Anonymous Comrade writes:

What Does “Victory in the War on Terror By Any Means Necessary” Really Mean?

British political commentator Jonathan Dimbleby has recently — in a high profile 2 hour documentary for British TV channel ITV (30th Oct and 1st Nov) and in a supporting article in the U.K. Observer (30th Oct) — made the increasingly-heard argument that winning a war on terrorism requires waging and winning a war against global poverty (which in turn requires waging and winning a war on biodiversity loss, soil degradation, global warming, and so on, but let us leave the environmentalist aspects out of it for now). I would like to respond here to two main points made by Dimbleby in his Observer article which can be summarized as follows:1) The Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi, recently acknowledged that U.S. military and intelligence operations are currently underway in Africa, as one of many battles in the war on terror. However, an unnamed "American Diplomat" working in Ethiopia believes the war on terror in Africa is "already lost". The Prime Minister of Ethiopia, disagreeing with the "American diplomat", believes the war on terror (in Africa) can be won — but only by means of a sustained worldwide waging of a war on poverty.

2) Dimbleby cites statistics on African poverty and "western" hypocrisy on the issue: every $1 going in to Africa in aid equals $2 going out of Africa in agricultural subsidies and debt repayment. Dimbleby proposes three often-heard ways in which the "west" can cease practising this resentment-breeding hypocritical economic policy: a) every "western" nation give 0.7% GDP in aid to the poorest nations b) every "western" nation write off the debt of the poorest nations c) the "west" eliminate agricultural subsidies.

So, Dimbleby argues, because of the depth of African poverty the war on terror in Africa must take the form of a war on poverty to have any chance at all. The "west", as Dimbleby knows, is currently unwilling to wage a war on poverty, probably because this would amount to what is detrimentally known as "socialist" economic redistribution at the global level (but 3 effective weapons for a war on poverty are suggested just in case there is a radical change of heart by the leaders of western politics and business). My response to this suggestion, and the many similar arguments one hears made by the major NGOs and transnational charities, is this:

The categories "the west" and "the poorest nations" are leaky. Some of the poorest people in the world live in the “western” nations and some of the richest people in the world live in some of the poorest nations. The poor are everywhere. The rich are everywhere. A war on poverty through schemes of economic distribution from "west" to "poor" has counter-productive results: By taxing everyone, it also taxes the western poor (it is extremely hard for the poor of the west to make economic sacrifices for the poor of Africa, especially in a culture where politics is a self-help mechanism and which has a popular wisdom that says “charity begins at home”). Second, it perhaps creates a new and newly alienated ex-farming class in the west, discrediting the entire policy. Third, it allows the rich and opportunist minority in the poorest nations to progress to the category of super-rich.

For example: Say that whoever wins the U.S. election immediately proposes a war on poverty as the chief weapon in the war on terror (to global surprise and celebration), thereby creating a new international political climate in which E.U and U.S. subsidies on agricultural products could be removed. In this (literally brave and new) world American farmers and agribusiness would face bankruptcy as a result of sudden competition with cheaper "3rd world" crops. In the "poor 3rd world", while the poorest farmers might well enjoy a rise of living standards, the capitalist class of business owners, import/export traders etc, security service providers (private militias) etc, would get unimaginably rich very quickly. In Nigeria, for example, the government class (the pretence of there being "sides" to "choose" from is no doubt even less see-through here than it is in the U.S. or Europe) needs only oil money to survive, it has no political need to provide social services because it has no need for votes. The increased income Dimbleby's redistribution scheme would result in would likely deepen, not alleviate, the need for social services (which includes such basics as food and water) in that country. The mutually beneficial co-operation of parasitic government (often military governments) and business in the "3rd world" would remain unaffected under Dimbleby-like schemes. In truth, it is likely that this corrupt and corrupting alliance of minorities would benefit to a much greater extent than the majority poor and ultra-poor.

In effect, cash would be suddenly redistributed from western farmers and agribusiness only to flow into the hands of business and government elites in the "3rd World", and then finally reappear back into western banks and economies. The prime result would be the further fuelling of the armed "rebellions" against corruption and the various wars in Africa. These are perfect training for anti-western terrorism and the ideal condition for the further intensification of poverty. In the meantime, the wiping out of agriculture as we know it in the west (as well as being politically unacceptable) would surely be such a shock to capitalism that it would suffer all manner of unpredictable and unwanted crises, from which the global poor invariably suffer hardest (billionaires have to halve their philanthropy budget, millionaires have to lay off half of their staff, the poor have to halve the daily rice ration). With the "western" nations giving 0.7% (or, for that matter, even 7%) of their GDP to the poor a) the rich and the poor, and the morally unjustifiable economic gap between them, would still exist, b) the poor would continue to find a sense of self-worth in struggling against the rich, c) some of these would be misled into seeking their self-esteem by dabbling in terroristic politics. Redistribution would amount to an "aid tax" in the west and is unpalatable, impractical and far too-simple an answer.

However, to argue against the practicalities of such redistributive schemes (as weapons in the war on terror) is not to argue that "the west" do not have to co-operate with "the 3rd world" (and vice versa, of course) in putting effective and permanent schemes into place which attack poverty at its most basic level: the inaccessibility of food, water, medicine and literacy to hundreds of millions of the very poorest people on earth. Even if a clever scheme for wiping out debts, giving a minimum budget to aid and development, and eliminating agricultural subsidies without the counter-productive consequences I sketched above could be devised, it would still only make the permanent provision of universal access to the basic necessities of life possible. It would not guarantee the destruction of poverty. Terrorist ideologues would still find willing recruits.

I have focused here on Dimblebly's TV series and article because they contain a truth that he dare not say outright. That is, the test of the next U.S. presidency is whether the new “CEO” is truly committed to the elimination of terrorism, as both Bush and Kerry have promised, “by any means necessary”. The next president will pass the “are my children’s lives more secure?” test if they lead the world into a war on poverty. They will fail it if they do not. A properly committed war on terrorism means a war on poverty. Fortunately, such a war is absolutely winnable. It could even, if it helps bring the Republican-voting millions on board, be genuinely pitched as a Holy War. Despite Jesus' comment (Matthew 26: 11) that the poor will always exist (a view often repeated without thought or shame by the Christian Right), the good news is that in our time it is very much within human capabilities to feed the world. I'm sure Jesus would have happily been proven wrong on this point. What war could be Holier than a war on poverty?

Wealthy politicians and the non-starving public in the west are often heard rebuking the poverty-causes-terrorism argument with reference to the fact that many al-Qaeda terrorists and ideologues are wealthy, and do not represent the poor (and only half-heartedly claim to). This is certainly true, terrorism is not a solution to poverty (or anything else). But neither are direct attempts at redistribution in the form of cutting unfair trade subsidies or giving large sums of cash in aid.

I do not know what the weapon that will win the war on terrorism by winning a war on poverty looks like. But I know that it doesn't look like a helicopter bombing caves. It doesn't even look like an aid worker handing out sacks of rice. Ultimately, what Dimbleby and his like are unwilling, for whatever reason, to publicly argue is that two-party, nation-based democracy in the richest parts of capitalist "free world" cannot produce a serious, effective global anti-poverty policy. Or even anything close. To win the war on terror, democracy must be radicalized such that the poorest people (not necessarily via national government) have a legally enshrined right and the institutional structures necessary to influence global economic and political affairs proportional to their relative degree of poverty. This blog is dedicated to defending such a view and working through its consequences. This is post-nationalist politics. This is what victory in the war on terror "by any means necessary" really means.