The term ‘war on terror’, first used by George W. Bush in the citation above is commonly used as a metaphor of war to designate the international military campaign that started after the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11th, 2001 and is still going on today. Even though the expression has later been rejected by the Bush administration as well as Barack Obama (Shinkman, 2013), it has since been widely used in the media to label the political and military struggle against terrorism, particularly directed against Islamic terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Afghanistan and Iraq. Because of the ‘war on terror’ and the significant economic, military, cultural and …show more content…
2.1 Oppressed Muslim women, American saviors
Among the different narratives used to justify military intervention by the Bush administration one of the most prominent was the narrative of women being oppressed by men (Deylami, 2013 :180). The vision of women as victims of the Taliban regimes was indeed used to point out to the necessity for an American intervention in Afghanistan. In his speeches and addresses to the nation, George W. Bush made constant references to Muslim women, insisting particularly on them being “not allowed to attend school” (September 20, 2001), “executed in Kabul’s soccer stadium” and “beaten for wearing socks that are too thin” (November 10, 2001) as well as “prisoners in their homes” (September 11, 2006). Similarly, his wife, Laura Bush, on a speech to the nation on November 17, 2001, where she used twenty times the word ‘women’ also put a strong emphasis on the situation of Muslim women in Afghanistan. Throughout that speech, she for example stated that Afghan women “have been denied access to doctors when they are sick”, “cannot work outside the home” or “leave when they are homes by themselves” (Bush L., 2001). She further argued that “the brutal oppression of women is a central goal to the terrorists” (ibid).
The War on Terror can readily be compared to WWI. The following analysis will compare and contrast these two important historical occurrences. It will also examine just a few of the many consequences of both.
In the following months and years, then president George W. Bush and the military began planning the retaliation. It quickly became clear that the president’s goal was not simply to defeat bin Laden and al-Qaeda, but to eliminate other terrorist groups as well. On September 20th, 2001 during a speech Bush said the following “Our ‘war on terror’ begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.” (Bush, 2001)
In Afghanistan, Women’s rights were very denied and completely dismissed. Women were treated horribly. They were beaten, abused verbally, and even killed. Under the rule of the Taliban, women were better off staying in the safety of their own homes.
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.
The book “How Terrorism End; Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns”, written in 2011 at the height of Al-Qaeda, the most well-known international terrorist group of our time. The author of this work, Audrey Cronin, at the time of print, served as a professor of strategy at the United States National War College in Washington D.C., and a senior associate at Oxford University’s Changing Character of War Program. Both positions allowed her to impact strategic policy making in the execution of the Global War on Terror by allowing her access to senior military and civilian policymakers. Her previous area of her prior work has been mainly focused on international terrorism with an emphasis on al-Qaeda. She has authored
Introduction. The United States’ War on Terror is a mistake because it is bringing more burdens and terrorism to the United States at home and abroad.
Although some areas in Afghanistan and Iraq have improved and schools have been established, the United States has not done enough to help the people there. For example, the United States issued propaganda after the September 11 attacks that called for the liberation of women in Afghanistan. American citizens rallied in support of this movement and also supported the war because of it. Although some conditions have improved for women, the United States did not do as much as they said they would (Stabile). In addition, the opium trade has worsened in Afghanistan since the arrival of American troops; the country produces twice as much opium as it did in 2000 (Aikins). The War on Terror has also caused millions of innocent civilians’
Yes, the there is a truly a war on terrorism. Since 9/11 the new war on terrorism is affected and redefined there warlike options. Can everybody can work together to catch the terroristic threat. The terrorism has taken war to a new level in war pertaining to explosives, biological and drone. Cyber war is on the rise that redefining how nation pursue the terrorist.
The Bush administration called the terrorism and attacks that took place on 9/11 a “war” to symbolize a metaphor. The word “war” symbolizes heavy distress and demolition between two opposing parties which generally causes attention when the word is seen or heard. “The war metaphor defines the objective and encourages enlistment in the effort, it identifies the enemy,
According to the author Reza Aslan it was always a mistake for the U.S. to use the phrase “War on Terror” in the fight against certain extremist groups. Also Aslan feels that the war has been posited from the start as a war of ideology. Aslan feels it is a mistake to use the phrase “war on terror” because it does not coincide with the reason for fighting the war. In the essay Aslan states that the phase has always been problematic because the war was never meant to be a war against terrorism. If it was then it would have included the Muslims over the world that are supposedly the real terrorist. Aslan also agree with the Bush administration that the war on terror was targeted at a particular brand of terrorism. He also feel as though the
The al-Qaeda of today is a vastly different entity from the al-Qaeda formed by Osama bin Laden towards the end of the Afghan war against the Soviets in 1988 (Alexander and Swetnam, 2001: 37). The evolution, or as Burton (2006) has termed it “devolution”, of al-Qaeda, is partially linked to its terrorist acts, and, in particular, the counter-terrorist measures employed by governments to deal with them. This is most evident in reference to the single most expensive, in terms of life lost and economical impact, terrorist act in modern history, the destruction of the World Trade Centre, and the subsequent declaration of a “war on terror” by George Bush’s United States and its Allies. It is the actions in response to terrorist acts that has
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’.
The world has been changed forever since the tragic attack on September 11, 2001. An observer described the atrocity by saying, "It just went 'bam,' like a bomb went off. It was like holy hell (CNN 1). " The new world will be different from what any American has known before. A new war has arisen, not against a foreign country or a major region of the world, but rather against a select group of people who have the capabilities to destroy the lives of so many. The war against terrorism which the United States is now forced to wage will not be an easily won battle. This war will not be fought solely on scattered battlefields in certain countries. It will instead permeate through every aspect of life as we
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.
The Global War on Terror is a military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom and supported by other NATO members. It was originally against al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations with the purpose of eliminating them. This paper discusses how the Bush Administration handled the War on Terror as well as different aspects of it, including its terminology, its objectives, its military operations and criticism against it.