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A review by jdukuray
Objective Troy: A Terrorist, a President, and the Rise of the Drone by Scott Shane
5.0
It has been a week of more random shootings, "terrorism" in all its guises and the myriad responses of sorrow, lunacy, apathy, belligerence. I am reading the book Objective Troy, by Shane Scott, and it has been illuminating and riveting. It tells the story of Anwar al Awlaki, an American citizen targeted by the Obama administration for extra-judicial killing by drone. Al Awlaki began as a religious but moderate muslim, acting as Imam at mosques in California and D.C. But over time, he developed much harder and more radical views and eventually left the US for Yemen, where he pursued his career as thinker and apologist for the jihadis. In the end, his view was that every muslim had the obligation to attack and kill the unbelievers who attack Islam. For him, there is no talk of People of the Book, nor any distinction between governments and the people who pay taxes to that government (nor even their children). It is a heartless view and I cannot say I understand how it has come to be. But humiliation and disregard and stupid intervention on the part of Western governments, most notably the US, seems to be at the root of it. At one point in the book, Scott describes a village that was targeted by an early drone effort (presumably there has been some refinement of the process). His vivid description of the couple Al Queda members, amidst 21 children and a dozen women, who were all killed gave me a glimpse and the frisson of the fury and hatred this sort of attack fuels. But Scott also describes Obama's calculations in developing the drone program and how he and his administration defend these killings. I could see it--a little. The author says that people, especially liberals, mistake Obama by failing to appreciate that he is not an ideologue but a pragmatist and can engage in practical calculations that aim to respond to the world we have, rather than being guided by ideological/moral/idealistic concerns. This is probably a relevant skill set for a president and, as always, I admire Obama's ability to think things through, however ugly the realities.
But if I come back to myself, I cannot agree that drone strikes are acceptable, that government assassination is a viable strategy. I think often that there are worse things than death. One of those things is to lose one's soul. Killing one's enemies puts the soul at risk. I don't oppose all war, but squandering our moral foundations for nativist delusions, for our standard of living, for our fear is, I think, a way merely to put off our defeat even if in the short run there is a victory.
In this regard, I read another article this week: An Invitation to Collective Suicide: From ISIS to World War IV, by Andrew Bacevich (published by Common Dreams). As you can see from the title, this is a strongly worded article, that paints a dire picture that I, unfortunately, find convincing. Among the things the article points out is the degree to which the US is the creator of ISIS by having gone to war in Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11 and, as he says, making a hash of it. No doubt. I knew that way back when. For those who think force is the only way to go, one caveat is that if the West is to fight, they must go big. And that reminds me, that in the midst of the Iraq war, we were soon nudging up against the limit of human loss Americans would tolerate. Iraq might lose hundreds of thousands of people, but when our losses nudged up to 4,000 we were getting close to done. The article says the American dead in the end were about 7,000. It also points out that we lost 58,000 in Viet Nam. So Bacevich goes through an estimate of costs--in lives, in time, in money. It is nothing that can be accomplished cheaply in any dimension. I don't know that he says precisely this, but even bombing the entire Middle East back to the Stone Ages, will leave bitter survivors dreaming of revenge. He also points out that in the event, our current volunteer army will not work and a draft will be needed. I have sometimes thought that we should have had a draft from 2001 and that might have put a curb on our adventures abroad. But the darker thought also occurs: The army just approved women for all combat roles. It might seem a little paranoid, but then again... Is that what the Pentagon is envisioning?
I think our days are much darker than we allow to surface in consciousness. Maybe it is just that I am getting old and lacking the buoyancy of youth.
But if I come back to myself, I cannot agree that drone strikes are acceptable, that government assassination is a viable strategy. I think often that there are worse things than death. One of those things is to lose one's soul. Killing one's enemies puts the soul at risk. I don't oppose all war, but squandering our moral foundations for nativist delusions, for our standard of living, for our fear is, I think, a way merely to put off our defeat even if in the short run there is a victory.
In this regard, I read another article this week: An Invitation to Collective Suicide: From ISIS to World War IV, by Andrew Bacevich (published by Common Dreams). As you can see from the title, this is a strongly worded article, that paints a dire picture that I, unfortunately, find convincing. Among the things the article points out is the degree to which the US is the creator of ISIS by having gone to war in Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11 and, as he says, making a hash of it. No doubt. I knew that way back when. For those who think force is the only way to go, one caveat is that if the West is to fight, they must go big. And that reminds me, that in the midst of the Iraq war, we were soon nudging up against the limit of human loss Americans would tolerate. Iraq might lose hundreds of thousands of people, but when our losses nudged up to 4,000 we were getting close to done. The article says the American dead in the end were about 7,000. It also points out that we lost 58,000 in Viet Nam. So Bacevich goes through an estimate of costs--in lives, in time, in money. It is nothing that can be accomplished cheaply in any dimension. I don't know that he says precisely this, but even bombing the entire Middle East back to the Stone Ages, will leave bitter survivors dreaming of revenge. He also points out that in the event, our current volunteer army will not work and a draft will be needed. I have sometimes thought that we should have had a draft from 2001 and that might have put a curb on our adventures abroad. But the darker thought also occurs: The army just approved women for all combat roles. It might seem a little paranoid, but then again... Is that what the Pentagon is envisioning?
I think our days are much darker than we allow to surface in consciousness. Maybe it is just that I am getting old and lacking the buoyancy of youth.