"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

Re: The US and its allies...

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

That rationale in the first paragraph was behind the strategic bombing of the 20th Century. If Dresden was state-sponsored terrorism, given the rationales were identical (trust me, in the 1940s every hut and shack hit by Allied and Axis bombs was hiding the entire arsenal of the villages obliterated, not even the Nazis were blatant about terror-bombing civilians) then so was Shock and Awe.

Or we define terrorism simply as a guerrilla movement that eschews PR and have done with it. Most people might be fine with saying Marshals Zhukov and Model approved of terrorism. I doubt people in the USA would like thinking of Curtis LeMay or Eisenhower in such terms. Aside from Neo-Nazi scumbags like Pat Buchanan, that is.