The Dominist Manifesto

We have a choice: either to change the way we live, which is unacceptable; or to change the way that they live. And we chose the latter. —Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense

The "war on terrorism" is violent and punitive. The war will be won by those who are able to exact the higher price in lives and resources, by those who are able to instill the greater fear. In short, the victor in a violent war on terrorism will be the party that is most adept at inflicting terror. —Lee Griffith

Three months after the terrorist attacks on America, and two months into the war on terrorism and the bombing of Afghanistan, a small group of Pakistani terrorists assaulted the Indian parliament, killing several people. The incident had the predictable effect of pushing two long antagonistic nations to the brink of war. It seemed eerily like 9/11 all over again, with one huge added terror: since the last time they warred, India and Pakistan had both added nuclear weapons to their arsenals.

As troops mounted along the Indian-Pakistani border, America faced a conundrum. On the one hand, Pakistan's cooperation was critical in the assault on Afghanistan and the continuing search for al-Qaeda cells and leaders; Pakistani President Musharraf had taken a perilous position in joining the American war and the prospect of a radical uprising in his country loomed large. On the other hand, India clearly had suffered a terrorist attack — at the very heart of its democracy — and thus had every right to follow America's lead: to brand Pakistan as a nation harboring terrorists; to demand Pakistan's immediate and non-negotiable compliance in eliminating future threats; and, as the militarily dominant of the two nations, to threaten mass destruction and massive civilian casualties if Pakistan failed to fall in line.

As if the danger of a nuclear meltdown in Central Asia did not frighten enough, this same scenario was simultaneously unfolding in several other global hotspots. The Israelis ran out of patience with the Palestinian uprising and decided they would no longer deal with Yasir Arafat; instead, Israeli antiterrorist rhetoric and threats began to mirror America's in tone and effect. Russian President Putin framed his nation's continuing war in Chechnya as a terrorist crisis requiring antiterrorist action. The Chinese started referring to their dissident Muslim populations as terrorists, as did the Spanish the Basque Separatists, and the Nepalese a small group of Marxist insurgents.

In response to all of these festering threats, President Bush could only issue platitudes about the need show restraint and peacefully work out differences. He seemed unaware of the contradictions and outright hypocrisies of his position. Or perhaps he grasped the situation perfectly: one set of rules for America, another for everyone else, and darn those annoying consequences.

What began as an American-directed morality play, pitting the darkest evil against the purest good, had mutated into a murky mess of realpolitik and tangled truth. As all the king's men embarked on this new crusade against terrorism, it became clear that some old scores were getting settled. Moreover, in every case the "terrorists" had similar grievances: they had suffered humiliating defeats and abuses; they had lost loved ones, land, and resources; they felt forced to live in debilitating circumstances; and they believed that they had exhausted all non-violent means to resolving their grievances. They all lived as subjugated people in dominist systems and felt rightfully compelled to attack the systems, however misguided, futile, and inhumane their efforts.

Ever since Ronald Reagan defied the US Congress and the United Nations with his secret support of the Nicaraguan contras against their popular government, the line between terrorists and "freedom fighters" has been hopelessly blurred. Few so-called terrorists get to the point of waging violence without having experienced dominist-inflicted abuse and suffering. Few so-called freedom fighters can lay claim to blameless pasts or lily-white intentions. If we assume for all people the inalienable rights of self-defense and the pursuit of personal and political freedoms, then, try though we may, we simply cannot define terrorism — and thereby justify antiterror actions — based solely on the apparent righteousness, or lack thereof, of a combatant's cause.

Grasping for a better definition of terrorism, the new crusaders point to the utter depravity of terrorist tactics. Only terrorists, they say, target civilian populations. Indeed, the argument goes, unlike civilized nations — who go to war, when necessary, against obviously hostile combatants — terrorists aim to demoralize an enemy by terrorizing its women and children. Civilized nations openly declare war and then conduct it according to a high code of ethics that forbids the intentional targeting of civilians; terrorists break all such rules, commit unpardonable sins, and deserve neither consideration nor quarter from good people.

In the wake of 9/11, this argument easily won the support of some nine out of ten Americans, along with strong majorities of Canadians, Australians, and Europeans. It presents such a stark and terrible picture — they intentionally murder innocents; we never would — that for months after 9/11 any attempts to question or even slightly moderate this viewpoint got branded as the worst of treason, as a vile insult against all victims of terrorism, as consorting with evil itself.

Most Americans believe strongly in this fiction of the perfect moral compass. Yet, without even cracking a history book, a painful litany comes to mind: the Indian Wars, Sherman's March, Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Tokyo, Viet Nam, Nicaragua, Panama, Baghdad. When America goes to war, we always kill civilians. We can try to cover it with terms like "collateral damage" or with the claim that our smart, new precision bombing kills so many fewer civilians. We can ignore the monumental suffering of innocents that occurs when we intentionally destroy a country's vital infrastructure and ecology, as we did in Viet Nam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. We can likewise ignore — though the rest of the world will not — the disquieting truth that in more than two hundred years, America has lost a mere handful of civilians in war compared to the yearly tallies of so many other peoples. Indeed, it only took a few months for the "smart" bombs in Afghanistan to kill more civilians than the terrorists killed on 9/11; given that Afghanistan has a fraction of the overall population of America, we can only conclude that its people suffered far worse.

The horrible events of 9/11 that so catalyzed America — that struck us as so extraordinary and life-altering, that created such a moment in our history — occur with such frightening frequency as to seem commonplace to many of the world's oppressed. And, in too many instances America sold the weapons or supported the generals or manipulated the politics that led to such horrors. So "they target civilians" flatly fails as an argument; since all organized violence inevitably kills civilians, America, the current master of war, kills far too many innocents, and certainly far more than the small bands of fanatics we call terrorists.

At this point, most Americans fall back on moral reasoning: Regrettably, some civilians do suffer from our attacks, but we act in a just cause, while the enemy does not, and besides, they started it. We justify our actions by claiming a priori the justice of our actions. We simply ignore the circular reasoning and suspend, and perhaps even forbid, any further discussion. Case closed and off with their heads.

In truth, so-called terrorists and antiterror warriors all follow the same militaristic thinking: they believe that by inflicting sufficient quantities of suffering and death they can influence the choices and actions of others. Any group — nation, tribe, or Al-Qaeda cell — that commits itself to organized violence as the primary solution to intergroup conflict of necessity embarks upon a path of inflicting terror. Militarism always terrorizes, and the most dominant militaries terrorize most effectively. Moreover, militarism always spreads dominist poison, which leads to some measure of militaristic response among those it terrorizes — a response that, from the perspective of the terrorized, seems patriotic, courageous, and utterly justified — and thus plants the seeds of answering terror. And so the cycle of terror and violence, of vengeance and revenge, self-perpetuates endlessly.

Contrary to Bush-speak, terrorists do not arrive on Earth as the devil's spawn; rather, they grow inevitably from previous acts of viral militarism. In their adherence to ever-terrorizing militarism as the best way to control other people, George Bush and Osama Bin Laden can lay equal claim to the title of preeminent world terrorist. When militaries move from "strong defense in the face of clear and present danger" to "offensive, punishing, coercive force to dominate others" they cross over into the terrorist camp and their violent acts do not eradicate but rather feed future terror.

The dangerous logic of militarism dictates the mean and hostile nightmare world of modern times. As long as nations — and especially the most dominant — consider organized violence a legitimate response to real and perceived injustices, then we can expect no respite from ever-escalating terrorism or from the chronic pathologies of viral dominism. Conversely, we will never move beyond dominism into a world of peace and partnership unless we resolve the cycle of militaristic action and reaction forever and for all.

Yet, militarism represents only one of several beliefs and behavioral patterns that mark the dominist worldview and lifestyle. Beginning with the "survive at any costs" imperative invoked by the Parable of the Tribes, viral dominism has grown through time and human experience into a complex matrix of coercive belief and behavior. In the past few millennia, dominism has spread into virtually every facet of human affairs and has developed a whole constellation of overlapping and mutually-affirming thoughts and emotions that, taken together, amount to a near impenetrable worldview. Thinking, living, and making peace requires nothing less than the unraveling of this worldview, thought by thought and feeling by feeling, until people can genuinely perceive and believe in something better.