20-10-2016, 10:33 AM
Has the U.S policy actually spread terrorism rather than contain it? Will it get better or worse? Why and how?
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Terrorism is perhaps one of the most referred terms nowadays across the globe. “The term Terrorism means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by sub national groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to have a psychological impact on a broad audience” (
The above diagram shows that there had been a decline in terrorist attacks from 1992 to 98 after which a sharp increase is obvious.
The Webster’s definition describes terrorism as “the act of terrorizing; use of force or threats to demoralize, intimidate, and subjugate, esp. such use as a political weapon or policy 2 the demoralization and intimidation produced in this way” (page 1382 Webster’s New World College Dictionary Third Edition). According to the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) “International terrorism" means activities with the following three characteristics:
● Involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law;
● Appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and
● Occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S., or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to intimidate or coerce, or the locale in which their perpetrators operate or seek asylum.
Although some people may argue that to abolish terrorism the U.S policy is correct, however instead of containing terrorism its policy has spread terrorism by; the establishment of radical groups like al-Qaida and ISIS, the general public perception of U.S being an oppressor, the way U.S has brought war against terrorism to much of the Southeast Asia and the torture that has been inflicted upon innocents after 9/11.
In the decade since 9/11, the United States has conquered and occupied two large Muslim countries (Afghanistan and Iraq), compelled a huge Muslim army to root out a terrorist sanctuary (Pakistan), deployed thousands of Special Forces troops to numerous Muslim countries (Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, etc.), imprisoned hundreds of Muslims without recourse, and waged a massive war of ideas involving Muslim clerics to denounce violence and new institutions to bring Western norms to Muslim countries.( http://foreignpolicy2010/10/18/its-the-o...on-stupid/ By Robert A. Pape October 18,2010, It is the occupation stupid)
“The dawn of Wednesday, 12 September 2001 pointed towards a complete insane world of the future” (George Tenet, At the center of the storm). The 19 airplane hijackers shook the whole world as the two aero planes hit the world trade centre’s twin towers (symbolized as the U.S power) and a part of pentagon. One of the jets crashed in a field in southern Pennsylvania. These crashes caused 3000 casualties in the U.S and Al-Qaeda led by Osama bin Laden at the time took responsibility of this incident. In February 1993, a group led by Ramzi Yusuf tried to bring down the World Trade Center with a truck bomb. They killed six and wounded a thousand .(9/11 commission report) http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/repor...t_Exec.pdf
Al-Qaeda is an Islamist militant group led by Osama bin Ladin till May 2, 2011 when he was shot dead by American security agencies in Abottabad, Pakistan. Ladin came to Afghanistan during the cold war. Al-Qaeda was formed in coalition with the Taliban(a radical group operating in Afghanistan) in 1989. Some have argued on record that Ladin was trained by the American intelligence CIA to counter the USSR. Gradually the Soviet Union was forced to withdraw its troops. The U.S emerged as the sole world power afterwards. After 9/11 U.S attacked Afghanistan in accordance with its policy on terrorism and then started the long “War on Terror.” The reason behind the U.S aggression was that the Pashtoons of the Afghanistan refused to hand over Ladin or Al-Qaeda, the militant group responsible for the deaths of 3000 Americans. The point of the Afghanis was that it was against the pashtoon ritual to provide the whereabouts of a guest in asylum. The U.S did warn Afghanistan of the consequences but the answer was that Afghanistan is ready to face whatever the consequences may be. Definitely it is not justified to kill a whole nation to avenge the deaths of 3000. The hatred that rose in Afghanis as the result of the U.S occupation of Afghanistan has caused the spread of terrorism.
Talk about Iraq, America threatened the then President of Iraq Sadam Hussain to call off the troops in Kuwait as Sadam had occupied Kuwait and declared it as the 17th province of Iraq. The immediate reason that U.S gave for its attack on Iraq was that weapons of mass destruction (WMD) incorporating chemical, biological and nuclear weapons were present in Iraq. The U.S launched an attack in response, killed a lot of humanity yet did not find any such weapon. The point that needs to be established is U.S must have been patient. “A 30-page National Intelligence Estimate completed in April cites the "centrality" of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the insurgency that has followed, as the leading inspiration for new Islamic extremist networks and cells that are united by little more than an anti-Western agenda.” (By Karen DeYoung Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, September 24, 2006) .
It can be questioned that why is it necessary for the U.S to fly over hundreds of miles and come to the Middle East? Definitely there are more underlying interests than just restoring peace, introducing democracy or counter terrorism. “The near- and even long-term prospects for the Middle East are not difficult to predict. Either some outside power will have to step in and impose order on the region or it will collapse into chaos and instability, becoming the stage upon which untold number of non state actors, each with a different script , will attempt to wreak havoc upon us(the Americans)”(Vali Nasir, The dispensible nation first edition page no.4).
An obvious link can be found between the present leader Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi of the salafi jihadi movement “The Islamic state of Iraq and al-Sham” (ISIS) and the U.S policy against terrorism. Al Baghdadi had been imprisoned in the infamous American camp Bucca in the southern Iraq for four years. The foundations of The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham(ISIS) can be traced back in 2004. The name of Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi is associated with this extremist militant group. Al-zarqawi made an allegiance to Osama Bin Ladin(the founder of al-qaeda) and so began an era of terror starting from Iraq.” Al-Zarqawi was killed by American troops in 2006 in Iraq. His successors Abu Hamza al-Muhajir and Abu Omr al-Baghdadi were both killed in 2010, whereupon the leadership of Al Qaeda in Iraq passed to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi” (http://nationalinterestfeature/the-isis-...tory-10895). ISIS can not be called an Ismlamist radical group even
The way U.S has brought war to much of the Southeast Asia has caused a significant spread of terrorism. Many countries were either frightened or given huge amounts of Dollars and this way America was able to wage the war against terrorism far from its homeland. One may question as to the interests of U.S that have brought it this far from home. The U.S had the same superiority complex which Germany had that led to world war 2. To establish this point Bill Clinton the former U.S president can be quoted. “Clinton famously called America the “ indispensable nation,” the world’s leader by default, destined to solve problems large or small the world over.”( The Indispensable Nation, Vali Nasr page # 12). But history tells that such kind of attitude does not do any good; during the 18th and 19th centuries when British Empire was at its peak, it was said that “”the sun never sets on the British empire” yet colonies got independence one after the other, Hitler had the superiority complex pertaining to the Aryan race but Germany was defeated in the world war. As the famous proverb says that “history repeats itself” it can be seen that though U.S came in Southeast Asia as the “world’s leader by default” yet it lost credibility on account of its foreign policies.
The way U.S image of being an oppressor has been interpreted by the world has indeed spread terrorism. But first the question that needs to be answered is why U.S is considered an oppressor? Definitely because of the American policies which in return depend upon the mandate of the political party (republicans or the democrats) that hold the office in the U.S and for sure on the elected President. Bill Clinton the 42nd president of the U.S and a representative of the Democrats wanted to change the whole world in a way that America remained the sole superpower and it can be seen that America took arms in that era and got too involved in world politics focusing less on internal issues. When George W. Bush(2001-2009) came to power U.S policy changed in response to the unfortunate incident of 9/11. To avenge the deaths of 3000 Americans immediately Afghanistan was attacked so as to crush the al-Qaeda threat once and forever. America and its allies over run Afghanistan in a matter of days but were not able to put an end to al-Qaeda and other extremist groups. To this day the threat remains there in fact on broader basis the whole world has now been exposed to terrorism. It seems that there was some fault in the U.S war strategy i.e. there were some loop holes partly because this part of the world was not what the U.S previously had encountered. In fact the terrain , geography ,the rituals and social culture of the pashtoon tribesman of Afghanistan were novel for the Americans. Question is what happened? Humanity was slaughtered because the consequences of the war were not bounded to terrorists. Civilians were killed. More than 300,000 families were affected. Hatred for the oppressors made its way because the people were not able to figure out why a whole nation had to be killed to take revenge of what 19 people had done. The war is still going on Afghanistan proved a swamp for America and its allies, it is 2014 now and yet the war waged in 2001 is not anywhere near its end. “In June 2006 more international troops died in Afghanistan than in the Iraq conflict” (The Indispensable Nation, page 14, Vali Nasr). The whole world thought of a change in America’s policy when Barack Hussein Obama became the president. Obama during the election campaign very explicitly referred to the point that U.S soldiers will be brought back, the war will be put to an end but it has been around 5 years since Obama came into power yet the promise has not been fulfilled. “One of the leaders pointed the correlation between U.S attacks and Arab(but also Pakistani) youth packing up to fight America, when Richard Holbrooke who was appointed by the new president Obama as a special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan tried to persuade the international community especially the Middle east leaders to help the U.S in restoring peace in Afghanistan.”(The Indispensable Nation, Page 8 Vali Nasr).
The U.S wants to restore peace in Afghanistan by establishing a democratic government there which has a support of an Afghan army behind it. But why does the U.S forgets the consequences of the Afghan army raised by soviet union during the cold war. When Russian troops were called back it took a little time before Kabul(the capital of Afghanistan) was siege by that army which by than had turned into a group of organized insurgents. U.S lost its credibility in case of Afghanistan partially because of the Iraq war and both these occupations were enough to reshape U.S image in the world.
“Current U.S counter terrorism policy focuses on targeting individual perpetrators and “upstream cause” rather than on countering the ideology that is fueling the growth of jihadist franchise”(The council on Global Strategy, Katharine C. Gorka, October 21,2014). The way terrorism has spread because of the torture inflicted upon innocents is evident from the percentage of people that have been involved in some kind of terrorist activity after being released from Guantanamo bay ( a U.S military detention centre located in Cuba). It has been argued that sometimes innocents have to bear the severe torture just because the U.S security agencies have some vague information. Especially immediately after 9/11 Muslims living in the U.S were arrested or interrogated. This biased attitude has been a leading factor raising terrorism because the Muslim community all over the world sees it as unjustified.
According to some people the U.S policy has been able to rectify terrorism. One of the most important point proposed to backend this argument is that if the U.S had not been so aggressive in waging war against terrorism, Osama Bin Laden would never have been killed. In fact things have improved as the death of Laden and other key figures have broken the strong networks of Radical groups especially al-Qaeda, Taliban and ISIS among others. Others say that the U.S being the world superpower is a trend setter, with time the changes brought by the U.S in its homeland security in accordance with the policy against terrorism have been followed by others resulting in a decrease in terrorists activities. While others say that U.S policy against counter terrorism has been effective in the way that it has united the whole international community against terrorism.
Yet these international ties against terrorism have spread terrorism because the countries which previously have not been involved in War against Terror had to come up in the front. The result? Terrorists attacking U.S allies. For instance, Pakistan is now on the forefront of this battle. Why? Because of allying with the U.S. Now this war is Pakistan’s war. Terrorists attacks have become a norm in Pakistan as a result. The U.S weapons and the military training which have been provided in Afghanistan by U.S and Pakistan also to be used against USSR during the cold war are now being used to counter back. It seems that both Pakistan and the U.S were not able to foresee the consequences at the right time.
The U.S policy regarding counter terrorism should focus on eradicating the ideology that raises terrorism because nowadays terrorist attacks are not just meant to frighten others, express emotional hatred or try to pressurize governments but this has become a sect in itself. The way each country is trying to come up with its own sect (especially referring to the Muslim countries) and each sect declaring others as infidels and slaughtering them requires a lot more effort than is being put in at the moment. Terrorism is not something that is bound to the U.S only nor is the U.S policy the only reason behind its spread. The international politics, the idea of being superior to others, the global financial crisis and the lack of proper education that nurtures the concepts of right and wrong are among the other main issues pertaining to the problem of terrorism. The recent events in Peshawar have made it clear that Terrorists have no religion. If Terrorism has to be crushed once and for ever than Tamil Nadu can be taken as a benchmark. For 30 years it waged war against the rebels, the terrorists and the insurgents and at last after sacrificing a lot of lives peace was restored.