WAR ON TERRORISM

Terrorist acts and the threat of terrorism have occupied the various law enforcement agencies in the U.S. government for many years. The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, as amended by the usa patriot act and codified at 18 U.S.C. section 2339B, makes it a crime punishable to up to 15 years in prison to provide material support or resources to any organization designated by the secretary of state as a foreign terrorist organization. Individuals suspected of acts of terrorism are arrested and tried under existing federal or state criminal laws. On September 11, 2001, 19 men hijacked four commercial airplanes. Two were deliberately crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, one was deliberately crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and the fourth crashed into a field in rural Pennsylvania, presumably on its way to a fourth symbolic target: the White House or the U.S. Capitol Building. Strong evidence suggested that a Saudi Arabian citizen living in Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden, was behind the attacks. As of 2003 bin Laden was the head of a terrorist organization known as al Qaeda (Arabic for "the base").

It would be difficult to overstate the magnitude of the simultaneous attacks and their psychological impact on the collective psyche of U.S. citizens. The september 11th attacks instantly vaulted international terrorism and national security concerns to the top of the U.S. governmental agenda and propelled the United States headlong into a war against terrorism. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's "FBI Policy and Guidelines" (February 16, 1999) international terrorism is "the unlawful use of force or violence committed by a group or individual, who has some connection to a foreign power or whose activities transcend national boundaries, against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives." But international terrorism and the country's turn-of-the-century responses to it predated September 11, 2001. Four major incidents of international terrorism against U.S. interests since the mid-1990s involved bombings: the Khobar Tower in Dharan, Saudi Arabia; the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya; the U.S. embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; and the USS Cole in the port of Aden, Yemen. These attacks abroad made headlines around the world and commanded massive investigative efforts by the U.S. government.

On the evening of June 25, 1996, a couple of individuals parked a tanker truck in a parking lot adjacent to the Khobar Tower apartment buildings. These apartments housed U.S. military and civilian personnel. Sentries on duty saw the truck and realized the threat of a bomb and began evacuating the building. Unfortunately, the bomb was detonated before the building could be completely evacuated. As a consequence, 19 servicemen died and hundreds of others were wounded.

On August 7, 1998, a truck bomb detonated in the rear parking entrance to the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. Twelve American diplomats and nearly 200 Kenyan citizens were killed. Ten Americans and 12 foreign service nationals were seriously injured, and 4,000 Kenyans were injured. Almost simultaneously, at the U.S. embassy at Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, a suicide bomber detonated another truck bomb located 35 feet from the embassy complex's outer wall. Eleven Tanzanians were killed and 85 people were injured, including two Americans. The terrorists who committed these acts were believed to be part of an international group headed by Osama bin Laden.

On October 12, 2000, a small boat exploded alongside the USS Cole while the Cole was preparing to refuel at an island in the port of Aden, Yemen. Seventeen American sailors were killed and nearly 40 were wounded in the attack; the ship sustained extensive damage.

These four separate acts of terrorism occurred during the two administrations of President bill clinton. The Clinton administration defined its enemy narrowly: Osama bin Laden and his aides. Bin Laden was known to be living under the protection of the repressive Muslim regime known as the Taliban in Afghanistan. Although the Clinton administration adopted a hostile attitude toward the Taliban, it did not make Afghanistan or the Taliban government a target of its efforts to combat the bin Laden terrorism threat.

From 1998 to 2000, President Clinton pursued a policy of economic sanctions against the Taliban and sent numerous messages to the de facto government of Afghanistan demanding that it deliver bin Laden for trial in the United States. The Clinton administration quickly became frustrated by the Taliban's lack of cooperation. Although the administration deliberately raised the specter of military confrontation, ultimately it chose to step back for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the delicate negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

george w. bush was elected president and took office in January 2001. Just eight short months later came the devastating September 11th attacks. Bush's reaction was swift and decisive. When it became clear that bin Laden was the probable instigator of the attacks, Bush delivered an ultimatum to the Taliban to turn over bin Laden or face the might of the U.S. military. The Taliban again refused and Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, phase one of his War on Terrorism.

Every U.S. president must produce a National Security Strategy document. President George W. Bush's policy has been called the "Bush Doctrine." This document is influenced by the thinking of its principal author, Bush's national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice. It resembles in some respects the monroe doctrine outlined in 1823 by President james monroe, which warned European powers against attempting to reestablish colonial authority in the Americas.

The Bush Doctrine contains six principles:

1. The fight against terrorism must continue until it is won.
2. Major responsibility for combating terrorism rests with those countries where terrorist organizations actually operate.
3. When intervention is required, the Bush Doctrine emphasizes action by coalitions of the willing and able.
4. It reaffirms the importance of deterrence as the best way to guarantee peace and respect for international rules of good behavior.
5. Military intervention is not the first choice for dissuading countries from backing terrorism with weapons of mass destruction, including chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons.
6. As a last resort, the Bush Doctrine reserves a first strike option.

The Bush Doctrine permits pre-emptive action against "hostile states" and terrorist groups alleged to be developing weapons of mass destruction. Furthermore, the Bush Doctrine asserts that the United States will never allow its military supremacy to be challenged in the way it was during the cold war. The Bush Doctrine for conducting the war against terrorism was received with shock and dismay by many in Europe. The negative change in relations between the United States and its allies, particularly in Europe, marked this aspect of the war on terrorism.

During his 2003 State of the Union Address, the President Bush described advances in the war on terrorism and announced new initiatives. According to the president, the United States had disrupted terrorist networks, removed key leaders, and arrested more than 3,000 terrorist suspects around the world. The Bush administration had also created the homeland security department, intensified security at U.S. borders and ports of entry, and hired and deployed more than 50,000 federal screeners in airports. New initiatives included improving intelligence through the Terrorist Threat Integration Center and disarming Saddam Hussein.

Subsequent to the defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Bush administration focused its attention on what it perceived as grave threats coming from Iraq, which was ruled by the secretive dictator Saddam Hussein. The Clinton and Bush administrations both strongly suspected that Iraq, under the direction of Hussein, was producing and stockpiling weapons of mass destruction in violation of united nations Security Council resolutions, as well as the treaty Iraq signed in the wake of its defeat by U.S.-led coalition forces in the 1991 Gulf War. The Gulf War had expelled Iraq from its forcible invasion and occupation of neighboring Kuwait. The Bush administration increased its pressure on Iraq to disarm and reveal its outlawed weapons programs. Hussein met this pressure with a mixture of belligerence and shrewd diplomatic moves that garnered the Iraqi regime some international support.

The policies embedded in the Bush Doctrine helped set a course for U.S. conflict with Iraq. Bush's deep concern about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction possibly making their way into the hands of terrorist organizations such as bin Laden's al Qaeda prompted his increasingly bellicose posture toward Iraq. Bush ultimately offered an ultimatum to the Iraqi government to relinquish power and go into exile or face U.S. military action. Despite massive opposition at home and around the globe to the U.S. policy toward Iraq, the United States invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003. In about three weeks, Saddam Hussein and his government were thrown out of power and Iraq was defeated. After Iraq's defeat and as of mid-2003, the U.S.-led search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq had failed to reveal large caches of chemical or biological weapons.

further readings

Addicot, Jeffrey F. 2003. Winning the War on Terror: Legal and Policy Lessons from the Past. Tucson, Ariz.: Lawyers & Judges.

Elshtain, Jean Bethke. 2003. Just War Against Terror: The Burden of American Power in a Violent World. New York: Basic Books.

Falk, Richard A. 2003. The Great Terror War. New York: Olive Branch Press.

Ledeen, Michael Arthur. 2003. The War Against the Terror Masters: Why It Happened, Where We Are Now, How We'll Win. New York: St. Martin's Griffin.

Satloff, Robert B. 2002. War on Terror: The Middle East Dimension. Washington, D.C.: Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Wilcox, Philip C., Robert B. Silvers, and Barbara Epstein. 2002. Striking Terror: America's New War. New York: New York Review Books.

cross-references

September 11th Attacks; Terrorism; USA PATRIOT Act of 2001.

War on Terrorism. On September 20, 2001, in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush in a televised speech before Congress declared a “war on terrorism.” Warning of a “lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen,” Bush promised retaliation against Al Qaeda, a loosely affiliated, transnational network of Islamic militants, and against states that harbored its sympathizers. At the administration's request, Congress on September 14 had passed the “Joint Resolution Authorizing Use of United States Armed Force against Those Responsible for Recent Attacks against the United States”. This measure empowered the president to “use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized or aided the terrorist attacks.” Though not a declaration of war, this act and the subsequent USA Patriot Act provided the legal basis for an array of conventional and non-conventional actions to fight “terrorism” at home and abroad.

Although the phrase “war on terrorism” did not come into widespread usage before September 11, its roots can be found in the previous two decades. During the 1980s, the U.S. government and networks of Islamic fundamentalist fighters shared a common goal: overthrowing the Soviet-imposed government in Afghanistan. The United States bankrolled the Afghan mujahedin and foreign jihadis battling the Soviets. With the Soviet Union's departure from Afghanistan in 1989, the United States largely ignored the continued growth of the militantly anti-Western Islamic movements it had earlier encouraged. Under fundamentalist cleric Mullah Mohammed Omar, a group called the Taliban established an oppressive regime in Afghanistan and provided a haven for Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden, from a prominent and wealthy Saudi Arabian family, had reacted with fury when the United States established a military base in Saudi Arabia during the Persian Gulf War of 1991. Determined to attack U.S. interests globally, bin Laden set up training camps in Afghanistan for a militant Islamic group called Al Qaeda and recruited followers worldwide.

Protected by the Taliban and supported financially by Islamic fundamentalists in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, Al Qaeda accelerated its attacks on U.S. targets during the 1990s. Its operatives bombed New York's World Trade Center in 1993, attacked U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and hit the U.S.S. Cole docked in Yemen in 2000. Bin Laden declared war on the United States on August 26th, 1996. but few Americans had ever heard his name before September 11, 2001.

The rising threat of Al Qaeda's terrorism had not gone unnoticed in Washington, however. In the years before 9/11, many reports, hearings, and think tanks raised the alarm, and the government's top terrorist expert, Richard Clarke, issued a series of warnings. The administration of President Bill Clinton ordered air strikes against presumed Al Qaeda facilities in the Sudan and Afghanistan in 1998 and foiled a terrorist plot to bomb the Los Angeles airport in December 1999. But neither Clinton nor his successor, George W. Bush, developed a comprehensive plan to deal with Al Qaeda. Despite a rising level of intelligence “chatter” about imminent dangers and a briefing sent to President Bush on August 6, 2001, entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Attack inside U.S.,” the White House did not urgently engage the “war” until after the September attacks.

The open-ended post-9/11 war on terrorism, the defining feature of the Bush presidency, prompted both structural change and controversy. The Patriot Act and the newly created Department of Homeland Security enlarged the government's surveillance powers and broke down the legal wall that prevented the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency from sharing information and fully cooperating. New restrictions bolstered U.S. border security and tightened immigration and visa procedures. In the weeks after the attacks, the FBI arrested thousands of aliens, detaining and often deporting them in secrecy. Even some U.S. citizens disappeared into secret custody and legal limbo. The Bush administration and its controversial attorney general, John Ashcroft, argued that this new kind of “war” necessitated new rules. Critics, including the American Bar Association, warned against the erosion of civil liberties and due process. The war on terrorism thus sparked on-going legal-constitutional debates about the limits of Executive-Branch power.

Moving against Al Qaeda globally, the Bush administration adopted measures to disrupt its finances and the president authorized a covert campaign to kill or capture Al Qaeda's top leaders. Defining “terrorists” proved difficult, however, and critics pointed out that organizations and individuals could be placed on a terrorist list using secret evidence and with no judicial review. The precise numbers and names of aliens and organizations that fell under suspicion remained shrouded in secrecy.

Rapidly organized military actions soon became the centerpiece of the war on terrorism. On October 7, 2001, the United States launched a bombing campaign to destroy the Taliban and bin Laden's supporters in Afghanistan. Within three months, U.S. forces, allied with anti-Taliban fighters, gained control of Kabul, Kandahar, and other Afghan cities. Working with other nations and the United Nations, the United States then formed a new Afghan government under the leadership of Hamed Karzai. Mullah Omar and bin Laden escaped, however, perhaps taking refuge in the rugged tribal area between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Despite a 25-million dollars reward, teams of U.S. Special Forces, and a major military effort by Pakistani troops early in 2004, these two major targets of the war on terrorism remained at large as of mid-2004.

In a highly controversial move, the Bush administration soon shifted focus to Iraq and its dictatorial ruler Saddam Hussein, who had emerged unscathed from the Persian Gulf War of 1991. Administration supporters portrayed the U.S. invasion of Iraq, undertaken on March 20, 2003 by a “coalition of the willing” (including Great Britain, Spain, and Poland) without UN backing, as part of the war on terrorism. Saddam had close ties to Al Qaeda, they alleged, and possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Critics, however, viewed Iraq as a costly diversion from the anti-terrorism effort. U.S. cooperation with allies and with the UN, they contended, could contain Saddam's threat. They noted the bitter enmity between Saddam's secular government and Islamic fundamentalists such as Al Qaeda; and they later highlighted the post-war failure to find WMD in Iraq or to establish an Iraq-Al Qaeda link. The Iraq War seriously eroded world support for the Bush administration's anti-terrorist campaign.

The war on terrorism brought other controversies as well. The administration had characterized Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters captured in Afghanistan, some 600 of whom were sent to a hastily constructed prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as “enemy combatants,” not prisoners of war, and therefore unprotected by the Geneva Conventions for the humane treatment of prisoners. Although the administration professed to be observing the spirit of the Geneva conventions, special intelligence units engaged in interrogation practices that international bodies saw as violations of international norms. These practices spread from prisons in Afghanistan and Guantanamo to those in Iraq, prompting international and domestic outrage during the spring of 2004.

Meanwhile, terrorist-style attacks erupted in many countries allied with the United States. Tunisia, Pakistan, Yemen, Kuwait, Indonesia, and Kenya were targeted in 2002; Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Turkey in 2003. A coordinated bomb attack on ten crowded commuter trains in Madrid, Spain, in March 2004 left 191 dead and at least 1800 injured. In many of these countries and in others, special contingents of U.S. troops engaged alleged terrorist groups or advised local police forces. Anti-American terrorist attacks in Iraq, including suicide bombings and roadside explosive devices, took many lives in 2003–04, despite the formal end of hostilities.

The war on terrorism, which in 2001 had united the nation and rallied its allies, quickly became a controversial endeavor. Many U.S. allies in Europe, while committed to the anti-terrorist cause, refused to support the Bush administration's unilateralist and Iraq-centered policy. At home, critics charged that the White House's war on terrorism had brought more loses than gains by weakening respect for civil liberties, due process, human rights, and international procedures. The administration claimed that two-thirds of Al Qaeda's top leadership had been captured or killed by the summer of 2004. Critics worried, however, that the methods of the Bush administration, especially in Iraq, might have helped the increasingly decentralized terrorist networks recruit new members. Although all Americans opposed terrorism, how to define and fight it stirred ongoing controversy.
See also Federal Government, Executive Branch, Other Departments: Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security; Foreign Relations; Iraq War and Aftermath; Military, The.

Bibliography

Walter Russell Mead , Power, Terror, Peace, and War : America's Grand Strategy in a World at Risk, 2004.
Richard A. Clarke , Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror, 2004.

Emily S. Rosenberg

War on Terrorism The response by the administration of George W. Bush on the attacks of September 11. Immediately after the attacks, Bush declared that this constituted an act of war. Recognizing the international background of the attackers, however, the war was not directed specifically against one particular country. Instead, the war was to be waged against any country harbouring terrorists. It was on this basis that Afghanistan became the first nation to be targeted by the US. The US supported the Northern Alliance troops by pounding the ruling Taliban regime which harboured the al-Qaeda network with bombs. Once the Taliban were destroyed, the US sent elite troops to pursue al-Qaeda fighters in the mountains and caves of the Afghan interior, though by winter 2002 al-Qaeda's leader, Osama Bin Laden, had not been captured.

The War on Terrorism allowed the huge mobilization of US resources that previous campaigns had been unable to muster. It lent itself to language that captured the moral high ground, though this could backfire, for instance in Bush's ill-judged reference to a ‘crusade’ against an ‘axis of evil’, with its connotations of religions warfare. It also allowed the US to define its aims flexibly and adjust them pragmatically to the current military and political situation. These advantages, however, entailed tremendous problems. (1) Since terrorism was by its nature without established, visible structure, it was impossible to define. This meant that the war aims were elusive, and that the war could in theory be carried on forever.(2) From the start, Bush struggled to define where the War on Terrorism would go after Afghanistan. In early 2002, the Bush administration extended the rhetorical War on Terrorism to Saddam Hussein of Iraq, but this proved very divisive amongst America's allies.(3) As shown by the examples of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Tadjikistan, the War on Terrorism relied on assistance from dictatorial regimes whose values were themselves not far removed from the aims of terrorists.(4) The War on Terrorism relied on Afghan anti-Taliban war lords. These maintained their power through money generated from the harvesting opium. This rendered the US virtually powerless to prevent the harvesting of a bumper crop of opium in 2002.(5) The War on Terrorism elevated captured al-Qaeda fighters at least potentially to prisoner-of-war status, which the US sought to deny. Despite these problems, President Bush remained hugely popular in the US, primarily because of his leadership, which defined the War.

war on terrorism The war launched by President George W. BUSH in the aftermath of the outrage of SEPTEMBER 11, when he vowed that the USA would use its armed might to destroy terrorist organizations and any regimes that harbour them. In October 2001 the USA attacked Afghanistan, using air strikes to destroy the command centres of the AL-QAIDA movement and to bring down the anti-Western TALIBAN regime. Subsequently, the focus shifted to so-called “rogue states” such as Saddam HUSSEIN'S Iraq, which was invaded and occupied by US-led forces in 2003.

Terrorism, War On See Detainee Cases.

War On Terrorism See Detainee Cases.