Progressive Aggression

My recent post on a progressive national security has provoked some reponse, and I'm glad. I've been following the comments at The Agonist with great interest, and ersatzprofessor wrote a lengthy refutation.

Now I want to amplify a bunch and clarify a little, but do so in a post short enough to digest . . . which will be hard. Initially, I tried to sum up why believing in and talking about the necessity of violence as a part of a progressive national security strategy is not only a political necessity, but an ethically sound position that is drawn from the following observation premises:

1. There are a group of fanatic killers who want to kill as many Americans as they can; and,
2. Dead terrorists can't kill Americans.

Although its tone was flippant and I pretty much just tossed it off, the post expressed long-held views that I’ve spent a lot of serious time on. I’m very uncomfortable with slogans and bumper sticker philosophies; they are reductionisms that inhibit thought, and in no way is that my desire here. The "Stygius Doctrine," as praktike put it, is by no means a foreign policy. It's not even a specific strategy within a policy. "Tactic" isn’t even that accurate (and it's certainly not just an electoral strategy).

Rather, sentiment seems closest to what I’m aiming at -- and a "touchstone"; also, "value-claim" may give it that air of pedantry I have a weakness for. Why I put it this way will become clearer below.

Attitudes and Decision

I say "value" not as some universal imperative, but as a prescribed attitude. Its prescription comes not from some supremacist exceptionalism, moralism or even desire, but from a belief based on a comprehension of the world. Thus, I’m not talking in a celebratory manner. Celebrations are luxuries, which the United States cannot afford at the moment.

So, this prescribed attitude is a conclusion to be drawn for later use, and though it is not a moral imperative (Thou shalt do x), it nonetheless has an ethical dimension because it affects how we make choices. It is antecedent to decision. The trick is to make the right choices, and to have the right attitude – which I think are rooted in correctly comprehending events – leaving it possible to make correct choices later on. (More technically, what I'm hinting at here is a distilled version of Aristotelian orthos logos; frequently translated as "right reason," although I prefer "correct/rational prescription.")

From this approach, this value can persist within a whole set of other values, and holds more or less true depending on a situation and the demands of other values. Its degree of appropriateness or inappropriateness is the demand placed on it by events, not the other way around. I fully acknowledge and even embrace the idea that this value can become empty and irrational, but that is only a desire. But that's why I don’t feel cynical in arguing that this value-claim can healthily – and rationally – coexist with other values that superficially seem inconsistent or antithetical to it.

This is because the notion of killing terrorists as an ethical demand cannot possibly comprehend other demands we are faced with, such as poverty, illiteracy, debt, women’s rights, US-China relations, proliferation, trade deficits, environmental destruction, etc., etc. Also, one commenter referenced Richard Clarke's distinct yet interdependent rings of jihadism, which – although I think it too imprecise – helps illuminate my idea of a value’s plasticity in the face of real world demands. Thus, this single notion is one part of a broader calculus that has many demands, and requires balances or syntheses depending on what is appropriate; a sophisticated way of thinking which exposes the limits universal imperative thinking.

Hopefully, readers see that I’m talking about sentiments about right actions; about practical values. Thus, this is not a "Kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out!" sentiment. I fully acknowledge and embrace the notion that there can be conditions where killing terrorists can be impractical, or imprudent. That is why I’m talking about "appropriateness" and a broad, multi-faceted calculus of values. Rather, I'm asking skeptical progressives to accept the idea that there can be and are conditions where terrorists can be legitimately fought and killed.

Universal incoherence

That is why I argue that progressives should be able to think and speak in the above terms, because the problem can’t be moralized away by appeals to "international justice" and the "rule of law." Some problems just can’t be deliberated away. Although few people were paying attention in the Nineties, al-Qaeda was addressed with an incremental, "bringing them to justice" approach. The 1993 WTC attacks, the embassy attacks even, and the USS Cole attack were primarily approached as singular, legal problems. Look where that got us in 2001. The Clinton Administration didn’t even try to get support from its Democratic base to take on al-Qaeda, and Republicans in the Nineties were too consumed with destroying the President to care.

Such abstract concepts become increasingly empty every time they are uttered to excuse inaction and piously condemn pro-action when Americans die. The threat presented by al-Qaeda and its affiliates transcends moralized debates over principled desires, international law, national interest, and the like. Those debates are not suddenly invalidated, but the idea that terrorism can somehow be "framed" away or somehow minimized to fit with our principled desires is not only wishful thinking, it is profoundly immoral. One is not a deeply principled person because you think we should wait until after a massive terrorist attack to bring terrorists to justice.

Death by policy-ese

Likewise, I’m seeing current progressive efforts seeking to hint at their national security toughness while only speaking euphemistically or elliptically about force and violence. This is unacceptable. Referring to "dismantling terror networks," "draining swamps," or increasing the Army by such-and-such amount or expanding Special Ops capability only changes the subject, which doesn’t build credibility. This sanitized indirection doesn't convince folks like me – just the opposite – and it doesn’t prepare your base to support you when you are in power. And it’s not "principled" just because it changes the subject and avoids violence; in fact, it is unethical to speak in such morally empty terms, keeping one’s hands clean while the bottoms of your soles turn bloody.

Attitudes and power

But this is not only about how we ought to act, but about an opposition seizing power. To seize power, one must be ready to exercise it well, which requires a willingness to have this conversation – a conversation that should precede all this think tank stuff. Many progressives of the Kucinich school of thought have the luxury of knowing they will never have such power, so they don’t have to consider it carefully beyond their chest-pounding self-righteousness. But that's also why it's not purely cynical to talk about this stuff in terms of electability, and gaining power. In fact, it is an ethical demand that we speak in these terms, so long as we have the guts to mean what we say. But it’s not just about "messaging" Joe Sixpack some slogany condescensions for "domestic consumption." Nor is this about "framing" like we’re talking about the estate tax, for crying out loud. We cannot frame away terrorism!

It’s about you yourself; it’s about adopting the correct attitude and knowing what will be demanded of you. The demands will come from both an expectant public, and from an unforgiving enemy. This is serious.

Transcending ideology

You’ll have noticed I haven’t talked yet about taking on the Republicans, or about neoconservatives, conservatives, and paleoconservatives. I haven’t even talked much about progressives. If you think I'm just one more neoconservative, measure what I've written above with this quintessential bit of lunacy from Michael Ledeen. But frankly, I don’t trouble myself with trying to figure out what –ism I do or don’t fall under; that mind trip both bewilders and bothers me. Being different from x seems less important than prudently fighting and winning a fight we cannot lose. I am less interested in defining myself as anti-something, than I am with asserting an idea that should be common to any American, especially one seeking office:

You’re not somehow bad because you think it’s okay to kill terrorists before they kill you.

[Subject to editing]

Comments

[ersatzprofessor]

Thanks for mentioning my article, and for the corrective comment at my blog as well. I appreciate it and it's certainly to your credit.

I'm also glad you clarified what you meant. Perhaps I misread your original article, but I must admit I received a much different impression from it than I do with this one. I'll digest what you have said here, and try to come back with some comments soon (though I'm really busy right now and it might take a bit).

But in the meantime, I do have a question, if you don't mind. Are you backing away a bit from your apparent support of the "new Truman doctrine"? Or was that misread as well?

[Stygius]

Thanks, prof. I understand your first reading, and think it was my own lack of clarity -- I didn't spend a lot of time on that post.

Any initial support of the "new Truman doctrine" was totally offhand, as in 'all that stuff is very nice, but . . . '. Personally, I think grandiose speculations about exceptionalism, hegemony and all that are misplaced. Exceptionalism and hegemony are not 'values' nor should they be, and it seems to me folks are still getting the values aspect worked out. So what I'm arguing for is just getting back to the basic metaphysics and grasping them before drafting policy manifestos.

Look forward to your reply.

[ersatzprofessor]

My comments ended up being a little on the long side. So I've posted them at my own blog here
Feel free to cut and paste if you would prefer to address them in this comments section instead.

[anonymouse]

I personally think ersatzprofessor feels driven to divert to all kinds of moral and philosophical big issues because he has a common problem I see on the left. They have so long been outraged by everything the Bush administration and Israel does and battled it from every angle that they automatically assume if you take one tiny part of the "war on terror" as sensible, logical, common sense that you are buying into the whole shebang. Thus one must construct some kind of philosophical abstractions about morality, war, and imperialism, some kind of rules to counter all the horrors blah blah blah. It's going way way beyond the subject at hand, just like Bush did!

Take yourself out of the box of reacting to what the Bushies did, can do, intend, that are leading us to the end times or whatever, and even outside of the 9/11 box. Remove yourself from the fact that the damn Bush administration can't seem to define what a terrorist is or find nearly a damn single one. (Isn't this what Richard Clarke was sorta complaining about?)

Quit getting befuddled by the muddle that Bush has made of this.

Terrorism.

Go back to the 1972 Munich Olympics where this modern form has its roots.

Tell me that a sharpshooter should not have taken out one of those guys if he had the chance.

A crime is being committed. Hostages are being held at an international event that is a symbol of peaceful international cooperation. They are doing it for the international media attention, and they are doing it to terrorize with access to the world media. They want you, the second and first world people with access to newspapers and TV sets to know that they are out there and will strike anytime unless you solve their problem. They are basically blackmailing the rest of the world which would like to follow other rules already set up. They don't like those rules, aren't happy with the card they've been dealt with those rules. So they are going to take the world hostage.

If a car jacker takes along a child as hostage, and then when surrounded by police, puts the child in front of him as a shield with a gun to the kid's head, it is immoral to shoot him? It has something to do with imperialism and Neo-con theory?

BTW, the U.N. is not a pacifist on terrorism. Check out some of their, er, publications on the matter. Their problem is too many what to put too many in the terrorist category.

And don't bring in the argument about one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. That's bogus, that's a misconstruct coming out of the Bush muddled mess. Everyone pretty well knows what international terrorism is, it's terrorism that aims to upset the international system as it is now. Those that want to go outside of the U.N. rule of law.

And don't bring up that Bush has broken international law. That's another issue. As a matter of fact, he did it in reaction to the terrorists doing it first. That's no excuse, but it's also bogus to bring it up.

If you deal with them, they win. If your population or economy is terrorized by them, they win in upsetting rule of law. They know this, that's why they do it. They should be treated like criminals, and that includes taking them alive when possible, and taking them out when there is no other way to stop their criminal operation.

P.S. Example: Osama bin Laden was convicted in the Embassy Bombings trial. He continues to be at large and to threaten the international system. Last televised threat was around the time of the U.S. election. His "deputy" just made another.

[ersatzprofessor]

If that is all that is being said, then what is the point of saying it? Who is arguing with you? Not me. This is what I said in my latest response:

"I don't think there are really very many progressives out there who are not also pacifist that would take much issue with the above as stated [that it is sometimes legitimate to kill terrorists] and do not embrace a similar view already. Unless I read it wrong, he does not even seem to be arguing for an absolute right of self defence, but rather one conditional on other values (there is an interesting discussion of some of the issues involved in self defence here, by the way. If this is so, I doubt even those who take ethics very seriously would object either. At the same time however, I do not see why the only group that his criticisms would seem to apply to- pacifists on moral or religious grounds, would come away from this any more convinced; as he does not address their likely objections whatsoever. Thus I am a bit confused as to whom his intended audience really is."

I have no problems with the examples you have given. They are all consistent with a judicial approach to terrorism and all ones where use of deadly force is justified under existing laws.

But if all he is saying is akin to how you characterize it above, then I am left to wonder just why he bothers. Like I said, only pacifists, and they are a pretty small group, would disagree with him, and I'm not sure how he is going to convince them that killing is sometimes ok by merely reiterating that it is.

[Stygius]

prof,

I plugged a trackback into this page back to your post, to make it easier for readers to find the link.

I think your reply was splendid, and pointed out a couple of weaknesses in my argument, mainly from positions I didn't consider. But this is what I wanted to trigger -- grappling with some elemental assumptions about this war. You post is long, but I'll just throw out a few (perhaps hasty) reactions:

(1) This obsession with procedure, even in the face of such a complex threat, is highly problematic for me. I am not arguing to simply do away with law, but merely understand that not only should law be plastic in the face of changing circumstances, there are some demands that law cannot satisfy -- some events take place not only in the borderlands, literally and figuratively. If there is a competition between fighting terrorism and meeting a judicial burden, I will choose the former every time. However, I think part of fighting terrorism is having a suitable legal scheme equipped to do so. My point is that I don't regard legal arcana as having some metaphysical primacy that takes precedence over political reality. Hence, my rhetoric about "inaction" has to do with the paralysis engendered by this perspective.

(2) From this, I am not arguing for arbitrary executive discretion. Hardly. Constitutional theory nor history supports it. Congress' failure to develop a proper legal framework since 9/11 is a big problem for me, which I've touch on in this blog and will touch on more in the future. But I don't believe the old canard "in war, law is silent," not by any means -- and certainly not in this war.

(3) While I argue for a heightened legislative role in the US, I feel -- and, perhaps ironically, there is a lot of American caselaw supporting this -- that there are political demands/decisions that cannot be embodied within law, and cannot be overseen by a juristocracy. Thus, the world cannot be cast in some Legal or Illegal mold -- likewise, your notion of what constitutes murder seems misguided (note Rodin's distinction btw Intl ethics and interpersonal relations). The scope of law only extends so far -- that is what I mean by "borderlands."

(3) There are many reasons why I think my approach is of the "correct prescription." One is that I don't feel any sense of ethical obligation to x-terrorist simply because he is a human. Second, this doesn't mean that there is no ethical obligation between humans, simply that such obligations are mutable -- not platonic ideals. Three, x-terrorist recognizes no such obligation to me and is actively operating to kill my ass. Four, x-terrorist can't kill me when he's dead. The duty of my government is to keep me from getting killed by x-terrorist, and if in the process of doing so x-terrorist gets killed . . . the world is left no poorer. In fact, when my circumstance is a shared circumstance - when it becomes part of the fabric of our community - then it takes on an ethical character, and the ethical goodness is born out by correct political decisions -- in some cases including hunting down, and even killing terrorists.

(4) This is not "conditional" on anything else. Merely, it coexists with a host of other values that are to be assessed, weighed, and balanced to find the correct prescription in a given situation -- which in some cases may make it inappropriate to kill a terrorist -- but only in a way that is conducive to the ultimate end.

(5) My "deliberated away" is mainly a response to the inadquacies of some critical theory; especially the inability of hermeneutics to encompass what I'm aiming at here. Also, you should reconsider your application of Lakoffian "framing" to terrorism, which informed my response.

(6) I don't see where I claimed anything was beyond rational ethics. A "principled desire" isn't necessarily rational -- especially with my notion of what is "rational." I don't have any problem with deliberation -- I do have a problem with deliberation in order to reframe a problem so that it coheres with what we would "like" the world to be, or how we would "prefer" things be done.

(7) Terrorism, especially catastrophic mass casualty attacks, doesn't just effect its immediate victims -- although they are impacted worst of all. It is an attack on our souls, for lack of a better word. Years ago I read a Pakistani general's book, The Quranic Concept of War. Hard to find (SK Malik, the author). I don't remember much about it, apart from the notion of weakening your opponent by attacking his soul. Ever since then I felt that such a war makes its own demands, showing how temporary the present is. It's a war to the death in many ways; although not always literally. This demands a different rationalism than quantitative, cost/benefit equations can provide.

(8) Although I don't put the judiciary as the primary guarantator over the executive, I think the legislature fills that role in wartime -- or ought to. The US Constitution anticipates these extraordinary situations, and likewise gives Congress its own War Powers. Perhaps my one absolute is that I will never tolerate arguments that the Constitution must be constrained in order for America to be secure.

[J.]

I have to check ersatzprofessor's posts, but you've got a good post here. I think it does clarify that your intent is to drive beyond the "kill 'em all" concept that I thought you were articulating. Your point is well made and needs to be driven home to our colleagues.

[ersatzprofessor]

Hello again,

I wrote a reply to these latest comments regarding your position on the "War on Terror" and what the left's attitude towards it should be, but I did not feel it was very constructive. The problem was too many things seemed unclear and I opted for an uncharitable interpretation of what you meant. Instead, if you are still interested in pursuing this discussion - one that I think is valuable, I have some questions it would be great if you would answer. The numbers beside the questions correspond to yours above.

(1) Are you are saying that "fighting terrorism" trumps the law every time there is a conflict between them?. how do you define "judicial burden"? And how do you define terrorism? Is this to be read as referring to terrorism occurring outside America only, or to refer to domestic terrorism as well?

(2) How does what you say here relate to your position in the first part? By arguing that fighting terrorism ought to take precedence over law, doesn't this boil down to basically granting "arbritrary executive decision"? And if you disagree with the idea that "in war, law is silent", how is your position fundamentally different, as it seems to be instead "in war, law is optional"? Perhaps I have misunderstood just what it is you are trying to say for on the face of it it seems quite contradictory.

(3)I think it would help if here you gave some concrete examples of just what kinds of political demands and decisions you have in mind. Murder, in the most commonly accepted definition is the "the unlawful killing of a human being with deliberate intent to kill". Are you saying that there are some parts of the world, the "borderlands", where either there is no law or the law does not apply to us? I would think some precision about what these "borderlands" are would be rather important. What precisely is meant by this term? What is the realm of law and the realm of anarchy? Is there to be carte blanche in failed states, for instance? Should the Canadian soldiers who tortured the Somali boy to death, for example, have gotten off scot free? You seem to like Aristotle. Do you think your view is consistent with his conception of natural law, or do you reject him entirely on this score?

As for Rodin, I referred to him orginally because he provides a good overview of the issues at stake. I don't really see where he has resolved any of these ethical issues to even his own satisfaction, as he himself admits at the end in his call for a new theory. But perhaps I am confused - please point me to the relevant part and I might retract this or at least have to deal with what he has said directly.

I have some other concerns with #3 as well, but perhaps these had best be left until after I have a better idea of just mean by "judicial burden" and "proceduralism" and all the rest.

(4) Well, that is basically saying the same thing, isn't it? If these other values are to be weighed and assessed against this one, isn't that saying that this value is not absolute, but is conditional on it being balanced with other values? I don't grasp the real distinction here. I guess my question is whether you view the right to self defence as a moral absolute such that any actions are permissable, or whether there are limits to that right- ie, conditionality.

(5) This might be interesting to discuss and I'm willing to take it up- despite my own rather shallow background in critical theory, I would welcome a discussion that would force me to bone up on it. But I'm afraid that I can't really respond to this critique unless you expand on it a little. What mistakes have I made in my "framing" of this issue, or in my opposition to how it is being "framed"?

(6) Likewise, do you have any examples that could make this a little clearer?

(7) Are you saying that we are not the masters of our own souls? And from whence does this particular special evil of "terrorism" come, such that all cost/benefit analysis is mute and we must act like fear stricken animals, throwing away our claims to humanity and dignity and the responsiblity to act justly? I think you need a much stronger argument to make a special moral category for "terrorism".

(8) If we accept what you said in (1) at face value, how can an acceptance of the executive acting "outside the law" be consonant with legislative or even consitutional control. Doesn't the power of the legislature come from the ability to make law?