Agonistic Politics and The ‘War on Terror’

Christa Davis Acampora

IAS FellowHunter and The Graduate Center

City University of New York

"this crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take awhile"

—George W. Bush, September 16, 2001

I. Theories of Being Human and the Political

II. Political Agonism

III. Ways of Being Opposed

IV. The Structure of Opposition of ‘The Axis of Evil’

V. Enmity, Sovereignty, and War

VI. The Disappearance of the Enemy

VII. A Warrior’s Story

Theories of Being Human and the Political

Political Agonism

Challenges for Modern Democracies

• Legitimation

• Recognition of genuine difference and disagreement

• Creating Community

Ways of Being Opposed

Ways of Being Opposed

• Good/Bad

• Good/Evil

The Structure of Opposition andThe Axis of Evil

“We are not deceived by their pretenses to piety.  We have seen their kind before.  They are the heirs of all

the murderous ideologies of the 20th century.  By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions—by abandoning every value except the will to power—they

follow in the path of fascism, and Nazism, and totalitarianism.  And they will follow that path all the way,

to where it ends: in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies”

—George W. Bush, September 20, 2001

PNAC web site

PNAC Founders

PNAC Participants

“At present the United States faces no global rival. America’s grand

strategy should aim to preserve and extend this advantageous position as

far into the future as possible.”

—Project for the New American Century,“Rebuilding America’s Defenses”

The Mission for “Pax Americana”: “to preserve an international security

environment conducive to American interests and ideals” … “the task is to secure and expand

the ‘zones of democratic peace;’ to deter the rise of a new great-power competitor; defend

key regions of Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East; and to preserve American

preeminence through the coming transformation of war made possible by new technologies.”

—Project for the New American Century,“Rebuilding America’s Defenses”

“As the world’s sole superpower [it is] the final guarantor of security,

democratic freedoms and individual political rights”

—Project for the New American Century,“Rebuilding America’s Defenses”

Enmity, Sovereignty, and War

“The distinction of friend and enemy denotes the utmost degree of intensity of a union or

separation, of an association or dissociation.”

—Carl Schmitt,The Concept of the Political

Sovereignty refers to the location of decisive power, ultimate authority; thus only sovereign groups or entities can organize politically in friend-enemy relations, because only such sovereign entities have the power to make

judgements and take actions that distinguish others as friends or enemies.

“By virtue of this power over the physical life of men, the political community transcends all

other associations or societies.”

—Carl Schmitt,The Concept of the Political

“Humanity as such cannot wage war because it has no enemy … The concept of humanity

excludes the concept of the enemy, because the enemy does not cease to be a human

being….”

—Carl Schmitt,The Concept of the Political

“To confiscate the word humanity, to invoke and monopolize such a term probably has certain

incalculable effects, such as denying the enemy the quality of being human and declaring him to

be an outlaw of humanity; and a war can thereby be driven to the most extreme

inhumanity.”—Carl Schmitt,The Concept of the Political

The Disappearance of the Enemy

“the worst confusion arises when concepts such as justice and freedom are used to legitimize

one’s own political associations and to disqualify or demoralize the enemy...”

… such as ideas as the basis for war are “sinister or crazy”

—Carl Schmitt,The Concept of the Political

A Warrior’s Story

Colonel Ted Westhusing, West Point

Petraeus, Boston Globe

Joseph Fil, Stars and Stripes

“the offices of the soldier, sailor, airman, or marine … arise from the creation of conventional social offices” to protect the citizenry. But “our status as human beings …

is ontologically prior to any social position one may occupy [and this] generates moral principles to which we

claim we ought to adhere”

—Westhusing, “Killing Al Qaeda the Right Way”

“if the office of soldier arises from the moral obligation to protect innocents, it is contradictory for the soldier to intentionally harm innocents in order to protect some

other innocents.”

The “ethical divide that now exists between the Coalition’s war effort, which disdains the intentional targeting of innocents, and the terrorists, who do not

hesitate to slaughter directly thousands of innocents … the war on terror requires for its success that we

separate ourselves ethically from those whom we fight.”

“peace and counter terrorism operations require an explicit acknowledgement of both the commanders’

moral responsibility for force protection and the military members’ moral justification to defend themselves fully”

—Westhusing, “Taking Terrorism and ROE Seriously”

—Army Psychologist

Westhusing’s worldview was “surprisingly limited. He could not shift his mid-set from the military notion of

completing a mission irrespective of cost, nor could he change his belief that doing the right thing because it was

the right thing to do should be the sole motivator for businesses.”

“It shows how one man’s life and the fervent beliefs that defined it, were crushed by the corruption and

deceit that he saw around him.”

—Robert Bryce, The Texas Observer

Army Field Manual COIN Draft

• “The More You Protect Your Force, the Less Secure You Are”

• “The Best Weapons for COIN Do Not Shoot”• “Sometimes Doing Nothing Is the Best

Reaction”• “Most Important Decisions Are Not Made By

Generals”