Fact and the Narratives of War: Produced Undecidability in Accounts of Armed Conflict

Fact and the Narratives of War: Produced Undecidability in Accounts of Armed ConflictAuthor(s): Kevin McKenzieSource: Human Studies, Vol. 24, No. 3 (2001), pp. 187-209Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20011313 .

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kJ Human Studies 24: 187-209,2001.

w\ ? 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. 187

Fact and the Narratives of War: Produced Undecidability in

Accounts of Armed Conflict

KEVIN MCKENZIE United Arab Emirates University, U.G.R.U -E.S.P, P.O. Box 17172, Al-Ain, Abu Dhabi,

UA.E. (E-mail: [email protected])

Abstract. This paper explores how providing the inferential basis to argue for a range of

equally plausible interpretations features as a way of managing issues of accountability in

talk about armed confrontation. We examine conversation produced in open-ended interviews

with diplomatic representatives of the United States and Great Britain in discussion about

those countries' involvement in the Persian Gulf conflict of 1990-91. By providing the in?

ferential basis upon which to argue for a range of equally plausible interpretative scenarios,

speakers attend to the potential for any one account to be privileged over another. Further, in

speculating upon the relationship between interpretative particulars and the inferential out?

come to be drawn for some specific version of events in question, speakers work to establish

the parameters of an admissible narrative trajectory with which to account for those events.

In so doing, they manage the implications that excluded versions would otherwise make rel?

evant.

Key words', conflict resolution, ethnomethodology, fact construction, memory, narrative analysis, social remembering

In their study of testimony produced during the Iran-contra hearings of July

1987, Lynch and Bogen (1996) use the term produced undecidability to de?

note the interactional work whereby participants act to suspend judgement on

some past state of affairs relative to a given body of documentary evidence.

In particular, they refer to the way that speakers work to undermine the shared

basis for the production of a mutually agreed-upon account of some past event

by demonstrating the equal plausibility of competing interpretative versions

as based on the available body of documentary evidence. Where some given document (e.g., press release, memorandum, e-mail message, etc.) can be

shown to have been produced as the outcome of events described in a number

of equally plausible interpretative scenarios, the grounds for a definitive ver?

sion of the events in question remains elusive.1 That is, where all versions of

some event are equally plausible, no grounds exist to privilege any one ver?

sion over another. In this way, the details of what may or may not have taken

place in a given set of circumstances is rendered practically undecidable. Lynch



188 KEVIN MCKENZIE

and Bogen further make the point that the elusive nature of the account is the

outcome of dialogic interaction, produced on the occasion for the conflicting

purposes to which speakers attend as a part of their situated business (the

production of an inferentially rich and legally consequential history of the

events surrounding the Iran-contra affair). The production of undecidability in this way is no less an interactional accomplishment than is the converse

production o? decidability (Brannigan and Lynch, 1987). Indeed, what is (prac?

tically) agreed upon, so to speak, is that no agreement can be reached about

the events in question, or rather, that no agreement can be reached about the

singular significance of some particular set of documentary evidence in sub?

stantiating a given version of those events.2 This not the same thing as saying that interlocutors simply "agree to disagree" since were that the case, each in?

dividual party could ratify some particular version of events while granting

(though not conceding) the grounds for an interlocutor to maintain an alterna?

tive, competing interpretation. Instead, in the case of produced undecidability,

participants work up a shared understanding that there is an inadequate basis

to decide upon a definitive version of the events in question. In this latter sense,

then, it does not really matter what specific version some participant might favor because there are insufficient grounds to warrant the holding of any?

thing other than a purely speculative interpretation. As a way of managing ones accountability for his or her part in some set of

circumstances under scrutiny, produced undecidability thus features as a par?

ticularly robust device to foreclose the imputation of culpability that any par? ticular account might make available. Addressing this in the context of recent

theoretical debates in the philosophy of the social sciences, Lynch and Bogen

(1996, pp. 65-66) remark:

[0]ne of the central lessons of Iran-contra was that the documentary evi? dence of history comes to us, as it were, already warm, which means that

history is, in a deep sense, up for grabs. As Horwitz [1988] has noted, the

acceptance of the 'transparency of evidence' is virtually axiomatic to ar?

guments currently being advanced within postmodernist and New Histori

cist circles for an 'anti-objectivist vision of historical knowledge.' Although the public avowals of truthfulness, and of a respect for truth, made by

spokesmen for the Reagan administration did not express a postmodern vision of historical knowledge, these spokesmen evidently were adept at

putting such a vision to practical use. The great irony is that critical,

postmodern, and oppositional strategies are generally supposed to be con?

gruent with a progressive cultural politics, and yet the most astute and well

trained practitioners of postmodern politics may well turn out to be affiliated with such groups as the NSC staff and the CIA. The antiobjectivist vision

of historical knowledge was used at the Iran-contra hearings to construct an avowedly fragmentary, equivocal, and therefore fragile history, and to

pass it off for what really happened in the Iran-contra affair.



FACT AND NARRATIVES OF WAR 189

The fragile quality of history to which the authors refer here results because

a number of interpretative scenarios are equally able to account for the pro? duction of the evidence in light of which some historical version is to be pro? duced. Where such conditions are successfully achieved, there are at best

insufficient grounds to adopt anything more than a purely speculative stance.3

That is, given the equal plausibility of any of a number of interpretative ver?

sions, no basis exists for the privileging of any one version over another.

In what follows, we shall turn our attention to the way that produced un?

decidability features in accounts of war and violent conflict. As analytic data, we will consider examples of talk produced in interviews with members of

the U.S. and British diplomatic communities in discussions about events sur?

rounding the Gulf War of 1991.4 A significant feature of this data is the way that the talk in these interviews differs from that in the settings that Lynch and

Bogen consider. Specifically, the talk produced in these materials is constitu?

tive of the setting of a social science interview with its own demands for

accountability. This differs from the situated business of the congressional

hearings that Lynch and Bogen examine in which the speaker (Lt. Col. Oliver

North) works to manage his personal accountability in and for the events

under consideration through situated memorial work involving first-person disavowals (of the form "I cannot recall why I did what I did"). In the inter?

view settings represented below, that sort of work takes the form of a specu? lative third-person formulation rather than first-person disavowal. At stake,

then, in the Iran-contra hearings was the speaker's culpability for activities

whose contested/negotiated status had the potential to implicate him in legal sanctions. In the case of the accounts reproduced below, the culpability of the

speakers (the U.S. and British diplomats) is of a different order. As we shall

see, the accomplishment ofthat business is related to the decidability and of

and for the activities of particular heads-of-state about whom they speak. In

this way, their own moral accountability for activities undertaken on behalf

of the government they represent is implicitly tied up with the accountability of their professional associate at a further level of remove, so to speak.

1. Diplomacy in Accounting for Armed Conflict

Consider the following extract taken from the transcript of an interview re?

corded in February of 1992, a year after the ceasefire that officially marked

the end of the Gulf War.5 Here the interviewee (AmDip) ? a junior-level am?

bassador then working to contribute towards efforts at re-establishing the

American diplomatic presence in Kuwait - speaks in response to an inter?

viewer (Int) query about the motivation for U.S. foreign policy objectives

during the prior year's conflict (see Appendix for details of transcription con?

ventions employed here and in subsequent extracts below).



190 KEVIN MCKENZIE

Extract 1

1 AmDip There-uh-1-1 PERsonally-there's a who:le (.) range of interests.=

2 Int =Yeah.

3 ( )

4 AmDip And if you focus on any one (0.8) set you're missing the whole pici tu re.

5 (1.0) U::m- (0.5) I think a good deal of:- (0.6) for instance >y'know

6 some people say< one of the reasons why the E?gypitians (1.0) take

7 ended up taking the position they did (.) here (1.2) was because: (0.3)

8 >you know< (.) right be?fore the iwar (.) uh (.) Saddam Hussein had

9 told {{Egyptian President)) Mubarak (0.3) that he wasn't going to

10 in?vai:de (0.3) >then he turned around and he idid.< (0.3) Y'know and

11 the fact that he Hied (0.3) to: (.) another: (.) tleaider (0.6) >y'know<

12 and embarrassed him Tpubilically (1.2) >y'know< (.) some would say

13 that was one of the major reasons why they ended up sending ?tro>U)ps.

14 Y'know not because of Egyptian (1.2) >y'know< (.) economic (.)

15 interests >I mean there were (.) all sort of Totiher things there< but it's

16 just the rea:l- (.) the offense >y'know< the Tinsiult (1.0) was enough to

17 motivate some real- (.) real ?a?ition. (0.3) And that's the way a lot of:

18 (.) >y'know< (.) people two>l:rk. I think (.) George Bush (.) some

19 would say operates (.) in very much the same way. There's a lot of

20 personal (1.0) u::h in?volvei ment in- in Tpoilitics. (.) And if he feels

21 betra:yed or:: (0.3) he feels that (.) >y'know< (.) we've been betrayed or

22 (.) people have been made to look (.) like ?idi^ots: he'll be:: inclined

23 to:- (.) >y'know< to ACT where another president might not have. (.)

24 >Another president's not as sensitive< (.) to that (.) might (have-) (1.0)

25 people have:- (0.5) you know- (.) >people'd say y'know< Carter (0.5) >a

26 lot would say< had some real moral tiniterests. (0.3) Worldwide.

27 Y'know. And pursued an agenda that was based in a large part on (1.0)

28 u::h (1.0) you know a moral vision of- of the Twoi:rld. (.) Others would

29 say that was just cynical tpo>Uitics. (.) Y'know what he was really

30 pursuing >you know< economic interests but with a:: (0.3) moral

31 veneer: sort of (.) on the- on the Ttoi:p. (1.0) But who knows. (.) You




32 know if- (.) u:h- uh if the participants themselves don't really

33 understand their motives fully I don't think (0.8) y'know any- anyone on

34 the outside ( 1.0) can.

35 (1.0)

36 Int So you're saying that u:h Presidents Bush an:d Carter may not

37 understand their own motivation. [(Is that right?)]

38 AmDip [Well I dunno] if anybody really

39 does. I mean I think there's: just too much: going o:n- (2.0) u:h-1 mean

40 (.) I may take an action that I consider to be (.) purely rational or based

41 on (0.8) u::h (0.6) y'know (.) good (.) cold (1.0) tmoitives (1.5) >and

42 somebody else will say< "Oh, well you're just responding emotionally

43 because" >y'know< "when you were four years o:ld" y'know "your (.)

44 father did this to you and so NOW you see:" y'know >"Saddam as a

45 father",< I mean (.) uh- or >somebody else will say< "Well" (.) y'know

46 "you think you're Tactiing (0.5) logically but this is really just-" (.)

47 >y'know< "the economic interests be?hind ?you are con?vinciing you

48 to do this so you-" y'know (1.0) who Tkniows. (.) I mean I- I'm not in a

49 position: to: fully understand (1.8) uh- tany ?action.

This is obviously an involved episode of talk in which speakers attend to some

rather complicated interactional business. Of particular relevance here in that

regard is that speakers are oriented to the production of their interaction as an

encounter which has the social scientific investigation of foreign policy and

international relations as its objective. In other words, speakers work here to

produce their talk as an instance of an analytic undertaking (Atkinson and

Silverman, 1997; Latour, 2000, esp. pp. 112-117; Osborne and Rose, 1999; Widdicombe and Wooffitt, 1995). Among other things, this means that the

interviewee is oriented in his response to the potential for his remarks to be

brought under analytic and ironizing scrutiny. Thus, for example, in his refer?

ences to economic interests throughout (cf. lines 14?15, 29?31, 46-48); the

diplomat displays an orientation or understanding that is one of the concerns

which the interview proceedings have as their objective to investigate. That

is, he displays an orientation in his remarks to the potential relevance of eco?

nomic interests to account for the actions of parties to the conflict; and in so

doing, works to bring his activities off as a contribution to an investigation of same. In this regard, both he and the interviewer are about the business of doing a qualitative sociological investigation as displayed in their actions as just so

oriented.



192 KEVIN MCKENZIE

In addition to the working up of his contribution as the accomplishment of

social scientific research, the speaker at the same time also attends to the

potential to be implicated in the demands for accountability entailed by the

reading of Allied actions that he considers. That is, he works to foreclose being held accountable to the moral demands implicit in an accusation of economic

opportunism. This is quite neatly brought off in the way that both a range of

different interpretative versions and the economically deterministic reading thereof are considered on a further, meta-level of ironization as the object of

the interviewee's own situated, analytic scrutiny. In other words, the diplo? mat here provides an interpretation of both a reading of events related to the

conflict and a reading of someone else's (economically deterministic) read?

ing of those events - at a higher level of remove, as it were. The overall effect

of this is that he is able to step back from his own formulation in order to

scrutinize both sets of interpretations while nevertheless working to ratify neither (see also McKenzie and van Teeffelen, 1993). Just as with the produced

undecidability that Lynch and Bogen consider, since it is not possible here for

either the participants of the hostilities in question (i.e., the leaders of Allied

nations such as Egypt or the United States) nor those subsequently consider?

ing those participants' motivation to account for their involvement in the

conflict, then the matter of settling upon a definitive version ofthat motiva?

tion itself remains elusive ("if the participants themselves don't really under?

stand their motives fully I don't think y'know any- anyone on the outside can", lines 32?34). It is not that various accounts cannot be considered, but that they

nevertheless still sustain an inconclusive warrant. Indeed, it is precisely be?

cause the various accounts are accorded equal consideration that the matter

of arriving at a definitive version gets suspended. As such, the question of

accountability is itself rendered inconclusive and therefore of no consequen?

tially for the business-at-hand of the talk.6

Notice here also that the work of suspending judgment in this way is itself

variably occasioned so that its relevance is selectively made available. That

is, where the actions of U.S. presidents Bush and Carter, and (to a lesser ex?

tent) Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak are potentially made accountable to

different assumptions within a range of competing interpretative scenarios;

by contrast, the actions of the Iraqi president are exclusively described as

duplicitous in nature. So, in the anecdotal account of diplomatic contact be?

tween Egypt and Iraq which is said to have taken place in the period immedi?

ately preceding the Iraqi incursion into Kuwait on August 2,1990; the question of motivation is not opened up to interrogation in the same way it is in dis?

cussing the motivation of U.S. presidents Bush and Carter. Instead, an un?

derstanding of the Iraqi president's interactional encounters with other

heads-of-state is informed by the implicit assumption of culpability as pro?

vided for in the account of Iraqi duplicity (lines 8-11). In this way, produced

undecidability is selectively made available.




Finally, it is perhaps worth noting here that the interviewee's treatment of

presidents Mubarak, Bush and Carter in this way not only works to accom?

plish this selective exclusion-from-scrutiny of participants in the Allied war

effort; but also rather elegantly manages the potential for the speaker's own

observations to be dismissed on the grounds of his own stake-and-interest

as a representative of the U.S. government (see Potter, 1996, pp. 124-132;

Edwards, 1995, pp. 332-335). This is so because implicit in the related ob?

servations he makes is that such exclusion is not selectively relevant only to

the American leadership on whose behalf he acts, but rather that it cuts across

an international community of actors (since it includes the Egyptian presi?

dent).7 In other words, because what the diplomat has to say about these things is true not only of the U.S. presidents but of the Egyptian president as well, then the inference of his remarks resists being undermined as motivated by the interests of U.S. diplomatic concerns. Similarly, in commenting upon the

substance of what resembles a psychoanalytic reading of Allied actions (framed in terms of the Oedipus Complex), the interviewee is able to work just such

an interpretation up as na?ve and/or simplistic (lines 41^5). In so doing, he

is able to foreclose potential objections to his own account as similarly sim?

plistic in its reductionism while at the same time limiting the relevance of just such readings to their significance in exemplifying a range of plausible alter?

native explanations. In this way, his remarks are oriented to resisting the de?

mands for accountability that any single such reading might otherwise make

available.

2. Establishing Trajectories of Consequentiality

In the talk we have examined so far, an argumentative situation in which the

implicit demands for accountability that any given, specific interpretation of

Allied actions might make available is effectively neutralized or suspended

by virtue of its being rendered inconclusive relative to a set of equally plau? sible alternatives. As we shall see in what follows, this does not however mean

that because speakers act to provide for such interpretative variability, that they therefore necessarily forgo developing a moral stance relative to the events

of the Gulf conflict. Indeed, as we shall see, speakers can work instead to make

those judgements implicitly available through a strategic and careful delinea?

tion of narrative parameters by which they address particular events in ques? tion (specifically, the Iraqi incursion into Kuwait). In turn, this involves

somewhat more complicated rhetorical work in which produced undecidability features as a way of introducing an implicit distinction between anticipated and unanticipated consequences of action.8

The following data extract is the record of an interview with a diplomatic

representative (also junior-level) of the British government in Kuwait (BrDip)



194 KEVIN MCKENZIE

recorded at around the same period as that represented in Extract 1 above. Here

the speaker addresses the issue of American and British involvement in the

Gulf War in the context of their foreign relations policies in the region as a

whole.

Extract 2.1.

1 Int But u:h can you just sort of: urn- ( 1.0) maybe in general terms just (0.5) uh

2 gimme an idea of why you think the war was fought. Why did the Allies

3 for example (.) urn (0.8) decide to pursue a military option as opposed to:

4 (0.8) u:m (.) y'know (0.3) continuing the sanctions. (.) Or

5 (1.0)

6 BrDip U::m (1.0) >well, I (suppose I should) take the second question first.< (1.0)

7 U:m (1.3) because: (.) it became clear (0.6) urn (0.6) certainly by the time

8 the:- (0.5) the tdeadlline (.) had (.) expired (0.3) that (0.6) sanctions (0.3)

9 were n- were not going to work. (1.0) U:m (.) and that the:- (.) to delay any

10 further then:- (1.0) that could lead to: (1.0) >two effects. (.) Two effects.<

11 One to: u::m (.) increase the misery of the:- (.) of the Kuwaitis here. (1.0)

12 And- and to:- to:: (0.5) allow the Iraqis to strengthen: their defenses. (1.0)

13 U:m (2.0) Why:- why was the war f- fought. (0.6) I: thiir.k (1.5) it wa:s:: (.)

14 a case of- of- (0.5) >perhaps of a happy coincidence< of- of (.) self-interest

15 and altruism. (.) U:m (1.0) I mean there was a (.) genuine outrage (0.6) in:

16 (0.3) the West. (.) I think- and- (.) >and that- that u:h XXX at the time.<

17 (0.6) Urn- (.) at (0.5) such a sudden and (0.6) unprovoked uh (.)

18 in?vaision (0.8) so that there was a- (.) was a then- a GENuine desire to

19 (.) to re?verse ?that (0.3) and- and to see him out. (1.2) >It was made

20 easier by the fact that it was so >l clear.< (.) U:h so clear-cut. (0.3) Y'know

21 people have drawn parallels with other (0.5) invasions >other acts of

22 agtgres>Uion,< (1.0) but mo:st have had a sort of complicating Tfacitor.

23 (0.8) U:m (.) the obvious one ber.ng urn (0.8) the- the Israeli (.) urn

24 occupation of- (0.5) of the West Bank and ?Galza. (1.0) That- (0.6)

25 THAT was condemned by the:- the un. (0.3) U::m (.) BUT (.) it was much

26 harder (.) to do something a?bout ?it. (.) U::m (.) because it was just- it

27 was not so clearicut. (1.0) The Iraqi: (.) invasion- invasion of- of Kuwait




28 (0.6) it was very clearcut and- and (0.3) simple. (1.2) U::m=

29 Int =Well (.) I mean (0.5) I don't mean to argue but: u:h (.) that's interesting,

30 what's the difference. Why- how is it that then (0.3) it's not clearcut in the

31 (.) Israeli case and (.) it's clearcut in this case. (You see

32 [that) XXXX]

33 BrDip [>No I don't want to go in-1 don't want- don't want to<] (0.5) get into a

34 (.) a historical detba^:te (.) but: (.) urn- (1.0) I mean (.) there- there's no

35 doubt that the: (0.6) Iraqi (.) u:h (1.2) invasion >(again- uh-) of Kuwait<

36 (0.5) u:m (1.0) was: (0.3) illegal (.) and unjustifiable. It was a (0.5)

37 invasion of one {sniffs) (.) peaceful country (.) u::m (1.5) urn (.) by another.

38 (0.6) U::m (2.3) w:e- (1.0) with- without- wi:- with no: (.) u:h (.)

39 justification for the resort to ?arms.=

40 Int =Mmhm.=

41 BrDip =U: :m ( 1.0) without at all wishing to justify the: Israeli (.) uh >occupation

42 of- of the West Bank and Gaza< (1.3) the: Arab states (0.3) at the time

43 we:re (.) in a state of war. (0.3) Urn more or less active war. (0.6) Urn

44 against (.) urn Israel. (1.0) U::m (0.6) which had underSTANDable (0.3)

45 urn security con?ceirns. (0.3) That's not to say that it was right: to- for- of

46 Israel to:- (.) to invade (.) or occupy (.) the West Bank and Gaza. (0.3) >Of

47 course it wasn't< and- and that's bee:n (1.0) XX the u:h (0.6) tsh the

48 subject of a- a un (.) Security Council resolution. (0.5) But you can at least

49 (.) understand it. (0.5) U:h more easily (.) than: you can understand the:

50 the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. (.) So I think that- that >y'know< they- (1.0)

51 they are different. (.) U:m (.) and of course the- the wider historical (0.5)

52 urn- (.) backgrounds are different as well. (1.0) U::m (1.3) second point of

53 of why it was- wa- it was- (.) u:m (0.8) was fought, I-1 think (.) it'd (.) be

54 naive not (.) to- (.) to- not to: (0.6) u:h not to- (.) >not to tackle this point<

55 was: of course that (1.0) this area is important (0.3) for the whole world

56 because of its- (.) because of the oil resources here. (0.3) So I- >y'know< I

57 think there was- (0.6) there did exist that element of (.) recognized self

58 interest. (0.8) U:m which >as I said< (0.3) happily coincided with (.) the:

59 uh (1.3) >the altruistic< or the: u:h (.) >or the idealistic.< Uh



196 KEVIN MCKENZIE

Like the talk recorded in Extract 1, this too is a rather lengthy exchange and

involves some deft interactional work. Our interest here, however, focuses on

how the interviewee manages the availability of assumptions made relevant

in the interviewer's initial query concerning the motivation for Allied actions

in the conflict ("can you just sort of urn maybe in general terms just uh gimme an idea of why you think the war was fought. Why did the Allies for example urn decide to pursue a military option as opposed to urn y'know continuing the sanctions", lines 1-4). In particular, the interviewee is able to specify the

grounds of his interlocutor's questioning such that what is regarded as sig? nificant to an account of Allied actions is not so much the motivation for which

U.S., British and other coalition members were engaged militarily; but the

nature ofthat engagement as either a response to or else the initial impetus

for Iraqi actions. U.S. and coalition actions thus feature as exclusively moti?

vated in response to "a sudden and unprovoked invasion" (lines 17-18), an

action disruptive of otherwise peaceful international relations ("It was a in?

vasion of one peaceful country urn urn by another", lines 36-38).9 As such,

the nature of the actions features as "clearcut" and "simple" (line 28) in com?

parison to the not so straighforward case of Israeli actions complicated by vari?

ous contingencies ("people have drawn parallels with other invasions >other

acts of aggression,< but most have had a sort of complicating factor", lines

21-23; "the Arab states at the time were in a state of war. Urn more or less

active war. Urn against urn Israel. Urn which had understandable urn security

concerns", lines 42^5). Indeed, note how interviewer efforts to interrogate the basis for such a contrast are circumvented as relating to a matter of his?

torical record (">No I don't want to go in-1 don't want- don't want to< get into a- a historical debate", line 33).

All of this is significant for the argumentative consequentiality of the ac?

count in this context because it means that competing interpretative versions

are effectively marginalized. As Edwards (1997, p. 277, emphasis in original) remarks along these lines:

A basic issue in telling a story of events in your life is where to begin: ' Where one chooses to begin and end a narrative can profoundly alter its

shape and meaning' (Riessman, 1993: 18). Where to start a story is a ma?

jor, and rhetorically potent, way of managing causality and accountability. It is an issue not only for personal narratives, but for accounts of all kinds,

including histories of nation states, and stories of immigration and ethnic?

ity: who actually belongs where? Starting when? Whose country is it? From

Britain to Bosnia to New Zealand (Wetherell and Potter, 1992), and the so

called 'Indian' natives of North America (Cronon, 1992), alternative nar?

ratives compete in terms of precisely when and where they start.

These observations relate to the talk we have examined above because estab?

lishing one's ability to decide upon the events in question is the way by which

the boundaries of a narrative get established.




Note also that just as in Extract 1, here too an account of motivation on the

part of the warring factions is treated asymmetrically since U.S. and Allied

actions are taken to be purely responsive. That is, the assumption of Iraqi

aggression remains implicit as against the background of claims regarding the

responsive nature of Allied activity in the events leading up to armed confron?

tation (see Fowler et al., 1979). Of course, this need not have been the case.

Alternatively, a historical account which highlights U.S. and Kuwaiti economic

activities vis-?-vis Iraq in the years prior to 1990 and following Iraq's con?

flict with Iran in the 1980s would make a rather different understanding of

Iraqi policy relevant ? one in which Iraq's actions feature as a response to col?

lusive financial opportunism on the part of the United States and Kuwait

(Benin, 1991; Bresheeth and Yuval-Davis, 1991; Chomsky, 1991; Emery,

1991; Hulet, 1991; Wiener, 1991). So, where the interpretation of Allied ac?

tions is "up for grabs" (Bogen and Lynch, 1996, p. 65, quoted above), the same

is not so of Iraqi actions.

We can thus see that the relevance of the question of Allied motivation is

in some sense rendered moot or inconsequential since what is taken to be at

issue is the outcome of an action trajectory initiated with Iraq's invasion of

Kuwait. This means that within this context the interviewee is also able to

explore the details of competing accounts for Allied motivation (as he does

in the first half of his two part answer, lines 6-52) without this, however, having the effect of ratifying any competing, alternative account. In other words, he

can develop the plausibility of a responsive interpretation (of Allied actions) in the comparison he draws between the Israeli occupation of Palestinian ter?

ritories and the Iraqi annexation of Kuwait without this compromising the

argumentative position of Iraqi culpability. This is so because where the undis?

puted aggression of Israel is clear and therefore features as easily understand?

able ("you can at least understand it. Uh more easily than you can understand

the- the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait", lines 48?50), then the nature of Iraqi ac?

tions as unprovoked aggression is all the more evident.

In working up his account of Iraqi actions in this way, the interviewee builds

the grounds to then argue that the relevance of Allied motivation is of lesser

consequence in legitimating the war effort then is the outcome of the conflict.

This is elaborated in the second part of his response (lines 37-40) where, in

particular, he is able to demonstrate the plausibility of an otherwise unjustifi? able account for Allied actions?one involving "recognized self-interest" (lines

57-58) -while nevertheless suspending the relevance of a definitive judgment on those actions. In this way, the undecidability of any specific account which

could be warranted to the exclusion of some alternative renders the outcome

to be one of a "happy coincidence" of "self-interest and altruism" (lines 14,

58-59).



198 KEVIN MCKENZIE

2.1. "You Can Use the Facts to Support That": Policing the Boundaries of Narrative

That the relevance of the conflict's outcome should be made the basis for

determining the legitimacy/justification for Allied actions as it is in Extract

2.1 is not to say that produced undecidability thereby becomes irrelevant in

such a context. That is, it is not a case of the ends justifying the means (so to

speak), but rather one of the ends constituting the only events for which an

unambiguous interpretation is available. Again, as with the formulation of a

historical account which excludes events leading up to the Iraqi invasion of

Kuwait, so too the particular historical rendering produced here need not have

been the only available one (Campbell, 1993). As an alternative, speakers

might have instead opened up to question the nature of events following the

Gulf War ceasefire. At issue might have been the internal opposition and the

contribution (either direct or indirect) of the United States to the armed con?

frontation by which the ruling Ba'ath party regime subsequently suppressed

Shias, Kurds and other factions inside Iraq. Thus, where one both begins and

ends an account raises crucial implications in terms of responsibility for the

events related therein. The suspending of judgment is integral to these efforts

in that it works to render their decidability not only inconclusive, but also

irrelevant for the production of a historical account. What matters in terms of

recalling the surrounding events and motives of various parties to the conflict

is that Iraq be seen to have initiated a trajectory of events that Allied actions

(thankfully) prevented. Produced undecidability thus features in all of this as

a device by which the limits of such a narrative are established.

This is further evidenced in interactional work to resist efforts at formulat?

ing the conclusive nature of any of the specific versions under consideration.

So, in the exchange below which follows on immediately from the remarks

recorded in Extract 2.1, the interviewee acts to reject any such efforts.

Extract 2.2.

1 Int Yeah. That's really what I'm Tin>Uerested in. Because I (.) have in mind

2 some of the criticisms of- uh (1.0) you know of- of the uh- (0.5) tsh (0.5)

3 Western >sortof<uh war effort (.) which (.)>y'know< basically amounts

4 the criticisms basically amount to this (.) idea that- that the West sort of (.)

5 dre:w (.) uh (.) Iraq into a war (0.8) you know that- as a pretext (.) to

6 dismantle the X (you know) the Iraqi military (.) XX (.) ̂ strength. And u:h

7 (.) therefore to sort of uh strengthen (.) the Western (.) military (.) control

8 (.) over: the region's resources. So that=




9 BrDip =Yea:h. U::h I:-1 reject that totally.

10 (.)

11 Int Mm [hm.]

12 BrDip [That's] completely unfounded. (0.3) U::m u:h it- it's- it's a case of

13 people putting (1.0) the facts together and getting completely erroneous uh

14 (.) conspiracy theory. (.) Uh I don't-1 just don't- (1.3) although I-1 can-1-1

15 can see that (0.6) you can: (1.0) use the facts to support that, (.) u:m (0.8)

16 theory, (.) it- (.) uh I mean it- it's based on an erroneous reading of the- of

17 those facts.

Notice here that the alternative version proffered in the interviewer's query reverses the responsive account of Allied actions with a description of West?

ern duplicity ("the West sort of drew uh Iraq into a war you know that- as a

pretext to dismantle the X (you know) the Iraqi military XX strength. And uh therefore to sort of uh strengthen the Western military control over the region's

resources", lines 4?8). The speaker suspends the assumptions of a represen? tational model in which fact and interpretation are clearly demarcated; and

just as in the postmodernist and New Historicist readings that Lynch and Bogen refer to in their remarks quoted above, so too the diplomat here calls into

question the relationship between evidence and fact as a way of resisting the

interviewer's efforts to formulate a definitive version. Produced undecidability thus features here as essential to the corresponding work of warranting a re?

sponsive account of Allied actions because it is in virtue of the related sus?

pension of judgement that the coincidence of self-interest and altruism is

rendered meaningful in the first place. In other words, it is in admitting to the

plausibility of Allied duplicity (without, nevertheless, warranting that version) that the relevance of motivation gets made inconsequential to that of outcome

("I can see that you can use the facts to support that, urn theory", lines 14?

16). The problem, as it were, for the interviewee is that conceding self-interest

necessarily entails undermining the basis for a responsive version of Allied

actions; and as the trick is to suspend judgment on the basis of anything other

than that outcome, this becomes problematic. This is managed, however, with

produced undecidability because the conflict's outcome only emerges clearly to the extent that judgment on why the Allies pursued war is itself suspended.

That is, by eliciting a concession on the part of the interviewee as to the plau?

sibility of Western duplicity, the interviewer thereby paradoxically forfeits the

relevance of motive as germane for an account of Allied actions in the first

place. The sense of the query is only rendered meaningful where the relevance

of motive is irrelevant to an account of the conflict.



200 KEVIN MCKENZIE

2.2. "The Facts Are Not in Doubt": Contesting the Boundaries of Narrative

As a way of further exploring how this boundary work is effected, consider

the case where the formulation of an account's beginning and end points are

contested. This is relevant in our discussion of the relation of produced un?

decidability to an account of motivation because it is not simply a matter of

opening up for re-interpretation the beginning and/or end points of some nar?

rative account that then has a bearing on the question of motivation. Rather,

something of the opposite is the case: making the issue of motivation relevant

is the means by which an account's initiating and ending boundaries are them?

selves contested and/or negotiated. Decidability and an account of motiva?

tion are mutually constitutive, as it were.

As an example of what this entails, consider the following remarks authored

by Michael Albert and Stephen R. Shalom which appeared on ZMagazine 's

internet web site as a response to a question about a different episode of armed

conflict: that of the NATO bombing of Serbia in mid-1999. The remarks here

are in response to the question "But even if badly motivated, and even if

they have some bad effects, won't bombings at least restrain Milosevic?"

(www.zmag.org/Zmag/kosovoqa.htm, 16 May 1999):

Restrain him from what? The idea that doing something necessarily im?

proves a situation is, of course, quite false. Some things may be beneficial. Others not. Yes, even an ill motivated action can sometimes have a desir? able effect and therefore deserve support, but in this case the bombing is not only ill motivated, its effects are horribly detrimental as well. It has worsened the plight of the Albanian Kosovars, vastly increasing the flow of refugees and, due to the scale, created a catastrophe of the first order. It has diminished the internal opposition to Milosevic, and if reports are ac? curate perhaps destroyed it. It has undermined the UN, turned NATO into an offensive, interventionary institution, played havoc with international

law, and further projected the U.S. as a country eager and willing to punish any deviations it discerns from its will with bombs, thus acting as a threat

against countries throughout the world. All these effects are horribly nega? tive and then there is the devastation of Yugoslavia itself, the immediate

expansion of deaths and casualties, and the future expansion due to the

wrecking of a country's infrastructure. The remarkable thing is that there is little dispute about the above. Yes,

our formulation has a moral tone that many others lack when recounting these facts, but the facts are not in doubt.

Here what is taken to be at issue is precisely the sort of relevance of motiva?

tion that is rendered unavailable in the description of coincidence that we

considered in Extracts 2.1?2.2. above. That is, where the British diplomat worked there to render Allied motivation irrelevant to an assessment of the




Gulf conflict (even while considering the plausibility of such an account), in

these remarks those selfsame concerns are introduced by asking whether the

NATO bombing of Serbian forces might be justified on the basis of their out?

come independent of motivation. In other words, in this context, the issue of

motivation is rendered negotiable, available for consideration, "up for grabs". As a result, the narrative's boundaries are also thereby opened up for nego?

tiation.

Further, that negotiation involves undermining the assumption of a shared

understanding regarding the favorable nature of the military campaign's out?

come. That is, it is precisely the assumption that the bombings will have the

effect of "restrain[ing] Milosevic" which is itself being interrogated here. Note

that the work by which this is accomplished is inferentially quite subtle. What

is made an issue of is not whether Milosevic should be opposed, but whether

the bombing activity will effectively bring about an end to his activities. In

brief, the writers contest the facts of the assumption on which support for the

bombing campaign would otherwise be made justifiable. They effectively call

into question the assumption that NATO bombings will "restrain Milosevic".

In addition, note the subtle way in which this interrogation then gets re?

worked so as to re-introduce the very assumption that is initially in question.

Specifically, while describing the details of the bombing campaign's presumed

effects, the authors imply a link with motivation ("It [the bombing campaign] has diminished the internal opposition to Milosevic, and if reports are accu?

rate perhaps destroyed it. It has undermined the UN, turned NATO into an

offensive, interventionary institution, played havoc with international law, and

further projected the U.S. as a country eager and willing to punish any devia?

tions it discerns from its will with bombs, thus acting as a threat against coun?

tries throughout the world"). In other words, Albert's and Shalom's version

of the outcome implies motivation on the part of NATO. It establishes an in?

ferential relationship between motivation and the presumed/argued for out?

come, in the very claim of the outcome's factuality (Potter, 1996). What is

significant about this is that it alters the boundaries of a narrative's trajectory

by contesting the details of the endpoint. In opening up for interrogation the

factual nature of the effects of the bombing campaign, the relation between

outcome and motive is made available in a way that the counter argument does

not allow for.

In all this, we can see that interrogating the (factual) nature of some ac?

tions is much more involved than might initially seem to be the case. An

argument about the facts of some matter implies competing assumptions con?

cerning the consequential nature of activity -that is, whether the outcome of

actions and their associated motives can be entirely anticipated. For Albert

and Shalom, outcome is an accurate indicator of motive since motive deter?

mines outcome. In contrast, for the diplomats it is precisely this assumption that they open up to question and in so doing manage issues of accountability



202 KEVIN MCKENZIE

on the part of the Allied warring factions. Clearly, these authors (Albert and

Shalom) bring more of a linear, deterministic model of human action to bear

in their arguments than do the diplomatic representatives whose talk we have

considered (see Clegg, 1989). In this regard, theirs is a theoretical set of as?

sumptions that characterizes an Enlightenment philosophy of human action

(in contrast to the assumptions that Lynch and Bogen describe as characteriz?

ing a postmodern theory of action in their discussion of the Iran-contra hear?

ings).

3. Discussion and Conclusion

In the previous sections, we considered the way that the proliferation of plau? sible interpretative versions is a means by which speakers can work to sus?

pend judgment in favor of any one account. Further, we examined the way that either providing for or undermining the decidability of some event effec?

tively works to constitute a narrative trajectory entailing a range of inferences

for the accountability of the events recounted. Thus, in examining talk where

speakers argue for the equal plausibility of a range of contrastive interpreta? tive versions to account for the conflict under consideration, we saw how the

basis for any definitive claim about the motivation for Allied participation was

rendered unavailable. In this way, speakers were able to manage the demands

for accountability that might otherwise have been operative by effectively

excluding from definitive (though not speculative) consideration events for

which such demands would otherwise have been rendered consequential.

Further, that exclusion simultaneously allowed for speakers to foreclose the

potential for their efforts to be discounted in and through a display of famili?

arity with the particulars of alternative interpretative versions which they worked to make uncertain. In addition to all this, we also saw how such rhe?

torical work is variably occasioned so that the suspension of judgment was

exclusively extended to include coalition participants in the Gulf conflict while

excluding Iraqi actors. It is with this subtle variation that the responsive (ver? sus proactive) nature of Allied action is implicitly formulated.

There are, of course, a number of other things we could have said about

how exploring the range of alternative interpretative scenarios features in the

rhetoric of justification. For instance, we could have examined how in prolif?

erating accounts, a speaker can demonstrate the equal plausibility of a range of interpretations while nevertheless working to argue for the exceptional na?

ture of some particular account (Billig, 1987/1996, 1991, pp. 107-121). In

such a situation, produced undecidability (or, perhaps more accurately, the se?

lective deployment of produced undecidability) would feature as a way both:

(1) to foreclose the potential for a speaker's given preference to be discred?

ited on the grounds that he or she is uninformed of alternative accounts, and




(2) to prevent an alternative interpretation from receiving a more favorable

reception, and thereby pre-empting that version which the speaker seeks to

ratify. This latter point is quite interesting because it relates to a particularly robust trait of the kind of argumentation where produced undecidability fea?

tures. Consider: if someone were to reject the account that his or her inter?

locutor works to promote; they could only do so on grounds which would, in

effect, undermine their own efforts to promote any alternative. In other words, if some speaker's account cannot be accepted because it is implausible, then

neither can any other account on those same grounds. Thus, the production of undecidability involves a sort of built-in argumentative fall-back position. To argue, for example, that the evidence to warrant adopting a given version

of events leading up to the Gulf War is not sufficiently clear is, in effect, to

argue that all versions are ambiguous. Thus, if one cannot be certain that Bush,

Carter, etc. were motivated by morally dubious interests; than neither can he

or she be certain that their motivation was ethical. One can therefore reject some interlocutor's efforts to privilege a version only at the risk of simulta?

neously undermining the basis to warrant some competing version.

Quite apart from the actual details of how this proliferation of versions is

undertaken in the promoting of one or another argumentatively consequen? tial account, it is important to note how the issue of what one does or does not

remember is crucial to how social accounting itself gets done. At issue here is

one's approach to how remembering gets done in mundane situations of so?

cial interaction where interlocutors pursue issues of social accountability as a

routine feature of their everyday, mundane interaction. In particular, remem?

bering like this involves the ironizing of some version or versions of events

which are necessarily distanced from the activities that they purport to recount.

Such a stance toward memorial accounting effectively renders the inferences an account's details might otherwise make available argumentatively incon?

sequential by placing that account on a different footing (Goffman, 1979; but

see Schegloff, 1988). This raises some quite significant implications for the

psychological study of memory in situated contexts (Edwards and Potter, 1993; Middleton and Edwards, 1990). In brief, the in situ, reflexive theorization of

memory and knowledge means that the topic of remembering might be more

productively engaged not as an analytic object, but as a participant concern

(Edwards, 1997; Edwards and Potter, 1992). In this way, the re-specification of memory research would allow for an exploration of how problematizing

memory in the setting of its use is toeZ/reflexiveiy deployed in the manage? ment of those very outcomes which the theoretical activity takes as its object. Unlike the traditional, mainstream social psychological research in memory which seeks to reveal underlying cognitive processes, such an approach would

instead explore the way that remembering in face-to-face interactional encoun?

ters is an activity by which conversational participants are oriented to man?

aging the then-present interactional business in which they are involved.10



204 KEVIN MCKENZIE

An additional point to note about the settings that Lynch and Bogen exam?

ined is that this sort of work is crucial to the speaker's efforts to render the

evidentiary record inconclusive. Oliver North's inability to recall the details

of events that resulted in the documentary record under consideration were

what rendered that record ambiguous. This contrasts with the interview set?

tings where the status of historical events relating to the Gulf War was under

consideration. Unlike the talk produced in the Iran-contra hearings, the dip? lomatic speakers there did not specifically address their own ability to recall

the events in question. Instead, their work to render the decidability of those

events arose from the methodical use of techniques for, at times, rendering and at others, resolving the ambiguity as a way of managing the emergent narrative. The nature of the historical events at issue was placed in question in the two settings, but the means by which that work was accomplished was

quite different. So, while what gets remembered (or forgotten) is to be con?

sidered for how it is consequential to the situated setting of its use, there are

all kinds of contexts for the recounting and interpreting historical events in

which situated remembering as a participant concern (of the sort pursued in

the Iran-contra hearings) simply does not feature. In the interview settings we

have considered above, it is the inclusion (or exclusion) of detailed specifics that features as a means by which historical narratives are not only rendered

credible in the ratifying and collaborative potential of their detail, but as a

means through which the shape of what counts as relevant to an account is

rendered available. Exploring the difference between the discursive work in

the Iran-contra hearings and that of the diplomatic accounts above is one way of extending the line of inquiry begun by Lynch and Bogen.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Charles Antaki, Mary Horton-Salway, Kyoko Murakami

and Jonathan Potter for their helpful suggestions for improvement to an ear?

lier draft of this paper. I am also very grateful for the useful and encouraging remarks of an anonymous reviewer.

Notes

1. Contrast this with Pollner's (1987) discussion of mundane reason. In the interaction he

considers (traffic court proceedings), the potential that alternative versions of an event

might throw up the question of whether there exists a single state of affairs that all par?

ties to a dispute can arrive at is inconsequential. That is, the existence of alternative ver?

sions does not seem to throw participants off in their quest for a definitive account of the

circumstances in question; but rather participants simply assume there to be a given state

of affairs that underlies the differing versions. It is the practical business of their interac?

tion to arrive at such a definitive version.




2. Lynch and Bogen refer to this particular feature of how an archive is rendered suscepti? ble to doubt with the term plausible deniability their point relating to what results when

texts are treated by their author with the same sort of dispassionate analysis as any other

evidentiary material (see also Bogen and Lynch, 1989). 3. Similarly, in her discussion of corporate metaphor for the conceptualization of political

identity, Haraway (1989) remarks upon how biom?dical models of the body as coded text

with a dispersed command-control-intelligence network (i.e., the immune system) con?

trasts with the hierarchically organized image of an anatomical relation between head

and body prevalent in the medical paradigm of prior analogy (see also related discussion

in Campbell, 1998, p. 80). 4. This material was originally recorded as part of an investigation into the explanatory

practices by which American and British expatriate residents of the Middle East make

sense of Western involvement abroad (McKenzie, 1998). While the interview sessions

from which this data is taken involved discussion relating to a broad range of different

topics, a great deal of such talk was directed to addressing the legitimacy of military ac?

tions undertaken by the U.S.-lead Allied coalition during the conflict.

5. Of course, hostilities did continue following that date, both internally (between Repub? lican Guard forces loyal to the Ba'ath party regime and oppositional factions within the

country) and externally in the form of ongoing tensions that continue to characterize U.S.?

Iraqi relations. As we shall see below, attending to the status of these events is itself part

and-parcel of the business that speakers pursue in their talk.

6. Campbell makes a similar point regarding ambiguity in the management of accountabil?

ity, though his remarks are set within the broader context of international relations in the

period leading up to the conflict: "Given the complex and tension-ridden nexus of inter?

national, intercorporate, and interpersonal relations obtaining among Irac, Iran, Kuwait, and the United States and its allies, setting the blame for the crisis of August 1990 at the

feet of one party while absolving the other(s) of all responsibility is only possible by overlooking some legitimate factors while ignoring others altogether" (1993, p. 49).

7. For discussion of how what-counts-as-consensus is rhetorically occasioned in accounts

of international relations, see McKenzie (forthcoming). For related discussion of how

the rhetorical management of consensus features in other interactional domains, see

Edwards, 1997,pp. 130-136; Gilbert and Mulkay, 1984,pp. 112-140; Potter and Edwards,

1990). 8. The analogies to Giddens' (1984) work in this regard means that as a discursive construct,

the sociological theory of unanticipated consequences is to be considered for how it is

rhetorically appropriated in various argumentative settings. 9. Note that despite recent scholarly concern with the changing nature of transnational re?

lations and the effects of globalization on the sovereignty of the nation-state (Beck, 2000;

Holton, 1989; Kaldor, 1999; Waters, 1995), at no point do the speakers in this encounter

interrogate the status of national sovereignty, but proceed on the assumption of the in?

tegrity of national identity (which is itself opened up for scrutiny in globalization theory). The point here is that the question of nation-state sovereignty is itself a matter whose

relevance is provided for (or not, as the case may be) in different settings as a part of the

situated business attended to on the occasions of its use. A far more interesting analytic

question than whether, say, globalization has (or has not) brought about an alteration in

nation-state sovereignty is that of how and to what end the relevance of such an assump? tion is itself provided for in accounts of foreign policy and international relations.

10. While a detailed exposition of this sort of approach to memory is beyond the scope of

this paper, we might refer to three fundamental characteristics that Middleton and Edwards

identify in addressing the social foundation and context of memory: "First, context is

treated not as mere background or social influence, but as the substance of collective



206 KEVIN MCKENZIE

memory itself, contestively established in talk. Secondly, metacognition, or talk about

mental processes, is seen not as reflection upon internal mental processes, but as occur?

ring in conversation in an occasioned manner, such that conceptions of mental processes are formulated, justified and socialized in the process of talking about them. Thirdly, we

examine inference and argument in the construction of joint versions of events where

remembering is the production of versions which are acceptable in so far as they suc?

ceed over other possible, foreseen or actual versions" (1990, p. 11, italics in original).

Appendix: Transcription Conventions

The transcriptions of talk that appears above is based on the well-known set of conventions

initially developed by Gail Jefferson (1985; see also Sacks et al., 1974), and extended by John Du Bois (1991), Du Bois et al. (1993). Included among these conventions in the extracts above

are the following:

pause timing in tenths of second,

indicated in single parentheses

it became clear (0.6) un (0.6) certainly by the time

short, untimed pause indicated

with full stop in single parentheses

in the (.) Israeli case and (.)

it's clearcut in

full stop indicates completion

intonation

because of the oil resources

here.

comma indicates continuing into?

nation

that's interesting, what's the

difference

question mark indicates question?

ing/rising intonation

Is that right?

underlining indicates additional

stress

if the participants themselves

really understand their motives

prolongation of sound indicated

with colon(s)

One to: u::m

false starts indicated with a

dash followed by a single space

why was the war f- fought

quotation as a presentational

feature

"Well" y'know "you think you're

acting logically but this is"

arrows precede marked rise or fall

in intonation

all sort of Toti her things there

talk delivered with an increase

in speed indicated with inward

pointing, angular brackets

uh >occupation of the West Bank

and Gaza<




ALL CAPS indicates passage that is louder than surrounding talk

'tsh' indicates voiceless, alveolar

affricate

speaker noise in single

parenthesis, italicised

editorial comment in double

parentheses, italicised

non-overlapping, contiguous talk

between speaker turns indicated

with equals sign

overlapping talk indicated with

square brackets

uncertain transcription in single

parenthesis

unclear transcription indicated

with 'X' for each syllable of

such talk

which had underSTANDable

tsh the subject of a UN Security Council resolution

invasion of one {sniffs) peaceful country by another

had told {{Egyptian President)) Mubarak that he wasn't going to

AmDip of interests. =

Int =Yeah.

Int Mm [hm.] BrDip [That's] completely

I (suppose I should) take the second question first

that uh XXX at the time

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Fact and the Narratives of War: Produced Undecidability in Accounts of Armed Conflict

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