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Description
In 2011, the United States began its first iteration of Countering Violent Extremism (CVE), a new counterterrorism surveillance program developed under Obama-liberalism aimed at permeating Black, Arab, and South Asian Muslim communities. The goal was bridging the relationship between State and Community in which the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and affiliated bodies would directly build rapport with communities in hopes of recruiting informants as well as using police-community partnerships to observe and restrict political resistance to state violence. While CVE has generated extensive debate for its domestic perpetuation Islamophobia, xenophobia, anti-Black racism, classism, and Zionism, the invisibilized and often omitted components of CVE are its transnational counterparts in countries abroad with direct links to US militarism and counterinsurgency operations all around the world. Today, CVE has provided millions of dollars to community organizations, universities, non-profits, police departments, intelligence agencies, and armies around the world all geared toward enacting programs securing intelligence on target communities. City Heights and El Cajon are key CVE sites identified by the DHS. City Heights is known for its large East African refugee populations. Similarly, El Cajon, nicknamed “Little Baghdad”, is rife with Syrian and Iraqi refugees displaced by US imperialisms of the last 20 years- this number also includes a large number of Palestinian Muslims displaced by Zionism and US imperialism. On the transnational level, CVE programming and US military operations simultaneously target Somalia, Kenya, Syria, Iraq, and Palestine. Thus, CVE relies on what I call warcare economies: the manipulation of neoliberal “care” to enact surveillance, coerced capitulation, and ultimately circumvent political movements challenging ongoing militarism and repression. This thesis situates this broader transnational model of warcare in San Diego by exploring the role of the University of San Diego in enacting CVE counterinsurgency in San Diego and countries around the world. It will identify the rhetoric put forth by their CVE programming and examine the material impacts this programming has on various communities- either refugees in San Diego and community members impacted in East Africa and the Levant. Ultimately, this thesis aims to highlight the symbiotic relationship between militarization, humanitarian work, and counterinsurgency.
