Richard Falk

Testing patriotism and citizenship

in the global terror war

This essay will appear in Ken Booth and Tim Dunne eds., Worlds in Collision: Terror and the Future of Global Order (London: Palgrave, forthcoming, summer 2002).

From the morning of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the American people and their leaders seemed unified in their resolve to respond as effectively as possible. As President George W. Bush expressed this resolve in his September 20 speech to a Joint Session of Congress: "Tonight we are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom. Our grief has turned to anger, and anger to resolution. Whether we bring our enemies to justice, or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done."

This call was immediately expressed in the language and urgency of war, a position that seemed plausible, even unavoidable, given the magnitude of the harm inflicted, the newly exposed American vulnerability to mega-terrorism, the obvious intent of the perpetrators to wage a merciless war directed at all Americans, Jews, "Crusaders," and the general lack of confidence in the capabilities of the United Nations.

It was further to be expected that the American military response should be immediately focused on Afghanistan where the al Qaida network had its headquarters and enjoyed what appeared to be a close collaborative relationship with the extremist Taliban regime. It was against this background that there occurred in the United States an unprecedented display of flag-waving patriotism, a celebration of America linked in the political and moral imagination with the evil ‘other,’ the demonization of Osama bin Laden and all those who perpetrated or supported in any way such a massive crime against humanity.

This patriotic fervor needs also to be understood as a response to the realization that bin Laden’s attack on America was greeted with mixed emotions in many parts of the Islamic world, especially in the Arab world. In the same speech delivered to assembled members of Congress and other notables, President Bush posed the question that bothered ordinary Americans, "..why do they hate us?" and gave this answer: "They hate what they see right here in this chamber—a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms.." Such a self-serving explanation further encouraged the American understanding of the challenge of 11 September as in its essence a geopolitical soap opera pitting good against evil. The mainstream media in the US reinforced this moralistic imagery by cheerleading the moves toward war and excluding any expression of dissenting or skeptical voices. This unconditional celebration of American life, values, and institutions, without a scintilla of willingness to listen to anti-American grievances so prevalent in the Arab world and zero receptivity to self-criticism, has produced a patriotic fever with dangerous implications for ourselves and others.

Again, these implications can be most vividly apprehended by the manner in which President Bush has rallied the country in his two major speeches setting forth the American response to 11 September. I would highlight here three disturbing expressions of this mode of perception. In the initial address on war aims to the Joint Session, Bush laid down a challenge to the rest of the world in highly charged hegemonic language: "Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." Such an approach, while understandable from the narrow perspective of counter-terrorism, seems oblivious to the existence of moral and legal limits on the use of force, and exhibiting no respect for either the sovereignty and security interests of others or for their views on global security. There was no language in official American discourse on the response recognizing the importance or relevance of such limits, or even of taking account of the views of others.

This unilateralist tenor, while slightly disguised by the efforts to construct an inclusive counter-terrorist coalition of states, was given a more disturbing twist in Bush’s State of the Union Address (29 January 2002) when he directed belligerent warnings at North Korea, Iran, and Iraq, calling them to account as an "axis of evil," a rhetoric recalling both the World War II fascist coalition of axis powers and Ronald Reagan’s designation of the Soviet Union as "the evil empire." Such threats were being directed at governments that were not generally seen as posing threats against the United States, and were in no meaningful or manifest way connected with the al Qaeda network. And finally, the patriotic moment has been variously invoked to stifle criticisms of state security measures that interfere with normal civil liberties of Americans, and especially of resident immigrants from the Islamic world. The Attorney General John Ashcroft reacted in a venomous vein- "my message is this: your tactics only aid terrorists" and "give ammunition to America’s enemies." A similar vindictiveness has been consistently expressed by US officials in their unrelenting moves to prosecute John Walker Lindh, a 20 year old teenage American convert to radical Islam, for his participation on the side of the Taliban in their struggle against the Northern Alliance, which after 11 September became the military ally of the United States. The essential message being sent by US officialdom, and dutifully transmitted by the media, especially TV, is that there is no legitimate room for American doubts or opposition to the militarist course being charted by the White House.

The basic energy of patriotism is of course emotive, understood as love of country, an affirmation of a bonded political community of fellow citizens sharing memories and identities, as well as a willingness to make sacrifices for the sake of the collective well being, and especially the security and survival, of the country. In the modern era, the sovereign state has become the main focus for these sentiments, especially for large and well-governed states. States have also tried to resolve issues of multi-cultural identity by conferring nationality as a matter of law, issuing passports, claiming to be nation-states. In fact, the psychological foundations of group identity may not correspond with state boundaries, creating a variety of tensions, including in their most intense forms separatist struggles for national self-determination and claims for the protection of minority rights.

Citizenship implies full and non-discriminatory membership in a political community, the most important by far, being sovereign states. The idea of citizenship is increasingly applied to other political communities, supporting the notion of European Citizen and even world citizen. One impact of globalization and the rise of regional political communities is to establish multiple identities, and a non-exclusive sense of citizenship. War is a throwback to simpler times of exclusivity, a tribal sense of passionate solidarity that is incapable of objectivity. War creates a special regime of intensified patriotism and nationalism, and maximizes the duties of the citizen, especially the obligation of young males to serve in the armed forces. This most serious claim of wartime over the life and destiny of such young citizens makes it necessary to believe ardently that the cause is worth the dying and killing. It has also established a powerful, often jingoistic, symbiosis between nationalism as ideology and patriotism as creed. It is notable to observe that when this symbiosis is absent, as it was in relation to the humanitarian peacekeeping missions of the 1990s, most notably in Somalia under UN auspices, even 18 American combat deaths were quickly regarded as politically unacceptable. The patriotic idea is only mobilizing when it can draw on nationalist security goals, and these remain mired in an anachronistic statist vision of world order that has not yet adapted to the fundamental changes wrought by globalization.

The United States is a prototypical successful sovereign state, rich and powerful, enjoying the undivided support of the overwhelming majority of its citizens, despite an exceptional degree of ethnic, religious, and cultural diversity within its boundaries. Its foundation myths and historical experience generate pride and love of country for most of its citizenry on most issues. The American Civil War and the defeat in Vietnam, as well as the Great Depression of the 1930s, have tested national unity, but the outcome in each instance has borne witness to the resilience of the country as a coherent entity. Its republican form of government associates patriotism with the affirmation of the freedom and rights of citizens, including the right to dissent from national policy. Part of the self-glorifying American epic narrative is its supposed reluctance as a country to engage in warfare, but once engaged, a tendency to view the conflict as one between its forces of good and the enemy’s forces of evil, and thus an unwillingness to agree upon compromises, which appear in such settings as pacts with the devil. World Wars I and II were both so conceived, as was the cold war and the Gulf War, and so is the current War on Global Terror. Victory is thus seen in totalistic terms, unconditional surrender demanded, and normal constraints governing conduct in war are largely ignored so as to reach sooner and at less cost a victorious outcome. Negotiation, diplomacy, and deference to international law and the United Nations are consistently subordinated to military effectiveness, and the almost religious degree of assurance that whatever is done is in furtherance of America’s just cause, and of benefit to the world as a whole. No dose of history has been able to weaken this self-redeeming sense of American moral exceptionalism, and talented "communicators" such as Ronald Reagan, and now George W. Bush, knew very well how to tap into this seemingly infinite reservoir of American innocence and call forth a patriotic response of unquestioning approval for policies however dubious from the perspective of law and morality.

Such a background does not tell the whole story. The United States has emerged over the last several decades as the unquestioned leader of the world, a position based on military power, technological innovation, economic prosperity, diplomatic role, and cultural vitality. At the same time, the complex developments understood beneath the rubric of "globalization" has de-territorialized all states, including the United States. Such de-territorializing has given great historical weight to networked forms of organization, changing the nature of conflict, and creating this new phenomenon bureaucratically described in the United States as "asymmetrical warfare," better conceived as warfare by the weak directed at the vulnerabilities of the strong. 11 September epitomizes such warfare waged by an extremist network willing to embark upon suicidal missions to inflict harm on its stronger enemy. Of course, the response inverts the dynamics of the asymmetry, with the technologically more powerful established state wreaking havoc and devastation anywhere on the planet at virtually no human cost to itself. The type of tribal patriotism that has emerged in the United States since 11 September has exhibited almost no capacity to interpret the world scene in light of these new realities, but has shaped a nationalist mood that is rooted in the mainly obsolescent attitudes and perceptions of a territorially constituted world order.

There is also a normative dimension that needs to be considered in clarifying concerns about the impact of the type of American patriotism that is defining this special moment of global crisis for the American people. To begin with, there has been a long struggle during the past century to limit recourse and conduct of war as much as possible. The carnage of the world wars encouraged an idea of world order that sought to minimize the role of war in regulating the relations among states. Limiting war to conditions of self-defense and in situations authorized by the UN Security Council expressed these aims in a form that was geopolitically ineffectual. The UN role was hampered at its inception by the veto given Permanent Members and by being not entrusted with independent capabilities to challenge the ethos of sovereignty. To the extent major wars were avoided it was not a result of constraining legal rules, but due to the prudence of political leaders, especially associated with deterrent approaches to security induced by the presence of nuclear weaponry. The existence of this weaponry on both sides of the cold war cleavage meant that compromises and stalemates were often more attractive than going all out for victory, as in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. These outcomes were inconsistent with the standard American approach to its wars- namely, fight only just wars, but then go all out to win. In these instances, the wars were never successfully "sold" as just and necessary, the human costs to America never seemed entirely worthwhile, and the inconclusive endings made many disillusioned, convinced that young Americans had died in vain.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, earlier American attitudes toward war have re-emerged by stages, and have been extended with dogmatic clarity to the struggle against global terrorism. In the 1990s the revived moralism of American foreign policy was explained to the public either as a defensive and strategic response to aggression as in the Gulf War or in the ethical language of humanitarian diplomacy as in Somalia, Bosnia, and especially the Kosovo War. The attacks of 11 September on the symbolic and substantive core of American primacy in the world, together with the genocidal ethos of the perpetrators, has generated an American response that is committed to total victory. Such a commitment takes on added credibility because the visionary outlook of Osama bin Laden and al Qaida cannot be deterred (as was the Soviet Union, and even Iraq in the 1990s) and has at its disposal a large cadre of suicidal warriors prepared to attack America and Americans in the future. Beyond this, more than in past wars, there are no battlefields or delimited enemy territories, and so it more difficult to achieve a consensus as to what the war is about. The global terrorist network can be anywhere, but is nowhere. Its operational units can lodge themselves as sleeper cells in the midst of the United States itself. Under these conditions it is to be expected that Americans will pull together at home and pursue all out victory in the war. Patriotic zeal lends enthusiasm to the undertaking, recognizing and validating the sacrifices made by those who fight and pushing the citizenry to mobilize the resources needed to win the war.

Why, then, should there be concerns about the role of patriotism in this setting of responding to 9/11? In essence, these concerns arise because waving the American flag so vigorously has made it more difficult to set limits on the response, and these limits are necessary for both pragmatic and normative reasons. It has seemed that the American leadership has itself been genuinely engulfed in this tidal wave of patriotic feelings, which is leading it undertake a far wider war than is necessary given the scope of the threat. There has been a refusal by American leaders to national define goals and defensive responses with precision. This has led to the adoption of foreign and domestic policies of a dubious and dangerous character that engage issues not really raised by the 11 September attacks.

In times of crisis when a society is threatened by an external enemy there is strong tendency to express patriotic feelings through tribal displays of unconditional support. 11 September accentuated this tendency due to its abrupt exposure of American vulnerability, and anxieties that more of the same would likely follow. The anthrax scare coming weeks later solidified these sentiments of solidarity, which were further strengthened by periodic messages from the US Government to the citizens to stay alert in view of indications that additional attacks were in the offing. In this respect, the patriotic mood was both a result of the extreme character of the circumstances arising from the attacks and of a quite contrived campaign to mobilize popular enthusiasm for the war policies that was brilliantly coordinated by the White House and the mainstream media.

If the United States was truly a beleaguered country fighting for its survival against far stronger adversaries such a fusion of nationalism and patriotism would not only be natural, but it would probably be of great functional value. One thinks of the Vietnamese or Palestinian struggles for self-determination against overwhelming odds as important historical examples. But the post-11 September realities facing the United States, and indirectly the rest of the world, were decidedly different. For one thing, part of the menace associated with al Qaida extremism is that it arises out of grievances associated with American behavior that have a wide resonance throughout the Arab world, especially in relation to the American responsibility for Palestinian suffering and less pronouncedly, yet still significantly, especially given the awareness provided by Al Jazeera TV coverage, the persistent bombing and punishing sanctions imposed on the people of Iraq for more than a decade. Osama bin Laden points to such grievances, especially in his more recent interviews, although his own turn against the United States seemed to derive mainly from hostitlity toward the House of Saud’s rule in Saudi Arabia, particularly its acceptance during the Gulf Crisis in 1990 of large contingents of American military forces in close proximity to the most holy Islamic sites.

Because the United States Government mobilizes for war in a tribalist manner, it is disabled from reflecting upon its own conduct, and is unwilling to take steps that might address those grievances that are just, and in accord with international law and morality. Worse than this, it is seduced by its own hyperbolic rhetoric about terrorism to throw its weight behind oppressive policies of great severity. Instead of confining its defensive claims to the threats posed by the al Qaida network, the Bush administration has generalized its struggle so as to take on "terror" in general, although selectively defined. At this point, a justifiable defensive posture by the US morphs into an interventionary directed at the unfinished struggles of peoples seeking self-determination. To add Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and Jaish-I-Mohammed to the "terrorist underworld," as Bush did in the State of the Union Address, is to associate terrorism exclusively with non-state actors when in fact violence against the civilian population is engaged in by both sides, and with greater ferocity by the states in question, whether Israel or India. The proper role for the United States in these conflicts is to work toward a just solution that brings peace and accommodation, and not to confuse its response to 11 September with policies of support for a variety of state terrorisms.

This expanded sense of what is "terrorism" also operates regressively as a green light for other governments seeking to deal with micro-nationalisms within their borders. In the aftermath of the attacks on the US, The Soviet Union has stepped up its repressive policies toward Chechnya, as has China in its administration of the restive Uighers in Xingiang Province in this period. Worst of all, Ariel Sharon intensified his extremely violent occupation of Palestinian Territories, and has been supported all along the way by Washington. The point about patriotism here is that a global leader is not just defending itself, but is always setting rules of the game for others, and has a particularly responsibility to ensure that such rules do not perpetuate ongoing wars, thereby adding to injustice and suffering.

Tribal patriotism can also morph a legitimate defensive response into a frightening form of expansionism and hegemonic pretension. When President Bush designates North Korea, Iran, and Iraq as "an axis of evil," implying that such countries might become targets for military attack and coercive diplomacy if they make moves unwelcome in Washington, especially the acquisition of weaponry of mass destruction. These governments have not even been accused of involvement in 11 September, and pose no threat to the United States, but rather are threatened by the United States, including by its arsenal of nuclear weaponry. To assert such preventive war prerogatives, without even seeking the backing of coalition partners, much less a willingness to proceed by way of the United Nation is to take on a domineering role that threatens to a degree the sovereign rights of every state on the planet and poses serious war dangers to all peoples in the world. Such policies also have to be understood in the context of the foreign policy of the Bush administration prior to 11 September, which was notable for its self-conscious unilateralism (Kyoto Protocol, ABM Treaty, Protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention) and its determination to proceed with missile defense and the weaponization of space despite the objections of almost every one of its closest allies. The disregard of even NATO in its definition of war aims is bound to challenge the Euro-American relationship in ways that are at present unpredictable.

I am not suggesting that this entire litany of concerns can be attributed to the surge of tribal patriotism, but it has paved the way, at least in the United States, and to some extent in Europe. Bipartisanship has reached such extremes that Democratic Party leadership is mainly eager to present itself as beating the drums of war as loudly as its Republican counterparts. Citizens have been half scared, and half convinced that the call for unity means a suspension of criticism and conscience. Even the lamentable treatment of Taliban/al Qaida prisoners at Guantanamo and the refusal to accept the application of the Geneva Convention raises only the mildest of criticisms, and mainly at the margins. In this instance, a self-defeating arrogance as it is Americans who would benefit most from maintaining Geneva standards, given their presence around the world. If the United States can decide when captured individuals are "unlawful combatants" why can’t others do the same, or worse? Tribal patriotism is a powerful vaccine that immunizes the body politic against self-criticism.

In a globalizing world there is another way of being patriotic that reconciles love of country with responsibility to humanity: cosmopolitan patriotism. Such attitudes have started to form in the midst of the de-territorializing of economic, social, and cultural life, and seem to have affected segments of public opinion in Europe. Cosmopolitan patriotism accepts the right of a people and a country to defend its fundamental rights, whether struggling for self-determination or to deal with an aggressor. At the same time, such a patriotic outlook sees the self from without as well as from within, and is receptive to criticism, and seeks to live by the rule of law rather than to dominate by the rule of force. The citizenry of the United States is being tested in this period to shape a response to 11 September that restores its security, but also contributes to the peace and justice in the world, and especially in Arab and Islamic world. Such contributions relate to doing more to ensure that the poor benefit from economic growth and the patterns of globalization, to use its diplomatic muscle to end tragic encounters of the sort that have cast such dark shadows over Palestinian and Israeli lives for decades, to work for more capable and trusted international institutions, especially the United Nations, and to support the deepening of respect for human rights and the international rule of law.

An America guided by the spirit of cosmopolitan patriotism could turn the tragedy of 11 September into an inspirational moment in the early history of the 21^st century. At the moment such a prospect is as remote as landing a man on the moon must have seemed in the 1930s. As the old world order of states and wars is being transformed by networks and digital potency, we must reconceive politics as the art of the impossible!

February 2002