On Enmity

Let's talk about Al-Qaeda. According to the Washington Post, some faction or other within Al-Qaeda is now endorsing John McCain:

Al-Qaeda is watching the U.S. stock market's downward slide with something akin to jubilation, with its leaders hailing the financial crisis as a vindication of its strategy of crippling America's economy through endless, costly foreign wars against Islamist insurgents.

And at least some of its supporters think Sen. John McCain is the presidential candidate best suited to continue that trend.

"Al-Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election," said a commentary posted Monday on the extremist Web site al-Hesbah, which is closely linked to the terrorist group. It said the Arizona Republican would continue the "failing march of his predecessor," President Bush.

This is sure to get people on the left smiling, though it should be noted that Hamas endorsed Obama not that long ago. Great.

It's interesting to look at the way our country deals with statements uttered by "terrorists." During an election, the Right is happy to believe Hamas when it says it wants Obama to win. During an election, the Left is happy to believe that Al-Qaeda means what it says when it endorses McCain. But credencing either of these statements is an act of bad faith on the part of politicians and the talking heads. Neither puts faith in the statements of "terrorists" because, according to the logic of absolute enmity, terrorists are not capable of speaking the truth. It is for this reason that nobody pays any attention when Bin Laden releases a video; as an absolute enemy, what he says cannot be trusted.

Enmity is a concept without content -- or rather, it is a category that must be perpetually constituted according to local and temporary needs. If Bin Laden says that he wants the US out of Israel, it is regarded as a ploy for some greater, more sinister purpose, be it Islamo-fascist theocracy or total war. Yet, if a "terrorist" admits under duress at Guantanamo that he or she planned an attack or engaged in terroristic activity, that's another story. Because such statements fulfill local and temporary political functions, the terrorist may speak a "truth" that is otherwise inconceivable. The same goes for the current elections; Hamas or Al-Qaeda is allowed to demonstrate a preference for one or another candidate in a foreign, democratic election if such statements fulfill the needs of our domestic political environment.

The point here is that the war on terror, in a historically novel way, abrogates the basic conditions of veracity that make politics a meaningful category of human discourse. If the possibility of a "terrorist" uttering a true statement is permanently witheld, there is no real enemy to fight at all--there is only our mirror image of who we are as a people. We are damned to perpetually dream up our own worst enemy--and fight ourselves to the death.

It's Tuesday again

It's 9/11, and the internet is wide awake.

Gary Kamiya over at Salon.com is thinking about "the real lessons" of 9/11. This is a good piece because it takes the long view of how 9/11 has been used for political ends, places it in historical perspective, and incisively articulates the sense of determinism that has characterized post-9/11 foreign policy.

Petraeus' evaluation can only be "anxiously awaited" by people who are still anxiously waiting for Godot. We know what will happen next because we've been watching this movie for eight months. Gen. Petraeus, Bush's mighty-me, will insist that we're making guarded progress. Bush, whose keen grasp of military reality is reflected in his recent boast that "we're kicking ass" in Iraq, will promise that he will reassess the situation in April. The Democrats will flail their puny arms, the zombie Republicans will keep following orders, and the troops will stay.

. . .

Sept. 11 is a totemic date for the Bush administration. It justifies everything, explains everything, ends all argument. It is the crime that must be eternally punished, the wound that can never heal, the moral high ground that can never be taken.

Slate.com is laying off the 9/11 story and examining the new bin Laden video, "before it is forgotten in the coming debate on Gen. David Petraeus' Iraq report." This piece is slightly alarmist; Anne Applebaum worries that al-Qaida's new turn in public relations could seduce westerners, the consequences of which, she says, would be horrific.

Real or fake, the message might still hint at the direction in which al-Qaida propaganda, or at least al-Qaida propaganda designed for the Western market, is now heading. In a recent Slate piece, Reza Aslan eloquently described how the organization's list of alleged "grievances"—which now include global warming, corporate capitalism, and African poverty, as well as the American bases in Saudi Arabia—weave "local and global resentments into a single anti-American narrative, the overarching aim of which is to form a collective identity across borders and nationalities." But the narrative clearly isn't meant for only the Arab world. On the contrary, perhaps it's time to take the main message seriously: Clearly, al-Qaida's long-term goal is to convert Americans and other Westerners to its extreme version of Islam.

See yesterday's post on the new bin Laden video here.

Two Minutes Hate

You may have missed it, but Emmanuel Goldstein Osama bin Laden released a video statement on Friday. The New York Times covered it for about half a second. It was his first such statement in three years. And apart from some speculations about the video itself (rather than the message) and some chatter about whether or not Osama dies his beard, there was virtually no media coverage of it.

For those who might possibly be interested in hearing what Osama bin Laden has to say, in his own words, check out the video here. (It seems the Ministry of Information has been here: the video hardly to be found on the internet and the transcript seems to no longer be available from Fox. I am hosting the transcript on my webspace here.)

I was struck by the decidedly communist tone he takes here, as well as the sense of religious tolerance for Judaism that is advanced in lockstep with the usual Islamic evangelism. As before, Osama bin Laden proves himself to be a close observer of American life (he even references the mortgage woes of the last month). What seems to me more important than anything, however, is not the message itself, but the utter disregard this country shows for the views of our ostensible enemy. Aren't we waging wars against this man? And yet there seems to be some kind of anxiety--even fear--about listening to what he has to say. Two years ago when I taught 1984, I realized that not a single person in my class knew what Osama bin Laden really wanted--what his grievances were, what his ideology looks like, etc. All they knew was that he was inimical to "us," and that he was the enemy. "Enmity" is mightily empty category, and a dangerous one at that, if you refuse to allow it to have content.

And that's exactly what bin Laden is for Americans, an enemy without content. The fact of the matter is that Osama bin Laden is not isomorphic with himself. That is, "Osama bin Laden," as that name is understood in this country, is a simulacrum of the actual man. We do not need to listen to what he has to say because we know what he is -- after all, he is our creation. He represents for us something to fight against, the implement against which we sharpen our knives and define ourselves. His words are not relevant since they communicate a version of himself that does not square with our understanding of him. Why would we both listen or give credence to his video musings?

The real education is not, I think, in bin Laden's message itself. There we will find his version of a PR campaign; the video is a well rehearsed statement of ideology designed to appeal to as wide a swath of people as possible. The real meaning behind the video lies in the void in which it is submitted. Osama bin Laden's attempts to publish himself are denied, and "enmity" remains an empty category that we can fill with content when and where it is convenient.