The “War on terrorism” comes to Southeast Asia

Abstract

The victims of 9/11 include not only those killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon but the numerous innocents who have perished either in the US-led “war on terror” or as a result of the war's less immediate consequences. Among such consequences are the seeming reversal of processes of democratization and de-militarization in Southeast Asia—processes that had taken root and made significant strides in many countries of the region since the end of the Cold War. This article examines how US geo-political economic ambitions have interacted with the geo-political economic ambitions of elites in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand to affect such a reversal.

Guy picked up his file on the Red Chinese. It was the file he saved for quiet times of the day, the final nightmare file, to be brooded over slowly. Red Chinese troops are being dropped into the Baja by the fucking tens of thousands. Mobilizing, massing, growing. Little red stars on their caps. In fact there was nothing new in the file. The same old rumors and suspicions. They are down there in the pale sands in their padded jackets, gathered in one great silent sweep, waiting for the world. It didn't need elaboration or update. There was something classic in the massing of the Chinese. He wanted to believe it was true. He did believe it was true. But he also knew it wasn't. Ferrie told him it didn't matter, true or not. The thing that mattered was the rapture of the fear of believing. It confirmed everything. It justified everything. Every violence and lie, every time he'd cheated on his wife. It allowed him to collapse inside, to melt toward awe and dread. That's what Ferrie said. It explained his dreams. The Chinese caused his dreams. Every terror and queerness of sleep, every unspeakability—it is painted in China white.

- Don DeLillo, Libra