September 11 and Terror War:The Bush Legacy and the Risks of Unilateralism

[TruthIsAll]

Very interesting. And this was written in Aug. 2002, before the war.

http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/papers/sept11kell.htm

September 11 and Terror War:
The Bush Legacy and the Risks of Unilateralism

By Douglas Kellner

Table of Contents
Introduction: The Bush Administration and the September 11 Terror Attacks

0.1 The Bush Administration, Unilateralism, and Terror War
0.2 The Bush Administration and its Failure to Detect and Stop the September 11 Terrorist Attacks
0.3 Bushonomics: Economic Crisis, Scandal, and Corruption
0.4 The Bush Reich

1. Theorizing September 11
1.1. Social Theory, Falsification, and the Events of History
1.2 The Bush Administrations, the CIA, and Blowback
1.3 September 11 and Terror War: Has Everything Changed?

2. September 11, the Media, and War Fever
2.1 The Terror Spectacle
2.2 Conceptualizing the Event: September 11 and the Dominant Media Frames
2.3 War-Mongering, Patriotism, and Media Propaganda

3. Operation Enduring Freedom and the Proliferation of Terror War
3.1 Osama bin Laden's Media War
3.2 Operation Infinite War

3.3 All Anthrax, All the Time

4. Month One: Special Operations, Bombing, and Propaganda War
4.1 Hearts and Minds
4.2 Civilian Casualties and Growing Criticism of U.S. Military Policy
4.3 Back to Politics

5. Month Two: The Retreat of the Taliban and Afghan Chaos
5.1 The Fall of Mazir-i-Sharif and Kabul
5.2 Tragedy and Fear, Welcome to the Terror Age
5.3 Ironies of the Cold War and the Bush-Bin Laden Connections

6. Collapse of the Taliban
6.1 The Battle for Kunduz and Prison Uprising
6.2 The American Taliban
6.3 A Few Honorable People
6.4 The Fall of Kandahar

7. The Hunt for bin Laden
7.1 At Home with bin Laden and the Saudis
7.2 The Bombing of Tora Bora and Bin Laden's Escape
7.3 Omar Under the Gun, Afghans Bombed, and a New President

8. The New Barbarism: World in Turmoil
8.1 Regression, Reaction, and Barbarians Amok
8.2 Prisoners, New U.S. Military Bases, and Proxy War

9. The War at Home: Political Battles and the Enron Scandal
9.1 Family Friends: Bush Administrations and Enron
9.2 Enron, the S&L Scandal, and the Bush Family
9.3 Pretzels, the Enron Collapse, and Bush's Insider Trading
9.4 Enron in the Public Eye

10. The Afghan Quagmire, the “Axis of Evil,” and Dangers of Bush Administration Unilateralism
10.1 “Detainees,” “Unlawful Combatants,” and the Guantanamo Bay Fiasco
10.2 Afghan and Other Military Interventions
10.3 The “Axis of Evil,” Unilateralism Amok, and Bush's Cock-eyed Imperialism

11. The New Militarism, Lies and Propaganda, and more Afghan Adventures
11.1 The Rise (and Fall?) of the Pentagon Ministry of Truth and the Lies of Bushspeak
11.2 The Battle of Anaconda and Other Afghan Skirmishes
11.3 Waiting for the War on Iraq and Expanding Bush and Cheney Scandals

Conclusion, For Democracy and Against Terrorism and Militarism
References

..........................................................................

0.4 The Bush Reich

The consequences of the Bush administration's failed Terror War policies and domestic policy outrages are frightening. The Bush Reich seems to be erecting an Orwellian totalitarian state apparatus and plunging the world into ongoing war that could generate a military and police state both domestically and abroad. In his prophetic novel 1984, George Orwell engaged a grim condition of total warfare in which his fictional state Oceania ruled its fearful and intimidated citizens through war, police state terror, surveillance, and the suppression of civil liberties. This constant warfare kept Oceania's citizens in a perpetual situation of mobilization and submission. Further, the Orwellian state controlled language, thought, and behavior through domination of the media, and was thereby able to change the very meaning of language (“war is peace”) and to constantly re-write history itself. <20>

Orwell's futuristic novel was, of course, an attack on the Soviet Union and therefore a favorite of conservatives over the years, but it uncannily describes the horrors and dangers of the regime of George W. Bush. Orwell's totalitarian state had a two-way television screen that monitored its citizens' behavior and a system of spies and informers that would report on politically incorrect thought and activity. Bush's police state has its “USA Patriot Act” that enables the state to monitor the communications of e-mail, wireless, telephones, and other media, while allowing the state to arrest citizens without warrants, to hold them indefinitely, to monitor their conversations, and to submit them to military tribunals, all of which would be governed by the dictates of the Supreme Leader (in this case, a dangerously demagogic figure-head, ruled by rightwing extremists).

The Bush administration also has its TIPS (Terrorist Information and Prevention System) program that would turn citizens into spies who would report suspicious activities to the government and would recruit truck drivers, mail carriers, meter readers, and others who would “report what they see in public areas and along transportation routes,” thus turning workers into informants. In addition, John Ashcroft, U.S. Attorney General, has proposed concentration camps in the U.S. for citizens that he considers “enemy combatants.” <21> Sign me up, because I'm an enemy of Orwellian-fascism, Bush-style, and it is clear that the U.S. needs a regime change if its democracy is to be preserved.

With their Orwellian-sounding Office of Homeland Security, proposed Office of Strategic Information, Shadow Government, and “USA Patriot Act,” the Bush administration has in place the institutions and apparatus of a totalitarian government. Since Election 2000, the Bush clique has practiced a form of Orwellian “Bushspeak” that endlessly repeats the Big Lie of the moment. Bush and his propaganda ministry engage in daily propagandistic spin to push its policies and to slime their opponents, while showing no regard whatsoever for the canons of truth and justice that conservatives have traditionally defended. <22>

To keep the public in a state of fear, Bush and his administration have repeatedly evoked the specter of renewed terrorist attacks and promised an all-out war against an “axis of evil.” This threatening “axis,” to be defined periodically by the Bush administration, allegedly possesses “instruments of mass destruction” that could be used against the U.S. Almost without exception, the mainstream media have been a propaganda conduit for the Bush administration Terror War and have helped generate fear and even mass hysteria. The mainstream corporate media have thus largely failed to advance an understanding of the serious threats to the U.S. and to the global economy and polity, and to debate the range of possible responses to the September 11 attacks and their respective merits and possible consequences.

The Bush administration Terror War raises the specter that Orwell's 1984 might provide the template of the new millennium, as the world is plunged into endless wars, as freedom and democracy are being snuffed out in the name of freedom, as language loses meaning, and as history is constantly revised (as Bush and his scribes constantly rewrote his own personal history). There is thus the danger that Orwell's dark grim dystopia may replace the (ideological) utopia of the “information society,” the “new economy,” and a prosperous and democratic globalization that had been the dominant ideology and vision of the past decade. Questions arise: Will the Bush administration Terror War lead the world to apocalypse and ruin through constant war and the erection of totalitarian police states over the façade of fragile democracy? Or can more multilateral and global solutions be found to the dangers of terrorism that will strengthen democracy and increase the chances for peace and security?

There is indeed a danger that Terror War will be a force of historical regression, and the motor of destruction of the global economy, liberal polity, and democracy itself, all to be replaced by an aggressive militarism and totalitarian police state. It could well be that Orwell will be the prophet of a coming New Barbarism with endless war, state repression, and enforced control of thought and discourse, and that George W. Bush and his minions are the architects of an Orwellian future.

It could also be the case, however, that the Taliban, bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and the Bush administration represent obsolete and reactionary forces that will be swept away by the inexorable forces of globalization and liberal democracy. The opposing sides in the current Terror War of the Bush administration reactionaries and Al Qaeda could be perceived as representing complementary poles of an atavistic and premodern version of Islam and nihilistic terrorism confronted by reactionary rightwing conservatism and militarism. <23> In this scenario, both poles can be perceived as disruptive and regressive forces in a global world that need to be overcome to create genuine historical progress. If this is the case, Terror War would be a momentary interlude in which two obsolete historical forces battle it out, ultimately to be replaced by more sane and democratic globalizing forces.

This is, of course, an optimistic scenario and probably, for the foreseeable future, progressive forces will be locked-into intense battles against the opposing forces of Islamic terrorism and rightwing militarism. Yet if democracy and the human species are to survive, global movements against militarism and for social justice, ecology, and peace must emerge to combat and replace the atavistic forces of the present. As a new millennium unfolds, the human race has regressed into a New Barbarism unforeseeable prior to September 11 (see Chapter 8). If civilization is to survive, individuals must perceive their enemies and organize to fight for a better future, an argument I lay out in the Conclusion to this book.

Consequently, I argue that Bush administration militarism is not the way to fight international terrorism, but is rather the road to an Orwellian future in which democracy and freedom will be in dire peril and the future of the human species will be in question. These are frightening times and it is essential that all citizens become informed about the fateful conflicts of the present, gain clear understanding of what is at stake, and realize that they must oppose both international terrorism and Bushian militarism and an Orwellian police-state.

September 11, the subsequent Terror War, the Enron scandals and other often Bush-Cheney related corporate scandals that emerged during these events and the ongoing misadventures of the Bush administration constitute what I am calling “the New Barbarism.” It was scandalous that civilized countries tolerated the Taliban and allowed the bin Laden Al Qaeda network to develop, while the Bush Terror War unleashed new forces of barbarism now evident in Afghanistan, the Middle East, and elsewhere in the world. The term “New Barbarism” denotes frightening historical regression in an era of highly uncivilized and violent behavior. While one would hope that the New Millennium would signal a chance for progress and historical optimism, instead the human species is moving into a situation where the universal values of the Enlightenment, the institutions of democracy, the global economy, and the earth and human species itself are faced with challenges of survival.

As a response to the September 11 terror attacks, the Bush administration has answered with an intensified militarism that threatens to generate an era of Terror War, a new arms race, accelerated military violence, U.S. support of authoritarian regimes, an assault on human rights, constant threats to democracy, and destabilizing of the world economy. The New Barbarism also describes Bush administration practices of providing political favors to its largest corporate and other supporters, unleashing unrestrained Wild West capitalism, exemplified in the Enron scandals, and a form of capitalist cronyism whereby Bush administration family and friends are provided with government favors, while social welfare programs, environmental legislation, and protection of rights and freedoms are curtailed.

The corporate media, especially television, are part and parcel of the New Barbarism, spewing forth almost unopposed propaganda for the Bush administration, fanning war fever and terrorist hysteria, while cutting back on vigorous political debate and varied sources of information as it produces waves of ideologically conservative talk shows and mindless entertainment. I have been closely tracking the media and the crisis of democracy for over a decade now (see Kellner 1990, 1992, 1995, and 2001) and the current crisis marks the low point of U.S. media performance. The U.S. corporate media at first fanned the flames of war and hysteria (see Chapter 2), and then became a conduit for Bush administration and Pentagon propaganda rather than a forum of reasoned debate, serious discussion, exposure of the dangers and failures of Bush administration responses to terrorism, and the exploration of more sane alternatives.

In view of the enormity of the events of September 11, and their frightening aftermath and consequences, it is now appropriate to reflect on what happened, why it happened, and what lessons we can learn as we seek to apply such insights to the crisis that we now find ourselves in. It's a time for honing our wits, not losing our wits. A time for intelligence, not knee-jerk reaction, a time for thought and not for hysteria. It's a time for reflection, figuring out what went wrong, and for informed and intelligent action that will get at the source of our problems. It's also a time for stocktaking, taking account individually and collectively of our views of the world, and our everyday behavior. A situation of crisis provides an opportunity for positive change and reconstruction, as well as barbaric regression. Thus, now is the time for reflection on such things as democracy, globalization, and the flaws, limitations, and fallacies in our individual thought and action, as well as problems with U.S. institutions and leadership.

Momentous historical events, like the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the subsequent Terror War, test social theories and provide a challenge to give a convincing account of the event and its consequences. They also provide cultural studies an opportunity to trace how political and ideological discourses, propaganda, and mythologies play themselves out in media discourse and representations. Major historical events and media spectacles also provide an opportunity to examine how the broadcast and other dominant media of communication perform or fail to perform their democratic role of providing accurate information and discussion.

In the following analyses, I will first try to make sense of the September 11 events, theorizing what happened, how and why it happened, and what novelties and shifts in the current socio-political situation emerged out of the terror attacks on the United States (Chapter 1). Drawing upon key contextual accounts of earlier U.S. intervention in Afghanistan and the Middle East to provide historical background for the terrorist attacks, I attempt to help explain why the U.S. was subject to such violent assaults and what specific policies and forces in the recent past supported, armed, and trained the terrorist groups. I suggest how certain dominant social theories were put in question during the momentous and world-shaking events of fall 2001. In Chapter 2, I examine how highly problematic discourses circulated through the media, and how the media on the whole performed disastrously and dangerously, whipping up war hysteria, while failing to provide a coherent account of what happened, why it happened, and what would count as responsible and intelligent U.S. responses to the terrorist attacks.

Subsequent chapters describe U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan, the ways that dominant corporate media in the U.S. legitimated military action, and the critical discourses and accounts left out of the U.S. corporate media, especially television (Chapters 3-10). These chapters unfold the narrative of the vicissitudes of the Afghanistan Terror War and will systematically compare the accounts of this spectacle presented by the Bush administration, Pentagon, and U.S. corporate broadcast media with more critical media accounts from U.S., British, and other sources. A concluding chapter sketches out the need for a global social movement against terrorism and militarism and for peace, democracy, social justice, and responsible environmentalism.

Quite possibly we will never know exactly what happened in the Afghanistan war. I published one of the first books on the Gulf War (Kellner 1992), largely based on Internet sources, the newspapers of record, and press conference and other government material available on the Internet. I followed closely subsequent memoirs of military participants in the war, journalists providing first-person accounts, and other studies. But no definitive history of the Gulf War has yet emerged, and we still do not know all of the shadowy details of relations between George H. W. Bush and Saddam Hussein, of why Iraq invaded Kuwait and what knowledge the U.S. did or did not have of Iraqi plans, how the U.S. orchestrated the Gulf war, or what actually happened. Yet it is always possible to expose the fallacies and holes in official accounts, to expose lies and disinformation, and to provide contextualization and interpretations of major historical events like the Gulf War, the September 11 terror attacks, and the Afghanistan war.

In any case, I draw upon the best sources available to me in order to provide an account of what happened in the September 11 terror attacks and the succeeding Terror War. I have closely chronicled the actions of the Reagan and Bush administrations that provide many of the same personnel in Bush Junior's administration. In this study, I draw on daily readings of several major newspapers, regular viewing of the British and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, ABC, and other U.S. television networks, and articles collected at www.bushwatch.com, www.buzzflash.com,
Phil Agre's Red Rock Eater, and a variety of Internet sources, as well as scholarly texts that contextualize and interpret the September 11 terror attacks and subsequent Terror War.

more...

[Coldgothicwoman]

1. Are the other chapters on the web?

Forgive me if I accidentally overlooked something, I'm happily having a drink. But can I read the other chapters?

[TruthIsAll]

2. You cannot read the chapters, only the intro. See the link. n/t

.

[Coldgothicwoman]

3. Okay.

That was what I had thought, since I had read the whole Intro. And here I was hoping the whole thing was available! :P