Ethos: The Practical Ethics Blog

As the administration mounts its surge/escalation of upwards of ~45,000 troops (~20,000 combat) in Bahgdad, Andy Davison sends us this reminder of what happens to the best laid plans of imperial ambition.

In the Sixth Year of the Peloponnesian War: The Invasion of Aetolia by Demosthenes of Athens

Edited by Andy Davison

“Demosthenes had … been persuaded by the Messenians that it was a fine opportunity for him, having so large an army assembled, to attack the Aetolians… The Aetolian nation, although numerous and warlike, yet dwelt in unwalled villages scattered far apart, and had nothing but light armour, and might, according to the Messenians, be subdued without much difficulty before succours could arrive. The plan which they recommended was to attack first the Apodotians, next the Ophionians, and after these the Eurytanians, who are the largest tribe in Aetolia, and speak, as is said, a language exceedingly difficult to understand… These once subdued, the rest would easily come in.

To this plan Demosthenes consented, not only to please the Messenians, but also in the belief that by adding the Aetolians to his other continental allies he would be able, without aid from home, to march against the Boeotians …

His base he established at Oeneon in Locris, as the Ozolian Locrians were allies of Athens and were to meet him with all their forces in the interior. Being neighbours of the Aetolians and armed in the same way, it was thought that they would be of great service upon the expedition, from their acquaintance with the localities and the warfare of the inhabitants.

After bivouacking with the army in the precinct of Nemean Zeus, in which the poet Hesiod is said to have been killed by the people of the country, according to an oracle which had foretold that he should die in Nemea, Demosthenes set out at daybreak to invade Aetolia. The first day he took Potidania, the next Krokyle, and the third Tichium, where he halted and sent back the booty …

Meanwhile the Aetolians had been aware of his design from the moment of its formation, and as soon as the army invaded their country came up in great force with all their tribes; even the most remote Ophionians, the Bomiensians, and Calliensians, who extend towards the Malian Gulf, being among the number.

The Messenians, however, adhered to their original advice. Assuring Demosthenes that the Aetolians were an easy conquest, they urged him to push on as rapidly as possible, and to try to take the villages as fast as he came up to them, without waiting until the whole nation should be in arms against him. Led on by his advisers and trusting in his fortune, as he had met with no opposition … he advanced and stormed Aegitium, the inhabitants flying before him and posting themselves upon the hills above the town, which stood on high ground about nine miles from the sea.

Meanwhile the Aetolians had gathered to the rescue, and now attacked the Athenians and their allies, running down from the hills on every side and darting their javelins, falling back when the Athenian army advanced, and coming on as it retired; and for a long while the battle was of this character, alternate advance and retreat, in both which operations the Athenians had the worst.

Still as long as their archers had arrows left and were able to use them, they held out, the light-armed Aetolians retiring before the arrows; but after the captain of the archers had been killed and his men scattered, the soldiers, wearied out with the constant repetition of the same exertions and hard pressed by the Aetolians with their javelins, at last turned and fled, and falling into pathless gullies and places that they were unacquainted with, thus perished, the Messenian Chromon, their guide, having also unfortunately been killed.

A great many were overtaken in the pursuit by the swift-footed and light-armed Aetolians, and fell beneath their javelins; the greater number however missed their road and rushed into the wood, which had no ways out, and which was soon fired and burnt round them by the enemy. Indeed the Athenian army fell victims to death in every form, and suffered all the vicissitudes of flight; the survivors escaped with difficulty to the sea and Oeneon in Locris, whence they had set out.

Many of the allies were killed, and about one hundred and twenty Athenian heavy infantry, not a man less, and all in the prime of life. These were by far the best men in the city of Athens that fell during this war. Among the slain was also Procles, the colleague of Demosthenes. Meanwhile the Athenians took up their dead under truce from the Aetolians, and retired to Naupactus, and from thence went in their ships to Athens; Demosthenes staying behind in Naupactus and in the neighbourhood, being afraid [for now] to face the Athenians after the disaster.”

Andy Davison :: Mar.01.2007 :: Ethics, Politics :: No Comments »

Disappointed by the vengeful manner in which Saddam Hussein was executed, the leading American commander in Iraq told reporters last week, “if you’re asking me, ‘would we have done things differently,’ yes, we would have.”

The implication was not that the US would have spared Saddam’s life. It was that an execution held by the US would have been more professional and consistent with norms of justice. There would have been no sloganeering taunts (”Moktada, Moktada, …”), no personalized insults (”go to hell”), no residue of festering vendetta politics that have plagued post-Saddam Iraq.

But how much differently would the US have acted vis-à-vis this perpetrator of crimes against humanity? Would it have guaranteed Saddam additional due process, possibly by ensuring his other trials were brought to completion? Would it have postponed the execution until after the holidays? The US had its chances, and it delivered Saddam - on Washington’s orders - into the hands of his impatient executioners.

Yes, previous attempts by the US to assassinate Saddam suggest that the US would have done things differently, but it may be worth recalling that several of those attempts failed miserably. The US has not always been able to extricate itself from the logic of unfortunate consequences, especially in its efforts to eliminate Saddam.

In April 2003, for example, the US dropped two 2000-pound bunker-busting bombs and follow-up detonators from the skies on a restaurant in a middle-class neighborhood of Baghdad where Saddam and his sons were believed to be hiding. The bombing left a 60 ft. crater and reduced the restaurant and several adjacent homes to rubble. CIA officials were reported to be “euphoric,” confidant that Saddam had been killed. He was not, though some local residents were. According to one reporter, photographers on the scene used “a chilling term they picked up from the military in Afghanistan to describe what might have happened to a dozen or more people thought to have died in this missile attack. They have become ‘pink mist’.”

This execution attempt was indeed carried out very professionally - based on credible intelligence, constitutionally ordered by the president, and conducted by highly trained fighter pilots. One pilot underscored the impersonal character of the operation, saying he didn’t even know Saddam was the target. “We’ve got ten minutes to do it. We’ve got to make a lot of things happen to make that happen. So you just fall totally into execute mode and kill the target.”

While the operation was very different from what Saddam faced at the gallows - no masked men in different leather jackets, no clumsy noose and clanging trap door, no embarrassing footage - it shows that highly professional processes do not always guarantee just outcomes.

What would it take to do things differently in Iraq? According to reports, President Bush believes this requires a “troop surge for victory.” The new congress is right to scrutinize this plan, for a surge implies intensified confrontation between the US and the most militant opponents of its presence in Iraq - highly mobilized forces also seeking “stability” and “victory,” each, no doubt, with surge, in-surge, and counter-surge tactics of their own. Among them, the prominent Mahdi militia seems especially determined to struggle to the end. Its name, “Mahdi,” roughly means “Messiah” and conveys its belief that it is bringing God’s ultimate justice by liberating God’s communities in Iraq from their oppressors (Saddam, the US, etc.).

A surge is thus unlikely to reduce resistance to the US in Iraq and the region more generally.

So, what might it mean to “do things differently” in Iraq? Perhaps abandoning false hopes of ultimate victory through the forceful imposition of one’s will upon the other parties to the conflict, the US included. Sadly, each has bad blood on its hands; each has performed poorly at times in relation to norms of justice.

It’s time to prioritize the extremely difficult processes of sustained negotiation between the combatants, to mobilize the negotiating powers of the most informed and communicatively dedicated interlocutors of each party to the conflict. A political solution has been the consistent emphasis of several US senators, like Joseph Biden of Delaware. No one doubts its necessity, while many doubt the wisdom of the surge. There are no guarantees, but intensifying direct negotiations would be doing things differently, because it would mean abandoning reliance on the logic of force that has, demonstrably, failed to bring stability, peace, and viable governing institutions to Iraq.

Andrew Davison is associate professor of political science at Vassar College where he teaches courses in political theory and politics in the Middle East. His latest book is Conquering Hearts and Minds:The American War Ideology in the Persian/Arabian Gulf, 1990-2003. For more, see Andy Davison.

Andy Davison :: Jan.08.2007 :: Ethics :: No Comments »

With elections near, the White House is charging that Democratic policies on Iraq are harmful to America, warning if the U.S. “cuts and runs,” al-Qaida will fill the power vacuum and use the country to attack America.

As President Bush said Oct. 19 in Pennsylvania: “If we were to follow the Democrats’ prescriptions and withdraw from Iraq, we would be fulfilling Osama bin Laden’s highest aspirations.”

Karl Rove made a similar case in Buffalo on Friday.

Observers say this rhe-torical strategy resembles the 2004 election, when the administration used its reputation for being “tough on terrorism” to secure its hold on the presidency and Congress.

Within the context of the “war on terrorism” - as distinct from campaign politics - the strategy also resembles the case the White House made for invading Iraq in 2002-03.

The White House ap-proach now is, unless the U.S. fights until victory, it will lose, and that loss will damage U.S. safety, prestige and power. For emphasis, the president repeatedly cites bin Laden: “If we were to abandon that country,” the president said at his recent press conference, “the terrorists would establish a new safe haven from which to launch new attacks on America. How do I know that would happen? Because that’s what the enemy has told us would happen. That’s what they have said.”

Note the president’s certainty about what will happen in Iraq. Just as there was little evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before the U.S. invasion in 2003 - not to mention no credible evidence of ties between the Baath regime and al-Qaida - there is little reason to think were the U.S. to withdraw, al-Qaida “would” rule Iraq. Militant and capable of terror as it is, the movement does not enjoy the support of anywhere near the majority of residents of Iraq (as a whole or in its different regions), or their neighbors, who are all likely to resist its growth with as much determination as the U.S.

Terror war will continue

Moreover, even if the Democrats take Congress this year and a Democrat wins the presidency in 2008, it is highly unlikely the U.S. will withdraw from the war with al-Qaida. Remember: It was a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, who first took up arms against the organization, declaring after he ordered strikes on Sudan and Afghanistan that “the battle against terrorism” would “be a long, ongoing struggle between freedom and fanaticism” (8/20/98).

Few Democrats question the idea of such a war. Most say they want to fight it better. In other words, just as the administration exaggerated the realities of Iraq’s threat to the U.S. in 2002-03, it is now exaggerating - and misrepresenting - both al-Qaida’s potential to rule Iraq and Democratic approaches to the war on terror. Not only has it revived its politically convenient distortion of an al-Qaida/Iraq connection, it has also brazenly linked the former’s hostility with Democratic questioning of Republican policies.

The White House is indeed taking the possibility of an electoral regime change in the U.S. Congress very seriously. Before the war, the White House insisted the only appropriate “action” was war, the “risks of inaction” - we were told - being greater. Now with the costs of war rising on all sides, we are told the only appropriate action is voting Republican.

And beneath this rhetoric is the administration’s greatest conjecture - also reminiscent of 2003 - that more war will bring peace and not more war. The hard - and more accurate - truth is that no one really knows what tomorrow will bring in Iraq, where the realities of civil war and occupation defy simplification and require unmanipulated consideration now.

Andrew Davison
Poughkeepsie, NY

Andrew Davison is associate professor of political science at Vassar College where he teaches courses in political theory and politics in the Middle East. His latest book is Conquering Hearts and Minds:The American War Ideology in the Persian/Arabian Gulf, 1990-2003. For more, see Andy Davison.

Andy Davison :: Oct.28.2006 :: Politics :: No Comments »

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s rejection in Rome of an “immediate” cease-fire appeared to many to be another example of unbalanced U.S. support for Israel, whose current war is taking its toll on Lebanon as a whole, not only Hezbollah. It may look, that is, like U.S. policy is, “Israel first, Lebanon second.”

The United States, of course, considers its policy to be in the best interests of both Israel and Lebanon. But the U.S. stance should also be seen as “U.S. First,” that is, as a policy driven fundamentally by what the White House considers U.S. interests.

Consider a remarkable statement made by Vice President Dick Cheney — probably the most influential Mideast policymaker in the United States — to the press on March 16, 2003, three days before the U.S. war in Iraq began. Cheney justified the war as partly a response to the killing of American Marines in Lebanon in 1983:

“I think the impression has grown in that part of the world. I think Osama bin Laden believes this, and I think Saddam Hussein did, at least up until Sept. 11, that they could strike the United States with impunity, and we had situations in ‘83 when the Marine barracks was blown up in Beirut. There was no effective U.S. response. In ‘93 the World Trade Center in New York was hit, with no effective response. In ‘96 Khobar Towers, in ‘98 the east Africa Embassy bombings, in 2000 the USS Cole was hit, and each time there was almost no credible response from the United States to those attacks. Everything changed on Sept. 11.”

American Marines landed in Lebanon in August 1982 as part of a multinational force that was to evacuate Palestinian fighters cornered by Israel in Beirut. Israel had invaded Lebanon in June to eliminate the PLO, which had engaged Israel militarily in the south for nearly a decade, and to back a government sympathetic to Israel. The evacuation arranged by a special envoy of President Ronald Reagan went smoothly, but subsequent events unraveled the fragile conditions.

The United States and France became involved in the fighting on the side of the Lebanese government, and were then attacked by its opponents, some of whom were inspired by the overthrow of the U.S.-backed monarchy in Iran four years earlier. On Oct. 23, in what one historian calls “the most professional massacre ever perpetrated in Lebanon,” militants car-bombed the French and U.S. barracks almost simultaneously, killing more than 300.

Reagan described the attacks as “bestial,” and Vice President Bush, touring the site, said the United States “would not be cowed by terrorists.” The United States continues to hold Hezbollah and Iran responsible for these attacks.

Since the second week of July, then, the Israelis have been doing work the White House probably thinks should have been done long ago ? the missing “effective response,” in the vice president’s words. Israel’s war on Hezbollah is “an extension of the war on terrorism,” says U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. This is how the Bush administration considers the war in Iraq. The stated aims of this U.S. war strategy are to eliminate the terrorists, and produce conditions for freedom and democracy in the region. Besides the fact its opponents don’t want to be cowed either, one problem with this strategy in Lebanon is conditions have changed since 1983. Then, powerful Lebanese factions initially welcomed the Israelis, and were pleased to see the PLO go. Now, especially in the south, many view Hezbollah as a legitimate Lebanese political movement, one that helped “free” Lebanon by fighting off the Israelis in the 1990s. They don’t appear to support wiping it out the idiom of the “war on terrorism.”

Speaking in Jerusalem prior to the Rome summit, Rice confidently stated, “We will prevail.” These words suggest more a war posture than a diplomatic one. The Bush administration is releasing humanitarian aid to Lebanon, but its stronger support, in the form of its risky rejection of an immediate cease-fire, is for the war on Hezbollah ? the missing “U.S. response” powerful figures in the White House may have been wanting since 1983.

Andrew Davison
Poughkeepsie, NY

Andrew Davison is associate professor of political science at Vassar College where he teaches courses in political theory and politics in the Middle East. His latest book is Conquering Hearts and Minds:The American War Ideology in the Persian/Arabian Gulf, 1990-2003. For more, see Andy Davison.

Photo: www.nytimes.com, 02 August 2006

Andy Davison :: Aug.01.2006 :: Politics :: No Comments »

With violence in Israel and Lebanon escalating, it was interesting to hear President Bush say on Sunday “the international community must address the root causes” of the conflict.

“Addressing root causes” is usually a demand made by those opposing the use of force to solve conflicts in the region. The idea is if one understands the various reasons and forms of responsibility for the violence, one might be able to address each party’s claims and find ways to achieve peace. Political scientists sometimes distinguish between two different kinds of root causes - immediate and long term. Both kinds are active today.

Immediate root causes are the most direct reasons for the violence. Bush pointed to this kind of cause when he said “the cause of the crisis” was Hezbollah’s decision “to capture two Israeli soldiers and fire hundreds of rockets into Israel.”

Long-term root causes refer to deeper conditions, habits and strategies formed over time that lie behind the immediate causes. In the Arab-Israeli conflict, the long-term root causes are the competing Israeli and Palestinian national claims. In the current crisis, the Bush administration says Iran is the root cause. Other causes at work may be expectations about prisoner exchanges formed during years of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.

Just after Hezbollah captured the Israeli soldiers, experts explained the action as part of an older strategy to free prisoners held in Israel. This strategy also prompted the capture of another Israeli soldier by a militant group in Gaza in late June.
Issues of prisoner release may appear marginal when the politicians are talking of “terror/counterterror,” but, they are central to the parties in conflict - Israelis, Lebanese, and Palestinian alike. Each is prepared to go to great lengths to free their captured compatriots. In January 2004, the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon exchanged hundreds of prisoners for one abducted citizen and the remains of three soldiers. This exchange was coordinated with Hezbollah.

Israel values image

Those who have captured the Israelis hoping to deal have, however, encountered another long-term cause of the violence: Israel’s determination to avoid being placed or perceived in a position of weakness. For its survival, Israel consistently seeks to maintain the military-strategic advantage and to punish those who make it appear vulnerable. It has thus responded to the abductions with overwhelming force, hoping to eliminate or deter those waging war against it.

This strategy may reduce attacks in the medium term, but it also preserves the cycle of violence and expands the scope of conflict. Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 to eliminate the PLO and was induced to withdraw partly by Hezbollah, whose military successes inspired Palestinian uprisings in the West Bank and Gaza. Hezbollah’s recent attacks have reached farther into Israel than ever. Israel is charging Iran with complicity. This reflects the Bush administration’s instincts. The scope of the conflict is growing. If the war expands, the United States (in Iraq) will be drawn in somehow.

Addressing root causes means addressing with creative policies the reasons that lie behind today’s violence. In addition to a cease-fire, it requires finding alternatives to the uncertain and permanent detention of captured combatants on all sides. One of the brokers of the 2004 deal wisely said, “With this agreement Israel and Hezbollah have achieved a breakthrough in seeking to soothe one of the most painful consequences of the Middle East conflict.”

That swap was very instructive: Positively, it proved that agreements over root causes between sworn enemies are possible. Negatively, it was a brokered deal, not an agreement to institutionalize internationally just and standardized rules of captured prisoner treatment and release. Such processes must be found, both for the captured and those concerned about them on the outside, where the pain remains and decisions to try to liberate their compatriots through force are made.

Unaddressed, long-term causes linger and promote further violence - today’s “most painful consequences” become tomorrow’s immediate root causes. Bush’s demand on the international community, if implemented seriously, could help stem the deadly and scary violence in Israel, Lebanon and Gaza today - and prevent more in the future.

Andrew Davison
Poughkeepsie, NY

Andrew Davison is associate professor of political science at Vassar College where he teaches courses in political theory and politics in the Middle East. His latest book is Conquering Hearts and Minds:The American War Ideology in the Persian/Arabian Gulf, 1990-2003. For more, see Andy Davison.

Published in the Poughkeepsie Journal.

Photo: Israeli/Hezbollah prisoner exchange of January 2004. From the Sydney Morning Herald.

Andy Davison :: Jul.18.2006 :: Politics :: No Comments »

This work reveals the systematic militarization of public opinion by the three successive American Presidential administrations under whose leadership the United States confronted its most militant opponents in the Persian/Arabian Gulf, namely, the regime of Saddam Hussein and the Al Qaeda Islamist movement. Focusing on the period beginning with Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and continuing through the U.S. campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, the work exposes how each administration undermined democratic deliberation by outfitting the citizenry exclusively with those understandings that would make war seem both obligatory and inevitable. Together, these understandings represent what I call the “official American war ideology”: an obfuscating system of beliefs that enabled the “war on terror” to proceed without significant domestic dissent until its controversial extension to Iraq in 2003. The work demonstrates how the terms of this ideology - repeated time and again in televised Presidential speeches, press conferences, and mainstream news programs - have been strategically deployed by top administration officials. It argues that a concerted interrogation of these terms is necessary in order to counter their corrupting influence. The work also situates the official American war ideology in the larger context of conflict over governance in the petroleum-rich gulf. It demonstrates how the terms of this ideology functioned to defend and extend US dominance, in part by undercutting the conditions for democratic debate in the U.S. over energy policy and over the militaristic and religiopolitical foundations of global American power. Despite the readily apparent damage they have done to democratic deliberation and despite their central role in the intensification of conflict in the gulf, the terms of the American war ideology have yet to be adequately questioned. By extending understanding of the ideological manipulations that have functioned to justify war since 1990, this work seeks both to challenge the dominant terms of the public debate on U.S. foreign policy in the gulf and to promote a genuinely deliberative reconsideration of the terms and implications of the “war on terror.” …[T]he American people have been shepherded into war under highly debatable terms, thinking that wars in the Gulf, or in parts of Asia and Africa where its opponents to its Gulf presence conduct their operations, are wars over existence, not over a highly troubling, unaccountable organization of power in the Gulf, “wars on terrorism” not “wars over the Gulf.” The people were told that America’s most militant opponents took up arms against them out of hatred alone, that the world produces evil and it is within their sense of responsibility to rid the world of it. They backed war because they believed that the conflict had nothing to do with earthly considerations of power and human needs. These beliefs must be corrected, and the tide reversed’.

Andrew Davison. 2005. Conquering Hearts and Minds: The American War Ideology in the Persian/Arabian Gulf, 1990-2003. Istanbul: Istanbul Bilgi University Press. Available through tulumba.com and amazon.com

Andy Davison :: Feb.01.2006 :: Politics :: No Comments »

Andy Davison, an ethics advisor for Practical Ethics and a professor of political theory at Vassar College, has a new book out on war and ideology and the United States.

Andrew Davison. 2005. Conquering Hearts and Minds: The American War Ideology in the Persian/Arabian Gulf, 1990-2003. Istanbul: Istanbul Bilgi University Press.

Available in North America through www.tulumba.com.

Here’s what the back cover has to say about it….

This book by Andrew Davison offers an exposition of the official American ideology of war in the Persian/Arabian Gulf: an ideology whose principal aims have been the manipulation and militarization of US public-political culture and the imperial reassertion of American global power.

The book shows how the official war ideology was put in place by successive American presidents in order to justify the wars in Kuwait, Afghanistan, Iraq, and against the Al Qaeda Islamist movement more generally.

It also compellingly displays how these wars, fought primarily over petroleum and political power in the Gulf, were characterized, since 1990, in terms of biblical and civilizational significance that mobilized the militarized support of the American public but distorted the contexts and stakes of the conflict in which the US remains violently involved.

Two especially distinguishing qualities of this analysis are, first, that it draws our attention to the pervasive nonsecular character of Presidential rhetoric in the United States; and, second, that it demonstrates the continuity of militant, religious Presidential rhetoric across the spectrum of the American administrations for over two decades, despite the appearance of sharp antagonisms between Democrats and Republicans.

Written for a broad audience, Conquering Hearts and Minds offers an accessible analysis for a wide variety of readers interested in the relationship between America and the Middle East, the “war on terrorism,” the troubled state of international affairs and politics, and alternatives to endless war.

“Conquering Hearts and Minds has immediate relevance to understanding what has been happening in the United States and the world and invites us to revisit and rethink not only how things might have unfolded differently but also how they may be different if we seek to move the world in the direction of much less violent and much more democratic futures.”

Taha Parla
Bogaziçi University

Andy Davison :: Dec.29.2005 :: Politics :: No Comments »

One of the ways that the American and British official ideology for war functions is to divert attention from violence-engendering policies Iraq, Afghanistan, and many other undisclosed sites globally to questioning intensely whether or not the attackers of America and Great Britain are good or, as both Prime Minister Blair and President Bush tend to put it, “true Muslims.”

Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair, professing competence in Islamic theology and with Muslim partners to the debate by their side, constantly implore us to see the attackers of America and the UK as non-Muslims who falsely act in the name of Islam. “We know Islam is a religion that teaches love and peace and compassion. No, our struggle is against evil people - evil people that claim they’re religious, but are not,” Mr. Bush said after the 9/11 attacks (10/16/01). “It is an extreme and evil ideology whose roots lie in a perverted and poisonous misinterpretation of the religion of Islam,” Mr. Blair said after the London attacks (7/13).

It will take a lot of time to settle this important dispute between official Anglo-American Islam and its Muslim allies, on the one hand, and its Islamist opponents who see themselves as acting righteously, on the other. Islam is comprised, like the two other great Abrahamic traditions, of vast and internally complicated sub-traditions that are sometimes greatly at odds with each other.

While this debate goes on, one should note how the declarations of “true” Islam function publicly, like snappy emails from Karl Rove, to divert discussion away from the conditions and ongoing sources of the war that the Bush and Blair administrations call “on terror” and their opponents call “on Islam.” For the former, the problem is “evil terrorism.” For the later, the problem is “US/’Crusader/Infidel’ Aggression against Muslims.” The war might be better characterized as a horribly violent contest for control over power in mostly Muslim societies, especially the petroleum rich areas of the Persian/Arabian Gulf.

The official declarations of true and false Islam, eloquently delivered by President Bush and Prime Minister Blair, and then repeatedly recycled nearly everywhere by others, continuously turn the causes and stakes of the conflict into religious questions. First, they reject the attackers’ faith-based intentions to be struggling on behalf of oppressed Muslims: “This is not Islam.” Second, they declare the attacks to be evil. So heavily based in the devotional commitments of both Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair, this second move rhetorically rips the terror attacks out of any possible earthly political context, especially those where the attackers seem to want to direct attention, such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Moreover, all the while, the political leaders officially declare that the “war on terror” is about freedom and civilization, not religion. “We don’t view this as a war of religion in any way, shape, or form,” Mr. Bush said on September 16, 2001, correcting his description of it the day before as a “crusade.”

Let us see the situation more clearly: The leaders of the US and UK are declaring truths about the traditions of their Muslim enemies and allies. They are declaring who is and who is not a good and un-”perverted” Muslim in a fight waged against “evil” from both sides.

The political question of the hour is not only, however, whether or not the violence is the work of evil. Rather, it is — and needs to be — also whether or not there are alternatives to the present, stress-inducing policies designed to preserve the power arrangements in political milieus where the majority population practices Islam. We don’t need to know that the “war on terror goes on,” as Mr. Bush said right after the attacks in London. We need to hear, and debate, more about specific policies governing specific parts of the world - including, but not only Iraq and Israel/Palestine - that engender so much violence and counter violence. The political demand of the present needs to be less perverted policy, not more true faith.

One dangerous consequence about the current debate over true Islam is that, as it intensifies, everyone gets increasingly self-righteous about correct religion. The political and earthly interests and stakes get further buried as the holy warriors for true faith argue and battle it out what they believe to be higher goods. The present debate over the content of Karl Rove’s advice to the media is long overdue; so, too, is one over the content of the official ideology of the “war on terrorism.”

Istanbul
July 22, 2005

Andrew Davison is associate professor of political science at Vassar College where he teaches courses in political theory and politics in the Middle East. His latest book is Conquering Hearts and Minds:The American War Ideology in the Persian/Arabian Gulf, 1990-2003. For more, see Andy Davison.

[As first published in Common Dreams, www.commondreams.org.]

Andy Davison :: Jul.25.2005 :: Politics :: 1 Comment »

Two weeks ago when I arrived in Istanbul for my annual summer visit, I was surprised to encounter people wearing buttons urging President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair to come to Turkey. “Gel Bush,” “Gel Blair,” they read. “Come Bush,” “Come Blair.” I was shocked. Last year at this time, just before both leaders came to Istanbul to attend the NATO summit, the emphasis was just the reverse. President Bush was the focus of a large campaign whose buttons told him to stay away from the country: “Gelme Bush!” - Don’t Come! The President’s visit took place after revelations of torture at Abu Ghraib. Posters plastered throughout the country described him as a mass murderer and torturer.

So what had changed? Why were people urging him and Mr. Blair to come now?

What had changed was that the culminating session of the year long, global World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) was taking place here between 23rd and 27th of June. The WTI has had several purposes gathered into one essential goal: the trial by conscience of Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair for the abuses of power and violations of international law and norms of human decency that have taken place in Iraq since the American-led invasion of 2003. The buttons I saw this year were calling on the leaders of the war coalition to come to Istanbul and face their accusers. These included eyewitnesses and survivors of the violence against civilians and the civilian infrastructure; social and natural scientists who have studied the cultural, environmental, and ecological destruction caused by the war and its weaponry; lawyers, scholars, and experts on international law, the United Nations, ethics, politics, and war from Iraq, Turkey, Europe, and the United States. These were not supporters of Saddam Hussein. They were opponents of illegal war and military occupation who made the case against Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair to an expert jury of conscience, led by notable ethicists and public figures from around the world, including Arundhati Roy and the prominent Turkish public intellectual, Murat Belge.

A few personalized notes, to add to the record: The evidence and argumentation were extremely powerful. I attended two full days of the conference. After each day I was both engaged and exhausted by what I heard and felt. I have known the American case for and against the war through exposure to the national media in the US; but I had not been exposed in such an enduring fashion to the experience of the war from the other side, or to the meticulous research on the international standards and conditions of human decency that have been breached by the war.

The tribunal was not adequately covered in the US media. On the Saturday night of the conference, after listening to a full day of presentations, I surfed the Internet to read the day’s news. With some pleasure, I perused Paul Krugman’s essay, “The War President” (June 24, 2005), in which he, too, called on Mr. Bush to be held accountable for fabricating evidence for the war. The timing between Krugman’s call and the participants in the conference in Istanbul could not have been better, I thought. So, I immediately drafted a short letter to the Times, in which I noted Mr. Krugman’s call for accountability and a broader discussion on “the need to get out” of Iraq, and I wrote: “Just such a discussion has been occurring since Friday in Istanbul, at the World Tribunal on Iraq, where scholars, activists, lawyers, journalists, and witnesses from many countries have gathered to demand that Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair be held accountable for their aggressive violations of the rule of law and fundamental norms of human decency. Participants are expanding the historical record from various perspectives and express unity on the need to end the harmful American presence in Iraq. With the Jury of Conscience’s verdict due on Monday, the participants are engaging right now in the kind of exchange Mr. Krugman hopes to see in the US. For the presentations [and the final judgment of the jury] see www.worldtribunal.org/main.”

One can still visit that site and read the proceedings. The letter was my own effort to participate in the work of the conference by getting the word of the WTI into the news. I wanted others to know that the conversation that Mr. Krugman and many others in the US are now calling for had already begun. The Times did not publish the letter, nor to my knowledge did it cover the WTI. But the friends to whom I sent it were pleased to learn of the Tribunal. Several expressed shock at not having heard about it.

Mr. Bush, who along with Mr. Blair did not turn up for the Tribunal, has said in defense of the war and occupation that he believes that the US is “laying the groundwork for peace.” It is a strangely optimistic point of view, one that asks us to look steadfastly beyond all the daily violence, committed by all sides, to a post-conflict period of peaceful resolution. In effect, he suggests that we put aside all that is happening in front of our eyes with methods and tools of mass violence and coercion - including those he’s commanded into battle - and trust in his capacity to see through the daily carnage and terror, bombings and beheadings, to a brighter day. In this context, the work of the WTI should be noted and studied, for its participants asked us to see and know the violent war condition we now inhabit - its illegality, its assault on ethical relations between us - and to demand justice on behalf of all those suffering and all that is being destroyed in the current era of global war. Gel Bush… It’s never too late to get caught up with what’s been happening on your path to peace.

Andrew Davison is associate professor of political science at Vassar College where he teaches courses in political theory and politics in the Middle East. His latest book is Conquering Hearts and Minds:The American War Ideology in the Persian/Arabian Gulf, 1990-2003. For more, see Andy Davison.

Photo: An unattributed photo of an American Tank in Iraq. Click on the photo and note the words ‘New Testament’ on the Tank’s barrel.

Andy Davison :: Jul.17.2005 :: Politics :: No Comments »