Naomi Klein wrote chapters 14-17 of The Shock Doctrine to reflect on the rise of disaster capitalism. This article explores the state of Shock and Awe by examining the process of remaking something. Klein examines what that Shock and Awe is a military term. This process was seen as an attack. In other words, Shock and Awe was used for complete debilitation. Shock and Awe process in three different steps the military used to take total control in foreign land. The first step was to distort, which meant putting fear into someone. The next step was to erase, or bomb them. The final step was preprogramming, or new infrastructure. For example, this process was used in the remaking of a person after the September 11th attacks during torture. US …show more content…
military officials destroyed the supported enemy until the person knew nothing, leaving them with a blank slate. During torture the enemy was brought to ground zero in hopes that they would release information. Once again our nation relied on torture to make sense of blowback. Disaster Capitalism was at the center of erasing Iraq.
Disaster Capitalism is defined as, “the practice of artfully employing shock and awe to facilitate corporation movement into unstable economics” (Klein, 351). The United States government employed Shock and Awe perfectly by letting the military takeover secretly. By being so obsessed and into the capturing of Sedum, the nation didn’t pay attention to what was really going on as militarism began to take over. This was all made possible by the archway used as a point of comparison with Shock and Awe. The archway was, “the notion that politicians, military officials, and corporate employees can freely move between these three realms” (Klein, 309). Iraq occupation was then established by grey areas. The arch way, as describes in class was an open invitation, leading to the coming together of corporation, corporate contactors service, and military. America took over Iraq, and like Klein describes it used Shock and Awe in the erasing of Iraq. It is sad at the end of the day this hollow military was used for capitalism cost plus, or simply coined as …show more content…
profit. ROUND 4 We were killing others, while killing ourselves. Klein states that, “politicians create the demand and the private sector supplies all manner of solutions” (Klein, 378). It was their way or the high way, no matter what kind of irrational law was being used. This idea depicted by Klein can best be compared to an example that was talked a lot about in class of crab grass. If someone has unwanted crab grass in their yard they can’t just pull out the pieces, it must all be burnt down. It was a way of destroying everything in sight to redo something. This is exactly what Shock and Awe did in Iraq forcing Iraq to invest in rebuilding by hiring US. Infrastructure providers were a cross of military and corporate both controlling all of the weapon technology, food/housing, and communications. Iraqi roles of corporation during the occupation were non-existent as our empire tried to take over during wartime. Lastly, our intervention caused ideological blowback. Blowback means to suffer for our actions. Disaster Capitalism was made possible as, “these militias are corporatism’s legacy too; if the reconstruction had provided jobs, security and services to Iraqis, Al-Sadr would have been deprived of both his mission and many of this newfound followers” (Klein, 432). As we tried to take over, war time was not seen as a time of peace as our government did anything to destroy what was in our way during the constant battle sate. It was as if corporate America’s failures laid the groundwork for al-Sadr’s successes. It is brought into perspective a whole new way of thinking about Americas involvement in Iraq, due to September 11th. The Shock Doctrine argued that free market policies have risen to fame in the development country of Iraq because of a deliberate strategy by some political leaders. These governmental leaders exploit crises to push through controversial unfair policies while citizens are too emotionally and physically distracted by disasters or confusion to resist. Justly, Shock and Awe was used which lead to Disaster Capitalism as industries had a way of shaping law with the support of government. It seems like war forever continued to shape our foreign policy and cruel actions before ever formally declaring as actions from past historical events like Guantanamo proceed to develop in destroying Iraq Muslim enemies. Round 5 There is an interest of United States foreign policy becoming an exercise of mass projection.
We desire for the entire world to be like us, so we take over. Our exceptional acts, rules, and ideologies that have occurred in Guantanamo set the stage for what was to come in Iraq and now future rise of complex disaster. Culture and diplomacy are led by past and current actions due to September 11th, “Hence modern imperialism has need myths to legitimize itself. A policy which responds to the interests of the few but needs to support of the many must necessarily invoke on people’s sense of mission and fear” (Chomsky, 211). If the United States goes abroad we want to make everyone feel like we need to be there. We want everyone to support our mission of freedom. Simply freedom is our motivation even though many are unware of the illegal story going on behind the
scenes. The United States policy and actions during wartime are justified by war leading to torture. There is a sense of militarism impeded into past action in Guantanamo Bay that lead to United State foreign policy after September 11th. Guantanamo is everywhere, even in our actions being deployed in Iraq to destroy the enemy and promote freedom to our nation. We have tried to come together as a nation to counter balance the grief of the sequential events of September 11th. A time in history that is a sequence of events in which, “the attack is on the nation, and it is the nation that mounts a response, this moment of simultaneity also helps bind the people to the state, the source of their defense” (Dudziak, 22-23). Our creative destruction has been the reason for the rise of national protection during a time of war as mass torture. United States absurd actions and unlawful laws are justified by wartime as the war in Iraq has been in damage control mode in fear of losing freedom for Americans.
In this day in age, it seems as if a new weapon is created everyday. To think that people don't understand what they do or how much they can destroy is almost unbelievable. We create these massive weapons, with deadly intentions but don’t realize what we are doing with them. And just like that, at a click of a button millions of precious lives can be lost. We are so in the moment that we forget that it can’t be taken back either. It’s happened in our history and is still happening in our world today. It occurred in Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Cat’s Cradle where he illustrates a realistic outcome of an extremely detrimental weapon being used on the world.
As stronger nations exercise their control over weaker ones, the United States try to prove their authority, power and control over weaker nations seeing them as unable to handle their own issues thereby, imposing their ideology on them. And if any of these weaker nations try to resist, then the wrath of the United States will come upon them. In overthrow the author Stephen Kinzer tells how Americans used different means to overthrow foreign government. He explains that the campaign & ideology of anti- communism made Americans believe that it was their right and historical obligation to lead forces of good against those of iniquity. They also overthrew foreign government, when economic interest coincided with their ideological ones (kinzer.215). These factors were the reasons behind America’s intervention in Iran, Guatemala, South Vietnam and Chile to control and protect multinational companies as well as the campaign against communism with little or no knowledge about these countries.
The article “In the Combat Zone” was written by Leslie Marmon Silko. In her article she makes many valid examples of how women are treated like easy prey. Women are afraid to go out at night alone, because that is when numerous rapes and kidnappings take place. Although most rapes, kidnappings, and robberies happen at night, there are still cases that have occurred during the daylight. Silko gave several examples of these daylight occurrences. She also states that a woman’s mindset of being in a combat zone differs by how the woman was raised. If a woman was raised to depend on others, then that woman would be a higher target. If a woman was raised to defend herself and be dependent, then that woman would be less of a target because they would not show fear.
It is somehow strange for today’s reader to find out that the situation with America’s foreign affairs hasn’t changed much. As some clever people have said, “The History book on the shelf is always repeating itself.” Even after nineteen years, Americans think of themselves as citizens of the strongest nation in the world. Even after the September the 11th. Even after Iraq. And Afghanistan.
Michael Walzer is an esteemed retired professor from the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Walzer has written many books, essays, and articles. His essay, Excusing Terror, is one that best relates to the current events happening around the world. In this essay, Walzer talks about different reasons that people would want to resort to terrorism. In this essay I will argue Walzers view on Terrorism is correct in that terrorism is wrong because it is akin to murder, it is random in who it targets, and no one has immunity. I will also offer an objection to Walzer’s theory and explain why it is not a valid one.
The book A Concise History of U.S. Foreign Policy, by Joyce Kaufman, and the essay, American Foreign Policy Legacy by Walter Mead both acknowledge the history, and the importance of American foreign policy. The two argue that American foreign policy has always been an essential aspect of the prosperity and health of the United States. After reading these writings myself, I can agree that American foreign policy in the U.S. has always been detrimental to the success of this nation. Throughout history most Americans have had very little interest in foreign affairs, nor understood the importance. This essay will address the importance of foreign policy, why Americans have little interest in foreign affairs, and what the repercussions
What does it mean to be an American? There is no definitive response to this question, but one thing holds true—the reply is linked to what that particular person believes is the national identity of the United States. Andrew Burt’s thesis of political hysteria and how it is linked through national identity is illustrated through the politicized episode of the Red Scare in his book, American Hysteria: The Untold Story of Mass Political Extremism in the United States.
In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, Imperialism was a popular trend among the large, powerful countries. Imperialism is defined as “The policy of extending a nation's authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political hegemony over other nations” Imperialism cannot be said as either good or bad, but as a general rule; If you live in an annexed country, imperialism is not good, if your country annexes smaller ones to gain profit, land, and respect, then imperialism is good. The United States was not much of an imperialistic country until we won the Spanish-American war. As a result of this war, we annexed Guam, The Philippines, and Puerto Rico. This is the point at which the US becomes and imperialistic nation, and though it was a hard struggle to keep these annexed countries under control and eventually gave them all back to their rightful owners. The importance of taking these countries is that we then could have coal stations around the world to fuel our navy, and we got respect from other countries around the war. This respect and intimidation helped the allied powers defeat the central powers during World War II. Ever since the US became the most powerful nation after the Spanish-American war, we have retained the title.
When a giant explosion ripped through Alfred P. Murrah federal building April 19,1995, killing 168 and wounding hundreds, the United States of America jumped to a conclusion we would all learn to regret. The initial response to the devastation was all focused of middle-eastern terrorists. “The West is under attack,”(Posner 89), reported the USA Today. Every news and television station had the latest expert on the middle east telling the nation that we were victims of jihad, holy war. It only took a few quick days to realize that we were wrong and the problem, the terrorist, was strictly domestic. But it was too late. The damage had been done. Because America jumped to conclusions then, America was later blind to see the impending attack of 9/11. The responsibility, however, is not to be placed on the America people. The public couldn’t stand to hear any talk of terrorism, so in turn the White House irresponsibly took a similar attitude. They concentrated on high public opinion and issues that were relevant to Americans everyday. The government didn’t want to deal with another public blunder like the one in Oklahoma City. A former FBI analyst recalls, “when I went to headquarters (Washington, D.C.) later that year no one was interested in hearing anything about Arab money connections unless it had something to do with funding domestic groups. We stumbled so badly on pinpointing the Middle East right off the bat on the Murrah bombing. No one wanted to get caught like that again,”(Posner 90). The result saw changes in the counter terrorism efforts; under funding, under manning, poor cooperation between agencies, half-hearted and incompetent agency official appointees and the list goes on. All of these decisions, made at the hands of the faint-hearted, opened the doors wide open, and practically begged for a terrorist attack. So who’s fault is it? The public’s for being
In today’s society the word “terrorism” has gone global. We see this term on television, in magazines and even from other people speaking of it. In their essay “Controlling Irrational Fears After 9/11”, published in 2002, Clark R. Chapman and Alan W. Harris argue that the reaction of the American officials, people and the media after the attacks of 9/11 was completely irrational due to the simple fact of fear. Chapman and Harris jump right into dismembering the irrational argument, often experienced with relationships and our personal analysis. They express how this argument came about from the terrorist being able to succeed in “achieving one major goal, which was spreading fear” among the American people (Chapman & Harris, para.1). The supporters of the irrational reaction argument state that because “Americans unwittingly cooperated with the terrorist in achieving the major goal”, the result was a widespread of disrupted lives of the Americans and if this reaction had been more rational then there would have been “less disruption in the lives of our citizens” (Chapman & Harris, para. 1).
and the VC during the Tet cease-fire (6). The cease-fire was a peaceful and hospitable
It is the belief that America expresses its cultural superiority through its wealth and dominance, and its superiority is measured in military strength. Using the appeal of logos, he states, “to the idea that its power is a sign of God 's favor, conferring upon it a special responsibility for other nations— to make them richer and happier and wiser, to remake them, that is, in its own shining image” (Fulbright 1). This belief that “the United States has a divinely ordained role to play in the sacred drama of the world history” (Lears 33) is one that Fulbright argues must not succeed. According to “The Arrogance of Power Revisited” by Jackson Lears, Fulbright was concerned that “America was losing its perspective on what was within its capacity to control and what was beyond it”
Vickery, Olga W. “The Sound and the Fury: A Study in Perspectives.” The Sound and the Fury. Ed. David Minter. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1994. 285.
In the article How Much Does It Cost to Liberate a Country? Tom Engelhardt explores some of the uses of taxpayer money in the post-war Middle East, specifically Iraq and Afghanistan. There have been many projects to repair local infrastructure that have cost significantly more than they should and have been unsuccessful in helping these countries. One example is a “$75 million dollar police academy” that was said to be critical to making the handoff of security from the US to Iraq successful. The building ended up being so poorly built that it was a “health hazard” (Engelhardt). On slightly less systematic scale during the war, American soldiers siphoned off $15 million dollars of fuel imported to Afghanistan to run machines and sold it to locals (Engelhardt). In the modern era “’reconstruction’ and ‘war’ have really been euphemisms for […] a massive system of corruption” (Engelhardt). The question I have about these after reading this article is similar to the one I have at the end of Keller’s speech: what can the American people realistically do about this? How do you get a population to question the sacred place our military has in society enough to realize that their work is exploited? Once again the number of people that would be needed to create the amount of pressure to actually make a change seems
She moreover mentions few noticeable features of Regime-Made Disaster like: though the disaster is fully visible, but citizens are trained not to recognize it as a disaster consequently it is a long time event and develops according to various phases. This kind of disaster represented as a non-disaster or as a disaster only from the victim's point of view. And finally," the means used by the regime to deal with the disaster or to cope with its aftermath do not offer a sweeping solution to end the disaster, but instead focus on side issues and/or are aimed at individual case" (Azoulay,2012:31). To talk about the history of Regime-Made Disaster she says "the first half of the twentieth century saw several regime-made disaster par excellence that were not grounded in democracies, but the second half of the twentieth century has produced disasters that take place within and as a part of the structure of democratic governance itself" (2012:29). Although she is talking here about the century-long history of