Overlooked Dimensions in the War on Terrorism

Author: Stephen DeVoy

From October, 2001

Causes

Missing from the “war on terror” is an analysis of the causes of terrorism. Without an analysis of the causes of terrorism, the drive to commit terrorist acts will continue. In this essay, we explore why defensive methods against terrorism are doomed to failure. We propose that the only practical method of reducing the frequency of terrorist acts is to address the material and mental environment from which the drive to terror arises.

Powerlessness

Our contemporary world is a world of imbalance. While some nations wield great power, others do not. While some nations systematically reorder the world to the needs of their own security, the consequence is less security for others. While some nations respond with various degree of fidelity to the needs of their people, others respond only to the needs of their ruling class, government, despotic leadership, or corporate class. For those who live within societies where government exercises a degree of democratic concern for the well being of their people, it is difficult to imagine how the security they enjoy is often created at the expense of the security and well being of less democratic societies. For those who live within societies whose conditions are driven not by the needs of their people, but by the needs of other more privileged peoples, a profound and realistic sense of powerless and injustice saturates their existence.

Through the eyes of the world's average citizen, the distinction between a government and its people is often blurred by ignorance. While states are difficult to attack, individuals are not. Those wishing to lash out at or to take a stand against those states which distort, in their own selfish interest, the governance of a people, find it easy and justifiable to attack the citizens of the oppressing state. While this sense of justification is purely subjective, those who make such judgments often believe that their interpretations are valid. Consequently, it is not irrational that such individuals take action against the citizens of an enemy government when attacking the government itself is implausible or difficult.

The Practice of Irrational Self Interest

Likewise, citizens of nations, with the capacity and will to exercise great power and influence in order to coerce weaker states into arrangements that benefit the security and well being of wealthy nations at the expense of poor and less influential nations, are subject to their own subjective interpretation of the world about them. This is most true when the citizens of such nations live isolated lives, sequester their minds to the universe of concepts promulgated by their elitist media and government, and live in ignorance of their own nation's misdeeds.

When accustomed to few deviations in the standard of living, a people become more sensitive to small deviations than those individuals who live in societies where great fluctuations exist. The threshold of irritation and despair is much lower in rich nations than in poor nations. The citizens of wealthy nations, with higher standards of living, willingly support the exercise of terrific power to preserve their standard of living against the slightest fluctuations, even if this translates, in practice, to the horrible deaths of innocent individuals abroad. To the citizens of these wealthy nations, the suffering of foreign peoples in the name of resistance to small inconveniences is perceived through the distorted lens of media outlets that support the use of force against others in the name of convenience. The flat and edited images of suffering peoples are viewed from afar through the same medium that daily presents endless fantasies. Things need not be this way.

It is possible to act in self interest rationally. A rational approach to self interest takes into account the many variables which include the self interest of others. No unbalanced system can be preserved without the exertion of force. The greater the imbalance the greater the expenditure of force necessary to preserve the imbalance. Expenditure of force is expensive and often entails the creation of a counter force that responds with an effort to restore balance. If a government is unwilling to restore balance, the irresistible drive to rectify the imbalance is transferred to the people themselves. As we have discussed above, individuals are subjective and do not distinguish well between distant states and the people of those states. Individuals are easier targets than states. Thus, terrorism is the inevitable product of imbalance maintained by force.

Terrorism as a Mental Virus

Too few governmental leaders understand the power of the memeplex. A memeplex is a self sustaining network of memes. A meme is the mental analog of a gene. A meme is an idea or mental procedure that is copied from the mind of one individual to another through imitation. People learn, among other ways, from copying each other. Each person or state, through its behavior, teaches others to imitate. Our every public action forms a lesson for those who chose, consciously or unconsciously, to imitate us. When memes assemble into a mutually supportive network, they become resistant to displacement by other memes. The behavior of nations and those who resist them has given rise to the memeplex of terrorism.

When powerful states support the repression of the people of other states through force, they teach, by example, an indifference to the lives of individuals in the face of nebulous goals. When individual acts of terror against the people of a state cause a state to change its policy, individuals learn the power of terrorism. The memeplex of terrorism has been very successful over the last century. Nations have been formed through acts of terror (e.g. Israel). Relations between nations have been formed through acts of terror (e.g. American recognition of Palestine). Clearly, the memeplex of terror is one that pays. With evidence in its favor, the powerless of many nations have become hosts to this memeplex. As hosts of this memeplex, they have become successful in increasing their collective power. Thus, we can expect the terrorist memeplex to continue to spread, like a virus or cancer, through societies of the powerless, much like Marxist theory spread through similar societies in the century before.

The Ascent of Man Technology and the Democratization of Destructive Power

The ability of the individual human to destroy has grown geometrically over time. There was a time when an individual, set upon murder, killed one at a time. Often, this resulted in the murderer’s own death. With the dawn of tools, such as fire and the spear, killing became more efficient, but was generally limited to a low kill rate. The initial leverage provided by primitive tools in the art of killing was small.

With the rise of government, single individuals were able to muster the killing power of many individuals in the form of armies. While the individual warlord, king, or ruler could wield the power of many individuals, few individuals had the power to assemble armies and put them at their personal disposal. Thus, while a small few individuals could leverage the killing potential of many, the average individual could not.

As technology advanced, the effective potential for murder on the part of each individual increased. Weapons, such as guns and cannons, enabled individuals to kill more efficiently. However, these instruments were expensive and more often than not were the possessions of governments who allocated them to soldiers whose killing potential the could coordinate. The ultimate decision to utilize armies and whom to utilize them against, still rested with representatives of the government. Consequently, the average kill power of the individual remained low.

As society changed from monarchism to the republicanism, a consequence of the rise of capitalism, economic power shifted from the exclusive province of the state to a growing class of private citizens who owned and directed industry. With access to capital, these individuals could purchase their own weapons at a higher level of technology than in previous times. The number of individuals with access to efficient instruments of death increased. For the first time, the killing power of the average individual began to rise.

Capitalism produced a middle class. Industrialization decreased the cost of weapons. Advances in science increased the killing leverage of weapons. During the last two centuries, it became common for a large percentage of the population to own guns. With an increase in information available through mass production of books, as well as a rising level of education for the common individual, more and more individuals could obtain the information necessary to educate themselves in the art of killing. Most individuals chose not to do so. However, the means became available for non-state entities to wage asymmetric warfare against states.

In contemporary times, the Internet has made information on methods of destruction available to anyone with the means to access a networked computer. Scientific information, intended for peaceful use, has become more widely available. Often this same information can be used to harm as well as good. In an effort to make access to government more efficient, more and more information about national infrastructures has found its way into cyberspace via the Internet.

We now stand at a time when the powerful leverage of science, the increased average education of the common individual, the low cost of technology, and the availability of information about vital infrastructure has converged to form a critical mass. This critical mass enables the average individual, sufficiently driven to amass the tools he or she needs, to conduct acts of mass destruction. Once the domain of states and powerful leaders only, the individual now possesses the means to wage asymmetric warfare against the state and against the people of any state.

The Individual as God

At the dawn of the twenty first century, the individual’s ability to create or destroy is taking on the proportions of what was considered the realm of gods. We can expect this state of affairs to accelerate. The time is coming when any single individual of average means will be able to destroy on a massive scale. The release of biological agents, the use of poisons, the corruption of networks, and the use of brute force all share the common property that they continue to become cheaper, more efficient, and easier to perpetrate.

Our future is a future where the individual will have the power of a god. At first, the power of the individual will be much like the simple demigods of the ancients. However, there is little evidence that individual humans will not one day possess the means to create and destroy on a scale reserved by the ancients for the most powerful of deities. Few contemporaries acknowledge this fact. However, an examination of the trends of human history make this conclusion all but irrefutable.

Why Force is only a Temporary Solution The Power of Asymmetry

Calls to combat terrorism often involve the deployment of massive force. The utility of massive force, however, is exaggerated. Along with the possession of massive force comes the massive responsibility of wielding it within the constraints of civilized society. Possessing force is one thing, but using it is another. Nations, no matter how powerful, must weigh the consequence of the imposition of massive force. To not consider the negative consequences of massive force is to imperil one’s own power with the possible retaliation of other nations that possess the sufficient means to annihilate nations. It does not matter how many times over one nation can destroy another, provided the number of times is one or greater. Additionally, in a world of increasing globalization of trade, no nation can ignore the consequences of alienating the other nations of Earth. States, therefore, are constrained by political reality from using massive force.

Should a state choose to use massive force, the porous nature of national borders combined with the ever expanding infection of the terrorist mental virus, guaranties that any state that destroys with wanton abandon will, itself, attract an ever increasing exercise of asymmetric warfare against itself. It is one thing to use massive force against a foreign target. However, the awesome power of the modern nation state applied within its own borders would be an act of suicide.

Individuals and organizations that choose to engage in asymmetric warfare do not need to consider the constraints under which the state exists. If the goal of an individual or organization is to kill as many nationals of a given state as is possible, massive retaliation is of little concern. This is especially true in the case where the individual or organization positions itself within the borders of the state it seeks to destroy. Once infected with individuals bent upon committing massive acts of terrorism, the state's response becomes akin to the body of an animal suffering an autoimmune disease. It’s own war on terrorism destroys itself. Even if an organization has not successfully infiltrated a state, it is likely that there will exist within the borders of any state sufficiently many discontented individuals who will mimic the attacks of the foreign terrorists within their own borders; such is the power of the mental virus that motivates individuals to terrorist acts.

Force as the Basis for Teaching Terrorism

Humans learn by imitation of others. Use of force to solve problems teaches others to use force to solve their own problems. Nations that rationalize the use of force as a means to their political ends set a standard that others will use as a justification for their own use of force as a means to an end. These lessons are not lost on the increasingly large number of individuals capable of committing acts of mass terror and in possession of sufficient motivation to attempt the same. Nations that resort to force as their modus operandi can expect force to be used in return. Thus, any attempt to stop terrorism through the use of force alone or in conjunction with other strategies that do not address the root causes of terrorism are bound to increase terrorism over the extended future.

Why Surveillance is not an Option Law Enforcement Supports Surveillance

The U.S. Government has increased its calls for more surveillance. For some, it would appear that increased surveillance could give forewarning of terrorist attacks or, at the very least, uncover activities that signal planning or preparation for attacks. From a law enforcement point of view, increased surveillance is an attractive option. Surveillance not only may detect illegal activity, but it makes illegal activity easier to prove. As well, surveillance increases the scope of law enforcement by placing the police in the role of baby sitter. Thus, surveillance makes the job of police easier and increases their role in society. This second consequent increases their power.

Most Americans are entirely ignorant of nature of surveillance tools currently under development or how they will be used. The new dimensions of surveillance are entirely alien to our expectations. Let’s examine the near future of surveillance.

The Nature of New Surveillance Tools

The technological revolution in the area of information processing has changed our lives substantially. We now live in a world where international communications is virtually free. We can purchase software and computers, at low cost, that make us more productive and highly interconnected. We can make purchases, read thousands of newspapers, do our banking, send and receive images, check on the weather, and do countless other things without leaving our chairs.

Of course, you and I are not the only entities in possession of computers. Virtually every business, bank, government office, hospital, doctor’s office, terrorist cell, prison, and police station is networked together through the Internet. Information reflecting your interests, purchases, conversations, family photos, health problems, bank accounts, business relationships, travel plans, opinions, book selections, and sexual interests rushes across a large and chaotic network where endless possibilities for interception exist. Despite the availability of encryption tools, most people do not use them. Additionally, government agencies are advocating that such tools include backdoor keys so that they can peruse your life at will.

While you may believe that the endless streams of information that pass through the net are so large and diverse that they could not be cross referenced and linked into a comprehensive and searchable distributed database, where personal information on all Netizens could be accessed at will, you could not be more wrong. Not only is it possible to string together this information, there are projects to do this. In the name of defending ourselves from terror, great effort is being expended to make sense of the cacophony of information coursing through the veins of the millions of machines that make up the net. They wish to discern your intentions and plans from your electronically traceable activities.

Government agencies have access to more than the Internet. They have access to criminal records, financial transactions, back account information, hospital records, and, increasingly, to the records of airline reservation systems and other purveyors of transport. Using this plethora of information about each and every electronically monitored individual, super computers will be employed, twenty four hours per day, seven days per week, to model each and every existing human being. These models will include your ideological beliefs, your interests, your skills, your health, your purchases, your communications, your relationships, your education, and so on. Repeatedly, your behavior and profile will be compared to that of those who commit acts of terror as well as other crimes. It does not stop there.

Artificially intelligent systems will read and understand your electronic mail. They will listen to your telephone calls. Your plans and statements will be linked with the large collection of ever growing information that constitutes your electronic identity. Systems will examine not only what you have and may have done. They will not examine only what you are currently doing. No. They will combine what you have and may do with what your contacts have and may do. Hypothetical plans, in which you are the actor in a crime, will be generated and reasoned about. You may become a target of suspicion simply because you disagree with the government’s actions, have access to components that could be used to construct a terrorist device, and have made contact with individuals who could play a part in such a hypothetical plan. It will not matter whether you actually intend to do something. It will not matter that you have never even thought about how the things you own and have access to could be used to create a terrorist device, what will matter is that some system, some where, has computed that you are able to create such a device and that you may have the motive to do so.

Of course, it does not stop there. New technologies that can measure your biometrics, whether the shape of your face, the sound of your voice, the way you walk, or the smell you give off, will soon be posted, secretly, in public places. Your mobile telephone will be used to track your movements. As you go about your daily business, information about whose time space paths your travels have intersected, where you have been, and what you have done will be collected. Your life will be an open book. Your comfort that no-one would be interested in focusing on your life will be a delusion rising from your technological ignorance. That someone watching, following, and monitoring you will not be a human. It will be any combination of many machines that will collectively watch, follow, monitor, and speculate about every single individual in our society.

The Negative Effects of Surveillance on Civil Rights

As the issue of greater surveillance emerged in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attack, there have been knee jerk pronouncements to the effect that “the Constitution is not a suicide pact” and that “if you have nothing to hide, then you should not be concerned about increased surveillance.” These pronouncements share the common thread of extreme ignorance.

The Constitution contains the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights is a declaration of protections against government intrusion. The philosophy of rights upon which the Bill of Rights stands attributes human rights to the nature of man. Inseparable from our existence, these rights are not the product of a pact. They are a product of what it means to exist. Denial of these rights is denial of existence. Those who choose to deny their own existence choose suicide. To subvert the Bill of Rights for the needs of the moment is to commit suicide. Those who choose their security over their freedom choose non existence.

Surveillance imposed with consent is a violation of our fundamental right to live freely. Those who justify this violation as the cost of freedom, justify the destruction of freedom in the name of freedom. Even an individual with “nothing to hide” will find herself unable to freely pursue her happiness. Under the watchful eye of the state, each individual will chose not only to avoid any action that they may need to hide, but to avoid, as well, any action that may be interpreted as something other than what it is. Without access to the mind of the individual, innocent actions often appear to imply unintended intent. Under such circumstances many actions that would otherwise be chosen will be avoided. Such modification of behavior is exactly what the absence of freedom reaps. Curiosity and experimentation will be destroyed by the ever present need to maintain the appearance of “innocent” intent.

These constraints on freedom generated by surveillance devastate political freedom as well. In a world where each word or action is examined under the microscope for signs of subversive intent, only the most eloquent and courageous will dare to question the state - and then only with a full explanation and clarification of any ambiguities that might imply, under false interpretation, some subversive intent. This need to eliminate ambiguity and enumerate all assumptions that would normally be left unstated, creates a burden to intellectual discourse that will wear down even the most determined of thinkers. It will be as if one cannot refer to the room of a house without explaining how it was constructed, upon what platform it rests, and how the platform was constructed. Complex thought will be weighed down by all of its antecedents, the absence of which spell peril to those who fail to enumerate them.

A life under surveillance is no life. Human life is only a shell without the liberty that is its essence. Remove the liberty and you deny life.

The Importance of Civil Rights to Progress

A decrease in civil rights due to an increase in surveillance would have a profoundly negative effect upon the progress of technology and upon the economy. History reveals many examples of nations plunged into stagnation under the heavy boot of the state. The difference in progress between the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States of America is a classic example. Without an open society where individuals are free to pursue their own goals, experiment freely with new ideas, and exchange these ideas freely with others, the impulse towards progress is crushed.

In the current period, following the attack of September 11, with the urging of the state and corporatist media, many individuals are weighing the value of freedom against the perceived security of a society where individual rights are tempered by the call for protection of life over liberty. Perhaps it is not absurd that such a topic would enter our discourse at this time. A terrible sequence of events has occurred which many believe could have been avoided. However, even if we accept the proposition that a discussion of security over liberty has a basis in the best interests of the population, we cannot accept the fact that despite the great and possibly irrevocable price that may be paid for this discussion, the discussion has remained shallow. Nowhere have we heard a discussion of the ultimate effects of such a move towards less freedom. Let’s discuss the reason for this and then consider the effects that this turn away from freedom will have on the progress of society.

Representative and direct democracy each suffer from a fatal flaw. This flaw is rooted in the belief that it is ethically just for the majority to rule over the individual. If individual freedom is the root of our ethics, then any system that forces the individual against his or her will to conform to the will of another, even when that other is the majority, is a violation of individual liberty. Even a utilitarian analysis of the benefit of democracy fails. If the purpose of majoritarian rule is to benefit the majority, then one would need to prove that the majority are capable of making all decisions, collectively, that would lead to the greater satisfaction of the largest number of individuals in society. Since it is the minority of individuals who possess the imagination, intelligence, and drive to bring advances to society, the majority will necessarily not choose the path that benefits society the most. Additionally, observation of political dissent within human society leads one to believe that the majority of individuals will conform to the ethics, philosophy, and laws of any kind of society. Consequently, the majority is never threatened by society itself. This is true whether a society is communist, capitalist, dictatorial, or democratic.

From the above, it should be obvious that freedom has little significance to the majority of individuals. So long as one is redundant, freedom has no meaning. The only members in any society for which freedom matters are those individuals that are not part of the majority. The majority, due to its inability to value freedom and the inability of its members to conceive of behavior outside the redundant, is always willing to sacrifice the freedom of the minority if it believes that some benefit will accrue for the redundant. Not valuing freedom, the only thing a member of the majority truly values is his or her own life. It is not difficult to convince the majority that life is more important than liberty.

Of course, this explains why the majority are easily led by the state and by the media. It does not, however, explain why the state and the media lead them in the direction of security over liberty. For the state, the explanation is simple. The state is, by nature, unproductive. The state can only justify its existence through the false belief that it is necessary. As the recognized provider of security, the state becomes more necessary, in the eyes of the majority, when its function as policeman is perceived to be necessary. Additionally, by portraying itself as hero and protector of the people, the individuals who comprise the state attract to themselves undeserved respect and privilege. In a sense, the prospect of earning respect and privilege is irresistible to those whose own character and talent is without merit and for whom earning respect and privilege through productive or creative activity is impossible.

One needs to appreciate the power of the corporation and the American attribution of disproportionate respect to celebrity in order to understand why the media would sell out the American people to the oppression of the state. Those who believe that American society is egalitarian are fools. Most of us have shed this pretense long ago and recognize that the wealthy and famous of America are neither subject to the same laws as other citizens, but are not subject to the same ethics as well. The wealthy and famous believe that any change in individual liberty will not effect their daily lives. As individuals who feel threatened by the rights of the common man and woman, these individuals believe that they will benefit from any constraints that are placed upon the common people. They will benefit both from the increased differential in freedom between themselves and the commoners and by their increased ability to use the state to suppress the danger of contact between themselves and the unclean. In a few words, the wealthy and famous seek the creation of a caste system.

The wealthy and famous, however, are fooling themselves. History has demonstrated time and again that even the wealthy and the famous become victims of the state. The only who do well under the gaze of fascism are those who are willing to play court jester.

Now that we have laid out how and why the people are easily duped to stand and deliver, let’s explore what our society will become without liberty.

As the state intrudes ever more upon our individual and personal lives, we will find ourselves in need of constant explanation. Behavior outside of the redundant will attract attention from the redundant and from rivals. Since every purchase you make will be logged and shared with law enforcement, every telephone call you make will be monitored, every electronic message you send will be analyzed and saved; you will become very careful about what you buy, who you telephone, with whom you correspond, and what you correspond about. You will begin to look for possible patterns within your own behavior. In an effort to appear as normal as possible, you will go to great lengths. In some cases, you will not buy a book that piques your curiosity due to the fear that your interest in the topic of the book may be misinterpreted. You will drop some friends. If you purchase a magazine that represents an extreme point of view, you will likely feel obligated to purchase one that represents the opposite point of view in an effort to assure those seeking patterns that you are not in one group or the other, but are merely curious about the range of concepts demarked by the two. In time your curiosity will become weighed down and tired. Unable to freely discuss your ideas with others, you will fail to make great strides in your thinking. You will become one of many individuals who can no longer leverage your intellect off of those around you. Society will lose out on many great ideas.

It does not stop there. We are already seeing calls from the federal government for the limitation of information available to citizens. Under the shadow of security concerns, the government is attempting to make impotent the growing movement towards openness that recently was synonymous with the Internet. With less access to real information, you will have less ability to rationally analyze or question the decisions of your politicians. Politicians, as well, will have the same problem. Without access to information on the countless agencies and activities of government, they too will not be able to think objectively about the matters over which they make decisions. They will need to take on faith, as you will as well, the veracity and accuracy of information provided through the filter of the security apparatus. In effect, information depravation will lead to dictatorship.

Ethics: The Only Solution

There is a solution to this problem. The solution does not involve surveillance or greater security. The only solution to this problem with any chance of success is to transfer the responsibility of control from the government to the individual. This may seem to be a contradiction, but it is not. Ultimately, each individual will have the power to exact great destruction on many other individuals - whether the government is watching or not. The key to decentralized control is ideological. A society that functions through the individual application of ethics is the only solution.

The impulse to violence comes from the animal nature of the human animal. The impulse to organize violence comes from ideology. What separates humanity from more savage species is the individual application of beliefs to overcome animal impulse. For the application of belief to succeed in controlling animal impulses, within a society, two variables play a large role. The first variable concerns the environment of the individual human organism. The second variable concerns the ethical system that guides the individual human organism. Minimization of environmental factors that spur the impulse to do harm is an important requirement for the self control of individuals. Likewise, maximization of the role of ethics in human decision making increases ethical behavior.

Ethics is the application of reason to values. Ethical decisions are based on ethics. An environment conducive to greater human contentment permits the domination of ethical decisions over behavior. When individuals fail to share a common ethical framework, an environment is created where behavior clashes. Divergent ethical systems inevitably produce a sense of injustice among individuals. This sense of injustice is a factor within the environment that increases the impulse to do harm. Consequently, only a society with a homogeneous ethical system will sufficiently minimize the sense of injustice within a society to permit the successful self governance of individuals.

Human nature, unlike the nature of most other animals, is highly diverse. Any universal system of ethics must be based on principles sufficiently fundamental to permit unhindered expression of self in a diversity of individuals. Thus, the principles should be sufficiently few and sufficiently clear that all individuals would agree to their universal application to all individuals. Such a system of ethics, composed of categorical imperatives, was first explored by Immanuel Kant.

A modern application of an ethics derived from categorical imperatives may be found in the philosophy of rational anarchism. Rational anarchism encourages mutual cooperation between individuals based on mutual consent and mutual benefit. Only a society that recognizes the sovereignty of the individual and encourages the ethical development of the individual can provide the necessary mechanism to guide individuals towards a world where the human individual is compatible with his or her own destructive ability.

As the individual human becomes ever more godlike, beliefs based upon external control mechanisms and simple obedience must be replaced. The survival of the human species depends both upon the advancement of technology and the replacement of primitive beliefs. An advanced technical society cannot endure for long in the shadow of primitive beliefs.  Primitive beliefs, inadequate for the lives of gods, must be eliminated.

It has been said that one cannot kill an idea.  I disagree.  An idea is like a virus.  A virus can be eradicated through a program of isolation and immunization.  An idea can be eradicated through the same process.  A scientific and rational approach to belief is the mind's analog of the anti-viral agent.  A superior and well evolved system of beliefs can supplant another belief system.  Like a vaccination, one belief system can stimulate the mental "anti-bodies" (compelling arguments) to refute another belief system.  In sum, we need to engineer a belief system that can supplant and repel the primitive belief systems which, combined with our ever growing powers, condemn us to self destruction.  I believe that rational anarchism, alone, provides the starting point from which such a belief system can emerge.