This is why a war against terrorism must imply a deeper examination of a whole range of policies of many governments, which directly or indirectly create the conditions of resentment and lack of democratic voice that breed violent response, and also contribute to the financial strength of particular terrorist groups. It is by definition therefore, a war that cannot be directed against a country or even a particular government alone, since the networks that breed it are wider and deeper.
 
So the idiom of conventional war is all wrong in this case. Where could a conventional war on these grounds be fought ? Against whom ? With what specific aims ? What would constitute “winning” in such a war ? No one could seriously argue that outcomes as extreme as the decimation of the Taliban regime or (the continuing secret desire of some Americans) the final destruction of Saddam Hussein’s government in Iraq, would lead to an elimination or even reduction of terrorist activity worldwide. Indeed, it could even lead to increased such activity. Even the destruction of particular camps (easy enough for a state military that helped to set many of them up in the first place) will not mean success, given the information that such camps are already spreading across the world in places as far flung as Paraguay and Mozambique.
 
Nevertheless, both the rhetoric and the build-up by the United States government in the present case are those of the conventional war, in terms of identifying a particular regime (the Taliban of Afghanistan, and possibly also Iraq once again) as the enemy, and moving various instruments of military might into geographical proximity with that enemy. At the time of writing, there have been no concrete military strikes, but seems to be what is widely expected, even anticipated. And the inevitable civilian suffering and casualties that will occur are already being brushed aside as collateral damage.
 
Why this need, this huge demand, for the conventional display of military force and possibly its use, in a situation in which it is so patently inappropriate and even contraindicated ? The answer probably comes from a deep seated social need for vengeance and retribution that is simultaneously illogical and accepted as inevitable. Thus it is that aggressive displays of force by the US regime against others have usually found enthusiastic acceptance among the American people as a whole. Even the US bombing of a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan on the (mistaken) grounds that it was producing chemical weapons was backed by substantial popular support within the US. And when Clinton cynically ordered the further bombing of Iraq to divert public attention from his affair with Monica Lewinsky, adding to the huge numbers of innocent Iraqis already killed by the negative effects of sanctions, he found that his poll ratings went up sharply.
 
Of course the desire for vengeance is not one confined to US society alone. And Americans are not unusual in seeking to apportion blame to communities and social groups rather than to individuals, as those Indians who have lived through the riots against Sikhs after Indira Gandhi’s assassination will remember. But what is perhaps remarkable in the United States is the degree to which repressive and violent military methods used by its government against citizens and residents of other countries are taken for granted, even welcomed, by its own citizens.
 
There are clearly many reasons for this. It clearly has little to do with the actual effectiveness of retribution along these lines, since the previous experiences of the US and the Soviet Union, as well as the current experience of Israel, show how such aggressive responses only lead to a spiral of violence. The desire for vengeance is often an expression of deep social insecurity, a form of cracking under pressure.
 
Theorists of social ethology in animals have argued that intra-species competition, which typically occurs when members of a natural species have mastered other hostile powers in their environment, can have potentially destructive effects. In such cases aggressive behaviour turned towards others perceived as even slightly different can become exaggerated to the point of being not just inexpedient but grotesque. This is more likely to occur when the immediate environment is more apparently controlled, and when any loss of control is therefore even more threatening. It is not entirely farfetched to apply this kind of explanation both to the fearsome cruelty of the terrorist attacks, and to the more aggressive and truculent responses.