by Scott Creighton
“Here is my secret. It is very simple: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” Antoine de Saint Exupéry 1943
In 1996, a self-proclaimed terrorist and thief fled the reach of Osama bin Laden and ran right into the outstretched arms of the FBI, where he probably couldn’t have felt more at home. He had stolen money from bin Laden, some one hundred thousand dollars it is said, and so the FBI offered him shelter, money, and new life. For three years the American tax-payers shelled out nearly one million U.S. dollars to protect the thief in hiding. It was then, under the tutelage of FBI agent Jack Cloonan, that the very mythology of Al Qaeda was born. It was then that the craft of the first part of the Grand Illusion took shape.
Al-Fadl gladly provided the testimony the FBI and CIA needed to create such an organization centered around a man who Al-Fadl had stolen over $100,000 from at the helm. Never mind that Jack Cloonan and the FBI had 3 years to prepare Al-Fadl’s testimony for the great magic act. Never mind that Cloonan had paid Al-Fadl $950,000 (of our money) to that point to ultimately create the Global War on Terror’s “Pledge”; Al Qaeda. Me (I know, I know…)
Also in 1996, a revolutionary new doctrine of American military intervention was conceived. The ideological foundation of the doctrine was soon to become an axiom of American culture; that terrorism, when created by us, when used by us, is more than simply right and just; it is moral.
In our excursion, we seek to determine whether and how Shock and Awe can become sufficiently intimidating and compelling factors to force or otherwise convince an adversary to accept our will in the Clausewitzian sense, such that the strategic aims and military objectives of the campaign will achieve a political end. Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance
Finally, in late 1996 and early 1997, a group of very influential men began to gather behind closed doors. Some would later say that these men were the real magicians; the real architects of the Grand Illusion. I think not. They were merely the blind stage-hands laboring diligently to craft the great illusion, to move the props into place, to clear the bodies from the stage for the real masters of illusion. They would become the ominously named Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and their role would be to blend the newly created international terrorist Pledge, al Qaeda, with their new terroristic doctrine of military interventionism throughout the world. Many of these PNAC members gathered later to become The Vulcans; George Bush’s foreign policy advisors during his campaign. Then they took key positions in his newly formed administration in 2000 after an act of the Supreme Court had to overrule the will of the people and hand control of the country over to these men. You see, the stage was set, the actors were in play, and some silly little thing like an election was not going to hamper the schedule of the production. The show must go on, as they say.
Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event––like a new Pearl Harbor. Section V – Rebuilding Americas Defense, PNAC 2000
This is the point of this article, The Prestige. This is the magic, the Grand Illusion of the Decade of Magic – it is the switch, the “second man”, the “body double” who steps into “the box” so that the magician can step out, take the bows, and bask in the accolades of the mesmerized audience. They, the magician and the Pledge, are identical in every respect but one. They act the same, they look the same, their words even sound the same… because they are the same. One terrorist is reviled, the other revered; one is confined, the other unshackled; one dies in a box while the other lives on to continue the show day after day, night after night. In the end, like in the film, there are a hundred boxes with a hundred Pledges floating lifeless in a basement while the magician retires to a life of luxury and speaking engagements.
These two twins, who perform the greatest illusion of all time, are completely identical in every way but one. For it is the magician who creates the Pledge in his own image; the twin destined to die in a box. The “twin” isn’t real, he is a fictitious self-portrait, a mirror image of the magician himself.
The magician turns shadows into terrorists and then terrorists into gods. When the transformation is complete and the hero appears from the box we applaud the unconscionable, we cheer the unethical, and in so doing we insure the next performance to satiate our desires. We practically beg for it. Because you see, it wasn’t the patsy in the box who was transformed and it wasn’t the magician who remains the same ruthless terrorist throughout. No. The real magic is that the performance, the illusion, has transformed us. That is the trick and that is the magic.
What we “see” onstage is an ever decaying farcical production. It is a pretense; a lie. An aging hack going through the motions to keep the doors open and put bread on his table. But all of us know, we know in our hearts, we know in our gut.
3. “The Prestige“. The secret impresses no one. The trick you use it for is everything. – Shock and Awe
Immediately in the still smoldering aftermath of 9/11, the FBI came out and told us who attacked us; Al Qaeda. There was no proof. Only their “word”. Eventually the 9/11 Commission would report that KSM “confessed” after years of torture. But the Commission was not allowed to talk with him themselves, nor to view the videos of the “confession”.
Immediately in the still smoldering underwear of the Christmas Day fizzle, the FBI came out and told us who tried to attack us; Al Qaeda. There is no proof. Only their “word”. Immediately the FBI reported that Umar ”confessed” even without torture. No one has spoken to Umar, there is no video of his “confession”.
Then just as it is now, questions about failings arose. How could we miss the signs? How could we have let slip past us the obvious signs? How could our protectors have failed us again? But what is obvious remains unsaid, unspoken, and unresolved. The truth about all the similarities is that they didn’t fail us, they tried to fool us, and the picture couldn’t be any clearer than it is. No one is fired – they are promoted. No one is punished – they are rewarded. And yet comedians still joke about it, as if it were fodder for late-night humor.
Shock and Awe is a terrible and mighty thing.
It is the modern-day extension of what has been commonly understood as the “terror bombing” aspect of the WWII Luftwaffe doctrine or the slash and burn part of Sherman’s “scorched earth/total war” policy. We saw it in Nanking in 1938. We saw it in Gaza in 2008. We saw it in Cambodia in 1969. We saw it in Dresden in 1945. We saw it in Afghanistan just as we saw it in Iraq. But the primary example for Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance, remains the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In a flash, we reduced the proud and aggressive nationalism of the Japanese people to a childlike bewildered state.
The idea is to destroy the will to resist of a targeted people by unleashing devastating firepower in rapid dominance, upon their society, their infrastructure, their churches, their schools, their water treatment facilities, their hospitals, their government buildings. Anything that a civilization considers part and parcel of their culture is fair game.
Civilians are not targeted, officially, but since much of the cultural structure of a society is carefully interwoven within communal centers for convenience sake, the end result is always “collateral damage”. In fact, “collateral damage” is an expected and even useful estimable side effect of Shock and Awe. Along with the eradication of the national identity which is ultimately the purpose of Shock and Awe, “collateral damage” inflicts a personal threat level upon the general population who are usually far removed from the traditional battle-field, where only a nations soldiers are at risk.
“Collateral damage” brings home the very real threat of death and pain and suffering to those who might have felt disconnected from the costs of resistance and therefore more inclined to support it. Therefore Shock and Awe is a form of collective punishment; punishing the people of a nation for the crimes of a few or for an ideological belief system contrary to that of our rulers.
But the value of Shock and Awe does not end with the conflict. In the aftermath, if used correctly, the doctrine of Shock and Awe sets the stage perfectly for an ensuing occupation.
After the battle, if it can be called that, the people who once were resistant to the wishes of the imperialist power will now be more receptive; to say the least. With their national identity broken, their will along with it will fade. As Robert McNamara once said of one of the many failings of their conduct of the Vietnam War…
We underestimated the power of nationalism to motivate a people to fight and die for their beliefs and values.
We did not recognize that neither our people nor our leaders are omniscient. Our judgment of what is in another people’s or country’s best interest should be put to the test of open discussion in international forums. We do not have the God-given right to shape every nation in our image or as we choose. Robert McNamara, Fog of War
McNamara's assessment of the Vietnam Conflict was correct. They had underestimated the tenacity with which an occupied and attacked people will struggle to defend their way of life, their families, their homes, and their nation. How long would you fight to repel invaders on our shores? Would you continue to resist years after an occupation declared “Mission Accomplished”?
The authors of the Shock and Awe doctrine knew this to be true, which is one of the most revolutionary notions embedded in its practice. In order to quell the nationalist spirit of a people, it is necessary to destroy the nation itself and all its foundations right out in front of the people so that they can see it happening. You destroy the schools, the churches, the government buildings. You level the roads, the power plants, the commerce centers. All things that constituted the institutions of the former nation must be publicly decimated beyond any hope of repair so that your occupying force alone can provide any semblance of a return to normalcy.
Because at the heart of it, that is what “nationalism” is; it’s the fondness of the familiar. And when an occupied nation harbors “nationalistic” loyalties, it is their desire to return to a sense of normalcy; to right their tilted ship. If you remove that nation and all of its institutions, then in effect, you remove any hope the people may have had to return to something they lost and nationalism dies. Cultural eradication.
In 2000, the people of this nation were opposed to “nation building”. Bush even campaigned against it.
Now we are a nation of not only nation builders, but of cultural exterminators. We seek, due to the effects of the “terrorist” actions taken against us, to wipe from this planet all those whose ideological underpinnings are a “threat” to our “democracy”. We have accepted that our leaders must engage “the dark side” to right the wrongs and spread “our good” out into a world of evil. We have forgotten that “we do not have the God-given right to shape every nation in our image”
We are a nation numbed to torture as long as it is someone else's torture.
We are a nation numbed to suffering as long as it is someone else's suffering.
We are a nation numbed to oppression as long as it is someone else who is being oppressed.
You were once the beacon of democracy; a shining example of the successful experiment of self-rule and national self-determination. Well, look at you now.
As the world churns onward after the latest fizzling magic trick, more war and more suffering and more “collateral damage” are eminent. A people willing to rise up against the tyranny of their corrupt leader in Yemen are about to be introduced to American Democracy™ via the Obama Doctrines application of Shock and Awe. And you applaud. Phony documents and staged rallies float all around the pending conflict in Iran. And you cheer.
The terrorist emerges from the box and takes his bow while the Pledge drowns backstage.
A truly great illusion is transformative. Its effects stay with you for life. But somewhere, deep down inside, you know that the illusion is a farce. You see clearly with your heart that which is of the utmost importance; that it is all a sham, yet another lie, the big lie. Deep down, as you angrily dismiss all of these notions, you know them to be true. Each and every one. And yet… still you cheer as the terrorist reappears from the box.
That is the final act of the real magic trick. That is the Prestige.
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