Millennium - Journal of

International Studies
http://mil.sagepub.com

`Flying Planes Can Be Dangerous'

Cynthia Weber
Millennium - Journal of International Studies 2002; 31; 129
DOI: 10.1177/03058298020310010701

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http://mil.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/31/1/129

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Flying Planes Can Be Dangerous
Cynthia Weber

In th e im m ed iate afterm ath of th e 11 Sep tem ber attack on Am erica, a

p arallel w as rep eated ly d raw n betw een th is even t an d th e su rp rise attack
on Pea rl H arbor. Th e tw o even ts seem to h ave th e sam e m ean in g in
A m erican d iscou rse on 11 Sep tem ber becau se th e tw o even ts seem to
follow a sim ilar sequ en cin g: su rp rise attack lead in g to loss (again ) of
A m erican in nocen ce at a tim e w h en th e rh etoric of isolation ism w as in
p lay. Look in g beyon d su p erficial a ccou n ts of seq u en cin g, th is p ap er
com p ares an d con trasts th e m oral gram m ar th at stru ctu res th e m eanin g
of th ese tw o events as th ey circu late in p op u lar rep resentation s (th e film
Pearl Harbour an d the official an d m ed iatic rep resentation of A ttack on
A merica) an d th e cod es of gen d er an d sexu ality u p on w h ich these m oral
gram m ars rely. It con clu d es th at th e tw o even ts/rep resen tation s of even ts
abid e by very d ifferent cod es of gen d er and sexu ality. Pearl H arbor an d
Pearl H arbor e m p lo y th e co d e s o f g en d e r, se xu a lit y a n d m o r a lit y
trad ition ally ap p lied to sovereign nation states, w h ile A ttack on A merica
em p loys th e cod es of gen d er, sexu ality, an d m orality trad ition ally ap p lied
to global firm s in n eoliberal takes on globalisation . Th e p ap er conclu d es
by read ing th e in vestm ents Am erica has in equ atin g sim ilar sequ encing
w ith sim ilar m ean in g.

In his book Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, Noam Chomsky argues that the
same sequence of words can have what he calls different deep structures.
He offers the sentence Flying planes can be dangerous as his example.
Flying planes, he explains, can refer to the act of flying planes, in which
the word flying functions as a verb. Alternatively, flying planes can refer
to planes that are flying, in which the word flying modifies the noun
planes. Whats more, Chomsky explains,

[i]f a sentence such as flying planes can be dangerous is presented

in an appropriately constructed context, the listener will fail to
detect the ambiguity. In fact, he may reject the second

Th is p ap er w as p rep ared for p resen tation at th e ESRC Critical Bou n d aries Sem in ar
on Globalisation , 9 N ovem ber 2001, Un iversity of Leed s. Than ks to p articip an ts of
th at sem in ar for th eir help fu l com m en ts. Thanks also to th e m em bers of th e Critical
Practice Unit in th e Institu te for Politics and In tern ation al Stu d ies at the Un iversity
of Leed s an d to au d iences at the Un iversity of Bristol, Kings College, Cam brid ge,
an d th e In tern ational Stu d ies Association an n u al m eetin g, N ew O rlean s, 22-27
M arch 2002 for th eir h elp fu l com m en ts.
Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 2002. ISSN 0305-8298. Vol. 31, No. 1, pp. 129-147
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Millennium

interpretation, when this is pointed out to him, as forced or

unnatural . . . .1

What Chomskys analysis suggests is that the danger of flying planes is

not only literal but also figurative because the same sequence of words
produces multiple meanings, the validity of which depends upon how
grammatical structures are interpreted and ignored, which in turn depends
upon contexts.
Info rm ed by Chom skys analytical observations about this
provocative, now timely illustration, I analyse two occasions when flying
planes literally was/were dangerous. One is the events of 11 September
2001, which I will refer to by one of their mediatic names, Attack on America.
The other is the events of 7 December 1941, the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor. These two events are twinned in American commentary about 11
September in the first instance because, like Chomskys illustrative
sentence, they abide by a similar sequencing. While some distinctions
are routinely noted between themmainland attack versus off-shore
attack, targeting symbols and civilians versus targeting a military base
and military personnel, terrorist attack versus state attackit is the
similarities between the two events that dominate discussion. These events
are described as two dates that will live in infamy, on which America lost
its innocence (again) thanks to a surprise attack, at a moment of national
history when the rhetoric of isolationism was in play.2 Similar historical
sequencing gives rise to arguments for a similar sequence of planning and
processing, with Pearl Harbor conjured up in American discourse both as
a foreign policy response model3 and as an emotionally parallel time which
justifies rage and retributionwhat one commentator called a unified,
unifying, Pearl Harbor sort of purple American fury.4
What interests me about these two events is not the figurative danger
of reading them differently which is the risk Chomsky implores us to
takebut the danger of reading them as the same, of reducing similar
sequencing to similar meaning. As in Chomskys example, such a reduction

1. N oam Ch om sky, A spects of the Theory of Syntax (Cam brid ge, MA: MIT Press,
1965), 21. Ch om skys exam p le is d iscu ssed in Elizabeth Wrigh ts book Speaking
Desires Can Be Dangerous, w h ich itself trop es off of Ch om skys illu stration in its
d iscu ssion s a n d ap p lication s of p sy ch oan alytic th eor y. See Elizab eth Wrigh t,
Speaking Desires Can Be Dangerous (Cam brid ge: Polity Press, 1999).
2. D ick C r ep ea u , Lost a n d Fo u n d [h t tp ://w w w .p op p o litics.com /a r ticles/
p rinterfrien d ly/2001-10-01-in nocen ces.htm l] (11 N ovem ber 2001).
3. Fareed Zakaria, Th e Real World of Foreign Policy, N ewsweek, 8 O ctober 2001,
15.
4. Lance Morrow, The Case for Rage an d Retribu tion , Time, 11 Sep tem ber 2001,
insid e back cover.
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is only possible if one ignores grammatical structures and interpretative

contexts.
I want to recover one grammatical structure and interpretative context
that has so far been missing in the Attack on America/Pearl Harbor
discoursea grammar of morality that is made meaningful through an
interpretative context dependent upon a specific rendering of relations of
gender and sexuality. I focus on the moral grammar of these events because
it is on the axis of morality that they are most firmly twinned. As one
American commentator speaking on 5 November 2001 put it,

certainly in the States right now I dont think you have any sense
of moral ambiguity about the rightness of this particular cause
that Americas engaged in. 11 September has an almost 7 December
kind of clarifying impact for Americans. So I dont think that the
war on terrorism is going to be fraught with ambivalence and
ambiguity, at least in the American imagination.5

I would suggest that this apparent lack of moral ambivalence and

ambiguity results as much from what actually took place on these two
infamous dates as it does from Americas imagination and imaginary about
them.6 It is in part for this reason that I turn to the 2001 Hollywood
blockbuster Pearl Harbor as my initial point of departure and interpretative
guide to investigate Americas moral grammar of war, i.e., Americas moral
codes that structure the narratives of interpretation about war.7 To be clear,
I am not arguing that the historical events that took place at Pearl Harbor
are identical with their filmic representation. Rather, I am suggesting that
interpretations of historical narratives and their popular signifying forms
are so crossed and confused with one another that attempting to police
fact from fiction is not only likely to fail; more importantly, such attempts
turn a blind eye to what popular representations can tell us about the
politics and the politics of desire bound up in interpretations of historical
events.8
Rather than discuss Pearl Harbor as others haveby debating its
historical authenticity or raving about the graphics of its battle scenesI

5. Thom as Doherty, sp eaking on Four Corners, BBC Rad io 4, 5 N ovem ber 2001.
6. Th ere is n o u n ified n otion of Am erica or sin gu lar Am erican im agin ary. W hat
in terests m e is h ow cu ltu ral self-rep resen tations of Am ericain p op u lar film s an d
in foreign p olicy rhetoricp rod u ce an d rep rod u ce a hegem on ic Am erican national
m yth ology of itself, as if Am erica w ere u n ified and sin gu lar. It is to th is h egem on ic
m yth ology that th e term Am erica refers in th is essay.
7. Pearl Harbor, d ir. M ich ael Bay, Tou ch ston e Pictu res, 2001. Th e m ovie w as
originally released in th e US on Mem orial Day, and it w as th en generally re-released
after 11 Sep tem ber, w h en Am ericans flocked to cinem as in record nu m bers for
that tim e of year.
8. A good exam p le com es from the case of Pearl H arbor and Pearl Harbor itself.
H istory n ow p op u larly record s A d m iral Yam am otos resp on se to h is attack on
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focus on the films love story. In contrast to the view that the film is
betraying to a nation because of its sugar-coating . . . fictional love story
that has nothing to do with the event, I suggest that Pearl Harbors love
story is essential to an appreciation of the twinning of Attack on America
with Pearl Harbor.9 For what this love story reveals is the gendered and
sexualised grammatical structure of morality that 2001 Hollywood
attributes to an America suddenly and surprisingly at war.
Analysing this grammatical structure and the gender and sexuality
codes that make it meaningful provides insights into a nagging question
raised by the Attack on America/Pearl Harbor discourse: if Attack on America
and Pearl Harbor abide by different grammatical structures that depend
upon different interpretative contexts (and I will argue they do), why have
American commentators on the events of 11 September so consistently
and deliberately substituted the moral grammar of Pearl Harbor for that of
Attack on America? Why have they read them as if they had the same
meaning? These questions take us to the issue of how desire functions in
the Attack on America/Pearl Harbor discourse, for, as Freuds work
demonstrates, desire speaks its name only through substitution.
The essay is organised into three sections. The first section examines
how a specific grammatical structure of morality popularly attributed to
1940s America by Hollywood is enacted in the film Pearl Harbor. Section
two, Attack on America, compares and contrasts a 1940s moral grammar of
war against a state with a 21st century moral grammar of a war against a
terrorist network. The essay concludes by asking what desires are
expressed in a US rhetoric about 11 September that twins it with Pearl
Harboror, to employ a Lacanian turn of phrase: what does America want?
Overall, my analysis suggests that whatever America may want by
twinning Attack on America with Pearl Harbor is foiled, because each event
is inflected differently, owing to their differing moral structures that rely
upon distinct interpretations of gender and sexuality. Specifically, the
rhetoric of Pearl Harbor abides by the gendered and sexualised Second
World War formula for understanding and rehabilitating an enemya
hypermasculine/hypersexual enemy requires emasculation so that in a
post-war world its moral maturation is possible at the knee of a fatherly

Pearl H arbor w ith the qu ote: I fear all w e have d on e is to aw aken a sleep in g gian t,
a qu ote rep eated in th e film Pearl Harbor. Th is, h ow ever, is n ot som eth in g th e
Ad m iral actu ally said after th e attack; it is w h at his ch aracter w as scrip ted to say
in th e film Tora! Tora! Tora!. Th at Am ericans so read ily confu se w hat th e Ad m iral
said w ith w h at h is character says tells u s som eth ing abou t the investm en t of a
p op u lar Am erican im agin ary abou t itself in relation to th e events of Pearl H arbor,
w h ich is im p ortan t to ou r u nd erstan d in gs of both Am erica an d of h ow Am erica
p olitically an d h istorically situ ates itself. For a gen eral d iscu ssion of film s an d IR
theory, see Cynth ia Weber, International Relations Theory (Lond on : Rou tled ge, 2001).
9. Tin Man -5, An In su lt and a Travesty, 11 Sep tem ber 2001 [http ://u s.im d b.com /
Com m en tsShow ?213149/20] (24 Ap ril 2002).
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America. What I suggest is that this Second World War formula fails to
make sense of (and make sense in) Americas war against terror, primarily
because of the different ways the feminine functions in the discourses of
Pearl Harbor and Attack on America.

Pearl Harbor
In the genre of Titanic, Pearl Harbor is a romantic drama that uses a larger-
than-life Hollywood version of history as an emotional backdrop and plot
device. This is made clear in the films opening sequence. Rather than
introducing us to the history of the events surrounding the Japanese attack,
the film presents us with the history of the relationship between the two
male leads: Rafe (Ben Affleck) and Danny (John Hartnett). We first
encounter friends Rafe and Danny as boys, learning the lesson that flying
planes can be dangerous. This is a lesson Danny already knows too well.
Dannys father, a First World War veteran flyer turned crop duster, emerged
from that war an emotional cripple and an abusive drunk. Flying planes
was/were dangerous to daddy and, as a result, are to Danny. While Danny
is consistently portrayed as the less emotionally mature of the two similar-
aged boys (Danny is a boy in need of a properly functioning parent), it is
Rafe who is slower to grasp the dangers of flying planes.
The films opening shot is of the two boys in a make-shift plane in
their mid-Western barn. The boys pretend to be fighter pilots, with Rafe
first in command. As the boys play, Dannys father lands his crop duster
on the airstrip outside the barn, then begins to make his way home through
the fields. The boys take this opportunity to upgrade their plane,
abandoning their toy for the real thing. Their game of fighter pilots
continues in the crop duster. And then things turn dangerous. They
mistakenly start the planes engine, resulting in the plane careening around
the runway, momentarily leaving the ground before it crash-lands. Excited
by their adventure, Rafe decrees the boys real flyers. Dannys father, who
observes the boys escapades, violently scolds Danny, warning him of the
misadventures of war. Rafe intervenes to protect his friend, declaring to
Danny that he will always look out for him. The scene ends with Danny
grateful to Rafe, but apologetic to his father.
This sequence establishes not only the terms of each boys relationship
to the dangers of flying planes, but also between the two characters. Rafe
is established as the leader and decision-maker, who fancies himself as
Dannys protector, even though his attempt to protect Danny from his
abusive father is inadequate. Foreshadowed in this sequence is Rafes
function as a substitute father for Danny, as well as Rafes initial failure in
that role. Why Rafe fails as a substitute father for Danny is not only because
Rafes desire to father his less mature friend is itself premature, but also
because Rafes prematurity is expressed both in his relationship with Danny
and in his relationship to the dangers of flying planes. While Danny
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respects the dangers of flying planes, presumably because he recognises

how these dangers can rupture the father/son relationship, Rafe enjoys
these dangers. Rafes untimely courting of the dangers of flying planes is
his character flaw, a flaw that drives the films action. Only when Rafe
learns to respect the dangers of flying planesa respect learned through
his triangulated love relationship with Evelyn (Kate Beckinsale) and friend/
son Danny, a relationship that temporally resituates Rafe as father and
pilotdoes the film arrive at its happy ending.
Pearl Harbor follows the friendship of Rafe and Danny and their
mutual love for Evelyn across three historical terrains: Rafe and Dannys
pilot training that leads to Rafes involvement in the Battle of Britain, the
threesomes stationing at Pearl Harbor prior to and during the Japanese
attack, and the post-Pearl Harbor American bombing mission over Japan,
known as the Doolittle Raid, in which Rafe and Danny both participate.10
Against these three historical backgrounds, love blossoms and friendship
is tested. While in pilot training, Rafe meets and falls in love with Airforce
nurse Evelyn. This does not, however, prevent him from volunteering for
bombing missions in the Battle of Britain (as many American pilots did
while the US followed an official policy of neutrality during the Second
World War). Rafes plane is shot down, and Evelyn and Dannywho have
now been stationed at Pearl Harborreceive word of Rafes death. The
devastated pair take comfort in one another, quickly becoming lovers. Just
as Evelyn realises she is pregnant with Dannys child, Rafe returns from
the dead. He was stuck in war-torn France for months, unable to get word
to Evelyn that he was alive. Because of her pregnancy, Evelyn tells Rafe
she will stay with Danny. Rafe and Danny fall out, but of course put aside
their differences to fight the Japanese, first during the attack on Pearl
Harbor, and later as volunteers on the Doolittle Raid. On that raid, Danny
is critically wounded. Rafe implores him to live by telling him, Danny,
you cant die. You know why? Cause youre gonna be a daddy. I wasnt
supposed to tell you, but youre gonna be a daddy! Dannys dying reply
to Rafe is, No, Rafe. You are.11 With Dannys death, Evelyn and Rafe are
romantically reunited. In the films final scene, Evelyn watches adoringly
while Rafe shows their son Danny the crop duster he flies in the post-war
mid-West.
Pearl Harbor tells its story of love, loss, and rebirth by developing a
moral order whose various aspects are characterised by the three leads. In

10. Th e scrip t is d otted w ith rom antic an d m ilitary su bp lots, the m ost d evelop ed
of w h ich is th e story of Doris Dorie Miller, an African Am erican sailor w h o sh ot
d ow n Jap an ese p lan es d u rin g th e Pearl H arbor attack an d w h o w as p osth u m ou sly
aw ard ed th e N avy Cross for h is h eroism . Miller s story m akes little im p act on th e
film s overall n arrative becau se h is character n ever m eets or is in volved w ith any
of th e cen tral ch aracters.
11. Mem orable Qu otes from Pearl Harbor [http ://u s.im d b.com /Qu otes?0213149]
(24 Ap ril 2002).
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this moral order, Rafe symbolises a consistent (if often premature) moral
clarity, Danny stands for lapses in moral judgment, and Evelyn marks the
location where struggles to reconcile questions of morality take place.
Deciphering the films moral grammar requires a consideration of its
reliance upon strategies of doubling and codes of gender and sexuality.
The film presents us with two male leads whose lives, loves, deaths, and
rebirths pass through twin histories. Rafe and Danny grow up together.
They fall in love with the same woman. They both die in the course of the
film (Rafe symbolically in the Battle of Britain; Danny literally in the
Doolittle Raid). And they are both reborn (Rafe returns from the dead to
join his friend and girlfriend at Pearl Harbor, while Danny is reborn as
Rafe and Evelyns son). The motif of rebirth also doubles the films father/
son relationship, with Danny as symbolic son to Rafe becoming his literal
son, thus allowing Rafe to pass from Dannys inadequate father substitute
to his proper father.
The terms of this moral grammar only become meaningful when
read through the films relationships of gender and sexuality, relationships
that find their focus in the pivotal character of Evelyn, herself a double for
the feminised Pearl Harbor.12 It is through their relationships with Evelyn
that Rafe and Danny represent a double-sided morality of moral certainty
(Rafe) and moral uncertainty (Danny).
Rafes moral certainty is presented to us from the start, when Rafe
offers himself up as a substitute father and defender of young Danny. This
early scene establishes that Rafe has a clear sense of what is right and
wrong, even if he is not always able to execute his moral code. Rafes
inability to defend Danny from his abusive father by becoming his fatherly
substitute is a theme returned to throughout the film, in adult Rafes literal
doubling of Dannys father by becoming a rotten drunk, and in Rafes
failure to save his friend from death.13
In contrast to Rafes difficulties executing his moral code in relation
to Danny, Rafe has no such problems in his relationships with his country
and his girlfriend. Rafes clear sense of duty coupled with his excitement
at the dangers of flying planes means that he always finds it easier to defend
and protect America than he does to defend and protect his friend Danny.
This is because Rafes moral codeand indeed Rafes entire character
doubles that of an America emerging from isolationism. Rafe is the films

12. Pearl H arbor fu n ctions in th e Am erican im aginary as a fem inised figu re:
first, as a form er A m erican colony tu rned state th at fu n ction s as a p laygrou nd of
p leasu res for tou rists, everyd ay Am erican s, an d service p eop le station ed at Pearl
H arbor d u rin g the Second World War p rior to its attack; and , secon d , as the u nlikely
location of Am ericas fem in in e hom efront, w hich is h ow it is scrip ted in Am ericas
h egem on ic im aginary. For a m ore n u an ced read in g of Pearl H arbor, see Kath y
Fergu son an d Ph yllis Tu rnbu ll, Oh Say Can You See? (Minn eap olis, M N : Un iversity
of Minn esota Press, 1999).
13. M em orable Qu otes from Pearl Harbor.
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heroic Captain America, over eager to seek opportunities to project

American actions and values into the wider world. As Rafe tells his
commanding officer when he volunteers for the Battle of Britain, he is not
eager to die, just eager to matter.14 But Rafe/outwardly-looking America
finds it difficult to matter before America officially joins the war, and before
post-war America reorders global affairs. This is because he, like America,
as yet lacks a proper platform from which to project American values,
interests, and power internationally. This is something America gains by
being forced into the war by events at Pearl Harbor, and it is something
Rafe gains through his relationship with Evelyn. Pearl Harbor becomes
Americas platform to move out of isolationism and to make meaning in
the world; Evelyn becomes Rafes.
Rafes defense of his country never threatens the moral terms of his
relationship with Evelyn, even when Rafe gets ahead of himself and
volunteers for service in Europe before America is officially at war. This is
because Evelyn represents Americas symbolic homefront, the girl back
home needing protection but also propping up the boy abroad. It is in
relation to Evelyn that Rafe stages not only his heroism but his morality.
The night before leaving for Britain, Rafe does the honourable thing by
passing up an opportunity to spend his final night in America with Evelyn.
When Rafe learns of Evelyns impregnation by Danny, he does what he
can to secure Evelyn and Dannys relationship, even though it leaves him
heartbroken. And upon Dannys death, Rafe again does the right thing by
(we are led to believe) marrying Evelyn and raising her son Danny as his
own.
While Rafe always seems to know the right thing to doeven when
he cannot (yet) do itDanny is a figure always caught in the middle. From
the start, he is torn between two inadequate fathers and their conflicting
relationships to the dangers of flying planes. Dannys father pulls him
toward the legacies of the First World War, impressing upon him the merits
of isolationism. Rafe, on the other hand, pulls Danny toward entry into
the Second World War, a war in which Danny doesnt really belong, and
which therefore leads to his death.
Given his familial positioning between two fathers and his historical
positioning between two wars, it is little surprise that Danny finds himself
in the middle again in his love triangle with Rafe and Evelyn. Unlike Rafe,
who refuses to consummate his relationship with Evelyn before marriage,
Danny does the wrong thing by allowing comfort to lead to sex which
leads to pregnancy. Interestingly, neither Evelyn nor Rafe ever give Danny
the chance to do the right thing by Evelynto marry heruntil Danny is
on the brink of death. This is consistent with how Danny is cast in the film:
as emotionally less mature than either Rafe or Evelyn, and lacking the
ability to mature, resulting in his moral unreliability. This is also consistent

14. Ibid .
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with how Dannya boy in need of a good parenttakes more comfort

from Evelyn than she does from him. Dannys character ruptures the clarity
of Rafes moral order around the axes of gender and sexuality by rejecting
Rafe as not (yet) father enough for him, by allowing himself to be mothered
by Evelyn when he is supposed to look after her in Rafes absence, and by
having an incestuous relationship with Evelynfor she is both his
brothers betrothed and his own mother.
And what of Evelyn? How is the morality of this fallen woman with
a bastard son coded? Not at all. The film leaves Evelyn morally uncoded
because the films moral codes are exclusively masculine. Evelyn has a
function in Pearl Harbors moral grammarto secure masculinitybut she
has no proper place within it. Like the feminised playground of pleasures
she doubles, Evelyn functions as an accessible feminine space in which
masculine moral struggles are staged. Sometimes masculinity is secured
in the twin homefronts of Evelyn/Pearl Harbor. And sometimes it is
unhinged. But the films progressive moral narrative ensures that insecurity
and moral uncertainty will always be temporary, even in the face of
betrayal, incest, and attack. It is the feminine that functions as the basis for
this moral recovery, as the only reliable site from which moral progress
can occur.
The film explicitly makes this point through Evelyn, for Evelyn is
the location from which the story rights the moral missteps of its lead
characters. It is Evelyns misidentification of Danny as a lover rather than
a son that enables Danny to finally gain access to his proper father, a mature
Rafe. Prior to his rebirth as Evelyns son, Dannys fathers were temporally
out of sync, with his natural father behind the times and his substitute
father ahead of his time. It is only when Danny is reborn through Evelyn,
and when Rafe is again reborn through Pearl Harbor, that the Rafe/Danny,
father/son relationship works. For Rafe/outwardly-looking America is
finally in his appropriate historical period, when he can make (more)
legitimate claims to fatherhood (of Danny/of a new global order) and can
educate Danny/America caught between isolationism and outward
projection to take his place in the new, wider world. Rafes/Americas moral
certainty finally triumphs over Dannys/Americas moral uncertainty,
thanks to Americas refiguration through the feminine figures of Evelyn
and Pearl Harbor.
A parallel logic runs through the films representation of Pearl Harbor.
In the films account, Pearl Harbor (itself/herself a fallen woman thanks to
the surprise attack) is the location which provides the symbolically
feminised flyers who avenge Americas moral mistreatment by the
hypermasculine Japanese with the Doolittle Raid.15 By acting on their moral

15. Th e h yp erm a scu lin ity of an A m er ica n en em y is a lw a ys a com p licated

b u s in e s s , o n e t h a t r e p lie s u p o n r a cia l a n d e t h n ic s t e r e o t y p e s a n d t h a t
sim u ltan eou sly fem in ises th e enem y w hile it hyp erm ascu linises it. See L.H .M. Ling,
Postcolonial International Relations (Basin gstoke: Palgrave, 2001).
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certainty, these American flyers emasculate Japan, thereby symbolically

restoring Americas security and masculinity as well as their own. The
moral certainty of the US mission over Japan is twinned with the films
depiction of the moral uncertainty of the Japanese about the attack. While
the Americans know they must fight to restore their masculinity, the
Japanese first strike surprise attack is represented as somewhere between
cowardly and courageous, thereby denying Japan both moral certainty
and mature masculinity. This is made clear by the angst conveyed by
Admiral Yamamoto, the missions mastermind. Responding to praise that
his attack on Pearl Harbor is brilliant, Yamamoto replies, A brilliant man
would have found a way not to fight a war.16 The film leaves it up to its
viewers to complete the narrative of Japans moral progress, something
that is easily done given our knowledge of the post-war American
occupation of Japan and the films doubling of Japan and Danny on the
axes of moral uncertainty and immature masculinity. From this, we can
surmise that Japans moral uncertainty comes to an end just as Dannys
doeswhen its old character dies, making way for a new character to
mature into masculinity when properly fathered by America/Rafe.
Overall, Pearl Harbor presents its viewers with a moral grammar open
to moments of uncertainty when relationships of gender and sexuality
are out of time/place. These moments of moral rupture both occur at and
are sutured through the films use of its twinned feminine figures, Evelyn
and Pearl Harbor. It is through Evelyn that Rafes masculinity is first
unhinged (when Evelyn takes Danny as her lover) and then matures into
the domesticated masculinity emblematic of post-war America. With his
masculinity ultimately contained within the safe space of the heterosexual
nuclear family, Rafe is able to change his relationship not only to Danny,
but to the dangers of flying planes. In this post-war context, Rafe trades in
his fighter plane for a crop duster, a move that symbolises not only
Americas post-war security but Rafes comprehension that flying planes
can be dangerous to the father-son relationship.
The moral ruptures and closure experienced by Pearl Harbors three
lead characters are of course doubled in Americas historical relationship
with Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor is both what made America feel vulnerable
and what enabled America to take up its proper place in the moral
economies of violence and order during and after the Second World War.
Like Rafe, America emerged from the war stronger than when it entered
it, because it arrived at what is presumably its proper place in history: a
global hegemon, father to a new world order. Having secured itself and
the wider world, America, like Rafe, can turn inward, enjoying post-war
domestic happiness while offering morally certain fatherly guidance to

16. M em orable Qu otes from Pearl Harbor.

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its morally maturing sons, like Japan, thanks to its more nuanced grasp of
the dangers of flying planes.
Without the role of the feminineof Evelyn in the film Pearl Harbor
and of Pearl Harbor in Americas narrative of its own moral certainty and
its helping hand in the moral progress of other statesthe moral grammar
of Pearl Harbor and Pearl Harbor does not makes sense. Nor does it make
sense without a specific rendering of sexuality. In this rendering, sexuality
may momentarily overflow the bounds of good moral practice (through
betrayal, incest, or attack), but because sexuality is grounded in
heterosexual relationships, it canand these narratives promise it will
ultimately be contained by the heterosexual nuclear family, a site that
ensures that moral certainty can be passed on from father to son, from the
victors of war to those they defeated.
What Pearl Harbor and Pearl Harbor offer America is what appears
to be a traditionally gendered, closed moral grammar, the movement of
which reassures Americans that it is only a matter of time before threats to
their moral economy whether played out in personal, familial
relationships or in relations within and among statesare rendered
harmless.17

Attack on America
If Pearl Harbor presents a moral grammar rendered meaningful by
domesticated, heterosexualised codes of gender and sexuality, and Pearl
Harbor functions as a rhetorical equivalent in American discourse for Attack
on America, this begs the question: does Attack on America abide by the
same gendered and sexualised moral grammar as do Pearl Harbor and
Pearl Harbor?
Like the moral grammar of Pearl Harbor, the moral grammar of Attack
on America functions through the motif of twinning. The twinning motif is
not only literally suggested by the first target of the 11 September attacks,
the twin towers of New York Citys World Trade Center; it is also
figuratively suggested in an American discourse that sees the Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor doubled in the events of 11 Septemberthrough
rhetorics of isolationism, surprise attack, loss of innocence, and policy
responses. All this suggests that Pearl Harbor and Attack on America bare
the same relationship to the dangers of flying planes both literally (flying
planes brings/bring war by surprise attack) and figuratively (surprise
attacks by flying planes activate the same meaningful responses).
Rather than contradict this impression, the grammatical structures
of Attack on America and Pearl Harbor seem to abide by the same moral

17. Even if on e qu eers th e Pearl Harbor n arrative, read in g Rafe and Dan n ys d esire
for one an oth er as m ed iated th rou gh Evelyn, th e resu lt is the sam e. For, u ltim ately,
both Rafe and Dan ny conform to h eterosexu al cod es of gen d er and sexu ality, on e
as fath er and h u sban d , the other as son .
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design. In both cases, morality is double-sided. Pearl Harbor portrays its

double-sided grammar in the run-up to the Japanese attack through its
two male leadsthe outwardly looking, morally certain Rafe, and the
inward/outward, morally uncertain Danny. Attack on America presents a
similar moral grammar prior to the terrorist attack, locating certainty and
uncertainty in similar locales. Before 11 September, moral certainty was
found just where Pearl Harbor told us it would be found in a post-war
worldin the outward projections of American power. Whether
characterised through Americas global military superiority or through its
neoliberal capitalist polic ies of globalisation, America projected a
triumphalist moral standpoint. Inwardly, Americas moral position was
less certain due to events both at home and abroad. While there is much
debate about whether or not the suturing of moral certainty/uncertainty
that Pearl Harbor depicts was ever realised in post-war America, there is
widespread agreement that whatever its relative success may have been,
it was not sustained.18 Events like the Vietnam War, Watergate and political
concerns expressed in rhetorics as diverse as anti-war, feminism ,
postmodernism and anti-globalisation meant that from at least the 1960s
onward, claims to moral pluralism, moral relativism and even nihilism
were as much in play in America as were claims to moral certainty.
All this changed on 11 September. America initially retained its
outwardly-directed moral certainty. Combining clash of civilisations
arguments with cowboy posturing, America declared a war on terror
and, a few months later, on its supporting axis of evilwhile its President
set the bounty on Osama bin Laden: Wanted: Dead or Alive. Inwardly,
self-assured nationalism and patriotism replaced critical discourses seen
as immoral (the left), amoral (postmodernism), or simply in bad taste
(humour), thereby substituting moral uncertainty with moral certainty.19
In the weeks following 11 September, movement along the moral
certainty/uncertainty axis increasingly teetered toward one pole. But unlike
Pearl Harbor, in which that pole was moral infallibility, in Attack on America
it was a pervasive, contagious moral confusion. Yes, America embarked
upon the dual mission of building a global coalition against terror and

18. See Step h anie Coon tz, The W ay W e N ever W ere (N ew York: Basic Books, 2000).
19. Th e p op u lar rep resentation s of th ese d iscou rses have little to d o w ith w h at
th ey see th em selv es as stan d in g for. Leftist d iscou rses w ou ld cla im to be n ot
im m oral bu t offerin g altern ative m oralities. Postm od ern d iscou rses claim to m ake
room for m oral ch oices by critiqu in g m oral u n iversals, th ereby p lacin g m oral
resp onsibility squ arely back in th e han d s of everyd ay p eop le. An d the valu ation
of h u m or often has less to d o w ith w heth er or n ot it is fu n ny than w ith tim in g, as
Am erican com ed ian Bill Mah er, th e h ost of th e US com ed y sh ow Politically Incorrect
learned w hen he qu ip p ed abou t 11 Sep tem ber: We have been th e cow ard s, lobbin g
cru ise m issiles from 2,000 m iles aw ay. Th ats cow ard ly. Staying in th e airp lan e
w hen it hits the bu ild ingsay w h at you w an t abou t it, its n ot cow ard ly. Bill Maher,
Politically Incorrect, ABC, 16 Sep tem ber 2001 [http ://d ailyn ew s.yah oo.com / h tx/n m /
20011108/re/leisu re_m ah er_d c_1.h tm l] (23 Ap ril 2002).
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bombing Afghanistan. Yet, one could not help but feel that Americas
missions were morally contradictory. Its global coalition against terror
included states with appalling human rights records and states that some
would not hesitate to characterise as terrorist. As for the bombing of
Afghanistan, even though the US rolled out its traditional foreign policy
rhetoric, stating that the US has no quarrel with the Afghan people, its
mission turned thousands of Afghans into casualties of war, either by death
or displacement. Trying to blunt any immoral edges to the mission,
American forces dropped bread (idealist humanitarian relief) as well as
bombs (realist foreign policy tools) over enemy territory, thereby delivering
a morally mixed message. Not surprisingly, Americas moral uncertainty
spread inwardly, with its public raising questions not primarily about
whether or not America should take a moral stand against international
terrorism generally and who the Bush administration identified as the al
Qaeda terrorists specifically, but precisely howand more importantly,
whereit should do so.20 As envelopes filled with anthrax began to
circulate through Americas postal system, this question became all the
more urgent.21
The question of where Americas moral activity might be located is
the very point at which the parallel between the moral grammars of Pearl
Harbor and Attack on America breaks down. In Pearl Harbor, as in Pearl
Harbor, America was able to project its masculine moral certainty into the
world when the time was right, when its doubled homefront of Evelyn
and Pearl Harbor needed protecting. Functioning as symbolic sites of
American territory, these two feminine figures provid ed both the
foundation from which American masculinity could be projected into the
world, and the place where debates about moral certainty/uncertainty were
resolved in favour of moral certainty. Abiding by traditional heterosexual
codes of gender and sexuality, what these figures promised is that moral
certainty would tame moral uncertainty at home and abroad by first
containing uncertainty, and then enlightening it.
This is not at all how the moral grammar of Attack on America is
rendered meaningful by its codes of gender and sexuality. Unlike in Pearl
Harbors moral grammar, where the enemy, the homefront, and gender
and sexuality codes are easy to identify, Attack on Americas moral grammar
locates no clear enemies, no clear homefronts, and no clear traditional

20. For a gen eral overview of 11 Sep tem ber in a critical con text, see Theory and
Event 5, n o. 4 (2001) an d for a historical overview of th e situ ation see Fred H allid ay,
Two Hours that Shook the W orld (Lond on : Al Saqi, 2002).
21. At th e tim e of th is w ritin g, there w as no p u blically available evid ence th at al
Q aed a had any resp onsibility for the circu lation of anth rax throu gh th e US p ost.
Even so, m y p oin t is th at th e anth rax in cid ences, like al Q aed as terrorist attacks,
u sed Am ericas ow n circu latory system sthe fed eral m ail and US d om estic air
travelagain st th e US, m aking th e qu estion of w here to strike an enem y a con fu sing
on e.
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codes. And this has important consequences for where and how the battle
between the twin sides of moralitycertainty and uncertaintyis staged.
Grasping how gender and sexuality codes actually do function in the moral
grammar of Attack on America, and why the Second World War codes fail
requires an appreciation of the identity and strategy of Americas new
enemy and an appreciation of the new homefront America is defending.
No clear, containable enemy can be located in Attack on Americas
moral grammar. While Pearl Harbors moral grammar of war successfully
identifies enemies as states, Attack on Americas moral grammar attempts
but fails to similarly identify the enemy. One of the first moves of the Bush
administration was to equate Osama bin Ladens al Qaeda network with
Afghanistans Taliban government, an equation that translated the war on
terror into a war among states. Yet, this equation was always a failed one.
Yes, it meant that America could commence its bombing campaign in
Afghanistan. But both rhetorically and strategically, America seemed
insufficiently respectful of what it surely knew about terrorismthat
terrorism is not containable within state borders.
Instead of being at war with territorially-based states whose
hypermasculinity could be emasculated and whose resulting moral
immaturity could be subjected to fatherly correction, Americas enemy in
the war against terror is more like an international firm that projects its
(hyper)masculine influence and power internationally through what
neoliberal glob alisation perspectives regard as amoral capitalist
mechanisms of supply and demand, whose success depend upon market
research, technological efficiency, and forward thin king. As one
commentator put it, this new form of transnational terror attributed to the
al Qaeda network functions more like a Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC)
franchise than a sovereign state.22 Just as a KFC franchise succeeds by
enticing customers through efficient service and with products that their
competitors have yet to think of, so too does al Qaeda seem to function by
providing a product (an Islamic fundamentalist ideology turned terrorist)
to meet customer demand through technological efficiency (training
programs that enable employees to perform one or more specific tasks in
the production process) and forward thinking (transforming Hollywood-
like scripts into actual events).
Like other global corporations, when circumstances sour on the
ground, making operations from one locale unattractive (e.g., unfavourable
terms from host governments), al Qaeda just moves its ground operations
to more welcoming sites. These places include not only Afghanistan and
parts of the Arab world, but Germany, Britain, Canada, and America. And

22. Mark Du ffield , com m entin g at th e m eeting of th e Critical Practice Un it, POLIS,
Un iversity of Leed s, 21 October 2001. Also see Jam es Der Derian , 9.11: Before,
After, an d In Betw een [h ttp ://w w w.ssrc.org/sep t11/essays/d er_d erian .h tm ] (24
Ap ril 2002).
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these are just the ground operations. Not only is al Qaeda, this time like a
dot.com business, located everywhere; it is also located nowhere. It exists
as a mobile network of connections of cash and carriers accessible from
just about anywhere but locatable almost exclusively as mere network
nodal points.23 Like a stereotypical, elliptical feminine figure, al Qaeda is
so fluid that itlike its leadercannot be pinned down.24 Al Qaeda, then,
is as changeable as its gender. Today it is one thing, like a free-flowing
feminine dot.com company. Tomorrow it is another, with its terrorist cells/
franchises springing into action as hypermasculine (anti)heroes on
American domestic airliners.
Not only is al Qaedas gender doubled. So too is its sexuality. While
internally it seems to follow a strict heterosexual ideology (albeit exercised
through a violent homosociality), outwardly it grasps how processes of
exchange actually function in todays globalised world, recognising that
penetration goes both ways.25 Penetrating foreign markets requires opening
yourself up to global flows which might in turn penetrate you. Al Qaeda
does this, for example, through a global recruiting strategy that respects
religious boundaries, but not national ones. This is how British-born
Muslims fighting American and British coalition forces in Afghanistan were
reported to have become the first foreign (whatever that now means)
casualties in the war on terror.26 Al Qaedas appreciation of the dual nature
of penetration is also what enabled it to exploit the open societies of the
West and attack America.
What all this means is that al Qaeda is neither masculine nor feminine,
straight nor gay. Instead, it is both: masculine and feminine, straight and
gay. It is what Roland Barthes would call the both/and27 and what I would
call queer.28 As such, al Qaeda confuses meaning, the norm, normativity
of the traditional identity of an enemy target.29
Like its identity, al Qaedas war strategy confounds the traditional
codes of war. What made its hypermasculine attack possible was the al
Qaeda networks ability to capitalise on, while repudiating, a neoliberal

23. See Manu el Castells, The Rise of the N etwork Society (O xford : Blackw ell, 1998)
an d Mark Du ffield , Global Governance and the N ew W ars (Lon d on : Zed Books, 2001).
24. Lu ce Irigaray, Speculum of the Other W oman, tran s. Gillian C. Gill (Ith aca, N Y:
Cornell Un iversity Press, 1985).
25. J.K. Gibson -Grah am , Qu eer(y)ing Globalization , in Places Through the Body,
ed s. H eid i J. N ast an d Steve Pile (Lon d on : Rou tled ge, 1998).
26. These rep orts circu lated in th e British p ress in late October 2001. By late
N ovem ber 2001, th ey w ere retracted w h en th e m issin g fighters w ere sp otted in
A fgh an istan .
27. Rolan d Barth es, S/Z , tran s. Richard M iller (N ew York: H ill and Wang, 1974).
28. Cynth ia Weber, Faking It (Min neap olis, MN : Un iversity of Min nesota Press,
1999).
29. Rolan d Barthes, Sade, Fourier, Loyola, trans. Rich ard Miller (N ew York: H ill
an d Wan g, 1976), 109.
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economic logic that America has long regarded not as morally repugnant
or morally immature, but as morally neutral, for that is how markets and
the laws that govern them are understood in this economic ideology.30 Al
Qaedas strategy of war that both mirrors and exploits a neoliberal
economic strategy confuses America. On the one hand, American rhetoric
is clear in its view that al Qaedas anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, misogynist
ideology and practices are immoral, and that this moral inferiority will
not be remedied by moral maturation. This is why America is at war with
al Qaeda/terror.
On the other hand, American rhetoric is confused about how to regard
al Qaedas economic logic in its strategy of war. That this strategy has, in
Americas terms, effected evil and danger is beyond questionand it is
evidenced by al Qaedas multiplication of the dangers of flying planes by
selecting civilian and symbolic targets and by transforming passenger
planes into missiles. But American rhetoric has long reserved a place of
respect for neoliberal economic strategy as beyond morality. Recognising
that what American rhetoric regards as amoral neoliberal economic
strategies can have immoral global effects is precisely the point to which
American economic policy has long turned a deaf ear, most recently when
voiced by anti-globalisation protestors. Unlike anti-globalisation protestors,
al Qaeda is not fighting for global economic justice for all. It is exploiting
logics that neoliberal ideology places beyond justice or injustice for its
own immoral cause. The irony here is that America may rethink neoliberal
ideologies of economic (and, sadly, political, social and intellectual)
openness, and the moral enlightenment neoliberals argue naturally spills
over from this economic openness, more as a result of al Qaedas activities
than of those by the anti-globalisation movement.
Like al Qaedas identity, its strategy also confounds the gendered
and sexualised terms and the moral application of Americas Second World
War formula for defeating and rehabilitating an enemy. The function of
Americas formula of emasculation and moral progress of its enemy
depends, as we saw in the discussion of Pearl Harbor, on a pivotal term
that is never represented in this formula. That term is the feminine. The
feminine is what secures Americas ideals of moral progress by functioning
as the morally neutral stage upon which moral struggles are resolved in
favour of moral progress. And, as we also saw in Pearl Harbor, this morally
neutral stage doubles as Americas homefront. It is what America is

30. It is p ossible to argu e that Am ericans h old a p ositive view of the m arket,
w ith the m arket fu n ctionin g in an Am erican im agin ary n ot as m orally n eu tral, bu t
as m orally good . Wh ile th is m ay be h ow an Am erican im agin ary view s th e m arket
itself, it is im p ortant to keep in m in d that th e m oral good n ess of th e m arket as a
w h ole is an effect of the m oral neu trality of th e m arket m ech an ism . Pu t d ifferen tly,
it is becau se the m arket m ech anism is m orally n eu tral th at th e m arket itself is
good .
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protecting and defending, for it is from this location that American power
is projected into the wider world.
In Attack on America, what America is protecting and defending is of
course American territory, this time New York and Washington, DC. But
the symbolic function of this territory could not be more different from
the symbolic function of Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor, the feminised,
domesticated colony turned US state, symbolises Americas military might.
The Twin Towers of the World Trade Centerthe target with which Attack
on Americas discourse is so preoccupied that the attack in DC is often
forgottensymbolises Americas masculine projection not of military
power into the wider world but of cultural power made possible by
economic power. By targeting the Twin Towers, al Qaeda targeted the
symbolic power of American-led neoliberal globalisation.
What all this means is that Americas homefront in the war on terror
is not a domesticated feminine figure like Pearl Harbor, the site where
Americas moral outrage was mobilised. Nor is it a domesticable feminine
figure like Evelyn, the girl back home with whom American masculinity
will make a home after the war and, from that site, domesticate immoral
global forces. The only site in the Attack on America discourse that properly
parallels the feminine sites of Pearl Harbor and Evelyn is the neoliberal
economic market. This market functions as a feminine site not only because
it was the symbolic target of the first attack (an attack designed to
emasculate American power more than feminise it). More importantly,
the market functions as a feminine site because, like the feminine in the
rhetoric in Pearl Harbor and Pearl Harbor, the market is itself located beyond
moral debate. It is neither morally good nor bad, morally certain nor
uncertain. It is morally neutral. As such, it is the place where questions of
morality are reconciled. The promise of the neoliberal market is that these
struggles will be resolved progressively, because the market is itself
progressive. According to neoliberalism, amoral market practices lead to
moral effects in the global order, things like peace, democracy, and
increased standards of living for all.
The problem for America is that its homefrontneoliberal economic
principles, policies, and institutionshas not just been attacked by al
Qaeda. It has been infiltrated by al Qaeda, not (only) because al Qaedas
operators are clever, but because the character of neoliberal globalisation
is such that it does not respect international boundaries. This makes it the
perfect strategic double through which a transnational terrorist network
might operate. And it makes it the nightmarish homefront that an America
at war with terror finds itself trying to protect.
Furthermore, because the feminine in Attack on America is not itself
contained or containable, it harbours no promise that it can morally contain
and correct an immoral enemy. Unlike the feminine in Pearl Harbor and
Pearl Harbor, the feminine in Attack on America is not an amoral stage

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where moral conflicts take place and are resolved in favour of an American
brand of morality; it is merely the place where moral conflicts are staged.
Like the neoliberal narratives of globalisation in which it resides, this
feminine space promises an openness that goes both waysbut no closure,
especially moral closure.

What Does America Want?

And finally we arrive at the question of desire, of what America wants by
substituting historic and filmic narratives of Pearl Harbor for those of Attack
on America. There is no shortage of answers to this question. Such a
substitution would provide a nostalgic, 21st century America with a clear
enemy located outside its borders and inside some other borders against
whom America could defend itself by using its superior milit ary
capabilities. President George W. Bush could play Franklin D. Roosevelt
(and British Prime Minister Tony Blair could play Winston Churchill). And
America and its allies could take comfort in the knowledge that it is only
a matter of time before they restored global order and security.
What my paired reading of Pearl Harbor and Attack on America
suggests is that there is something more that America wants by slipping
between these twinned discourses. This something more is a grammatical
structure and interpretive context that provides America with guarantees
that is it only a matter of time until Americas internal axis of moral
certainty/moral uncertainty flattens out into self-assured moral infallibility,
and that America is once again in a position to morally reorder global
politics by overseeing the moral progression of its enemies (be they terrorist
states, terrorist cells, or individual terrorists).
While there are striking similarities in the moral grammars of Pearl
Harbor/Pearl Harbor and Attack on America, the differences in these moral
grammars are only clarified when they are examined through the very
differently inflected codes of gender and sexuality which make them
meaningful. It is at this pointespecially when we recognise the non-place
and non-placeability of the feminine in Attack on America compared to the
domesticated and domesticable place of the feminine in Pearl Harbor/Pearl
Harborthat not only the distinctions between the two moral grammars,
but their different movements become clear. One promises rebirth and
redemption; the other prom ises only repeated penetratio n and
penetrabilitynot what America is looking for for itself at this moment in
its history.
What America wants is a moral grammar that will promise it not
security, but a US-led discourse of securitisation; not closure, but the
possibility of enclosure of its enemy and of its resecured domestic space;
not a baseless, premature fatherhood for this war-torn world, but a
domestically grounded, proper fatherly role in a post-war world. All this
was promised by the moral grammar of the Second World War. It is not
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surprising, then, that American moral outrage at the events of 11 September

has led to its wilfully substituting these events with the events and
understandings of 7 December. These similar historical sequences and the
desire to read these similar sequences as if they have the same meaning
(the very error Chomsky warns us against) have so far led America to
apply its Second World War playbook on how to fight a war against a
state, to how to fight a war against an enemy without borders, without a
homefront, and without the promise of moral correction. But because
Americas success in the war on terror is not a matter of the US defeating
and morally rehabilitating a territorially-contained hypermasculine enemy
who is employing a traditional military strategy, the Second World War
playbook must minimally be revised, if not rewritten altogether.31
This does not mean that Americas moral outrage over 11 September
is unjustified. I think it is. It does, however, mean that America has not yet
developed a sufficiently nuanced grasp of the literal differences between
the moral grammars of the Second World War and Attack on America and,
more importantly, of the different moral movement within these grammars
which rely upon differently inflected figurations of gender and sexuality.
America does not want to recognise that the dangers of flying planes in
Attack on America do/does more than momentarily rupture moral narratives
of progress. It/they rupture the very foundations upon which these
narrative s are based domesticated, heterosexual familie s and
domesticated, heterosexual states/enemies. This is what makes Americas
twinning of 11 September with Pearl Harbor desirable. It is also what makes
flying planes not only literally but figuratively dangerous.

Cynthia Weber is Professor of International Studies at the Institute for

Politics and International Studies, University of Leeds

31. W h at th is m ean s is th a t ev en th ou g h th e U S d efea ted th e Ta lib a n in

Afgh anistan an d even if th ey cap tu re an d /or kill O sam a bin Lad en, th ey w ill n ot
n ecessarily ach ieve th eir goal of d efeatin g and con tainin g in ternation al terror.
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