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Are We in a War? Do We Have an Enemy?

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When Donald Rumsfeld designated the imprisoned Taliban fighters 'unlawful combatants' (as opposed to 'regular' prisoners of war), he did not simply mean that their criminal terrorist [[activity]] placed [[them]] [[outside]] the law: when an American [[citizen]] commits a crime, even one as serious as [[murder]], he remains a 'lawful criminal'. The [[distinction]] between criminals and non-criminals has no relation to that between 'lawful' citizens and the [[people]] referred to in [[France]] as the 'Sans Papiers'. Perhaps the [[category]] of [[homo sacer]], brought back into use by Giorgio [[Agamben]] in Homo Sacer: Sovereign [[Power]] and Bare [[Life]] (1998), is more useful here. It designated, in ancient Roman law, someone who could be killed with impunity and whose [[death]] had, for the same [[reason]], no sacrificial [[value]]. Today, as a term denoting [[exclusion]], it can be seen to apply not only to terrorists, but also to those who are on the receiving end of humanitarian aid (Rwandans, Bosnians, Afghans), as well as to the Sans Papiers in France and the inhabitants of the favelas in [[Brazil]] or the African American ghettoes in the US.
Concentration camps and humanitarian refugee camps are, paradoxically, the two faces, 'inhuman' and '[[human]]', of one sociological [[matrix]]. Asked [[about]] the [[German]] concentration camps in occupied [[Poland]], '[[Concentration camp|Concentration Camp]]' Erhardt (in Lubitsch's To Be or Not to Be) snaps back: 'We do the concentrating, and the Poles do the camping.' A similar distinction applies to the Enron bankruptcy, which can be seen as an ironic comment on the [[notion]] of a risk [[society]]. Thousands of employees who lost their jobs and savings were certainly exposed to a risk, but without having any [[real]] [[choice]]: what was risk to those in the [[know]] was blind fate to them. Those who did have a [[sense]] of the risks, the top managers, also had a [[chance]] to intervene in the [[situation]], but [[chose]] instead to minimise the risk to themselves by cashing in their stocks and options before the bankruptcy - actual risks and choices were thus nicely distributed. In the [[risk society]], in [[other]] [[words]], some (the Enron managers) have the choices, while [[others]] (the employees) take the risks.
The [[logic]] of homo sacer is clearly discernible in the way the Western [[media]] report from the occupied West Bank: when the Israeli [[Army]], in what [[Israel]] itself describes as a 'war' operation, attacks the Palestinian police and sets about systematically destroying the Palestinian infrastructure, Palestinian [[resistance]] is cited as proof that we are dealing with terrorists. This [[paradox]] is inscribed into the very notion of a 'war on [[terror]]' - a strange war in which the [[enemy]] is criminalised if he [[defends]] himself and returns fire with fire. Which brings me back to the 'unlawful combatant', who is neither enemy soldier nor common criminal. The al-Qaida terrorists are not enemy soldiers, nor are they simple criminals - the US rejected out of hand any notion that the WTC attacks should be treated as apolitical criminal [[acts]]. In short, what is emerging in the guise of the Terrorist on whom war is declared is the unlawful combatant, the [[political]] Enemy excluded from the political arena.
This is [[another]] aspect of the new [[global]] [[order]]: we no longer have wars in the old sense of a [[conflict]] between sovereign states in which certain rules apply (to do with the [[treatment]] of prisoners, the [[prohibition]] of certain weapons etc). Two types of conflict remain: struggles between groups of homo sacer - 'ethnic-[[religious]] conflicts' which violate the rules of [[universal]] [[human rights]], do not count as wars proper, and call for a 'humanitarian pacifist' [[intervention]] on the part of the Western powers - and direct attacks on the US or other representatives of the new [[global order]], in which [[case]], again, we do not have wars proper, but merely 'unlawful combatants' resisting the forces of universal order. In this second case, one cannot even imagine a neutral humanitarian organisation like the Red Cross mediating between the warring parties, organising an [[exchange]] of prisoners and so on, because one side in the conflict - the US-dominated global force - has already assumed the [[role]] of the Red Cross, in that it does not perceive itself as one of the warring sides, but as a mediating [[agent]] of peace and [[Global Order|global order]], crushing rebellion and, simultaneously, providing humanitarian aid to the 'local population'.
This weird 'coincidence of opposites' reached its peak when, a few months ago, Harald Nesvik, a [[right]]-wing member of the Norwegian Parliament, proposed George W. [[Bush]] and Tony Blair as candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize, citing their decisive role in the '[[war on terror]]'. Thus the Orwellian motto 'War is Peace' finally becomes [[reality]], and military [[action]] against the Taliban can be presented as a way to [[guarantee]] the safe delivery of humanitarian aid. We no longer have an opposition between war and humanitarian aid: the same intervention can function at both levels simultaneously. The toppling of the Taliban [[regime]] is presented as part of the strategy to [[help]] the Afghan people oppressed by the Taliban; as Tony Blair said, we may have to bomb the Taliban in order to secure food transportation and distribution. Perhaps the ultimate [[image]] of the 'local population' as homo sacer is that of the American war plane flying above Afghanistan: one can never be sure whether it will be dropping bombs or food parcels.
The [[obscenity]] of such statements is blatant. First, why single out the WTC attack as justification? Have there not been more horrible crimes in other parts of the world in [[recent]] years? Secondly, what is new about this idea? The CIA has been instructing its [[Latin]] American and [[Third]] World military allies in the [[practice]] of torture for decades. Even the '[[liberal]]' argument cited by Alan Dershowitz is suspect: 'I'm not in favour of torture, but if you're going to have it, it should damn well have court approval.' When, taking this line a step further, Dershowitz suggests that torture in the 'ticking clock' situation is not directed at the prisoner's rights as an accused person (the information obtained will not be used in the trial against him, and the torture itself would not formally count as [[punishment]]), the underlying premise is even more disturbing, implying as it does that one should be allowed to torture people not as part of a deserved punishment, but simply because they know something. Why not go further still and legalise the torture of prisoners of war who may have information which could save the lives of hundreds of our soldiers? If the choice is between Dershowitz's liberal 'honesty' and old-fashioned '[[hypocrisy]]', we'd be better off sticking with 'hypocrisy'. I can well imagine that, in a [[particular]] situation, confronted with the proverbial 'prisoner who [[knows]]', whose words can save thousands, I might decide in favour of torture; however, even (or, rather, precisely) in a case such as this, it is absolutely crucial that one does not elevate this desperate choice into a universal [[principle]]: given the unavoidable and brutal urgency of the [[moment]], one should simply do it. Only in this way, in the very prohibition against elevating what we have done into a universal principle, do we retain a sense of [[guilt]], an [[awareness]] of the inadmissibility of what we have done.
In short, every authentic liberal should see these debates, these calls to 'keep an open mind', as a [[sign]] that the terrorists are winning. And, in a way, essays like Alter's, which do not openly advocate torture, but just introduce it as a legitimate topic of debate, are even more dangerous than [[explicit]] endorsements. At this moment at least, explicitly endorsing it would be rejected as too shocking, but the mere introduction of torture as a legitimate topic allows us to court the idea while retaining a clear [[conscience]]. ('Of course I am against torture, but who is hurt if we just discuss it?') Admitting torture as a topic of debate changes the entire field, while outright advocacy remains merely idiosyncratic. The idea that, once we let the genie out of the bottle, torture can be kept within 'reasonable' bounds, is the worst liberal [[illusion]], if only because the 'ticking clock' example is deceptive: in the vast majority of cases torture is not done in order to resolve a 'ticking clock' situation, but for quite different reasons (to punish an enemy or to break him down psychologically, to terrorise a population etc). Any consistent [[ethical]] stance has to reject such pragmatic-utilitarian reasoning. Here's a simple [[thought]] experiment: imagine an Arab newspaper arguing the case for torturing American prisoners; think of the explosion of comments about fundamentalist barbarism and disrespect for [[Human Rights|human rights ]] that would [[cause]].
When, at the beginning of April, the Americans got hold of Abu Zubaydah, presumed to be the second-in-command of al-Qaida, the question 'Should he be tortured?' was openly discussed in the media. In a [[statement]] broadcast by NBC on 5 April, Rumsfeld himself claimed that American lives were his first priority, not the human rights of a high-ranking terrorist, and attacked journalists for displaying such concern for Zubaydah's well-[[being]], thus openly clearing the way for torture. Alan Dershowitz presented an even sorrier [[spectacle]]. His reservations concerned two particular points: 1. Zubaydah's is not a clear case of the 'ticking bomb' situation, i.e. it is not proven that he has the details of an imminent terrorist attack which could be prevented by gaining access to his [[knowledge]] through torture; 2. torturing him would not yet be legally covered - for that to happen, one would first have to engage in a [[public]] debate and then amend the US [[Constitution]], while publicly proclaiming the respects in which the US would no longer follow the Geneva Convention regulating the treatment of enemy prisoners.
A notable precursor in this field of para-[[legal]] '[[biopolitics]]', in which administrative measures are gradually replacing the rule of law, was Alfredo Stroessner's regime in Paraguay in the 1960s and 1970s, which took the logic of the [[state]] of exception to an absurd, still unsurpassed extreme. Under Stroessner, Paraguay was - with [[regard]] to its Constitutional order - a 'normal' parliamentary [[democracy]] with all freedoms guaranteed; however, since, as Stroessner claimed, we were all [[living]] in a [[state of emergency]] because of the worldwide [[struggle]] between freedom and [[Communism]], the [[full]] implementation of the Constitution was forever postponed and a permanent state of emergency obtained. This state of emergency was suspended every four years for one day only, election day, to legitimise the rule of Stroessner's Colorado Party with a 90 per cent majority worthy of his [[Communist]] opponents. The paradox is that the state of emergency was the normal state, while 'normal' democratic freedom was the briefly enacted exception. This weird regime anticipated some clearly perceptible trends in our liberal-democratic societies in the aftermath of 11 September. Is today's [[rhetoric]] not that of a global emergency in the fight against terrorism, legitimising more and more suspensions of legal and other rights? The ominous aspect of John Ashcroft's recent [[claim]] that 'terrorists use America's freedom as a weapon against us' carries the obvious implication that we should [[limit]] our freedom in order to [[defend]] ourselves. Such statements from top American officials, especially Rumsfeld and Ashcroft, together with the explosive display of 'American patriotism' after 11 September, create the climate for what amounts to a state of emergency, with the occasion it supplies for a potential suspension of rule of law, and the state's assertion of its [[sovereignty]] without 'excessive' legal constraints. America is, after all, as President Bush said immediately after 11 September, in a state of war. The problem is that America is, precisely, not in a state of war, at least not in the conventional sense of the term (for the large majority, daily life goes on, and war remains the exclusive business of state [[agencies]]). With the distinction between a state of war and a state of peace thus effectively blurred, we are entering a time in which a state of peace can at the same time be a state of emergency.
Such paradoxes also provide the key to the way in which the liberal-totalitarian emergency represented by the 'war on terror' relates to the authentic revolutionary state of emergency, first articulated by St [[Paul]] in his reference to the 'end of time'. When a state institution proclaims a state of emergency, it does so by definition as part of a desperate strategy to avoid the [[true]] emergency and [[return]] to the 'normal course of things'. It is, you will [[recall]], a feature of all reactionary proclamations of a 'state of emergency' that they were directed against popular unrest ('confusion') and presented as a resolve to restore normalcy. In [[Argentina]], in Brazil, in [[Greece]], in Chile, in [[Turkey]], the military who proclaimed a state of emergency did so in order to curb the 'chaos' of overall politicisation. In short, reactionary proclamations of a state of emergency are in actuality a desperate [[defence]] against [[The Real|the real ]] state of emergency.
There is a lesson to be learned here from Carl [[Schmitt]]. The [[division]] friend/enemy is never just a [[recognition]] of factual [[difference]]. The enemy is by definition always (up to a point) invisible: it cannot be directly recognised because it looks like one of us, which is why the big problem and task of the political struggle is to provide/construct a recognisable image of the enemy. ([[Jews]] are the enemy par excellence not because they conceal their true image or contours but because there is ultimately [[nothing]] behind their deceiving appearances. Jews [[lack]] the 'inner [[form]]' that pertains to any proper national [[identity]]: they are a non-[[nation]] among nations, their national substance resides precisely in a lack of substance, in a formless, infinite plasticity.) In short, 'enemy recognition' is always a [[performative]] procedure which brings to light/constructs the enemy's 'true face'. Schmitt refers to the Kantian category Einbildungskraft, the [[transcendental]] power of [[imagination]]: in order to recognise the enemy, one has to 'schematise' the [[logical]] [[figure]] of the Enemy, providing it with the [[concrete]] features which will make it into an appropriate target of [[hatred]] and struggle.
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