The Legitimacy of Crisis: Why We Must Confront the War on Terror
Thus far, campaigns for the mid-term elections have barely touched upon the war on terror. Perhaps we should welcome that. After all, it probably indicates what a hollow shell the WOT has become of late. But like most problems, the WOT will not go away if we simply ignore it. Let us not forget that 18 years after the end of the Reagan administration America is still fighting a war on drugs.
And the WOT is unlikely to remain as inert a political issue as the war on drugs has become. That is for the simple reason that the WOT offers the temptation of a political carte blanche to those who can control it. For when the raison d’etat becomes the elimination of risk, preventing random violence is a political program that carries a significant moral force. And in a political climate without a clear and coherent direction, the war on terror can suggest purpose and authority. It does so because it conjures an enemy that must be dealt with now, with the greatest dispatch and effectiveness. Because terrorism is seen as an exceptional foe, to whom the only response is action, the terrain of the war on terror is one of crisis and immediate action, not reflective thinking and deliberate planning. What this really means is that the impression of effectiveness - ie the application of power - becomes its own standard, because 'meeting the threat' crowds out discussion of whether this threat deserves such attention. In this way, the crisis character of the war on terror manages to produce the image of a self-confident, purposeful leader, lifting himself above the petty squabbles of domestic conflict.
These features of the war on terror has been noted on our blog any number of times. Our leaders, Blair and Bush foremost amongst them, love to suggest they are shouldering a great burden on behalf of society, as if they directly bear the weight of keeping 60mn or 300mn souls safe at night. They might adopt slightly different styles in so doing (Bush the tough-talking everyman who says ‘Bring 'Em On’, Blair, a noble isolated figure tortured by the terrible choices he must face) but the message is the same. They want to claim an unambiguous moral purpose, raising themselves above the status of the compromised, cynical politicians of whom we have all become weary.
This is highly problematic for the normal functioning of democracy. In a healthy democracy, we elect leaders based on the principles and policies by which they intend to govern during the period until the next election. Yet how can we hold our politicians to account, if they keep claiming their actions are driven by a higher, more immediate, rationale about which there can be little debate? By stating that they are above politics, that they need to be free of partisan bickering and deal making, our leaders undermine our democratic control. Permitting only debate over tactics and strategies in this 'crisis', they do not want to permit proper political debate over the ends themselves.
We would not want to give the impression that the war on terror is the only issue through which our politicians are trying to short-change democracy. Today there is a tendency to paint a range of issues with the brush of crisis. Al Gore’s campaign on global warming has something of the same character—Gore’s program encourages the suspension of ordinary political discourse (in particular overcoming partisan disagreement) in the pursuit of a greater goal. And this is not just a post-9/11 phenomenon. During the Clinton administration, international politics proved a constant source of moral legitimacy; from violent interventions in Bosnia or Haiti, to peace negotiations in the Middle East and Ireland.
We do not want our criticism to be taken in the same alarmist and hysterical light with which the war on terror itself is discussed. It's not that our constitution is on its last legs, fascism around the corner, and democracy stamped out with an iron fist. This may have been the relationship between crisis and democracy in the past - war and domestic crisis was a way of consciously undemocratic forces to redirect rising democratic forces away from greater control of government. In our context, however, the problem is that the political ends of the crisis-mongers are unclear—indeed external legitimacy (the immediacy of the crisis) is pursued partly due to a lack of ideas about what those ends might be. Thus, the suspension of certain democratic functions has an oddly muted character—democracy seems to be in decay more than it is being stamped out. The war on terror serves as the most recent crisis by which the inability to develop a positive, forward-looking direction for our society is concealed behind a mask of hysterical activity.
This is why we must confront, not ignore, the war on terror. But not in the way that the Democrats and liberal opponents of the Bush administration have taken it up -- as a technical discussion of how best to fight the war. That, in fact, is only an attempt to seize the moral authority of the war for themselves. What we need is to confront the principles that underlie the war on terror. When they say security we need to ask the bigger question: what are we securing? For as we have argued here repeatedly, there can be no program that makes us absolutely safe; we need to engage in a discussion about what can make us live better lives, not necessarily safer ones. We must pin our politicians down and stop them escaping into the universe of moralized hysteria that allows them to avoid such questions.
And the WOT is unlikely to remain as inert a political issue as the war on drugs has become. That is for the simple reason that the WOT offers the temptation of a political carte blanche to those who can control it. For when the raison d’etat becomes the elimination of risk, preventing random violence is a political program that carries a significant moral force. And in a political climate without a clear and coherent direction, the war on terror can suggest purpose and authority. It does so because it conjures an enemy that must be dealt with now, with the greatest dispatch and effectiveness. Because terrorism is seen as an exceptional foe, to whom the only response is action, the terrain of the war on terror is one of crisis and immediate action, not reflective thinking and deliberate planning. What this really means is that the impression of effectiveness - ie the application of power - becomes its own standard, because 'meeting the threat' crowds out discussion of whether this threat deserves such attention. In this way, the crisis character of the war on terror manages to produce the image of a self-confident, purposeful leader, lifting himself above the petty squabbles of domestic conflict.
These features of the war on terror has been noted on our blog any number of times. Our leaders, Blair and Bush foremost amongst them, love to suggest they are shouldering a great burden on behalf of society, as if they directly bear the weight of keeping 60mn or 300mn souls safe at night. They might adopt slightly different styles in so doing (Bush the tough-talking everyman who says ‘Bring 'Em On’, Blair, a noble isolated figure tortured by the terrible choices he must face) but the message is the same. They want to claim an unambiguous moral purpose, raising themselves above the status of the compromised, cynical politicians of whom we have all become weary.
This is highly problematic for the normal functioning of democracy. In a healthy democracy, we elect leaders based on the principles and policies by which they intend to govern during the period until the next election. Yet how can we hold our politicians to account, if they keep claiming their actions are driven by a higher, more immediate, rationale about which there can be little debate? By stating that they are above politics, that they need to be free of partisan bickering and deal making, our leaders undermine our democratic control. Permitting only debate over tactics and strategies in this 'crisis', they do not want to permit proper political debate over the ends themselves.
We would not want to give the impression that the war on terror is the only issue through which our politicians are trying to short-change democracy. Today there is a tendency to paint a range of issues with the brush of crisis. Al Gore’s campaign on global warming has something of the same character—Gore’s program encourages the suspension of ordinary political discourse (in particular overcoming partisan disagreement) in the pursuit of a greater goal. And this is not just a post-9/11 phenomenon. During the Clinton administration, international politics proved a constant source of moral legitimacy; from violent interventions in Bosnia or Haiti, to peace negotiations in the Middle East and Ireland.
We do not want our criticism to be taken in the same alarmist and hysterical light with which the war on terror itself is discussed. It's not that our constitution is on its last legs, fascism around the corner, and democracy stamped out with an iron fist. This may have been the relationship between crisis and democracy in the past - war and domestic crisis was a way of consciously undemocratic forces to redirect rising democratic forces away from greater control of government. In our context, however, the problem is that the political ends of the crisis-mongers are unclear—indeed external legitimacy (the immediacy of the crisis) is pursued partly due to a lack of ideas about what those ends might be. Thus, the suspension of certain democratic functions has an oddly muted character—democracy seems to be in decay more than it is being stamped out. The war on terror serves as the most recent crisis by which the inability to develop a positive, forward-looking direction for our society is concealed behind a mask of hysterical activity.
This is why we must confront, not ignore, the war on terror. But not in the way that the Democrats and liberal opponents of the Bush administration have taken it up -- as a technical discussion of how best to fight the war. That, in fact, is only an attempt to seize the moral authority of the war for themselves. What we need is to confront the principles that underlie the war on terror. When they say security we need to ask the bigger question: what are we securing? For as we have argued here repeatedly, there can be no program that makes us absolutely safe; we need to engage in a discussion about what can make us live better lives, not necessarily safer ones. We must pin our politicians down and stop them escaping into the universe of moralized hysteria that allows them to avoid such questions.
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