War on Terrorism Totally Explained

Everything about War On Terrorism totally explained

. Such a huge inflow of funds has raised concerns that these funds were given without any accountability, as the end uses not being documented, and that large portions were used to suppress civilians' human rights and to purchase weapons to contain domestic problems like the Balochistan unrest.

Waziristan

In 2004 the Pakistani Army launched a campaign in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan's Waziristan region, sending in 80,000 troops. The goal of the conflict was to remove the al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in the region. After the fall of the Taliban regime many members of the Taliban resistance fled to the Northern border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan where the Pakistani army had previously little control. With the logistics and air support of the United States, the Pakistani Army captured or killed numerous al-Qaeda operatives such as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, wanted for his involvement in the USS Cole bombing, Oplan Bojinka plot and the killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. However, the Taliban resistance still operates in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas under the control of Haji Omar.

Southeast Asia

Indonesia

In 2002 and again in 2005, the Indonesian island of Bali has been struck by suicide and car bombings that killed over 200 people and injured over 300. The 2002 attack consisted of a bomb hidden in a backpack exploding inside of "Padds's Bar," a remote controlled car bomb exploding in front of the "Sari Club" and a third explosion in front of the American consulate in Bali. The 2005 attack consisted of 2 suicide bombings, the first near a food court in Jimbaran, the second in the main square of Kuta. The group Jemaah Islamiyah is suspected by Indonesian authorities of carrying out both attacks.
On September 9, 2004, a car bomb exploded outside of the Australian embassy in Jakarta, killing 10 Indonesians and injuring over 140 others; despite conflicting initial reports there were no Australian casualties. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer reported that a mobile phone text message was sent to Indonesian authorities before the bombing warning of attacks if Abu Bakar Bashir wasn't released from prison. Abu Bakar Ba'asyir was imprisoned on charged of treason for his support of the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings. Currently Jemaah Islamiyah is suspected of carrying out the attacks and Noordin Mohammed Top is a prime suspect. Top is a bomb maker and explosions expert for Jemaah Islamiyah.

Philippines

In January 2002 the United States Special Operations Command, Pacific deployed to the Philippines to advise and assist the Armed Forces of the Philippines in combating terrorism. The operations were mainly focused on removing the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) from their stronghold on the island of Basilan. The United States military has reported that they've removed over 80% of the Abu Sayyaf Group members from the region. The second portion of the operation was conducted as a humanitarian program called "Operation Smiles." The goal of the program was to provide medical care and services to the region of Basilan to prevent the ability for members of the terrorist groups to reestablish themselves.

North America

United States of America

United States Congress, and an additional $20 billion bail-out of the airline industry was also passed.
The Justice Department launched a Special Registration procedure for certain male non-citizens in the U.S., requiring them to register in person at offices of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Several laws were passed to increase the investigative powers of law enforcement agencies in the United States, notably the USA PATRIOT Act. Many civil liberties groups have alleged that these laws remove important restrictions on governmental authority, and are a dangerous encroachment on civil liberties, possible unconstitutional violations of the Fourth Amendment. On July 30th, 2003, the ACLU filed the first legal challenge against Section 215 of the Patriot Act, claiming that it allows the FBI to violate a citizen's 1st Amendment rights, 4th Amendment Rights, and right to due process, by having the ability to search business, bookstore, and library records in a terrorist investigation - without disclosing to the individual that records were being searched. (External Link

) Also, governing bodies in a number of communities have passed symbolic resolutions against the act.
   In a speech on June 9, 2005, Bush said that the USA PATRIOT Act had been used to bring charges against more than 400 suspects, more than half of whom had been convicted. Meanwhile the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) quoted Justice Department figures showing that 7,000 people have complained of abuse of the Act. The ACLU also maintains that many others don't know they've been subjected to a search because the law requires that searches be kept secret. DARPA began an initiative in early 2002 with the creation of the Total Information Awareness program, designed to promote information technologies that could be used in counterterrorism. This program, facing criticism, has since been defunded by Congress.
   Various government bureaucracies which handled security and military functions were reorganized. Most notably, the Department of Homeland Security was created to coordinate "homeland security" efforts in the largest reorganization of the U.S. federal government since the consolidation of the armed forces into the Department of Defense. The Office of Strategic Influence was secretly created after 9/11 for the purpose of coordinating propaganda efforts, but was closed soon after being discovered. The Bush administration implemented the Continuity of Operations Plan (or Continuity of Government) to ensure that U.S. government would be able to continue in catastrophic circumstances.
   Recently the House of Representatives passed a bill enacting many of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, something the Democrats campaigned on as part of their "100 hour plan." The bill passed in the House 299-128 and is currently still being considered in the U.S. Senate. So far funding hasn't been appropriated for the enactments. (External Link

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International military support

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The first wave of attacks were carried out solely by American and British forces. Since the initial invasion period, these forces were augmented by troops and aircraft from Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand and Norway amongst others. In 2006, there were about 33,000 troops in Afghanistan.
   On September 12, 2001, less than 24 hours after the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, NATO invoked Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty and declared the attacks to be an attack against all 19 NATO member countries. Australian Prime Minister John Howard also declared that Australia would invoke the ANZUS Treaty along similar lines.
   In the following months, NATO took a wide range of measures to respond to the threat of terrorism. On November 22, 2002, the member states of the EAPC decided on a Partnership Action Plan against Terrorism which explicitly states that "EAPC States are committed to the protection and promotion of fundamental freedoms and human rights, as well as the rule of law, in combating terrorism." NATO started naval operations in the Mediterranean Sea designed to prevent the movement of terrorists or weapons of mass destruction as well as to enhance the security of shipping in general called Operation Active Endeavour.
   The invasion of Afghanistan is seen as the first action of this war, and initially involved forces from the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Afghan Northern Alliance.
   Support for the United States cooled when America made clear its determination to invade Iraq in late 2002. Even so, many of the "coalition of the willing" countries that unconditionally supported the U.S.-led military action have sent troops to Afghanistan, particular neighbouring Pakistan, which has disowned its earlier support for the Taliban and contributed tens of thousands of soldiers to the conflict. Pakistan was also engaged in the Waziristan War. Supported by U.S. intelligence, Pakistan was attempting to remove the Taliban insurgency and al-Qaeda element from the northern tribal areas.

The International Security Assistance Force

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December 2001 saw the creation of the NATO led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to assist the Afghan Transitional Administration and the first post-Taliban elected government. With a renewed Taliban insurgency, it was announced in 2006 that ISAF would replace the U.S troops in the province as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. The British 16th Air Assault Brigade (latter reinforced by Royal Marines) formed the core of the force in Southern Afghanistan, along with troops and helicopters from Australia, Canada and the Netherlands. The initial force consisted of roughly 3,300 British, 2,000 Canadian, 1,400 from the Netherlands and 240 from Australia, along with special forces from Denmark and Estonia (and small contingents from other nations).

Criticisms of U.S. objectives and strategies

The War on Terrorism as indefinite and indeterminate Policy experts have criticized the “War on Terrorism” as an irresponsible metaphor, arguing that “war” must by definition be waged against nations—not against broad and controversial categories of activity such as “terrorism.” Cognitive linguist George Lakoff writes: ť "Literal—not metaphorical—wars are conducted against armies of other nations. They end when the armies are defeated militarily and a peace treaty is signed. Terror is an emotional state. It is in us. It isn't an army. And you can’t defeat it militarily and you can’t sign a peace treaty with it."

Dr. David Kilcullen, a counterinsurgency and counterterrorism advisor to Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, has asserted that: ť "We must distinguish Al Qa'eda and the broader militant movements it symbolises – entities that use terrorism – from the tactic of terrorism itself. In practice, as will be demonstrated, the 'War on Terrorism' is a defensive war against a world-wide Islamist jihad, a diverse confederation of movements that uses terrorism as its principal, but not its sole tactic."

Francis Fukuyama, a prominent former neoconservative, has made the similar point that "The term “war on terrorism” is a misnomer, resulting in distorted ideas of the main threat facing Americans today. Terrorism is only a means to an end; in this respect, a “war on terror” makes no more sense than a war on submarines."
The term "terrorism" has been also been characterized as unacceptably vague. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime observes: ť "The lack of agreement on a definition of terrorism has been a major obstacle to meaningful international countermeasures. Cynics have often commented that one state's "terrorist" is another state's "freedom fighter."

Opponents critical of this inherent subjectivity point out that governments such as Iran, Lebanon, and Venezuela consistently use the term "terrorism" to describe actions taken by the United States.
Further criticism maintains that the War on Terrorism provides a framework for perpetual war; that the announcement of such open-ended goals produces a state of endless conflict, since "terrorist groups" can continue to arise indefinitely.. President Bush has pledged that the War on Terrorism “will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated.” During a July 2007 visit to the United States, newly appointed British Prime Minister Gordon Brown defined the War on Terror, specifically the element involving conflict with Al Qaeda, as "a generational battle".

The War on Terrorism as counterproductive

Significant numbers of security experts, politicians, and policy organizations have claimed that the War on Terrorism has been counterproductive: that it has consolidated opposition to the U.S., aided terrorist recruitment, and increased the likelihood of attacks against the U.S. and its allies. In a 2005 briefing paper, the Oxford Research Group reported that ť "Al-Qaida and its affiliates remain active and effective, with a stronger support base and a higher intensity of attacks than before 9/11. ...Far from winning the 'war on terror', the second George W. Bush administration is maintaining policies that are not curbing paramilitary movements and are actually increasing violent anti-Americanism." The South African Mail & Guardian describes research commissioned by the British Ministry of Defence which concluded:

"The war in Iraq ... has acted as a recruiting sergeant for extremists across the Muslim world ... Iraq has served to radicalise an already disillusioned youth and al-Qaeda has given them the will, intent, purpose and ideology to act." Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank, research fellows at the Center on Law and Security at the NYU School of Law, have argued that the "globalization of martyrdom" potentiated by the Iraq War “has generated a stunning sevenfold increase in the yearly rate of fatal jihadist attacks, amounting to literally hundreds of additional terrorist attacks and thousands of civilian lives lost.” The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate issued the following among its "key judgments":

"The Iraq conflict has become the —cause celebre“ for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement. Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight."

Double standards

Others have criticized the U.S. for double standards in its dealings with key allies that are also known to support terrorist groups, such as Pakistan. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly stated that in the "war against terrorism," “the central front is Pakistan"; Pakistan has also been alleged to provide Taliban operatives with covert support via the ISI. These accusations of double dealing regard civil liberties and human rights as well as terrorism. According to the Federation of American Scientists, "[i]n its haste to strengthen the "frontline" states' ability to confront transnational terrorist threats on their soil, and to gain the cooperation of regimes of geostrategic significance to the next phases of the "War on Terrorism", the administration is disregarding normative restrictions on U.S. aid to human rights abusers." Amnesty International has argued that the Patriot Act gives the U.S. government free reign to violate the constitutional rights of citizens. The Bush administration's alleged use of extraordinary rendition, secret prisons, and torture have all fueled opposition to the War on Terrorism.

Decreasing international support

In 2002, strong majorities supported the U.S.-led War on Terrorism in Britain, France, Germany, Japan, India, and Russia. By 2006, supporters of the effort were in the minority in Britain (49%), France (43%), Germany (47%), and Japan (26%). Although a majority of Russians still supported the War on Terrorism, that majority had decreased by 21%. Whereas 63% of the Spanish population supported the War on Terrorism in 2003, only 19% of the population indicated support in 2006. 19% of the Chinese population supports the War on Terrorism, and less than a fifth of the populations of Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan support the effort. Indian support for the War on Terrorism has been stable. Andrew Kohut, speaking to the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, noted that, according to the Pew Research Center polls conducted in 2004, "majorities or pluralities in seven of the nine countries surveyed said the U.S.-led war on terrorism wasn't really a sincere effort to reduce international terrorism. This was true not only in Muslim countries such as Morocco and Turkey, but in France and Germany as well. The true purpose of the war on terrorism, according to these skeptics, is American control of Middle East oil and U.S. domination of the world."

Role of U.S. media

Researchers in the area of communication studies and political science have found that American understanding of the war on terror is directly shaped by how the mainstream news media reports events associated with the war on terror. In Bush’s War: Media Bias and Justifications for War in a Terrorist Age political communication researcher Jim A. Kuypers illustrated “how the press failed America in its coverage on the War on Terror.” In each comparison, Kuypers “detected massive bias on the part of the press.” This researcher called the mainstream news media an “anti-democratic institution” in his conclusion. “What has essentially happened since 9/11 has been that Bush has repeated the same themes, and framed those themes the same whenever discussing the War on Terror,” said Kuypers. “Immediately following 9/11, the mainstream news media (represented by CBS, ABC, NBC, USA Today, New York Times, and Washington Post) did echo Bush, but within eight weeks it began to intentionally ignore certain information the president was sharing, and instead reframed the president's themes or intentionally introduced new material to shift the focus.”
   This goes beyond reporting alternate points of view, which is an important function of the press. “In short,” Kuypers explained, “if someone were relying only on the mainstream media for information, they'd have no idea what the president actually said. It was as if the press were reporting on a different speech.” The study is essentially a “comparative framing analysis.” Overall, Kuypers examined themes about 9-11 and the War on Terror that the President used, and compared them to the themes that the press used when reporting on what the president said.
   “Framing is a process whereby communicators, consciously or unconsciously, act to construct a point of view that encourages the facts of a given situation to be interpreted by others in a particular manner,” wrote Kuypers. These findings suggest that the public is misinformed about government justification and plans concerning the war on terror.
   Others have also suggested that press coverage has contributed to a public confused and misinformed on both the nature and level of the threat to the U.S. posed by terrorism. In his book, Trapped in the War on Terror political scientist Ian S. Lustick, claimed, “The media have given constant attention to possible terrorist-initiated catastrophes and to the failures and weaknesses of the government's response.” Lustick alleged that the War on Terror is disconnected from the real but remote threat terrorism poses, and that the generalized War on Terror began as part of the justification for invading Iraq, but then took on a life of its own, fueled by media coverage.
   Media researcher Stephen D. Cooper’s analysis of media criticism Watching the Watchdog: Bloggers As the Fifth Estate contains many examples of controversies concerning mainstream reporting of the War on Terror. Cooper found that bloggers’ criticisms of factual inaccuracies in news stories or bloggers’ discovery of the mainstream press’s failure to adequately check facts before publication caused many news organizations to retrack or change news stories.
   Cooper found that bloggers specializing in criticism of media coverage advanced four key points: 1. Mainstream reporting of the war on terror has frequently contained factual inaccuracies. In some cases, the errors go uncorrected; moreover, when corrections are issued they usually are given far less prominence than the initial coverage containing the errors. 2. The mainstream press has sometimes failed to check the provenance of information or visual images supplied by Iraqi “stringers” (local Iraqis hired to relay local news). 3. Story framing is often problematic; in particular, “man-in-the-street” interviews have often been used as a representation of public sentiment in Iraq, in place of methodologically sound survey data. 4. Mainstream reporting has tended to concentrate on the more violent areas of Iraq, with little or no reporting of the calm areas.

Military decorations

Since 2002, the United States military, has created several military awards and decorations related to the "War on Terrorism" including:

"Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal"

"Afghanistan Campaign Medal"

"Iraq Campaign Medal"

"Global War on Terrorism Service Medal" The U.S. Department of Transportation created two awards related to the "War on Terrorism" which are authorized to be worn on U.S. military uniforms:

"9-11 Medal"

"9-11 Ribbon" NATO has also created military decorations related to the "War on Terrorism":

Article 5 NATO Medal

Non-Article 5 ISAF NATO Medal

Casualties

Number of Persons Killed in the "War on Terrorism" as defined

There is no widely agreed on figure for the number of people that have been killed so far in the "War on Terrorism" as it has been defined by the Bush Administration to include the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, and operations elsewhere. Some estimates include the following:

Iraq — 62,570 to 1,124,000 ť *Opinion Research Business (ORB) poll conducted August 12-19, 2007 estimated 1,033,000 violent deaths due to the Iraq War. The range given was 946,000 to 1,120,000 deaths. A nationally representative sample of approximately 2000 Iraqi adults answered whether any members of their household (living under their roof) were killed due to the Iraq War. 22% of the respondents had lost one or more household members. ORB reported that "48% died from a gunshot wound, 20% from the impact of a car bomb, 9% from aerial bombardment, 6% as a result of an accident and 6% from another blast/ordnance."

* Between 392,979 and 942,636 estimated Iraqi (655,000 with a confidence interval of 95%), civilian and combatant, according to the second Lancet survey of mortality. ť * A minimum of 62,570 civilian deaths reported in the mass media up to 28 April 2007 according to IraqBodyCount

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* 100,000 to 150,000 estimated civilian deaths in hospitals according to the Iraqi Health Ministry in November 2006, based on extrapolating current rate of death back to March 2003.Over 20,000 Al-Qaeda and Al-Qaeda allied Sunni militants have been killed, with the number of injured estimated to be in the tens of thousands. ť * 4000 U.S. military dead (2008 26 March). 22,401 wounded in action, of which 10,050 were unable to return to duty within 72 hours. 6,640 non-hostile injuries and 18,183 diseases (both requiring medical air transport).

* 249 Coalition military dead. Breakdown: Australia 2. Bulgaria 13. Denmark 6. El Salvador 5. Estonia 2. Hungary 1. Italy 33. Kazakhstan 1. Latvia 3. Netherlands 2. Poland 18. Romania 2. Slovakia 4. Spain 11. Thailand 2. Ukraine 18. United Kingdom 130.

Afghanistan — between 1,300 and 49,600 ť * According to Marc W. Herold, up to 3,600 civilians were killed as a result of U.S. bombing.

* Joshua Muravchik of the American Enterprise Institute and Carl Conetta of the Project on Defense Alternatives question Herold's heavy use of the Afghan Islamic Press, "suspicious" tallies of other news agencies, and statistical errors in Herold's study. Conetta's study puts total civilian casualties between 1000 and 1300. ť * A Los Angeles Times study put the number of collateral dead between 1,067 and 1,201.

* According to Jonathan Steele of The Guardian between 20,000 and 49,600 people may have died of the consequences of the invasion.Further Information

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