[Nettime-bold] A Very American Coup?

["Lachlan Brown" <lachlan@london.com>]

subtitled: witness.reaction.analysis


We have read the accounts in a variety of media of people who witnessed events in New York City. 
We have reacted in a variety of ways to these accounts, depending on where we are @, and now we are analyzing the significance of September 11th 2001, its various meanings to us all. New York City, the great Cosmopolis of global culture has come through as we might expect it to with great character . New York can take it. Business as usual on Wall Street. The spectre of the collapse of the Twin Towers of the 'World Trade Center' after being struck by hijacked American airliners and terrible loss of life mobilized to a war of global consensus against a common external enemy. A war was quickly declared initially 'against enemies who are not yet known', a phrase that even McCarthyism in the 1950's did not produce, as well as, in the memorable 'Thatcherian' phrase: 'the enemy within.'

We have heard little about witness, reaction or analysis of the attack on the Pentagon. The reasons for this may appear obvious, the interests of 'National Security' may be compromised by detailed witness, reflection and analysis of this assault as this may encourage or provide intelligence to enemies ('external' and 'within') of the United States. It is important, however, to remember that the attack of 11 September 2001 was a coordinated one with both the American Market and Military targeted together. We are left to speculate about the target of the fourth hi-jacked plane, but either the Pentagon, again, or the Capitol likeliest. 

The intelligence apparatus of the National security State seemed incapable of anticipating or intercepting this highly organized attack which, it is supposed, was five years in the planning although the scenario is hardly an unfamiliar one. It exists in popular culture as well as in a number of 'apocalypse scenarios'.  Intelligence gathered since seems contradictory and confusing, hindered perhaps by losses to American intelligence agencies in the WTC as well as in the Pentagon. Hijackers identified by their passports are found alive and well in a number of countries, the assumed 'mastermind' denies responsibility and meanwhile the 'National Security State' a Cold War political structure geared for intercontinental ballistic warfare and the mobilization of all of the military, commercial and educational resources of the USA against several totalitarian powers, is set in motion against amorphous 'terror' networks.

The combined armed forces of the United States of America, Navy, Air Force, and Army, as well as a variety of 'special operations' units, together with their most trusted allies, (the 'English speaking world'.) are on the move bent on the course of the interception of an arch-terrorist and thereby the annihilation of a 'network of terror'. The objective of this war is the apprehension and detention and the bringing into account of a single individual named Osamar bin Laden. Unusually for Terrorists bin Laden and his 'network of terror', which is becoming more clearly defined in the imaginary of the Western media, have not claimed responsibility for the attack. 

This is not the script for the latest James Bond movie, this is the reality we are invited to share.

The mobilization for war goes under the operations title 'Infinite Justice' - the title suggests a war of some duration  - a war of retribution aimed at a distant country, Afghanistan, a central Asian country bordering a number of potentially unstable new states formerly in the Soviet Union which in turn border the major powers of Asia. Afghanistan has marked the apogee, or the 'high water mark' of a number of Imperial designs, including the Mogul, British, Soviet and even the Empire of Alexander the Great. There is little possibility of success in this theatre of war, hence the potential for corporate-military synergy over time appears endless. The potential for the production of new and lasting conflicts within Islam, between Islam and other powers, and between other powers not including Islam, beside the West's holy crusade against an individual appears infinite.

First you send your military away to a pointless war, a war that cannot be won, or a war that is lasting.

The impact of the production of such conflicts on the American 'homeland' has barely been discussed. The consequences of internal restructuring within the West, which is likely to be as great and lasting as external restructuring through warfare and its resolution (if any) in the proposed theatre among 'the Rest' barely hinted at. The silence is eerie. The silence, if we allow it to continue will be lasting. There is a short time in which analysis of the events so far may be applied to influencing the outcome, which none of us, least of all The National Security State in its present form, nor with proposed additions to the power of this National Security State, can adequately foresee or anticipate.

We have seen in New York a catastrophe of, well, New York proportions, involving people from all walks of life and cultures. The way that New York has coped with this catastrophe is pretty much how we might have expected New York to respond. With great courage, character and a reassertion of basic principles of democracy carried out by the people in action as well as in discourse. We have seen American symbols, the American airliners and American modernism juxtaposed in disaster costing nearly 6,000 lives - a disaster of sub-continental earthquake proportions --man made, an outcome of deep historical (hence understandable) patterns. The disaster involved all cultures and ethnicities, all classes and castes, women, men and children. We are all, to some degree, with New York, we are all to some degree because of New York permitted to have our say. We would like this situation to continue. We do not want to go to into a war where these rights may be lost as a consequence.

It is unwise to enter a war without intelligence.

I wonder, was the Fall of 1914 like this? Wasn't the autumn of 1939 recalled as an Indian summer? Americans entered these conflicts late, 1917 and 1941, they have no history of participating in the slow slide into catastrophe, the mobilization of military and media, the mobilization of civil defense, (Andrew Ross' post on 12 September in Nettime-Bold provides insight into this phantom government-in-waiting) the air of unreality, of 'phoney war', the clarity with which people perceived their relationships as 'instant nostalgia' as all things began to come apart. Let it not be like this. Stop the war.

At the same time the United States government is rushing to war like a headless chicken, or rather, a headless Raptor. Meanwhile, profound changes are proposed to the government of America. The National Security State, a dinosaur of last century equipped to fight the war that did not happen (peace broke out instead in most places, thanks in part to the defense of democracy by America, thanks in part to people who broke free of their empires) is dragging the world into a war it is not equipped to fight, if success in the fight is the protection of its people and the maintenance of rights and constitutional freedoms. It is a war to find out what 'a new warfare' might be like, and it is a war to find out what kind of government is needed to fight such a war.  It is a bureaucrat's war between warring bureaucracies. 

The scenario of a disaster of such proportion in New York is not an unfamiliar one. Isn't there supposed to be such a catastrophe that will ignite hatreds and provoke divisions to fulfill the fundamentalist's fantasies of global hatred, mastery and dominance? New York shows us that this is, in fact, not the case. People are not cultural dupes, not easily bamboozled, run amok. Love and New York are close partners. Let us be sure to remind you "Ich bin ein New Yorker".

We have seen people respond in a range of ways. Americans may be hurt by some comments and reactions, some of us are familiar with the effects of terrorism and have had to live with cultures of surveillance are hardened and cynical about them, some of us familiar with American imperialism and subaltern cultures are harsh commentators when they get the chance to speak, but these comments reflect how people elsewhere feel, and what they believe. That people care enough to share their feelings is to show their affinity. Brothers and sisters are harsh critics.

We are, at present, getting only part of a very unclear picture. Media is no longer war-drumming in the way it was (now that the market is stable again) and is being curious, raising the necessary questions, learning about the culture the war machine is targeted to erase. We need the full picture, in high definition, on a very wide screen, so to speak, before acting. Now we have time to consider the consequences. Soon we will be watching the video movie '30 seconds between adverts over Kabul', after that we will all be in a movie not of our volition nor of our writing.  Let's rewrite the script.

Stop the war. Now more than ever we all need thoughtful intelligence. We need to know witness, reaction and analysis of events at and about the Pentagon as well as at  and about New York and only you Americans can find that out. 

I do not suggest that there is a 'conspiracy theory' to bring about a coup d'etat, 'conspiracy theories' help to support the National Security State but this is a likely or possible outcome of current events, and the question of a coup at this historical juncture emerges from the logic of the 'national security state' and the military-industrial(-educational) complex, its simply the nature of the beast.





Lachlan Brown

Toronto 
10.01.01
http:// ? . 

d i f f e r e n c e  e n g i n e   - 1994 - 2001.
-- 

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