The War against Terrorism - Essay Example

8th December The War against Terrorism INTRODUCTION The terrorist attack on September 11 2001 shocked United States as well as the entire world. Never before had an attack of such massive scale seen by any country of the world. It was an act of war against United States. So it left no choice for the country but to fight back. The war against terrorism began in earnest from that point of time. It has been 10 years but the fight still rages on. The forces of United States have been engaged in War in Afghanistan and Iraq for the past 10 years. Eventually Osama Bin Laden, the person responsible for the terrorists attack on September 2011 was shot dead in an operation which was carried out by the Unites states in the heart of Pakistan; who is officially one of our “allies” in this war (Tom Lansford).This war has taken untold toll of human life, civil liberties and has also led to huge amount of bill for the Senate. Even the politicians agree on the fact that the war is far from over. Bin Laden might have been killed but Al Qaeda is far from over. It is recruiting more and more people for the fight against United States and its allies. Thesis Statement United States has primarily used its military in the fight against terrorism. Military is the final frontier of fight for every nation when every other alternative has been used and exhausted. The use of military in the fight against a faceless enemy was not justified. The fight against terrorism requires much more than brute force which the military is capable of delivering the war on terror should have been fought by USA with the help of intelligence agencies and backchannel diplomacy and not by parading the US military strength in nation after nation. This paper will analyze the above thesis statement and try to prove its validity. THE NATURE OF WAR The first important thing to note about this was on terror is that this war is unlike any other which has been fought in the human history. It is not a war against a nation or a political regime; it is certainly not a war against a particular religion. The enemy in this war is terrorism – premeditated violence against innocent citizens who do not have the ability to fight back when they are attacked. People engaging in terrorism want to effect change through violence and fear; they want to subvert the rule of law and the idea of freedom. As there is no one enemy in this war; the war cannot be won by United States only on the basis of military might. The war is to be fought using every instrument of national power – diplomatic, economic, intelligence and military. This war is against a faceless enemy (Mukasey). The biggest danger in this war is that using too much military might may create much more enemies then it will destroy; so it is a war in which diplomacy has and will play a very important role ; military alone cannot win the war. STRUCTURE OF TERRORITS ORGANISATIONS AND ROLE OF MILITARY. As is the case in any war, the key to success is to know your enemy. Once the enemy is known to us, we can decide on the methods to be used in fighting him. Terrorist organizations did not start with Al Qaeda nor will the end with it. Although terrorist organizations are different in the way they operate and the reasons for which they have undertaken terrorist activities they still follow a basic model which allows them to succeed. At the bottom of the terrorist structure are the underlying conditions. These are the basic reasons why people are ready to blow themselves up as suicide bombers. These underlying reasons may be political, poverty, lack of education and proper knowledge or anger against the state or a particular group. Without these underlying conditions there will be no terrorists. People who are aggrieved or wronged in the past are most likely to become terrorists. Poverty also propels some people to terrorism. However people who are in terrorism for the sake of money usually provide the logistics such as safe houses and money transfers. The foot soldiers of terrorism are those who are brainwashed to believe that their problems will be solved by the act of terrorism. The second layer in the structure which creates terrorists is international conditions. International conditions favorable for terrorists are created due to the act of one or more nation or due to the actions of an ethnic group. The biggest example of international environment brewing terrorists is the cold war. Most of the Jihadist who are fighting against USA today were trained by ISI of Pakistan with money that was provided by the CIA. They were trained to fight against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the cold war. This fight between two super powers converted Afghanistan into a war zone and people who took up arms had no other work to do when the war was over. Another example of international environment creating terrorists is the India Pakistan struggle on Kashmir. Both these nations have fought 4 wars over Kashmir. Both have been accused of violating human rights in the areas of Kashmir under their occupation leading to resentment among people which gives rise to terrorism. As we can see the international environment suitable for terrorism in the above mentioned 2 cases was created due to the action of intelligence agencies or politicians. When the problem has been caused by them ; how can the solution to the problem be provided by military ?Using military strength in case of problems caused by diplomacy or intelligence failures is not justified and leads to more resentment among the population which had to bear the brunt of these experiments. Apart from international environment and underlying conditions, terrorists also require a physical place for training and formulating plans. This physical place is provided by some misguided states who believe that fostering terrorism will always help them. Al Qaeda found its safe haven in Afghanistan. The Taliban rulers of the country allowed Al Qaeda to train it’s terrorists on their soil. Pakistan has been accused by India of training terrorists on its soil that attack Indians in Kashmir and other parts of India (Ruschmann). States such as Taliban’s Afghanistan were isolated the world over, their government was not recognized by any country except Pakistan and they found it hard to raise cash for their country. Due to this shortage of funds they allowed illegal activities like growing of opium and allowed terrorists training centers to develop on their soil. Thus it was the failure of international diplomacy which caused these nation states to support terrorists. Military does not plays any role in foreign affairs of United States. Asking them to solve a diplomatic problem is like providing a student a sword to write down an essay. Terrorism is a complex business. It cannot be undertaken without a proper organization. Terrorists not only need people to low themselves up but other logistical support is also required. Money also needs to be arranged for terrorist activities. This support is provided by terrorist organizations. They handle the finances and logistics part of the operation (Marianne Wade). Most of the support to terrorists is provided by sleeper cells. These sleeper cells are not actually engaged in the act of terrorism; they lead normal lives as good citizens in the countries which are going to be targeted. It is noteworthy that the terrorists who carried out 9/11 attacks were members of these sleeper cells and were leading normal lives in USA just like ordinary citizens. The purpose of these cells is to blend with the population and provide support when someone comes to strike. It is hard to fathom what role military can play in the destruction of these sleeper cells. It is the work of the law enforcement and intelligence agencies to find out these cells and prevent them from functioning. In the end the most important thing for terrorists is leadership. Although Bin Laden was hiding inside a house and never saw the outside world but still he was the face of Al Qaeda. Many terrorist were proud of the fact that USA with all its intelligence and military might was not able to capture Bin Laden for 10 long years. Leaders of terrorist organization brainwash young minds and exhort them to take up arms; so their importance cannot be undermined in the fight against terrorism. So is the military necessary to wipe out these leaders? Recent developments suggests that restricted commando action might be needed from the military side but full-fledged military operations are not the way to eliminate leadership. Osama Bin Laden was killed through a surgical strike inside Pakistan on the basis of intelligence inputs. This strike could have also been carried out without waging a war. THE WAR TILL NOW If we believe that terrorists rely on the above mentioned structure to thrive, we will now analyze how far we have been successful in dismantling this structure. The most media hyped part of the war on terrorism has been the military operation conducted by USA. Immediately after the strike in New York – President Bush declared war on Iraq and it was soon followed by the war on Afghanistan. Some of the famous military operations of the war against terror have been Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan); Operation Active Endeavour (naval operation to prevent movement of terrorists along the sea route) operation enduring freedom (Iraq) and operation new dawn. These military operations look very impressive; but going by the above structure they have attacked just one of elements of terrorist network – States. Afghanistan had been a safe haven for Al Qaeda and other terrorist networks .Destruction of the rule of Taliban in these countries removed the State part of the structure – it was now difficult for terrorist to have a physical place for preparation of their terrorist’s network. But the biggest mistake has been exclusion of Pakistan and including it as an ally. It has been proved time and again that Pakistan has played a very big role in training terrorists and providing those safe heavens. However US have been treating Pakistan with Kid gloves till now (Barr). The second benefit of these military operations has been destruction of the leadership of terrorist networks. Bin Laden , Illyas Kashmiri , Rashid Rauf , Abu Ayyab al-Masri , Sayeed al-Masri , Abu Hamza Rabia etc are some of the top leaders of Al Qaeda who have been killed by US military at some point or the other during the 10 year long operation (Olson).This has been a stupendous achievement for the war against terror. Killing top leaders not only creates fear among the future prospective leaders but it also leaves the organization rudderless and directionless. These leaders pay a very important role in brainwashing youths on the lines of religion and also become heroes to them. Killing of their “heroes” creates second thoughts in the minds of youths who are looking to move on the path to terrorism. But the important point here is that use of military strength was not really necessary in achieving the above objectives. Wiping out of leadership could have been accomplished without direct military intervention. Surgical strikes with the help of commandos is the right way to do it as it reduces the amount of collateral damage that we have seen till now. As far as dismantling of States is concerned, the attack on Iraq has proved to be futile. It is a known fact that the number of bomb blasts and terrorist activities in Iraq have increased manifold since the death of Saddam Husain. Nor were we able to find any weapons of mass destruction in the country. As far as the war against Afghanistan is concerned; Taliban was never a formidable enemy and a full-scale war was not required to dislodge Taliban. It could have been done with diplomacy and simply the threat of the use of military. The third front of the war against terrorism is destroying the organizational setup of terrorists. This has proved to be far more difficult for United States as compared to destruction of States and Leaders. However away from the media glare; this is in fact the most important part of the war on terrorism. Unless the organizational structure is destroyed; terrorist will find new leaders in course of time; they will also find new heaven for their operations if their organization structure is intact. Finance plays a very important role in maintaining the organizational structure – finance is essential for not only maintaining the structure but also to reinvent it. Our approach in this regard has been on two fronts – 1) Criminalizing terrorism finance internationally 2) Co-operation with our allies to allow us to follow the money and shut down terrorist organizations. In this regard UN Security council and counter terrorism convention has now set various international norms and obligations among member countries to combat terrorism financing. UN’s main counter terrorism resolution – 1373 has also asked nations to freeze all economic assets of a person who has been engaged in any act of terrorism in any part of the world (Frakt). These 2 resolutions are noteworthy; however the important point here is that these economic assets are usually frozen after the terrorist activity has taken place – this defeats the purpose of catching terrorist before the attack (Rogers).The second point that USA has been following is to co-operate with our allies and try to follow the money. This approach is very painful in implementation. This requires a lot of co-ordination among the various intelligence agencies. These agencies are usually reluctant to share any kind of information with CIA and look at it with suspicion. Other fallacy which has been seen here is that some of these organizations might be terrorist organization to some countries but may be doing good work in the country they are based in. One such example is LAshkar-eTaibba. After the attack in Mumbai, Indian and US intelligence agencies pressurized Pakistan to stop the funding of LAshakr-eTaibba. Pakistan agreed to the proposal but was not able to stop the funding. The major cause for this was the good work done by the organization during the floods in Pakistan. Due to this work the organization became very popular among Pakistani people and any move by Pakistani authorities to ban the organization or stop its financing would have meant public protest. Why will Pakistan aggrieve it’s population for the sake of India and USA .The dismantling of terrorist organization’s structure is the key for victory in war against terrorism but the progress on this front has been unsatisfactory to say the least. We need much more international co-operation in this front which is hard to come by. It will be a long battle before we are actually able to dismantle the financial network of these organizations. The last two pillars of the terror structure are – underlying conditions and the international environment. These two conditions are very dynamic and USA cannot hope to control these two. The international conditions are not of US making alone. The wars and animosity between India and Pakistan has created many terrorists. The war of Russia against Chechnya has also given birth to terrorists. International conditions cannot be controlled by one country for the world. However what can be and should have been controlled by USA is the use of its military. The nations which do not learn from their mistakes are doomed to fail. The last military operation which USA undertook in Afghanistan against Russia led to the birth of Taliban and Al Qaeda. What this military misadventure will prop up; we will have to just wait and watch. The last condition – regarding underlying conditions of poverty and injustices are also quite uncontrollable. However the thing which can be controlled is to prevent the radicalization of Islam. This initiative should also be taken by the Islamist nations themselves and should not be seen to be taken on behalf of USA (Heathcote).USA should backchannel diplomacy to ensure that Islamic countries are able to prevent the teachings of radical Islam from penetrating their population. These radicals distort the teachings of Islam to suit their objectives and create Jihadis (Koshy).USA should provide financial and logistic support for this purpose but should stay away from direct involvement .However no such effort has been made till now by USA .The money which has been spent on bombing the residents of Afghanistan could have been used to provide modern education and jobs to the people. A positive step is always removes hatred and animosity whereas the use of military brings out the opposite effect. COST OF WAR ON TERROR According to the Eisenhower Research report the total US spending in war on terrorism has been $4 trillion dollars. This is a huge amount considering the debt crisis faced by USA and other developed nations in these hard economic times. Apart from the financial costs, there has been also the cost of lost human lives. In the ten years of war in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq 225,000 lives have been lost which include 31,000 military people and the rest civilians. These wars have also ended up creating around 7.8 million refugees among Iraqis, Afghans and Pakistanis (Eisenhower Study Group) .The number of US soldiers killed or maimed permanently in this war has been around 6000.Is this huge cost on human life and public property justified? Apart from this there have been also been claims of erosion of civil liberates , draconian laws being passed world over in the name of terrorism and erosion of human rights by military forces. President Bush called all this damage in the war on terrorism as “collateral damage”. Surely if the collateral damage outweighs the benefits it is time to rethink about the war we are fighting. This war is not against a state; it cannot be finished even if USA destroys all regimes of the Islamic world. As has been discussed above the war has not even helped in destroying the entire support structure of the terrorists. CONCLUSION Thus on the basis of above discussion we can say that although we have achieved success against some of the factors of the terrorist structure – the main pillars on which terrorism stands – their organizational structure and the underlying conditions which creates terrorists have been untouched till now. Apart from this the costs of the military battle have been immense and cannot be picked up by the nation any longer. If USA soldiers keep on killing people in foreign lands there will be more and more people who will have a grudge against United States. These people can be easily swayed by the terrorist organization to pick up arms.USA has fought the war in a completely wrong way. The war was never against a nation but against an ideology. Ideology cannot be defeated by military strength; it has to be defeated through softer means. The real victory on war against terrorism will take place when these factors are dealt with. It is time to say goodbye to the military operations and start the war on these factors. Only when the underlying conditions such as radical Islamist teachings, poverty and the sense of being wronged are removed will we see a peaceful world without terrorism. Works Cited Barr, Gary. War on Terror: Is the World a Safer Place? New York: Heinemann Library, 2006. Boyle, Michael. "Do Counterterrosim and Counterinsurgency go Together ?" International Affairs (2010): 333 - 353. Eisenhower Study Group. Costs of War. 2007. 8 12 2011 . Frakt, David. "Lawfare and Counterlawfare: The Demonization of the Gitmo Bar and Other legal strategies in the war against terror." Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law (2011): 355 - 356. Heathcote, Gina. "Feminist Reflections on the End of the War on Terror." Melbourne Journal of International Law (2010): 277 - 307. Koshy, Ninan. The war on terror: reordering the world. New York: LeftWord Books, 2003. Marianne Wade, Almir Maljevic. A War on Terror?: The European Stance on a New Threat, Changing Laws and Human Rights Implications. Washington D.C: Springer,, 2009. Mukasey, Michael. "The War on Terror : Where we are and how we got here." New York Law School Review (2011): 9 - 25. Olson, Laura. "Prosecuting Suspected Terrorists : The 'War on Terror" Demands Reminders about war , terrorism and international law." Emory International Law Review (2010): 479 - 496. Rogers, Paul. A war on terror: Afghanistan and after. Los Angeles: Pluto Press, 2004. Ruschmann, Paul. The war on terror. Washington D.C: The war on terror, 2005. Tom Lansford, Robert P. Watson, Jack Covarrubias. America's war on terror. New York: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd, 2009. Read More