The state wages the War on Terror for spectacle more than effect

Evidence

But the War on Terror is inherently and inescapably spectacular; it arises from the demands of the post 9/11 military-industrial-entertainment complex: it is not enough for the state to do something, it has to be seen doing something. … This is the kind of asymmetry that the military-industrial-entertainment complex likes: no casualties (on our side). — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1450

Categorization

• XREF: Pays off earlier claims in this book (ch73, ch74) about media spectacle insulatingspectators and entertainment’s ideological function. — connects to: The war on terror is linguistically camouflaged state violence; Domestic war on terror functions as a manufactured spectacle of fear rather than safety — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 484; The war on terror fought a parallel battle over the nature of reality (+2 more)
• SEED: Essay angle: the ‘seen doing something’ imperative as a general feature of post-9/11 governance and PR-managed politics beyond the military alone.

Broader Connections

• Domestic war on terror functions as a manufactured spectacle of fear rather than safety #expands (0.85) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 484
• War against terrorism is itself a form of terrorism. #expands (0.85)
• The war on terror is linguistically camouflaged state violence #expands (0.80)
• The War on Terror formally recruited Hollywood into the national security state #expands (0.80) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 753
• The war on terror fought a parallel battle over the nature of reality #expands (0.75)