I, too, found this book somewhat of a labor to get through. I felt as if the author had dumped all of his articles and notes into it en masse, and that it was trying to tell several different stories on the same timeline, giving the book a choppy screen-play kind of feel, a la “Meanwhile, back in Somalia . . .”
I didn’t think his attempt to elevate Awlaki to some kind of martyr status worked very well. I did not find him very sympathetic in the end and it actually seemed to detract from the point that having the U.S. government go after it’s citizens without due process is a bad thing. He seemed more like the exception that proves the rule.
I had much more sympathy for the people who were caught in the cross-fire like the Afghan policeman and his family. To me that better illustrated the terrible nature and consequences of what the U.S. was doing. It also reflects the reality that wars, even when fought by special operations forces, are messy and innocent people get hurt. While the U.S. media pretty much sanitizes this aspect, it remains true.
It also confirmed my view that we live in an age of empire in the U.S., and that there is a lot of fear-mongering used to justify all sorts of things from random raids on foreign civilians to NSA surveillance in our own country. The actual risk to most Americans of a foreign terrorist attack – or any foreign attack of any kind -- is extremely small – far less than the risks of death from drunk drivers and crazy co-workers. And it is really only present in places that are known internationally, like New York, Washington or Boston. Yet it is used as a justification for so many things with very little criticism from U.S. media.
We’ve also reached a sort of Hunger Games fascination where we send these young people off to get maimed so we can gawk at their tragedies and get all maudlin when they return, as if it’s a made-for-TV drama. The story of Taylor Morris has been publicized recently. It’s a heart-wrenching story of a young man from Cedar Falls, Iowa who was about to marry his girlfriend, but went to Afghanistan with Special Ops and ended up losing most of his limbs. But he returned a hero, recovered and got married as planned. We love these stories. The media gobbles them up. Taylor Morris was everywhere from Piers Morgan to Fox News in September. Yet very few talk about whether he really had to go or not. The stock retort is always “of course he had to go to fight for and preserve our freedoms.”
Except I don’t think much of what Taylor was doing last year is connected with our freedoms. He certainly didn’t prevent the NSA for tracking my phone calls. Nor was I ever in any danger from the people he was trying to fight. What he was really doing out there was preserving and expanding the U.S. empire. Any threat to U.S. dominance is now repackaged and white-washed into “fighting for freedoms” -- no matter where the soldiers are sent or what they are actually doing. And the damage and death to our young people is then sold as a justification for our next military action.
One of the more interesting parts of the book for me was the description of how the neo-con agenda became the American agenda through the acts and influence of Rumsfeld an Cheney and their supporters and helpers. This agenda is a hold-over from the major political conflicts of the 20th century. If you recall your history, post-World War I, which ended the divine right of kings once and for all, there arose competing political systems – fascism, communism and corporate-style republics that vied for global dominance. Fascism was destroyed in the 40s except for a couple places like Spain. Communism fell apart (Soviet Union) and/or was largely abandoned (China) by the early 1990s, except in a few places like North Korea. Under neo-con thinking, since our system “won” the 20th century, the next logical step or manifest destiny was global dominance, involving crushing all enemies, declared or potential, and remaking recalcitrant societies in our image, a la “nation-building”. Like the vanquished ideologies, this is a teleological movement that seeks to create a utopian world that is unified under one type of system. For more on this, I would suggest “Black Mass” by John Gray, which makes a great companion to Scahill’s work. See
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/j ... y.politics for a review/summary.
The other thought or impression I had as I was reading this was that a lot of bad things happen when the unholy trinity of a teleological ideology, sociopathic/dominance-based behavior and careerism comes together. The ideology creates an environment where the end justifies the means (we’re creating utopia, dammit!), effectively giving permission to sociopathic individuals to authorize and engage in torture and other depraved activities, such as those described in the book at the various detention facilities. It also provides careerists (the largest component by numbers of individuals) to achieve successes that would not have been possible had there been no ideological movement. Note that careerists generally “go with the flow”. Actor-wise in this saga you see the ideologue, represented by Rumsfeld and the other neo-cons, the sociopath, represented by Cheney and those running the torture facilities, and the careerists, represented by Presidents Bush and Obama and a host of military commanders seeking to burnish their credentials and reputations. The passivity of the past two presidents and their fascination with just “winning” something to tell the press is particularly notable. They like the JSOC because it gives them lots of options. By the end of the book, you get the impression that while the neo-con ideology itself is on the wane, the empire-supporting apparatus it set up has assumed a careerist life of its own and shows no signs of abatement, as Eisenhower famously warned that it might. The military loves the toys and prestige, the media loves the dramatic stories of our freedom fighters and the politicians love the power, status and speaking opportunities.
The other thing I got out of this book was a much better understanding of how these petty rulers in various countries use posturing and tactics to get money, arm or other support from foreign powers such as the U.S. to maintain their positions. This explains a lot some of the statements you see coming from Hamid Kharzai and others.
Regarding the four questions:
1. When is it ok to assassinate/target Americans without due process?
I agree pretty much with Jenny. If you can detain them and prosecute them because they are at home or in a friendly country, you ought to do it. And if there are not reachable, you need to consider whether they are actually a fighting threat. However, once they start living in war zones and hold themselves out as an enemy or supporters of an enemy, they can make themselves a target. The example of Anwar Awlaki was not a very good/persuasive one for Scahill to use.
A more interesting example would be Edward Snowden. I can’t think of any circumstance that I would agree that he could be targeted as opposed to prosecuted. But he’s not living in a war zone cheering on terrorist activities that result in death and maiming.
2. When is it ok to assassinate/target foreign nationals in countries we aren’t at war with?
Not very often – and we should have permission from the country in question. It appears such permission can be purchased quite easily in many places. I don’t think we should be responsible for how poorly some other countries are governed.
3. At what point are we creating the nails by using the hammer?
Most of the time. Even things that “work” very well for a time often backfire later on. The whole U.S./Iran relationship can be traced back to the CIA messing around there in the 1950s. And the Taliban fighters we happily support in the 1980s, along with Saddam Hussein. You can see the end result of that. We’d do well to stay out of most of these places and not try to fix them. The arguments against this position are generally empire-based, especially when you hear people babbling about such things as “prestige”, “respect” and “influence” – as if all of our freedoms are at stake every time some two-bit despot or would-be terrorist insults us. I also note that the inhabitants of countries not obsessed with the empire words do not seem to have as much trouble with terrorist threats. I don’t see Canadians jumping up and down about the outrageous jokes we tell about them.
4. How do we regain control of JSOC?
Has to be through Congress. But our legislative branch is weak and seems to be getting weaker. There are no statesmen – only careerists. Much easier to wave the flag, profess support for your war-maimed constituents and fund the military operations that help your home state or district than to take any hard stands.
As the book notes, people who disdain the trappings of empire are marginalized in both parties (Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich were the examples). Thus, I doubt you’d ever see a non-empire supporting candidate for president out of either party anytime soon. Some people thought that was what Obama was, but he quickly saw the careerist path of least resistance and went with the status quo for most things.
The media could help, but is more interested in cheap drama for the masses and telling people what they want to hear (as in why its really a necessary and brave thing that their son or neighbor is maimed physically or mentally) rather than changing the status quo. And they have learned that they get more bang for their buck by regurgitating official press releases and statements than to actually go investigate anything. The only media that spends any money on investigative journalism anymore is Al Jazeera, I’m afraid.
.) My stance is likely based more on not devoting too much time to the subject because I have been working feverishly on other areas that are very controllable. 