On Violence in American Foreign Policy and The Dark Mirror of Wireless Electronic Assault

“Psychoanalysis’ special area of expertise was and remains motivation, especially unconscious motivation. In 1907 Freud wrote that from analytic case studies we learn “what is really going on in the world … analyses are cultural historical documents of tremendous importance” … through encounters of psychoanalysis with war … I hope to illuminate … the world of affect, intention, and meaning that psychoanalysts encountered during war, and in particular in their explorations of motivation.” ~Eli Zaretsky, Psychoanalysis, vulnerability, and war

Gleaning some psychoanalytic insights from Frank Summers’ psychoanalytic opinion on the character and identity of the United States:

“The responsibility of America’s unjustifiable transgression of Iraq’s borders and the transformation of the United States into a torture society lies not only with the Bush White House, but also the American people who supported those policies of violence for which the administration proposed flimsy and often transparently false rationalizations (pg. 153).”

Evaluation of the U.S. National Character and The False War in Iraq

The United States ceased territorial expansionism at the end of the nineteenth century that followed similar patterns of ancient imperial powers such as Persian, Rome, Napoleonic France, or the Soviet Union by conquering ethnic groups and absorbing them into their territorial boundaries. The United States is called an “informal empire” or “invisible empire” and rather than be demarcated by territorial boundaries, operates by controlling the governments of nations that maintain their identity. (This behavior is characteristic of, and the purpose for, wireless electronic assault torture which ruptures the private boundaries and intimate spaces of the individual citizen who maintains control over their individual identity. It is advancing technology of Electronic Harassment that seeks to reform individual citizen identity.) In fact, the main characteristic of American self-representation is its self-admiration as “all good” and that it is not an empire but a powerful nation using its resources for the sole benefit to promoting “freedom” throughout the world. In fact, through a psychoanalytic lens, the American narrative puts the rationale for violence and covert invasion on a putatively ethical basis, and what’s more, is that the national self-representation is split between the conscious image of ethical purity and a disavowed omnipotence that believes in the U.S. capacity and right to control the world and world events as it sees fit. Both are images of national superiority, a grandiose view of the United States as special and above the rules that apply to other nations. This grandiosity of U.S. identity is tethered to U.S. military strength, and U.S. politicians fear the U.S. will be labeled as “weak” if it does not react with military intervention and a show of strength which usually is conveyed through violent assault (pg. 159).

Dick Cheney’s Defense Planning Guidance of 1992

Perhaps the real danger posed to America started eight years before the World Trade Center bombings took place. As neoconservative dissatisfaction began to swell in the U.S. with Kissinger’s détente politics, the tacit understanding or easing of tensions was regarded as an unnecessary accommodation to America’s enemies. The 1992 Defense Planning Guidance plan created by Dick Cheney under the Bush administration White House, promoted unilateral preemptive military action with no basis other than U.S. capability. Then, under the Clinton administration The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) was founded. It planned for American domination of the world including unilateral military intervention and preemption before the bombings of the World Trade Center in New York City. Eighteen of PNAC members insisted to then President Clinton that a regime change in Iraq should be the aim of American foreign policy. In 2000 the PNAC called for preemptive action against Iraq, the construction of several military bases in the country, and the transfer of nationalized Iraqi oil industry to Western companies. Since these documents were issued well before 9/11, indicates to critical viewing eye that the Iraq invasion was a product of American entitlement rather than a mistaken effort at self-defense. Because of the failure in Vietnam, a U.S. policy to invade Iraq could not be adopted until after the bombings on 9/11 because American grandiosity had been relegated to a latent state (pg. 161).

“The attack provided the narcissistic blow that brought broad support, or at least acquiescence, to the preemptive use of military force. The alacrity with which the American people were willing to go forward with an invasion of a country innocent of the attack, illegal detention, and even torture, indicates that the assault on the World Trade Center evoked a previously split off grandiosity and its associated sense of entitlement (pg. 162).”

The National Propensity for Violence and The Purpose of Wireless Electronic Assault Torture Analyzed

To understand the stubbornness of the American insistence on attempting to dominate nations that it cannot control, and of which it has little knowledge, is to appreciate the resilience of grandiosity. For a narcissistic patient there is little sense of self other than grandiosity. The grandiose self is erected to protect against a sense of weakness and inadequacy that cannot be admitted into consciousness. The emotional investment in the self is concentrated in the grandiose self. We see this narcissistic tendency in former president Donald Trump. Any slight to his elevated self-image evokes shame and helplessness and threatens the very sense of his perceived “perfect” self. If the grandiose self is assaulted so that it cannot be successfully protected, the very sense of self is threatened, resulting in what Kohut (1984) called “disintegration anxiety.” To protect the very sense of self, defenses are employed, such as denial of all mistakes, failures, and limitations. One common way to achieve this defensive posture is to devalue the other and even reduce the other to a state of helplessness where that is possible. (What I have previously just shared lies at the heart of, and purpose for, as well as the unconscious motivations for using wireless electronic assault torture. That is to say, it is a narcissistic defensive response to a perceived threat in the narcissist’s object relational world that uses abuse to response to the perceived threat and can be called a form of narcissistic abuse). Although such behavior is ultimately self-defeating because it alienates others, rather than evokes the admiration the patient seeks, the narcissistically organized individual opts for immediate narcissistic gratification rather than long-term self- interest (pg. 166–167).

As I have previously stated, this is the purpose and scope of wireless electronic assault torture. The assault/torture is the narcissistically motivated response from a place of grandiosity and omnipotence within a narcissist’s psyche, whose sense of self has disintegrated into a state of anxiety the fuels retaliation onto the object Other that has just threatened or humiliated the torturer’s “perfect” opinion of him/herself. It may also be considered a form of “high impression management” by the perpetrator to mobilize any threats to his grandiose self.

In Frank Summers’ evaluation of the American identity, it becomes clear that these narcissistic motivations have been part of American culture since the founding of national identity by the country’s forefathers. What many historians call the “myth of America,” a narrative of moral superiority, omnipotence, and a destiny of prosperity, has been used historically to justify international intervention. Its roots of implied superiority can be found in the doctrine of Manifest Destiny that justified acquisition of American Indian territory all the way to the Pacific, the Monroe Doctrine that implied American superiority and used it as the rationale for westward expansion by John Quincy Adams. The rationale of “America’s goodness” was inverted by Theodore Roosevelt’s famous 1904 corollary to become a basis for American intervention in the Western Hemisphere. Roosevelt’s rationale is telling:

“A chronic wrongdoing or impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation and … may force the United States … to the exercise of police power (pg. 157).”

By implying that the United States was the only “civilized society” in the part of the world, Theordore Roosevelt not only brazenly declared American superiority but also arrogated to the United States the status of “policeman of the Western Hemisphere. “

The Outcome of The Iraq War and The Purpose of Wireless Electronic Assault Torture

The outcome of the Iraq war provided its invasion project with a windfall of military funding, promotion of propaganda, and recruits for al-Qaeda and has provided the terrorist organization with a foothold in Iraq territory. For what much of the Muslim world sees as an effort by America to control and dominate, or even eliminate, their way of life (pg. 164). This is the purpose and scope to wireless electronic assault torture! In the long-term, robbing other nations of their self-determination elicits enmity towards the United States for which it pays with hostile governments, as can also be seen today in Iran and the growing number of anti-American regimes in South America. The United States, through the Bush administration policies, has reduced our national identity to the violent methods of indiscriminate killers. Similarly, it is the purpose and scope of wireless electronic assault torture’s use of malevolence and clandestine concealment, use of emotion as a dark mirror to further weaken and destroy another Object-other’s identity through violent attack and promotes the creation of a “foothold” in the intimate spaces of bodily territory in which terrorist activities can further deny the individual citizen of his/her civil rights.

Repairing American Grandiosity (pg. 167)

After confrontation with real-world limitations of its capabilities, the United States will attempt to restore the belief in its omnipotence by disavowing any defeat and eventually seeking victory or domination in another conflict to restore its sense of grandiosity and omnipotent narcissism. This repetitive behavior is that of a serial killer’s tendency to shed more blood and squander more precious treasure.

If American propensity for violence is to be reduced, its grandiosity must be relinquished rather than disavowed. Again, a clue can be found in the narcissistic patient who does not relinquish grandiosity unless an alternate form of narcissistic gratification can be found. Kohut (1971) pointed out that grandiosity can be given up only if the analytic process provides a certain amount of gratification along with the frustration of narcissistic disappointment. Kernberg (1975, 1976) defined normal narcissism as consisting of a realistic appreciation of faults and weakness against strengths and talents. Narcissism becomes abnormal only when the need for self-appreciation requires or demands a grandiose self-image as a superior other in relation to other objects (pg. 170).

In successful psychoanalysis of the narcissistically organized individual, the grandiose self is converted into realistic ambitions and ideals (Kohut, 1971, 1984). The relevance for national identity is that in a successful outcome, grandiosity does not disappear, it is transformed into a more realistic sense of self that nonetheless provides narcissistic gratification (Kohut, 1966, 1971). The successfully treated grandiose patient finds meaning in life from the fulfillment of realistic ambitions that substitute for the illusionary grandiosity (Kohut, 1971, 1984) (pg, 170).

In my experience with wireless electronic assault torture, the disruption of the targeted individual’s identity is sought to sadistically remove healthy behaviors of identity such as daily routine exercise, healthy eating habits, gardening, creation of visual artworks, reading, writing, creating are all disturbed so as to make the individual struggle with any type of creative satisfaction and accomplishment of goals.

For an individual who is narcissistically oriented, replacing maladaptive behaviors with healthy behaviors like routine daily exercise to manage anxiety, the creation of visual artworks that help to express unarticulatable experiences and experiences that cannot be spoke of or located, reading and journaling all work to help and guide the individual to cure. But with a nation that is narcissistically oriented like the United States, this change can only occur if, like the narcissistic patient, is willing to form an identity based on realistic strengths and realistic limitations. The fragility of that very grandiose identity contains the roots of American violence.

The excitement in such an identity lies in the ability to achieve meaningful goals in concert with one’s ideals. Such achievement provides a realistic form of pride that endures, rather than the temporary relief resulting from gratification of grandiosity. In the United States, national pride from achievements in accordance with its ideals of justice and liberty offer that opportunity (pg. 170).

I want to make clear that the use of wireless electronic assault torture’s purpose is to strip the individual victim of those healthy habits, ideals, and behavioral achievements associated with healthy identity and that adheres the psyche in rational terms, rather than in irrational terms. The degradation of the narcissistic abuse is to reduce the victim to a “weak,” and “shameful,” “inferior” status by beleaguering them with violent assault torture. Its use of malevolent emotion as a dark mirror, which seems to indicate a wish of the perpetrator to reduce his victim to his own social standing, is a form of a grandiose narcissistic apparatus that functions through the abusive violence, so that the narcissist can achieve gratification of his/her own self grandiosity and superiority. The shameful degradation of the object other (victim), obliges the narcissist’s masculine defense of “defending one’s honor when that honor has been threatened or humiliated” via the disavowal of any “weakness” found within the narcissist himself as well as a complete and utter disavowal of personal vulnerability of which is a great source of fear in all human psyches. Furthermore, nothing indicates weakness and a complete lack of control over one’s senses more than the aggressive violence of war and of wireless electronic assault torture (e.g.: brut physical aggressive force over another Object-other where there exists no control to control the victim as is seen in penitentiary life). It is this psychoanalytic truth that becomes the inversion of truth because in reality, it is not the targeted victims who are “weak” and “not in control of their identity,” it is the narcissistic patient that cannot control him/herself wished for fantasy when placed in a state of threat or is rendered “weak” or “inferior” by an opponent or by the very social ordering of a democratic system that oppresses certain groups. This psychotic state is the complete opposite of psychotherapeutic repair.

“Violence is not power, but its opposite.” ~Hannah Arendt, 1969

Thus, the election of Donald Trump and the January 6th insurrection on the Capitol was a recapitulation of long-held historical systemic abuse rooted in U.S. foreign policy put in place during the Bush administration White House post 9/11 and the emergence of national character. It is the historical recapitulation of long engrained American ethics to defy and obliterate boundaries, ran sack and pillage, spill blood and squander treasure, and attack “enemy resources” or “enemy command posts” of which the U.S. needs in order to maintain U.S. grandiose, superiority, and wealth.

The character and behavior of Donald Trump as a narcissist reflects the long-held character of our nation’s political and military identity. Those who doubt that narcissistic grandiosity plays a critical role in the image of the American people only have to look to two former U.S. presidential running candidates who tried to convey this fact to the public during their election campaigns; Jimmy Carter and George McGovern. Both candidates lost the election with this negative campaign rhetoric towards the problem with American identity.

To further evidence critics of the U.S. national character consider Tocquevill (1985) who noted that the national reverence for Andrew Jackson showed the power of military prowess over the nation’s spirit. The nationwide belief that America’s military success constituted the triumph of “good over evil” and the spread of virtue for all. One of Tocqueville’s strongest impressions of the American people was their self-regard: “They believe they are the only religious, enlightened, and free people … they have an immensely high opinion of themselves and are not far from believing that they form a species apart from the rest of the human race (pg. 157). Even more poignantly he said of America, “the least reproach offends it, and the slightest sting of truth turns it fierce; and one must praise everything … Hence the majority lives in a state of perpetual self-adoration” (pg. 157).

Additionally, there seems to be the philosophy connected to the use of wireless electronic assault torture. The belief of “virtue over vice” and it is used in the highest regard as a reflection of the narcissist’s character. It is his/her ability to “control” him/herself’s proclivities peculiar to man; chastity over lustful promiscuity, moderation over overindulgent excess, a gentleman’s character over the dereliction of vice on the streets. Thus, the narcissist perceives in his victim a “weakness” that must be “rooted out” indicating the splitting of objects into “good” and “bad” parts. Similarly to how prostitutes are rendered “nonhuman” to certain John’s.

The 2024 U.S. Presidential Election

No election was ever won on promoting America’s strengths and weaknesses. Fritz Kramer, the patriarch of the neoconservative movement told Donald Rumsfeld, on the eve of the Iraq invasion, “No provocative weakness, Mr. Secretary.” As the grandiosity of U.S. identity has been increasingly tied to military strength, politicians live in fear of being labeled “weak.” It is no secret Americas suffers from an epidemic of violence. Omnipotence in the American psyche give rise to an unconscious bitterness, eventually fueling new outbreaks of violence in America. As long as we live by the phrase “America strong” or “America the invincible” we live in a state of perpetual delusion regarding the realistic limitations of our capabilities. Furthermore, this year is an election year. The three major running candidates are Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and Nicki Halley. I fear Joe Biden may be perceived as “weak” at his current age, and, with his past history of U.S. immigration policy at the border, may hurt his chances for re-election. Nicki Halley is a woman, and femininity has always been equated with “weakness” and “inferiority” in a patriarchal society. The strongest candidate, in my opinion, is Donald Trump. Combine this fact with the extraordinary American capability for violence that stimulates a grandiosity that is confused with power by the American people and their leaders, and we just may have the recipe for a second presidential administration that ushers in the Republican candidate Donald Trump again.

Source: First Do No Harm: The paradoxical encounters of psychoanalysis, warmaking, and resistance (2010). Adrienne Harris and Steven Botticelli (editors). New York. Routledge. Chapter 8, Violence in America Foreign Policy: A psychoanalytical approach, by Frank Summers (pg. 153–174). NOTE: I want to give credit to the author, Frank Summers, for his telling psychoanalytic approach in evaluating the American psyche as well as the psyche rooted in U.S. national leadership. His ideas on this topic can be found on the page numbers that follow the paragraphs indicated. I used his psychoanalytic approach to evaluate the phenomenon of wireless electronic assault torture also known as Electronic Harassment.