War on terror(ism)
Images and video clips we see on mainstream media are not necessarily accurate representations of terrorism and global war on terror as the majority would know it as. Media framing certainly impacts its audience’s perception and views of places like Afghanistan and Iraq, misguiding most people by generating stereotypes and labels which blatantly overgeneralizes the entire nation without understanding socio-cultural aspects underlying them. In addition, the influence of media coverage from developed countries—or the Western civilization as Huntington suggested—dominates the mainstream media, giving most people imbalanced view of the situation. Thus, it is important to understand the terrorism and global war on terror(ism) from both sides’ perspective.
Beyond the traditional geography of place, territorial sovereignty, and international boundary, Colin Flint’s thesis on meta-geographies broaden our understanding of terrorism and its structure of loosely coupled nodes in various sizes and functions which mostly have a relatively high degree of autonomy to manage and conduct their own operations in localized contexts. Although the entire network may collectively seem to have unified goals and targets, each cell within this vast network focuses on highly localized internal struggles which mostly have been existed for a long period of time. These cells are glued by an overarching ideology, sharing similar ideals which define and draw the line between allies and enemies.
Lack of understanding of the other parties’ underlying background, struggles, and ideologies, as well as overgeneralization of internal dynamics and plurality inside the civilizations, can be summed in a term ‘Clash of Ignorance’ as coined by a Palestinian intellectual, Edward Said. In his response to ‘Clash of Civilizations’ thesis, Said argued that oversimplification of terms like “Islam” and “West”—coupled with lack of knowledge on other parts of the world—pose danger, complexity, and unnecessary tensions in the Global War on Terror(ism).
Our knowledge and perceptions of world conflicts are largely shaped by short clips and fragments of information from TV and the Internet which are subject to specific framing. New forms of popular geopolitics emerging in the recent years give us more options of access to digitally mediated information, which still can’t be detached from framing.
The road to peace may be patchy, but it’s certainly not through bullets and armors. It begins with understanding of highly localized issues which are close to the civilians’ daily life and how to address these effectively. Some examples shown in the lecture include establishing settlement, planting olive groves, and granting access to basic necessities like water, food (agriculture), and education.
Some key concepts in ‘War on Terror: from War to Peace’ topic that drew my interest are the understanding of meta-geographies and its relation to terrorist network such as Al-Qaeda as well as responses and actions from the super-power United States. In addition, with the recent shift of policy and strategy by president Barack Obama’s administration to close the chapter of Global War on Terror, there’s an increasingly important needs to address United States’ domestic affairs and strengthen its own internal security.
About the ‘Just War’ and some reasons behind it
In their paper about just war and extraterritoriality, Falah, Flint, and Mamadouh (2006) presented extensive analysis of newspaper headlines, articles, as well as political cartoons published in regional newspaper in Arab nations during the Iraq war. These analysis and interpretations of the political cartoon are important tools to broaden and deepen the understanding of just war and how both parties see this matter from their own perspective. Before analyzing the views, it is necessary to understand the reasoning behind the so-called just war.
Just like all other wars, United States military invasion to Iraq needed to be portrayed as a just war in order to garner support from international forum as well as the Americans. As a hegemonic power, United States extended its influence into other states’ sovereignty through diplomatic pressure, emulation of economic and social practices, as well as military invasion (Falah et al., 2006). In the case of Iraq war, United States launched military invasion and disregard sovereignty space of Iraq with some underlying reasons behind this.
Firstly, United States facilitated its extraterritorial reach by projecting an image of prime modernity through its own definition of modern society as a hegemonic power. By doing so, United States would be depicted as a legitimate actor in the world stage, having the role of global policeman who protect the universal standards of human rights—one of a kind that isn’t constrained by state sovereignty. Although the view of prime modernity projected by the United States may be an agreeable image to other first-world countries which have been living in modern society, United States has done a gross misreading of regional politics, religion and culture in the Middle East—inappropriately believing that the United States could lead a coalition to occupy and reshape a significant Arab state (Hannah, 2010).
Secondly, many scholars and global affairs observers pointed out that protection of the world’s largest oil reserves was indeed a major factor in United States strategic thinking behind the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan (Hannah, 2010). With its huge consumption of oil and gas for various sectors and industries, United States is heavily dependent on the assurance of availability as well as constant supply of natural oil from the Middle East. Thus the involvement of United States in ‘liberating’ the Arab nation is of its major interest in favor to national economic growth and perhaps US domestic security.
International and domestic reactions and impacts
With some other possible reasons in addition to the aforementioned justifications, in 2003 some of the international forums supported the United States extraterritoriality while some others contended it. Generally, other Arab nations see the war as an unjust one and disapprove the United States intervention, but they are at a much lower and weaker position to physically stand against the super-power. As reflected in political cartoons published in regional newspaper in Arab nations, there are several instances of cartoon where the Arab nations stand together collectively, represented as one body of oil-producing countries or as muslim nations which hold certain common values among them. Hannah (2010) summarized that the war on terror(ism) has definitely been a bad thing for most individuals and populations impacted by it, whatever its empirical complexity may be.
Weighing the negative impacts of the territorial-specific war on terror(ism)—despite the fact that the terrorist network is highly de-territorialized (Flint, 2007)—it is crucial to understand the network’s infrastructure and plan an effective approach to resolve it. In his meta-geographies thesis, Flint (2007) listed suggestions to counter the terrorism, one being targeting the junction nodes where it act as joints of multiple connections to other core nodes and peripheral nodes. Removal of these mid-level leaders would theoretically incur disruptions of control, communications, and operations within the chain of command.
Wrapping up: Learn from the mistake and move forward
As the international and domestic community learnt from the fault-proven premises of some reasons behind the military invasion, there were increasing protest and demand to end the military invasion. Some of these fault premises include the accusation of Saddam Hussein’s involvement in 9/11 attack as well as the weapon of mass destruction which was believed to be existed. Successor of Bush and its administration carry heavy responsibility on their shoulder to negate the consequences and impacts of the Bush-declared Global War on Terror. The current US president Barack Obama has taken significant decisions and steps towards reconciliation of the issue by renaming the GWOT to Overseas Contingency Operations.
Learning from meta-geographies thesis, it would be wiser to spend considerable amount of monetary and human resources to search and dissect the junction nodes of the terrorist network by building relationship and cooperation with other nations in the world instead of using military power and physical actions in a specific territory. As the highly de-territorialized and networked operations present in many cities and countries of the world, it is increasingly important that United States is actively building relationship with other nations to stand together to combat the terrorism. Moreover, United States can take the lead with its hegemonic power to educate and inform other smaller and poorer countries where their younger—and possibly troubled—civilians can be the target of the terrorists’ recruitment. A connectivity map of the world major cities can perhaps be more useful in learning and understanding the possible locations of the nodes instead of relying on geographical topography representation of the world.
At the same time, the US domestic market had been hampered by economy turmoil which hit the country badly. As the monetary and human resources can possibly be shifted from the war in the Middle East to reconstruct their own homeland and make use of the budget spending wisely on other factors which are more crucial to the internal security and growth of the nation.
Lastly, the possibility of green technology and green energy is getting more and more important for major oil consumer like United States to serve as a alternative source of energy which would eventually reduce nation’s dependency and reliance on non-renewable and exhaustible natural oil and gas. As world population increases and energy demand escalates, the call for green renewable energy is a clear aim for most countries of the world.
