much less realistic than the latest installment of Call of Duty. Just ask yourself if PTSD or a suicide rate resulting from drone operations would be anything close to what we’ve seen in relation to on-the-ground active duty over the past few years. Drone warfare is arguably an attempt to curb those effects – if only for Americans. So I’m not suggesting we reinstate the draft like James Inhofe and some other conservatives do. Hell, I can’t even say that I think more of us should volunteer. (Someone close to me floated the idea of joining the military recently and, as diplomatically as I could, I replied, “Why don’t you think about becoming an electrician before venturing down that path?”.) I’m just thinking through the social and historical contexts in which drone warfare has emerged.

If the past few years of the Obama administration are any indication of how an administration will act when freed from asking citizens to endure the hells of war, state sanctioned murder is the way of the future. The president said so himself when vaguely addressing the distinct nature of a stateless enemy in the State of the Union a couple nights ago. “The threat these groups pose is evolving. But to meet this threat, we don’t need to send tens of thousands of our sons and daughters abroad or occupy other nations”. Not when we lead the world in drone technology and warfare we don’t. But hey, it’s not as if drone technology is nuclear technology. It’s not like we’re turning the entire Middle East to glass as a few of the knuckleheads I work with say we should. No, this technology is different; it’s surgical. Sure, I’m using a definition of ‘surgical’ that implies malpractice suits are unheard of in surgery but in the spirit of fun with words and what we’d like them to mean I figured I’d play too. The point is, we’re being as accurate as the technology permits and we’re not writing off entire groups of people in the name of national security by wiping out entire cities. Oh, wait… what was that about “young men of military age”? That’s a pretty broad brush. So the technology is different but not us. Imagine.

Here it is. After three posts I think I’ve sorted out my problem with Obama’s use of drone warfare. It allows us to operate under the illusion that we’ll somehow be more effective in the war on terror than the war on poverty or, even more fitting, the war on drugs. It’s alleged accuracy acts as a justification for killing a certain type of person (brown, bearded, angry, and Muslim) just as the war on drugs laid the rationale for oppressing a certain type of person (poor, black, male, and American). I have difficulty believing either ‘war’ does much more than perpetuate what it aims to eliminate. And I hope – in spite of the president – it doesn’t take us forty years to figure it out this time.

I don’t trust people with drones…

So in my last post, I didn’t really get at why Obama’s use of drones is what make’s supporting him such a bitch. Answering that question is easy if the “double tap” air strikes are official or even unofficial “wink wink nudge nudge” policy. But if they’re not, shouldn’t that assuage my anxiety over whether I’m supporting a war criminal? That’d be nice but it’s just not the case. And I think that’s because my anxiety emerges from what the drones embody rather than the drones themselves.

In prior posts I’ve glorified information technology as not just a field leveler but as the essential tool for revolutionary action. In conversation I’ve equated the ideals of the open source movement to the ideals of the founding fathers. (I know, I know. I hate the term too but I’m using shorthand here. It is a blog after all.) I’ve said that the computer today is the musket of revolutionary times. And if I haven’t said those things overtly (or succinctly as I tend too ramble from time to time), they were certainly implied. I stand by those comparisons. But on the other side of revolutionary potential is the capacity to further oppress and kill.The same advances in technology that have made possible the instantaneous worldwide communication of social media play a crucial role in the efficacy of drone warfare. And as that technology has enabled various citizenry to unite and act in the name of common causes so too does it enable various military to isolate and kill targeted individuals. So big deal, right? Less collateral damage and better results. Doesn’t that make that case for employing drone warfare a moral one?

Maybe.

But at the same time this dynamic fits all too well into a distinctly American mythology of moral liberation. Our cinema offers us heroes and vigilantes freed from moral constraints. Our religion offers us salvation without sacrifice, Christ without a crucifix and inner peace without asceticism. Our free market offers us greater and greater returns with lower and lower risk – at least for those that can afford it. But these things are petty when compared to the technology that offers war without sacrifice – technology that makes saying, “Fuck it. Just bomb ’em” carry so little risk. I mean, the sixteen year old American citizen who was killed two weeks after his father was a terrorist too, right? I’ve said before that I believe technology to be neutral in its determinative capacity and that its results emerge from the institutions and policy surrounding it. But I also know that when handed a shovel I start to dig.

More on this in my next post but it’s getting late and I need to sleep.

On a side note…

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Really, Mr. President? Way to reinforce the idea that the only people with something legitimate to say about guns are those that shoot them. Real nice.