Peter K.:
> Vietnam was called a "police action" wasn't it? Those who aren't
> "Do Nothings" recommend a police action to apprehend Osama.
> (The FBI's pre-911 warnings that Al Qaeda would probably retaliate
> for Clinton's wag the dog launching of cruise missiles at Afghanistan
> in '98 are more evidence that they did it.) Would the ensuing loss
> of civilian life in this hypothetical police action weigh on your consciences?
>
> I just don't buy the analogy between what the US, Brits, etc., are doing
> in Afghanistan and what was done in Vietnam or what's happening in the
> Israeli occupied territories.
I was simply pointing out that the history of a certain trope contradicted a Zizekian (Zizecheskii?) adverb -- that is, that there is a similarity of State practice abroad and at home, and while usually it is nasty anarchists who point such things out, occasionally the ministers of empire mention it while trying cast it in a favorable light. To the higher orders, everyone but themselves is really _homo_sacer_, even if there are procedural impediments to a full, overt realization of the concept in law.
In the realm of moralization, I believe that what's going on in Afghanistan has less justification than the intervention in Vietnam or the Israeli activities in the Occupied Territories. But it's also much less of a commitment, since the performance is essentially vacuous -- the people who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon weren't Afghans, didn't come from Afghanistan, and weren't sent by the Afghan government, and the next attack, if there is one, will not be impeded by anything that has been done in Afghanistan. It may well be carried out by Americans, as the anthrax attack seems to have been. The Afghan adventure, unlike Vietnam, can be called off any time it ceases to play well in Peoria. After all, victory has already been declared. If only they had been so clever in Vietnam!
I think a police approach would probably have been more effective, but I'm not going to bend myself out of shape to proffer unwanted advice to the ruling class. I am pretty sure they thought that the need to enact a quick, violent, flag-bedecked performance for the television-besotted masses far outweighed any benefits to be gained by actually finding and arresting the actual perpetrators. In fact, terrorist attacks have furthered rather than hindered many imperial projects, so there would be no great reason to be overly diligent about suppressing them, other than moral and humane principles which we see very little evidence of. But perhaps I am too cynical.
> After what occurred on September 11th, the warning coming from the
> White House that an attack may come "tomorrow, next week, or next year"
> is certainly plausible.
I think the warning from the White House became virtually inevitable after Dub and Co. were briefly barked at by the media for not giving more of a warning about September 11th. "They want a warning? We'll give them a goddamn warning!" I can hear Dick snarling. This is not to say somebody isn't preparing further attacks -- I am surprised they haven't occurred already -- but I have to doubt that the recent warnings emanated from anything we didn't know about already.
-- Gordon