Saturday, July 18, 2015

William Saletan's Act of Parrhesia: The Chattanooga Mass Shooting was a 'Legal' Act of War, Not Terrorism

As explained by imminent political theorist and philosopher Michel Foucault, parrhesia is:
"parrhesiazesthai" means "to tell the truth." But does the parrhesiastes say what he thinks is true, or does he say what is really true? To my mind, the parrhesiastes says what is true because he knows that it is true; and he knows that it is true because it is really true. The parrhesiastes is not only sincere and says what is his opinion, but his opinion is also the truth. He says what he knows to be true. The second characteristic of parrhesia, then, is that there is always an exact coincidence between belief and truth...If there is a kind of "proof" of the sincerity of the parrhesiastes, it is his courage. The fact that a speaker says something dangerous — different from what the majority believes— is a strong indication that he is a parrhesiastes.
In my own writing and public pedagogy it is a principle that I strive to fulfill.

Parrhesia comes with risk.

William Saletan, writing at Slate, has just violated a basic rule in mainstream, corporate news, American public discourse with his new essay "The Chattanooga Killings Aren't Terrorism". There, he dares to suggest that America engages in acts of war, violence, and yes "terrorism" abroad, but that the American people would howl in protest if the same standards of behavior and acts were committed against the "homeland".

He writes:

Senseless? Unfathomable? Terrorism? I doubt it. If this incident was inspired by Islamic jihad, as many investigators suspect, then it probably wasn’t senseless. Nor was it terrorism. It was a rational, horrific act of war. 
Americans think we’re tough because we have a strong military. In truth, most of us are soft. We know nothing of combat. We don’t regularly hear gunfire or worry about our kids dying in an airstrike. When somebody who’s angry at our government opens fire in one of our cities, we can’t believe crime has come to our own neighborhood. We call it terrorism... 
Mabus, the Navy secretary, is outraged that these men were killed stateside. They were at a training facility, not in a war zone. And the Army office shot up a few minutes earlier by the same gunman, Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez, was just a recruiting center. The State Department’s definition of terrorism takes this context into account. It stipulates: “The term ‘non-combatant’ … is interpreted to mean, in addition to civilians, military personnel (whether or not armed or on duty) who are not deployed in a war zone or a war-like setting.” 
But what, exactly, is a war zone? Today, with the aid of remotely piloted vehicles, you can engage in combat overseas without leaving the safety of your own country. That’s what many of our fighters are doing. Last month in the Daily Beast, David Axe reported that according to U.S. military officials, during the past year, drones have conducted nearly 900 airstrikes in Iraq and Syria—and even when they’re not firing the missiles, they’re “involved in pretty much every engagement.” The drones are being piloted from Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, with help from other stateside bases. If you want to kill the people who are firing those missiles in Iraq, you have to come here...Recruiters are standard fare. In February, we sent a drone to kill an ISIS recruiter in Afghanistan, even though, according to a Pentagon spokesman, the recruiter had “decided to swear allegiance to [ISIS] probably no more than a couple weeks ago. And he didn't have a whole lot of depth to any network resources or manpower when he did it.” 
Training facilities aren’t just fair game. They’re prized targets. President Obama has repeatedly bragged about hitting them. In February, White House spokesman Josh Earnest proudly informed reporters that coalition airstrikes had “succeeded in taking out at least 20 training camps.” Two weeks ago, Obama indicated that the tally had increased: “We’ve taken out thousands of fighting positions, tanks, vehicles, bomb factories, and training camps.” 
When we target a training facility and kill its inhabitants, we don’t call that terrorism. We call it moral success. 
Smart, responsible, and enlightened citizens--of course--know this to be true, and that a whole industry and machinery exists to socialize the American people into a "war made easy" state of mind in which lies about American Exceptionalism, the country's reluctance to go to war, where war is always a last option, and "we" only fight for democracy, freedom, and human rights is accepted as the fact. Unfortunately, such basic knowledge is forbidden; possession or utterance of it can get one branded a heretic or traitor.

I care not if some would dismiss Saletan's analysis as "click bait", what matters is that he is right.

Why has his analysis not received more attention? (Or protest? Perhaps I have not have been looking in the right places.)

Do you think he will suffer any repercussions for his truth-telling? And why do you think that Slate, a website owned by a multinational conglomerate, would feature such an essay?

21 comments:

RPM said...

Depends if it is picked up or not but if it makes any waves I suspect it will only be a little bit until the apology tour comes. "I was misquoted" and "Of course I respect the troops and it's not the same thing" blah blah blah. Americans don't think other lives matter, period. Maybe English and Israelis lives but no one else. Hell, americans don't even care that more than 13% of it's population are open targets for state execution and enslavement for corporate profit. Why would we be surprised that they don't care about Pakistani children blown up night and day by their psychopathic president? I have lost track of how many times I have seen or read the news where they describe some killing or tragedy where "200 were killed, 3 of them american." Fuck the other 197 only 3 yanks matter.
The disconnect between those the USA pays to kill poor people overseas(used to be called mercenaries now we say soldiers) and those who don't is wide enough that we think of them as heroes for risking their lives for the empire. So when the arm of the state goes to some far off land and kills innocent children, women and men it's collateral damage and not our fault. Out of sight and out of mind. Only imperialist twits view combat this way. Nearly every corner of the middle east as well as nearly all of Africa and soon Asia understands the American program. There is no police action. There is no freedom project. American are killing, raping stealing and destroying other nations and their resources because we can. This is war to destroy and enslave anyone we choose to. Destroy other peoples lives while upending your own citizens in the name of security is an old playbook. And still we are told that only are lives matter. Who even talks about war anymore? Saying this is an act of war is no more brave than saying the police are racist murdering rapist shit stains. It will ruffle some feathers till it is forgotten. Want to be brave than publish the names of every person killed by american wars in the last 14 years. Show their grieving families. Tell people of their dreams, hopes, what made them laugh, what made them cry and than show the body. Everyday. We will either own up to are lack of shits given about other people or we will stop this and imprison the bastards that are ordering the murder of other people in our name. DO the same for the americans we kill at home and things will change. It's pathetic that just saying something that is clearly an act of war for retaliation for our acts of war is considered brave. If this were fiction the viewers of it would say it makes no goddamn sense. Life has always been this bizarre but christ if I still struggle to comprehend how everything always seems so backwards.

chauncey devega said...

Lots of emotion and feelings. I appreciate thorough and long comments. Do share. What 4 or 5 direct and parsimonious concerns are you feeling right now? Saletan, like other authors, got permission from the Editor(s) to run this piece. Why? What is the longer game? Did Saletan get a piece that drives traffic in the best sense but also lets whee bit of truth slip out in this professional wrestling is politics game?

Shady Grady said...

How is it an act of war for an American citizen to kill other American citizens? In his eagerness to criticize American policies the writer legitimizes viewpoints shared by the Pamela Gellers and Daniel Pipes of the world.

joe manning said...

One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. Saletan exposes the double standard that lies buried beneath a mountain of media propaganda. American exceptionalism has taken the nation from a Commonwealth to its present status of xenophobic back water.

The contraction of civil society has allowed rightist conspiratorialty to enter the vacuum and construct a right wing barzarro world animated by an archaic Crusading sense of barbarity.

The feeling of confidence gained from the notion that "we" are the most powerful gang on the planet is being shook by routine random acts of domestic terror. When Americans finally ascertain that blow back from "endless war" is not worth the the price of "public endangerment" they'll be chastened by a new wave of pacifism.

Dan Kasteray said...

I look forward to pacifism. I grew up on action movies so i was raised at the altar of violence fetishism.

As a grown man, I've lost all taste for bad Hollywood propaganda and real war.

Hopefully the pacifism message spreads. We can't survive bronze age tribalism in the 21 century

Dan Kasteray said...

Well war was declared on both black people and native Americans for centuries and is still ongoing. Indeed the USA was built on war and conquest

joe manning said...

In the 1960's it took a huge peace movement to end the Viet Nam war. The new pacifism is in its early stages of development. wikipedia.org/wiki/Medea_Benjamin

joe manning said...

Saletan et. al. are pointing out that foreign wars have a blow back effect that brings the war home in the form of domestic terror.

chauncey devega said...

The legal standard may be different, i.e. being subjected to summary execution, but a person acting in the stead of a foreign agent to wage war against their "own" country is still "war". The U.S. convinces and turns people against their own countries all the time. We call them "allies" or "brave" and "honorable" people.

James Scaminaci III, PhD said...

I applaud him for his courage. I think he is right. I have privately thought that the Obama administration has done its best to hide its drone war. Most Americans, taking their lack of information from the media, are not very well informed about the drone war. My thinking was along the lines of, there are many young men and women who have lost fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters, uncles, etc in drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere. One of these days into the future he/she is going to come here and conduct a terrorist strike. He/she will leave a posting or video as to why and the vast majority of Americans will be like--where the hell is that country?; where the hell is that village?; we did what, when? why? why do they hate us?

I think what Saletan wrote is what I would call the logical outcome of our policy. We kill wedding parties in Yemen or elsewhere and you have to expect someone is going to react here.

There's an old song with the line, "When you own a big chunk of the bloody third world, the babies come with the scenery"! Well, you have to expect retaliatory strikes inside the homeland when you are waging a war against a multi-headed hyrdra network.

I remember my Finnish wife asking me about Abu Ghraib and what it meant. I told her that Abu Ghraib was the logical outcome of a policy originating in the White House with the president. You authorize torture and that is what you get. There is no reason to get upset with our young men and women who are doing simply what you authorized. Does it look good? No. Are we embarrassed? Yes. Was it illegal and immoral? Yes, without a doubt. But, they were not the "bad apples." Those were our neighbors we sent to war and told them acting like barbarians and savages outside the rules of war because we were "going to the dark side," according to our un-indicted war criminal vice president.

joe manning said...

Some of us are more guilty than others but we all have blood on our hands.

Shady Grady said...

Every country in the Western Hemisphere, and arguably the entire world was built on war and conquest at some point. It's the nature of the state. My issue is not with Saletan talking about blowback. My issue is with him calling it war, which it wasn't. It was murder.


If it is war and a true conflict of civilizations then Geller and her ilk are right, the "enemy" has no business in our country and Islam is incompatible with US culture.


I don't believe that so I am resistant to the idea that this is war.

Shady Grady said...

I don't think anyone is brave or honorable who guns down unarmed people on whatever side. If Abdulazeez felt the need to fight and kill he could have stayed overseas or left to join ISIS. This whole narrative of "war" is I think accelerant for those who would argue that by virtue of culture/religion that Abdulazeez and those like him are congenitally incapable of being Americans.


I disagree with that so I think it's important to keep a distinction between murder and war.

Gable1111 said...

Saleton will be studiously ignored because the logic of the truth of what he describes is so simple even the lowest of "low information voter" can grasp it. To engage on any serious level will mean giving Saleton's premise a wider stage and they realize the threat to American exceptionalism that would be.

chauncey devega said...

It is not about bravery or nobility. War is about advancing your political goals and destroying the enemy to the degree necessary. Call me a realist. I prefer that my enemies be unarmed, vulnerable, asleep, and me and my forces being in the maximum position to inflict harm on them while being protected myself.

Gable1111 said...

I would be reluctant to call those killings an act of war because then that supports the extra legal "enemy combatant" concept, wherein anyone can be designated as such for political reasons and summarily killed.

Dan Kasteray said...

Indeed the enemy is incompatible with us values and should be expelled. However it's not radical Islam that's the enemy but radical right that's the threat; far more pressing and lethal

OldPolarBear said...

There were some accounts related to Abu Ghraib that said Lyndie England may not have done any of the actual torture, or barely participated, and that she was just there and did that one pose with the victims while someone snapped a picture. That doesn't make her innocent, or course, but her punishment may have been way out of proportion while others more guilty walked away from that free.

OldPolarBear said...

Just catching up so pretty late with this and I don't have much to add to these generally good comments. It's just that I find it kind of stunning that Saletan would have written this and that Slate would run it. He has always been one of those nominal "liberals" (in truth pretty much running the neoliberal line) who would go all swaggering Texan at any kind of terrorist attack or even serious criticism of America. And Slate is mostly just centrist, WaPo subsidiary click-bait. I can't see what kind of comments he got because they won't load!

Ash said...

sorry to bring this up, but are you gonna address the whole West/Coates brouhaha? Really need your insight to make sense of it all

mari therese said...

One can equally argue that the mass killings here were indeed an act of terrorism just as the drone strikes abroad are acts of terrorism. One can equally argue that war itself is terrorism. Perhaps it is a matter of semantics. But its reality is horrific.