'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

'America's Purpose' and the G-SAVE

I am part of a group of people discussing a background paper for a big-looking conference in DC on "Terrorism, security, and America's Purpose", upcoming Sept 6-7.

I guess the organizers got caught by surprise when the Bushies changed the name of the US's current global "challenge" from the GWOT to the G-SAVE (global struggle against violent extremism.) So that's why we still have the outdated T-word there prominently in the conference title.

Anyway, my working group is looking at the "Underlying causes" of terrorism (or violent extremism, whatever.) As for the nature of the discussion we're having, of course my lips are appropriately sealed. But one of the things I contributed there I thought was actually worth sharing with y'all, the faithful readers of JWN. So here it is.

One of the main things that has intrigued me about the present project is that—building on the “universal” kinds of ideas explored at the Madrid conference—our discussion and conference is to explore explicitly how the issues of terrorism and security interact with “America’s purpose.” This is a very serious and timely discussion that we who are US citizens need constantly to recommit to. If we were to allow the terrorists to stifle our ongoing exploration of “America’s purpose” we would, I think, have handed them a very significant victory.

It seems clear to me that gaining clarity about what we think “America’s purpose” actually is in a global environment, what it is perceived to be by others, and finally (and most importantly) what would truly like it to be is an exercise that can help us understand many of the “underlying causes” of terrorism. It can equally help us think through some portions of what we need to do to win the longterm incapacitation of the anti-US, anti-democracy terror networks. Within the rough-and-tumble of world affairs, after all, the US is not simply some inconsequential and passive actor on whom blows are mysteriously rained and that has little capacity to think clearly about the relationships it has with others, or to develop its own, values-led approach to the rest of the world. We are very consequential, and far from passive. Equally importantly, we are often viewed by marginalized others around the world as seeking to dominate and monopolize world affairs, arrogating to ourselves the “right” to determine issues of war and peace, and of global economics, that others in the world consider should be determined through a much more broad based and inclusive process.

Back in the 1990s, Secretary of State Albright coined the term “indispensable nation” for how she viewed Washington’s (in her view, rightful) role in world affairs. After the election of President Bush—and especially since 9/11—the view dominant in Washington has been one of a US “right” to wage not merely pre-emptive but also “preventive” wars, a US “right” to stand aside from the Kyoto Treaty, the ICC, and other painstakingly negotiating global agreements, a US “right” to shuck aside the limitations and constrains of the International Convention Against Torture… in short, a claimed US “right” to do whatever Washington darn’ well pleases in world affairs, with little accountability felt toward anyone else.

There is, of course, an immense gap between this sense of a US exceptionalism in world affairs and the rhetoric (and actual aspiration) of building a world based on the norms of democratic practice—that is, the norms of human equality, the need for consultation and deliberation in decision-making, for compromise, and the seeking of non-coercive, rights-respecting paths toward the future.

From the travels that I have made to numerous other countries and other continents around the world since 9/11 and most particularly since March 2003, I can certainly say that in all of those other societies there is an intense awareness of the enormous size of the gap between our government’s actual practice under President George W. Bush and the pro-”democracy” rhetoric that has continued to flow out of Washington in this same period. Indeed, in recent months the flow of this rhetoric has even increased, making the gap even wider than before. And the (generally quite justified) perception of the size of this gap has done a lot to alienate from the US the support of a world that, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, notably proclaimed “nous sommes tous des americaines.”

This is, I underline, a worldwide phenomenon; but it is not one from which people in Muslim societies are immune. Indeed, given the intense focus that the Bush administration has placed on various Muslim countries, the experience of this gap between US rhetoric and the reality of US policy is probably even more widespread in most Muslim countries than it is elsewhere.

And the lived experience that many, many Muslims of the extent of this gap has very real consequences for us. At one level, it means that Muslim democrats nearly everywhere in the Middle East are desperately eager to distance themselves from any hint that they might have an alliance with the US, since to be seen as being in alliance with washington would, they judge, be a “kiss of death” for their political plans and projects. At another level— one that perhaps concerns us even more in the present discussion—the experience many, many Muslims have of this gap means that those individuals are even less likely than the active Muslim democrats to want to be seen—by others, or by themselves—as acting in operational concert with Washington. To be specific, and referring back to my earlier discussion of the need for any successful counter-terror strategy to focus considerable attention on ending the condoning of terrorism within the broader circles of society, people who perceive the US as a violence-prone, arrogant, and unjust power are far less likely to come forward with tips or hints that they might have about people in their own communities whom they suspect of planning future acts of anti-US terrorism. I am not talking here about people who bear any fondness in their hearts for either the goals or the means of the terrorists. I am talking about ordinary, most probably fairly pious members of Muslim societies. Rather than—in line with the many existing Muslim-religious injunctions against the use of terroristic violence—taking any action to thwart the plans of the terrorists, it is now reasonable to assume that many of these “ordinary, pious” Muslims around the world would now have more of the attitude of “a plague on both your houses.” And so the areas of the world where the terror networks enlist their recruits, their supporters, and their financial backing continue to fester.

A call to Americans for some considerable self-reflection and soul-searching about the gap between our lofty, egalitarian rhetoric and our government’s actual practice is not a call to “give in” to any of the terrorists’ demands, at all. It is something that we should do, that we need to do, for our own integrity and our own social wholeness, anyway. Beyond that, if as Americans we are truly committed to the proposition that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men [and women] are created equal…” then we need to do some heavy-duty rethinking about how to make this true at the international level, as well as within our own borders. The Founding Fathers did not, as we can see, speak of all US citizens being created equal; but rather, the whole of humanity.

So rededicating ourselves to the building of a more equitable and more mutually accountable world is something that we Americans ought to be doing, anyway. The “bonus” is that if we do this seriously, and reach out to repair ruptured relations with other people as we do so, we will also over the medium term be diminishing the currently large pool of actual and potential “condoners” of terrorism. I can’t see that anything we can do to counter terrorism would have a bigger impact than this in building our citizenry’s true longterm security.

So that was my big contribution. Now, it'll be interesting to see how many of those ideas get picked up in the resulting working-paper... Watch this space! And of course, as always, I'm sure you'll send in your comments...