"The Global War on Terror" -- 10 years in and counting

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

In exactly two months, the United States will observe the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In the decade since those attacks, the U.S.A. has invaded and toppled the governments of two foreign states, captured and/or killed large numbers of suspected terrorists, including Osama bin Laden, changed domestic and military laws about surveillance and detention of suspected and/or captured terrorist suspects, engaged in controversial methods of interrogation that meet many definitions of the concept of torture, largely disrupted or broken up the central organization of Al Qaeda while seeing numerous independent or affiliated organizations spring up, operated a series of "black site" prisons and detention centers around the world, created an entire federal department dedicated to domestic security..and has not seen a successful attack on United States soil since the attacks of 2001 while terrorist attacks worldwide have continued with annual fluctuations.

The number of U.S. military dead in Iraq currently stands at almost 4500 and in Afghanistan it is over 1600. 10s of thousands more have been wounded. Estimates of Iraqi and Afghan dead since 2001 start at over 100,000 and climb rapidly depending upon who is doing the counting.

Meanwhile, the United States is as dependent as ever on oil imports from the Persian Gulf, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, a main talking point of Islamic radicals and terrorist affiliates, is nowhere near a resolution, and the Arab Spring revolts have drawn into an uncertain summer with no good means of predicting the future.

For discussion: What have the U.S. and its allies to show for almost a decade of policy and action in the "Global War on Terror"?

Comments

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Very little, really. Our major issues are economic, not national security. Unfortunately, we've been so obsessed with security theater at home and abroad for so long that other issues have gone ignored. Now, as Iraq calms down (or, at least, we get the fuck out) and we begin to draw down in Afghanistan, some of this is abating. We're seeing serious fights over economic and tax issues for the first time in years. This is, overall, a good thing, even if I think both sides have issues addressing the actual problems. At least they're looking in the right vague direction.

In the meantime, our legal processes have been fundamentally upset. Our security state has exploded. Terrorism is highly effective, because it comes from the dark places where we can't see, and just like the interior of the closet when you're a kid, you always imagine the most terrifying threat when you can't make out what it actually is. So now we've got the choice between being groped by TSA and having them scan our nude bodies for weapons. We're told to watch neighbors and strangers, and report whatever suspicious activity we see. We're holding dozens of people with no formal charges, and no plans to release them, after we tortured them for information that ultimately hasn't been shown to have helped us a whit.

Morally, times have never been good for the US. We stumble between slavery, racism, war-making, supporting dictators, and the odd genocide of Indians. But they're certainly not getting any better.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Also because democracies, to stay democracies, have to accept certain risks. In the USSR and Ba'ath Iraq there were no terrorists, because such people were either dumped as anonymous corpses in mass graves or deported to die on the baking and freezing steppes. The USSR and Ba'ath Iraq would only be attractive to the kind of people like Pat Buchanan who fetishize totalitarian ideals, and certainly not to people with a sense of respect for liberty. They who give up a little liberty for security, to paraphrase Jefferson, wind up with neither.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

In the immortal words of Ashley J. Williams Jack and Shit and Jack just left town.

The US and its allies...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Bankruptcy seems to be the best answer to your final question.

I disagree that there were no successful terrorist attacks. There was an attack at a military base, an attack on an IRS building, and an attack on a congressional representative. Each of these achieved some degree of success in the minds of terrorists.

Re: The US and its allies...

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Of course, only one of those was related to "real" terrorism, AKA terrorism with a Mediterranean complexion that writes right to left.

Re: The US and its allies...

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Not to mention the defeat of one of the longest-standing terrorist movements in the world and the triumph of old-school terrorism in an isolated mountain place most people from the USA would be unable to identify on the map. But that's because terrorism as A_New_Machine notes primarily is used to refer to the Arab equivalents of the KKK and Aryan Nations, not even global Islamism. Certainly it does not refer to Communism or India would be the major battleground of *that* GWOT terror and Nepal would have been invaded.

Re: The US and its allies...

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Um, the attack on the IRS building was not a terror attack as it was the work of an isolated individual whose goal was revenge and not to inspire terror in anyone. Same with the attack on Giffords.

While both actions may have been looked upon favorably by those who would seek to use terror as a weapon of war to bring about some political end the fact that those individual were in no way associated with the attacks and that the goals of the attackers in these cases was not the use of terror to achieve a political end means that they are about as much terrorism as a fatal car accident is.

Re: The US and its allies...

[telemann.livejournal.com]

The IRS airplane attack?

"The Federal Bureau of Investigation stated that it was investigating the incident "as a criminal matter of an assault on a federal officer" and that it was not being considered terrorism at this time."

But that decision is controversial. (http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/82387-muslim-group-wants-government-to-call-austin-plane-attack-terrorism)

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Bread and circuses?

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Well of course since it is so self evident that we didn't really go to war for terrorism and it was really all about the oil we have all this oil we are swimming in....

*Checks price of gas*


Shit I guess we got nothing.


Seriously though what we did get is a wonderful gift to anyone who favors centralized control or would want to institute a fascist state here because the security theater enacted in response to "terrorism" are exactly the sorts of controls you'd need to have one.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

Well of course since it is so self evident that we didn't really go to war for terrorism and it was really all about the oil

I'll be honest -- I run in circles where that is often treated as "self evident" but I don't particularly get it.

For the first part, if we really wanted to control oil, it seems daft the take out both of Iran's major ideological opponents in the region, leaving the oil producer of the two far less capable of producing its oil and handing Iran the role of Gulf Region Superpower without Iran ever having had to fire a shot.

And second, if the goal is to "get the oil" surely there are far less risky ways of accumulating easy access to a resource than spilling blood and treasure and being left responsible for maintaining someone else's civil society.

Gulf War 1 was definitely about oil -- namely, that letting Iraq get away with conquering oil fields at will was a very bad idea. This one? If it WAS for oil, it sure was done about as stupidly as possible.

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

Some people have made a boatload of money. And there has been some disruption of Al Qaeda and its fellow travelers.

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

>> For discussion: What have the U.S. and its allies to show for almost a decade of policy and action in the "Global War on Terror"?

1. The rest of the world dislikes and distrusts us even more than they did on 9/10/01. We went from being the Great Satan that corrupts the pure, poor, godly peoples of the Third World with our decadent ways to the Great Satan that corrupts the pure, poor, godly peoples of the Third World with our decadent ways and then blows up civilians for the lulz.

2. Our domestic constitutional rights have been whittled away by this (and the "War on Drugs," and the "War on Crime") to the point where average, innocent citizens can be legally and without apparent consequence harassed and persecuted by law enforcement, even for asserting their own constitutional rights.

3. Gas was an average of $1.51/gal on Sep. 10, 2011. In ten years, after fluctuating wildly, it's now more than 150% higher. So yeah, securing that oil worked out real well.

[raichu100.livejournal.com]

I think it might be time for the US to figure out that it can't do everything or solve all the world's problems on its own...and that it isn't even necessarily our responsibility. I mean I'm not saying we should be isolationist, but nor should we be big-time meddlers. :/

I guess you could say the lack of a successful attack on American soil is a major accomplishment, though that's probably not all to our credit. However, terrorism is far from being subdued. And I predict that some form of terrorism will always exist, as long as our world as we know it continues to exist...

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

What have we got to show for it?

Zip.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

In regards to your primary question, I have no answers.

I know what I got from it though. Before September 11th I was just another white-trash slacker. I had niether the grades nor the athletic ability for University so I worked in a video-store and had applied for a janitor's position at the local mall.

Things changed.

In the Navy I found purpose, to fly was dream suddenly within reach, SAR school was the hardest thing mentally and physically that I had ever done but I came out of it hungry for more. I had found an outlet for my restless energy now it's ending, but I can still feel the itch.

To paraphrase someone who is generally more eloquent than I...

Sooner or later The soldiers will pack their bags and go home, and the protestors will put away their signs. What happens then? What do we to look forward to? Nothing to get angry and draw up cartoons about. Nothing to train and plan for. We will, soldiers and protestors alike, be out of a job.

[contrachamp.livejournal.com]

Several terrorist attempts involving passenger flights were thwarted. The shoe bomber. The 2007 liquid explosive plot to take down several planes simultaneously. The TSA provides more nuisance than reassurance because their procedures prevent only repeats of previous schemes rather than future ones that will be too creative to anticipate.

The evil Taliban are far weaker than they were in 2001. Just about every area that has ever been under their harsh misogynist rule is glad to see them gone and fear their return. Human rights in Afghanistan have since improved, but that's not saying much.

Israel is still fighting the good fight against the world's cruelest terrorists. They are like a proxy fighter in the war on terror, since most of America's enemies are all "DEATH TO THE JEWS" and shit. The Yamam counterterror unit average 3 missions a week. That's busy. I think Israel is suffering less carnage these days thanks in part to a streak of their successes. Also worth mentioning is that they stopped Syria from building nuclear weapons by bombing their copy of North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear weapons facility in 2007. Bravo! They attacked and weakened Hezbollah in 2006, and hurt Hamas with an offensive in 2008, so it will take time for them to rebuild and pose a major threat again. Bravo Israel!

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

ROFL, Israel did not hurt Hezbollah in 2006. If anything it embarrassed itself by being unable to kill a gnat with a sledgehammer. In 2008 it did not harm Hamas, the civil war with Fatah did a lot more harm to Hamas. The Taliban are evil, true, but the USA did nothing about the Tamil Tigers, who invented suicide bombing, or to prop up the Northern Alliance. The Northern Alliance was propped up by the evil Iranian regime against the evil Taliban.

Most of the USA's enemies frankly don't give a shit about Israel, Islamism and Arab nationalism are two different animals. The former tend to hate the latter as anathema. Albeit the USA has done wonders for Iran in removing the Taliban, which they hated, and in replacing the anti-Ayatollah Ba'ath regime with the pro-Ayatollah Maliki one. The USA's meddling has been God's gift to Iran.

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

WE GOT US A SPIFFY NEW POLICE STATE! SO SHUT UP ABOUT IT.

before you are reported...

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

...And deported.

"War on Terror" ongoing for more than 10 years ...

[russj.livejournal.com]

The "WAR" between the various organizations and the USA has been ongoing and even "declared" for more than 10 years.

Usama Bin Ladin issued a fatwa which declared war on the USA in 1998, and made similar earlier pronouncements.

It's just that the USA didn't take these warriors or their declarations seriously until the 09/11 attacks in 2001.

For example, the perpetrators of the February 26, 1993 World Trade Center bombing were tried as common criminals--not as soldiers.

Only after the 2001 attacks did the US government take their threats seriously.

Re: "War on Terror" ongoing for more than 10 years ...

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

And in the grand scheme of things 9/11 was vastly underwhelming as an attack. Kamikazes into a few building isn't so much of a much, particularly since six 9/11s worth of people in the USA die every year from car accidents.

[malakh-abaddon.livejournal.com]

What have the U.S. and its allies to show for almost a decade of policy and action in the "Global War on Terror"?

2 wars.
Over 5000 US soldiers dead (total).
Far too many young men and women harmed physically and emotionally.
A declining view of the US. With "enhanced interrogation techniques", aka torture.
A bunch of unneeded debt.
Laws that violate the constitution.
I am sure that there are other things we have to show for this, but I leave it to others to add to this list.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Not just that, but the failure of US hard power to end either conflict decisively. The more that happens and the more the USA wastes its money and hard power in this kind of geopolitical trap, the less the Tarkin factor in military psychology applies to the US Army, and that means the USA faces a multi-polar world in the literal sense sooner as opposed to later.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

trillions sunk both into the military-industrial complex AND tribute.

[whoasksfinds.livejournal.com]

justice for OBL, the decimation of high level terrorist ranks, an ideological victory against al qaeda, drone technology, and we still have 2/3 of the way to go.

bring it on fuckers.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

an ideological victory against al qaeda

What is the ideological victory?