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war on terror political essay

Two Decades Later, the Enduring Legacy of 9/11

Table of contents.

Americans watched in horror as the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, left nearly 3,000 people dead in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Nearly 20 years later, they watched in sorrow as the nation’s military mission in Afghanistan – which began less than a month after 9/11 – came to a bloody and chaotic conclusion.

Chart shows 9/11 a powerful memory for Americans – but only for adults old enough to remember

The enduring power of the Sept. 11 attacks is clear: An overwhelming share of Americans who are old enough to recall the day remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. Yet an ever-growing number of Americans have no personal memory of that day, either because they were too young or not yet born.

A review of U.S. public opinion in the two decades since 9/11 reveals how a badly shaken nation came together, briefly, in a spirit of sadness and patriotism; how the public initially rallied behind the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, though support waned over time; and how Americans viewed the threat of terrorism at home and the steps the government took to combat it.

As the country comes to grips with the tumultuous exit of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan, the departure has raised long-term questions about U.S. foreign policy and America’s place in the world. Yet the public’s initial judgments on that mission are clear: A majority endorses the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, even as it criticizes the Biden administration’s handling of the situation. And after a war that cost thousands of lives – including more than 2,000 American service members – and trillions of dollars in military spending, a new Pew Research Center survey finds that 69% of U.S. adults say the United States has mostly failed to achieve its goals in Afghanistan.

This examination of how the United States changed in the two decades following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is based on an analysis of past public opinion survey data from Pew Research Center, news reports and other sources.

Current data is from a Pew Research Center survey of 10,348 U.S. adults conducted Aug. 23-29, 2021. Most of the interviewing was conducted before the Aug. 26 suicide bombing at Kabul airport, and all of it was conducted before the completion of the evacuation. Everyone who took part is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the  ATP’s methodology .

Here are the questions used  for the report, along with responses, and  its methodology .

A devastating emotional toll, a lasting historical legacy

Shock, sadness, fear, anger: The 9/11 attacks inflicted a devastating emotional toll on Americans. But as horrible as the events of that day were, a 63% majority of Americans said they couldn’t stop watching news coverage of the attacks.

Chart shows days after 9/11, nearly all Americans said they felt sad; most felt depressed

Our first survey following the attacks went into the field just days after 9/11, from Sept. 13-17, 2001. A sizable majority of adults (71%) said they felt depressed, nearly half (49%) had difficulty concentrating and a third said they had trouble sleeping.

It was an era in which television was still the public’s dominant news source – 90% said they got most of their news about the attacks from television, compared with just 5% who got news online – and the televised images of death and destruction had a powerful impact. Around nine-in-ten Americans (92%) agreed with the statement, “I feel sad when watching TV coverage of the terrorist attacks.” A sizable majority (77%) also found it frightening to watch – but most did so anyway.

Americans were enraged by the attacks, too. Three weeks after 9/11 , even as the psychological stress began to ease somewhat, 87% said they felt angry about the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Fear was widespread, not just in the days immediately after the attacks, but throughout the fall of 2001. Most Americans said they were very (28%) or somewhat (45%) worried about another attack . When asked a year later to describe how their lives changed in a major way, about half of adults said they felt more afraid, more careful, more distrustful or more vulnerable as a result of the attacks.

war on terror political essay

Even after the immediate shock of 9/11 had subsided, concerns over terrorism remained at higher levels in major cities – especially New York and Washington – than in small towns and rural areas. The personal impact of the attacks also was felt more keenly in the cities directly targeted: Nearly a year after 9/11, about six-in-ten adults in the New York (61%) and Washington (63%) areas said the attacks had changed their lives at least a little, compared with 49% nationwide. This sentiment was shared by residents of other large cities. A quarter of people who lived in large cities nationwide said their lives had changed in a major way – twice the rate found in small towns and rural areas.

The impacts of the Sept. 11 attacks were deeply felt and slow to dissipate. By the following August, half of U.S. adults said the country “had changed in a major way” – a number that actually increased , to 61%, 10 years after the event .

A year after the attacks, in an open-ended question, most Americans – 80% – cited 9/11 as the most important event that had occurred in the country during the previous year. Strikingly, a larger share also volunteered it as the most important thing that happened to them personally in the prior year (38%) than mentioned other typical life events, such as births or deaths. Again, the personal impact was much greater in New York and Washington, where 51% and 44%, respectively, pointed to the attacks as the most significant personal event over the prior year.

Chart shows in 2016 – 15 years after 9/11 – the attacks continued to be seen as one of the public’s top historical events

Just as memories of 9/11 are firmly embedded in the minds of most Americans old enough to recall the attacks, their historical importance far surpasses other events in people’s lifetimes. In a survey conducted by Pew Research Center in association with A+E Networks’ HISTORY in 2016 – 15 years after 9/11 – 76% of adults named the Sept. 11 attacks as one of the 10 historical events of their lifetime that had the greatest impact on the country. The election of Barack Obama as the first Black president was a distant second, at 40%.

The importance of 9/11 transcended age, gender, geographic and even political differences. The 2016 study noted that while partisans agreed on little else that election cycle, more than seven-in-ten Republicans and Democrats named the attacks as one of their top 10 historic events.

war on terror political essay

9/11 transformed U.S. public opinion, but many of its impacts were short-lived

It is difficult to think of an event that so profoundly transformed U.S. public opinion across so many dimensions as the 9/11 attacks. While Americans had a shared sense of anguish after Sept. 11, the months that followed also were marked by rare spirit of public unity.

Chart shows trust in government spiked following Sept. 11 terror attack

Patriotic sentiment surged in the aftermath of 9/11. After the U.S. and its allies launched airstrikes against Taliban and al-Qaida forces in early October 2001, 79% of adults said they had displayed an American flag. A year later, a 62% majority said they had often felt patriotic as a result of the 9/11 attacks.

Moreover, the public largely set aside political differences and rallied in support of the nation’s major institutions, as well as its political leadership. In October 2001, 60% of adults expressed trust in the federal government – a level not reached in the previous three decades, nor approached in the two decades since then.

George W. Bush, who had become president nine months earlier after a fiercely contested election, saw his job approval rise 35 percentage points in the space of three weeks. In late September 2001, 86% of adults – including nearly all Republicans (96%) and a sizable majority of Democrats (78%) – approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president.

Americans also turned to religion and faith in large numbers. In the days and weeks after 9/11, most Americans said they were praying more often. In November 2001, 78% said religion’s influence in American life was increasing, more than double the share who said that eight months earlier and – like public trust in the federal government – the highest level in four decades .

Public esteem rose even for some institutions that usually are not that popular with Americans. For example, in November 2001, news organizations received record-high ratings for professionalism. Around seven-in-ten adults (69%) said they “stand up for America,” while 60% said they protected democracy.

Yet in many ways, the “9/11 effect” on public opinion was short-lived. Public trust in government, as well as confidence in other institutions, declined throughout the 2000s. By 2005, following another major national tragedy – the government’s mishandling of the relief effort for victims of Hurricane Katrina – just 31% said they trusted the federal government, half the share who said so in the months after 9/11. Trust has remained relatively low for the past two decades: In April of this year, only 24% said they trusted the government just about always or most of the time.

Bush’s approval ratings, meanwhile, never again reached the lofty heights they did shortly after 9/11. By the end of his presidency, in December 2008, just 24% approved of his job performance.

war on terror political essay

U.S. military response: Afghanistan and Iraq

With the U.S. now formally out of Afghanistan – and with the Taliban firmly in control of the country – most Americans (69%) say the U.S. failed in achieving its goals in Afghanistan.

Chart shows broad initial support for U.S. military action against 9/11 terrorists, even if it entailed thousands of U.S. casualties

But 20 years ago, in the days and weeks following 9/11, Americans overwhelmingly supported military action against those responsible for the attacks. In mid-September 2001, 77% favored U.S. military action, including the deployment of ground forces, “to retaliate against whoever is responsible for the terrorist attacks, even if that means U.S. armed forces might suffer thousands of casualties.”

Many Americans were impatient for the Bush administration to give the go-ahead for military action. In a late September 2001 survey, nearly half the public (49%) said their larger concern was that the Bush administration would not strike quickly enough against the terrorists; just 34% said they worried the administration would move too quickly.

Even in the early stages of the U.S. military response, few adults expected a military operation to produce quick results: 69% said it would take months or years to dismantle terrorist networks, including 38% who said it would take years and 31% who said it would take several months. Just 18% said it would take days or weeks.

The public’s support for military intervention was evident in other ways as well. Throughout the fall of 2001, more Americans said the best way to prevent future terrorism was to take military action abroad rather than build up defenses at home. In early October 2001, 45% prioritized military action to destroy terrorist networks around the world, while 36% said the priority should be to build terrorism defenses at home.

war on terror political essay

Initially, the public was confident that the U.S. military effort to destroy terrorist networks would succeed. A sizable majority (76%) was confident in the success of this mission, with 39% saying they were very confident.

Support for the war in Afghanistan continued at a high level for several years to come. In a survey conducted in early 2002, a few months after the start of the war, 83% of Americans said they approved of the U.S.-led military campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan. In 2006, several years after the United States began combat operations in Afghanistan, 69% of adults said the U.S. made the right decision in using military force in Afghanistan. Only two-in-ten said it was the wrong decision.

Chart shows public support for withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan increased after Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011

But as the conflict dragged on, first through Bush’s presidency and then through Obama’s administration, support wavered and a growing share of Americans favored the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. In June 2009, during Obama’s first year in office, 38% of Americans said U.S. troops should be removed from Afghanistan as soon as possible. The share favoring a speedy troop withdrawal increased over the next few years. A turning point came in May 2011, when U.S. Navy SEALs launched a risky operation against Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan and killed the al-Qaida leader.

The public reacted to bin Laden’s death with more of a sense of relief than jubilation . A month later, for the first time , a majority of Americans (56%) said that U.S. forces should be brought home as soon as possible, while 39% favored U.S. forces in the country until the situation had stabilized.

Over the next decade, U.S. forces in Afghanistan were gradually drawn down, in fits and starts, over the administrations of three presidents – Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Meanwhile, public support for the decision to use force in Afghanistan, which had been widespread at the start of the conflict, declined . Today, after the tumultuous exit of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, a slim majority of adults (54%) say the decision to withdraw troops from the country was the right decision; 42% say it was the wrong decision. 

There was a similar trajectory in public attitudes toward a much more expansive conflict that was part of what Bush termed the “war on terror”: the U.S. war in Iraq. Throughout the contentious, yearlong debate before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Americans widely supported the use of military force to end Saddam Hussein’s rule in Iraq.

Importantly, most Americans thought – erroneously, as it turned out – there was a direct connection between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks. In October 2002, 66% said that Saddam helped the terrorists involved in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

In April 2003, during the first month of the Iraq War, 71% said the U.S. made the right decision to go to war in Iraq. On the 15th anniversary of the war in 2018, just 43% said it was the right decision. As with the case with U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, more Americans said that the U.S. had failed (53%) than succeeded (39%) in achieving its goals in Iraq.

war on terror political essay

The ‘new normal’: The threat of terrorism after 9/11

There have been no terrorist attacks on the scale of 9/11 in two decades, but from the public’s perspective, the threat has never fully gone away. Defending the country from future terrorist attacks has been at or near the top of Pew Research Center’s annual survey on policy priorities since 2002.

Chart shows terrorism has consistently ranked high on Americans’ list of policy priorities

In January 2002, just months after the 2001 attacks, 83% of Americans said “defending the country from future terrorist attacks” was a top priority for the president and Congress, the highest for any issue. Since then, sizable majorities have continued to cite that as a top policy priority.

Majorities of both Republicans and Democrats have consistently ranked terrorism as a top priority over the past two decades, with some exceptions. Republicans and Republican-leaning independents have remained more likely than Democrats and Democratic leaners to say defending the country from future attacks should be a top priority. In recent years, the partisan gap has grown larger as Democrats began to rank the issue lower relative to other domestic concerns. The public’s concerns about another attack also remained fairly steady in the years after 9/11, through near-misses and the federal government’s numerous “Orange Alerts” – the second-most serious threat level on its color-coded terrorism warning system.

A 2010 analysis of the public’s terrorism concerns found that the share of Americans who said they were very concerned about another attack had ranged from about 15% to roughly 25% since 2002. The only time when concerns were elevated was in February 2003, shortly before the start of the U.S. war in Iraq.

In recent years, the share of Americans who point to terrorism as a major national problem has declined sharply as issues such as the economy, the COVID-19 pandemic and racism have emerged as more pressing problems in the public’s eyes.

Chart shows in recent years, terrorism declined as a ‘very big’ national problem

In 2016, about half of the public (53%) said terrorism was a very big national problem in the country. This declined to about four-in-ten from 2017 to 2019. Last year, only a quarter of Americans said that terrorism was a very big problem.

This year, prior to the U.S. withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan and the subsequent Taliban takeover of the country, a somewhat larger share of adults said domestic terrorism was a very big national problem (35%) than said the same about international terrorism . But much larger shares cited concerns such as the affordability of health care (56%) and the federal budget deficit (49%) as major problems than said that about either domestic or international terrorism.

Still, recent events in Afghanistan raise the possibility that opinion could be changing, at least in the short term. In a late August survey, 89% of Americans said the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan was a threat to the security of the U.S., including 46% who said it was a major threat.

war on terror political essay

Addressing the threat of terrorism at home and abroad

Just as Americans largely endorsed the use of U.S. military force as a response to the 9/11 attacks, they were initially open to a variety of other far-reaching measures to combat terrorism at home and abroad. In the days following the attack, for example, majorities favored a requirement that all citizens carry national ID cards, allowing the CIA to contract with criminals in pursuing suspected terrorists and permitting the CIA to conduct assassinations overseas when pursuing suspected terrorists.

Chart shows following 9/11, more Americans saw the necessity to sacrifice civil liberties in order to curb terrorism

However, most people drew the line against allowing the government to monitor their own emails and phone calls (77% opposed this). And while 29% supported the establishment of internment camps for legal immigrants from unfriendly countries during times of tension or crisis – along the lines of those in which thousands of Japanese American citizens were confined during World War II – 57% opposed such a measure.

It was clear that from the public’s perspective, the balance between protecting civil liberties and protecting the country from terrorism had shifted. In September 2001 and January 2002, 55% majorities said that, in order to curb terrorism in the U.S., it was necessary for the average citizen to give up some civil liberties. In 1997, just 29% said this would be necessary while 62% said it would not.

For most of the next two decades, more Americans said their bigger concern was that the government had not gone far enough in protecting the country from terrorism than said it went too far in restricting civil liberties.

The public also did not rule out the use of torture to extract information from terrorist suspects. In a 2015 survey of 40 nations, the U.S. was one of only 12 where a majority of the public said the use of torture against terrorists could be justified to gain information about a possible attack.

war on terror political essay

Views of Muslims, Islam grew more partisan in years after 9/11

Concerned about a possible backlash against Muslims in the U.S. in the days after 9/11, then-President George W. Bush gave a speech to the Islamic Center in Washington, D.C., in which he declared: “Islam is peace.” For a brief period, a large segment of Americans agreed. In November 2001, 59% of U.S. adults had a favorable view of Muslim Americans, up from 45% in March 2001, with comparable majorities of Democrats and Republicans expressing a favorable opinion.

Chart shows Republicans increasingly say Islam is more likely than other religions to encourage violence

This spirit of unity and comity was not to last. In a September 2001 survey, 28% of adults said they had grown more suspicious of people of Middle Eastern descent; that grew to 36% less than a year later.

Republicans, in particular, increasingly came to associate Muslims and Islam with violence. In 2002, just a quarter of Americans – including 32% of Republicans and 23% of Democrats – said Islam was more likely than other religions to encourage violence among its believers. About twice as many (51%) said it was not.

But within the next few years, most Republicans and GOP leaners said Islam was more likely than other religions to encourage violence. Today, 72% of Republicans express this view, according to an August 2021 survey.

Democrats consistently have been far less likely than Republicans to associate Islam with violence. In the Center’s latest survey, 32% of Democrats say this. Still, Democrats are somewhat more likely to say this today than they have been in recent years: In 2019, 28% of Democrats said Islam was more likely than other religions to encourage violence among its believers than other religions.

The partisan gap in views of Muslims and Islam in the U.S. is evident in other meaningful ways. For example, a 2017 survey found that half of U.S. adults said that “Islam is not part of mainstream American society” – a view held by nearly seven-in-ten Republicans (68%) but only 37% of Democrats. In a separate survey conducted in 2017, 56% of Republicans said there was a great deal or fair amount of extremism among U.S. Muslims, with fewer than half as many Democrats (22%) saying the same.

The rise of anti-Muslim sentiment in the aftermath of 9/11 has had a profound effect on the growing number of Muslims living in the United States. Surveys of U.S. Muslims from 2007-2017 found increasing shares saying they have personally experienced discrimination and received public expression of support.

war on terror political essay

It has now been two decades since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon and the crash of Flight 93 – where only the courage of passengers and crew possibly prevented an even deadlier terror attack.

For most who are old enough to remember, it is a day that is impossible to forget. In many ways, 9/11 reshaped how Americans think of war and peace, their own personal safety and their fellow citizens. And today, the violence and chaos in a country half a world away brings with it the opening of an uncertain new chapter in the post-9/11 era.

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About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

  • 32.1 The War on Terror
  • Introduction
  • 1.1 The Americas
  • 1.2 Europe on the Brink of Change
  • 1.3 West Africa and the Role of Slavery
  • Review Questions
  • Critical Thinking Questions
  • 2.1 Portuguese Exploration and Spanish Conquest
  • 2.2 Religious Upheavals in the Developing Atlantic World
  • 2.3 Challenges to Spain’s Supremacy
  • 2.4 New Worlds in the Americas: Labor, Commerce, and the Columbian Exchange
  • 3.1 Spanish Exploration and Colonial Society
  • 3.2 Colonial Rivalries: Dutch and French Colonial Ambitions
  • 3.3 English Settlements in America
  • 3.4 The Impact of Colonization
  • 4.1 Charles II and the Restoration Colonies
  • 4.2 The Glorious Revolution and the English Empire
  • 4.3 An Empire of Slavery and the Consumer Revolution
  • 4.4 Great Awakening and Enlightenment
  • 4.5 Wars for Empire
  • 5.1 Confronting the National Debt: The Aftermath of the French and Indian War
  • 5.2 The Stamp Act and the Sons and Daughters of Liberty
  • 5.3 The Townshend Acts and Colonial Protest
  • 5.4 The Destruction of the Tea and the Coercive Acts
  • 5.5 Disaffection: The First Continental Congress and American Identity
  • 6.1 Britain’s Law-and-Order Strategy and Its Consequences
  • 6.2 The Early Years of the Revolution
  • 6.3 War in the South
  • 6.4 Identity during the American Revolution
  • 7.1 Common Sense: From Monarchy to an American Republic
  • 7.2 How Much Revolutionary Change?
  • 7.3 Debating Democracy
  • 7.4 The Constitutional Convention and Federal Constitution
  • 8.1 Competing Visions: Federalists and Democratic-Republicans
  • 8.2 The New American Republic
  • 8.3 Partisan Politics
  • 8.4 The United States Goes Back to War
  • 9.1 Early Industrialization in the Northeast
  • 9.2 A Vibrant Capitalist Republic
  • 9.3 On the Move: The Transportation Revolution
  • 9.4 A New Social Order: Class Divisions
  • 10.1 A New Political Style: From John Quincy Adams to Andrew Jackson
  • 10.2 The Rise of American Democracy
  • 10.3 The Nullification Crisis and the Bank War
  • 10.4 Indian Removal
  • 10.5 The Tyranny and Triumph of the Majority
  • 11.1 Lewis and Clark
  • 11.2 The Missouri Crisis
  • 11.3 Independence for Texas
  • 11.4 The Mexican-American War, 1846–1848
  • 11.5 Free or Slave Soil? The Dilemma of the West
  • 12.1 The Economics of Cotton
  • 12.2 African Americans in the Antebellum United States
  • 12.3 Wealth and Culture in the South
  • 12.4 The Filibuster and the Quest for New Slave States
  • 13.1 An Awakening of Religion and Individualism
  • 13.2 Antebellum Communal Experiments
  • 13.3 Reforms to Human Health
  • 13.4 Addressing Slavery
  • 13.5 Women’s Rights
  • 14.1 The Compromise of 1850
  • 14.2 The Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Republican Party
  • 14.3 The Dred Scott Decision and Sectional Strife
  • 14.4 John Brown and the Election of 1860
  • 15.1 The Origins and Outbreak of the Civil War
  • 15.2 Early Mobilization and War
  • 15.3 1863: The Changing Nature of the War
  • 15.4 The Union Triumphant
  • 16.1 Restoring the Union
  • 16.2 Congress and the Remaking of the South, 1865–1866
  • 16.3 Radical Reconstruction, 1867–1872
  • 16.4 The Collapse of Reconstruction
  • 17.1 The Westward Spirit
  • 17.2 Homesteading: Dreams and Realities
  • 17.3 Making a Living in Gold and Cattle
  • 17.4 The Assault on American Indian Life and Culture
  • 17.5 The Impact of Expansion on Chinese Immigrants and Hispanic Citizens
  • 18.1 Inventors of the Age
  • 18.2 From Invention to Industrial Growth
  • 18.3 Building Industrial America on the Backs of Labor
  • 18.4 A New American Consumer Culture
  • 19.1 Urbanization and Its Challenges
  • 19.2 The African American “Great Migration” and New European Immigration
  • 19.3 Relief from the Chaos of Urban Life
  • 19.4 Change Reflected in Thought and Writing
  • 20.1 Political Corruption in Postbellum America
  • 20.2 The Key Political Issues: Patronage, Tariffs, and Gold
  • 20.3 Farmers Revolt in the Populist Era
  • 20.4 Social and Labor Unrest in the 1890s
  • 21.1 The Origins of the Progressive Spirit in America
  • 21.2 Progressivism at the Grassroots Level
  • 21.3 New Voices for Women and African Americans
  • 21.4 Progressivism in the White House
  • 22.1 Turner, Mahan, and the Roots of Empire
  • 22.2 The Spanish-American War and Overseas Empire
  • 22.3 Economic Imperialism in East Asia
  • 22.4 Roosevelt’s “Big Stick” Foreign Policy
  • 22.5 Taft’s “Dollar Diplomacy”
  • 23.1 American Isolationism and the European Origins of War
  • 23.2 The United States Prepares for War
  • 23.3 A New Home Front
  • 23.4 From War to Peace
  • 23.5 Demobilization and Its Difficult Aftermath
  • 24.1 Prosperity and the Production of Popular Entertainment
  • 24.2 Transformation and Backlash
  • 24.3 A New Generation
  • 24.4 Republican Ascendancy: Politics in the 1920s
  • 25.1 The Stock Market Crash of 1929
  • 25.2 President Hoover’s Response
  • 25.3 The Depths of the Great Depression
  • 25.4 Assessing the Hoover Years on the Eve of the New Deal
  • 26.1 The Rise of Franklin Roosevelt
  • 26.2 The First New Deal
  • 26.3 The Second New Deal
  • 27.1 The Origins of War: Europe, Asia, and the United States
  • 27.2 The Home Front
  • 27.3 Victory in the European Theater
  • 27.4 The Pacific Theater and the Atomic Bomb
  • 28.1 The Challenges of Peacetime
  • 28.2 The Cold War
  • 28.3 The American Dream
  • 28.4 Popular Culture and Mass Media
  • 28.5 The African American Struggle for Civil Rights
  • 29.1 The Kennedy Promise
  • 29.2 Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society
  • 29.3 The Civil Rights Movement Marches On
  • 29.4 Challenging the Status Quo
  • 30.1 Identity Politics in a Fractured Society
  • 30.2 Coming Apart, Coming Together
  • 30.3 Vietnam: The Downward Spiral
  • 30.4 Watergate: Nixon’s Domestic Nightmare
  • 30.5 Jimmy Carter in the Aftermath of the Storm
  • 31.1 The Reagan Revolution
  • 31.2 Political and Cultural Fusions
  • 31.3 A New World Order
  • 31.4 Bill Clinton and the New Economy
  • 32.2 The Domestic Mission
  • 32.3 New Century, Old Disputes
  • 32.4 Hope and Change
  • A | The Declaration of Independence
  • B | The Constitution of the United States
  • C | Presidents of the United States of America
  • D | U.S. Political Map
  • E | U.S. Topographical Map
  • F | United States Population Chart
  • G | Further Reading

Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

  • Discuss how the United States responded to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001
  • Explain why the United States went to war against Afghanistan and Iraq
  • Describe the treatment of suspected terrorists by U.S. law enforcement agencies and the U.S. military

As a result of the narrow decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore , Republican George W. Bush was the declared the winner of the 2000 presidential election with a majority in the Electoral College of 271 votes to 266, although he received approximately 540,000 fewer popular votes nationally than his Democratic opponent, Bill Clinton’s vice president, Al Gore. Bush had campaigned with a promise of “compassionate conservatism” at home and nonintervention abroad. These platform planks were designed to appeal to those who felt that the Clinton administration’s initiatives in the Balkans and Africa had unnecessarily entangled the United States in the conflicts of foreign nations. Bush’s 2001 education reform act, dubbed No Child Left Behind, had strong bipartisan support and reflected his domestic interests. But before the president could sign the bill into law, the world changed when four American airliners were hijacked and used in the single most deadly act of terrorism in the United States. Bush’s domestic agenda quickly took a backseat, as the president swiftly changed course from nonintervention in foreign affairs to a “war on terror.”

Shortly after takeoff on the morning of September 11, 2001, teams of hijackers from the Islamist terrorist group al-Qaeda seized control of four American airliners. Two of the airplanes were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan. Morning news programs that were filming the moments after the first impact, then assumed to be an accident, captured and aired live footage of the second plane, as it barreled into the other tower in a flash of fire and smoke. Less than two hours later, the heat from the crash and the explosion of jet fuel caused the upper floors of both buildings to collapse onto the lower floors, reducing both towers to smoldering rubble. The passengers and crew on both planes, as well as 2,606 people in the two buildings, all died, including 343 New York City firefighters who rushed in to save victims shortly before the towers collapsed.

The third hijacked plane was flown into the Pentagon building in northern Virginia, just outside Washington, DC, killing everyone on board and 125 people on the ground. The fourth plane, also heading towards Washington, crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, when passengers, aware of the other attacks, attempted to storm the cockpit and disarm the hijackers. Everyone on board was killed ( Figure 32.3 ).

That evening, President Bush promised the nation that those responsible for the attacks would be brought to justice. Three days later, Congress issued a joint resolution authorizing the president to use all means necessary against the individuals, organizations, or nations involved in the attacks. On September 20, in an address to a joint session of Congress, Bush declared war on terrorism, blamed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden for the attacks, and demanded that the radical Islamic fundamentalists who ruled Afghanistan, the Taliban , turn bin Laden over or face attack by the United States. This speech encapsulated what became known as the Bush Doctrine , the belief that the United States has the right to protect itself from terrorist acts by engaging in pre-emptive wars or ousting hostile governments in favor of friendly, preferably democratic, regimes.

Click and Explore

Read the text of President Bush’s address to Congress declaring a “war on terror.”

World leaders and millions of their citizens expressed support for the United States and condemned the deadly attacks. Russian president Vladimir Putin characterized them as a bold challenge to humanity itself. German chancellor Gerhard Schroder said the events of that day were “not only attacks on the people in the United States, our friends in America, but also against the entire civilized world, against our own freedom, against our own values, values which we share with the American people.” Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and a veteran of several bloody struggles against Israel, was dumbfounded by the news and announced to reporters in Gaza, “We completely condemn this very dangerous attack, and I convey my condolences to the American people, to the American president and to the American administration.”

In May 2014, a Museum dedicated to the memory of the victims was completed. Watch this video and learn more about the victims and how the country seeks to remember them.

GOING TO WAR IN AFGHANISTAN

When it became clear that the mastermind behind the attack was Osama bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi Arabian national who ran his terror network from Afghanistan, the full attention of the United States turned towards Central Asia and the Taliban. Bin Laden had deep roots in Afghanistan. Like many others from around the Islamic world, he had come to the country to oust the Soviet army, which invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Ironically, both bin Laden and the Taliban received material support from the United States at that time. By the late 1980s, the Soviets and the Americans had both left, although bin Laden, by that time the leader of his own terrorist organization, al-Qaeda, remained.

The Taliban refused to turn bin Laden over, and the United States began a bombing campaign in October, allying with the Afghan Northern Alliance , a coalition of tribal leaders opposed to the Taliban. U.S. air support was soon augmented by ground troops ( Figure 32.4 ). By November 2001, the Taliban had been ousted from power in Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul, but bin Laden and his followers had already escaped across the Afghan border to mountain sanctuaries in northern Pakistan.

At the same time that the U.S. military was taking control of Afghanistan, the Bush administration was looking to a new and larger war with the country of Iraq. Relations between the United States and Iraq had been strained ever since the Gulf War a decade earlier. Economic sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United Nations, and American attempts to foster internal revolts against President Saddam Hussein’s government, had further tainted the relationship. A faction within the Bush administration, sometimes labeled neoconservatives, believed Iraq’s recalcitrance in the face of overwhelming U.S. military superiority represented a dangerous symbol to terrorist groups around the world, recently emboldened by the dramatic success of the al-Qaeda attacks in the United States. Powerful members of this faction, including Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, believed the time to strike Iraq and solve this festering problem was right then, in the wake of 9/11. Others, like Secretary of State Colin Powell, a highly respected veteran of the Vietnam War and former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were more cautious about initiating combat.

The more militant side won, and the argument for war was gradually laid out for the American people. The immediate impetus to the invasion, it argued, was the fear that Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction ( WMDs ): nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons capable of wreaking great havoc. Hussein had in fact used WMDs against Iranian forces during his war with Iran in the 1980s, and against the Kurds in northern Iraq in 1988—a time when the United States actively supported the Iraqi dictator. Following the Gulf War, inspectors from the United Nations Special Commission and International Atomic Energy Agency had in fact located and destroyed stockpiles of Iraqi weapons. Those arguing for a new Iraqi invasion insisted, however, that weapons still existed. President Bush himself told the nation in October 2002 that the United States was “facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof—the smoking gun—that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.” The head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, Hanx Blix, dismissed these claims. Blix argued that while Saddam Hussein was not being entirely forthright, he did not appear to be in possession of WMDs. Despite Blix’s findings and his own earlier misgivings, Powell argued in 2003 before the United Nations General Assembly that Hussein had violated UN resolutions. Much of his evidence relied on secret information provided by an informant that was later proven to be false. On March 17, 2003, the United States cut off all relations with Iraq. Two days later, in a coalition with Great Britain, Australia, and Poland, the United States began “Operation Iraqi Freedom” with an invasion of Iraq.

Other arguments supporting the invasion noted the ease with which the operation could be accomplished. In February 2002, some in the Department of Defense were suggesting the war would be “a cakewalk.” In November, referencing the short and successful Gulf War of 1990–1991, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld told the American people it was absurd, as some were claiming, that the conflict would degenerate into a long, drawn-out quagmire. “Five days or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn’t going to last any longer than that,” he insisted. “It won’t be a World War III.” And, just days before the start of combat operations in 2003, Vice President Cheney announced that U.S. forces would likely “be greeted as liberators,” and the war would be over in “weeks rather than months.”

Early in the conflict, these predictions seemed to be coming true. The march into Baghdad went fairly smoothly. Soon Americans back home were watching on television as U.S. soldiers and the Iraqi people worked together to topple statues of the deposed leader Hussein around the capital. The reality, however, was far more complex. While American deaths had been few, thousands of Iraqis had died, and the seeds of internal strife and resentment against the United States had been sown. The United States was not prepared for a long period of occupation; it was also not prepared for the inevitable problems of law and order, or for the violent sectarian conflicts that emerged. Thus, even though Bush proclaimed a U.S. victory in May 2003, on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln with the banner “Mission Accomplished” prominently displayed behind him, the celebration proved premature by more than seven years ( Figure 32.5 ).

Lt. General James Conway on the Invasion of Baghdad

Lt. General James Conway, who commanded the First Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq, answers a reporter’s questions about civilian casualties during the 2003 invasion of Baghdad.

“As a civilian in those early days, one definitely had the sense that the high command had expected something to happen which didn’t. Was that a correct perception?” —We were told by our intelligence folks that the enemy is carrying civilian clothes in their packs because, as soon as the shooting starts, they’re going put on their civilian clothes and they’re going go home. Well, they put on their civilian clothes, but not to go home. They put on civilian clothes to blend with the civilians and shoot back at us. . . . “There’s been some criticism of the behavior of the Marines at the Diyala bridge [across the Tigris River into Baghdad] in terms of civilian casualties.” —Well, after the Third Battalion, Fourth Marines crossed, the resistance was not all gone. . . . They had just fought to take a bridge. They were being counterattacked by enemy forces. Some of the civilian vehicles that wound up with the bullet holes in them contained enemy fighters in uniform with weapons, some of them did not. Again, we’re terribly sorry about the loss of any civilian life where civilians are killed in a battlefield setting. I will guarantee you, it was not the intent of those Marines to kill civilians. [The civilian casualties happened because the Marines] felt threatened, [and] they were having a tough time distinguishing from an enemy that [is violating] the laws of land warfare by going to civilian clothes, putting his own people at risk. All of those things, I think, [had an] impact [on the behavior of the Marines], and in the end it’s very unfortunate that civilians died.

Who in your opinion bears primary responsibility for the deaths of Iraqi civilians?

DOMESTIC SECURITY

The attacks of September 11 awakened many to the reality that the end of the Cold War did not mean an end to foreign violent threats. Some Americans grew wary of alleged possible enemies in their midst and hate crimes against Muslim Americans—and those thought to be Muslims—surged in the aftermath. Fearing that terrorists might strike within the nation’s borders again, and aware of the chronic lack of cooperation among different federal law enforcement agencies, Bush created the Office of Homeland Security in October 2001. The next year, Congress passed the Homeland Security Act , creating the Department of Homeland Security, which centralized control over a number of different government functions in order to better control threats at home ( Figure 32.6 ). The Bush administration also pushed the USA Patriot Act through Congress, which enabled law enforcement agencies to monitor citizens’ e-mails and phone conversations without a warrant.

The Bush administration was fiercely committed to rooting out threats to the United States wherever they originated, and in the weeks after September 11, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) scoured the globe, sweeping up thousands of young Muslim men. Because U.S. law prohibits the use of torture, the CIA transferred some of these prisoners to other nations—a practice known as rendition or extraordinary rendition—where the local authorities can use methods of interrogation not allowed in the United States.

While the CIA operates overseas, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the chief federal law enforcement agency within U.S. national borders. Its activities are limited by, among other things, the Fourth Amendment, which protects citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures. Beginning in 2002, however, the Bush administration implemented a wide-ranging program of warrantless domestic wiretapping, known as the Terrorist Surveillance Program, by the National Security Agency (NSA). The shaky constitutional basis for this program was ultimately revealed in August 2006, when a federal judge in Detroit ordered the program ended immediately.

The use of unconstitutional wire taps to prosecute the war on terrorism was only one way the new threat challenged authorities in the United States. Another problem was deciding what to do with foreign terrorists captured on the battlefields in Afghanistan and Iraq. In traditional conflicts, where both sides are uniformed combatants, the rules of engagement and the treatment of prisoners of war are clear. But in the new war on terror, extracting intelligence about upcoming attacks became a top priority that superseded human rights and constitutional concerns. For that purpose, the United States began transporting men suspected of being members of al-Qaeda to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for questioning. The Bush administration labeled the detainees “unlawful combatants,” in an effort to avoid affording them the rights guaranteed to prisoners of war, such as protection from torture, by international treaties such as the Geneva Conventions. Furthermore, the Justice Department argued that the prisoners were unable to sue for their rights in U.S. courts on the grounds that the constitution did not apply to U.S. territories. It was only in 2006 that the Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that the military tribunals that tried Guantanamo prisoners violated both U.S. federal law and the Geneva Conventions.

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  • Authors: P. Scott Corbett, Volker Janssen, John M. Lund, Todd Pfannestiel, Sylvie Waskiewicz, Paul Vickery
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Factsheet: War on Terror

IMPACT: The Global War on Terror (GWoT) is an international military campaign launched by the United States under President George W. Bush following the September 11th, 2001 attacks by Al-Qaeda. Dubbed the ‘Forever Wars,’ this conflict is a borderless and timeless campaign that has touched nearly 40 percent of the world, cost the United States an estimated $8 trillion, and has killed more than 900,000 people (although the actual death toll is likely to be much higher). The WoT discourse amplified Islamophobia as it dehumanized Muslims by tying them to terrorism and constructing them as ‘inherently violent’ and a threat. Along with formal military warfare, the WoT has also comprised of large-scale surveillance measures in the U.S, torture, global drone strikes, blacksites, and the Guantanamo Bay military prison.

A few days after the deadly September 11th, 2001 attacks by Al-Qaeda that killed over 3,000 Americans, President George W. Bush delivered a speech to the country. During remarks on September 16, 2001, Bush used the term “war on terrorism,” stating “This is a new kind of  — a new kind of evil.  And we understand. And the American people are beginning to understand. This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while. And the American people must be patient.”

On September 18, 2001, Congress passed the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) with near unanimous approval (only one member of Congress, Barbara Lee , opposed the bill). This joint resolution authorized the use of the United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the September 11 attacks. A 2019 piece by Human Rights First noted that due to the “lack of specificity and other safeguards, such as an expiration date,” in the AUMF, “successive administrations from both parties [have] stretch[ed] and expand[ed] the authorization far beyond what Congress originally envisioned.” Over the course of nearly two decades, the 2001 AUMF has been invoked “for a broad range of military operations in at least 14 countries and against more than half a dozen organizations.”

On September 20th, 2001, during a formal speech to Congress, President Bush stated “Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.” During this speech, the U.S. President addressed “Muslims throughout the world,” stating “We respect your faith… Its teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah. The terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself.” Bush went on to exclaim, “The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends. It is not our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists and every government that supports them.”

Critics of the War on Terror (WoT) have noted that the terminology is inaccurate given “terror” is not an identifiable enemy (much like the criticism in response to the “ War on Drugs ”). Additionally, the enemy was defined by President Bush as a “network of terrorists” and any government that supported them, meaning this vague wording laid the groundwork for a timeless and borderless war.  In an August 2017 piece for The Nation , Rebecca Gordon noted that “in a real war, nations or organized non-state actors square off against each other. A metaphorical war is like a real war…but the enemy isn’t a country or even a single group of Islamic jihadists. It’s some other kind of threat: a disease, a social problem, or, in the case of the war on terror, an emotion.” Metaphorical wars have been waged by leading figures in the U.S. government, including the “War on Crime,” by J. Edgar Hoover and the “War on Drugs” by President Richard Nixon. While they are metaphorical in terms, Gordon notes these wars have killed and are “killing real people in real numbers…When we declare war on phenomena like crime, drugs, or terror, instantly militarizing such problems, we severely limit our means for understanding and dealing with them.”

The War on Terror has included the U.S.’s military campaign in Afghanistan as well as the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Additionally, it also involves the use of drones in carrying out attacks in a variety of countries (including Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen) where a formal war has not been declared. In addition to military campaigns around the globe, the U.S. also carried out a number of policies in the name of the “War on Terror” including surveillance of Muslim communities in the United States, which many human rights experts noted violated individuals’ civil rights and liberties.

In the months after 9/11, President Bush launched the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP), which authorized the National Security Agency (“NSA”) to intercept phone calls and emails traveling into and out of the United States. A 2005 New York Times piece noted that the NSA “monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States…[all] without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying.” In January 2007, then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wrote a letter informing U.S. Senators that President Bush would not be reauthorizing the TSP, but “any electronic surveillance that was occurring as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program will now be conducted subject to the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.” A June 2013 piece by the Washington Post revealed that TSP had been replaced with PRISM, which involves the NSA and the FBI “tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track foreign targets.” A 2014 piece in the Intercept found that as a result of this surveillance “NSA and FBI ha[d] covertly monitored the emails of prominent Muslim-Americans—including a political candidate and several civil rights activists, academics, and lawyers.”

An April 2015 piece in USA Today noted that the “massive phone surveillance system the NSA launched to identify terrorists after the Sept. 11 attacks,” was built on the existing model of surveillance under the “ War on drugs ” established a decade before 9/11. The report found that “for more than two decades, the Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration amassed logs of virtually all telephone calls from the USA to as many as 116 countries linked to drug trafficking.” This model served as the foundation for the NSA, which President Bush authorized to gather its own logs of Americans’ phone calls in 2001.

Counterterrorism operations became an outgrowth of the War on Terror, as noted in reports by the Costs of War project at Boston University. These operations include “air and drone strikes, on-the-ground combat, so-called ‘Section 127e’ programs in which U.S. special operations forces plan and control partner force missions, military exercises in preparation for or as part of counterterrorism missions, and operations to train and assist foreign forces.” In a 2021 paper, the project found that between 2018 to 2020, the United States government undertook what it labeled “counterterrorism” activities in 85 countries, noting that “these activities have often intensified local conflicts and contributed to authoritarianism and illicit profiteering.” In her 2022 book , Innocent Until Proven Muslim: Islamophobia, the War on Terror, and the Muslim Experience Since 9/ 11 , Dr. Maha Hilal notes that the War on Terror has touched nearly 40 percent of the world.

A 2021 report by Brown University’s Cost of War project, found that “20 years of post-9/11 wars have cost the U.S. an estimated $8 trillion and have killed more than 900,000 people.” The co-founder of the project and professor of political science at Brown University, Neta Crawford, noted that “The deaths we tallied are likely a vast undercount of the true toll these wars have taken on human life. It’s critical we properly account for the vast and varied consequences of the many U.S. wars and counterterror operations since 9/11, as we pause and reflect on all of the lives lost.” In a September 2021 report, the Cost of War project estimated at least 37 million “people have fled their homes in the eight most violent wars the U.S. military has launched or participated in since 2001.” In a 2023 journal article for the NYU Review of Law & Social Change, Azadeh Shahshahani and Divya Babbula, concluded that “the Global War on Terror has caused lasting harm to individuals, communities, natural resources, infrastructure, and the economies of targeted countries.”

In October 2021, thirty international scholars provided an assessment of the impact of the War on Terror on Muslim communities, specifically looking at the “counterterrorism” apparatus and its policies and tactics. The report examined the various dimensions of the US-led War on Terror, and had individual essays analyzing the “restructuring of the national security and surveillance state; the use of torture, rendition, black sites, Guantanamo Bay prison, and drone warfare; Countering Violent Extremism programs; the destruction of Muslim civil liberties through the policies of infiltration, entrapment, and manufacturing crime; and further repression of American Muslims through the use of “terrorism” sentencing enhancement and discriminatory prison conditions.” It “calls for communities to organize and mobilize against the policies of the Global War on Terror,” and provides a list of policy recommendations including “ending the Authorization of Use of Military Force (AUMF) to the full or partial repeal of the USA PATRIOT Act.”

Coinciding with the War on Terror was the development of a discourse that constructed Islam as a religion tied to terrorism, and equated Muslims to “terrorists.” In the October 2021 report , Professor Lisa Stampnitzky detailed how the discipline of terrorism itself is highly politicized, outlining how there is no agreed upon definition of the word, and that “although ‘terrorism; is often defined as political violence against civilians, in practice, it is not consistently applied as such, in large part because each of these terms (political, violence, civilian) are quite malleable.” She wrote that “studies have also consistently found that whether an incident is classed as terrorism is significantly impacted by the perceived identity of the perpetrator.” In concluding her study, Professor Stampnitzky stated that there is a “racialized understanding of terrorism,” and “this has the effect of both producing racist equations of Arabs and Muslims with “terrorism”, along with the framing of these groups as “suspect communities” and subjects them to various forms of harassment and deprivation of rights.”

Dr. Maha Hilal, in her book, Innocent Until Proven Muslim , argues that the official narrative of the war has “justified the creation of a sprawling apparatus of state violence that is rooted in Islamophobia.”

One aspect of the War on Terror abroad has been the use of drone strikes. Under the Bush administration, the United States adopted the use of drones as a method in its  global war. This tactic was vastly expanded under the administration of President Barack Obama, who ​​ described the US’s drone program as “precise, precision strikes against al-Qaida and their affiliates.” During his presidency , Obama had  weekly meetings called “terror Tuesdays,” with his head of CIA where they would go through a “ kill list ” and choose which individuals to kill via drone strikes. As Dr. Maha Hilal notes in her book, the use of drone strikes has been shrouded in secrecy as there are no transparency or accountability measures in place. In a piece for the The Conversation , senior lecturer at Birmingham City University , Lily Hamourtziadou, states that the aim of drone strikes is “to kill not capture,” and that in this scenario, “Human beings are denied the right to surrender and are instead executed for being members of a group defined by the killers as evil.” She further states that “those executed are presumed “guilty”, without arrest, questioning or subsequent conviction. Targeted killing becomes normalized, leading to increasing human rights abuses.” The precise number of casualties from drone strikes remains unknown given government secrecy around the program, but a September 2021 report from Airwars found that the US has carried out at least 91,340 strikes across seven major conflict zones (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen), which have killed anywhere between 22,679 and 48,308 civilians.

The WoT at home

Domestically, the War on Terror has involved the criminalization of immigration and singling out Muslims for special treatment. In her book, Dr. Maha Hilal notes that a number of programs were put into place following 9/11, which specifically targeted Muslims, such as the Alien Absconder initiative in January 2002, and National Security Entry-Exit Registration System ( NSEERs) , which targeted 25 countries, 24 of which were Muslim-majority. Additionally, following the deadly attacks on September 11th, the authorities carried out “special-interest detentions, which included the rounding up of hundreds of non-citizen immigrants, primarily Muslim men, who were then held in harsh conditions in Brooklyn, NY. The men were never charged but detained as ‘terrorism suspects.’”

In regards to domestic surveillance measures, the FBI produced a Terrorism Screening Database (from the Terrorist Screening Center ) in 2003, which by 2017 included 1.2 million people. There was no transparency around the list or the process by which the government identified how individuals got on there. A 2019 piece in The Intercept noted that the “government was routinely affixing the word ‘terrorist’ to an individual’s name and disseminating that information to a sprawling network of foreign and private partners, with virtually no evidence required to support the claim.” From this list, came other lists such as the No-Fly list , containing identifying information of millions of “known or suspected terrorists,” which included children. There is no transparency regarding how or why people are added to the list and there is no process for individuals to request their names be removed. Most individuals don’t even know they are on the list, only discovering it when arriving at an airport where they are either barred from traveling or have to “undergo extensive, humiliating security measures.” There have been numerous court cases regarding the constitutionality of the list, including a 2015 ruling by a federal judge that found “that the government’s lack of effective procedures for people to challenge their inclusion on the controversial list was unconstitutional.” A lawsuit in 2014 by four Muslim Americans argued that the FBI placed them on the list “either to intimidate them into becoming informants or to retaliate against them for declining.” In a 2023 report , the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) found that “more than 98 percent of the individuals on the watchlist are Muslims, with the No-Fly List being over 99 percent Muslim.”

Additionally, the post-9/11 period witnessed an increase in government surveillance of American Muslim communities. One such example was the New York Police Department’s (NYP D) Muslim Surveillance and Mapping Program , which mapped, monitored, and profiled Muslim communities in New York City and neighboring states between 2001-2014.  A unit within the program sent informants into mosques, Muslim student groups, and Muslim-owned businesses to gather information on 28 “ancestries of interest.” The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) described the surveillance program as “based on a false and unconstitutional premise: that Muslim religious belief and practices are a basis for law enforcement scrutiny.” The NYPD itself admitted that the surveillance failed to produce a single intelligence lead. In April 2018, the NYPD settled a lawsuit with the Muslim community, confirming that it had dismantled the “demographic unit” responsible for the spying and agreed that  “it would not engage in religious-based surveillance in the future in New Jersey, as it had already accepted for New York.”

The WoT also involved the use of informants and undercover agents in terrorism cases. In a 2020 Columbia Human Rights Law Review article, attorney Collin Poirot noted that following 9/11 “the FBI shifted from being an agency that investigated past or ongoing crimes to one focused on proactively gathering information to prevent future crimes,” and that the federal agency expanded “the strategies of surveillance and entrapment that it had honed during the Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) era.” In the piece, Poirot describes the FBI’s post-9/11 “machinery of surveillance, entrapment, and prosecution,” as an “infrastructure built to repress Muslim Americans and Arab Americans.” In his 2014 book, The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism , journalist Trevor Aaronson uncovered and described how the FBI “built a network of informants whose primary purpose is to infiltrate Muslim communities to create phony terrorist plots so the bureau can claim victory in the War on Terror.” Aaronson reviewed terrorism prosecutions between 2001-2014 and found that at at least fifty defendants were on trial for conduct spurred by a paid FBI informant: “someone who provided not only the plan but also the means and opportunity for the terrorist plot.” Some post-9/11 entrapment cases targeting American Muslims include the Liberty City Seven (2006), Fort Dix 5 (2007), The Newburgh Four (2009), the case Rezwan Ferdaus (2011), and the case of Ayyub Abdul-Alim (2011).

In 2014, Human Rights Watch and Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute found that the US Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) targeted American Muslims in abusive counterterrorism “sting operations” based on religious and ethnic identity. In a 2023 Georgetown Law Journal article , Professor Sahar Aziz “empirically explored the extent to which terrorism related prosecutions are racialized, to the disadvantage of Muslim defendants.” She examined a database of “646 federal terrorism-related cases brought against Muslims between 2001 and 2021,” and found that “religious and dissident Muslims who have engaged in extremist speech but who have not engaged in violence without government ensnarement” are criminalized meanwhile “far-right supremacist groups are simultaneously granted license to plan politically motivated violence, culminating in a siege on the U.S. Capitol.”

Torture has become a hallmark of the War on Terror. In 2014, the US Senate Select Subcommittee on Intelligence released its report on the CIA’s interrogation and detention programs launched in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The CIA Torture Report, as it’s also come to be known as, studied the CIA’s detention program, including looking at the secret black sites and prisons around the world, as well as the prison at Guantanamo Bay. The report detailed the interrogation methods used by CIA officials and “rejected many of the agency’s claims on the effectiveness of harsh interrogation techniques.” Some of the key findings from the report of the interrogations included, “not an effective means of acquiring intelligence,” “brutal and far worse that the CIA represented,” “conditions of confinement for CIA detainees were harsher,” and “damaged the United States’ standing in the world.” The Senate investigation into the tactics used by the CIA on suspects also revealed that CIA medical personnel “voiced alarm that waterboarding methods had deteriorated to ‘a series of near drownings’ and that agency employees subjected detainees to ‘rectal rehydration’ [rape] and other painful procedures that were never approved.” In 2019, Abu Zubaydah , the first person to be subject to the interrogation program approved by President George W. Bush’s administration, drew illustrations to describe the torture he was subjected to for the four years he was held in secret prisons by the CIA. Zubaydah, who has been imprisoned for 21 years without charge and remains at Guantanamo Bay, chronicled his experience of waterboarding, stress positions, walling, confinement, violence, and sleep deprivation. In 2023, Abu Zubaydah, created another series of 40 drawings documenting the torture he experienced at black sites and at the prison at Guantanamo Bay, which were incorporated in a report on torture by US authorities published by the Center for Policy and Research at Seton Hall University law school. Other large-scale events of torture in the WoT included the 2004 leaked images that revealed the horrific levels of abuse US military personnel carried out on Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison during the war in Iraq.

The prison at Guantanamo Bay was opened in 2002 to detain individuals suspected of terrorism, and became the “site of egregious and ongoing human rights violations perpetrated by the United States government.” Torture was present at the prison, where the vast majority of the detainees were never charged with a crime. The Bridge Initiative has published an extensive amount of research on the prison, including our Guantanamo Bay data project , as well as factsheets addressing torture , the human cost , legal challenges , and the history of the prison at the naval base. All of the individuals who were/are detained at the prison are Muslim and there are documented accounts of islamophobic actions from military officials, including desecration of the Qur’an and violation of individual’s religious beliefs. In 2023 for the first time in 21 years, the US allowed a United Nations special rapporteur to visit the detention center and meet with detainees. In her report , special rapporteur Fionnuala Ní Aoláin found that “the legacy of torture and arbitrary detention combined with the current structural conditions at Guantanamo constitute ‘cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment’ and ‘may also meet the legal threshold for torture.’” In an July 2023 interview with the Guardian, Ní Aoláin said , ​​“Without exception, each individual I met exhibits medical conditions relating to the physical harm they experienced from rendition and torture, or profound psychological distress such as anxiety, depression, extreme trauma and suicidal ideation,” and stated the “US had a responsibility to redress the harms it inflicted on its Muslim torture victims.”

Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) programs

Another component of the domestic WoT is Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) programming, which was launched in 2011 by the Obama administration. The programming was influenced by the UK’s “Prevent” strategy , which has been criticized as “flawed,” “counterproductive,” and creating “a serious risk of human rights violations.” CVE programs are based on false premises that end up targeting American Muslims and stigmatizing the community as inherently suspect. For a full overview of CVE programs, check out the Bridge Initiative factsheet .

Many academics and experts have noted how the vagueness of what constitutes “extreme” can be used by those in power to clampdown on dissent. One example of this was the FBI’s declaration of “Black Identity Extremists” in August 2017 during the Trump administration. This occurred at a time when there was growing concern over whether the administration was downplaying the threat posed by white supremacist groups, and the report was released just nine days before the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, VA. The report seemed to be in response to the growing grassroots led protests against police brutality targeting black Americans. In its report, the FBI stated “it is very likely Black Identity Extremist (BIE) perceptions of police brutality against African Americans spurred an increase in premeditated, retaliatory lethal violence against law enforcement.” In a November 2017 New York Times piece , law professors Khaled Beydoun and Justin Hansford wrote that “entirely nonviolent black activists face violations of their civil liberties and even violence if they’re deemed part of B.I.E,” and warned that the label could “chill and criminalize a wide array of nonviolent activism in ways that have terrifying echoes its infamous COINTELPRO program .” The legal experts further noted that the “F.B.I. designation compounds the vulnerability of black Muslims, who make up the largest segment — at least 25 percent — of the Muslim population in the United States. Muslim communities are already the targets of counter-radicalization policing.”

Latest Developments in the WoT

In August 2021, President Joe Biden announced the formal end of the 20 years of war in Afghanistan — the longest war in American history. When the US first invaded Afghanistan, one of the goals was to remove the Taliban regime, which the US accused of harboring Al-Qaeda and its leader Osama Bin Laden. After President Biden announced the end of the US’s formal involvement in Afghanistan, the Taliban returned to power in the country.  Despite this announcement to cease large-scale ground operations in Afghanistan, a March 2022 piece in Just Security noted that “the Biden administration has made clear it remains poised to increase “ over-the-horizon ” operations in the form of drone strikes and special operations raids.” The authors stated that in the last few years, the US troops had engaged in counterterrorism-related activities in at least 85 countries , and had a combat role in at least eight countries. One of the most recurrent criticisms regarding the US-led War on Terror has been the vagueness surrounding it (i.e. its timeless and borderless nature) and that the military campaigns across the globe have often taken place in secret and “outside the realm of public debate.”

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31 Jul 2023

Factsheet: War on Drugs: Surveillance

IMPACT: The US War on Drugs has used surveillance to aid in policing, curb the international drug trade, and enforce drug prohibition since 1971. Technologies and techniques used as part of the “war” include wiretapping,... read the complete article

07 Oct 2021

The Terror Trap: The Impact of the War on Terror on Muslim Communities Since 9/11

On October 7, 2021, 20 years since the U.S. launched the War in Afghanistan as part of its Global War on Terror, a group of seven civil society and research organizations, including The Bridge Initiative, are releasing a detailed report on the impact and consequences of the War on Terror. read the complete article

11 May 2020

Factsheet: The NYPD Muslim Surveillance and Mapping Program

IMPACT: The New York Police Department’s (NYPD) Muslim Surveillance and Mapping Program began under Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2001 and monitored Muslim communities in New York City and nearby states until 2014. A secret unit... read the complete article

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The Battle of Ideas in the War on Terror: Essays on U.S. Public Diplomacy in the Middle East

war on terror political essay

Robert Satloff is the Segal Executive Director of The Washington Institute, a post he assumed in January 1993.

Introduction

Even before the flames raging within the twisted steel of the fallen World Trade Center towers were extinguished, a debate began to flare up regarding the motivations of the perpetrators. How could Arab Muslim society produce young, well-educated men filled with such hatred toward America that they would kill more than 3,000 innocents -- as well as themselves -- to prove a point? Some argued that the killers were representative of a strain of Muslim revulsion at "who we are" -- that is, a profound hatred of American values, culture, and society. Others argued that disgust over "what we do" -- U.S. policy regarding Israel, oil, Arab autocrats, and Islam itself -- was the main source of the animus. Advocates of each position had their policy prescriptions readily at hand. The latter argued that we should change our policy to reduce the level of disgust among Arabs and Muslims. The former suggested nothing but staying the course, arguing that military victory alone would alter the calculus of hatred. This collection of essays owes its origin to my dissatisfaction with both sets of recommendations for U.S. policy.

A relatively small but still sizable, intensely ambitious, and disproportionately powerful subgroup of Muslims do indeed hate "who we are." For the most part, these are Islamists -- Muslims who reject modern notions of state, citizen, and individual rights and instead seek to impose a totalitarian version of Islam on peoples and nations around the globe. Within this subgroup are those who seek power through revolutionary or violent means and others who seek it through evolutionary or nonviolent means. While the former are unabashed terrorists, it is equally true that the latter can never be democrats.

There are also many Muslims who, while not Islamists, are genuinely angered by certain U.S. policies abroad. U.S. policy analysts would be doing their country a disservice by not recognizing this fact. While the outrage expressed by these Muslims may be episodic and almost surely lacks the operational significance often ascribed to it, it is nonetheless real and cannot merely be wished away by changing the topic.

And, lest we forget, there is a large percentage of Muslims whose daily lives are not animated by any of these issues. These are the tens of millions whose energies are completely sapped by the uphill struggle to eke out a living. They might have some passing knowledge of goings-on in faraway Baghdad or Gaza and may, if asked, express an opinion on them. But their interests and concerns are consumed by more urgent demands.

Regarding the various stripes of Islamists, the United States can do nothing to soften their hearts or change their minds. The goal of U.S. policy should instead be to seek their defeat -- through military means for those who use violence to gain power, and through political means for those whose tactics take a more circuitous path to the same objective. There is no benefit to be gained from targeting public diplomacy toward the Islamists.

Regarding other Muslims who actively critique U.S. policy, there is much the United States can do apart from the obviously self-defeating approach of changing policies to appease the critics. Given the structural biases, shoddy journalism, and intellectual drivel that passes for political discourse in many corners of the Middle East, America's top priority vis-a-vis these Muslims should be to make sure that their opinions are at least based on accurate, dispassionate information. In this regard, public diplomacy can help to create a "level playing field" so that U.S. policies (and the people advocating them) receive a fair hearing in the court of public opinion. Numerous tactical options flow from this strategy.

And regarding the millions of poor and struggling Muslims, the goal of U.S. policy should be to help provide them with the economic, educational, social, and other tools required to leave poverty behind and become constructive and contributing members of their societies. A wide range of policy instruments are available to achieve this goal, complemented by public diplomacy that underscores America's concern and commitment on a personal level.

The story does not end there, however. The key ingredient missing from most analyses of the "why do they hate us?" problem is a recognition that the first two groups of Muslims -- those whose hatred arises from "who we are" and those whose critique is based on "what we do" -- are also battling each other over the fate and direction of their societies. On rare occasions -- Algeria in the 1990s, for example -- this battle has devolved into a shooting war. More commonly, it is a battle of ideas over how to organize societies. The fact that this battle rages in most countries without too many bombs going off or too many dead bodies piling up neither renders it any less momentous nor makes the imperative of victory any less urgent.

The United States has a vital stake in the outcome of this battle, both for the sake of Muslims themselves and for the security of Americans and U.S. interests in Arab and Muslim countries. Without reservation or apology, America's strategy should be to help non- and anti-Islamist Muslims beat back the Islamist challenge. This strategy must be pursued even if many of these putative Muslim allies express bitter dislike for certain aspects of U.S. foreign policy.

In the post-September 11 era, public diplomacy should be focused on fighting the battle of ideas in Muslim societies. This is a battle that can be won, though it will take more time, money, commitment, and ingenuity than the U.S. government has so far been willing to dedicate to the task.

This set of essays discusses the many problems plaguing public diplomacy in the post-September 11 era and proposes how the United States should pursue what many regard as a mission impossible. Collectively, the essays span the three years since September 11. Four of them were written expressly for this collection, while the balance appeared previously in various publications and are reprinted here as originally published.

There are distinct advantages to using this format. A series of brief essays on discrete subtopics, written and developed over time, both makes the subjects discussed more accessible and provides a chronological context to evolving debates over public diplomacy. This approach may mean that some issues appear fresher and seem to merit more detailed discussion than others. Hopefully, that problem is outweighed by the benefits of following the intellectual odyssey that I undertook as I focused on the public diplomacy challenges facing America since September 11.

Seven months after the al-Qaeda attacks in the United States, my family and I moved from Washington to Rabat, Morocco, capital of a populous Arab Muslim country located at a strategic point between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, just nine miles from Europe. We lived in Rabat for more than two years, during a time of great challenge and turbulence. We traveled to every corner of the country and met Moroccans from all walks of life. I traveled to many corners of the Middle East as well. My wife and I learned much through our children and their experiences; one of our sons attended an outstanding local Moroccan school, while another attended the Rabat American School, an institution that provides the finest of American-style education to a student body that is overwhelmingly non-American. And, not being American officials ourselves, we were free to explore certain places at certain times when our diplomat friends did not have this license, such as when the entire family drove to downtown Rabat to witness one of the largest anti-Iraq war protests in the Middle East.

My summary assessment -- that the battle of ideas can be won if the United States is willing to commit itself to helping its current and potential Muslim allies "fight the fight" -- emerges in large part from my experience abroad. While this theme is present in several of the early essays in this collection, it is expounded with increasing confidence and buoyancy over time. Without minimizing the daunting obstacles that lie ahead, I am convinced that a public diplomacy infused with hope, optimism, candor, creativity, resources, and an entrepreneurial approach to building and supporting allies is the right strategy for America in the Middle East.

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The Supreme Court, Habeas Corpus, and the War on Terror: An Essay on Law and Political Science

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A Timeline of the U.S.-Led War on Terror

By: History.com Editors

Updated: May 5, 2020 | Original: February 1, 2019

war on terror political essay

As much of the nation was just starting the day on the morning of September 11, 2001 , 19 terrorists hijacked four East Coast flights, crashing three of the airplanes into targets in New York and Washington, D.C., with the fourth plane slamming into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers fought back. 

In the end, 2,977 people died, making it the deadliest attack on U.S. soil in history.

The al Qaeda -led attacks prompted President George W. Bush to announce a global “War on Terror” military campaign, in which he called on world leaders to join the U.S. in its response.

“Every nation in every region now has a decision to make,” he said in a national address. “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.”

Below is a timeline of notable events.

America Responds to 9/11

•  Sept. 11, 2001 : Terrorists hijack four U.S. planes, crashing two into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, while a third hits the U.S. Pentagon minutes later. The fourth plane, targeted to hit the White House, crashes in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers attacked the terrorists. The death toll, not including the `9 hijackers, was 2,977.

•  Sept. 12, 2001 : Bush addresses the nation, announcing war and stating : “The United States of America will use all our resources to conquer this enemy. We will rally the world. We will be patient. We’ll be focused, and we will be steadfast in our determination. This battle will take time and resolve, but make no mistake about it, we will win.”

•  Sept. 20, 2001 : In a speech addressing Congress and the nation, Bush announces the War on Terror , saying, “Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”

•  Sept. 25, 2001 : Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announces the anti-terror campaign as “Operation Enduring Freedom,” which he says will take years to fight. The following day, Saudi Arabia ends diplomatic ties with Afghanistan’s Taliban government.

War in Afghanistan Begins

•  Oct. 7, 2001 : Airstrikes by the United States and Great Britain are launched in Afghanistan at Taliban and al Qaeda training camps and targets. “What America is tasting now is only a copy of what we have tasted,” al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden says in a video statement released the same day. “Our Islamic nation has been tasting the same for more than 80 years of humiliation and disgrace, its sons killed, and their blood spilled, its sanctities desecrated.”

•  Oct. 19-20, 2001 : The ground war begins, with special forces striking in Kandahar. In the coming weeks, Britain, Turkey, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, France and Poland all announce they will deploy troops to Afghanistan.

•  Nov. 9, 2001 : The Afghan Northern Alliance captures Mazar-e-Sharif, a Taliban stronghold. 

• Nov. 13, 2001 : Kabul falls following airstrikes and ground attacks by the United States and Afghan Northern Alliance.

• Dec. 6-17, 2001: The Battle of Tora Bora rages in a cave complex in Eastern Afghanistan’s White Mountains. U.S.-led coalition forces attempt to capture al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, but he escapes.

• Dec. 7, 2001: Kandahar, the last major stronghold of the Taliban, falls.

•  Feb. 21, 2002 : A video confirms the execution -style death of Wall Street Journal reporter  Daniel Pearl  by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a self-described mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.

•  June 13, 2002 : Hamid Karzai, a favored candidate of the U.S., is elected by a traditional Afghan Loya Jirga council to a two-year term as Afghanistan’s transitional head of state. In 2004, he becomes Afghanistan’s first democratically elected president.

Iraq War Begins

•  March 19, 2003 : U.S. and coalition forces invade Iraq following intelligence that the country and its dictator, Saddam Hussein, possessed or were developing weapons of mass destruction.

• May 1, 2003 : Bush delivers a speech aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln proclaiming, “ Mission Accomplished ,” saying that major combat efforts for the war in Iraq will end. “The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11th, 2001 and still goes on,” he says.

•  Aug. 19, 2003 : Twenty-three people, including a top United Nations official, are killed and 100 wounded after a suicide bomber drives a truck into UN headquarters in Baghdad.

• Dec 13, 2003: Saddam Hussein is captured by U.S. soldiers in ad-Dawr, Iraq.

•  March 11, 2004 : A coordinated bombing of four commuter trains in Madrid kills 191 people and injures more than 2000. Islamic militants, based in Spain but inspired by al Qaeda, are later considered the prime suspects.

•  July 7, 2005 : Terrorist bombings on the London Underground and atop a double-decker bus kill 52 people and injure more than 700. Documents recovered in 2012 will reveal the attacks were planned by a British citizen working for al Qaeda.

Saddam Hussein, Bin Laden Killed

•  Dec. 30, 2006 : After being sentenced to death by hanging for war crimes and crimes against humanity, Saddam Hussein is executed in Baghdad.

•  June 30, 2009 : Sgt. Bowe R. Bergdahl walks away from his post in Afghanistan and is kidnapped by the Taliban. Released in 2014, he is later dishonorably discharged.

•  Aug. 30, 2010 : In an Oval Office address, President Barack Obama declares an end to U.S. combat operations in Iraq.

•  May 2, 2011 : Osama bin Laden is killed by U.S. special operations forces during a raid at an Abbottabad, Pakistan compound.

•  June 22, 2011 : In a televised address, Obama announces a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and a hand-over of power to Afghani security by 2014.

•  August 2011 : Thirty-eight service members are killed when the helicopter they are aboard comes under fire. This month becomes the deadliest ever for U.S. forces in Afghanistan with 66 fatalities.

•  Dec. 28, 2014 : The War in Afghanistan officially ends , though Obama states 10,800 U.S. troops will remain.

•  Jan. 28, 2019 : The U.S. and Taliban leaders work toward an agreement for the withdrawal of the 14,000 U.S. troops who remain in Afghanistan. 

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Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

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How Terrorism Is Wrong: Morality and Political Violence

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Virginia Held, How Terrorism Is Wrong: Morality and Political Violence , Oxford University Press, 2008, 205pp., $45.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780195329599.

Reviewed by Igor Primoratz, University of Melbourne

This is a book on terrorism and political violence more generally, written by a philosopher and accordingly focusing on conceptual and moral, rather than empirical or historical, questions. The book is meant for fellow philosophers and political theorists, but it is written clearly and without philosophical jargon, and will be accessible, and of much interest, to the general reader too.

While political violence is a traditional topic in political and moral philosophy, terrorism -- the type of political violence generally considered most difficult to defend -- was not much discussed before the attacks in the US on 11 September 2001. Virginia Held is one of the few philosophers who gave it sustained attention before it became a fashionable topic. The present book is a collection of seven essays she has published over the last twenty-odd years and one previously unpublished paper. Some essays discuss terrorism or political violence generally, while others look into such related issues as the ways the media deals with political violence, or collective responsibility for ethnic hatred and violence. There is also an essay on the methods of moral inquiry.

In her approach to moral questions, Held combines consequentialism, deontological ethics and the ethics of care. The relevance of the last approach to discussing issues of political violence is rather limited, and Held's position on terrorism and political violence is grounded in consequentialist and deontological considerations of a more traditional type. So is just war theory, but Held's views are not a version of that theory. Indeed, she doubts that just war theory can be of much help in understanding and judging contemporary armed conflicts.

The title of the book might be thought somewhat misleading, as Held does not so much seek to show how terrorism is wrong as how it can be right. To be sure, a title highlighting the latter prospect probably would not have been a good idea in the current atmosphere of the "war on terror." This "war" is both driven and defended by a "moral clarity" claimed by leaders of some major powers and by many analysts and commentators. Held rightly challenges this facile "moral clarity," according to which all terrorism is morally the same, clearly distinct from war, and a monopoly of insurgents, who are both amoral and utterly irrational and fanatical, and therefore never to be engaged with in dialogue or negotiation. She goes on to argue that we should not adopt a sweeping moral rejection of all terrorism, whatever the cause it serves, the circumstances in which it does so, and the consequences of refraining from it; that terrorism is not "uniquely atrocious"; and that it is not necessarily morally worse than war.

The scope and import of any moral assessment of terrorism depends on just what is meant by "terrorism". Accordingly, Held discusses at some length the question of how the term should be defined. The usage over the two centuries or so since the term entered political and moral discourse in the West has been notoriously confusing, fraught with moral emotions and political passions, and plagued by relativism and double standards. It is in such cases that philosophy can demonstrate its relevance to public debates by clarifying central concepts and main positions, spotting missteps in argument, exposing prejudice and double standards, and thus facilitating more rational and discerning moral deliberation and choice. Most definitions of terrorism crafted by philosophers acknowledge the two traits that make up the core concept underlining all shifts in descriptive and evaluative meaning: terrorism is violence aiming at intimidation (fear, terror). Beyond this, philosophers tend to disagree, most importantly on whether terrorism is violence against civilians (non-combatants, innocent people), or can also target members of the military and security services and highly placed government officials. This is the question of a narrow vs. wide definition. A wide definition is in line with common use over two centuries, whereas a narrow definition is revisionary. Yet a narrow definition may be more appropriate in the context of moral assessment of violence and terrorism. Surely there is a considerable moral difference between planting a bomb in an office of (what is considered) an extremely oppressive government and killing a number of its officials, and planting a bomb in a coffee shop and killing a number of common citizens.

Held prefers a wide definition, for reasons I do not find convincing. One is common use. Held points out that the attack on the Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983, or much Palestinian violence directed at Israeli soldiers, would not count as terrorism on a narrow definition, while the bombing of Dresden or Hiroshima would, and finds these implications unacceptable. To me, they seem just right. She quotes Walter Laqueur's remark that "most terrorist groups in the contemporary world have been attacking the military, the police, and the civilian population" (p. 55) as showing the inadequacy of a narrow definition. But surely the fact that a group has engaged in terrorism to an extent sufficient to consider it a terrorist group does not turn every act of political violence committed by the group into an act of terrorism. Finally, Held rejects narrow definitions on the ground that "it is not at all clear who the 'innocent' are as distinct from the 'legitimate' targets. We can perhaps agree that small children are innocent, but beyond this, there is little moral clarity" (pp. 19-20). Yet even if only "small children" were morally protected against violence that would be a weighty consideration, as indiscriminate political violence against civilians or common citizens is bound to kill and maim children too. Moreover, there are other classes of civilians that are just as clearly innocent in the relevant sense, i.e. innocent of the (alleged) injustice or oppression: opponents of the government, those too old or infirm to take part in political life, or those inculpably ignorant of the immorality of their government's policies.

The book offers two somewhat different definitions of terrorism: as "political violence that usually spreads fear beyond those attacked" and "perhaps more than anything else … resembles small-scale war" (p. 21), and as political violence employed with "the intention either to spread fear or to harm non-combatants" (p. 76). Both definitions run together war and terrorism, and imply that an act of war proper, i.e. one aimed at a legitimate military target, counts as terrorism. For, as Trotsky pointed out in his defense of the "red terror", "war … is founded upon intimidation… . [It] destroys only an insignificant part of the conquered army, intimidating the remainder and breaking their will" ( Terrorism and Communism , Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1961, p. 58). Held accepts this implication of her position; I find it problematic.

Philosophers working with a wide definition of terrorism usually distinguish terrorism that targets the military and high government officials and terrorism that attacks common citizens, and argue that the former type of terrorism can be morally justified in certain circumstances, while the latter type is never, or almost never, justified. Held does not take this line. Her book offers two different justifications of terrorist violence, and both apply to the latter as well as the former kind of terrorism.

The first is in terms of the responsibility of citizens in a democracy for what their government does on their behalf. This justification is only suggested at several points in the book and is never developed and defended from likely objections. Held does not make it clear whether she sees common citizens as proper objects of terrorist violence because, as voters, they authorize the government's actions and policies (p. 20), or on account of various types and degrees of support they give the government (pp. 56, 78). Both these lines of argument are open to serious queries.

Held's second justification of terrorism, presented in chapter 4 )“Terrorism, Rights, and Political Goals”) is carefully spelled out. It focuses on the issue of human rights. When human rights of a person or group are not respected, what may we do in order to ensure that they are? On one view, known as consequentialism of rights, if the only way to ensure respect of a certain right of A and B is to infringe on the same right of C, we will be justified in doing so. Held does not accept such trade-offs in rights with the aim of maximizing their respect. But she points out that rights sometimes come into conflict, whether directly or indirectly. When that happens, we cannot avoid comparing the rights involved in terms of their stringency and making certain choices. That applies to the case of terrorism too. Terrorism violates some human rights of its victims. But its advocates claim that in certain circumstances a limited use of terrorism is the only way of bringing about a society in which the human rights of all will be respected.

Even when that is so, it is not enough to make resort to terrorism justified. But it will be justified if an additional condition is met: that of distributive justice. If there is a society where the human rights of a part of the population are respected, while the same rights of another part of the population are being violated, and if the only way of putting an end to that and bringing about a society in which human rights of all are respected is a limited use of terrorism, and finally, if terrorism is directed against members of the first group, which until now has been privileged as far as respect of human rights is concerned -- then terrorism will be morally justified. This is an argument of distributive justice, brought to bear on the problem of violations of human rights. It is more just to equalize the violations of human rights in a stage of transition to a society where the rights of all are respected, than to allow the group which has already suffered large-scale violations of human rights to suffer more such violations (assuming that in both cases we are dealing with violations of the same, or equally stringent, human rights). Human rights of many are going to be violated in any case. "If we must have rights violations, a more equitable distribution of such violations is better than a less equitable one" (p. 88).

This is an original, deontological cum consequentialist justification of terrorism. Neither the indispensable contribution of terrorism to bringing about equal respect of human rights of all nor the justice in the distribution of violations of such rights in the transition stage is, in itself, enough to justify its use. Each is necessary, and jointly the two are sufficient for its justification. Obviously, a critique that reduces Held's position to either of its prongs falls short of the mark. So does the objection that terrorism is as a matter of fact highly unlikely ever to help usher in a better, more just society. If so, that tells against terrorism, rather than against Held's (or any other) stringent moral requirements for a morally defensible recourse to it.

Another objection is that in allowing for sacrificing such basic human rights as the right to life and to bodily security of individual victims of terrorism for the sake of a more just distribution of violations of the same rights within a group in the course of transition to a stage where these rights will be respected throughout that group, Held adopts a collectivistic position that offends against the principles of separateness of persons and respect for persons. In response, Held argues that

to fail to achieve a more just distribution of violations of rights (through the use of terrorism if that is the only means available) is to fail to recognize that those whose rights are already not fairly respected are individuals in their own right, not merely members of a group … whose rights can be ignored. … Arguments for achieving a just distribution of rights violations need not be arguments … that are more than incidentally about groups. They can be arguments about individuals' rights to basic fairness. (pp. 89-90)

Still, a common citizen belonging to the relatively privileged section of the population has done nothing to forfeit her right to life. If she is killed by a terrorist seeking to make the distribution of right to life violations in the entire population more just, her right to life is violated for reasons to do with the group: for the sake of more justice within the group. This has nothing to do with her sins of commission or omission, and in this sense Held's is a collectivistic argument -- and an argument that I, for one, do not find convincing. Held argues that, if we fail to resort to terrorism in the circumstances described in her argument, we thereby fail to recognize that individuals belonging to the disadvantaged section of the population "are individuals in their own right," rather than merely members of a group whose human rights can be ignored. This argument is predicated on moral equivalence of acts and omissions, and on ascription of negative responsibility. This, too, I find problematic. We do not fail to respect the right to life of disadvantaged individuals when we fail to kill or maim other individuals, personally innocent of the plight of the former. The disadvantaged individuals do not have a right that we should engage in terrorism in their behalf, and we do not have a duty to do that. Indeed, I believe we have a duty not to do that.

Whether Held's two-prong justification of terrorism can be successfully defended against this and other possible objections or not, it remains an original, complex, and highly important position on the morality of terrorism. The essay presenting it is the centerpiece of Held's book and her most valuable contribution to the discussion of terrorism as far as fellow philosophers are concerned. The general reader will find much of interest in all the essays in this book. In the wider context of public debate about terrorism and the "war" against it, Held provides a strong antidote to the simplistic deliverances of "moral clarity" many of our political leaders and "public intellectuals" claim to possess.

Criminology, Sociology and Policing at Hull

Student research journal, critical analysis of the response to terrorism.

Essay for MA Criminal Justice and Crime Control

Author: Jesse Downes, 2019/20

There is one particular offence in criminology that is responded to in a way that raises large ethical issues. These are offences that are labelled as being terrorist offences. This is particularly the case in the midst of the 9/11 attacks in the US back in the September of 2001. On the morning of the 11 th September, two large passenger aircraft were hijacked and then were purposely directed towards New York, where both Twin Towers were then destroyed by the planes. Thirty minutes later, the same fate was to bestow the Pentagon building in Washington (Borger et al, 2001). A fourth plane crashed into a field, and overall the total number of lives lost as a result of the attack was 2,977. The response to this attack, was different to the usual response for cases of mass murder in other circumstances. What followed was, while still deeply rooted in criminal justice, more often described as being a war, with the ‘War on Terror’ being initiated (History, 2019). This focus on war, rather than dealing with the actions in the usual way of the criminal justice system can be seen to raise several ethical issues. These ethical issues will be explored in this essay as a way to critique the response that the US pursued in the aftermath of the attacks of 11 September 2001. Although this essay may focus on the actions of the US, these are also the same sorts of actions that were adopted by countries around the world, including here in the UK. During the critique, several of the ethical theories cited in the literature will be applied to the response to terrorism. It is therefore important to explain in detail the different ethical perspectives. However, before this can occur, it is essential to dedicate a section of this essay to looking into the definition of terrorism and exploring the concept of it in more detail.

Although the word ‘terrorism’ has been used for hundreds of years, it has only recently, in the aftermath of 9/11 been a regularly used word for criminal offences. Now the word is such a commonly used word, that in the midst of any large-scale attack, it is word that is consistently used on social media when speculating about the nature of an attack. Despite the regular use of this word in everyday conversation, the meaning is surprisingly obscure. As is stated by Wilkinson (2005) the definition of terrorism varies between countries. Indeed, Kapitan (2005) goes even further, and illustrates that even in the same country, and the same government, the definition of terrorism is not agreed. They state that ‘even the various agencies of the US Government are not united’ on a meaning (Kapitan, 2005: 21). Freeman (2005) expresses the opinion that the word terrorism has a very broad meaning, which covers a large selection of motivations as well as actions. Despite their differences though, one thing that seems to unite most of these definitions is the fact that attacks labelled as terrorism are motivated by politics and are ‘a method or means of achieving an objective’ (Banks, 2009: 260). It also appears to be the case that terrorism is always committed by outsiders, by people that come from places other than that which the offence has taken place. Because of these main factors, offences such as these may be labelled as terrorism, and as a result of this are dealt with in a different way to ordinary crimes. As a result of this, many ethical issues are raised in the process of reacting to terrorist offences. These ethical issues will be explored further, however first it is crucial to look at some of the key ethical perspectives in the literature.

There are many different ethical perspectives, however the three main ones will be used in this essay to evaluate the response to terrorism. These are: deontological (absolutist), consequential (utilitarian) and virtue ethics. Firstly, deontological ethics are when individuals are absolute in their views. This means that ‘certain moral principles apply to all people everywhere, and that people can recognise or discover these principles and be guided by them in deciding the nature of their own conduct and in judging the conduct of others’ (Banks, 2009: 10). This means that if an action is wrong, then it must always be wrong, regardless of the circumstances under which the action occurs, and regardless of whom the action is committed by. This means that even if, as a consequence of the action a beneficial event occurs, the action is still considered ethically wrong. On the other hand, for a consequentialist, this would not be the case. Consequentialism, follows the thought of Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarianism. This states that we should ‘act so as to maximise the sum total of welfare among everyone affected by what we do’ ( Tännsjö , 2013: 17). This means that rather than looking at the actions committed, we should instead look at the consequences of these actions. Therefore, even if an action on its own may be seen as being morally wrong, if the consequences of this action do more good than the wrong, then this would be considered a morally acceptable action. Finally, virtue ethics, as opposed to suggesting people should act based on the consequences of their actions or moral principles, suggests that people should act based on what would be best for their moral character (Hursthouse, 1999). Therefore, actions should be judged on whether they are considered to build a good moral character or not. Now that these three main ethical perspectives have been outlined, they will be used in order to assess the ethical issues that arise in the state response to terrorism.

As was mentioned in a previous section, when an act is labelled as being a terrorist offence, it is often treated differently from an ‘ordinary’ crime. This is despite the fact that the actual acts that have occurred in a terrorist offence would normally be treated as an ordinary crime. For example, it would make sense to simply prosecute terrorists for crimes such as mass murder, or attempted murder, however states choose to deal with these specific types of offences in a different way. This was certainly the case in the aftermath of 9/11, when the US declared the ‘War on Terror’. This began less than a month after the attacks, on the 7 th October 2001, when both the United States and Great Britain initiated air strikes in Afghanistan (History, 2019). Starting a war, as opposed to following the usual criminal justice route means that many ethical issues can be raised.

Firstly, if we consider war from an absolutist perspective, then it is clearly going to be a morally wrong response to terrorism. It is almost universally agreed that the actions of terrorists are wrong, because to kill is fundamentally wrong. Therefore, from an absolutist perspective, it is also not right to kill the terrorist organisation that executed the attack, because according to the deontological perspective, if an action is wrong then it is always wrong (Banks, 2009). This simplicity is not the case when it comes to looking at the situation through the consequential perspective. Firstly, because consequential ethics tells us that we should focus on the consequences of our actions, and the consequences of the ‘War on Terror’ are that members of the terrorist organisation have been killed, it may easily be assumed that such actions are morally acceptable when looking through this perspective. After all, having less terrorists in the world mean that there are less people able to cause a mass loss of life. It may seem as though it is right to take the lives of a few terrorists, if it means saving the lives of thousands of innocent people, from a consequentialists point of view. However, the true consequences of the ‘War on Terror’ may not be quite this simple. Banks (2009) explains how the ‘War on Terror’ was quite different from an orthodox war. In an orthodox war, you are simply fighting another state, with the aim of gaining victory over them. Whereas in the fight against terrorism, it is an ideology you have to defeat, which is much more difficult to achieve. In order to achieve such a feat, it seems you would have to kill every single individual who holds that certain ideology. This is of course, a pretty much impossible task. Instead, what is much more likely to occur as a consequence of the war, is for even more violence to occur, with the terrorist organisation gaining new recruits and seeking vengeance. As the peace-making criminologist Quinney (1991) stated ‘without peace within us and in our actions, there can be no peace in our results. Peace is the way’ (Quinney, 1991: 12). Therefore, fighting violence with more violence is only ever going to lead to even more violence. And this is exactly what has happened in the aftermath of the ‘War on Terror’, with the formation of new terrorist organisations such as ISIS, which have ended up continuing the spiral of violence, and ending yet more lives (Khedery, 2014). Therefore, from a consequential point of view, as well as an absolutist perspective, the response to terrorism can be seen as being ethically problematic. On the other hand, when looking at this through the perspective of virtue ethics, the opposite can be seen to be true. Because virtue ethics works on the principle of a moral character (Hurthouse, 1999), it could be said that the US showed strength when dealing with the problem of terrorism, and therefore a positive moral character. Overall though, it is clear that the use of physical force in response to the problem of terrorism raises ethical issues, when viewed through different ethical perspectives.

Furthermore, Kapitan (2005) states that rather than starting a conversation, labelling something as terrorism encourages the use of violence, as shown in the above section. This is bad, because focusing efforts on waging war on terrorism, means shutting down the debate with those who have committed the offences (Young, 1996). As Banks (2009) states: ‘A discourse that demonises all terrorists, whatever their motivation or strategy, denies an understanding of the terrorist’s point of view and means that government policies that might have contributed to their grievances of those who have adopted terrorism are not scrutinised’ (Banks, 2009: 262). This is a problem, because recognising a terrorist’s grievances and trying to understand why they have committed the offence they have committed, would potentially lead to less blood being shed on both sides. Simply reacting in a violent, reactionary way means that this conversation cannot occur, and therefore the levels of violence are less likely to be reduced in the future, as has been demonstrated above. However, it is important to note that this is not a point exclusive to the idea of the ‘War on Terrorism’, even by following the usual criminal justice procedures such a conversation is unlikely to occur. That is to say that it isn’t specifically the idea of labelling acts as ‘terrorism’, rather than ‘ordinary’ criminal offences that causes this problem. Though it is certainly made worse by the violent nature of the response.

Although so far in this essay, the ‘War on Terrorism’ has been portrayed as being simply a war, this has not been exclusively the case. Banks (2009) explains that although it contained many of the characteristics of a war, it can still be seen as being a metaphorical war, in a similar sense to the US’ ‘War on Drugs’. The idea that the ‘War on Terror’ wasn’t in fact a war leads to several other ethical issues being raised. Mainly this has to do with the Geneva convention, as well as other international human rights laws.

Firstly, rather than treating the response to terrorism as being a war, the US may treat it as following normal criminal justice policy in certain circumstances. For example, when it comes to the imprisonment of individuals associated with terrorist organisations, rather than being sentenced as prisoners of war, they are simply treated the same as any other prisoner (Banks, 2009). Because they choose not to classify the ‘War on Terror’ as being a war, they do not have to follow Conventions 3 and 4 of the Geneva Convention. These two conventions relate to how to deal with individuals imprisoned during war. For example, Geneva Convention 3 ‘establishes the principle that prisoners of war shall be released and repatriated without delay after the cessation of active hostilities’ (ICRC, n.d). This does not apply to prisoners from a terrorist organisation, and therefore the US are able to hold prisoners for as long as they would an ‘ordinary’ prisoner. This is clearly ethically problematic, because to hold individuals against their will for longer than the conflicts are ongoing would be seen as being a large problem when looking through the perspective of absolutist ethics. Again though, an argument can be made for this being ethically the correct thing to do from a consequentialist point of view. This is because, holding a terrorist or suspected terrorist in prison for a longer period of time may mean that the general public are safer, and more protected against violence. However, the same argument can be made as has been made previously: that these steps taken may result in more anger and violence occurring. Therefore, as a result, for a consequentialist, this would be an ethically problematic thing to do.

Moreover, by labelling the ‘War on Terror’ as being more a criminal justice solution, as opposed to a war, means that the US can more easily avoid sanctions for breaking international human rights laws. This is by setting their own national laws at a much higher bar than the international laws. A key example of this when looking at the response to terrorism is in relation to the use of torture. Hooks and Mosher (2005) explain how the US have set their definition of torture much higher than the definition outlined by international human rights law. This means that, although torture is illegal in the United States, certain actions that may be considered torture under international laws, are not considered such under US laws, and may therefore be used against terrorist suspects in order to gain information from them. Again, this would be considered to be hugely problematic through the perspective of absolutist ethics, because they would state that actions, such as those used by US officials to gain information from suspects are wrong, no matter the consequences of the actions, and irrespective of who performed them. On the other hand, from a utilitarian perspective, the information gained from such activities could be valuable in protecting members of the public and reducing the level of harm caused to them. This would therefore make the actions morally acceptable from a utilitarian perspective. This was exactly the justification given by the Justice Department of the CIA, when torture of terrorist subjects was raised publicly in 2004 (Zalman, 2019). However, as has been made clear throughout this essay, the consequentialist perspective on these actions may not be this simple. If information about these actions gets back to uncaptured members of the terrorist organisation, then this could again lead to more anger and indeed more violence and harm being caused as a result of the US’ actions. Therefore, the fact that the US in some circumstances chooses not to define the ‘War on Terror’ as a full-on war raises several serious ethical issues.

Finally, it is important for us to return to the definition of terrorism, because the definition alone can raise certain ethical issues. The definition of terrorism does not include acts that have been committed by states, only organisations (Banks, 2009). This means that despite states conducting similar kinds of attacks, and for arguably many of the same reasons as terrorists, these offences are by definition not classed as terrorism. This clearly raises ethical issues, because Kapitan (2005) goes as far as to say that if state terrorism was such a thing, then the level of terrorism by states would be much more prevalent than that by terrorist organisations. This is obviously a massive ethical issue from an absolutist perspective, because they would state that if it is wrong for one group of individuals to commit such an act, then it should be seen as wrong universally. And the fact that it is not described as such when states commit the same action is ethically problematic.

To conclude, the response of the US, and many other nations, to terrorism-related offences raise many ethical issues. They are also often seen as being the wrong thing to do ethically by the three main ethical perspectives. They are wrong from an absolutist perspective, because waging war and inflicting more harm, is always wrong no matter the circumstances, according to this perspective. They are also wrong when looking at the actions through a consequentialist perspective, because the consequences of this response are often that of more violence and more harm. And from the view of virtue ethics, the actions can also be seen as highly problematic, because the killing and harming of people, and sometimes innocent people goes against what is regularly regarded as being a good moral character. Although it is not the sole reason for these ethical issues, defining the acts of terrorists as being terrorist-related offences does have an impact on the way the offences are responded to. Therefore, it would be better, and raise less ethical issues if the actions of terrorists were simply labelled as the criminal acts they are, such as mass murder. As well as this, a more peaceful and conversational approach would be preferable, not only for removing the presence of these ethical issues, but also for more effectively ending the devastating violence that occurs as a result of such offences.

Banks, C. (2009)  Criminal justice ethics: theory and practice, 2 nd edition . Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage.

Borger et al. (2001) 9/11: Three hours of terror and chaos that brought a nation to a halt. The Guardian, Internet edition. 12 September. Available Online: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/sep/12/september11-usa [Accessed: 16/12/2019].

Freeman, M. (2005) Order rights and threats: Terrorism and global justice. In Wilson, R (ed) Human rights in the ‘War on Terror’. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

History. (2019) A timeline of the U.S. led War on Terror. Available Online: https://www.history.com/topics/21st-century/war-on-terror-timeline [Accessed: 16/12/2019].

Hooks, G & Mosher, C. (2005) Outrages against personal dignity: Rationalising abuse and torture in the War on Terror. Social Forces, 83(1). 1627-1646.

Hursthouse, R. (1999) On virtue ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

ICRC. (n.d) Treaties, states parties and commentaries. Available Online: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/INTRO/375 [Accessed: 16/12/2019].

Kapitan, T. (2005) ‘Terrorism’ as a method of terrorism. In Meggle, G. (ed) Ethics of terrorism and counter-terrorism . 21-38. Frankfurt: Ontos.

Khedery, A. (2014) How Isis came to be. The Guardian, Internet edition. 22 August. Available Online: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/22/syria-iraq-incubators-isis-jihad [Accessed: 16/12/2019].

Quinney, R. (1991) The way of peace: On crime, suffering and service. In Pepinsky, H. E. & Quinney, R. (eds) Criminology as peacemaking. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 3-13.

Tännsjö, T. (2013) Understanding ethics, 3 rd edition. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Available Online: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctt1g0b1qd?turn_away=true&refreqid=excelsior%3Aa4ccaed67af0708435bce3019c2fb434&seq=1%20-%20metadata_info_tab_contents [Accessed: 16/12/2019].

Wilkinson, P. (2006) Terrorism versus democracy: The liberal state response, 2 nd edition. London: Routledge.

Zalman, A. (2019) Torture and terrorism in the modern world. Available Online: https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-torture-and-terrorism-3209175 [Accessed: 16/12/2019].  

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war on terror political essay

The Meaning of US Drone Warfare in the War on Terror

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The changing nature of contemporary modes of warfare is a well-rehearsed topic. The legal-political complexities and ethical pitfalls accompanying the ever-growing phenomenon of ‘remote control’ combat, are many and conjure necessary questions about morality, law, and war. What narratives of human worth, or the protagonists and belligerents of international politics, are manifested through today’s celebration of remote control war? What can these changes, and stories, tell us about the underlying rationales governing global security impulses and practices in the 21 st century? This essay explores the manifestation of a logic of ‘disposability’ in contemporary security practices, focusing on the securitisation, policing, and killing of designated bodies and spaces in the name of protecting ‘humanity’. To understand what is meant by a politics of disposability, I draw on both the Foucauldian concept of biopower as the late modern kernel of (neo)liberal governmentality and Mbembe’s (2003) discussion on necropolitics as the inescapable other side of biopolitics. Within the processes of locating the threat, and providing security, in relation to the Global War on Terror (GWOT), the logics of ‘making live’ and ‘letting die’ are mutually constitutive and surface as epistemology, ontology, and methodology respectively. As such, they are equally visible in the discourses justifying the use of force in the GWOT, as in the specific practices they generate.

Noting how debates over ‘the liberal problematic of security’ tend to split between those advocating for a historically materialist account of liberal violence over a biopolitical problematisation of liberal war, this paper seeks to reconcile such a divide through a demonstration of how sovereign and biopower converge in the practicing of international security. This entails elucidating material and bio-necropolitical logics as simultaneous drivers behind global security practices.

To this end, I explore drone assassinations, and their justification under the rubric of the WoT, as a key setting through which to interrogate the enactment of ‘disposability’ in empirical terms, and the parallel discursive frames through which certain bodies are rendered dangerous, undesirable, and undeserving so as to protect those deemed as deserving of life. This means studying GWOT combat drone programs as an epitomised representation of late modern liberal violence, tapping into the existing literature on how the arrangements connected to liberal peace, rather than making the world ‘safer’ de facto generate and legitimise liberal war. Viewing these practices and discourses through the lens of the politics of disposability, and the bio-necropolitical nexus whereby a specific way of life is protected through securitising and making killable alternative ways of life, further allows us to expose such processes of liberal war/liberal peace as part of a long history of liberal rule.

The “martial face” of liberal peace: Security as policing, pacification and governmentality

The notion of governmentality comes from Foucauldian writing on the modern shift in European practices of power from the sovereign to the biopolitical (see De Angelis 2003). This shift entailed that state rulers no longer sought to control their populations through exercising their sovereignty as demonstrated in ‘the right to take life or let live’, but instead through the governing of life. Biopower is thus the converse “power to make something live or to let it die” (Berlant 2007, 756). Though initially intended to capture the function of government in late modern Europe, or to be applied to different cases of ‘governmental rationality’, recent scholarship has sought to apply the notion of governmentality to the global. This has given rise to a scholarly division between those emphasising the continued importance of the nation-state, sovereign power, and neo-imperial desires for ‘reterritorialisation’, and those stressing the rise in biopolitical network-centric relations of power, disintegrating the eminence of the nation-state and territorial boundaries (often described as “global governance”; Dingwerth and Pattberg 2006) in explaining the workings of the contemporary world order (see Kelly 2010; Reid 2005; Wai 2014).

As part of this debate, abundant attention has been paid to the particular nature of liberal violence and war and its role within latemodern international relations. The literature splits into two overarching camps corresponding to the divide over whether biopower can be said to have replaced sovereign power in the making of the international. While the former, in explaining the motivations behind liberal forms of war, emphasises more traditional materialist accounts of the need for “expanding spaces of capitalist accumulation,” the latter seeks to understand the same system but from the diverging angle of the “global liberal governmentality” (Mabee 2016, 242). Instead of attributing the underlying motivational logic behind liberal problematisations of security to a direct interest in streamlining the amassment of private capital globally, the rationale is enlarged to incorporate a wider system of population control, amounting to the control of life itself.

The first is thus more concerned with conventional forms of political-material and geostrategic incentives and relations of power – designated as a return of conventional territorial imperialist urges (Kelly 2010; Khalidi 2004; Wai 2014). Conversely, governmentality theorists are more interested in power as productive, and the many techniques through which the liberal ‘system’ perpetuates the social relations and forms of subjectivity that are required by the latemodern or neoliberal mode of production, globally and locally (Kienscherf 2011; Neocleous 2011b; Rampton and Nadarajah 2017). This form of subjugation is also colonially rooted (Anghie 2007; Scott 1995), as are most things pertaining to liberal philosophy and political thought (Bell 2014; Losurdo 2011; Mehta 1999). However, the emphasis lies on a different logic of authority and power less concerned with the outright conquest and rule of territories, resources or labour, and more with the mechanisms through which these spaces and people are self-regulated into the circuits of liberal governance. To this end scholars have rethought contemporary practices of global security along with their rootedness in a longer history of colonial and imperial governmentality, in terms of the ‘policing’ and ‘pacification’ techniques through which ‘recalcitrant’ populations or ‘non-liberal worlds’ are subdued to be reintegrated into the liberal social order.

Pacification, in contrast to conventional notions of war, implies the act of disciplining or to “police civilisation” (Neocleous 2011a). Rather than value the direct or complete destruction of spaces and people to provoke their surrender, as would be the traditional aim of warfare (colonial and otherwise), to pacify and police means to secure the subjugation of territory and subjectivites in ways that harness and facilitate their exploitation, as opposed to their demolition and loss. As described within modern both insurgency- and counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy, the ultimate purpose of such warfare is to ‘win the hearts and minds’ of the population (see: Bennett 2009; Egnell 2010; Gilmore 2011; Khalili 2012; 2010a; 2010b; Kienscherf 2011; Kilcullen 2006). Rooted in centuries of colonial COIN policies – from the French in Algeria, the British in Malaya and India, to the settlers in the Americas, the US in Vietnam, the Israelis in Palestine, and beyond (Khalili 2010a; 2012) – the logic of pacifying so as to police, and vice versa, ‘unruly’ populations has engendered a signficant shift from overly ‘kinetic’ or force-based military strategy, to a merging of civil and military objectives and strategies (Kienscherf 2011; Kilcullen 2006). Corresponding with the overall turn to a human security paradigm (see UNDP 1994) in international peace, security, and development frameworks since the 1990s, 21 st century COIN doctrine, exacerbated by the security problematics of the War on Terror, has thus effectively harnessed the colonial ‘hearts and minds’ foundation and brought it into the broader biopolitical project of governing life globally.

Biopower and biopolitics thus help illuminate this shift to pacification as civil-military strategy within contemporary global security practices.  Through “[attending] to the design and deployment of specific governmental rationalities meant to respond to a biopolitical problematization of human (in)security,” Kienscherf (2011, 518) evaluates US recent COIN doctrine in Iraq and Afghanistan as a critical example of “a program of global pacification.” It should not be forgotten that American policies in and towards the Middle East since the 1930s have been overtly concerned with securing and controlling regional access to oil, leading many to conclude on American ‘democratisation’ projects in the region as critical instances of neo-imperialist conquest (of which Iraq and Afghanistan since the early 2000s are key examples; Jones 2012; Khalidi 2004). However, through the biopolitical problematisation of the practices through which the ‘West’ has (at least in rhetoric) approached issues of global security and peace, a much more complicated picture emerges tying such geopolitical and material incentives to a larger and deeper running arrangement of rationalities, technologies, knowledge(s) and logics constituting the liberal order as a whole.

From this view, Kienscherf (2011) can locate US COIN doctrine within an ethical-moral and legal-political discourse strongly rooted in a longer history of ‘liberal peace’ traditions (Asad 2010; Khalili 2012; Mamdani 2009; Rampton and Nadarajah 2017), now coming alive again through the practices enabled within the post-9/11 umbrella logic of the War on Terror. Liberal peace, and the Euro-Christian ‘just war’ traditions on which it draws, is fundamentally predicated upon ‘practicing difference’ whereby both life, violence and forms of intervention and justice, are labelled and categorised along a valorisation scale of just v unjust, good v evil (Asad 2010; Krever 2014). Counterinsurgent violence or liberal democratic state warfare is labelled necessary and ‘civilized’ violence, whereas terrorism or illiberal state violence is demarcated as ‘barbaric’. Interestingly, this distinction holds even when examples of the former sheds more civilian and other lives than the latter (see Mamdani 2009). Through furthermore “[biopolitically differentiating] between ‘safe’ and ‘dangerous’ forms of life” (Kienscherf 2011, 517), connecting the latter to a generalised category of “enemies of humanity” and imbuing the former with the right to kill said enemy to defend the rest of humanity (Çubukçu 2013, 43; Mamdani 2009), the contemporary liberal regime of COIN operations and humanitarian intervention has claimed the priviledge of biopolitically defining who poses a danger to mankind, who needs to be protected, and by which sovereign forms of violence and justice protection is delivered.    

‘Making live’ through ‘letting die’: practicing disposability 

Attention to the notion of a liberal governmentality further exposes how the discourses wherein life is valued, differentiate between safe and dangerous according to a person’s utility in the larger networks of liberal governance and global capital accumulation. This entails that contemporary international security practices make judgements on who to protect from whom, how, and why, based on a categorisation of deserving versus undeserving life: who is of use and who is dispensable within the liberal ontology (see Berlant 2007; Kienscherf 2011; Lafer 2004; Puar 2017; Shakshari 2014). These classifications would not be possible without an underlying rationale predicated upon the biopolitical urge to manage and make ‘life live’ (in designated ways). Yet, the management of life is inseparable from, and necessitates, the simultaneous management of death. This is where the notion of necropolitics takes centre stage (Mbembé 2003), acknowledging that it is impossible to employ techniques of governing life without also governing death.

To regulate how death is distributed internationally requires an ethical-moral rationale and social-political rhetoric through which to legalise and legitimise how life and death is managed, and thus to justify who is killed in the name of whom (Asad 2010; Çubukçu 2013; Mamdani 2009; Shakshari 2014). This is where the system draws upon the metric of safe against dangerous life-forms, and just against unjust modes of intervention and violence, essentially steered by their positioning within liberal productive circuits, ultimately perpetuating a logic of disposability . This is also where the kernel of liberal forms of warfare makes itself known in the attempt to “humanise” the state’s or “international community’s” use of force and acts of violence through law (Asad 2010, 3) – particularly visible in the discourses around drone violence, explored below.

Disposability implies the at once biopolitical and necropolitical structuring of populations either within the national borders of the liberal world (as seen in the social marginalisation of migrant, diasporic or poor populations in liberal democracies; Giroux 2006; Puar 2017) or within the international organisation of resource allocation, production patterns, routinized civil, military, and economic intervention sites (to name a few aspects), in ways that favour the protection and sustenance of certain populations at the expense of others (see Sabaratnam 2017, on how this effects development aid structures). Thus, the notion of disposability is applicable both to instances where the international humanitarian regime or unilaterally acting liberal democracies, in various ways step in to ‘protect humanity’ through the active use of force, often with large numbers of civilian casualties (better known as ‘collateral damage’ – central examples being Afghanistan 2001, Iraq 2003, Côte d’Ivoire and Libya 2011, Mali 2013); as to less overt processes of national and international structural violence, where designated parts of the world’s populations are marginalised in ways that expose them to the realities of social or slow death (see Berlant 2007; Mbembé 2003; Sabaratnam 2017).  

Slow death or the construction of ‘death worlds’ refer to the suspended forms of dying deriving from individuals or communities’ simultaneous exclusion from the infrastructures through which life (in its fullest sense) is sustained, while hindering their immediate dying – what Puar (2017, 144) defines as the logic of “will not let or make die.” This can occurr when being denied access to the state’s social security nets, well exemplified by Giroux’s (2006) demonstration of the disposability politics at play in the US in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. It can also arise from being unable to partake on equal terms in the international economy writ large, as illustrated by the consequences of an extended imposition of economic sanctions against states such as Iran (Shakhsari 2014). Of interest to this paper is how the logic of disposability, with accompanying just war discourses, have become integral to the justification and perpetuation of both social death and the ‘kinetic’ or ‘quick’ death associated with the military practices exercised in the name of humanity under the rubric of the War on Terror. The next section will explore drone warfare as one such central facet of 21 st century liberal violence, in rhetoric seeking to “extinguish” terror and promote safe “species-life” through protecting it from its dangerous kin (Kienscherf 2011, 521).

But first, a note of clarification. The point with this contribution is not to make a case for the authority of global governmentality theories over those more historically realist and materialist (say, ‘capitalist imperialist’), but to explore the ways in which the bio- and necropolitical nature of liberal peace and war rely on the exercise of sovereign power – and vice versa. Taking issue with the idea that the modes of power and underlying rationalities explored above have to be mutually exclusive, I do not seek to disqualify materialist accounts of global liberal order and the sovereign security practices necessitated within this regime. Rather, the purpose here is to highlight the extent to which the material imperatives of expanding global capitalist accumulation coalesce with, and compel, the rationalities and pacification technologies enabled by a larger arrangement of liberal governmentality.

The logic of disposability and the necessarily necro political deliberations bio political problematisations of security give rise to, are thus integral templates to both sides of the liberal war debate. Exploring the relationality, rather than exclusivity, between these forms of power and motivational structures is imperative to better understand both the interests that are being safeguarded in the name of the War on Terror, and the old and novel (social, political, economic, legal) dynamics that are forming as a result. This piece thus follows in the steps of Reid (2015), who set out to demonstrate the mutual constitution of sovereign power and biopower (reterritorialisation and deterritorialisation) in the current world order. A claim he made through revealing the extent to which the US sovereign invasion of Iraq in 2003, relied upon the legal and logistical infrastructures erected by the UN and the international biopolitical humanitarian regime as a whole.

Death by drone: practicing global security in the War on Terror

‘Remote control war’ through the usage of missile-equipped uninhabited aerial vehicles (UAVs), or ‘drones’, has become institutionalised as one of the chief counterinsurgency/terrorist tactics in US foreign policy since 9/11. Though initially only directed at targets associated with al-Qaeda, the 60 words at the heart of the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) written in the hours after the attacks in 2001 that would form the War on Terror’s legal foundation, cemented the ambiguous definition of who is considered a justified target of American state force.

… the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future act (Public Law 107-40-Sept. 18, 2001).

Two drone programs were established, one attached to the military and operating publicly in ‘recognised war zones’ such as Iraq and Afghanistan. The other was appended to the covert operations of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), authorised to secretly target terror suspects anywhere in the world including where US troops are absent (Sterio 2012, 198). This program was significantly expanded under the Obama administration, granting the CIA further executive rights of who to target as well as less transparency regarding how these decisions are made. The main theatres of US drone warfare, apart from Iraq and Afghanistan, are Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia. In Pakistan, there has been a minimum of 440 confirmed strikes since 2004, reporting between 2500 to 4000 deaths of which 400 to 1000 are believed to be civilian casualties (The Bureau 2020). In September 2019 reports were made of more than 40 strikes a day in Afghanistan (Purkiss 2019), a country that also saw a threefold rise in civilian casualties as a result of US airstrikes compared to the same period in 2018 (Cheeseman 2019).

The usage of drones has smoothly followed in line with recent legal/moral discourses depicting 21st-century liberal military technologies as capable of “sanitary, sensitive and scrupulous” war: deploying cleaner, sharper, fully optimised, and controllable modes of force understood as “surgical” strikes and “precision” warfare (Gregory 2011, 188; Nixon 2012, 207). These clinical tropes incise the drone program within a larger regime of ‘techno-biopolitical’ expertise through which American, and other liberal democratic policymakers, can represent drone killings as an ethical, wise, and ultimately virtuous, form of war. Via this narrative, technological practices are legitimated as necessary remedies prescribed to extinguish and treat the “political cancers, diseases, and illnesses” constituted by terror suspects (Gregory 2011; Schwarz 2016, 59).

The growing number of critics challenging the technocratic and moral frames drawn on to legitimise military drone usage has illuminated a range of paradoxes and dilemmas, from the inherent asymmetry of the drone war and the flawed foundations of such intelligence gathering and precision targeting to the difficulties of delineating civilians from enemies (Espinoza and Afxentiou 2018, 296). The notion of ‘clinical’ warfare is illusory at best, and collateral damage numbers are much higher than advocates admit. In addition, the destruction of living spaces and the disruption of social, political, economic, and by extension psychological worlds, have devastating effects on entire communities (see Cavallero, Sonnenberg, and Knuckey 2012). The spatial, mental, physiological and environmental consequences of such social ruptures (Behrouzan 2016; Das et. al. 2000) stretch far beyond the immediate aftermath of individual strikes. Combat drone usage also extends American warmakers’ detachment from the actual sites of violence, making the notion of “virtuous war” (Gregory 2011) ring hollow in light of the disproportionality between executors and recipients of force.

Seen as targeted drone killings have been a staple use of force since 9/11, drone programs have furthermore become seamlessly embedded within the narrative frames of the War on Terror, which pre-emptively criminalise anything related to Islam or the Arab world (see Howell and Shryock 2003; Kapoor and Narkowicz 2017; Li 2018; Sabsay 2012; Puar 2017). Through this logic, liberal democracies and wider international security frameworks, have come to securitise all ‘illiberal’ Muslim communities, states and spaces, to warrant increasingly militarised forms of intervention and preventive measures against them. Drone violence has become central to this militarised hierarchy, whereby certain bodies via covert decision-making processes are deemed dangerous and thus killable outside of the rule of law, in the name of humanity writ large. The extent to which drone strikes thus map on to GWOT frames of the Muslim Other as the ultimate “denizen” (Kapoor and Narkowicz 2017), dangerous species-life, or Enemy of Mankind in the post-Cold War era, underpin the drone as a key feature in American practices of disposability.

In this regard, drone warfare reappears as an epitomised expression of the political-moral narratives and legal frames constituting the liberal peace/liberal war nexus, as it so neatly corresponds with the binary tales of the good (liberal) order versus the bad (illiberal, here named Muslim) order in international politics. To this extent, Neocleous (2013) demonstration of the colonial policing character of airpower in general, of which drone power is the latest manifestation, further elucidates the simultaneous bio-necropolitical and sovereign character of drone force. Bio political in the sense that drone programs seek to control ‘unruly’ spaces through eliminating the population pathologies GWOT narratives mark as potential liabilities, ultimately exercising necro power through the sovereign use of force.

Uniting these modes of power and underlying motives, are the logics and rhetorics through which necropolitical practices of distributing death are justified and facilitated. Drone violence exemplifies one such practice. At the same time, drone war comprises a facet of contemporary warfare technologies particularly exposing the ways in which the liberal peace/liberal violence nexus perpetuates the disposability of designated populations, through simultaneously granting their instant and suspended dying. This is visible in the fact that drone strikes kill ‘kinetically’, while also engendering the manifestation of death worlds and the suspended forms of dying resulting from the infrastructural destruction they wreck, demolishing urban as well as rural milieus, homes, means of subsistence, and communal life-worlds – even when (claiming to) directly target only individual bodies. The sensation of suspended death also arises from the constant fear among those communities who are designated as enemies of the liberal order within the GWOT metric, of firstly becoming defined as dangerous species-life which secondly warrants their death by drone, with or without warning (see Cavallero, Sonnenberg and Knuckey 2012).

Global security and private capital

This far, we have explored the convergence of bio- and necropolitics and sovereign power, in facilitating the usage of combat drones in 21 st century forms of remote warfare, including how the logic of ‘disposability’ enables, and justifies, decision-making within the post-9/11 international peace and security architecture. There is, however, a crucial aspect missing in this account of the ‘drone-era’, specifically: the location of global private capital in international security practices.

It is estimated that the global military drone market will generate a revenue of USD 21.76 billion by 2026 (FBI 2020). The key players encompassing large shares of this market are in the majority North American, including GA-ASI, Northrop Grumman Corporation, AeroVironment Inc., Lockheed Martin Corporation and Boeing. Other significant producers emanate from Israel and France, besides China and the UAE (AT 2019; M&M 2018). As stated in a report from 2017, “the global UAV market will be dominated by the US throughout the [decade long] forecast period” (GD 2017). GA-ASI accounts for the production of what is considered the most lethal (read successful) combat/armed UAV, named Predator C Avenger. The Avenger is a development of the previous groundbreaking Reaper, both of which have been extensively used by US forces in Afghanistan (Gregory 2011, 207).

The fact that GA-ASI, exemplifying the kind of actor present at the heart of the global military drone market, is a private company operating across national governments and non-state beneficiaries motivated by private profit concerns (see: ga-si.com/about), elucidates the extent to which national and international security practices are compromised by and forced to compromise with, the logic of capital accumulation. Though brief, this summary thus confirms the size, and consequent clout, of both national and private capital interests in maintaining a global security climate in which military drones are accepted to the point of constituting common practice. Despite the Asia Pacific region comprising a central market, production patterns further highlight the degree to which said technologies are foremost produced by and traded between liberal states.

In light of this essay’s discussion on how drone violence is being used – against whom, for what purposes, within which narrative frames and securitised contexts – the global military drone industry helps disclose the ways in which capital accumulation imperatives, sovereign power, and ‘return to imperialism’ rationalities, intersect, and overlap with, less tangible systems and technologies of biopolitical governance. Global private capital circuits constitute a curious setting, as it makes clear the loose boundaries between, and frequent coalescence of, global governance (the global decentralisation of power and lessened authority of national borders) and sovereign power practices (the ability of the nation-state to still regulate and protect the flow of capital, goods, and labour). Given the extent to which remote warfare is stimulated by the profits generated by the drone market, drone violence thus offers a particularly interesting site through which to study the mutuality between bio-necropolitics and sovereign power on the one hand, and their intersections with private capital interests, on the other.

This site, thus, constitutes a revealing technology of liberal security praxis, wherein death is dispensed so as to pacify recalcitrant populations, justified through the rhetorics of ‘clean’, ‘surgical’, and so ‘humane’ warfare (just violence, for a just cause; Asad 2010; Mamdani 2009). However, at the same time, drone warfare makes equally visible and tangible, the networks and interests aligning in a global military-industrial complex in which private, corporate, and national concerns for capital accumulation motivate the production and utilisation of drone technologies in late modern forms of war and policing. This further demonstrates how economic drivers are allowed to trump such alleged liberal hallmark concerns as promoting peace, security, human rights, and the rule of law (see Lafer 2004) – even though the narratives surrounding drones claim to have these principles in mind. Such is the oxymoron inherent in liberal peace practices.   

Drawing on the material and discursive processes that naturalise and normalise the usage of combat drones in the international, I conclude that liberal war, while wrapped in the rhetorics of liberal peace, governs contemporary global security practices through the simultaneous exercise of biopower and sovereign power. Here, pacification and pre-emption in the form of merged civil-military strategies, have become the central mechanisms through which to achieve the kind of international security envisioned and required by the liberal ontology. The necropolitical logic of disposability is firmly embedded within these modes of power, along with the ethical-moral and social-political rationalities and practices of categorisation – good against evil, just against unjust, safe against dangerous, and, ultimately, liberal against illiberal – to which they are attached.

In this sense, disposability – understood as a principle structuring both the management of life and the distribution of death, nationally and internationally – serves the interests of private/corporate, national and transnational actors seeking to expand the spaces of capital accumulation, as much as the more diffuse networks of power and accumulation incorporated within global liberal governmentality.

Drone programs, and their surgical rhetorical justifications, offer yet another illuminating example of the long view of the ‘martial face’ of liberal rule, and the violence embedded within the practices and problematics of liberal peace (Dillon and Reid 2009); manifesting time and again in the “bloodied hands and honeyed tongues” (Khalili 2012, 5) of liberal democratic policymakers. As such they are part and parcel in a long history of global liberal governmentality and former colonial, now turned ‘humanitarian’, governmental rationalities. Yet, in as much as they operate through the justifications provided by bio-necropolitical problematisations of life and death globally, they continue to rely upon the ability of the state and the international community as an extension of the liberal democratic order, to exercise older forms of sovereign power and facilitate the ‘reterritorialisation’ attempts now demanded by the Global War on Terror.

The lessons here learnt, are many. However, one thing stands out as key in finally addressing the many issues arising from contemporary remote control warfare, including the loss of legality, ethics and transparency in governing the practices of war. Specifically, to acknowledge the triparty mutual constitution between: liberal emancipatory discourses (associated with the institutions of global governance fending for the protection of ‘humanity’ and ‘democracy’); sovereign assertions of power (seen in the US’ ability to kill ‘enemy others’ without neither accountability nor warning far from the sovereign territory of America); and the authority of capital over shaping the meaning of security and peace across the globe. Without exposing this continuum of interests and motivations, the particular politics of liberal death dealing in the international, will remain hidden behind a generations’ old monopoly on ‘protecting humanity’.

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Written at: SOAS University of London Written for: Meera Sabaratnam and Fiona Adamson Date Written: May 2020

Further Reading on E-International Relations

  • Virtual Invasion: ‘Just War’ and Orientalism in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
  • Beyond Agent vs. Instrument: The Neo-Coloniality of Drones in Contemporary Warfare
  • Securitising the War On Terror
  • The Bodies of Others: United States Drone Strikes and Biopolitical Racism
  • Does War Ever Change? A Clausewitzian Critique of Hybrid Warfare
  • ‘Drone Vision’: Precision Ethics Theory and the Royal Air Force’s use of Drones

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war on terror political essay

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    Footnote 7 Schmid's 1982 book Political Terrorism found that "despite its volume ... Not only were there relatively few terrorism scholars, but over 90% of papers published in the 1990s were the work of single authors and 83% of these papers were written by one-time contributors. ... The 9/11 attacks and the global war on terrorism that ...

  16. The Political Economy of Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and the War on Terror

    Land, the State, and War: Property Institutions and Political Order in Afghanistan. New York : Cambridge University Press . National Commission on Terrorist Attacks .

  17. Globalization, Ethics, and the 'War on Terror'

    It argues that while globalization studies have focused substantially on the marketization of life, including the realms of politics and culture, the current 'war on terror' phase has directed focus in theory and practice back to traditional state-centred security concerns and critical investigation of state-citizen relations, notably in the con...

  18. Critical Analysis of The Response to Terrorism

    Although so far in this essay, the 'War on Terrorism' has been portrayed as being simply a war, this has not been exclusively the case. Banks (2009) explains that although it contained many of the characteristics of a war, it can still be seen as being a metaphorical war, in a similar sense to the US' 'War on Drugs'.

  19. The Political Economy of Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and the War on Terror

    First, the foundations of the economics of terrorism are discussed emphasizing that the behaviors of terrorists and counter-terrorists are purposeful and goal-oriented. Then, the economics of counterterrorism policies and the importance of institutional change is considered.

  20. Can the information war on terror be won? A polemical essay

    This polemical essay argues that, despite many presentational mistakes in the West's information war on terror since 9/11, the `propaganda' war is not yet lost.

  21. The Meaning of US Drone Warfare in the War on Terror

    It is estimated that the global military drone market will generate a revenue of USD 21.76 billion by 2026 (FBI 2020). The key players encompassing large shares of this market are in the majority North American, including GA-ASI, Northrop Grumman Corporation, AeroVironment Inc., Lockheed Martin Corporation and Boeing.

  22. Political violence and terror: Arendtian reflections

    Political violence and terror: Arendtian reflections. This essay takes a critical look at the rubric 'Age of Terror,' a rubric which has enjoyed a certain amount of theoretical and philosophical cachet in recent years. My argument begins by noting the continuity between this hypostatization and contemporary 'War on Terror' rhetoric, a ...

  23. Essays on War on Terror

    ≡Essays on War on Terror. Free Examples of Research Paper Topics, Titles GradesFixer Home — Essay Samples — Government & Politics — Terrorism & Political Violence Essays on War on Terror Essay examples Essay topics 34 essay samples found 1 Terrorism and Modern Society 2 pages / 1141 words Abstract This project is very important for me.