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After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Bush administration declared a worldwide "war on terror," involving open and covert military operations, new security legislation, efforts to block the financing of terrorism, and more. Washington called on other states to join in the fight against terrorism asserting that "either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." Many governments joined this campaign, often adopting harsh new laws, lifting long-standing legal protections and stepping up domestic policing and intelligence work. Critics charge that the "war on terrorism" is an ideology of fear and repression that creates enemies and promotes violence rather than mitigating acts of terror and strengthening security. The worldwide campaign has too often become an excuse for governments to repress opposition groups and disregard international law and civil liberties.

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Picture credit: Reuters

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Bush administration declared a worldwide "war on terror," involving open and covert military operations, new security legislation, efforts to block the financing of terrorism, and more. Washington called on other states to join in the fight against terrorism asserting that "either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." Many governments joined this campaign, often adopting harsh new laws, lifting long-standing legal protections and stepping up domestic policing and intelligence work.

Critics charge that the "war on terrorism" is an ideology of fear and repression that creates enemies and promotes violence rather than mitigating acts of terror and strengthening security. The worldwide campaign has too often become an excuse for governments to repress opposition groups and disregard international law and civil liberties. Governments should address terrorism through international cooperation, using international law and respecting civil liberties and human rights. Governments should also address the root causes of terrorism, notably political alienation due to prejudice, state-sponsored violence and poverty.

This site deals with the idea and practice of the "war on terrorism." Materials critically analyze the "war" and its consequences. The site looks at terrorism's history and root causes and how the concept has been used and abused.

2011

The recent targeted killing of Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen by the US has started a renewed debate over US counter-terrorism policies. The targeted elimination of US citizen and radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki for his alleged role as a terrorist affiliate raises troubling international legal questions. This demonstrates how the US justifies any means in the name of security, similar to the justifications used to explain the detainee interrogation practices used after 9/11. Critics of the killing have focused heavily on Awlaki's US citizenship, and the obligation of the government to protect its citizens for harm. (Al Jazeera)

The death of Osama bin Laden is being celebrated across the US. This article however highlights how the extra-judicial killing of bin Laden by the US military undermines the rule of law and paints an ugly picture of the Obama administration. Whether or not a trial would have provided satisfaction to the victims of 9/11, this article argues that retribution through killing will only exacerbate tensions and destabilize the judicial process. ( Open Democracy)

2010

In Afghanistan, secret military teams have been given a mandate to pursue alleged members of "terrorists" and are seen as "manhunting" operations with the units assigned to them as "capture/kill" teams. Wikileaks has published the mass of secret U.S. military and intelligence documents that reveal how capture/kill teams have left a trail of dead civilian bodies. The covert "joint" teams involving the CIA and various military special operations forces are a key part of a new military "doctrine" developed in 1980 and came to be known as "find, fix, finish, and follow-up" missions, denoting how alleged terrorists are to be dealt with. Military experts are disquieted by the creation of such global hunter-killer teams who regularly kill civilians in their raids on supposed "targets." (Alternet)

The shadow "war against terrorism" began in the Bush administration but expanded under President Obama, who ironically became popular due to his early opposition to the invasion of Iraq. The United States has increased military and intelligence operations in a dozen countries. These shadow wars have fuelled anti-American rage; blurred the lines between soldiers and spies;weakened Congressional oversight and led to a reliance on authoritarian foreign leader. (The New York Times)

Four "high-value" prisoners were flown out of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility just months after they arrived in 2003, before the Supreme Court could grant them access to lawyers. They were transferred to a CIA "black site" for two years of interrogation, during which time they could not speak with attorneys or human rights observers. The AP discovered that top White House, Justice Department, Pentagon and CIA officials were involved in the prisoner transfer, which law professor Jonathon Hafetz called "a shell game to hide detainees from the courts." This incident suggests that Washington is willing to go to great lengths to keep "valuable" prisoners outside the US court system. ( Huffington Post)

A TIME Magazine cover featuring a young Afghan woman whose nose had been cut off by the Taliban sparked fierce debate about the issue's message. The cover's title suggested that such crimes against women would increase if the US-led military force were to leave Afghanistan prematurely. Many have claimed that TIME engaged in "emotional blackmail" and exploited "gender politics to pitch for the status quo-a continued US military involvement." Women's lives have not improved overall as a result of the war (read GPF's previous posting on this issue, below). Telling Aisha's story may raise awareness about the plight of women in Afghanistan, but drawing a connection between her situation and the US occupation is both inaccurate and manipulative. ( BBC)

More than 170 men who have not been convicted, or in some cases even charged with a criminal offense, are being kept in indefinite detention in Guantanamo Bay. As the Obama administration moves forward with the military trials at the detention facility, it is difficult to see how the President is fulfilling his commitment to "re-establishing our [US] credibility as a nation committed to the rule of law." For all of President Obama's rhetoric about closing Guantanamo and providing fair trials for the detainees, he has been unable to translate these promises into reality. The maintenance of Guantanamo is just one of the ways in which this administration continues to resemble that of George W. Bush. ( Crimes of War Project)

The Time Magazine's cover story on the plight of Afghan women contributes to justifying the war on humanitarian "civilizing" grounds instead of criticizing it on the same grounds. Military solutions to social problems fail to make the distinction between Islam and the Taliban or explain how women's rights can be attained by such means. This author suggests that "the war to liberate the women of Afghanistan," is more concerned with promoting "men's wars" rather than women's rights, whilst Muslim women are being progressively silenced in this discursive battle. ( Al-Jazeera)

This author suggests Pakistani women are central to the ideological battleground between the Taliban and the US military: the former using Islamic extremism to exclude women from the public sphere, the latter using western notions of liberation and progress to orchestrate women's unveiling. Although driven by contrasting ideologies, both serve to further disempower women from decision making. Security Council Resolution 1325 highlighted the contributions that women can make to conflict prevention and resolution, peacekeeping and peacebuilding. Yet this suppression of female agency in Pakistan denies the importance of women's equal and full participation as active agents in peace and security. ( The Express Tribune)

The CIA uses unmanned drones to carry out targeted killings in Afghanistan and Pakistan raising serious questions of legality. Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapportuer on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions will deliver a report on June 3 to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva which argues that drone use should be restricted to the US military. The report says that the "life and death" power of drones should be entrusted to regular armed forces and not intelligence agencies like the CIA which have much less transparent oversight. It is unlikely that the Obama Administration will alter its policy, as drone attacks have become an increasingly important tactic in US "counter terrorism operations" in Pakistan and Afghanistan. ( IPS)

In a commencement speech at the US Military Academy at West Point, President Obama set out a new national security doctrine which attempts to distance his administration from George W Bush's policy of "distinctly US internationalism." Obama pledged to shape a new "international order" based on diplomacy and engagement to resolve such global challenges as "violent extremism and insurgency", nuclear weapons, climate change and preventing conflict. However, as he calls for global cooperation, Obama has intensified the US war in Afghanistan and secret operations in the Middle East. ( Washington Post)

A US Court of Appeals ruled that three men, who were captured outside Afghanistan and have been detained for years without trial, have no right to habeas corpus hearings in US Courts as Bagram is "on the sovereign territory of another government." If the precedent stands, it will provide further justification for the Obama Administration's policy of detaining terrorism suspects overseas for indefinite periods to avoid judicial oversight. ( New York Times)

U.S. drone attacks continue to devastate civilians in Pakistan yet remain shrouded in secrecy. Pakistanis learn nothing of the attacks, and U.S. newspaper reports mention no more than a few words on the location of the strike and the estimated death toll. Victims and witnesses of these attacks openly question the legitimacy of a strategy that kills many innocent civilians and only serves to instill anti-American hatred in the local population. These victims link indifference and inaction on drone warfare to the state of U.S. democracy: "What kind of democracy is America where people do not ask these questions?" (CommonDreams)

Six former Guantanamo Bay prisoners are claiming civil damages against the UK Government alleging that the MI5 and MI6 "aided and abetted their unlawful imprisonment" at numerous locations around the world, including Guantanamo Bay, where they were tortured. Controversially, the UK Government asked for the trial to be heard under the "closed material procedure" meaning that the claimants would not see large parts of the evidence being used by the Government to defend the allegations. The High Court denied the Government's request, with Lord Neuberger stating that "it would undermine one of the most fundamental principles of the common law," the right of a party to know the case again him. ( The Times)

After his inauguration, President Barak Obama signed an Executive Order mandating more humane conditions for prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and the closure of the prison within a year. With the January 22 deadline passed, the detention camp reflects the Obama Administration's failure to change US national security policy from the framework of the Bush Administration's "War on Terror." While the new administration has prohibited torture and inhuman treatment, the defining injustice of Guantanamo - the indefinite imprisonment of individuals without charge or trial - remains. ( The American Prospect)

On taking office, President Obama pledged to close Guantanamo Bay prison and abolish many of the detainee practices of the George W. Bush administration. The Obama administration is currently drafting "classified guidelines" to determine whether new captured terrorist suspects should be placed in long-term detention or whether they should be prosecuted. The guidelines will also provide answers on where to hold them and how to interrogate them. Bagram air base in Afghanistan appears to be the favoured location, in part because prisoners there are denied access to United States courts. ( LA Times)

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, a former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, has revealed that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld covered up the imprisonment of hundreds of innocent men in Guantánamo Bay. According to Wilkerson, they feared that releasing these prisoners would jeopardize their push for war in Iraq and the broader War on Terror. This is the first time that such allegations have been made by a senior member of the Bush administration. Wilkerson made the accusations in support of a lawsuit filed by a Guantánamo detainee against a list of American officials. ( The Times)

On June 9, 2006, three prisoners at Guantanamo died suddenly and violently with Rear Admiral Harry Harris quick to declare the deaths "suicides." According to the US Naval Criminal Investigative Serivce documents, each prisoner had fashioned a noose from torn sheets and t-shirts, was able to bind their own hands, stuff rags into their throats and tie the noose to the top of the cell's eight-foot-high steel-mesh walls. Evidence suggests that the Obama administration has failed to seriously investigate the deaths and may have continued a cover-up of the possible homicides of these prisoners. ( Harpers Magazine)

The US Government has detained an unknown number of prisoners at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan since 2002, some of whom have been held for up to six years without charge or a fair hearing. Concerned that Bagram has become the new Guantanamo, the American Civil Liberties Union has filed habeas corpus petitions to allow four prisoners access to lawyers and the opportunity to challenge in court the legality of their detention. ( IPS)

According to Senator Lindsey Graham, the White House is again considering a "preventative detention" statute to govern persons held at Guantanamo Bay. The proposed statute would assist in the closing of Guantanamo Bay and govern the detention of persons, by the US government, outside the criminal justice system. There is concern from Human Rights Watch that the statute would "turn the anomaly of Guantanamo Bay into a permanent legal norm" and would give future President's the unfettered authority to detain people without trial "not because they were captured on a military battlefield but because they are considered a threat against national security." ( Politico)

A study conducted by a group of UN Special Rapporteurs has concluded that "secret detention in connection with counterterrorist policies remains a serious problem." The study, conducted by four independent UN human rights experts, details secret detention practices used by the US in the "Global War on Terror" and expresses concern over the fate of dozens of persons still held in secret CIA run prisons. ( Truthout)

The US administration has been exploiting a recently foiled terrorist coup, the Najibullah Ziza case, to justify the Patriot and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Acts. Such fear mongering resembles the behavior of the previous administration. By publicly connecting the Patriot Act with prevented terrorist attacks the administration misleadingly suggests that the plot could not or would not have been thwarted without recourse to such extreme surveillance measures. (Salon)

In 2006 the British police thwarted a terrorist plot with the help of US and British electronic surveillance. Some polemicists used this to justify illegal government surveillance programs. However the information used in 2006 had been obtained legally, thus invalidating this justification. This foiled attack shows that governments do not need to resort to illegitimate activities to successfully fight terrorism. (Salon)

Russia recently agreed to allow US troops and weapons to fly over its territory on the way to war in Afghanistan. Russia apparently believes that US and NATO forces in Afghanistan are effectively defending Russia's southern flank. Washington's war in Afghanistan is likely to last longer than the Soviet Union's war in the country, which began in late 1979 and ended in early 1989.( CommonDreams)

General David McKiernan was suddenly fired earlier in May over his failure to stop the escalating violence in Afghanistan. General Stanley McChrystal, a former US Special Forces commander, officially took charge of the nearly 90,000 US and NATO-led troops fighting the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. General McChrystal, also known as "the Pope," is notorious for promoting torture techniques in counterterrorism. He has brought together military and intelligence operations to produce controversial battlefield results. The decision of the Obama administration to appoint McChrystal reflects a commitment to large scale, long term "special operations" involving further global military escalation. ( Esquire)

Barack Obama promised a major shift in U.S. foreign policy. However, after five months in office, Obama's policies seem to reflect considerable continuity with earlier administrations. He has raised U.S. military spending and has added more than 20,000 troops in Afghanistan. It is clear that U.S. foreign policies are largely formed by long-standing economic and political interests and not so much by the electoral process. (Zmag)

During a speech in Mumbai, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband criticized the "war on terror" and qualified it as "misleading and mistaken." Miliband stated that instead of reducing potential terrorist threats, the military reaction created more resentment and backlash. He praised diplomacy over a military response contrary to the position he held four years ago ( Guardian)

The author of this article draws parallels between the attacks on Pearl Harbor by Japan in 1941 and the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor because it perceived the US as a threat to its national interest. According to the "preemptive war" doctrine, which the US used to justify the 2003 attack, the US has the right to use force whenever its interests may be threatened. Both actions are breaches of international law, as the use of military force is illegal unless used in response to a prior attack. ( Truthout)

In 2004 president George Bush issued an executive order authorizing military action in Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and several other Persian Gulf states. Using this order, the US military has conducted nearly 12 previously undisclosed attacks. This broadened the ground rules in the "Global War on Terror" and also removed sensitive military operations from the previous process of oversight and review. ( New York Times)

The Bush administration assaults civil liberties under the guise of the "war on terror," and not many US citizens express alarm. With vague definitions of "terrorist" and "enemy combatant," police can arrest and imprison any US citizen based on suspicion and without evidence. President Bush also abuses power in the executive branch by sidestepping the Supreme Court, weakening Congress, and disregarding the Constitution. With his exercise of arbitrary and undefined power, the US is "sliding toward dictatorship" and falling away from democracy. ( Counterpunch)

The US military holds detainees on secret "floating prisons", before transporting them to undisclosed detention centers, according to human rights organization Reprieve. The US uses ships such as the USS Bataan, Peleliu and Ashland to hold prisoners without legal representation or a right to trial. Reprieve reports that the US military keeps many of the prisoners in cages and subjects them to physical abuse. Since 2001, the US has held approximately 80,000 detainees, 26,000 of which remain in secret prisons. ( Guardian)

This Global Research article argues that propaganda for the "war on terrorism" disregards the historical link between al-Qaeda and the US. The CIA created al-Qaeda during the Soviet-Afghan war in 1979 and also brought the heroin drug trade to Afghanistan. Further, the CIA used the Pakistani military intelligence apparatus (ISI) as a "go-between" to provide funding, arms, and training to groups in Chechnya, Kashmir, Kosovo, and China. The author argues that the "war on terrorism" is instead an excuse to expand US military domination.

"Only when we put terrorism in proper perspective can we start to think about appropriate solutions," argues this Foreign Policy in Focus article. With regard to its "acuity, its scope, and its likely duration," terrorism does not pose as great a threat as global warming, nuclear proliferation, disease, and conventional war. The authors claim that the Bush administration has used US citizens' fear to amplify the threat of terrorism and initiate a preventative war against it - a campaign as "meaningless" as "declaring war on serial murderers." Instead, they suggest that Washington tackle detrimental political and economic injustices.

This excerpt from the book "Selling US Wars" by Tariq Ali analyzes the theories and mechanisms employed by the US to "ensure indirect domination" worldwide. One of the justifications the US gives for the extension of its sphere of influence is the "global war on terror," which the author states is an unacceptable form of "political violence terror." Ali also asserts that Washington's selectivity in enforcing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is another tactic in its pursuit of regional and global ambitions. Moreover, the author criticizes the use of "humanitarian intervention" and "democratization" as reasons for military invasions. ( Transnational Institute)

This Foreign Policy in Focus article cites a growing trend towards unilateral military action as opposed to multilateral diplomacy in solving conflicts. The US and Israel have justified "preventative war" under the "War on Terrorism." Meanwhile, Japan threatens to preemptively attack North Korea, jeopardizing its "peace constitution." This dangerous policy threatens to undermine the institutions of international law and global agreements such as the Geneva Conventions.

This Oxford Research Group report argues that the main causes of conflict stem from global climate change, competition over resources, "marginalization of the majority world," and global militarism. These issues, combined with a military approach to terrorism, and the spread of fear-inducing propaganda, detract from realistic peace-building solutions. The authors report that unless world leaders tackle these four causes and refrain from promoting global militarism and waging wars on terrorism, the global system will become irrevocably unstable.

This interview from the American Conservative showcases expert Robert Pape's detailed analysis of the roots of suicide terrorism. His central finding is that, overwhelmingly, "suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel [foreign occupiers] to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland." A "demand-driven" phenomena, Pape notes that "the suicide terrorists have been produced by the invasion" in Iraq and other countries.

The intelligence services are working hand in hand with industries who profit from war to create a dangerous environment of paranoia. These "merchants of fear" have filled the post-cold war "vacancy for a subversive global conspiracy" with a new enemy, Islam. Their own obsessions and the desire to justify their continued power have led to the framing of community tensions and other social issues as security threats, and a pervasive climate of distrust. ( Le Monde Diplomatique)

Richard Goldstone, first chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunals for former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, says the global "war on terror" threatens international justice. He points to Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prisoner abuse as reasons for more judicial oversight, and suggests UN Security Council reform as a way of "protecting the rule of law." ( Toronto Star)

The State of the World 2005 Report from the Worldwatch Institute argues that the "war on terror" is diverting world's attention from more serious threats to global instability. Poverty, infectious disease and environmental degradation create conditions in which extremism thrives and new conflicts emerge. Dealing with these challenges requires preventive engagement rather than use of brute military force.

This Guardian article states that a general consensus between governments, security services and the media has created a "terror myth," an imagined danger of organized terrorism, maintained through a "jittery media-driven democracy."

This article compares al Qaeda to a transnational business organization with a "promising future as a brand name." It gives several examples illustrating that the terrorist organization's reputation acts as self-recruiting function for activist groups wishing to commit acts of violence in its name. ( Le Monde diplomatique)

The discourse of hate is an ongoing theme in the "war on terrorism." More than a motive it now comprises an ideology justifying all actions against entities representing the ever-growing category of "terrorists." The article claims that this has created a new right for "great powers" "to convert phony wars into real ones." ( Dissident Voice)

Michael Ignatieff believes that the use of pre-emptive war, assassination, limited torture and indefinite detention without trial might be "the lesser evil" in the fight against terrorism. In this review, Ronald Steel charges that Ignatieff's latest book lacks "any serious political analysis" of terrorism, and ultimately amounts to "an elegantly packaged manual of national self-justification." ( New York Times)

Governments that divert aid relief funds to anti-terrorism efforts exacerbate the suffering of the world's poorest people, argues Christian Aid. This report points out that the US government diverted a US $2.2 billion aid program for Afghanistan in 2004 to military projects and emergency relief.

G7 officials are discussing ways to tackle cross-border cash movements as part of the "war on terror." According to the Financial Action Task Force, the proposal includes making international travelers file currency declarations and X-ray scan for cash, as well as weapons at airports. Will these attempts really help preventing terrorist attacks? ( International Relations and Security Network)

This article seeks to explain the concept of terrorism during different periods of time stretching back to the 20th century. The author argues that terrorism is a global problem in cause and in impact; therefore, understanding the background of terrorism is one of the important ways in addressing this world security threat. ( OpenDemocracy)

World Bank President James Wolfensohn highlights an increasing imbalance in world governments' spending, noting that governments spend $900 billion annually on defense and only $56 billion on development assistance. Wolfensohn argues that changing spending priorities focusing on development of poor countries would help to defeat terrorism. ( New York Times)

As Al-Qaeda becomes "brand-name terrorism," many other groups commit themselves loyally to bin Laden's idea of "global jihad against the US and its allies." ( Time Magazine)

The author argues people often use and abuse the word "terrorism" by applying it to "whatever they hate," as a way of "avoiding rational thought and discussion and, frequently, excusing their own illegal and immoral conduct." ( International Herald Tribune)

This article argues that informed debate about suicide bombing is "long overdue." The author suggests the phenomenon warrants neither sympathy nor blanket condemnation but a better understanding of the motivations of suicide bombers. ( Arab Media Watch)

The "war on terror" reformulates many aspects of world politics and the international NGO sector. In the US and elsewhere, ultra-conservative thinktanks have recently set up units to monitor and investigate the NGO sector. NGOs operating in "war on terror" conflicts feel pressured to either act as "sub-contractors for the superpower or pull out." ( Guardian)

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Global Policy Forum is a policy watchdog that follows the work of the United Nations. We promote accountability and citizen participation in decisions on peace and security, social justice and international law.

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Fifteen years ago, 19 men committed suicide and took more than 3,000 people with them. The 9/11 attacks constituted crimes against humanity and should have been treated as such, with investigations and prosecutions of those who helped plan and finance the horrific crimes.

If they had been armed attacks by another country, George W. Bush could have lawfully used military force in self-defense under the United Nations Charter. But they were not. Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq had attacked the United States or any other UN member country. In fact, Iraq had not invaded any country for 11 years, since it went into Kuwait. Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq posed an imminent threat to any nation.

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Fifteen years ago, 19 men committed suicide and took more than 3,000 people with them. The 9/11 attacks constituted crimes against humanity and should have been treated as such, with investigations and prosecutions of those who helped plan and finance the horrific crimes.

If they had been armed attacks by another country, George W. Bush could have lawfully used military force in self-defense under the United Nations Charter. But they were not. Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq had attacked the United States or any other UN member country. In fact, Iraq had not invaded any country for 11 years, since it went into Kuwait. Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq posed an imminent threat to any nation.

To read more stories like this, visit Human Rights and Global Wrongs.

None of the hijackers hailed from Afghanistan or Iraq. In fact, 15 came from Saudi Arabia. Nevertheless, the Bush administration invaded both Afghanistan and Iraq and changed their regimes, killing and injuring untold numbers of people. The resulting vacuum in Iraq has been filled by Islamic State, which formed and became powerful after the US invaded that country.

Bush declared a "war on terror." Terrorism is a tactic, not an enemy and you don't declare war on a tactic. Yet Bush invoked the 9/11 attacks to shred the Constitution. And although he avoids using the phrase "war on terror," Barack Obama is continuing Bush's perpetual war.
Bush's War on Civil Liberties
Bush did not confine his war on terror to other countries. He mounted a wholesale assault on civil liberties here in the United States.

He rammed the USA PATRIOT Act through a shell-shocked Congress that had rejected its provisions prior to 9/11. The act enhanced the government's ability to conduct surveillance and created a crime of "domestic terrorism," which was used to target political activists who protest government policies. It is defined so broadly that it has been used to go after environmental and animal rights groups.

Bush inaugurated a new program of COINTELPRO-style surveillance, in which the government used wiretapping without judicial authorization. A similar policy was banned by a Republican-controlled Congress with the passage of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) after the FBI used it to target civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr.

In violation of FISA and the Fourth Amendment, Bush signed an executive order establishing the Terrorist Surveillance Program. It authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to wiretap people within the United States with no judicial review. The NSA has eavesdropped on untold numbers of private conversations. It has combed through large volumes of telephone and internet communications flowing into and out of the United States, collecting a vast amount of personal information that has nothing to do with national security.

Bush ordered federal agencies to refuse to honor requests under the Freedom of Information Act, an important vehicle for citizens to hold the government accountable by requesting, receiving and publicizing public records.

In particular, three developments on Bush's watch have had a chilling effect on protected First Amendment activity: the shift from reactive to preemptive law enforcement; the enactment of domestic antiterrorism laws; and the relaxation of FBI guidelines on the surveillance of Americans.

Bush also indefinitely detained hundreds of men and boys of Arab, Muslim and South Asian descent in the United States and Guantánamo, Cuba, without charges or suspicion of terrorist ties.
Bush & Co.'s Illegal Torture Program
Nearly 800 individuals have been held indefinitely at Guantánamo, most without charge, in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which the US has ratified.

Prisoners released from Guantánamo report having been tortured and subjected to cruel treatment. They describe assaults, prolonged shackling in uncomfortable positions and sexual abuse. There are accounts of prisoners being pepper-sprayed in the face until they vomited, fingers being poked into their eyes, and their heads being forced into the toilet pan and flushed.

Those who engaged in hunger strikes were brutally force-fed, a practice that the United Nations Human Rights Commission called torture. Thirty-two attempted suicides took place in an 18-month period.

As evidence of torture leaked out of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, a Guantánamo-Iraq torture connection was revealed. General Geoffrey Miller, implicated in setting torture policies in Iraq, had been transferred from Guantánamo to Abu Ghraib specifically to institute the same harsh interrogation procedures he had put in place at Guantánamo.

In late 2014, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released a 499-page executive summary of its torture report. It said the CIA used "rectal feeding" without medical necessity on prisoners. A mixture of pureed hummus, pasta and sauce, nuts and raisins was forced into the rectum of one detainee. "Rectal rehydration" was also utilized to establish the interrogator's "total control over the detainee."

The interrogation policy that permitted torture and abuse came from the top. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and John Yoo admitted they participated in decisions to subject prisoners to waterboarding. This involves pouring water into the nose and mouth to make victims feel like they're drowning. Waterboarding has long been considered torture, which is a war crime. Indeed, the United States hung Japanese military leaders for the war crime of torture after World War II.

The CIA engaged in extraordinary rendition, sending men to other countries where they were viciously tortured, in violation of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. That treaty, which the US has ratified, is unequivocal. It says, "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture."

Yet the Bush administration's legal mercenaries, including John Yoo and Jay Bybee, wrote memos with twisted reasoning that purported to justify torture, and advised high government officials how to avoid criminal liability under the US War Crimes Act.
Obama Continues the War on Terror
When the US ratified the Torture Convention and the Geneva Conventions, it agreed to punish those who commit torture and war crimes.

And the Constitution mandates that the president "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." But Obama has refused to prosecute the Bush administration war criminals, saying, "We need to look forward, as opposed to looking backward."

Like his predecessor, Obama uses the "state secrets" privilege to block judicial inquiry into the US's extraordinary rendition and surveillance programs.

Obama continues to wage the war on terror, although he doesn't use that moniker.

Declaring the whole world a battlefield, the Obama administration has vastly expanded the use of armed drones that began during the Bush administration. Deadly missiles are killing and maiming people in seven countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. And Obama continues to fight the war in Afghanistan, leaving 8,400 US troops and special operations forces there.

Like Bush's fateful regime change in Iraq, Obama's invasion of and regime change in Libya created space for Islamic State to proliferate.

Under the Obama administration, the US military continues to force-feed hunger-striking prisoners at Guantánamo.
Terror as Blowback Against US Foreign Policy
Both the Bush and Obama administrations have conducted the war on terror by combating the symptoms of terrorism rather than grappling with its root causes. They have succeeded in maintaining an atmosphere of fear, shifting the national discourse away from the reasons why the US is hated.

That hatred dates back to the stationing of US troops at the holy sites of Islam in Saudi Arabia, the killing of one million Iraqis -- half of them children -- with punishing sanctions during the 1990s, and the United States' uncritical support of Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands. The hatred is exacerbated by the perpetual war the US is waging in Afghanistan and much of the Middle East.

Contrary to his periodic proclamations about transparency, Obama has continued his wars in obscurity, except in cases where he has been forced to reveal information through the Freedom of Information Act.

We owe a debt of gratitude to courageous whistleblowers like Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, John Kiriakou and others, who have stripped the veil of secrecy from the US torture, drone and surveillance programs. Obama has responded to their truth-telling with prosecutions under the Espionage Act, rivaling all prior presidents combined in his aggressive pursuit of whistleblowers.

Meanwhile, with some 800 US military bases abroad, the tentacles of American Empire are reaching further and tightening their grasp.

In the words of Andrew Bacevich, "There is no strategy [for the war on terror]. None. Zilch. We're on a multitrillion dollar bridge to nowhere, with members of the national security establishment more or less content to see where it leads."

But there is a strategy for the American people to stand up to endless war. As Phyllis Bennis has suggested, we must call for "a massive reduction of the military budget," slated at $619 billion this year. We must also "demand to replace the so-called global War on Terror with nonmilitary solutions," since "killing people simply creates more terrorists." And finally, we must "broaden efforts to end the US support -- military, economic and diplomatic -- for Israeli occupation and apartheid."

There is little doubt that the permanent war on terror will continue in a Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump administration, stealing precious resources that could be used to fight climate change, enhance our educational and healthcare systems, and rebuild our crumbling infrastructure.

It is up to all of us to speak out, write and protest against endless war. That means pressuring Congress and the White House, holding demonstrations and inserting our opposition into the media and public debate. Our very survival depends on it.

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Fifteen Years After 9/11, Perpetual ''War on Terror'' Continues Unabated

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Fifteen years ago, 19 men committed suicide and took more than 3,000 people with them. The 9/11 attacks constituted crimes against humanity and should have been treated as such, with investigations and prosecutions of those who helped plan and finance the horrific crimes. If they had been armed attacks by another country, George W.

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It was with disbelief and shock that people around the world saw footage of the terrorist attacks in the US on on September 11, 2001 when the planes-turned-missiles slammed into the World Trade Center towers and damaged the Pentagon.

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Author and Page information

This page: https://www.globalissues.org/issue/245/war-on-terror.

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It was with disbelief and shock that people around the world saw footage of the terrorist attacks in the US on on September 11, 2001 when the planes-turned-missiles slammed into the World Trade Center towers and damaged the Pentagon.

On this page:

1. 10 Years Since the 9-11 Terrorist Attacks

2. Reaction to the September 11, 2001 events

3. Resulting War on Terror

4. Mainstream Media

5. Will violence lead to more violence?

6. President Bush losing the war on terror

7. Additional articles and links

It is now over a decade since the terrorist attacks in the US, simply dubbed 9-11 shocked the world, and ushered in a global war on terror.

And looking back, what has the US to show for its decade of effort? Has it been winning the war on terror? It depends how it is measured. The killing of Osama Bin Laden was of course a major success. But the cost of vengeance (instead of justice) has also been high:

A further turn towards hatred and a rise in those who think most Muslims are terrorists, that Islam is a threat to the world, etc.

Wars that have seen far more than the 3,500 deaths that the US saw, and a self-fulfilling prophecy; creating more anger and resentment against the US, more potential terrorists, and the complete opposite of what the neo-cons wanted; global downturn and US decline instead consolidating their power and position in the world.

Over 6,000 US soldiers killed in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Possibly 100 times that number of civilians in those countries (in Iraq, at an early point, there was an estimated range of 400,000 to 900,000 civilian deaths, which of course Bush had to reject, claiming it used flawed techniques, even though it used estimation techniques his own government agencies taught others to use).

And also worryingly, as Inter Press Service (IPS) correspondent Jim Lobe notes, Al Qaeda's project for ending the American Century appears to have largely succeeded:

Al Qaeda appears to have largely succeeded in its hopes of accelerating the decline of U.S. global power, if not bringing it to the brink of collapse.

That appears to be the strong consensus of the foreign-policy elite which, with only a few exceptions, believes that the administration of President George W. Bush badly over-reacted to the attacks and that that over-reaction continues to this day.

Jim Lobe, Al Qaeda's Project for Ending the American Century Largely Succeeded, Inter Press Service, September 8, 2011

The rest of Jim Lobe's article provides a useful summary of why Bush's focus on Iraq (under the clearly false and fear-mongering excuses of weapons of mass destruction and links to terrorism), instead of tackling terrorism, was perhaps the single-most disastrous foreign policy decision by a U.S. president in the past decade, if not the past century. This is because it allowed the Taliban to regroup in Afghanistan leading to more expensive military operations and strengthening Al Qaeda's resolve further. Meanwhile, various US actions in Iraq and elsewhere damaged its reputation around the world.

The above summary also matches concerns raised further below (in the section on Bush Losing the War on Terror) which was written quite some time ago, so it did not have to take a decade to look back and see a change in course should have been possible. But maybe the impact of the enormous cost this would have (US tax payers have had to fork out trillions of dollars) was somewhat unimaginable?

The costs have been staggering in almost every respect. The estimated three to 4.4 trillion dollars Washington has incurred either directly or indirectly in conducting the global war on terror account for a substantial portion of the fiscal crisis that transformed the country's politics and brought it to the edge of bankruptcy last month.

And while the U.S. military remains by far the strongest in the world, its veil of invincibility has been irreparably pierced by the success with which rag-tag groups of guerrillas have defied and frustrated it.

Jim Lobe, Al Qaeda's Project for Ending the American Century Largely Succeeded, Inter Press Service, September 8, 2011

For many years even before 9-11, neoconservatives had called for the US to consolidate its position in the world as the sole superpower and dominate further. 9-11 appeared to give them an excuse to push these ideas further and their ideology permeated throughout top-level thinking of the Bush Administration. It is therefore quite ironic, as Jim Lobe also notes, that leading the charge [for such an aggressive foreign policy approach] were precisely those hawks whose fondest wish was to extend, rather than cut short, Washington's global hegemony.

By framing this as a war on terror (which, as a concept can almost never end), an excuse is now afforded to all governments to put in place tough security measured on any potentially flimsy basis. And the predicted war on civil liberties and human rights has unfortunately proven true as human rights organizations around the world feared from the start of the war on terror (as discussed further below).

If the US public mood at the time was understandably full of anger and vengeance as well as shock and disbelief, it also reflects badly on US society that voices for more measured and appropriately calculated responses could be drowned out; an individual acting in a regrettable way due to a moment of anger is very different than an entire state apparatus (that should have time to think things through more thoroughly) doing that.

Maybe it could be argued that with hindsight it is easy to make these criticisms. Unfortunately, however, these concerns were there from the start, and re-iterated many times by many people and organizations during the past decade.

But not all have wanted vengeance. Many families of the victims of the 9-11 atrocity have campaigned for a more peaceful approach to combating terrorism, for example.

Accompanying this has been media propaganda, media manipulation, sensationalism, sound-bite journalism and all the various other problems that have minimized coverage of deeper issues and understanding while allowing various claims to go almost unchallenged. (Some examples and links are presented further below.)

The rest of the article below started shortly after the 9-11 attacks in 2001 and was updated a few times up to 2007. It barely covered any details but still showed these numerous concerns from so many people and organizations were already there and are still relevant.

Reaction to the September 11, 2001 events

With disbelief and shock around the world people saw the news footage of the events on September 11, 2001 when the planes-turned-missiles slammed into the World Trade Center towers and into the Pentagon. What is probably the worst terrorist attack on the United States, was totally inexcusable and roundly condemned.

Some 3000 were killed. Initial fears were that it was over 6000 A number of factors for this revised number, were said to include initial overestimates; more than one person reporting the same missing person; heroic rescue operations, etc. This lower number doesn't in any way reduce the impact though.)

The subsequent bombing of Afghanistan to attack Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist network and the Taliban for harboring them has also led to some 3,500 civilian deaths, according to an independent study released at the beginning of December 2001.

The ghastly terrorist attacks led to a mixture of political, social and economic reaction around the world.

Hatred and anti-Islam sentiment, (without distinguishing the despotic militants from ordinary Muslims) increased, even though most of the Muslim communities around the world condemned this act.

While visible efforts were seen by politicians to try to separate terrorists from Muslims in general, it has not been easy. On the one hand, after years of economic and geopolitical history, there are some aspects of distrust, while on the other hand, extremists in the Muslim and Christian communities are adding to the antagonisms. For example, during the height of the shock and anger to the September 11 attacks, extremist tendencies in the West resulted in beatings and even killings of Muslims. Even non-Muslims that just happened to have long beards or in some way resembled Taliban/Al Qaeda members were targeted. Others saw this as proof that Islam is inherently violent or that it is the primary threat to the rest of the world, etc. On the Muslim side, there have also been equally extreme reactions, from support of these terrorist acts to even being convinced that this was some sort of Zionist conspiracy to blame Muslims! In both cases these seem to be a minority of people with such extreme views but of course the concern is always that it will increase over time.

There was no question that there was going to be some sort of retaliation and response from the United States. One could not have expected them seriously to refrain from wanting to take revenge. Yet the fear was in what form this revenge would be and how it would be carried out as well as what the impact on ordinary Afghans would be, who have already suffered at the hands of the Taliban and outside forces for years.

In addition, some eight months after the attacks it was revealed in the mainstream press around the world that the CIA had warned George Bush of the threats weeks before September 11. This caused an uproar in many places, including the United States Congress, where members demanded more information to understand if all those deaths could have been prevented.

Resulting War on Terror

The terrible events of September 11 saw the considerable quieting of what was until then growing domestic and international criticism of the Bush Administration. The September 11 events resulted in a war on terror which saw support for Bush and his popularity soar at the time.

Up to September 11, 2001, the Bush administration was being criticized around the world for its stances on various issues domestically and internationally. Even European and other allies were very critical of positions on numerous global issues.

But even before the Bush Administration, throughout the world, many nations and groups of people had expressed their frustrations at how U.S. foreign policies had affected them on all sorts of issues, ranging from economic/globalization issues that have deepened poverty and/or inequality for most people around the world; geopolitics/arms/missile defense; environmental issues and so on. Protests either directly, or indirectly at U.S. policies have occurred all around the world-especially on globalization issues-as mentioned on this web site. (See the section on global protests for more on that, for example).

Yet that cannot be an excuse for the atrocity of September 11 as it killed many innocent people. At the same time, people have correctly pointed out that when other regions around the world have faced similar terrorist attacks, the outpouring of concern and condemnation has not been as much. The Washington Post (September 12, 2001) even dared to admit this at such a sensitive time shortly after the attacks. (Their article is no longer online.)

However, behind the unity of the American people in the shock of September 11, a heightened sense of security resulted with concerns reverberating throughout the world. Many were concerned about the resulting crackdown of freedoms and civil liberties in various nations. Many worried that various countries around the world would also use this war on terror as an excuse to pursue more aggressive options on their own citizens.

For example, consider the concerns Amnesty International raised in October 2001, shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks: In the name of fighting international terrorism, governments have rushed to introduce draconian new measures that threaten the human rights of their own citizens, immigrants and refugees.... Governments have a responsibility to ensure the safety of their citizens, but measures taken must not undermine fundamental human rights standards. It appears that some of the initiatives currently being discussed or implemented may be used to curb basic human rights and to suppress internal opposition. Some of the definitions of terrorism under discussion are so broad that they could be used to criminalize anyone out of favor with those in power and criminalize legitimate peaceful exercise of the right to freedom of expression and association. They could also put at risk the right to privacy and threaten the rights of minorities and asylum-seekers.

In May 2003, Amnesty International charged, The war on terror, far from making the world a safer place, has made it more dangerous by curtailing human rights, undermining the rule of international law and shielding governments from scrutiny. It has deepened divisions among people of different faiths and origins, sowing the seeds for more conflict. The overwhelming impact of all this is genuine fear-among the affluent as well as the poor.

In January 2004, one of the essays comprising the World Report 2004 from Human Rights Watch raised concerns about human rights in the U.S.:

Justice cannot exist without respect for human rights. As stated in the preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. The Bush administration's rhetoric acknowledges human rights and insists that the fight against terrorism is a fight to preserve the non-negotiable demands of human dignity, the rule of law, limits on the power of the state-and equal justice, as President Bush told the graduating class of the West Point military academy in June 2002. But the Bush administration's actions contradict such fine words. Taken together, the Bush administration's anti-terrorism practices represent a stunning assault on basic principles of justice, government accountability, and the role of the courts.

... Confronted with a difficult and complex battle against international terrorism, the United States must not relinquish its traditions of justice and public accountability. The United States has long held itself up as the embodiment of good government. But it is precisely good governance-and its protection of human rights-that the Bush administration is currently jeopardizing with its post-September 11 anti-terrorist policies.

Alison Parker and Jamie Fellner, Above the Law: Executive Power after September 11 in the United States, World Report 2004, Human Rights Watch, January 2004 [Emphasis Added]

Even in the U.S. some of the resulting policies on how suspects will be treated, on how access to personal information will be made available for security concerns and so on, led to debates at all levels on what is considered an attack on civil liberties, and what is reasonable for security. On the foreign policy arena, there was increasing concern that the U.S. would be able to use the war on terror to pursue aggressive policies that were previously criticized by many other people. This can range from economic, to political and even military policies. The Iraq war was one such example, where among other things, the concern of terrorism was used to justify a war against Iraq, even though the terrorism links were not real.

Also of importance, with its loose definition of terror, there is concern that the war on terror , will also affect all those working honestly for peace and social justice for all, as even they will come under scrutiny for perhaps appropriately criticizing policies of any number of nations and organizations around the world, including those from the West.

Interestingly, the prevention of a renowned constitutional lawyer and former US Marine revealed that peace marchers and those who criticized George Bush could find themselves on the US government's no-fly list. In early 2007, Walter Murphy, a constitutional law scholar and professor emeritus of politics at Princeton University (described as the most distinguished constitutional scholars of the 20th century) had criticized the Bush administration for abusing the US Constitution. Shortly after that as he tried to fly somewhere he was stopped by authorities because he was on the terrorist watch list as they had put it. He recounted a conversation with some authorities during this incident:

Have you been in any peace marches? And then, before I could answer, he says, We ban a lot of people from flying for that. And then I said, No, but I did give a speech attacking George Bush. And he said, Oh, that will do it.

Walter Murphy, Is Princeton Professor and Retired Marine on Government No-Fly List for Criticizing the White House?, Democracy Now!, April 12, 2007

That peace marchers would be on terrorist watch lists seems shocking. However, in some regards, this revelation is not as surprising as it may first seem. For years it has been suspected that this happens-around the world, not just in the US. In addition, towards the end of 2006, it was revealed that the Pentagon is keeping secret surveillance on peaceful protest activities. Furthermore, thousands have been mistakenly put on the no-fly list, and it is very hard to know why and get off it.

Amnesty International continued their criticism in their Report 2004, noting that both governments and armed groups have launched a war on global values, destroying the human rights of ordinary people:

Violence by armed groups and increasing violations by governments have combined to produce the most sustained attack on human rights and international humanitarian law in 50 years. This was leading to a world of growing mistrust, fear and division.

... Amnesty International strongly condemned armed groups responsible for atrocities such as the March 11 bombing in Madrid and the bomb attack on the United Nations building in Iraq on 19 August 2003.... Violent attacks on civilians and on institutions established to provide solutions to conflict and insecurity ... represented a significant new threat to international justice.

Report 2004: War on global values, Amnesty International, May 26, 2004 (Link is to reposted version on this site)

But Amnesty also harshly criticized governments of powerful and influential nations, including the United States:

But it is also frightening that the principles of international law and the tools of multilateral action which could protect us from these attacks are being undermined, marginalized or destroyed by powerful governments, said Irene Khan [Secretary General of Amnesty International].
Governments are losing their moral compass, sacrificing the global values of human rights in a blind pursuit of security. This failure of leadership is a dangerous concession to armed groups. The global security agenda promoted by the US Administration is bankrupt of vision and bereft of principle. Violating rights at home, turning a blind eye to abuses abroad and using pre-emptive military force where and when it chooses has damaged justice and freedom, and made the world a more dangerous place.
The war on terror and the war in Iraq has encouraged a new wave of human rights abuse and diverted attention from old ones ... while many governments are openly pursuing repressive agendas.

While governments have been obsessed with the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, they have allowed the real weapons of mass destruction-injustice and impunity, poverty, discrimination and racism, the uncontrolled trade in small arms, violence against women and abuse of children-to go unaddressed, said Irene Khan.

Report 2004: War on global values, Amnesty International, May 26, 2004 (Link is to reposted version on this site)

Many might feel they are willing to give up some of their rights for more security, but as Irene Khan notes Human rights matter because they offer a powerful and compelling vision of a better and fairer world, and a concrete plan of how to get there. These global values of justice are the most effective route to security and peace.

The war on terror has in some respects, led to what has been described as a war on freedom.

While citizens everywhere, especially Americans, were rightly outraged at the attacks, the mainstream media has largely concentrated on the effects, the various aftermaths and impacts, and reporting what political leaders are doing, saying or not doing, or not saying, etc. They have also reported immense detail on some of the aspects of the actual bombing in Afghanistan, etc. As with most other conflicts in recent history though, while enormous in quantity, media reporting appears comparatively lacking in depth, historical context, and investigative analysis on the causes that fuel such outrageous militant extremism and terrorism.

The so-called range of discourse then, is quite narrow, but within it, coverage is quite detailed. The reporting of some aspects is indeed very moving and very good. There is, however, appropriate criticism of some extremism creeping into some aspects of the mainstream media as well, in certain circumstances. Importantly though, our range of perspectives is also affected by the range of discourse. This is especially relevant now, as citizens seek answers on how and why such a terrible atrocity could be committed. (For more on the coverage of the media, with analysis and critique of the mainstream media itself, see this web site's section: War on Terror Mainstream Media and Propaganda)

As the 10 year anniversary of the 9-11 attacks approached, having managed to kill Osama Bin Laden, the US officials as well as the public felt quite relieved and victorious.

Bush and his conservative supporters tried to take false credit for Bin Laden's killing, when it was Bush that in 2002 claimed he wasn't concerned much with finding Bin Laden (instead more interested in Iraq). In 2005 He had also shut down the CIA unit responsible for hunting him down, and in 2009 it was revealed that Bush's top officials missed a chance to nab Bin Laden in 2001 when US forces were closing in on him; top Bush national security officials had rejected repeated pleas for reinforcements from commanders and intelligence officials, despite available resources. (Has Bush taken any credit for the enormous financial mess the US is now in?)

There was also much reflection on attitudes and opinions of the past decade.

A major investigative report by the Center for American Progress found that a small group of inter-linked foundations, think tanks, pundits, and bloggers is behind the 10-year-old campaign to promote fear of Islam and Muslims in the U.S.

Despite coming from a small group, their influence has permeated through the right-wing in the US, as another report finds that this these kind of views are typically reflected along partisan lines (Republicans typically being anti-Islam, Democrats being typically more liberal), it is important to note how such a vast swathe of people's views can be manipulated by a minority (that has been quite influential). Groups like the Tea Party and News outlets such as Fox end up entertaining what would otherwise be considered extreme views in most societies to become quite a mainstream view in the US.

All that being said, the media is still important. There are signals in global media reporting that could have been used to help discover Bin Laden's location much sooner, for example, according to the BBC.

(For additional insights, see also this site's sections on propaganda during the war on terror, and an example of how Britain's Tony Blair used fear and spin to fight a war on terror.)

Will violence lead to more violence?

With all the vivid imagery, we can only now begin to imagine how other people and societies around the world have suffered in other situations. With often worse results, albeit not so sudden and shocking, entire cities/regions have been leveled and/or enormous amount of life has been lost in places like Kosovo, Iraq, Democratic Republic of Congo, East Timor, Hiroshima/Nagasaki, all over Europe during the World Wars, and too many other places to be able to list here.

With the US-led bombing campaign on Afghanistan, there has always been more and more concern about civilians being caught in the middle. Indeed, by early December 2001, some 3,500 Afghan civilians were believed to have been killed by U.S. bombing. Furthermore, many aid agencies criticized the food drops for not delivering much actual aid and being a token gesture, rather than an effective one.

Perhaps one of the biggest fears, voiced before the retaliation started, is that retaliated violence could result in more retaliated violence and we risk tit-for-tat violence that looks hard to get out of. In all this, civilians on all sides will always be affected. We only need remind ourselves of that shuddering speech by Osama Bin Laden on his threats of retaliation against civilians and of various hawkish politicians in the West asking for the equivalent of no mercy. Martin Luther King is worth quoting:

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it... Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate.... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; Only love can do that.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Yet, how does one get out of this vicious circle? Of course it is not easy, and even a lot of the peace movement struggle on this answer, but perhaps if more voice was given in the media to these broader views, then alternative thoughts could be considered. True, more on peace-related alternatives are discussed in TV forums and debates, but when it comes to the actual reporting and one-on-one discussion and analysis, the context is limited to the current actions and options. The discussions are therefore within those confines, mostly.

On the foreign policy front, even recent history of the last 50 years or so has been questionable by both Western leaders and Middle Eastern leaders. For example, the support by the west of brutal leaders in the middle east has contributed to an extremist backlash. In their fight to get the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan, Osama Bin Laden himself, as well as other jihadists, were supported by the US, encouraging the training of jihadists and the rise of miltantism to galvanize opposition to the communists. As the article in the previous link implies, while it seems that the lesser of two evils was supported, perhaps the long term consequences were not fully explored and it does seem that violence and fear breeds more violence and fear.

Using Fear

October 27, 2004, the BBC aired one of its documentaries in the Fear series. This episode was titled The Power of Nightmares.

In this program, the BBC detailed how before the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Bin Laden's movement was a failing movement, that had not succeeded in arousing the masses in the Middle East against what it saw as corruption coming from the West. The only place they could go where masses had not turned away from their gruesome and violent means was Afghanistan. In 1996/1997 they announced a jihad on America itself which, they believed, was the source of this corruption.

At the same time, the BBC noted, the neo-conservatives in the U.S. were also failing to get their message through to the American people that their country had become corrupted by liberal politics. After failing to fully undermine Clinton in a few scandals, the Monica Lewinksy affair became a major opportunity. They gained power in 2000.

September 11, the BBC noted, became the opportunity for the neo-cons to create a new enemy to replace the now defunct Soviet Union. In effect then, they made out Bin Laden's failing movement to be a serious revolutionary organization. Ironically, the BBC also pointed out, this was the same image Bin Laden seemed to dream of aspiring to.

Fear, used by Islamic extremists on Muslim people throughout the Middle East, could once again be used, as the BBC ended. This time it would be used by the neo-conservatives upon American citizens in order to gather support for what used to be considered an extremist ideology, even by many conservatives. All this would now fall under the banner of a war on terror.

Yet, a cycle of violence is what should also be feared. Fear may be used to rally support for more extreme measures both upon citizens of America, and upon people of other countries. Yet, using fear in such a way may fuel harsh reactions, leading to further harsh retaliations, and so on. Once again ordinary citizens may suffer the most.

For more on this aspect, see this site's section on the middle east and in particular about support by the west of brutal leaders in the middle east where there is more context as to why some Islamic extremism arose, why support for it was failing, and the impact on ordinary citizens.

President Bush losing the war on terror

Three years after the initial terrorist attacks, it was leaked that U.S. Defence Secretary himself, Donald Rumsfeld felt that it was not possible to know how the war on terror was progressing.

Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror, he wrote in a memo to his top staff 11 months ago. Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?

Inter Press Service added that If that is how success in the Bush administration's war on terrorism is to be measured, then Rumsfeld would have to conclude that he is failing badly.

And some five years after the September 11, 2001 attacks, despite the Bush Administration's insistence that the US is winning this difficult war on terror (especially in Iraq, which they consider to be the forefront of this battle), experts and considerable public opinion the world over think otherwise.

For example, the situation in Iraq, and recently Afghanistan has worsened.

In addition, as the New York Times revealed (September 24, 2006), the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Importantly, this assessment is not from the NY Times itself, but from the classified National Intelligence Estimate, an authoritative and comprehensive report based on the detailed analysis of all 16 of America's intelligence agencies.

Furthermore, the BBC, picking up on that NY Times report, adds that even though the Bush Administration rightly points out that extremists were there before the September 11 attacks and the Iraq invasion, the Iraq war and war on terror has certainly created new terrorists, and moreover, much of it is America's own making:

[The National Intelligence Estimate report] reportedly concludes that, while al-Qaeda may have been weakened since the 11 September 2001 attacks, the radical Islamic movement worldwide has strengthened with the formation of new groups and cells who are inspired by Osama Bin Laden, but not under his direct control.

The report will make uncomfortable reading at the White House, our correspondent says. In a series of recent speeches, President George W Bush has been portraying the war in Iraq as the central front in the war on terrorism.

This report implies while that may be true, that it is a front of America's own making.

US report says Iraq fuels terror, BBC, September 24, 2006

Alternet reported (March 1, 2007) on another authoritative study that also found that the war on terror was the leading cause of terrorism. The study looked at terrorist attacks after the Iraq invasion in 2003 and found an increase in terrorism as a result.

Such reports contradict Bush and Blair's predictable insistence otherwise. The Whitehouse refused to release the full National Intelligence Estimate report, stating national security fears and concerns about safety of agents, instead releasing only a four page summary, which has been used by both critics and supporters alike. Supporters of the Bush policy note that this report is proof that the US must stay the distance in Iraq, while critics decry the Bush Administration's terrible planning and the string of disasters, such as torture abuses and worsening situation, made by the the US presence there.

Additional articles and links

On numerous fronts there are many, many things going on which readers have asked me to write on. It is difficult to keep up with all the angles with the view to write on all of them. As a result, for now, until I am able to catch up, included below, under this section on the war on terrorism are articles reposted from other web sites and authors from around the world that offer a variety of deeper and wider perspectives and views. They are broadly categorized into the sections listed below, although many articles can easily fit other categories too.

Also, in the More Information page is a growing collection of links and sources to other web sites that offer deeper perspectives.

I do not necessarily agree with all of the views of all the links and sources provided, and by no means are they a comprehensive list, rather an example.

Some of the more mainstream sources concentrate much more on the effects and aftermaths, while some of the other sources also offer deeper analysis on causes as well as ramifications around the world. These sites have more links that you can follow to other web sites. More sites will be added as time goes on.

At the start of June 2013, a large number of documents detailing surveillance by intelligence agencies such as the US's NSA and UK's GCHQ started to be revealed, based on information supplied by NSA whistle blower, Edward Snowden.

These leaks revealed a massive surveillance program that included interception of email and other Internet communications and phone call tapping. Some of it appears illegal, while other revelations show the US spying on friendly nations during various international summits.

Unsurprisingly, there has been a lot of furor. While some countries are no doubt using this to win some diplomatic points, there has been an increase in tension with the US and other regions around the world.

Much of the US surveillance programs came from the aftermath of the 9-11 terrorist attacks on the US in 2001. Concerns about a crackdown on civil rights in the wake of the so-called war on terror have been expressed for a long time, and these revelations seem to be confirming some of those fears.

Given the widespread collection of information, apparently from central servers of major Internet companies and from other core servers that form part of the Internet backbone, activities of millions (if not billions) of citizens have been caught up in a dragnet style surveillance problem called PRISM, even when the communication has nothing to do with terrorism.

What impacts would such secretive mass surveillance have on democracy?

Read " Surveillance State: NSA Spying and more " to learn more.

The war on terror section on this web site includes many articles reposted from elsewhere around the web. View this page to see the full list of those articles.

Read " Full List of Articles in War On Terror section " to learn more.

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This part of the globalissues.org web site looks at the terrorist attacks in the U.S.A. that destroyed the World Trade Center and a part of the Pentagon.

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The stark truth is that the Western political elite remains in denial, and not just about terrorism but about the anger and frustration over the effects of globalization, which have nourished xenophobia in most if not all rich countries.

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In the wake of the mass casualty attacks in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Orlando, Fla., and Nice, France - as well as numerous smaller ones by so-called lone wolves - it is simply a fact that no public space anywhere in the world can be considered safe. To the contrary, the tempo of these attacks is rising. President Obama may have been right when he said in February 2015 that terrorism did not pose an "existential threat to the United States or the world order." But this is cold comfort. People are afraid, and they have every reason to be. At the same time, this legitimate fear seems to be poisoning our politics both in the United States and in Europe, feeding the demagogues and shaking our institutions.

What can be done in response? To answer that question, it is first necessary to face what can't. Not all these attacks can be stopped. It is one thing to increase security at ports and airports - and even there, as the attacks on airports in Brussels and Istanbul show, such measures are hardly foolproof. But there is simply no way to police every subway station, cafe and public square from Berlin to Honolulu. So the one sure thing is that these attacks will continue. Even assuming that the Islamic State can be defeated in Syria and Iraq, the group's efforts to inspire people via the internet to carry out attacks on their own are likely to continue to resonate.

This is not something to which people are going to simply resign themselves. To the contrary, every attack makes the demagogues' arguments seem more credible. It seems only a matter of time before one of the extreme right-wing populist parties in Western Europe comes to power. (Arguably, one already has in Hungary.) To be sure, the danger of terrorism is not the only thing that has fueled their rise. But whether terrorism does or doesn't represent an existential threat, it has engendered a level of existential dread that, mixed with the dislocations of mass migration in Europe and the discrediting of the political elite throughout the developed world, cannot be wished away.

One does not have to be a populist to see that the elites have much to answer for. When the crowd at a commemoration of the 84 victims of the Nice attack booed the French prime minister, Manuel Valls, it was not just because the French government's response to the terrorist threat has been inadequate. Behind that may have been the sense that across Europe, the political elite has ignored the festering social environment in which a large cohort of badly educated, despairing and often violence-prone young people born of immigrant parents came to adulthood. The alienation that makes a small minority of these young people ideal candidates to serve as cannon fodder for the Islamic State is obvious to anyone who spends any time in the suburbs of Paris, Brussels, Berlin or London.

The stark truth is that the Western political elite remains in denial, and not just about terrorism but about the anger and frustration over the effects of globalization, which have nourished xenophobia in most if not all rich countries. Until elites fully acknowledge these problems, the rise of the demagogues is all but assured. If the only choice people have is between a political elite that denies or dismisses the legitimacy of their fears and politicians who, whatever their motives, tell them they're not wrong to harbor them, more people will join the parties of fear.

Many would argue that, far from being in denial about terrorism, the Western elite harps on it too much. But this is not the way most people perceive their governments. In France, for example, the state of emergency, proclaimed after the November 2015 attacks in Paris, was less than two weeks away from expiration when the Nice attack took place. This vacillation discredits governments - and the French are hardly alone in this - in the eyes of their electorates and seems to make a mockery of rhetorical commitments to quash terrorism. Public fear and anger have now reached the point that unless the European and American political elites want to cede the field to the populists and xenophobes, they are going to have to take drastic steps.

One option is simply to say that for the foreseeable future terrorism is here to stay and that, as Mr. Valls said recently, "Times have changed, and we should learn to live with terrorism." There is probably some truth to this, but in effect telling people there is little that can be done is simply not something Western electorates are prepared to hear. And in practice, learning to live with something surely means growing accustomed to it. As the rise of the radical right in Europe and of Donald J. Trump in the United States shows, resignation remains too bitter a pill for many people to swallow.

The stark truth is that the number and lethality of terrorist attacks are far likelier to rise than to diminish for the foreseeable future. But there is a duty to try to stop them. In that, the West faces a choice: either the walls Mr. Trump wants to build and the mass deportations that many right-wing European politicians have begun calling for, or a vast expansion of the national security apparatus. That would require serious increases both in budgets and personnel and in the methods at their disposal.

For what the attacks at the Brussels airport, at the gay club in Orlando and at the Bastille Day celebrations in Nice demonstrate is that the measures taken to date, however far-reaching (some would say dangerous) in terms of civil liberties they seem, are not working. At present, we have the worst of both worlds, a secretive and worryingly unaccountable intelligence establishment that at the same time simply does not have the manpower or the technical capacity needed to keep close tabs on the thousands - if not tens of thousands - of terrorist sympathizers in Europe and in North America who have been radicalized through social media.

This prospect is awful but is there an alternative? The war on terror is a strange, asymmetrical war, but it is a war just the same. In any war - including a just war - we lose a certain amount of our humanity. At a minimum, we have to control the worst excesses. By way of historical analogy, it is to avoid firebombing Dresden in the name of defeating Nazism.

In the case of the war against the Islamic State's foot soldiers in Europe and America, this means the maintaining of civilian control over and close monitoring of the security services, the unswerving prohibition on torture (which risks coming back on the agenda with a vengeance) and a rejection of the war of civilizations argument so beloved by both the populist right and by the jihadists.

But absent some miraculous end to terrorism, in fighting it we are going to compromise some of our values. The best we can hope for is to hold on to enough of our humanity to have a chance of clawing back the rest when the war ends, as all wars do.

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In the wake of the mass casualty attacks in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Orlando, Fla., and Nice, France - as well as numerous smaller ones by so-called lone wolves - it is simply a fact that no public space anywhere in the world can be considered safe. To the contrary, the tempo of these attacks is rising.

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Fear has spread as well. In June, the Pew Research Center reported that ISIS was viewed as the top threat in eight of 10 European countries that it surveyed, edging out other dangers like climate change and global economic instability. Around the same time, CNN polling revealed that Americans were more likely to expect terrorist attacks in the United States in the near future than at any point since March 2003, shortly after the U.S. went to war in Iraq.

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These days, terrorism seems not just more lethal and more common, but more widespread. The death toll in recent weeks speaks for itself: 22 people dead in Bangladesh, 49 gone in the United States, 44 gone in Turkey, 292 gone in Iraq, then another 37, another 12, yet another 12.

And by one oft-cited measure-the Institute for Economics and Peace's Global Terrorism Index-that's true. As a rough representation of the global threat of terrorism nearly 15 years after the 9/11 attacks-nearly 15 years after George W. Bush declared that his "war on terror" would "not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated"-the findings are extremely disheartening. War, they suggest, has only brought more terror.
Deaths From Terrorism, 2000 - 2014

Global Terrorism Database / Institute for Economics and Peace

In 2015, terrorist attacks occurred in almost 100 countries- up from 59 in 2013-according to the University of Maryland's Global Terrorism Database, which the Institute for Economics and Peace relies on for its analysis. ISIS, for its part, appears increasingly to be training its sights on overseas targets as it loses territory in Iraq and Syria.

Fear has spread as well. In June, the Pew Research Center reported that ISIS was viewed as the top threat in eight of 10 European countries that it surveyed, edging out other dangers like climate change and global economic instability. Around the same time, CNN polling revealed that Americans were more likely to expect terrorist attacks in the United States in the near future than at any point since March 2003, shortly after the U.S. went to war in Iraq.

But why is that? Why, 15 years after Bush vowed to defeat terrorism, does it seem like the world is awash in it? According to Daniel Byman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University, one of the key explanations boils down to two words: civil war. Byman argues that the severity of the terrorist threat depends on where you look.

It's worth noting that the graph above has its flaws. Collecting data on terrorist attacks is difficult and subjective. (How, to begin with, do you define "terrorism"?) The chart is from the most recent Global Terrorism Index, which does not include statistics from 2015 and 2016. More recent data indicates that the total number of deaths from terrorist attacks actually decreased slightly between 2014 and 2015, with fewer fatalities in Iraq, Pakistan, and Nigeria.

Nevertheless, terrorism is in fact "significantly worse in the Middle East" than it was several years ago, before the rise of ISIS, Byman told me. "Europe has a serious problem, though it's had serious problems in the past" with terrorist attacks in Madrid and London, for example. "And the United States has a problem, but in context with past terrorist attempts"-excluding 9/11, which "was off the charts"-"this is in line with that. ... The attacks that have happened [have been carried out by] lone wolves who are dangerous. But that's actually less dangerous than trained infiltrators like we saw [during the 2015 attacks] in Paris." Between 2000 and 2014, less than 3 percent of deaths from terrorism occurred in Western countries, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace.

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What If the Terrorists Are Already Here?
Donald Trump asks why they hate us-why jihadists have it out for Americans. But the data shows that terrorism today is not about us, at least not primarily. Though they may profess hatred of Westerners, terrorists are largely tormenting conflict zones like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria.

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These days, terrorism seems not just more lethal and more common, but more widespread. The death toll in recent weeks speaks for itself: 22 people dead in Bangladesh, 49 gone in the United States, 44 gone in Turkey, 292 gone in Iraq, then another 37, another 12, yet another 12.

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The murder of 84 people and wounding of hundreds more in Nice on Thursday is a passing of the torch. It is the third major terrorist attack against France in a year and a half, after the massacres at Charlie Hebdo and the Stade de France, and the tenth one total. The 9/11 era is over: today, France is ground zero. It is caught in a perfect storm of radical Islam's loathing, envy, and opportunity.

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Hubbard also cited the head of the Anbar provincial council as estimating that "rebuilding the city would require $12 billion."

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And here's what victory turned out to look like: according to the Iraqi defense minister, at least 80 percent of the city of 400,000 was destroyed. Rubblized. Skeletized. "City" may be what it's still called, but it's hardly an accurate description. According to New York Times reporter Ben Hubbard, who visited Ramadi soon after the "victory," few inhabitants remained. Of an Iraqi counterterrorism general there with him, Hubbard wrote:

"In one neighborhood, he stood before a panorama of wreckage so vast that it was unclear where the original buildings had stood. He paused when asked how residents would return to their homes. 'Homes?' he said. 'There are no homes.'"

Hubbard also cited the head of the Anbar provincial council as estimating that "rebuilding the city would require $12 billion." (Other Iraqi officials put that figure at $10 billion.) That's money no one has, including an Iraqi government increasingly strapped by plummeting oil prices-and keep in mind that that's only a single destroyed community. The earlier, smaller victories of the Kurds at Kobane and Sinjar in Syria, also backed by devastating US air power, destroyed those towns in a similar fashion, as for instance has Bashar al-Assad's barrel bombing air force and military in parts of the city of Aleppo and in the now thoroughly devastated city of Homs in central Syria. The Russians have, of course, entered the fray, too, in the American style, bombing and advising.

Let's add one more thing before we write our future headlines. The day after President Obama gave his final State of the Union address, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter visited the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Eighteen hundred of that division's members are soon to be deployed to Iraq to aid Iraqi military units in their drive to retake parts of their country from the Islamic State. For those future advisers, Carter elaborated on the president's plans, laying out in some detail how he (and presumably Obama) saw the conflict playing out. Favoring the image of the Islamic State as a metastasizing cancer, he said:

"The ISIL parent tumor has two centers-Raqqa in Syria, and Mosul in Iraq. ISIL has used its control of these cities and nearby territories as a power base from which to derive considerable financial resources, manpower, and ideological outreach. They constitute ISIL's military, political, economic, and ideological centers of gravity.

"That's why our campaign plan's map has got big arrows pointing at both Mosul and Raqqa. We will begin by collapsing ISIL's control over both of these cities and then engage in elimination operations through other territories ISIL holds in Iraq and Syria."

In fact, such a campaign would give "elimination operations" new meaning, since it would clearly involve quite literally eliminating the urban infrastructure of significant parts of the region. Three cities are, in fact, at present targeted: Fallujah (population perhaps 300,000), the other major IS-controlled city in al-Anbar Province, Mosul (the second largest city in Iraq, with a population presently estimated at 1 to 1.5 million), and Raqqa, the Syrian "capital" of the Islamic State, now reportedly stuffed with refugees (population 200,000-plus). Put them together and you have a 2016 plan for a US-backed set of campaigns in Iraq and Syria based on the same formula as the taking of Ramadi: massive American air power in support of heavily trained and advised Iraqi special ops forces and army units or, in Syria, Kurdish peshmerga outfits and assorted Kurdish and Syrian rebels. Add in the Islamic State's urge to turn the urban areas it holds into giant bombs and what you have is a plan for the rubblization of yet more cities in the region.

There has, of course, been much talk about an offensive to retake Mosul since relatively small numbers of Islamic State fighters captured the city from tens of thousands of fleeing Iraqi troops in June 2014. There was, for instance, a highly touted spring offensive against Mosul that was much discussed in early 2015 but never happened, so it's impossible to be sure that the overstretched, generally underperforming Iraqi military will even make it to Mosul in 2016 or that there will be any non-American "boots" available to take Raqqa, especially since that city sits well outside any imaginable future Kurdistan. Still, assuming all went "well," we essentially know what the future holds: Ramadi-style "victories."

As a result, the end of the year headline for American/Iraqi/Kurdish/Syrian rebel operations-adapted from an infamous 1968 line by an anonymous American officer in Vietnam after US planes had pummeled the provincial capital of Ben Tre-would be: "We Destroyed the Cities to Save Them."

Based on Ramadi, you could then perhaps offer these "ballpark" (not that any stadiums would be left standing) future estimates for rebuilding: Falluja, $10 billion; Raqqa, $7 billion; Mosul, $20 to $25 billion. Those are obviously fantasy figures, but the point is that "success" against and "victory" over the Islamic State would undoubtedly leave much of the region a modern Carthage. And who would pay for a new Ramadi, or Mosul, or Fallujah, or Raqqa, no less all of them and more?

Put another way, "victory" would mean that Iraq will have far fewer habitable cities and a far larger number of displaced people whose resettlement will undoubtedly be subject to the ethnic tensions that helped fuel the Islamic State in the first place. This represents a reasonably predictable future, one that should be obvious enough to anyone who took a half-serious look at the situation. It certainly should be obvious to Ashton Carter, as well as to American planners at the Pentagon and in the Obama administration. And yet the planning goes on as if "victory" were a meaningful category under the circumstances.

And here's the thing: you can join the Islamic State in blowing up the physical plant of Syria and parts of Iraq and then eject its fighters from the rubble, but you'll be destroying the means of existence of a vast, increasingly unsettled population. What you may not be able to do in the process is destroy a movement that began in an American military prison in Iraq and has always been a set of ideas. You may simply create a legend.

Unleashing the Special Operators and the Drones

Now, let's consider another set of potential future headlines linked to present planning and past experience. Secretary of Defense Carter claims that the US strategy against the Islamic State is focused on creating "sustainable political stability in the region," by which he means not just the battlefields of Iraq and Syria, but all of the Greater Middle East. As he said to the members of the 101st Airborne:

"Next, let me describe the fight outside of Iraq and Syria. As we work to destroy the parent tumor in Iraq and Syria, we must also recognize that ISIL is metastasizing in areas such as North Africa, Afghanistan, and Yemen. The threat posed by ISIL, and groups like it, is continually evolving, changing focus and shifting location. It requires from us, therefore, a flexible and nimble response with a broad reach."

For this, he clearly plans to let loose American Special Operations forces not just in Syria but elsewhere on assassination missions against key Islamic State figures or those heading their distant franchises. He's also intent on sending in the drones across the region in "counter-terror operations and strikes on high-value targets" to "act decisively to prevent ISIL affiliates from becoming as great of a threat as the parent tumor itself."

As with the future taking of cities in Iraq and Syria, there is an experiential baseline for such operations across the region. In his book , Andrew Cockburn has called this approach to the enemy "the kingpin strategy." It was first used in the drug wars in Latin America and Central America in the 1990s and then, after 9/11, adapted to the weaponized drone and special operations forces. The idea was to dismantle drug cartels or later terror outfits from the top down by taking out their leadership figures.

In fact, in both the drug wars and the terror wars, as Cockburn shows, the results of this strategy have been repetitiously calamitous. The drone, for instance, has proven remarkably capable of "eliminating" both the top leadership of terror groups and key "lieutenants" as well as other influential figures in those organizations-with the grimmest results: under the pressure of the drones and those special ops raids, such organizations (like the drug cartels before them) simply replaced their dead leaders with often younger and even more aggressive figures, while attacks rose and the groups themselves, instead of folding up, spread across the Greater Middle East and deep into Africa. The drones, bringing with them relatively widespread "collateral damage," including the deaths of significant numbers of children, have terrorized the societies over which they cruise and so proved an ideal recruitment poster for those spreading terror groups.

Hence, first in the Bush era in a seat-of-the-pants way and then in the Obama years in a highly organized fashion, drone assassination campaigns in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Somalia killed leadership figures while functionally helping to spread the terror organizations they directed. They have, that is, been engaged not in a war on terror, but in a war for terror. When you look at the expansion of those terror outfits, including the growing numbers of "franchises" of the Islamic State, it should be obvious that, from special ops missions to drone assassinations, from full-scale invasions to the destruction of cities, the 14-plus years of varied American strategies and military tactics have repetitively contributed to one horror after another, sucking much of the region into the vortex.

What's striking when you listen to Secretary of Defense Carter is that, obvious as this may be, none of it seems to truly penetrate in Washington. Otherwise how do you explain the lack of any serious recalibration of American actions, the only debate being between those in the Obama administration, including the president, who favor a version of mission creep and their Republican critics who favor doing more in a bigger way? In other words, in 2016 we're clearly going to witness further rounds of the utterly familiar with-somehow-the expectation that something different will happen. Since that's not likely, for the next set of future headlines just reach into the familiar past, substituting, when necessary, the future terror kingpin's name: " AQAP [Al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula] announces death of [fill in name] in US drone strike," " US: ISIS no. 2 killed in US drone strike in Iraq," " Army elite Delta Force kills top ISIS official, [fill in name], in daring Syria raid," " Pentagon says senior Al Qaeda leader killed in drone strike," and so on more or less ad infinitum.

The Arc of Instability

Recently, with Ashton Carter's strategy for "stability" on my mind, I caught a phrase in a news report that I hadn't heard for quite a while. A journalist, perhaps on NPR, was discussing the recent Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) terror attack on a hotel in Burkina Faso, a previously relatively stable country in West Africa, where at least 30 died, mainly foreigners. He spoke of a spreading "arc of instability" in the region.

Back in the early years of the century, officials of the Bush administration and supportive neocons regularly used that phrase to describe the Greater Middle East, from Pakistan to North Africa. Strangely enough, it disappeared in the post-Iraqi invasion years and remained largely absent in the Obama years as the disastrous Libyan intervention, presidentially orchestrated drone assassination campaigns, and other actions helped further transform the Greater Middle East into a genuine "arc of instability."

Today, in a way that would have been unimaginable back in 2002-03, the region is filled with failing or failed states from Afghanistan and Syria to Libya, Yemen, and Mali. While Iraq may not quite be a failed state, it is no longer exactly a country either, but something like a tripartite entity. And so it goes, and so it evidently will go if the United States, as in 2015, drops another 23,000 bombs and thousands of additional munitions on the region-or far more, as seems likely under the mission-creep pressure of the war with the Islamic State.

We can't, of course, know just what countries will fail next. However, it's safe to assume that, as long as the Obama strategy-and the Hillary Clinton or Ted Cruz or Donald Trump or Marco Rubio one that may follow-involves more (or much more) of the same, more (or much more) of the same is likely to happen. As a result, similar predictable headlines will appear, as countries dissolve in various ways and the Islamic State, groups like Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or newly founded terror outfits gain footholds amid the chaos. In that case, you only have to look into the recent past for headlines-to-come and adapt them slightly: " ISIS Is Building 'Little Nests' in [name of country here], US Defense Secretary Warns," " ISIS Is Gaining Ground in [name of country here], Competing with Al Qaeda," " Islamic State Gained Strength in [name of country] by Co-opting Local Jihadists," and so on.

Amid the grimly predictable, there are, of course, many unknowns. Above all, we have no idea what it means at this point in history to turn a region, city by city, country by country, into something like a vast failed state and then continue to bomb the rubble. How do we begin to imagine what could emerge from the ruins of such a failed region in such a world, from an arc of instability far vaster than anything we have contemplated since World War II? I wouldn't want to predict the headlines that could someday emerge from that situation, but whatever surprises are in store for us, the mere prospect of such a future should make your blood run cold.

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Here Are the 'War on Terror' Headlines of 2016

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LIKE THIS? GET MORE OF OUR BEST REPORTING AND ANALYSIS And here's what victory turned out to look like: according to the Iraqi defense minister, at least 80 percent of the city of 400,000 was destroyed. Rubblized. Skeletized. "City" may be what it's still called, but it's hardly an accurate description.