The Public Value of Security
Joining Forces
Just don’t mention the ‘war’ (in a speech)
at 4:02pm on Sunday, 10th December 2006It’s a shame Jason Burke went to RUSI to get an opinion on the FCO’s recent suggestion to Cabinet Ministers that they should no longer mention the phrase – the ‘war on terror’ because it was liable to anger British Muslims and increase tensions more broadly in the Islamic world. A shame because a recent Demos publication Bringing it Home by Rachel, Catherine and Hannah made a rather more comprehensive argument for changing the British Government’s approach both in terms of strategy and content.
I wonder how significant the consequences of this shift will be. In a prophetic article for the journal International Affairs, Paul Rogers (Professor of peace studies at Bradford University) noted how the US Government is beginning to shift their rhetoric to incorporate a new phrase – the long war, in a conscious echo of the paradigm it was seen as replacing - the Cold War. Other academics have suggested that the war on terrorism will be the defining paradigm in the struggle for global order, while Government officials can be sometimes heard talking about a new normality.
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When was the last terrorist attack on a Western country? When was the last Al-Qaida terrorist attack anywhere?
Iraq Sudan
Surely what we have experienced does not constitute a 'war' by any means. The daily fighting and death toll of
I am reminded of the people of a planet Arthur Dent finds himself on in the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. On this planet the people have excellent medicine, wealth, and individual freedom, yet they carry around panic alarms to manufacture crises in order to relieve the tedium of their perfect lives. Now, I'm not suggesting that there is no threat; there is, and I trust those who tell me it is still real - of course it has been horrifyingly, tragically real. However, I suggest that, perhaps, we are seeing an exaggeration caused by
a) political interests - creating fear and then showing 'strength' has won elections, and muted dissent.
b) politicians, on perhaps a more benign level, feeling they need/ want a great enemy in order to act out their Churchillian fantasies, to gain their place in the history books
c) military strategists, and security services, continuing in their Cold War paradigm, one enemy is easier to deal than a multiplicity (and a real threat serves to preserve their status and funding...)
d) geopoliticians, continuing their perpetually attractive world maps of good vs. evil, us and them etc.
e) Al-Qaida themselves, afterall this particular them and us works both ways, and it serves Al-Qaida's interests if the West accepts their geopolitical vision.
d) media always in search of something that sells stories, and of course that will encourage the talking up of threats.
Doubtless, there are more factors, yet it is possible to see how this resonance network interacts to inflate a real threat into a 'war'.
"London is not a battlefield. Those innocents who were murdered on July 7 2005 were not victims of war. And the men who killed them were not, as in their vanity they claimed on their ludicrous videos, 'soldiers'. They were deluded, narcissistic inadequates. They were criminals. They were fantasists. We need to be very clear about this. On the streets of London, there is no such thing as a 'war on terror', just as there can be no such thing as a 'war on drugs'.
In a speech to the Center on International Cooperation the international development secretary confirmed that
It is "the vast majority of the people in the world" against "a small number of loose, shifting and disparate groups who have relatively little in common", he said.
"What these groups want is to force their individual and narrow values on others, without dialogue, without debate, through violence.
"And by letting them feel part of something bigger, we give them strength."