George W. Bush 's The War On Terror

When discussing 9/11, the author writes about Post-9/11 America seemed determined: “Never Again.” Despite important differences, genocide and terrorism share one important feature, which is that both parget civilian populations. This led the author to ask, “To what extend is the mind-set of the perpetrators revealed by the way they frame their victims culturally (Mamdani, 11)?” The debate on this question turns around the relationship between cultural and political identity and in the context of 9/11, between religious fundamentalism and political terrorism. The ideas the author raised in the Good Muslim, Bad Muslim section, stuck out to me the most. Mamdani explained that President Bush moved to distinguish between “good Muslims” and “bad Muslims.” From the “bad Muslims” point of view, they were obviously responsible for terrorism and at the same time, Bush seemed to assure Americans that “good Muslims” were anxious to clear their names and consciences of this horrible crime and would undoubtable support “us” in a war against “them.” This doesn’t hide the central message of the discourse that unless proved to be “good,” every Muslim was presumed to be “bad.” All Muslims were now obligated to prove their credentials by joining in a war against “bad Muslims (Mamdani, 15).” This part of the reading really got me thinking about

Foreign and domestic policies are not linear, rather the policies are connected in a circle, with each policy reinforcing the values of another. Domestic American terrorism in the prison and detention systems and governmental reforms are influenced by the mobilization and ethnocentrism abroad. The militarization internationally is justified by the domestic handling of the same cultural issues within the United State borders. The United States has strangely used a near Catch-22 to handle dilemmas. The United States has allowed perspective to become reality, whether with oneself or regarding issues abroad, specifically in the Middle East. Terrorism is the use or threat of fear for political or economical gain. An internal characteristic of terrorism is how dependent it is of perspective, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. To understand “terrorism,” a focus must be applied to the history, what drove an organization to commit such acts. Respectively, the Middle East has been a hotbed for the key word “terrorism,” especially because of 9/11. Subsequently, Muslims have been stigmatized by the United States as terrorists. The consequences spawned because of 9/11 require a look to the past to understand the present.

On September 11, 2001, a series of terrorist attacks were directed for the United States by means of four hijacked planes. Two of which hit the twin towers of the World Trade Center, one hit the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Department of Defense, and the fourth crashed in a field near Pittsburg after it was meant to hit the White House. The terror spread in the United States and brought concern and fear to the citizens. The impact of these terrorist attacks caused serious and detrimental damages within the country, and their result on the people were enormous; insecurity, helplessness, and susceptibility spread. Especially after the release of a videotape in which Osama Bin Laden, head of Al-Qaeda, admitted that he was responsible for the terrorist attacks. Hence, President George W, Bush declared the “war on terror” against all terrorists in the Arab world, specifically Afghanistan and Iraq. In the following paper, we will be discussing how the war on terror was waged, its effects on the target countries, and how it was perceived by political thinkers, where some saw it as a conspiracy theory against the Arab countries, and others believed the USA was the victim.

On September 11, 2001, 19 men simultaneously hijacked four commercial airliners in what is, to this day, the single largest successful act of terror perpetrated against the United States of America. The attack, which was orchestrated by al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, ignited a perpetual “War on Terror” and thrust Western tensions with the Islamic world into the social and political spotlight. Since then, overarching American attitudes towards Muslim countries have grown increasingly more hostile, with President Donald Trump perpetuating this unfortunate rhetoric to an even greater degree than his predecessors. In his article “Why do So Many Americans Fear Muslims? Decades of Denial about America’s Role in the World,” Jon Schwarz explores Americans’ attitudes towards the Islamic world, raising valid points regarding the United States’ role in provoking

Millions of people globally supported the ‘war on terror’ at one time, largely because the discourse around it was successful in divisively framing the identities involved and attributing a ‘truthful’ nature to that framing. Governments, with the Bush administration seemingly as the lead, created ‘the other’ to be ‘the terrorist’, and those ‘terrorists’ were probably Muslim or Arab. The fear was then created by the comparison of this ‘other’ to the self; or ‘them vs. us’.

A third and final social issue that has been going on since the beginning of the 21st is the war against terror. The “war on terror” has been going on since September. 11, 2001. The campaign of president George W. Bush “declared a worldwide ‘ war on terror ’ "(www.globalpolicy.org,2016). Since then this war has claimed “over 6,000 US soldiers killed in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Possibly 100 times that number of civilians in those countries (in Iraq, at an early point, there was an estimated range of 400,000 to 900,000 civilian deaths”(Shah, 2013). This has made the war against terror a very difficult thing to deal with. Over 35 countries are a part of this war on terror. Including America, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Egypt.

“Muslims, Bin Laden argues, must reverse a series of humiliations that they’ve endured since the Ottoman Empire, the last Muslim great power, was dismantled after World War I. Al-Qaeda’s 1998 declaration of a jihad, or holy war, against ‘Jews and Crusaders’ urges Muslims to attack ‘the Americans and their allies, civilian and military,’ supposedly as a response to U.S. policies that al-Qaeda feels oppress Muslims: the stationing of troops in Saudi Arabia; the backing of U.N. sanctions against Iraq; support for repressive Arab regimes; support for Israel; alleged complicity in Russian attacks on Muslims in Chechnya; and interventions in Bosnia, Somalia, and other Muslim regions that bin Laden sees as attempts to spread America’s empire. These Western policies, according to al-Qaeda, add up to a ‘clear

As a matter of fact, since September 11, ‘Civilization’ has been evoked to justify the revenge on both the Al Qaeda network and those who harbored it in Afghanistan. Identifying terrorism as the enemy of civilization provides an enormous scope for US intervention overseas as well as sanctioning the Federal Government’s curtailment of civil liberties at home. Furthermore, Bush put the attacks of 9/11 in religious terms, he declared that ‘this crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while’ and also in civilizational terms ‘this is civilization’s fight.’

The notion that we are in a “new” era of terrorism is a concept frequently discussed by many scholars. Despite the term being coined in the 1990s, it has quickly gained significance after 9/11. This ‘New’ era is presumably characterized by many factors such as(Duyvesteyn,2010,p443); religious fanaticism rather than the political motivations of traditional Right Wing Dissident Terrorists(RWDT’s); the deliberate targeting of innocent civilians; shift to the use of loosely organised networks as opposed to RWDT’s vertically organized hierarchical structure; tendency of ‘new’ terrorists to operate along transnational lines; and the potential of Weapons of Mass Destruction(WMD’s), with the intention to distribute maximum destruction. However, this concept has been challenged by the fact that traditional RWDT’s have conducted indiscriminate acts of violence; as well as there being evidence of ‘New’ terrorists not being purely religiously oriented. This suggests that there are several ideological similarities that ‘new’ terrorism may share with traditional RWDT. Despite this there are also inconsistencies with its characteristics, such as the lack of WMD’s in the tactics of ‘New’ terrorists. Sceptics argue that this terrorism may not necessarily be ‘new’ but rejuvenated and could potentially be ‘artificial’(Kurtulus,2011,p479). Spencer (Kurtulus, p479) captures the possibility of ‘New’ terrorism being used profoundly at a time of peril and heightened concerns (9/11) in order to

Instead, from its onset, Islam spread as a conquering power and remained that way for some time. Explaining it this way, the reader gets a sense of the psychology behind Islam and why, besides being a religious task, spreading Islam is such a goal. By showing the issues Islam faces today in the context of past Islamic traditions, Lewis paints a much clearer picture of the skewed view today’s radicals have and the way they use history to manipulate. He examines influential Muslim voices like Saddam Hussein and Usama Bin Laden, who have used history to give Islam victim status or to claim the continuance of a predecessor’s mission to not only justify terrorist activities, but also to recruit followers. He tells the history of Bin Laden’s statement referring to the “humiliation and disgrace” Islam supposedly has suffered. What Bin Laden was referring to was the defeat of the Ottoman sultanate in 1918 and the imperial presence of Westerners on sacred Muslim lands. Lewis explains the offense many Muslims take to the desecration of their holy lands by foreigners. He describes how the discovery and exploitation of oil in the Holy Land of the Hijaz has exacerbated the growing resentment many Muslims

One of the many contentious issues raised and attacked in ‘Words I Never Said’ by Lupe Fiasco is the issue of America’s war on terror, claiming that the idea of terror is used as a front to dominate the Middle East for political and economical reasons, decreasing civil liberties and controlling the world's supply of oil. This view is one held by millions, claiming that such force isn't needed to weed out a flimsy opposition. A radical theory held by some is addressed a few lines later, asking if it was the US government that orchestrated 9/11. Although I disagree with this claim that it was an inside job, I do believe that the grief and fear of the American people was falsely harnessed and targeted to spread America's dominance across the globe,

In other words, not only construction but deconstruction of the dubious entity “Orient” require the West (the Orient’s agent) to speak for the Orient. Another problem is what Said calls “a triumph of Orientalism” (323) today, the major source of which is no longer Britain or France, but the United States, the democratically totalizing economy power. It means cultural domination on the one hand (“Orientals” educated in the United States repeat the Orientalist cliché), and economic absorption of poor nations on the other (consumerism in the Orient). A simple example Said takes up is “the paradox of an Arab regarding himself as an ‘Arab’ of the sort put out by Hollywood” (325). The Orient, in short, playacts its image as imagined by the West. This is far more problematic than the former form of Orientalism because the subject position of an “Oriental” is now realized only as the subject that (re-)presents itself as the Other before the Western eyes, as imagined by the West: and this Western gaze is what the Oriental subject identifies her/himself. It is disappointing in a sense that Said does not develop his arguments more than the idea that this phenomenon of cultural domination is only the Orient’s

In this way, Orientalism written by Orientalists seems having troubles in faithfully representing the Orient. Said insists that “exteriority of the representation is always governed by some version of the truism” (21). The problem is this truism does not amount to the truth especially as it involves “evaluative interpretation[s]” (Said 227). In this way, it loses objectivity by including personal viewpoints. Nevertheless, the Occident takes advantage of the Orient by insisting the Orient is not capable of presenting itself. Thus, the West has to take this responsibility to represent the pathetic Orient in order to make the Orient be known. By making this statement, the Occident justifies the action of representation to the Orient and at the same time, gains the power over the Orient. As the Orient has to be represented, even though the representation is entirely wrong, it has no voice to correct any mistakes. Thus, the West has absolute power to construct its fascinating Orient. Edward Said, therefore, concludes that Orient is “almost a European invention”

Ever since the beginning of the terrorist attacks on American soil, the War on Terror has been involved in the lives of Americans and nations near us. The War on Terror’s background originated through conflicts between warring countries in the Middle East; U.S. involvement started when a terrorist guided plane crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 in New York City. The attack was suspected to be the work of the middle-eastern terrorist group Al-Qaeda. The U.S. military, under the leadership of then commander-in-chief George W. Bush, declared a “War on Terror” on the terrorist group and the fighting began.

Kegley and Raymond stated: “The shape of the world’s future will be determined not only by changes in the objective conditions of world politics, but also by the meanings people ascribe to these conditions.” Terrorism is presently a major factor in international relations and has impacted the world to change in many significant ways. Terrorism is a political ideology that has been problematic in defining definitely because of its various interpretations around the world, as well as the fact that it is constantly evolving. Since the terrorist events of 9/11, the lives of many have been changed forever. A small group of individuals, which are a mere fraction of the population of the world, have managed to impact and shape the way international and domestic relations are looked at and handled. People question how secure and safe they feel due to uncertainty of public safety because of events such as 9/11. The war on terrorism in the 21st century has certainly and inevitably changed the landscape for global politics. However, the relationship between terrorism and global politics is troublesome and in ways problematic to describe accurately. Both terrorism and global politics individually are complicated phenomenon. It is erroneous to propose that one is responsible for the other or vice versa, but they are inextricably and inevitably linked. In the study of international relations, there are multiple theories and theoretical perspectives. In this essay, realism and liberalism