Daniel Morris
12-11-2003, 09:19 PM
I've been dutifully reading The Nation for years. Since 9/11, the magazine has been sliding on a downhill slope toward total intellectual catastrophe. This week, it finally got there.
Here are some selections from "American Apocalypse," a lengthy essay by Robert Jay Lifton, in which the U.S. is not only made the moral equivalent of Al-Qaeda, but also the nation's response to 9/11 is analogized to the rise of Hitlerism in Germany. Enjoy...
More than mere domination, the American superpower now seeks to control history...entitled to dominate and control precisely because it is a superpower.
The humiliation [of 9/11], together with American world ambitions, however, precluded dealing with the attacks as what they were--terrorism by a small group of determined zealots, not war.
I'm continually amused by essayists who continue to suggest that our operation in Afghanistan was some kind of overreaction against the equivalent of -- to use the example Lifton suggests -- Aum Shinrikyo.
We know from history that collective humiliation can be a goad to various kinds of aggressive behavior--as has been true of bin Laden and Al Qaeda. It was also true of the Nazis...[the] psychological transformation of weakness and shame into a collective sense of pride and life-power, as well as power over others, can release enormous amounts of aggressive energy. Such dangerous potential has been present from the beginning in the American "war" on terrorism.
That's right, folks -- Operation Enduring Freedom has just been compared to the Blitzkrieg.
At no time did Bush see his task as mounting a coordinated international operation against terrorism, for which he could have enlisted most of the governments of the world. Rather, upon hearing of the second plane crashing into the second tower, he remembers thinking: "They had declared war on us, and I made up my mind at that moment that we were going to war."
Is Lifton expecting me to believe that the U.S. did not and has not mounted "a coordinated international operation against terrorism"? This operation was put into motion within hours of the collapse of the towers, and continues today in dozens of nations, European, Islamic, and otherwise, and in fact constitutes the main effort of the U.S. response to the Qaeda attacks. Further, is Lifton expecting me to believe that the ruling Taliban regime's sponsorship of Al-Qaeda -- including a post-9/11 refusal to hand Bin Laden over -- does not constitute an act of war between states?
War then becomes heroic, even mythic, a task that must be carried out for the defense of one's nation, to sustain its special historical destiny and the immortality of its people.
War, a task that must be carried out for the defense of one's nation? Imagine!! And I don't know about the "immortality of its people" -- I think a more pragmatic motive is "the continued non-mortality of its people," if you catch my drift.
The war on terrorism is apocalyptic, then, exactly because it is militarized and yet amorphous, without limits of time or place, and has no clear end.
The war on North Korea, fought in 1950-53, has still not ended. Tens of thousands of U.S. servicemen on the 38th Parallel still fight that war, technically speaking. But the strategic goal of that still-raging war was and is quite obvious: to prevent the conquest, by force, of South Korea by the communist North. Would Lifton define the Korean War as "apocalyptic" given his criteria of amorphous limitless?
(And I hope I can be excused for first thinking of Qaeda's stated intentions to use nuclear weapons against cities as being somewhat more "apocalyptic" than our "amorphous" efforts to prevent the same.)
Our excessive response to Islamist attacks creates more terrorists and more terrorist attacks, which in turn leads to an escalation of the war on terrorism, and so on. The projected "victory" becomes a form of aggressive longing, of sustained illusion, of an unending "Fourth World War" and a mythic cleansing--of terrorists, of evil, of our own fear. The American military apocalyptic can then be said to partner and act in concert with the Islamist apocalyptic.
That's right, folks -- "to partner and act in concert with the Islamist apocalyptic." With such a nightmarish synergy between the U.S. military and the terrorists it has partnered with, it's amazing to me that New York and Washington are still standing as of late on Dec. 11, 2003.
Lifton's prescription?....
To renounce the claim to total power would bring relief not only to everyone else but, soon enough, to the leaders and followers of the superpower itself.
What does this even mean? Give our Security Council veto to Botswana? Dissolve the 101st Airborne Division? Or just help more old ladies cross the street? I somehow doubt that Dubya will feel "relief" by renouncing America's strategic position in the world -- and I sure as shit wouldn't.
[The superpower] becomes a Sisyphus with bombs, able to set off explosions but unable to cope with its own burden, unable to roll its heavy stone to the top of the hill in Hades. Perhaps the crucial step in ridding ourselves of the syndrome is recognizing that history cannot be controlled, fluidly or otherwise.
Thanks, genius! That is real useful advice in formulating foreign policy.
Renouncing omnipotence would make our leaders themselves less fearful of weakness, and diminish their inclination to instill fear in their people as a means of enlisting them for illusory military efforts at world hegemony. Without the need for invulnerability, everyone would have much less to be afraid of.
For this I pay a $36/year subscription. Sign me up for world hegemony.
Here are some selections from "American Apocalypse," a lengthy essay by Robert Jay Lifton, in which the U.S. is not only made the moral equivalent of Al-Qaeda, but also the nation's response to 9/11 is analogized to the rise of Hitlerism in Germany. Enjoy...
More than mere domination, the American superpower now seeks to control history...entitled to dominate and control precisely because it is a superpower.
The humiliation [of 9/11], together with American world ambitions, however, precluded dealing with the attacks as what they were--terrorism by a small group of determined zealots, not war.
I'm continually amused by essayists who continue to suggest that our operation in Afghanistan was some kind of overreaction against the equivalent of -- to use the example Lifton suggests -- Aum Shinrikyo.
We know from history that collective humiliation can be a goad to various kinds of aggressive behavior--as has been true of bin Laden and Al Qaeda. It was also true of the Nazis...[the] psychological transformation of weakness and shame into a collective sense of pride and life-power, as well as power over others, can release enormous amounts of aggressive energy. Such dangerous potential has been present from the beginning in the American "war" on terrorism.
That's right, folks -- Operation Enduring Freedom has just been compared to the Blitzkrieg.
At no time did Bush see his task as mounting a coordinated international operation against terrorism, for which he could have enlisted most of the governments of the world. Rather, upon hearing of the second plane crashing into the second tower, he remembers thinking: "They had declared war on us, and I made up my mind at that moment that we were going to war."
Is Lifton expecting me to believe that the U.S. did not and has not mounted "a coordinated international operation against terrorism"? This operation was put into motion within hours of the collapse of the towers, and continues today in dozens of nations, European, Islamic, and otherwise, and in fact constitutes the main effort of the U.S. response to the Qaeda attacks. Further, is Lifton expecting me to believe that the ruling Taliban regime's sponsorship of Al-Qaeda -- including a post-9/11 refusal to hand Bin Laden over -- does not constitute an act of war between states?
War then becomes heroic, even mythic, a task that must be carried out for the defense of one's nation, to sustain its special historical destiny and the immortality of its people.
War, a task that must be carried out for the defense of one's nation? Imagine!! And I don't know about the "immortality of its people" -- I think a more pragmatic motive is "the continued non-mortality of its people," if you catch my drift.
The war on terrorism is apocalyptic, then, exactly because it is militarized and yet amorphous, without limits of time or place, and has no clear end.
The war on North Korea, fought in 1950-53, has still not ended. Tens of thousands of U.S. servicemen on the 38th Parallel still fight that war, technically speaking. But the strategic goal of that still-raging war was and is quite obvious: to prevent the conquest, by force, of South Korea by the communist North. Would Lifton define the Korean War as "apocalyptic" given his criteria of amorphous limitless?
(And I hope I can be excused for first thinking of Qaeda's stated intentions to use nuclear weapons against cities as being somewhat more "apocalyptic" than our "amorphous" efforts to prevent the same.)
Our excessive response to Islamist attacks creates more terrorists and more terrorist attacks, which in turn leads to an escalation of the war on terrorism, and so on. The projected "victory" becomes a form of aggressive longing, of sustained illusion, of an unending "Fourth World War" and a mythic cleansing--of terrorists, of evil, of our own fear. The American military apocalyptic can then be said to partner and act in concert with the Islamist apocalyptic.
That's right, folks -- "to partner and act in concert with the Islamist apocalyptic." With such a nightmarish synergy between the U.S. military and the terrorists it has partnered with, it's amazing to me that New York and Washington are still standing as of late on Dec. 11, 2003.
Lifton's prescription?....
To renounce the claim to total power would bring relief not only to everyone else but, soon enough, to the leaders and followers of the superpower itself.
What does this even mean? Give our Security Council veto to Botswana? Dissolve the 101st Airborne Division? Or just help more old ladies cross the street? I somehow doubt that Dubya will feel "relief" by renouncing America's strategic position in the world -- and I sure as shit wouldn't.
[The superpower] becomes a Sisyphus with bombs, able to set off explosions but unable to cope with its own burden, unable to roll its heavy stone to the top of the hill in Hades. Perhaps the crucial step in ridding ourselves of the syndrome is recognizing that history cannot be controlled, fluidly or otherwise.
Thanks, genius! That is real useful advice in formulating foreign policy.
Renouncing omnipotence would make our leaders themselves less fearful of weakness, and diminish their inclination to instill fear in their people as a means of enlisting them for illusory military efforts at world hegemony. Without the need for invulnerability, everyone would have much less to be afraid of.
For this I pay a $36/year subscription. Sign me up for world hegemony.