fight against terrorism essay

How to defeat terrorism: Intelligence, integration, and development

Subscribe to global connection, norman loayza nl norman loayza lead economist, development research group - world bank.

July 25, 2016

My partner was caught at the Istanbul airport during the latest terrorist attack. She hid in a closet with a few people, including a small girl, disconcerted and afraid. And when the attack was over, she saw the blood, desolation, chaos, and tears of the aftermath. This was a horrific moment. Yet, it paled in comparison to what the injured and dead and their relatives had to suffer.

It seems that terrorism and political violence are becoming more prevalent and intense. They have been, however, long brewing and have affected many countries around the world. In the 1980s, my home country, Peru, suffered immensely from terrorism: The badly called “Shining Path” organization, with its communist ideology and ruthless tactics, terrorized first rural communities and then large cities with deadly bombs in crowded places and assassinations of official and civil society leaders.

A few years ago, Phil Keefer, lead economist at the World Bank, and I edited two books on what we perceived to be the main security threats of our time: terrorism and drug trafficking . We thought that the answers had to come from research, and we tried to gather the best available evidence and arguments to understand the links between these security threats and economic development.

After the myriad of recent terrorist attacks—in Istanbul, Munich, Nice, Bagdad, Brussels, and Paris, to name a few—we found it important to recap lessons learned. These lessons are not just academic: Understanding the root causes of terrorism can lead to policies for prevention and for reducing the severity of attacks. To defeat terrorism, a policy strategy should include three components: intelligence, integration, and development.

Intelligence . A terrorist attack is relatively easy to conduct. Modern societies offer many exposed and vulnerable targets: an airport, a crowded celebration by the beach, a bus station at peak hours, or a restaurant full of expats. And the potential weapons are too many to count: a squadron of suicide bombers, a big truck ramming through the streets, two or three comrades armed with semi-automatic guns. It is impossible to protect all flanks, and some of the measures taken to prevent the previous terrorist attacks are, well, frankly silly. For a strategy to have any chance against terrorism, it should be based on intelligence. Intelligence implies understanding the motivations, leadership structure, and modus operandi of terrorist organizations, and developing a plan that can anticipate and adapt to their constantly morphing operations. Importantly, the ideological dimension should not be ignored because it explains the extremes to which terrorists are willing to arrive: A suicide attack requires a person who has muted both his basic survival instinct and all sense of natural compassion for others. It was radical communism in the 1970s and 1980s; it is a perverted and fanatical misrepresentation of Islam nowadays. An intelligence strategy that targets the sources of terrorism, both the perpetrators and the social movements that underlie them, should be the first component of the campaign against terror.

Integration. Foreigners living in the U.S. like to make fun of Hollywood movies and the social rituals that Americans go through each year: Halloween and Thanksgiving are in many respects more popular than Christmas. Yet, thanks to these cultural norms along with widespread economic opportunities and equality under the law, the U.S. has mostly succeeded in what many countries, including some European ones, have failed: the integration of people of different ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds. The U.S. is no paradise of integration, but the social melting pot does work for immigrants: Within a generation or two, Mexican Americans, Italian Americans, Iranian Americans, and so forth are just Americans, with a single national identity and, at least by law, the same rights and obligations. In some European countries, in contrast, many immigrants feel like second-class citizens. There is little that can inflame more hatred than the feeling of being excluded, and a misguided search for a sense of belonging can be the trigger that incites religious, ethnic, and ideological radicalization. This may explain why France has suffered more from terrorist acts perpetrated by their own residents than the U.S. or U.K., that paradoxically are substantially more engaged in the war against ISIS and al-Qaeda. Social integration—especially of immigrants—through explicit and targeted programs from education at an early age to immigration and citizenship reforms is a key component in the fight against terrorism.       

Development. One of the puzzles in the evidence on terrorism is that while it tends to be led (and sometimes even perpetrated) by well-off and educated people, it represents the complaints and grievances of the disenfranchised, the poor, and the unemployed. The hundreds of thousands of unemployed and discouraged young men in places as diverse as Afghanistan, Somalia, South Africa, and Brazil are the potential armies of common and political violence. In South Africa and Brazil, lacking an overriding communal ideology, this violence is expressed in robberies, homicides, and common crime. In Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, the violence is mostly political, taking the shape or at least the cover of religious fundamentalism. Somehow in Somalia, violence has adopted both criminal and political expressions: We worry about Somali pirates as much as we do about Somali jihadists. (On the link between vulnerable youth and violence, it is telling that the name of the main terrorist organization in Somalia, al-Shabaab, means literally “The Youth”) But there is hope. A couple of decades ago, thousands of unemployed young people joined terrorist organizations in Cambodia, Colombia, and Peru, when these countries were fragile. Since their economies started growing and providing employment, these armies for criminal and political violence have started to fade away. Investing in development, conducting economic reforms, and providing (yes, equal) opportunities is the third component of a winning strategy against terrorism.

A sound military and police strategy is undoubtedly important to counter terrorism. However, it’s not sufficient in the long run. If we want to defeat terrorism permanently and completely, we need to tackle it comprehensively, using political and military intelligence, social integration, and economic development.

For more, please see Keefer, Philip and Norman Loayza, Editors. Terrorism, Economic Development, and Political Openness . Cambridge University Press. 2008.

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The 20th Anniversary Of The 9/11 Attacks

The world has changed since 9/11, and so has america's fight against terrorism.

An American flag at ground zero on the evening of Sept. 11, 2001, after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. Mark Lennihan/AP hide caption

An American flag at ground zero on the evening of Sept. 11, 2001, after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City.

In the fall of 2001, Aaron Zebley was a 31-year-old FBI agent in New York. He had just transferred to a criminal squad after working counterterrorism cases for years.

His first day in the new job was Sept. 11.

"I was literally cleaning the desk, I was like wiping the desk when Flight 11 hit the north tower, and it shook our building," he said. "And I was like, what the heck was that? And later that day, I was transferred back to counterterrorism."

It was a natural move for Zebley. He'd spent the previous three years investigating al-Qaida's bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. And he became a core member of the FBI team leading the investigation into the 9/11 attacks.

It quickly became clear that al-Qaida was responsible.

The hijackers had trained at the group's camps in Afghanistan. They received money and instructions from its leadership. And ultimately, they were sent to the U.S. to carry out al-Qaida's "planes operation."

President George W Bush gives an address in front of the damaged Pentagon following the Sept. 11 terrorist attack there as Counselor to the President Karen Hughes and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stand by. Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images hide caption

President George W Bush gives an address in front of the damaged Pentagon following the Sept. 11 terrorist attack there as Counselor to the President Karen Hughes and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stand by.

As the nation mourned the nearly 3,000 people who were killed on 9/11, the George W. Bush administration frantically tried to find its footing and prevent what many feared would be a second wave of attacks.

President Bush ordered members of his administration, including top counterterrorism official Richard Clarke, to imagine what the next attack could look like and take steps to prevent it.

"We had so many vulnerabilities in this country," Clarke said.

At the time, officials were worried that al-Qaida could use chemical weapons or radioactive materials, Clarke said, or that the group would target intercity trains or subway systems.

"We had a very long list of things, systems, that were vulnerable because no one in the United States had seriously considered security from terrorist attacks," he said.

That, of course, quickly changed.

Security became paramount.

And over the next two decades, the federal government poured money and resources — some of it, critics say, to no good use — into protecting the U.S. from another terrorist attack, even as the nature of that threat continuously evolved.

The response to keeping the U.S. secure takes shape

The government built out a massive infrastructure, including creating the Department of Homeland Security, all in the name of protecting against terrorist attacks.

The Bush administration also empowered the FBI and its partners at the CIA, National Security Agency and the Pentagon to take the fight to al-Qaida.

The military invaded Afghanistan, which had been a haven for the group. The CIA hunted down al-Qaida operatives around the world and tortured many of them in secret prisons.

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Part of flight 93 crashed on my land. i went back to the sacred ground 20 years later.

The Bush administration also launched its ill-fated war in Iraq, which unleashed two decades of bloodletting, shook the Middle East and spawned another generation of terrorists.

On the homefront, FBI Director Robert Mueller shifted some 2,000 agents to counterterrorism work as he tried to transform the FBI from a crime-fighting first organization into a more intelligence-driven one that prioritized combating terrorism and preventing the next attack.

Part of that involved centralizing the bureau's international terrorism investigations at headquarters and making counterterrorism the FBI's top priority.

Chuck Rosenberg, who served as a top aide to Mueller in those early years, said the changes Mueller imposed amounted to a paradigm shift for the bureau.

Robert S. Mueller, then-director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, talks to reporters on Aug. 17, 2006, in Seattle. Ted S. Warren/AP hide caption

Robert S. Mueller, then-director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, talks to reporters on Aug. 17, 2006, in Seattle.

"Mueller, God bless him, couldn't be all that patient about it," Rosenberg said. "It couldn't happen at a normal pace of a traditional cultural change. It had to happen yesterday."

It had to happen "yesterday" because al-Qaida was still plotting. Overseas, its operatives carried out horrific bombings in Bali, Madrid, London and elsewhere.

In the U.S., al-Qaida operative Richard Reid was arrested in December 2001 after trying to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight with a bomb hidden in his shoe. More plots were foiled in the ensuing years, including one targeting the Brooklyn Bridge.

Over time, the FBI and its partners better understood al-Qaida, its hierarchical structure, and how to unravel the various threads of a plot.

That stemmed to large degree, Zebley says, from the U.S. getting better at pulling together various threads of intelligence and by upping the operational tempo.

"If you have a little thread that could potentially tell you about a terrorist plot, not only were we much better at integrating the intelligence, but we did it at a pace that was tenfold what we were doing before," he said.

But critics warned that the government's new anti-terrorism tools were eroding civil liberties, while the American Muslim community felt it was all too often the target of an overzealous FBI.

The digital world helps transform terrorism

By the early days of the Obama administration, the U.S. had to a large extent hardened the homeland against 9/11-style plots. But the terrorism landscape was evolving.

At that time, Zebley was serving as a senior aide to Mueller. Each morning, he would sit in on the FBI director's daily threat briefing.

"I was thinking about al-Qaida for years leading up until that moment," he said. "And now I'm sitting in these morning threat briefings and I'm seeing al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb in North Africa, al-Shabab. ... One of my first thoughts was 'the map looks very different to me now.' "

Robert Mueller (left) and Aaron Zebley testify on Capitol Hill in Washington on July 24, 2019, before the House Intelligence Committee hearing on his report on Russian election interference. Susan Walsh/AP hide caption

Robert Mueller (left) and Aaron Zebley testify on Capitol Hill in Washington on July 24, 2019, before the House Intelligence Committee hearing on his report on Russian election interference.

Ultimately, AQAP — al-Qaida's branch based in Yemen — emerged as a significant threat to the U.S. homeland.

That became clear in November 2009 when U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Hasan shot and killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas. A month later, on Christmas Day, a young Nigerian man tried to blow up a passenger jet over Detroit with a bomb hidden in his underwear.

It quickly emerged that both men had been in contact with a senior AQAP figure, an American-born Yemeni cleric named Anwar al-Awlaki.

"My sense when I first heard about him was 'well, he's some charismatic guy, born in the U.S., fluent English speaker and all that. But how big a threat could he be?" said John Pistole, who served as the No. 2 official at the FBI from 2004 until 2010 when he left to lead the Transportation Security Administration.

"I think I failed to recognize and appreciate his ability to influence others to action."

Awlaki used the internet to spread his calls for violence against America, and his lectures and ideas influenced attacks in several countries. Awlaki was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2011, a move that proved controversial because he was an American citizen.

A few years later, a different terrorist group emerged from the cauldron of Syria and Iraq — the Islamic State, or ISIS, a group that would build on Awlaki's savvy use of the digital world.

"When ISIS came onto the scene, particularly that summer of 2014, with the beheadings and the prolific use of social media, it was off the charts," said Mary McCord, who was a senior national security official at the Justice Department at the time.

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Like al-Qaida more than a decade before, ISIS used its stronghold to plan operations abroad, such as the coordinated attacks in 2015 that killed 130 people in Paris. But it also used social media platforms such as Twitter and Telegram to pump out slickly produced propaganda videos.

"They deployed technology in a much more sophisticated way than we had seen with most other foreign terrorist organizations," McCord said.

ISIS produced materials featuring idyllic scenes of life in the caliphate to entice people to move there. At the same time, the group pushed out a torrent of videos showing horrendous violence that sought to instill fear in ISIS' enemies and to inspire the militants' sympathizers in Europe and the U.S. to conduct attacks where they were.

"The threat was much more horizontal. It was harder to corral," said Chuck Rosenberg, who served as FBI Director James Comey's chief of staff.

People inspired by ISIS could go from watching the group's videos to action relatively quickly without setting off alarms.

"It was clear too that there were going to be attacks we just couldn't stop. Things that went from left of boom to right of boom very quickly. People were more discreet, the thing we used to refer to as lone wolves," Rosenberg said. "A lot of bad things could happen, maybe on a smaller scale, but a lot of bad things could happen more quickly."

Bad things did happen

Europe was hit by a series of deadly one-off attacks. In the U.S., a gunman killed 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., in 2016. A year later, a man used a truck to plow through a group of cyclists and pedestrians in Manhattan, killing eight people. Both men had been watching ISIS propaganda.

A makeshift memorial stands outside the Tree of Life Synagogue in the aftermath of a deadly shooting in Pittsburgh in 2018. Matt Rourke/AP hide caption

A makeshift memorial stands outside the Tree of Life Synagogue in the aftermath of a deadly shooting in Pittsburgh in 2018.

The group's allure waned after a global coalition led by the U.S. managed to retake all the territory that ISIS once claimed.

By then, America's most lethal terror threat already stemmed not from foreign terror groups, but from the country's own domestic extremists.

For nearly two decades, the FBI had prioritized the fight against international terrorists. But in early 2020, FBI Director Christopher Wray said that had changed.

"We elevated to the top-level priority racially motivated violent extremism so it's on the same footing in terms of our national threat banding as ISISI and homegrown violent extremism," he testified before Congress.

The move came in the wake of a series of high-profile attacks by people espousing white supremacist views in Charlottesville, Va., Pittsburgh, Pa., Poway, Calif., and El Paso, Texas.

At the same time, anti-government extremist groups and conspiracy theories like QAnon were attracting more adherents.

Those various movements converged in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021, in the storming of the U.S. Capitol as Congress was certifying Joe Biden's presidential win.

Rioters climb the west wall of the the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6. Jose Luis Magana/AP hide caption

Rioters climb the west wall of the the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6.

The FBI has since launched a massive investigation into the assault, and Wray has bluntly described the Capitol riot as "domestic terrorism."

McCord, who is now the executive director at the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at the Georgetown University Law Center, says domestic extremist groups are using many of the same tools that foreign groups have for years.

"You see that in the use of social media for the same kind of things: to recruit, to propagandize, to plot, and to fundraise," she said.

The Capitol riot has put a spotlight on far-right extremism in a way the issue has never received in the past two decades, including in the media and the highest levels of the U.S. government.

President Biden, for one, has called political extremism and domestic terrorism a looming threat to the country that must be defeated, and he has made combating the threat a priority for his administration.

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Terrorism Essay for Students and Teacher

500+ words essay on terrorism essay.

Terrorism is an act, which aims to create fear among ordinary people by illegal means. It is a threat to humanity. It includes person or group spreading violence, riots, burglaries, rapes, kidnappings, fighting, bombings, etc. Terrorism is an act of cowardice. Also, terrorism has nothing to do with religion. A terrorist is only a terrorist, not a Hindu or a Muslim.

Types of Terrorism

Terrorism is of two kinds, one is political terrorism which creates panic on a large scale and another one is criminal terrorism which deals in kidnapping to take ransom money. Political terrorism is much more crucial than criminal terrorism because it is done by well-trained persons. It thus becomes difficult for law enforcing agencies to arrest them in time.

Terrorism spread at the national level as well as at international level.  Regional terrorism is the most violent among all. Because the terrorists think that dying as a terrorist is sacred and holy, and thus they are willing to do anything. All these terrorist groups are made with different purposes.

Causes of Terrorism

There are some main causes of terrorism development  or production of large quantities of machine guns, atomic bombs, hydrogen bombs, nuclear weapons, missiles, etc. rapid population growth,  Politics, Social, Economic  problems, dissatisfaction of people with the country’s system, lack of education, corruption, racism, economic inequality, linguistic differences, all these are the major  elements of terrorism, and terrorism flourishes after them. People use terrorism as a weapon to prove and justify their point of view.  The riots among Hindus and Muslims are the most famous but there is a difference between caste and terrorism.

The Effects Of Terrorism

Terrorism spreads fear in people, people living in the country feel insecure because of terrorism. Due to terrorist attacks, millions of goods are destroyed, the lives of thousands of innocent people are lost, animals are also killed. Disbelief in humanity raises after seeing a terrorist activity, this gives birth to another terrorist. There exist different types of terrorism in different parts of the country and abroad.

Today, terrorism is not only the problem of India, but in our neighboring country also, and governments across the world are making a lot of effort to deal with it. Attack on world trade center on September 11, 2001, is considered the largest terrorist attack in the world. Osama bin Laden attacked the tallest building in the world’s most powerful country, causing millions of casualties and death of thousands of people.

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Terrorist Attacks in India

India has suffered several terrorist attacks which created fear among the public and caused huge destruction. Here are some of the major terrorist attacks that hit India in the last few years: 1991 – Punjab Killings, 1993 – Bombay Bomb Blasts, RSS Bombing in Chennai, 2000 – Church Bombing, Red Fort Terrorist Attack,2001- Indian Parliament Attack, 2002 – Mumbai Bus Bombing, Attack on Akshardham Temple, 2003 – Mumbai Bombing, 2004 – Dhemaji School Bombing in Assam,2005 – Delhi Bombings, Indian Institute of Science Shooting, 2006 – Varanasi Bombings, Mumbai Train Bombings, Malegaon Bombings, 2007 – Samjhauta Express Bombings, Mecca Masjid Bombing, Hyderabad Bombing, Ajmer Dargah Bombing, 2008 – Jaipur Bombings, Bangalore Serial Blasts, Ahmedabad Bombings, Delhi Bombings, Mumbai Attacks, 2010 – Pune Bombing, Varanasi Bombing.

The recent ones include 2011 – Mumbai Bombing, Delhi Bombing, 2012 – Pune Bombing, 2013 – Hyderabad Blasts, Srinagar Attack, Bodh Gaya Bombings, Patna Bombings, 2014 – Chhattisgarh Attack, Jharkhand Blast, Chennai Train Bombing, Assam Violence, Church Street Bomb Blast, Bangalore, 2015 –  Jammu Attack, Gurdaspur Attack, Pathankot Attack, 2016 – Uri Attack, Baramulla Attack, 2017 – Bhopal Ujjain Passenger Train Bombing, Amarnath Yatra Attack, 2018 Sukma Attack, 2019- Pulwama attack.

Agencies fighting Terrorism in India

Many police, intelligence and military organizations in India have formed special agencies to fight terrorism in the country. Major agencies which fight against terrorism in India are Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), National Investigation Agency (NIA).

Terrorism has become a global threat which needs to be controlled from the initial level. Terrorism cannot be controlled by the law enforcing agencies alone. The people in the world will also have to unite in order to face this growing threat of terrorism.

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Securing our Future: A Decade of Counter-terrorism Strategies

About the author.

From No. 2, Vol. XLVIII, “Pursuing Peace: Commemorating Dag Hammarskjöld”, 2011

T errorism did not begin on 11 September 2001, but that terrible day did change the world. The attacks on the United States that claimed the lives of nearly three thousand innocent people showed us that terrorism had morphed into a global phenomenon that could cause massive pain and destruction anywhere. The magnitude of the attacks meant that no one could stand on the sidelines anymore. The fight had become global because the impact of terrorism was being felt everywhere.

The human values we share and work to uphold are derided by terrorists. The promotion of peace, equality, tolerance, and dignity for all are universal values that transcend our national differences. They are the glue that binds us together. United as nations and people of the world, we must come together to protect our common humanity. The global framework against terrorism The United Nations was engaged with the issue of terrorism long before that calamitous September morning ten years ago. For decades, the Organization has brought the international community together to condemn terrorist acts and developed the international legal framework to enable states to fight the threat collectively. Sixteen international treaties have been negotiated at the United Nations and related forums that address issues as diverse as the hijacking of planes, the taking of hostages, the financing of terrorism, the marking of explosives, and the threat of nuclear terrorism.

Additionally, in response to deadly attacks in East Africa and the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, the Security Council, in 1999, decided to impose sanctions on the Taliban and, later, on Al-Qaeda. The Council created a list of individuals and entities associated with these organizations that are subject to a travel ban, assets freeze, and arms embargo.

Shortly after 11 September 2001, the Security Council took even more forthright action, based on its realization that terrorism would continue to pose a serious threat to international peace and security in the new millennium. It adopted a far-reaching resolution charting the way forward in the fight against terrorism. That resolution requires all UN Member States, separately and collectively, to deny terrorists safe haven and financial support and to cooperate in bringing them to justice.

Subsequent Security Council resolutions paid increasing attention to taking preventive measures noting, for example, that extremists were using the Internet to recruit people and incite terrorist acts. The Council began to consistently emphasize the need for counter-terrorism measures to be in line with states' international legal obligations, including human rights law. It also considered it vital to ensure that non-state actors, such as terrorist groups, would not have access to weapons of mass destruction. Meanwhile, in 2006, the General Assembly adopted the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, in which it stressed the importance of addressing the issues that can give rise to terrorism. These include unresolved conflicts, dehumanization of victims, discrimination, violations of human rights, and lack of good governance. A comprehensive response to terrorism In the past decade, we at the United Nations have built on previous experience and are helping states adapt to an evolving threat that often involves new technologies. Although I believe we are heading in the right direction, much progress still needs to be made at the national, regional, and international levels.

Individual countries have made big strides, but success is measured in relative terms and major disparities persist. While some countries can spend billions of dollars on countering terrorism, others struggle to put in place even the basic measures needed to protect their borders and bring terrorists to justice. When a large proportion of a country's population lives in poverty, it is no surprise that they put scarce resources into development rather than counter-terrorism. We understand that, and often suggest approaches that have the dual benefit of protecting the country's economic and developmental interests while enhancing its security.

Frankly, preventing terrorist attacks is a challenge for everyone, even for countries that are richly endowed with resources and skilled personnel. For most nations, realistically, the implementation of the long list of measures envisaged by the Security Council resolutions and the Global Strategy is going to be patchy at best. The task is daunting: securing borders, tightening financial controls, strengthening the role of the police, improving criminal justice systems, and providing mutual legal assistance to other countries trying to convict terrorists in their courts. This is a step-by-step process that might begin with Governments ratifying the relevant conventions and adopting stronger terrorism-related laws. However, they cannot stop there.

The devil is often in the details when dealing with an issue as complex as this one. Take, for example, airport security. In many airports, security is tighter than ever, often to the annoyance of travelers who feel they are subjected to overly intrusive measures. The 9/11 terrorists, the "shoe bomber," and the "underwear bomber" all prompted reviews of security procedures that resulted in new approaches. As we introduce the latest ones and train staff on their use, we must always be aware that Al-Qaeda and other groups are probably working on new methods of evasion. All this relies on information and technology, both often in short supply in parts of the world where it can take weeks to repair a broken X-ray machine.

Countless men and women are on the beat every day all over the world, determined to prevent terrorists and other criminals from carrying out their plans. Think of border guards patrolling long and remote frontiers in inhospitable terrain, police officers following leads that span multiple countries, prosecutors combing through endless piles of evidence. Knowing that proper training, better equipment, and access to more information would help them immeasurably, we work towards bringing these tools to them.

When a country's defences are breached and a terrorist attack succeeds, we are immediately reminded of the real cost of this scourge, notably human pain, loss, and suffering. The images of the latest bombed vehicle or building flickering on our television screens may fade in our memories, but the pain of survivors, families of victims, and affected communities does not go away so easily. These people must not be forgotten, and we in the United Nations should continue to advocate for their interests and dignity. Their stories speak loudly for humanity and justice, and are an important part of countering terrorist propaganda.

It is clear that Governments alone cannot deal with this challenge. Countries with truly effective counter-terrorism strategies recognize the value of involving local communities, the private sector, the media, and other groups in society. They also encourage the exchange of intelligence, information, and expertise between national agencies and across borders. The broader the response, the more effective it is likely to be. The road ahead Over the past ten years, we have seen states try a variety of approaches to reduce the chance of terrorists succeeding. The United Nations has provided guidance and support in their endeavors, focusing on areas where we have a comparative advantage.

As a leader in the global fight against terrorism, our Organization will continue to press Governments to adopt comprehensive national strategies that balance hard-end security measures with social, economic, and community-driven policies that are grounded in the rule of law. The truth is that measures that try to take shortcuts or are not respectful of international human rights norms can actually undermine the collective effort by bolstering resentment in parts of the community and providing grist for terrorist groups' propaganda mills.

In the coming years, we will do more to help countries improve their internal coordination and their cooperation with neighbours. But breaking down institutional barriers and building trust between competing agencies as well as across borders takes time. The regional and global events we organize aim to facilitate those processes, giving professionals an opportunity to meet face to face and brainstorm on good practices. Once back home, they can implement the lessons learned and call on their international network for support.

We work with bilateral and multilateral agencies that can share their expertise with countries in need of technical assistance. Services available include drafting national laws, training prosecutors and judges, and linking national databases to border posts. The United Nations can also offer support with, for example, education programmes aimed at building tolerance in communities and development projects directed at improving governance.

Our bird's eye view has allowed us to follow counter-terrorism developments across the globe, learning along the way what works and what does not. And when I consider what we have already achieved, I am optimistic about what we can accomplish together as nations and people of the world over the next decade. Working as one, we can significantly reduce the number of attacks and victims and, hopefully, one day eliminate the terrorist threat completely.

The UN Chronicle  is not an official record. It is privileged to host senior United Nations officials as well as distinguished contributors from outside the United Nations system whose views are not necessarily those of the United Nations. Similarly, the boundaries and names shown, and the designations used, in maps or articles do not necessarily imply endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations.

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From Knowledge to Wisdom

Disastrous War against Terrorism

Nicholas Maxwell University College London Chapter 3 of Terrorism Issues: Threat Assessment , Consequences and Prevention , ed. Albert W. Merkidze, Nova Science Publishers, New York, 2007, pp. 111-133. Abstract Introduction Eight Principles 1. Comply with International Law 2. Combat Terrorism as Police Operation 3. Do Not Undermine Civil Liberties 4. Use Diplomacy and Intelligence 5. Resolve Conflicts that Fuel Terrorism 6. Combat Terrorism so as not to Promote It 7. Strengthen Treatises that Curtail Spread of Terrorist Materials 8. Do Not Commit Acts of Terrorism Global Problems Need for Public Education The Pursuit of Knowledge Correcting Blunders of the Enlightenment Conclusion References Notes Abstract In combating international terrorism, it is important to observe some basic principles, such as that international law must be complied with, care should be taken that one does not proceed in such a way that future terrorists are recruited, and one does not oneself become a terrorist. Unfortunately, the war on terrorism, conducted by President Bush, Prime Minister Blair and others since 9/11 in 2001, has violated all of these basic principles.  The outcome has been disastrous. In what follows, I take eight such principles in turn, and indicate how they have been violated, and how and why this has had adverse consequences. I then put the problem of terrorism into the context of other, and in some cases more serious global problems such as global warming, nuclear proliferation, war and the threat of war, and raise the question of how humanity can learn to tackle these problems more effectively and intelligently than they are being tackled at present. If these problems are to be tackled democratically, a majority of people in democratic countries need to understand what the problems are and what needs to be done about them. This, in turn, requires a major programme of public education. I conclude by putting forward a proposal as to how this can be brought about. [Back to Top] Introduction Terrorism is likely to be with us for quite some time. And the chances are that, as time passes, it will become increasingly dangerous. There is always the dreadful possibility that terrorists will get hold of biological or nuclear material that enables them to start an epidemic, or explode an atomic bomb - or at least a conventional bomb laced with radioactive material. The present President of the Royal Society in Britain, Professor Martin Rees, is so worried by these possibilities that he thinks that this might be our final century (Rees, 2003). Given all this, and given the spate of terrorist attacks both before and after 9/11, it is a matter of major importance that the liberal, democratic nations of the world collaborate in combating terrorism in as effective and intelligent a way as possible, and in a way which does as little damage as possible to those traditions and institutions of civilization we have managed so far to create and maintain. It is no good defeating terrorism in such a way that we destroy along the way the very thing we seek to preserve, what is best in our whole way of life. If we are to combat terrorism in this effective and intelligent manner, there are certain basic principles which must be observed. They include the following:- 1. International law must be complied with. 2. Terrorism must be combated as a police operation, not a war. 3. Civil liberties must not be undermined. 4. Nations suspected of harbouring or supporting terrorists must be engaged with both by means of diplomacy, and in such a way that intelligence is sought by stealth. 5. If terrorists' acts are motivated by long-standing conflict - as in the Palestine/Israeli conflict - every effort should be made by the international community of nations to resolve the conflict that fuels the terrorism. 6. As far as possible, terrorism must not be combated in such a way as to recruit terrorists.  7. International treatises designed to curtail the spread of terrorist materials must be maintained and strengthened. 8. Democratic nations combating terrorism must exercise care that, in combating terrorism, they do not thereby act as terrorists. Unfortunately, the war on terrorism, conducted by President Bush, Prime Minister Blair and others since 9/11 in 2001, has violated all of these principles, 1 to 8.  The outcome has been disastrous. In what follows, I take these eight principles in turn, and indicate how they have been violated, and how and why this has had adverse consequences. I then put the problem of terrorism into the context of other, and in some cases more serious global problems such as global warming, nuclear proliferation, war and the threat of war, and raise the question of how humanity can learn to tackle these problems more effectively and intelligently than they are being tackled at present. If these problems are to be tackled democratically, a majority of people in democratic countries need to understand what the problems are and what needs to be done about them. This, in turn, requires a major programme of public education. I conclude by putting forward a proposal as to how this can be brought about. Initially, I take terrorism to be the murdering or injuring of people for the sake of political ends. Any doubts there might be about this brief definition will not be relevant for what I have to say initially. Only when we come to the eighth principle, and the question of whether democratic nations perform terrorist actions, will it be necessary to consider more carefully what we should mean by terrorism. There are three basic reasons why, in combating terrorism, the above eight principles should be observed. Elementary moral principles relevant to national and international politics should not be violated; we should not undermine our traditions and institutions of civil rights, freedom and democracy under the mistaken idea that this is required to combat terrorism successfully; and we should not proceed in such a way that we cause more and more people to take up terrorism, thus exacerbating the very thing we seek to diminish. We go against one or other - or in some cases all three - of these points in failing to comply with each of the above eight principles. Let us, then, consider the eight principles in turn. {Back to Top] Eight Principles 1. International law must be complied with According to the UN charter, the circumstances in which nations can use force legally against other nations is limited to self-defence and collective action authorized by the Security Council. Does this mean that the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, initiated by the US, UK and others in response to 9/11, were legal according to international law? The Afghanistan war is widely taken to have been legally justified. Resolution 1368 of the UN Security Council, taken on the 12 September 2001 (the day after 9/11) "Calls on all states to work together urgently to bring to justice the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of these terrorist attacks and stresses that those responsible for aiding, supporting or harbouring the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of these acts will be held accountable". This was taken to justify legally the subsequent Afghanistan war. And it is true there was UN involvement in the subsequent occupation. Resolution 1378 of the 14 November 2001, condemns "the Taliban for allowing Afghanistan to be used as a base for the export of terrorism by the al-Qaeda network" and "Affirms that the United Nations should play a central role in supporting the efforts of the Afghan people to establish urgently … a new and transitional administration". There is, however, no Security Council resolution explicitly endorsing the war. The presumption was, nevertheless, that the war had UN approval on the grounds that the US had been attacked, and was justified in defending itself. But Afghanistan did not perform an act of aggression against the US.  The Taliban government refused to release bin Laden on the grounds that he would not receive a fair trial - very reasonable, unfortunately, given the behaviour of Bush's administration.  Would the UN Security Council have backed war with Afghanistan if bin Laden's target had been France rather than the US - if the Louvre, perhaps, had been demolished, with a similar death toll?  Or was the war deemed legal because the US is the world's superpower?  How big an act of terrorism does it have to be for this to make legal a war against a country which harbours the terrorists?  At the time of writing, Hillary Clinton has declared that if a terrorist attack occurred in the US her policy would be to attack those responsible. It seems all too likely that the Democrats, when they get into the White House, will continue Bush's policy in this respect. But it seems to me thoroughly reprehensible that criminal acts of individuals, which are not acts of war by states, should be regarded by the Security Council - and thus by international law - as providing grounds for a "war of self-defence".  That seems to stretch "self-defence" way beyond what must have been originally intended, and was only allowed because of the US's superpower status. In my view, then, even if understood to be sanctioned by the Security Council, the Afghanistan war ought to have been declared illegal, an act of criminal international aggression. The Iraq war of 2003 is quite different. It is clear that neither of the two conditions for war to be legal were met. Iraq was not attacking any other nation - most certainly not the US or UK. The US and UK governments did their utmost in an attempt to convince the rest of the world that an illegal nuclear research programme was underway in Iraq, and that Saddam Hussein possessed "weapons of mass destruction", but the only evidence produced in support of these claims turned out to be fraudulent. There were no grounds for holding there was some kind of link between Saddam Hussein and bin Laden. On the contrary, they were bitterly opposed to each other. All grounds for holding Saddam Hussein had either the intent or the means to attack other nations (let alone the US or UK) turned out to be fake. George Bush was quite content to attack Iraq without any attempt to get the backing of the UN, but it was recognized that this would create difficulties for Tony Blair, and so the attempt was made to persuade the Security Council to back the impending war. This attempt failed, although the UK government insisted, against the facts, that it had all the UN resolutions needed to justify legally the war. There is no serious doubt whatsoever: in going to war against Iraq in 2003, the US, UK and other nations involved acted in violation of international law. Saddam Hussein was a monster, and his regime was monstrous. But our only hope for a more democratic, peaceful and just planet is through the observance, strengthening and enhancing of international law; it cannot be achieved by international acts which violate it - that is, by what are, essentially, criminal international actions. The idea that Bush's actions were essentially well-intentioned, in that he sought to replace a brutal dictatorship by a democracy, hardly stands up to examination. There are a number of other brutal dictatorships in the world which do not receive similar attention. It is hard not to believe that in the case of Iraq, the crucial additional factor was oil. Perhaps Bush really did believe his own rhetoric when he declared that democracy in Iraq would be a beacon for democracy in the Middle East. If so, democracy was desirable, for Bush, because - so it was believed - it would be associated with favourable trading arrangements in oil. The lies peddled by Bush and Blair in the lead-up to the Iraq war do not exactly encourage one to think the war was pursued with noble intentions. At one stage, 82% of Americans believed Saddam Hussein was linked to bin Laden and 9/11, a misconception Bush did nothing to discourage.[1] In fact, on the 22 nd September 2002, Bush declared "You can't distinguish between al-Qaeda and Saddam when it comes to war on terror". But it is above all the way the Iraq campaign was pursued, both during and after immediate hostilities in the Spring of 2003, that makes the idea of good intentions seem so absurd. US soldiers stood by while massive looting took place after initial hostilities had ceased. Vast sums of money were squandered in Iraq - much of it Iraq's own oil funds - corruption being rife. Initially, little was done to establish security, law and order, in and around Baghdad. It should have been obvious to the invading armies, before the war, that there would be a severe security problem after hostilities had ceased, because of long-standing enmity between the Sunni and Shia populations. Saddam Hussein had used Sunni henchmen to persecute and subjugate the Shia population. Many Shia felt hatred towards the Sunni as a result, and the Sunni Iraqis had good cause to fear the revenge of the Shia majority. The occupying US forces acted as if they knew nothing of this history; they acted as if Sunni and Shia alike would feel nothing but gratitude towards them for invading their country and deposing Saddam Hussein. Not only has there been a disastrous failure to establish even a minimal level of security. There has also been a miserable failure to establish elementary services at a basic level: electricity, water, health, equipment in hospitals. This has been due, partly to corruption, partly to the lack of security and, more recently, because of the exodus from Iraq of professionals and others who are no longer prepared to endure the danger and misery of life in Iraq. Many others, no doubt, would leave if they could. The whole campaign to bring democracy to Iraq has been a disaster. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have lost their lives, and hundreds of thousands more have been crippled. Few Iraqis, even four years after the war, think life in Iraq is better now than how it was under Saddam Hussein. The daily death toll has got worse and worse as time has passed. Prospects for the future look grim. Allied to the ignorance and stupidity of the US administration in Iraq after the war, there is the sheer brutality of the occupation, the apparent indifference to the killing of civilians at check points, and during hunts for insurgents, like that carried out in Fallujah. A recent Pentagon report revealed that "Approximately 10 per cent of soldiers and marines report mistreating non-combatants (damaged/destroyed Iraqi property when not necessary or hit/kicked a non-combatant when not necessary)". More than a third of soldiers thought torture should be allowed to save the life of a fellow soldier.[2] Even worse, in a number of well-documented cases, US troops have fired on and killed civilians in Iraq since initial hostilities in 2003 came to an end, no one in the US military being brought to account. Well over one hundred thousand Iraqis have been killed during and since the war up to the time of writing.[3] And prospects for the future look grim. When the US pulls out, it seems quite likely that Iraq will descend into all-out civil war between Sunni and Shia. Iran, no doubt, will come to the aid of the Shia, the Sunni will be defeated, and a Shia Iran-Iraq axis will be established. The outcome of the war has been the very opposite of what Bush must have hoped for. It has enormously strengthened Iran in the Middle East. It has unleashed terrorism of almost unparalleled ferocity. The streets of Baghdad have become training grounds for future terrorists who will, no doubt, move on to the UK and the US. It has enormously strengthened the cause of al-Qaeda. And the unspeakable brutality and illegality of the war and the occupation - their sheer criminality - have enraged a proportion of Muslim youth all over the world and will no doubt inspire many to attempt to perform future acts of terrorism in revenge. Bush's "war against terrorism" has served here, as in other ways, to create the very thing that is, ostensibly, being fought to be defeated. It would be wrong, of course, to blame all this on the illegality of the war. Even if the UN had given the war its seal of approval, and the war had achieved some kind of official, if somewhat spurious legality, all the above disasters might well have ensued. On the other hand, we may take the view that, on this occasion, the UN got it right, the Iraq war was an illegal act of aggression, and there were, on this occasion at least, very good reasons for not going to war. The other way the "war against terrorism" has violated international law has to do with the treatment of prisoners, and the suspension of the Geneva Convention. Prisoners in Guantanamo Bay have been held by the US for years without being charged, subjected to treatment that is widely regarded as amounting to torture, without resort to the law, in a kind of "legal black hole". These prisoners are classified as "enemy combatants", neither prisoners of war, nor subject to ordinary civil legal processes and safeguards. Treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib also clearly violated the Geneva Convention, and there have been accusations of torture sanctioned and aided by the US in prisons elsewhere in the world, victims being transported by means of the secret process of "rendition". Not only is all this a moral and legal outrage; it serves, again, to inspire some Muslim youth to join the war against the infidels, and become terrorists. [Back to Top] 2. Terrorism must be combated as a police operation, not a war President Bush declared "war on terrorism" in an address to the nation on the very night of the 9/11 atrocity. Even if "war" had been used metaphorically, as in "war on drugs", this declaration would have been a serious blunder from the standpoint of combating Al-Qaeda effectively. Like all terrorists, bin Laden and his associates see themselves as soldiers in a war, not as criminals. To have this confirmed by the President of the US enormously enhances the prestige of al-Qaeda, and is a great aid to recruitment. To suggest that the US must be put on a war footing to combat al-Qaeda gives a vastly over-estimated impression of the strength and danger of the opposition. It suggests that al-Qaeda is on a par with the military might of the US, which is of course absurd. What was required to combat al-Qaeda effectively was a combination of diplomacy with relevant and potentially friendly nations such as Pakistan, gathering of good intelligence, and police work. The rhetoric of war raises public expectations of battles, very different from the quiet, behind-the scenes work needed to combat terrorism effectively. But Bush, in declaring "war on terrorism", meant war to be understood in a way much stronger than the metaphorical. The declaration justified the announcement of a "state of emergency". And it led to literal war, first in Afghanistan, and then, even more disastrously, in Iraq. As I have already mentioned, the American people were encouraged to believe that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attack. In fact Saddam Hussein and bin Laden were mortal enemies. Iraq had had nothing to do with 9/11. Not only has the Iraq war been a disaster for the hundreds of thousands who have died during it, and subsequently, and the vastly greater number who have been injured, or who have lost loved ones, but it has had the effect of generating terrorism in occupied Iraq to a quite unprecedented extent. As I have already remarked, the embattled streets of Baghdad are training grounds for future terrorists in the US, UK and elsewhere. Immediately after 9/11 there was a world-wide upsurge of sympathy and support for the US. The subsequent pre-emptive wars have had the effect of transforming this sympathy into hostility and fear. Not only does this help recruit terrorists; it undermines the kind of international cooperation required to combat international terrorism successfully. [Back to Top] 3. Civil liberties must not be undermined It is tempting to think that the threat of terrorism means that certain civil liberties must be suspended. But such measures are inherently undesirable, in that they undermine what every liberal democracy should strive to maintain and strengthen. It is as if, not content with suffering the damage the terrorists do to us, we decide to take the matter into our own hands, and ourselves do further damage to ourselves. Such measures also have the effect of signalling to the terrorist that they are having a major impact, and may thus encourage further acts of terrorism. And finally, if suspending elements of civil liberties means weakening due process of law, so that suspects can be held without trial, or convicted without a proper trial, this may well result in the innocent being imprisoned or convicted, and may incite further terrorism. Civil liberties have been curtailed in various ways in response to 9/11 in both the US and the UK. Thus in the UK, after 9/11, the Government introduced indefinite detention without charge of foreign nationals. This was replaced by the control order regime which allows government ministers to impose sweeping restrictions on individual freedoms on the basis of secret intelligence and suspicion. Pre-charge detention has been increased from 14 days to 28 days, with further extensions threatened. Legislation has been passed curtailing free speech and the right to demonstrate, and enhancing police powers to detain and search. [Back to Top] 4. Nations suspected of harbouring or supporting terrorists must be engaged with both by means of diplomacy, and in such a way that intelligence is sought by stealth For many years, Gaddafi of Libya was suspected of supporting terrorists and attempting to develop the nuclear bomb. Pressure and negotiations eventually led Gaddafi to renounce both. Such strategies can meet with success. Similar strategies need to be adopted in connection with Iran and Syria. But, until very recently (at the time of writing), President Bush has refused to negotiate with either. Instead, there has been threat, not spoken but not denied, that nuclear installations in Iran will be bombed if enrichment of uranium does not cease. Threatening Iran with war, or a bombing campaign, has the effect of strengthening the position of the more hardline and fanatical groups in the country, and at the same time undermining those of a more liberal stance who support negotiations. Once again, the outcome may be the very opposite of what is intended. Exactly the same considerations apply to countries suspected of harbouring or supporting terrorist groups. The best hope of dealing successfully with such support lies in negotiation and secret intelligence gathering, and not in refusal to negotiate, withdrawal of diplomatic relations, name calling and veiled threats of military action. [Back to Top] 5. If terrorists' acts are motivated by long-standing conflict - as in the Palestine/Israeli conflict - every effort should be made by the international community of nations to resolve the conflict that fuels the terrorism Reacting to terrorist atrocities - by curtailing civil liberties, or by giving in to terrorist demands - has the adverse consequence that it leads the terrorists to believe they are having an impact and are meeting with success, and may, as a result, give encouragement and resolve to the terrorists, and help promote recruitment. On the other hand, if serious injustices exist, the fact that terrorists demand an end to them should not be used as an excuse to do nothing to put a stop to them, on the grounds that action would amount to giving in to terrorist demands. Such inaction amounts to allowing terrorists to dictate policy in a negative sense: the mere fact that terrorists make a demand means that nothing can be done, even when something should be done, out of fear this will amount to giving in to the demands of terrorists. It is possible that this negative influence of terrorism may have played a role in the long conflict in northern Ireland. British governments may have been reluctant to address the legitimate complaints of Catholics out of fear that this would amount to giving in to the demands of the IRA. And it is conceivable that something similar may have been at work in connection with the long-standing Israel/Palestine conflict. Al-Qaeda demands justice for the Palestinians. If the US takes determined action to procure such justice, this may seem too close to giving in to the demands of al-Qaeda. The conflict has gone on for so long that it may seem unresolvable. But determined action by the US and the UN could, over time, bring the conflict to an end. What is required is deployment of sufficient peace-keeping troops deployed between Israel, the Gaza strip and the West Bank, pressure on Israel to withdraw from land occupied after the 1967 war, pressure on both sides to acknowledge each other's right to exist as independent states, and to end hostilities. Pressure on Israel would have to take the form of the US threatening to curtail the immense annual budget Israel receives from the US - the budget actually being decreased if mere threats have no effect. It is often said that the Jewish lobby in the US is so powerful it would never permit such policies to be adopted. It is hardly so powerful that it could prevent a President in power from initiating and pursuing policies of this kind. At most it might prevent a President who pursued such policies having a second term. On the other hand, even if assessed in the wholly cynical terms of leaving one's mark on history, it might be deemed more worthwhile to be instrumental in bringing the Israel/ Palestine conflict to an end, than not to do this and be re-elected for a second term. It seems likely that the current treatment of Palestinians by Israel, the US and Europe does much - along with the continuing hostilities in Afghanistan and Iraq - to aid recruitment to Islamic terrorist groups. And it is possible that fear of being thought to be giving in to the demands of bin Laden and al-Qaeda may be one of the factors deterring action to bring the conflict to an end. In this connection, Louise Richardson in her excellent book What Terrorists Want (Richardson, 2006), makes a point of decisive importance. In combating terrorism, it is essential to take into account, and to distinguish, the terrorists themselves, and the community that is sympathetic to the political aims of the terrorists. In combating terrorism, one goal should be to isolate the terrorists from their sympathetic community (since it is from that community that the terrorists will gain support and recruits). If the community has legitimate grievances, doing something about those grievances may well have the consequence that the community in question cools its sympathy for the terrorists, which in turn may lead eventually to the collapse of the terrorist groups. All this is highly relevant to the Israel/Palestine conflict. There can be no doubt that the treatment of the Palestinians over the decades has outraged many members of the world-wide Islamic community. Indeed, one does not have to be a member of that community to be outraged. Al-Qaeda terrorists have made it quite clear that one motive for their terrorist action is to highlight the injustice suffered by the Palestinians. Bringing the Israel/Palestinian conflict to an end is overwhelmingly desirable for the sake of the Israeli and Palestinian people. But it is also desirable as one of the measures needed to defeat al-Qaeda in the long term. [Back to Top] 6. As far as possible, terrorism must not be combated in such a way as to recruit terrorists  Some necessary police operations, however sensitively conducted, may have the effect of antagonizing some of those affected, and may prompt them to join the ranks of the terrorists. This can hardly be avoided. Nevertheless every effort should be made to drive a wedge between terrorist groups and potential sympathizers. Above all, terrorism must not be combated in such a way as actually to drive sympathizers into the arms of the terrorists. This is plain common sense, and yet it has been violated again and again by Bush's and Blair's "war on terrorism", as we have already seen. The most dreadful example is the Iraq war. Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. Bin Laden was bitterly opposed to the secular Saddam Hussein. War with Iraq had nothing to do with combating Islamic terrorism. The outcome has been an unleashing of terrorism in Iraq itself of almost unprecedented ferocity. This is very likely to spread to other countries in the future. The war itself, and above all the brutal subsequent occupation and its multiple failures, are calculated to provoke al-Qaeda sympathizers all over the world to become active terrorists. The scandal of the treatment of prisoners, in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere will have had the same effect. Engaging in war, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, mistreating prisoners, and supporting Russia in its ruthless actions in Chechnya, far from combating terrorism, amounts to the exact opposite. It is inflaming terrorism. Bin Laden's hopes for 9/11 were, no doubt, to provoke a massive over-reaction from Bush which would, in turn, cause Islamic youth everywhere to take up jihad. Bush obliged. A cynic might wonder whether Bush, after he had got over the initial shock of 9/11, did not welcome this new "war on terrorism". It provided his presidency with a mission. He quickly became a hero in the eyes of his countrymen. It put new powers into his hands. And it made it possible to do what he had wanted to do all along - go to war with Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein. The armed might of the US, which might have come to look somewhat excessive - even to Americans - after the collapse of the Soviet Union, suddenly had a new rationale, a new enemy: the terrifying menace of international terrorism. [Back to Top] 7. International treatises designed to curtail spread of terrorist materials must be maintained and strengthened Far from strengthening international treaties, the US tends, unfortunately, to take the view that, as the world's only superpower, it is above compliance with such treaties. As one commentator has put it recently " Of the total number of active treaties (550), the US has ratified only 160 (29%). President Bush has reversed US backing of six pacts: the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change, Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, Landmine Treaty, Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and nullified Clinton's signature related to the International Criminal Court. Only Somalia and the US have not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child!" (Irish, 2005). Two international treaties are of particular relevance to our present concerns: the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, and the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. The idea behind the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, when it was signed in 1970, was that non-nuclear nations would refrain from acquiring nuclear weapons if the nuclear powers moved towards nuclear disarmament. Neither the US nor the UK has shown the slightest sign of taking seriously their part of the bargain. In the meantime, India, Pakistan and North Korea have acquired nuclear weapons, and it seems likely that Iran is working towards joining the nuclear club as well. As for US support for the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, during the 1980's the US sent Anthrax and other biological agents to Saddam Hussein in clear contravention of the Convention (Holland, 2004). [Back to Top] 8. Democratic nations combating terrorism must exercise care that, in combating terrorism, they do not thereby act as terrorists It may seem outrageous to suggest that the US or UK could stoop so low as to engage in terrorist acts themselves. But if we take terrorism to be the murdering - the unjustifiable killing - of people for the sake of political ends, then it must be acknowledged that the US has, again and again in recent times, performed terrorist actions - aided and abetted, on occasions, by the UK. The Iraq war may indeed be regarded as a monumental act of terrorism - the 2003 war itself, and the occupation afterwards. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed, far more than the three thousand who died in the twin towers as a result of 9/11. The US military is directly responsible for a substantial percentage of these deaths. Many were civilians. Repeatedly over the years of occupation, US soldiers have killed civilians, at check points, during house searches, or in response to demonstrations. How does this differ from terrorism? It is, admittedly, a democratic state that has carried out these atrocities, not an anonymous group of fanatics, but that does not weaken the crime involved. It could be objected that the intentions of the US in going to war with Iraq, and occupying the country afterwards, were noble (to topple Saddam Hussein), and quite different from those of real terrorists. But some terrorists may have noble goals: that does not make them any the less terrorists. Terrorism has to do with the means taken - terror - not the character of the aim (except that it is in some way political). And in any case, as we have seen, it is dubious that President Bush's motives in going to war with Iraq were all that noble. It might be objected, again, that the US does not deliberately target civilians. Deliberately targeting civilians is - it may be argued - the defining characteristic of terrorism. But first, this is not what terrorism is ordinarily taken to mean, and certainly not by the US and UK governments. Those who kill soldiers in Iraq are deemed to be terrorists. Five men were arrested in New Jersey, US, on the 7 th May 2007, and charged with conspiracy to murder US soldiers (Guardian, 2007). That these men evidently planned to attack an army base and kill soldiers, and not civilians, will not be deemed sufficient to release them from the charge of terrorism. Second, the excuse that civilians are not deliberately targeted only has force if every effort is made not to kill civilians in a legitimate military operation. This cannot be said of many US military operations in Iraq. One example is the attack on Fallujah in the Spring of 2004. The highly respected "Iraq Body Count" has concluded that, of the 800 deaths of Iraqis reported in connection with the attack on Fallujah by the US, somewhere between 572 and 616 were civilians, with over 300 of these being women and children. There have been all too many reports of civilians being killed by US soldiers in Iraq in circumstances which make it impossible to say every effort was made to avoid the deaths. Apparent terrorist actions performed by the US did not begin with the Iraq or Afghanistan wars. In 1986, the US bombed Libya's capital Tripoli, killing at least a hundred people. This was in retaliation for a terrorist bomb in Berlin, which killed two American servicemen. Britain colluded in the attack in allowing the planes involved to take off from military bases in the UK. Similar operations have been conducted by the US, over the years, in Pakistan, Iraq and elsewhere. For a list of such operations conducted from 1945 to the present and a brief description of each, see Blum (2006, chapter 17). The US has also sponsored terrorism enacted by others, as when it has supported the Contras in Nicaragua, the mujahideen in Afghanistan, and groups trying to overthrow Castro in Cuba and Allende in Chile. [Back to Top] Global Problems To sum up. The current "war on terrorism" violates all eight of the principles, enunciated above. This has had disastrous consequences,[4] and is likely to have further disastrous consequences for decades into the future. The task of combating, or containing, terrorism urgently needs to be transformed so that all eight principles are implemented. But how is this to happen? It might help if a Democrat is elected to be the next President of the US, but it seems unlikely, given the historical record, that this would suffice to bring about the radical change in foreign policy that is needed, whoever is elected. It is not as if President Bush's administration can be held solely responsible for what has happened, with Blair being charged with some additional responsibility. Both Bush and Blair were re-elected after the 2003 Iraq war, and long after the character of the "war on terrorism" had become all too apparent. What is required, evidently, is a much more widely dispersed understanding, among the electorates of the democratic nations of the world, of how terrorism can be tackled, or contained, intelligently and effectively, in such a way that international law is observed, civil liberties are not undermined, and without resort to terrorist actions. But how is this to be brought about? Before I attempt to answer this key question, I would like first to put the problem of international terrorism into the context of other urgent global problems. There is the problem of war in general, over 100 million people having died in countless wars in the 20th century (which compares unfavourably with the 12 million or so killed in wars during the 19th century). There is the arms trade, the massive stockpiling of armaments, even by poor countries, and the ever-present threat of their use in war, whether the arms be conventional, chemical, biological or nuclear. There is the sustained and profound injustice of immense differences of wealth across the globe, the industrially advanced first world of North America, Europe and elsewhere experiencing unprecedented wealth while something like three quarters of humanity live in conditions of poverty in the developing world, hungry, unemployed, without proper housing, health care, education, or even access to safe water. There is the long-standing problem of the rapid growth of the world's population, especially pronounced in the poorest parts of the world, and adversely affecting efforts at development. There is the problem of the progressive destruction of tropical rain forests and other natural habitats, with its concomitant devastating extinction of species. And there is the horror of the AIDS epidemic, again far more terrible in the poorest parts of the world, devastating millions of lives, destroying families, and crippling economies. And most serious of all, perhaps, there is the problem of global warming. Most of these problems are interlinked with one another, in complex ways. Global warming may lead, as a result of drought, floods, or rising sea levels, to populations becoming displaced which, in turn, is likely to lead to terrorism and war. The arms trade, the stockpiling of weapons, clearly has implications for war and terrorism. On the other hand, the decision to make "the war on terrorism" the number one issue may have, and may have already had, the effect of distracting attention away from even more serious problems, such as global warming. [Back to Top] The Need for Public Education It is now, in my view, of decisive importance to appreciate the following elementary points concerning these interlinked global problems. If we are to tackle these problems effectively, humanely and democratically, then it is essential that the electorates of the democracies of the world have a good understanding of what these problems are, and what we need to do to solve them. That in turn requires that people are educated about what the problems are, and what we need to do to solve them. And that in turn requires that our institutions of learning - our schools and universities - are rationally devoted to this fundamental task, to the task of educating the public about what our problems of living are and what we need to do about them, especially our immense, intractable, apparently impersonal global problems, including the problem of international terrorism. There is, I believe, no evading the conclusion of this elementary argument. We cannot hope to resolve the world's problem undemocratically. It would be foolish or even, perhaps,, suicidal to put our trust in enlightened unelected political leaders. Even if we had elected leaders and governments with the best possible will and understanding in the world, they would still be constrained, in their actions, by what electorates would tolerate. As it is, we do not have leaders and democratic governments with the best possible good will and understanding, and nor are we likely to have them in the future. If our governments are to pursue more intelligent and humane policies, powerful democratic pressure must be put on them to do so. It must be made abundantly clear that a sizeable majority of the electorate demand such policies from their governments, so much so that governments which do not oblige will be kicked out of office at the next election. Electorates must be adept at seeing through the deceptions of governments, so that governments cannot get away with pursuing one set of policies while convincing most of the electorate that quite different policies are being implemented. All this requires education - education about what our problems are and what we need to do to solve them, and education about the realities, constraints, and deceptions, of government. There is, quite simply, no alternative. If humanity is to tackle its immense problems effectively and humanely, it is essential that humanity has a good understanding of what the problems are, and what needs to be done to resolve them. And this in turn requires that our public institutions of learning - our schools and universities - are rationally devoted to achieving this fundamental goal. This point applies just as much to the problem of international terrorism as it does to global warming, population increase or rapid extinction of species. [Back to Top] The Pursuit of Knowledge One immediate response may be that schools and universities are already devoting considerable energy to educating the public about these matters. I believe this to be true. It is nevertheless the case that the primary official intellectual aim of academic inquiry is not to help humanity learn how to solve its global problems, make progress towards a better world. It is rather to acquire knowledge and technological know-how. Or rather, the idea is that the primary way in which academia can help humanity make progress towards a better world is, in the first instance, to acquire knowledge. First, knowledge is to be acquired; then it can be applied to help solve social problems. And furthermore, in order to be of benefit to humanity, academia must ensure that authentic, objective, reliable knowledge is acquired. This means that the pursuit of knowledge must be sharply dissociated from all social, humanitarian or political goals. If social, political and evaluative considerations are not excluded from science, the danger is - so it is held - that the pursuit of knowledge will degenerate into mere propaganda or ideology, science will be corrupted intellectually, and will cease to be of value to humanity. In order to make a contribution of value to humanity, paradoxically, science must eschew all considerations concerning what is of human value. And this means universities do not, and cannot, devote themselves primarily to educating the public about what our global problems are, and what we need to do to solve them. Academia must restrict itself, in the first instance at least, to solving problems of knowledge, so that knowledge that is acquired can, subsequently, be used to help solve social problems of living. Elsewhere, I have expounded and criticized this immensely influential view as the philosophy of knowledge, or knowledge-inquiry (see Maxwell, 1984, 1992, 2000, 2004). There can be no doubt whatsoever that the scientific pursuit of knowledge has, over the centuries, helped transform the human condition, and has brought immense benefits to our whole way of life. The modern world is quite simply inconceivable without modern science. Nevertheless, the pursuit of knowledge dissociated from a more fundamental concern with problems of living - with our global problems - as demanded by knowledge-inquiry, despite the benefits that have resulted, has also had profoundly damaging consequences. It has resulted in all our current global problems, including the lethal character of modern terrorism. Modern science and technology vastly increase our power to act. This, as I have said, has a multitude of beneficial consequences. But also, not surprisingly, it can have bad consequences as well, either intentionally, in war and terrorism, or unintentionally (initially at least) when modern industry and agriculture lead to global warming, destruction of natural habitats and extinction of species. Modern science and technology make possible hygiene and modern medicine, the rapid growth in the human population, modern industry and agriculture, modern armaments; these, in turn, make possible the lethal character of modern war and terrorism, destruction of natural habitats, global warming, and all our other current global problems. Even the AIDS epidemic has emerged in this way, AIDS being spread by modern methods of travel. In short, not only does the current devotion of academia to the pursuit of knowledge and technological know-how prevent universities from taking their primary task to be to educate the public about what our global problems are, and what we need to do about them. Even worse, this immensely successful pursuit of knowledge dissociated from a more fundamental concern with global problems of living is actually implicated in the creation of our current global problems. It is even worse than this. In a perfectly reasonable sense of "cause", our global problems have been caused by modern science and technology. At once the objection may be made that it is not science that is the cause of our global problems, but rather the things that we do, made possible by science and technology. This is obviously correct. But it is also correct to say that scientific and technological progress is the cause. The meaning of "cause" is ambiguous. By "the cause" of event E we may mean something like "the most obvious observable events preceding E that figure in the common sense explanation for the occurrence of E". In this sense, human actions (made possible by science) are the cause of such things as people being killed in war, destruction of tropical rain forests. On the other hand, by the "cause" of E we may mean "that prior change in the environment of E which led to the occurrence of E, and without which E would not have occurred". If we put the 20th century into the context of human history, then it is entirely correct to say that, in this sense, scientific-and-technological progress is the cause of our distinctive current global disasters: what has changed, what is new, is scientific knowledge, not human nature. (Give a group of chimpanzees rifles and teach them how to use them and in one sense, of course, the cause of the subsequent demise of the group would be the actions of the chimpanzees. But in another obvious sense, the cause would be the sudden availability and use of rifles - the new, lethal technology.) Yet again, from the standpoint of theoretical physics, "the cause" of E might be interpreted to mean something like "the physical state of affairs prior to E, throughout a sufficiently large spatial region surrounding the place where E occurs". In this third sense, the sun continuing to shine is as much a part of the cause of war and pollution as human action or human science and technology. In short, if by the cause of an event we mean that prior change which led to that event occurring, then it is the advent of modern science and technology that has caused all our current global crises. It is not that people became greedier or more wicked in the 19th and 20th centuries; nor is it that the new economic system of capitalism is responsible, as some historians and economists would have us believe. The crucial factor is the creation and immense success of modern science and technology. This has led to modern medicine and hygiene, to population growth, to modern agriculture and industry, to world wide travel (which spreads diseases such as AIDS), to global warming, and to the destructive might of the technology of modern war and terrorism, conventional, chemical, biological, nuclear. 9/11 is a striking case in point. There is nothing exclusively modern about terrorism itself, any more than there is about war: terrorism goes back at least to Biblical times. But what is distinctively modern is the scale of the threat, and its impact. Those responsible for 9/11 used nothing more high-tech than knives, but they were able to exploit modern technology so as vastly to increase the enormity of their action, and the scale of its impact. They exploited aeroplanes with which to do the deed, and relied on television and modern communications to spread news and images of what they had done round the world instantly, as the horror unfolded. It was modern technology which made the immediate global impact of 9/11 possible. Before the advent of modern science and technology, lack of wisdom - lack of the capacity to resolve our problems of living intelligently and humanely - did not matter too much. We lacked the power to do too much damage to ourselves, or to the planet (although some damage we did do). But now that we (or some of us) possess unprecedented powers, thanks to modern science, lack of wisdom has become a menace. Humanity urgently needs to learn how to solve its problems more intelligently and humanely than it has done up to the present, and for that, as I have said, we urgently need to develop public institutions of learning rationally designed and devoted to achieving this goal. But how is this to be done? Who could get academics to agree to transform the whole academic enterprise in the way that is, it seems, required? What guidelines could there be for creating a kind of inquiry rationally devoted to promoting wisdom? Might not the whole endeavour be a disaster, in that the only outcome would be the undermining of the objectivity, the intellectual integrity, of science, and thus its human value? Is it not an absurd over-reaction to cry for the transformation of academia so that the public may be better educated about the problems of the world? Is it not hopelessly utopian to think, in any case, that it is possible for humanity to learn wisdom? [Back to Top] Correcting the Blunders of the Enlightenment A perfectly acceptable answer to these questions stares us in the face. And yet it is one that almost everyone overlooks. Modern science has met with astonishing success in improving our knowledge of the natural world. It is this very success, as we have seen, that is the cause of our current problems. But instead of merely blaming science for our troubles, as some are inclined to do, we need, rather, to try to learn from the success of science. We need to learn from the manner in which science makes progress towards greater knowledge how we can make social progress towards a better, wiser world. This is not a new idea. It goes back to the Enlightenment of the 18 th century, especially the French Enlightenment. Voltaire, Diderot, Condorcet and the other philosophes of the Enlightenment had the profoundly important idea that it might be possible to learn from scientific progress how to achieve social progress towards an enlightened world. They did not just have the idea: they did everything they could to put the idea into practice in their lives. They fought dictatorial power, superstition, and injustice with weapons no more lethal than those of argument and wit. They gave their support to the virtues of tolerance, openness to doubt, readiness to learn from criticism and from experience. Courageously and energetically they laboured to promote reason and enlightenment in personal and social life. And in doing so they created, in a sense, the modern world, with all its glories and disasters. The philosophes of the Enlightenment had their hearts in the right place. But in developing the basic Enlightenment idea intellectually the philosophes, unfortunately, blundered. They botched the job. And it is this that we are suffering from today. The philosophers thought that the proper way to implement the Enlightenment Programme of learning from scientific progress how to achieve social progress towards an enlightened world is to develop the social sciences alongside the natural sciences. If it is important to acquire knowledge of natural phenomena to better the lot of mankind, as Francis Bacon had insisted, then (so, in effect, the philosophes thought) it must be even more important to acquire knowledge of social phenomena. First, knowledge must be acquired; then it can be applied to help solve social problems. They thus set about creating and developing the social sciences: economics, psychology, anthropology, history, sociology, political science. This traditional version of the Enlightenment Programme, despite being damagingly defective, was immensely influential. It was developed throughout the 19 th century, by men such as Saint-Simon, Comte, Marx, Mill and many others, and was built into the intellectual-institutional structure of academic inquiry in the first part of the 20 th century with the creation of departments of the social sciences in universities all over the world. Academic inquiry today, devoted primarily to the pursuit of knowledge and technological know-how, is the outcome of two past revolutions: the scientific revolution of the 16 th and 17 th centuries which led to the development of modern natural science, and the later profoundly important but very seriously defective Enlightenment revolution. It is this situation which calls for the urgent need to bring about a third revolution to put right the structural defects we have inherited from the Enlightenment. But what, it may be asked, is wrong with the traditional Enlightenment Programme? Almost everything. In order to implement properly the basic Enlightenment idea of learning from scientific progress how to achieve social progress towards a civilized world, it is essential to get the following three things right. 1. The progress-achieving methods of science need to be correctly identified. 2. These methods need to be correctly generalized so that they become fruitfully applicable to any worthwhile, problematic human endeavour, whatever the aims may be, and not just applicable to the one endeavour of acquiring knowledge. 3. The correctly generalized progress-achieving methods then need to be exploited correctly in the great human endeavour of trying to make social progress towards an enlightened, wise world. Unfortunately, the philosophes of the Enlightenment got all three points wrong. And as a result these blunders, undetected and uncorrected, are built into the intellectual-institutional structure of academia as it exists today. Academia today is, in other words, the outcome of a botched attempt to learn from scientific progress how to make social progress towards a better world. First, the philosophes failed to capture correctly the progress-achieving methods of natural science. From D'Alembert in the 18 th century to Popper in the 20 th, the widely held view, amongst both scientists and philosophers, has been (and continues to be) that science proceeds by assessing theories impartially in the light of evidence, no permanent assumption being accepted by science about the universe independently of evidence. But this standard empiricist view is untenable. If taken literally, it would instantly bring science to a standstill. For, given any accepted scientific theory, T, Newtonian theory say, or quantum theory, endlessly many rivals can be concocted which agree with T about observed phenomena but disagree arbitrarily about some unobserved phenomena. Science would be drowned in an ocean of such empirically successful rival theories if empirical considerations alone determined which theories are accepted, which rejected. In practice, these rivals are excluded because they are disastrously disunified. Two considerations govern acceptance of theories in science: empirical success and unity. But in persistently accepting unified theories, to the extent of rejecting disunified rivals that are just as, or even more, empirically successful, science makes a big persistent assumption about the universe. Science assumes that the universe is such that all disunified theories are false. The universe has some kind of unified dynamic structure. It is physically comprehensible in the sense that explanations for phenomena exist to be discovered. But this untestable (and thus metaphysical) assumption that the universe is comprehensible is profoundly problematic. How can we possibly know that the universe is comprehensible? Science is obliged to assume, but does not know, that the universe is comprehensible. Much less does it know that the universe is comprehensible in this or that way. A glance at the history of physics reveals that ideas about how the universe may be comprehensible have changed dramatically over time. In the 17 th century there was the idea that the universe consists of corpuscles, minute billiard balls, which interact only by contact. This gave way to the idea that the universe consists of point-particles surrounded by rigid, spherically symmetrical fields of force, which in turn gave way to the idea that there is one unified self-interacting field, varying smoothly throughout space and time. Nowadays we have the idea that everything is made up of minute quantum strings embedded in ten or eleven dimensions of space-time. Some kind of assumption along these lines must be made but, given the historical record, and given that any such assumption concerns the ultimate nature of the universe, that of which we are most ignorant, it is only reasonable to conclude that it is almost bound to be false. The way to overcome this fundamental dilemma, inherent in the scientific enterprise, is to construe science as making a hierarchy of metaphysical assumptions concerning the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe, these assumptions asserting less and less as one goes up the hierarchy, and thus becoming more and more likely to be true. In this way a framework of relatively insubstantial, unproblematic, fixed assumptions and associated methods is created within which much more substantial and problematic assumptions and associated methods can be changed, and indeed improved, as scientific knowledge improves. Put another way, a framework of relatively unspecific, unproblematic, fixed aims and methods is created within which much more specific and problematic aims and methods evolve as scientific knowledge evolves. (A basic aim of science is to discover in what precise way the universe is comprehensible, this aim evolving as assumptions about comprehensibility evolve.) There is positive feedback between improving knowledge, and improving aims-and-methods, improving knowledge-about-how-to-improve-knowledge. This is the nub of scientific rationality, the methodological key to the unprecedented success of science. Science adapts its nature to what it discovers about the nature of the universe. For a detailed exposition and defence of this hierarchical, aim-oriented empiricist conception of science see Maxwell (1998; 2001, chapter 3 and appendix 3; and 2004, chapter 1 and 2 and appendix; 2007, chapter 14). So much for the first blunder of the Enlightenment. Second, having failed to identify the methods of science correctly, the philosophes naturally failed to generalize these methods properly. They failed to appreciate that the idea of representing the problematic aims (and associated methods) of science in the form of a hierarchy can be generalized and applied fruitfully to other worthwhile enterprises besides science. Many other enterprises have problematic aims; these would benefit from employing a hierarchical methodology, generalized from that of science, thus making it possible to improve aims and methods as the enterprise proceeds. There is the hope that, in this way, some of the astonishing success of science might be exported into other worthwhile human endeavours, with aims quite different from those of science. Third, and most disastrously of all, the philosophes failed completely to try to apply such generalized progress-achieving methods to the immense, and profoundly problematic enterprise of making social progress towards an enlightened, wise world. The aim of such an enterprise is notoriously problematic. For all sorts of reasons, what constitutes a good world, an enlightened, wise or civilized world, attainable and genuinely desirable, must be inherently and permanently problematic. Here, above all, it is essential to employ the generalized version of the hierarchical, progress-achieving methods of science, designed specifically to facilitate progress when basic aims are problematic. Properly implemented, in short, the Enlightenment idea of learning from scientific progress how to achieve social progress towards an enlightened world would involve developing social inquiry as social methodology, or social philosophy, not primarily as social science. A basic task would be to get into personal and social life, and into other institutions besides that of science - into government, industry, agriculture, commerce, the media, law, education, international relations - hierarchical, progress-achieving methods (designed to improve problematic aims) arrived at by generalizing the methods of science. A basic task for academic inquiry as a whole would be to help humanity learn how to resolve its conflicts and problems of living in more just, cooperatively rational ways than at present. This task would be intellectually more fundamental than the scientific task of acquiring knowledge. Social inquiry would be intellectually more fundamental than physics. Academia would be a kind of people's civil service, doing openly for the public what actual civil services are supposed to do in secret for governments. Academia would have just sufficient power (but no more) to retain its independence from government, industry, the press, public opinion, and other centres of power and influence in the social world. It would seek to learn from, educate, and argue with the great social world beyond, but would not dictate. Academic thought would be pursued as a specialized, subordinate part of what is really important and fundamental: the thinking that goes on, individually, socially and institutionally, in the social world, guiding individual, social and institutional actions and life. The fundamental intellectual and humanitarian aim of inquiry would be to help humanity acquire wisdom - wisdom being the capacity to realize (apprehend and create) what is of value in life, for oneself and others, wisdom thus including knowledge and technological know-how but much else besides. One important consequence flows from the point that the basic aim of inquiry would be to help us discover what is of value, namely that our feelings and desires would have a vital rational role to play within the intellectual domain of inquiry. If we are to discover for ourselves what is of value, then we must attend to our feelings and desires. But not everything that feels good is good, and not everything that we desire is desirable. Rationality requires that feelings and desires take fact, knowledge and logic into account, just as it requires that priorities for scientific research take feelings and desires into account. In insisting on this kind of interplay between feelings and desires on the one hand, knowledge and understanding on the other, the conception of inquiry that we are considering resolves the conflict between Rationalism and Romanticism, and helps us to acquire what we need if we are to contribute to building civilization: mindful hearts and heartfelt minds. Another outcome of getting into social and institutional life the kind of aim-evolving, hierarchical methodology indicated above, generalized from science, is that it becomes possible for us to develop and assess rival philosophies of life as a part of social life, somewhat as theories are developed and assessed within science. Such a hierarchical methodology "provides a framework within which diverse philosophies of value - diverse religions, political and moral views - may be cooperatively assessed and tested against the experience of personal and social life. There is the possibility of cooperatively and progressively improving such philosophies of life (views about what is of value in life and how it is to be achieved) much as theories are cooperatively and progressively improved in science. In science diverse universal theories are critically assessed with respect to each other, and with respect to experience (observational and experimental results). In a somewhat analogous way, diverse philosophies of life may be critically assessed with respect to each other, and with respect to experience - what we do, achieve, fail to achieve, enjoy and suffer - the aim being so to improve philosophies of life (and more specific philosophies of more specific enterprises within life such as government, education or art) that they offer greater help with the realization of value in life" (Maxwell, 1984, p. 254). All in all, if the Enlightenment revolution had been carried through properly, the three steps indicated above being correctly implemented, the outcome would have been a kind of academic inquiry very different from what we have at present. We would possess what we so urgently need, and at present so dangerously and destructively lack, institutions of learning well-designed from the standpoint of helping us create a better, a wiser world. We have travelled far from our initial topic, the disastrous "war on terrorism". And yet, the transformation in our instruments of public learning that I have (briefly) argued for, are highly relevant to our capacity to deal effectively and humanely with terrorism. What our initial discussion of the eight principles that need to be observed in combating terrorism revealed is that, again and again, the current "war on terrorism" is achieving the very opposite of what was intended. Terrorism is being actively promoted, even implemented, not contained and curtailed. The aim of combating terrorism, like so many other aims in life, is inherently problematic. If we do not proceed intelligently, learning from past mistakes, it is all too likely that we will achieve the very opposite of what we seek. Hence the fundamental importance of a kind academic inquiry, a kind of learning, which emphasizes the need to subject problematic aims to sustained criticism and improvement. It would be absurd, of course, to argue that we need to transform academia so that we can learn how to combat terrorism intelligently. That is not what I have argued. Rather, my claim is that international terrorism is one of a number of global problems that confront us and that, if we are to tackle these problems intelligently, humanely and democratically (as we must do), people quite generally must have a much better understanding of what these problems are, and what needs to be done about them, than they do at present, this in turn requiring a kind of inquiry rationally designed to promote such public education about our problems, this in turn requiring a revolution in our schools and universities. Learning how to tackle terrorism more intelligently would be a beneficiary along with learning how to tackle more intelligently our other global problems. I must emphasize, however, that the reasons for the revolution in the aims and methods of inquiry that I have indicated are not only humanitarian. There are also absolutely decisive intellectual reasons. The kind of inquiry that would emerge - wisdom-inquiry as I have called it - would be both more rigorous intellectually, and of greater human value, than what we have at present. The revolution is needed in the interests both of the intellectual and the practical aspects of inquiry. But will it happen? I first spelled out the argument over thirty years ago (Maxwell, 1976). It was spelled out again, in very much greater detail, in my second book (Maxwell, 1984). This received many excellent reviews, in particular a glowing review from Christopher Longuet-Higgins in Nature, who remarked, during the course of his review, " Maxwell is advocating nothing less than a revolution (based on reason, not on religious or Marxist doctrine) in our intellectual goals and methods of inquiry ... There are altogether too many symptoms of malaise in our science-based society for Nicholas Maxwell's diagnosis to be ignored" (Longuet-Higgins, 1984). Unfortunately it has been ignored. With agonizing slowness, in a wholly piecemeal and confused fashion, some changes have taken place in science, and in academia more generally, that are somewhat in the direction that I have argued for, but in complete ignorance of my argument (and often masked by other changes that take things in the opposite direction): see Maxwell (2007, chapters 6 and 12); see, also, Iredale (2007). Academia is supposed to be about innovation but, when it comes to the rules of the game, dogmatic conservatism tends to take over. It is difficult, too, to arouse public interest in the current damaging irrationality of academia. In the popular mind, "academic" is almost synonymous with "irrelevant" or "pointless". That judgement is part of the problem. On the other hand, the revolution that we need might be compared in significance to the Renaissance, to the scientific revolution, or to the 18 th century Enlightenment. Intellectual revolutions as profound and far-reaching as these do not happen overnight. Thirty years of inaction, when the matter is viewed in that light, is perhaps not such a long time interval. But the question that haunts me is this: Given the state of the world today, given the enormity of the problems that face us, can humanity afford to put off any longer creating institutions of learning rationally designed to help us discover how to tackle our problems in wiser, more cooperatively rational ways? [Back to Top] Conclusion In the meantime, all is not lost. Louise Richardson's What Terrorists Want seems to me exactly the kind of work that academics today should be writing: intelligent, informative, wise, highly readable and well-written, it provides genuine insight into the motives and character of terrorism, and comes up with sensible proposals as to how the problem should be tackled. It is clearly intended to contribute to public education. It is an exemplary contribution to wisdom-inquiry. Here, to conclude, is a summary of the changes that need to be made to science, and to academic inquiry more generally, to put right the blunders we have inherited from the Enlightenment, thus creating a kind of inquiry rationally designed to help humanity learn how to create a better world. 1. There needs to be a change in the basic intellectual aim of inquiry, from the growth of knowledge to the growth of wisdom - wisdom being taken to be the capacity to realize what is of value in life, for oneself and others, and thus including knowledge, understanding and technological know-how. 2. There needs to be a change in the nature of academic problems, so that problems of living are included, as well as problems of knowledge. Furthermore, problems of living need to be treated as intellectually more fundamental than problems of knowledge. 3. There needs to be a change in the nature of academic ideas, so that proposals for action are included as well as claims to knowledge. Furthermore, proposals for action need to be treated as intellectually more fundamental than claims to knowledge. 4. There needs to be a change in what constitutes intellectual progress, so that progress-in-ideas-relevant-to-achieving-a-more-civilized-world is included as well as progress in knowledge, the former being indeed intellectually fundamental. 5. There needs to be a change in the idea as to where inquiry, at its most fundamental, is located. It is not esoteric theoretical physics, but rather the thinking we engage in as we seek to achieve what is of value in life. 6. There needs to be a dramatic change in the nature of social inquiry (reflecting points 1 to 5). Economics, politics, sociology, and so on, are not, fundamentally, sciences, and do not, fundamentally, have the task of improving knowledge about social phenomena. Instead, their task is threefold. First, it is to articulate problems of living, and propose and critically assess possible solutions, possible actions or policies, from the standpoint of their capacity, if implemented, to promote wiser ways of living. Second, it is to promote such cooperatively rational tackling of problems of living throughout the social world. And third, at a more basic and long-term level, it is to help build the hierarchical structure of aims and methods of aim-oriented rationality into personal, institutional and global life, thus creating frameworks within which progressive improvement of personal and social life aims-and-methods becomes possible. These three tasks are undertaken in order to promote cooperative tackling of problems of living - but also in order to enhance empathic or "personalistic" understanding between people as something of value in its own right. Acquiring knowledge of social phenomena is a subordinate activity, engaged in to facilitate the above three fundamental pursuits. 7. Natural science needs to change, so that it includes at least three levels of discussion: evidence, theory, and research aims. Discussion of aims needs to bring together scientific, metaphysical and evaluative consideration in an attempt to discover the most desirable and realizable research aims. 8. There needs to be a dramatic change in the relationship between social inquiry and natural science, so that social inquiry becomes intellectually more fundamental from the standpoint of tackling problems of living, promoting wisdom. 9. The way in which academic inquiry as a whole is related to the rest of the human world needs to change dramatically. Instead of being intellectually dissociated from the rest of society, academic inquiry needs to be communicating with, learning from, teaching and arguing with the rest of society - in such a way as to promote cooperative rationality and social wisdom. Academia needs to have just sufficient power to retain its independence from the pressures of government, industry, the military, and public opinion, but no more. Academia becomes a kind of civil service for the public, doing openly and independently what actual civil services are supposed to do in secret for governments. 10. There needs to be a change in the role that political and religious ideas, works of art, expressions of feelings, desires and values have within rational inquiry. Instead of being excluded, they need to be explicitly included and critically assessed, as possible indications and revelations of what is of value, and as unmasking of fraudulent values in satire and parody, vital ingredients of wisdom. 11. There need to be changes in education so that, for example, seminars devoted to the cooperative, imaginative and critical discussion of problems of living are at the heart of all education from five-year-olds onwards. Politics, which cannot be taught by knowledge-inquiry, becomes central to wisdom-inquiry, political creeds and actions being subjected to imaginative and critical scrutiny. 12. There need to be changes in the aims, priorities and character of pure science and scholarship, so that it is the curiosity, the seeing and searching, the knowing and understanding of individual persons that ultimately matters, the more impersonal, esoteric, purely intellectual aspects of science and scholarship being means to this end. Social inquiry needs to give intellectual priority to helping empathic understanding between people to flourish (as indicated in 6 above). 13. There need to be changes in the way mathematics is understood, pursued and taught. Mathematics is not a branch of knowledge at all. Rather, it is concerned to explore problematic possibilities, and to develop, systematize and unify problem-solving methods. 14. Literature needs to be put close to the heart of rational inquiry, in that it explores imaginatively our most profound problems of living and aids personalistic understanding in life by enhancing our ability to enter imaginatively into the problems and lives of others. 15. Philosophy needs to change so that it ceases to be just another specialized discipline and becomes instead that aspect of inquiry as a whole that is concerned with our most general and fundamental problems - those problems that cut across all disciplinary boundaries. Philosophy needs to become again what it was for Socrates: the attempt to devote reason to the growth of wisdom in life. This is the revolution we need to bring about in our traditions and institutions of learning, if they are to be properly and rationally designed to help us learn how to make progress towards a wiser world. [Back to Top] References Blum, W. (2006). Rogue State. London: Zed Books. Chomsky, N. (2007). Failed States. London: Penguin. Curtis, M. (2003). Web of Deceit. London: Vintage. The Guardian, UK. (9 th May 2007). 'Jihad DVD find foiled terror plot, says FBI'. Hiro, D. (2005). Secrets and Lies. London: Politico's. Holland, G. (2004). 'Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention and Iraq: A report for Parliament on the British Government's response to the US supply of biological materials to Iraq'. School of Social Sciences and Cultural Studies, University of Sussex. Online. Iredale, M. (2007). 'From knowledge-inquiry to wisdom-inquiry: is the revolution under way?', London Review of Education, July 2007. Irish , D. (2005). ' Routes not Taken / Roles not Played (for peace and democracy)', North Country Peace Builder , vol. 56, no. 2. Online. Longuet-Higgins, C. (1984). 'For goodness sake', Nature, vol. 312, 15 November 1984, p. 204. Maxwell, N. (1976). What's Wrong With Science?. Frome, UK: Bran's Head Books. ________ (1984). From Knowledge to Wisdom. Oxford: Blackwell. ________ (1992). 'What Kind of Inquiry Can Best Help Us Create a Good World?'.Science, Technology and Human Values 17, pp. 205-27. ________ (2000). 'Can Humanity Learn to become Civilized? The Crisis of Science without Civilization, Journal of AppliedPhilosophy 17, pp. 29-44. ________ (2001). The Human World in the Physical Universe: Consciousness, Free Will and Evolution. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. ________ (2004). Is Science Neurotic?. London: Imperial College Press. ________ (2007). From Knowledge to Wisdom: A Revolution for Science and the Humanities. Second enlarged edition, London: Pentire Press. Richardson, L. (2006). What Terrorists Want. London: John Murray. Rees, M. (2003). Our Final Century . London: Arrow Books. Roberts, L. et al. (29 th October 2004). 'Mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: cluster sample survey', The Lancet. Online. Washington Post (6 th September 2003). 'Saddam Hussein and the Sept. 11 Attacks'. [Back to Top] Notes [1] Washington Post poll, 'Saddam Hussein and the Sept. 11 Attacks', September 6, 2003. [Return to text] [2] 'Iraq war strain leads troops to abuse civilians, survey shows', The Guardian, 5 th May, 2007. [Return to text] [3] Roberts et al. (2004) estimate, in a famous article published in The Lancet, that about 100,000 Iraqis died as a result of the war and occupation during the period 19 March 2003 to September 2004. This estimate excludes those who died in Fallujah. Iraq Body Count ( www.iraqbodycount.net ) held, on 13th May 2007, that the number of civilians reported killed as a result of the military intervention was between 63, 373 and 69,418. That the maximum figure, here is, for a longer period of time, considerably lower than The Lancet estimate makes sense once one appreciates that most deaths go unreported in Iraq. [Return to text] [4] I have here given only a brief sketch of the disastrous current "war on terrorism". For much more detailed accounts, see Richardson (2006), Blum (2006), Chomsky (2007), Hiro (2005), Curtis (2003). [Return to text] [Back to Top]

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Essay on Fight Against Terrorism

Students are often asked to write an essay on Fight Against Terrorism in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Fight Against Terrorism

Understanding terrorism.

Terrorism is a scary word. It means violence or fear that hurts innocent people. Terrorists often want to change politics or society. But they use harmful ways to do this. It’s like a bully in a playground, but much worse.

The Global Problem

Terrorism is not just a problem for one country. It’s a problem for the whole world. It’s like a disease that spreads. It can hurt people anywhere, anytime. That’s why all countries need to work together to stop it.

Stopping Terrorism

Fighting terrorism is not easy. It’s like fighting a ghost. You can’t see it, but it can hurt you. We need good intelligence to find terrorists. We also need strong laws to punish them.

Role of Citizens

Every person can help fight terrorism. We can tell the police if we see something strange. We can also learn about different cultures to stop hate. Remember, terrorists want to divide us. We must stay united.

The fight against terrorism is a long one. It won’t end quickly. But if we all work together, we can make the world safer. It’s like cleaning a big mess. It takes time, but it’s worth it.

250 Words Essay on Fight Against Terrorism

Terrorism is a scary word. It means using violence, or the threat of violence, to scare people for political reasons. Terrorists often target innocent people, causing fear and chaos.

The Fight Against Terrorism

Fighting terrorism is not easy. It is a global problem, and it needs a global solution. Countries all over the world need to work together. They need to share information to stop terrorist attacks before they happen.

Role of Government

The government plays a big role in this fight. They make laws to prevent terrorism. They also have special forces to catch terrorists. These forces are highly trained and always alert to keep us safe.

But it’s not just the government’s job. Citizens also have a role to play. We need to be vigilant and report any suspicious activity to the authorities. We also need to promote peace and understanding in our communities.

Education is Key

Education is a powerful tool against terrorism. When people are educated, they are less likely to turn to violence. Schools should teach students about the dangers of terrorism and the importance of peace.

The fight against terrorism is a tough one, but we can win it. By working together, staying vigilant, and promoting education, we can make the world a safer place.

(Word Count: 200)

500 Words Essay on Fight Against Terrorism

Terrorism is a scary word. It means using fear to control people. Terrorists often hurt or kill people to make others do what they want. They can use guns, bombs, or even planes to cause harm. People all over the world are trying to stop terrorism.

Why People Become Terrorists

Some people become terrorists because they feel angry, hurt, or scared. They may feel that their country or religion is under attack. They might think that hurting others is the only way to make things better. This is not true. There are always peaceful ways to solve problems.

How Countries Fight Terrorism

Countries fight terrorism in many ways. They use their armies and police to catch terrorists. They also use spies and detectives to find out about terrorist plans before they happen. Sometimes, they work with other countries to share information and stop terrorists together.

Education as a Weapon

Education is a powerful tool against terrorism. When people learn about different cultures and religions, they can understand each other better. They are less likely to fight or hurt each other. Schools can teach students about peace and respect. They can also help students learn how to solve problems without violence.

Tech Tools in the Fight

Technology can also help in the fight against terrorism. Countries can use computers and cameras to watch for terrorist activities. They can use the internet to track down terrorists. There are also special tools to find bombs and weapons.

Every person can help fight terrorism. If you see something strange or dangerous, you should tell a grown-up or the police. You can also help by being kind to everyone, no matter their religion or nationality. When we all work together, we can make the world a safer place.

Fighting terrorism is not easy. It takes a lot of work from many people. But it is important to keep trying. We all deserve to live in a world where we feel safe and free. By understanding terrorism, using education and technology, and working together, we can help stop terrorism.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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Terrorism can never be defeated by military force

Twenty years on, readers discuss events in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the US

Jonathan Powell makes some good points ( The lesson we failed to learn from 9/11: peace is impossible if we don’t talk to our enemies, 10 September ). However, when he says: “There was no real alternative to going after the leadership of al-Qaida” and “there was no real alternative to taking on the Taliban themselves”, I beg to differ. 9/11 was a crime, not an act of war. It was not committed by, or in the name of, the Afghan people, who would go on to be slaughtered in so many thousands.

Despite the recalcitrance of the Taliban , it could, and should, have been responded to using the mechanisms of international law. Weak and slow moving though they are, they do exist and can succeed eventually, as witnessed by, for example, successful prosecutions of war crimes in the former Yugoslavia.

Terrorism can never be defeated by military means – by killing guilty and innocent alike. Ultimate victory over terrorism can only be ideological; a recognition that whatever our differences – ethnic, religious, national or political – they are insignificant compared with our common humanity. What Afghanistan needs now is a massive programme of aid, with the minimum of conditions. A good start would be help with rolling out Covid vaccinations. Further, beyond immediate humanitarian aid, there could be a good claim for reparations to help rebuild the economy. Frank Jackson Former co-chair, World Disarmament Campaign

Twenty years after 9/11, we are still struggling to comprehend the enormity of such a heartless and malicious attack. That was a ruthless onslaught on everything our human family stands for: peace, openness, tolerance, equality, social justice and cohesion. Sadly, since then, our world has been marred by inter-ethnic conflicts, unbounded deprivation, irrational hatred, unspeakable suffering, unabated exploitation of natural and cultural resources, climate change, transboundary pandemics, human rights transgressions and the endless “war on terror”. Millions of lives and livelihoods were lost, and people were orphaned, widowed and psychologically impaired.

My questions are: 1) how many lives should be lost in order to impel us to end wars, the arms trade and suffering? 2) when will we act holistically to tackle the underlying roots of terror? Dr Munjed Farid Al Qutob London

Boris Johnson says that 9/11 failed to undermine democracy and freedom ( Queen commemorates ‘terrible attacks’ of 9/11 in message to Joe Biden, 11 September ). Indeed. What the terrorists failed to do but has been relentlessly pursued since then by nationalist leaders worldwide, including our own, is corrosion and dismantling of human rights and values. A net loss to our democracy and freedom. Dr Guru Singh Loughborough, Leicestershire

Your editorial on the 20th anniversary of 9/11 (10 September) correctly underlines that the “war on terror” has solved nothing and created new problems as well. At the same time, there needs to be a recognition of the powerful movement that arose to oppose the war. The forces that became the Stop the War coalition held their first London meetings and protests shortly after 9/11 and organised on 15 February 2003 what remains the largest demonstration in British history. The war was not stopped but, like the “war on terror” itself, the impact of those who oppose it continues. Keith Flett Tottenham, London

• Afghanistan
• 9/11: 20 years later
• Boris Johnson
• Anti-war movement
• September 11 2001

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What is NATO doing to counter the threat of terrorism?

• 06 Jul. 2021 -
• Last updated: 06 Jul. 2021 09:41

Gabriele Cascone, Head of NATO’s Counter-Terrorism Section, explains how the Alliance leverages its expertise and its partnerships with other nations to help counter this threat.

Terrorism is a very real threat to our populations, and it knows no borders. NATO’s work on counter-terrorism focuses on improving awareness of the threat, developing capabilities to prepare and respond, and enhancing engagement with partner countries and other international actors.

Questions and Answers with Gabriele Cascone, Head of NATO’s Counter-Terrorism Section

1. How did NATO get involved with counter-terrorism activities?

Counter-terrorism was long seen as a largely national policy issue, but following the attacks of 9/11, it became clear that terrorism is a transnational threat and that NATO can add value and has a role to play in addressing the threat. And with the growing threat of terrorist groups such as ISIS, NATO has further enhanced its contribution to the international fight against terrorism.

2. What steps has the Alliance taken to counter terrorism?

NATO plays a key role in the fight against terrorism, contributing troops to train local forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. As part of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, NATO has also contributed with AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) surveillance flights. We have also launched an initiative to counter the threat posed by so-called “low, slow and small” drones – usually commercial off-the-shelf or modified drones. Allies have agreed to a policy on battlefield evidence to ensure information and data collected on the ground by NATO forces can be used to bring foreign terrorist fighters to justice. And NATO is also exploring how its involvement in operations may contribute to countering the financing of terrorism, for example by preventing the looting of cultural property in operational areas.

3. How does NATO work with its partners in countering terrorism?

Many of our partners are directly affected by terrorism, and working with them is one of the cornerstones of NATO’s counter-terrorism work. We are supporting our partners, especially those in the south, through training and education. A concrete example of this is the work conducted with Jordan where a mapping exercise led to the joint identification of a number areas where NATO and Jordan have agreed to support concrete initiatives. We are also stepping up our engagement with the African Union (AU), including through the first NATO-AU joint counter-terrorism training in April 2019 and a dedicated NATO-AU counter-terrorism dialogue in December 2019.

4. What is the cost of terrorism to our societies, both in terms of human lives and economic impact?

In 2019, a total of 13,826 people lost their lives to terrorism. The death toll remains substantially higher than a decade ago and is still nearly three times as high as the number recorded in 2001. And terrorism also affects the economy. The estimated global economic impact of terrorism in 2019 amounted to US$26.4 billion. Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia had the largest economic impacts, equivalent to US$12.5 and US$5.6 billion of GDP for 2019, respectively. (Global Terrorism Index 2020 1 )

• https://www.visionofhumanity.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/GTI-2020-web-1.pdf

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The Alliance for Citizen Engagement

Swini Adikari

• July 18, 2022
• , Foreign Policy , Middle East and North Africa

Introduction

The United States’ longest war came to an end with the August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Taliban’s swift and hostile takeover of Afghanistan’s government following the U.S. withdrawal left the country once again in the hands of the Taliban. The Taliban takeover is a significant development in the Global War on Terror (GWOT) and raises questions about the unforseen consequences of the war against terrorism. 

The GWOT is an international, American-led coalition campaign launched in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. homeland. Following the attacks, then-President George W. Bush launched a comprehensive plan to eliminate and disrupt all terrorist organizations around the globe. He stated, “ 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.” 

The U.S. employed every instrument of national power including diplomacy, intelligence, law enforcement, and financial and military tools to disrupt and defeat not just Al-Qaeda but to extend the fight to other militant groups around the world. Nations around the globe joined the U.S. in the battle against global terror. The GWOT led to the disruption of violent extremist organizations, the elimination of terrorist safe havens, the disruption of terrorist financing, the advancement and transformation of global security, and the elimination of the immediate terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland. Simultaneously, the GWOT also fueled radicalization and laid the foundation for the rise of extremist groups with similar ideological sympathies that can spread violence.

Successes of the GWOT

Military and intelligence operations including offensive strategies and covert operations proved successful in the fight against terrorism. These operations have been shown to deter transnational terrorist groups from conducting logistically complex attacks in the face of limited resources as a consequence of U.S. and international led-military forces. U.S. military action succeeded in ousting the Taliban from power in Afghanistan in December 2001 . While Al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies once controlled 95% of Afghanistan, U.S. military campaigns succeeded in seizing large swaths of Al-Qaeda-held territory including its center of gravity near the Afghan-Pakistan border in Afghanistan and reduced its ability to carry out large-scale terrorist attacks. This impacted Osama Bin Laden’s immediate communications with the organization. This disconnect eventually reduced Al-Qaeda’s ability to plan until 2004 when Osama Bin Laden reconnected with Al-Qaeda after years of hiding.  

Targeted killings proved effective in dismantling terrorist groups that followed a hierarchical bureaucratic structure. However, Al-Qaeda was still able to conduct attacks despite leadership decapitation. Thus, while leadership decapitation was a major blow to the terrorist organization, the bureaucratization of Al-Qaeda allowed the group to formulate contingencies for a leadership turnover. However, the GWOT succeeded in eliminating key terrorist leaders of Al-Qaeda, including Osama Bin Laden. 

Additionally, the U.S. made domestic advancements by developing more efficient technology and law enforcement processes and establishing the Transportation Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security to prevent further attacks on the U.S. homeland.

Failures of the GWOT

According to the Costs of War project at Brown University, nearly 20 years after the 9/11 attacks, the financial costs of the GWOT stand at $8 trillion and the death toll stands at 900,000 people. Casualties include U.S. military members, allied fighters, opposition fighters, journalists, humanitarian aid workers, and civilians. Of the total number killed , 287,000 are categorized as civilians, 207,000 as members of the national military and police forces, and another 301,000 as opposition fighters. 

In the aftermath of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, Iraq was destabilized without an effective bureaucratic system to provide basic goods and services to its citizens. The absence of adequate law enforcement and military forces to secure Iraqi borders, and the absence of extensive monitoring led to the country being infiltrated by former jihadist foreign fighters . 

Following the Iraqi invasion, the provisional government led a de-Baathification process to rid the government and military of Ba’ath influence. The Ba’ath political party had previously led the country and top officials perpetrated human rights violations, but many had joined the party because it was the only way to gain many roles in the government sector. The de-Baathification gave rise to grievances that extremist groups started to exploit. Former Iraqi soldiers with no jobs were susceptible to radicalization. Grievances in the Sunni regions remained strong as there was little progress made with regards to reconstruction while security forces targeted former Ba’ath party members through unjust anti-terrorism laws. The use of unjust anti-terrorism laws , lack of security and services, and the length of displacement of these communities all led to an environment that extremist groups such as the Islamic State could exploit. All these conditions fueled radicalization and laid the foundations for the rise of other extremist groups such as the Islamic State in Iraq. 

GWOT moving forward

Moving forward, the U.S. will likely continue to carry out special operations in regions that witness the rise of jihadi groups, to disrupt and eliminate terrorist organizations, disrupt terrorist financing, and prevent radicalization. U.S. military doctrine retains the essential elements to plan and execute successful operations against conventional and irregular opponents. Recently, the U.S. successfully executed a covert operation that killed the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) leader Abu Ibrahim al–Hashimi al-Qurayshi . This operation demonstrates a high degree of sophistication in U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism efforts. 

Most importantly, the U.S. is incorporating countering violent extremism into the U.S. National Security Strategy to prevent the radicalization of individuals as radicalization and recruitment remain threat multipliers. Thus, preventing radicalization remains essential to countering extremism, especially in internally displaced camps where extremist propaganda is widely being spread. 

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The Fight Against Terrorism

With increased interdependence between countries, more room for conflict arose. In taking stands with certain positions or specific countries, enemies are made. As a result, countries actively invest in protecting their borders and maintaining vigilance to avoid internal attacks. The paper focuses on Al Qaeda and how best to confront it. It examines why it came about, how it has managed to stay alive, and how various policies can best be utilized in disarming the terroristic organization. The paper explores that with collaborative effort and research, it is possible to eliminate terrorism and minimize its effects.

A brief discussion of Al Qaeda

The public mostly knows Al Qaeda after 9/11. However, the terrorist group was operational way before that, which will be explored in this section. The group was formed sometime between 1988 and 1989. Interestingly, in that period and the early 90s, the group did not call itself Al Qaeda as it was just an ordinary group committed to a more significant battle like many organized political and religious groups (Cruickshank & Bergen, 2015). Its leader and founder was Osama bin Laden.

One of the founding goals of Osama bin Laden was to form an Arab military force that would stand its ground against Soviet attacks. It led him to break away from MAK, the organization that he had been funding to help the Afghan jihad with his long-term mentor, Abdullah Azzam. He thought the Arab military force would succeed because his recruits were enthusiastic and willing to become martyrs.

After the Afghan Jihad, the goal became to train the young soldiers who had fought, in addition to equipping them to be ready to uphold Islam and defend Muslims worldwide (Bergen, 2006). Eventually, the goal became to drive the United States armed forces out of Saudi Arabia (including the Saudi Arabian peninsula) and other countries, for example, Somalia, by violence (Department of Justice, 2001)

Notable activities

In December 1992, two hotels in Aden, which were used to transit American troops to Somalia, were bombed. 9/11 was the most gruesome attack on America’s soil, and it led to a restructuring of many response teams and law enforcement. Many political or faith-based attacks have happened in Africa, Arabian countries, and some parts of Europe. There are also bombings that Al Qaeda claims responsibility for.

Summary of strategies the U.S. can use to respond to or prevent terrorist attacks

Terrorism has evolved over time from the methods used to the propagators, which could be a lone act or an organized group. Bremer (1987) observes that the counterterrorism strategy used by the U.S. Government is composed of three elements: firmness toward terrorists, pressure on states supporting terrorism, and practical measures to deter, apprehend, and punish terrorists. The three remain the same, but the actions within them continue to be tailored to fit the evolving nature of the threats.

Preventive strategies

To begin with, the government has to combat radicalization. This preventive measure might be difficult to enforce, but it solves the problem at the root. Preventing younger generations from being recruited or given extreme ideas would slowly cut off the problem because members of the organization will grow old or unable to function. Besides, if they cannot recruit new followers, the group cannot replace leaders, and soldiers are lost (Habeck, 2015). This could be done by monitoring the disseminated information and observing those showing extremist teachings. While at this, it is crucial to avoid targeting and unfair profiling. Young people who are wrongly accused of being terrorists decide to join because that is all that people decide to see of them (Purtill, 2015)

Besides, border security enhancement aids in preventing terrorism by Al Qaeda. Information sharing internationally ensures that terrorists and their group leaders do not enter countries for refuge or planning. It allows for wanted persons to be apprehended. Additionally, it would minimize foreign attacks on U.S. soil. This also covers the entry of illegal firearms into the country, weakening the gravity or completely stopping the attack.

Community engagement is also an underutilized yet very effective means for preventing terrorism. Creating safe spaces for minority and diverse communities to express themselves and present their grievances prevents resentment, which leads to retaliation. Furthermore, protecting them because it is their right makes the communities feel seen and not take matters into their own hands. They, too, get justice and protection, which means not calling an act of terrorism a hate crime, which gets less severe punishment. Having an unbiased stand even when the perpetrator does not fit the usual crime model allows for a safer nation (Fisher, 2017)

Response Strategies

DHS empowers them to properly collaborate with all other units responsible for response in case of attacks. First, funding must be adequate. This ensures proper staffing and acquisition of any material required. It also allows for the proper day-to-day running of the department. As DHS is empowered, they ensure the frameworks are updated and cover different scenarios that may play out. The responses are timely and more effective to rescue those in need and diffuse any situation.

Coupled with empowerment, interagency cooperation is critical. Post-9/11 analysis showed that one of the most significant flaws that caused the unwarranted loss was the inability of agencies to work together efficiently and communicate (Haddow, Bullock, & Coppola, 2017). Therefore, as part of learning from previous incidents, all agencies must learn how to streamline their communication, commands, and efforts while sharing information in real-time. When responding to an emergency, the flow of work must be uninterrupted. As agencies work together, countries must collaborate and fight against a common enemy (Habeck, 2015). This means the sharing of crucial information. Additionally, because each country fights through its military to maintain its territories, they could also undertake projects together.

Assessment of the potential appropriateness and effectiveness of the regular police

Al Qaeda will mainly target crowded places where unsuspecting people go about their busy lives. To properly execute a terror attack despite the magnitude in a space like that would need observation and planning. In such a case, a citizen might notice some suspicious activities or patterns. In this case, the regular police would be appropriate because they are easily reachable, including patrol cars. Therefore, if a citizen had probable cause, they would alert the nearest police. They can then determine the next step by calling more specialized enforcement or evacuating the area.

Historically, community police have tried to engage the community (Giovanna, Pooja, & Peterson, 2023). The more cordial the relationship is, the more likely they will give information about any suspicious activity in the neighborhood. Sometimes, all it takes is a tip to stop the further assembly of a homemade bomb. Information is crucial because it could save many lives during a planned attack. Furthermore, when physical radicalization meetings happen, the best bet is on the community to inform the police because, unlike virtual meetings, it is impossible to track or know where they will happen.

When effectiveness is considered, it heavily depends on the magnitude and the type of case. For example, 9/1 1 was beyond the police. However, in terms of timeliness, initial evacuation, and report-taking, the local police are most effective. If the scope is beyond the police, interagency collaboration should be included as a response measure. The police could secure a perimeter as the more specialized unit or department is coming to the scene.

Assessment of the potential appropriateness and effectiveness of military action

The historical and diverse aspects of the terrorist population show that they are prone to violence. This varies from lone people finding themselves willing to martyr themselves to well-organized, trained forces in Al Qaeda (Cruickshank & Bergen, 2015). Expert military training can only be met with the same excellence. This ensures that civilians are protected and territories are secured to prevent the enemy from claiming the theme.

The military might be the most effective, depending on the approach. When trying to penetrate areas that are highly filled with the enemy, the police cannot offer much help. If trying to rescue hostages or fight an open territory war, then military forces, due to their training, should be deployed (Ernest, 2004). Their expertise is also what is needed when trying to attack the headquarters of operations for Al Qaeda. Sometimes, these missions are arranged to try to disband fully or weaken the group. Unfortunately, this action can be war and, on both sides, result in many casualties.

With that acknowledged, it is also important to note that military force alone, in some cases, will not be sufficient. Enacting a new counterterrorism-focused authorization for military force is the best solution because it legally controls and outlines the responsibility and expectations. It also restrains unilateral executive branch action, which scholars have previously brought up as a failing by other documents. Reviewing the AUMF allows us to address new terror threats effectively (Wynne, 2018).

Appraisal of whether the federal government needs additional police powers or legislative measures to protect the country from terrorist threats.

To decide on this issue, the existing police powers and legislative measures must be examined. A proper analysis of the existing powers would show what they cover and highlight any loopholes that appeared in past cases. There would be no need to increase legislative or police powers if the gaps found in the analysis are negligible. Amendments can be structured to fill whatever gap the analysis finds instead of increasing police powers.

As mentioned earlier, with time, the nature of threats keeps evolving. With technology also quickly changing, the scopes previously covered may be insufficient to protect the citizens adequately. Additional legislative measures should be discussed to provide guidelines for both protection and prosecution when in violation.

Evaluation of the effect that increasing governmental powers with the aim to boost security has on the potential erosion of civil liberties.

The freedoms and liberties granted are one of the things that activists and citizens dearly hold on to. Moreover, one of the government’s main goals is to keep its citizens safe. A balance is sought out by all who research the issue. Dragu (2011) argues that security against terrorism and privacy as civil liberties need not conflict. This is because, in strategic interactions, a reduction in the civil liberty of privacy does not automatically lead to increased security or protection against terrorism.

The research also points out that in many democratic countries, radical speech is restricted regardless of whether the restriction increases the country’s security. Therefore, the civil liberties afforded would be regulated whether or not they affect security. A vital bias to note is that any antiterrorist organization will always want less privacy granted. An increase in governmental powers while protecting against terrorism is not worth the risk of erosion of civil liberties. Emergency power can be included where relevant authorities have more access and power during a terrorism crisis or looming danger. However, it is also challenging to determine in what case and under what duration the authorities will be allowed to handle the extra power (Dragu, 2011).

In conclusion, collaborative action is the best way to go about terrorism unleashed by Al Qaeda. Through research, the evolution of the group, its motivations, and how it operates becomes clear. The understanding influences the approach used, such as military involvement. Research also allows the analysis of the weak links between the approaches and provides solutions. For example, the reviewed AUMF gives solutions to the failings of its previous version. Through collaborative action, resource use is efficient and appropriate because the handling depends on who best can take care of a scenario. The effectiveness results from factoring in time, the magnitude of the event, the expertise needed, and the community. It is possible, even with the new terrorist threats, to protect the country and its citizens.

Bergen. (2006).  The Osama bin Laden I know.

Cruickshank, P., & Bergen, P. (2015). Revisiting the Early Al Qaeda: An Updated Account of its Formative Years.  Studies in Conflict & Terrorism .

Department of Justice. (2001).  Al Qaeda International.  Retrieved from https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/testimony/al-qaeda-international

Dragu, T. (2011). Is There a Trade-off between Security and Liberty? Executive Bias, Privacy Protections, and Terrorism Prevention.  The American Political Science Review, 105 (1), 64-78.

Ernest, E. (2004). Goodness Armed with Power.  World Affairs .

Fisher, S. (2017). Terrorist or Disturbed Loner? The Contentious Politics of a Label.  The New York Times . Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/19/world/europe/politics-terrorist-label.html

Giovanna, Pooja, B., & Peterson. (2023). PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT FOR PUBLIC SAFETY: Police departments are driving community engagement efforts and prioritizing relationships with the communities they serve.  Public Management , 34-36.

Habeck, M. (2015, December). A Global Strategy for Combating Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.  A M E R I C A N E N T E R P R I S E I N S T I T U T E .

Haddow, G. D., Bullock, J. A., & Coppola, D. P. (2017).  Introduction to emergency management.  Oxford.

Purtill, C. (2015, July 15). What Northern Ireland teaches us about today’s war on terror.  The World .

Sandler, T. (2015). Terrorism and counterterrorism: an overview.  Oxford Economic Papers . Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1093/oep/gpu039

Wynne, J. (2018). AFTER AL-QAIDA: A PROSPECTIVE COUNTERTERRORISM AUMF.  New York University Law Review .

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Essay on Fight Against Terrorism

February 22, 2018 by Study Mentor Leave a Comment

Terrorism is a global concern in the world today. People fear going out of their homes and fear attacks from terrorists. No place is considered a safe zone today.

Especially after the attack on the world trade center on 11 th September 2001, the entire world woke up to a global menace, which was quite under the wraps till then.

The word ‘terrorism’ haunted the world and has been growing ever since then. Before we know, there are many terrorist prone areas, sensitive regions that are constantly hit by terrorist attacks.

The fight against terrorism began long ago when the world realized it had to step up from its comfortable shoes and work towards a global approach in tackling this menace.

It had to be attacked from the grassroots level and required expertise in planning, operational strategies, combat killings, security issues, etc.

The world saw a big win when the US attacked the hiding region of Osama Bin Laden and wiped out all his hideouts and sanitized the area from his operations.

Though it was a big win against terrorism, much needs to be done in this regard to take care of the loopholes that exist in our system. It is these loopholes that the terrorists find on their planning and take advantage of them.

To begin with, let’s focus on some important factors that may help in our fight against terrorism. As for the government, these factors are necessary to combat terrorism.

• Strict enactment of laws against terrorism.
• Tightened security measures at heritage sites and places of importance.
• Increased security cover at airports, bus stands and railway stations.
• Capital punishment for those involved in any form of terrorism.
• Use of technology in the form of sensors and detectors to identify terrorists.

These factors help the government at the primary level. Meeting the required target is possible only when political parties stop fighting amongst themselves.

They should serve the nation by making living conditions better for its citizens.

A nation where people live in constant fear of being attacked or gunned down by terrorists or terrorist activities shows a weakly performing government.

Top bureaucracies need to strengthen their measures and foreign policies should be adaptable to present day needs.

Taking on the above points one by one, let us see how the government can actually work towards curbing acts of terrorism.

First, a strict law system where stringent acts are passed against terrorism and terrorist activities need to be formulated.

The POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act) of 2002 was passed by the parliament of India in the year 2002 citing various terrorist activities that were on an upsurge at that moment.

People who were involved in acts of terrorism where booked under the POTA act. Special provisions were made to identify those acts that amounted to terrorism and rules were made to act against those incidents.

When the act was passed in the year 2002, it created fear in the minds of terrorists. Before the act was passed, any act of terrorism was also considered equivalent to normal crimes.

So when a separate legislation came by solely for terrorism alone, is stood as a question mark for many.

If we visit a very famous temple in our country, we are bound to go through many security check-ups and security personnel deployed at important places are also quite large.

These are measures sought by the government and implemented at high-risk zones to avert any incident of possible terrorism.

The government was first involved in identifying high risk zones and later provided security arrangements accordingly.

Increased security cover plus intelligence works most of the time in averting possible incidents of terrorism.

Places where people are crowded include markets, malls, complexes, railway stations, bus stands and airports. These are places where the population is usually floating in nature.

Most of them walk in to the place for a brief period of time and walk out when they are done with their jobs. So, most often they are crowded spots and people tend to be busy in their own worlds.

This offers a convenient platform for terrorists to carry out their operations. Hence, heightened security cover and modern implementations of technology are useful and essential.

What drives people from going against crimes is a society where strict punishment is awarded.

For heinous crimes and barbaric acts, fast track courts ought to set capital punishment for terrorists and people aiding any acts of terrorism.

The highest level of punishment, in the form of capital punishment blows off the hat from any anti-social person, be it a terrorist or a trespasser or any form of offender.

A crime is a crime, whether it is small or big. A terrorist act that usually takes away lives of so many innocent people cannot be pardoned and shouldn’t be tolerated in any form of society.

Such people should be isolated from the society and should be taken away from the mainstream.

Technology is what drives and provides immunity to the society to face external threats and survive against them. In the modern era, science and technology have done wonders and excelled in every field possible.

With modern software technologies, nothing is impossible to achieve. Use of nanotechnology and the latest inventions in the field of genetic engineering, it is very easy to track down terrorists and nab them.

Sensor based detectors are common sight at every big place we visit today and they definitely add to our fight against terrorism.

Apart from the above mentioned factors, citizens are equally responsible to join hands with the authorities and the law makers in bringing the culprits to the confines of law.

If we happen to spot an unattended suitcase anywhere in public places, we shouldn’t just turn a blind eye against it. It’s our duty to inform concerned authorities/police and hand it over to them.

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On Terrorists and Freedom Fighters

• Khaled A. Beydoun

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in late March of 2022 ushered in a new chapter of war on the European continent. For a Russian regime intent on actualizing its imperial vision and an accosted Ukrainian community fighting in the name of self-determination, this war is far more than a theater of war. Ukraine evolved into real-time drama for racial understandings of “terrorism” and “freedom fighter,” and their political ascription in Muslim-majority nations where parallel struggles either continue to rage or are violently crushed .

By interrogating the centrality of race within the dialectic of “freedom” and “terrorism,” this Essay examines how realpolitik driving law and its accompanying discourses is powerfully abetted by racial difference and charged by the indelible resonance of whiteness when it concerns the role of freedom fighter. The War in Ukraine, distinctly unfolding alongside similar campaigns in the “Middle East” and Muslim-majority contexts, is a powerful case study illustrating this dissonance. This dissonance colors the framing of nonwhite Muslims vying for self-determination as terrorists and white Ukrainians, engaged in the same exact acts of resistance, as freedom fighters. This racial interplay saturates media discourses and scholarly literatures, across screens on walls to the smaller ones in our palms as new wars converge with preexisting crusades .

One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, the slogan holds; a credo that rings a broad truth, yet falls short of qualifying how race and racism dictate how these labels are politically imagined, then practically and legally assigned .

Introduction

My only consolation is that periods of colonization pass, that nations sleep only for a time, and that peoples remain .

— Aimé Césaire 1

Journalist: The law’s often inconvenient, Colonel .

Colonel Mathieu: And those who explode bombs in public places, do they respect the law perhaps?

— The Battle of Algiers 2

The landmark film, The Battle of Algiers , brought the stunning drama of the Algerian Revolution to screens everywhere. 3 From the winding walkways of the Casbah to the legions of foreign soldiers whirling through them, the film captured the color of imperial horror marked by 132 years of French occupation. 4

On the silver screen, the world finally saw and understood the Algerians for who they were: a people fighting for their independence with everything they had. Through the director’s subaltern lens, the film exposed the unhinged “barbarism” that loomed underneath the pristine uniform of “civilization” adorned and advanced by the colonial French. 5 The roles of the “terrorist” and “freedom fighter” were cinematically retold, reversing the weight of law and its imprint on colonial history. As the director Gillo Pontecorvo showed and Jean-Paul Sartre wrote: “When despair drove [the Algerians] to revolt, these subhumans either had to perish or assert their humanity against us: they rejected all our values, our culture, our supposed superiority.” 6

The film, nearly six decades beyond its making, remains revolutionary theatre. It masterfully recreates the asymmetrical battle between the indigenous Algerians, most powerfully the women, who rooted anything and everything from the loins of the land they loved so much to survive the French. 7 Only that brand of love, indigenous love, could scale odds stacked so heavily against them. They faced the limitless legions of colonial soldiers brandishing the most modern weaponry, and the blow of imperial laws crafted to steal rightful claim of soil that sheltered their ancestors and nourished their fight. 8

As The Battle of Algiers made naked, the law is often the colonizer’s first front. Through word, law strips the natural claim of self-governance deriving from indigeneity, then swiftly unravels the humanity of those resisting with their bodies and being. 9 Law enables the colonial power and his foot soldiers to carry the fight within the most intimate quarters of the natives’ homes. And then, law labels the righteous resistance against it as “terrorism.” 10 The charge of terrorism, per its modern “War on Terror” 11 deployment and earlier use, is crafted powerfully along racial lines, as illustrated by the kindred realities unfolding in the Casbah then, and in accosted squares of Kyiv today.

Law converts that very absurdity — that a foreign force holds possessory rights over a native’s home — into the manmade fiat of manifest destiny. 12 Brutal soldiers invoked this legal authority crafted by foreign men in distant capitals and cruelly imposed it on natives as their new fate. This is the law’s cardinal function in settler colonial states like America and imperial experiments such as Algeria — to delegitimize self-determination and dehumanize those who resist.

“ The rule of law ?” Aimé Césaire asks rhetorically: “I look around and wherever there are colonizers and colonized face to face, I see force, brutality, cruelty, sadism, conflict . . . .” 13 Law, in this sense, is an imperial instrument, molded and maneuvered to advance the interests of those that hold power over it and power over the machinery that translates authoritative law into ominous violence. Law is most lethal when it envisions its targets as objects of conquest rather than subjects of patronage. 14

The discourse between the journalist in The Battle of Algiers and Lieutenant Colonel Philippe Mathieu brings this imperial expedience of law, or convenience, to vivid display. Mathieu is the cinematic embodiment of the steely French entitlement driving its colonial obsession of Algeria. 15 With regard to Ukraine, the French stand as a telling archetype for the arrogant authoritarianism of President Vladimir Putin, whose obsession with power is wed to a kindred nostalgia of Soviet regional and global hegemony. 16 This discourse about law and power, imperialism and indigeneity is built upon an undergirding epistemic about freedom fighters and terrorists — a timeless dialectic that screams from the screens as if from The Battle of Algiers .

Political reality, after all, inspires the best cinema. In a world marred by two decades of a global War on Terror, racial reckoning, 17 and cold wars of the past thawing to restore bygone geopolitical rivalries, modern reality is as gripping as fiction. Terrorism has taken on a pointed racial and religious form. 18 Muslims, transnationally, have been “raced” as terrorists as a consequence of this American-led crusade. 19 Their faith is conflated with extremism and their portrayal in American media is constructed based on that conflation. 20 More than legitimizing this indictment, global War on Terror law and propaganda have spearheaded its construction. 21 In turn, they unravel the humanity of Muslims in favor of a political visage that enables policing and prosecution in America and military persecution and mass punishment abroad. 22 This occurs even in lands where Muslims — like the Algerian women and men in Gilo Pontecorvo’s classic film — are striving for self-determination against modern imperial actors. Seeing them as terrorists facilitates the unseeing of them for what they rightfully are: freedom fighters struggling for the very dignity that Ukrainians, taking arms in the midst of impending conquest, clench onto in the face of imposing Russian aggression.

The force of the imperial law, that simultaneously strips the land from its rightful holders and constructs them as inferior or inhuman, is most potent when driven by a “racialized” frame. 23 Postcolonial thinkers of eras past, most trenchantly Césaire, Frantz Fanon, and Edward Said, revealed how the accompanying hand of racism expedited the plunder of nonwhite peoples. 24 Today, critical race theorists emphatically and incessantly affirm racism’s centrality to law, 25 against the political and legal tidal wave that seeks to disfigure and discredit it. 26 There is perhaps no theatre of law where the centrality of race is on fuller display than the War on Terror, where the unabashed demonization of Muslims remains politically palatable and culturally pervasive. Islamophobia stands, almost singularly, as a final bastion of acceptable bigotry. 27 This is especially apparent in the United States, and a globalized world remade through a War on Terror lens over the last twenty-one years.

The color of freedom and terror is intimately tethered to the world order remade by the War on Terror. Muslims are “presumptive terrorists,” 28 a charge levied on account of race, religion, and realpolitik , even when acting as freedom fighters. A distant, yet kindred campaign for self-determination reinforced the power of this indictment, with a racial design as its marrow. It took form in Europe, beginning on February 24, 2022, when Russian missiles “rained down on the Ukraine,” foreshadowing the thunderous military storm seeking to restore reign over the former Soviet colony. 29 The formidable Russian army rushing in from the east was rightfully and universally branded “imperialist[],” while Ukrainians, from the highest rungs of political office to the deepest roots of lay society, were globally celebrated as “freedom fighters.” 30 Ukrainians embodied the indigenous fight of Algerians then, or Yemenis and Kashmiris today, against a global military power intent on crushing their hearts, homes, and everything they love beyond and in between. 31

Unlike the accusations leveled at Ukrainians’ Muslim counterparts striving for self-determination, the Russian indictments of “terror” lacked the dehumanizing hand of race and racism. Rather, the indictments were countered and quelled by their targets’ lurid whiteness, and Ukrainians were celebrated as freedom fighters on the basis of their whiteness coupled with Western opposition to the Russian invasion. It took little for Ukrainians, whose faces monopolized the news headlines and timeline feeds, to become universal darlings and irrefutable victims. The Western world flanked alongside President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainians’ archetypal whiteness twice mooted Putin’s levied charges of terrorism from Moscow. 32 Ukraine is ninety-nine percent white, and politicians and media outlets all over the world hailed its people fighting for resistance and pushed from Ukraine as refugees. 33 As Césaire wrote during the thick of the postcolonial era of the 1950s: “Europe has this capacity for raising up heroic saviors at the most critical moments.” 34 This heroism is monopolized by whiteness, embodied decades later by blonde-haired and blue-eyed Ukrainians at the “critical moment[]” 35 of NATO expansionism clashing with Russian imperialism.

Race, far from a fringe actor, is central to the dramatic play unfolding within Ukraine and beyond it. By interrogating the centrality of race in the dialectic of freedom and terrorists, this Essay examines how the realpolitik driving imperial law and its accompanying discourses is powerfully abetted by racial difference, and the indelible resonance of whiteness when it occupies the role of freedom fighter. The War in Ukraine, distinctly unfolding alongside similar campaigns in the “Middle East” and Muslim-majority contexts, is a powerful theatre illustrating this dissonance; such dissonance colors the framing of “nonwhite” Muslims vying for self-determination as terrorists and white Ukrainians, engaged in the very acts of resistance, as freedom fighters. 36 This racial interplay saturates media discourses, scholarly literatures, and as new wars converge with preexisting crusades, across screens drilled to walls and smaller ones held in our palms.

Through its examination of new war, this Essay builds on foundational literatures interrogating the construction of racialized threat and colonial victimhood. In doing so, it interrogates how the War on Terror creations of terror threaten to extend beyond American borders geographic and political, converging with a globalized formation of whiteness that extends presumptions of innocence and valor to those who hold it. Echoing the formative critical race baseline that racial construction is not separate from political interest, this Essay stands as the first to examine this very discourse within one of the most consequential wars of this era — centered as such because the white identities of its lead actors align with the geopolitical stakes of the conflict.

This Essay will proceed in three Parts. Part I analyzes the racial construction of the terrorist and the freedom fighter, examining scholarly texts and the reifying echo of mainstream news media.

Part II will interrogate the racial juxtaposition at the root of their contemporary sites — Ukraine and Muslim-majority societies — where quests for self-determination against occupying powers are conceived and covered, in dramatically opposable ways.

Part III examines the racialization of freedom fighter and terrorist from within the frame of refugee resettlement outside of Ukraine, affirming how the racial construction of both terms follows individuals from the field of battle to their search for a safe haven.

I. Reimagining Freedom, Remaking Terror

“[Ukraine] isn’t a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades. This is a relatively civilized, relatively European — I have to choose these words carefully, too — city, one where you wouldn’t expect that, or hope that it’s going to happen.” 37

These are the words of CBS News foreign correspondent Charlie D’Agata. He was reporting from the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv days after the Russian siege commenced, 38 startled by the fact that another war — on the very continent that spurred and staged two world wars — was underway in Europe. Despite the memory of World Wars I and II remaining fresh in the minds of elders and history books, a genocidal campaign unleashed on Bosnian Muslims in the nearby Balkans in the 1990s, 39 and the Russian takeover of nearby Crimea, the CBS News journalist viewed war as wholly foreign to Europe.

“[C]hoos[ing] [his] words carefully,” the CBS News reporter did not mince them. 40 Against the force of facts and the stark shadow of recent history, war was a foreign phenomenon to Europe, the bastion of “civiliz[ation]” for D’Agata. 41 Ukraine, standing on the margins of Western Europe and claiming to join its ranks, was, in line with geographic location, “relatively civilized.” 42 His words and face screamed that what unfolded around him was natural to Iraq or Afghanistan, “uncivilized” lands where war is the natural state of being, order, and disorder. These wars, beyond what Americans only “hope[d] [were] going to happen,” were actually waged in the name of counterterrorism for over two decades. 43

This Part investigates the racial construction of “freedom fighting” and “terrorism.” It examines how law forms their conceptions, driving their political and discursive imaginings along pointedly racial lines. Section I.A surveys how terrorism has been systematically ascribed to Muslim identity, while section I.B analyzes the construction of whiteness alongside virtues such as innocence and rectitude that give rise to the attendant archetype of freedom fighter.

A. Islam and Terror

Before one can speak about Islam as a bona fide religion, one must peel off the mass misrepresentations leeching onto it. 44 This is the unnatural state of affairs pronounced by the War on Terror, which — by law and its accompanying discourses — intentionally disfigured a faith followed by nearly two billion people around the world. 45 This framing was leveraged as propaganda to expand and deepen America’s footprint atop and across it. As Professor Sahar Aziz writes: “The September 11 terrorist attacks finalized a transformation of Muslim identity that had been in the making for decades and was grounded in European Orientalism.” 46

As Aziz explicates, the law and discourse of Islamophobia is by no means unfamiliar or novel. 47 In fact, the War on Terror machine revised, readapted, then “redeployed” longstanding European and American Orientalist tropes. 48 It spurred ideas that Islam, more racial civilization than religion, inspired unhinged violence through an innate, insatiable appetite for conquest. 49 It pervaded historic laws, texts and literatures, and emergent discourses that warned about a “clash of civilization” between the “west” and “Islam.” 50 This was a masculine manifestation of violence that, after the 9/11 terror attacks and following turbulent era, took on the visible and ominous form of the Muslim male terrorist. 51

Islamophobia was and remains a deeply gendered discourse. The framing of Muslim masculinity made modern terrorism, positioning the Muslim male as a figure that simultaneously menaced Muslim women on the home front and Western civilizations afar. 52 As Muslim feminist Fatima Mernissi writes, “The so-called modesty of [Muslim] women is in fact a war tactic.” 53 The strategically constructed feminine tropes of “submissiveness” and “passivity” were devised as a Trojan horse for the imperial objective of “saving Muslim women,” for colonization, for conquest and the spoils that come from it. 54 This metanarrative was extended into the modern context by Professors Saba Mahmood and Lila Abu-Lughod, anthropologists who jab at the Western feminist imperialist impulse by asking, “ Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? ” 55 The very gendered binary that orients Muslim women as subjects in need of saving and men as tyrants on the home front and terrorists everywhere else is itself a colonial import and an imperial instrument, which erases the myriad of gendered identities within and across Muslim societies. 56

Furthermore, Islam, despite being the world’s second-largest faith practiced across every country and continent, still takes on a pointedly racialized form. 57 Despite its limitless heterogeneity, the contours of Arab or Middle Eastern, brown, and immigrant identity controlled the popular imagining and presentation of Islam. 58 Muslims became terrorists, and the enterprise of terrorism remains incessantly viewed through the linear form of Muslim men. 59 To be brown, Muslim, and male meant that the specter of terror suspicion always followed Muslim men, and those non-Muslims with the misfortune of being profiled as such. 60

As a result, the lens of terrorism and counterterrorism colored virtually everything Muslims said or did. This included religious expression, political activity, and even benign behavior. “Acting Muslim” functioned as a proxy for terror activity; it invited state suspicion or surveillance, and new regimes of self-policing among Muslim populations in the United States and wherever the War on Terror gaze persisted. 61 Muslims were incentivized, if not pushed by War on Terror policy and the societal climate, to behave in line with the political strictures and “moderate” sensibilities. 62 More often than not, “good” behavior that concealed Muslim religious expression or conformed to patriotic sensibilities was still not enough to stave off the stigma of terror suspicion. 63

Most pronouncedly, and ominously, the lens of terrorism invari-ably painted perceptions of acts of aggression. In Europe, modern Islamophobia is strongly tinged with the ever-present narrative of the Crusades, which deepens the caricaturing of Muslims as longtime rivals and violent actors. 64

The West’s denigration of Islam dates as far back as the Middle Ages and the Christian Crusades — a series of bloody, violent, and ruthless religious wars started by Pope Urban II to recapture the Holy Land from Muslims and distract from the problems of the Church. The Crusades promoted religious intolerance and violence, resulting in the widespread massacre of Muslims, Jews, and other non-Christians; the lumping together of diverse peoples from the Arabian Peninsula; and categorizing them as inferior. It also helped establish a worldview in which Christianity and Islam, Christians and Muslims, and Europeans and “Saracens” were viewed as natural enemies, with Muslims being portrayed as dark and evil “others.”

Erika Lee, America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States 295 (2019). The link between Islam and violence is rooted in European colonial epistemology, seeding it deeper and bolstering its prominence in contemporary policy. 65 This, many contend, makes European forms of Islamophobia more intimate, and consequently more complex than their American analogs. 66 However, intimacy breeds a distinct mode of violence, oftentimes in more piercing and disabling policies as evidenced by France’s 2004 “Headscarf Ban” legislation. 67

Furthermore, even righteous acts of resistance made in the name of self-determination are stained with suspicion when performed by Muslims. The very quest for self-determination, and the heroism it demands, clashed with prevailing political constructions and popular conceptions of Muslims. This held particularly true for Muslims on the opposite side of American interests and the wrong side of its military prowess — in places such as Yemen or Iraq, Pakistan or the West Bank, and Gaza. 68 For Arabs and Muslims, flatly clothed with the uniform of terrorism, their acts have been stripped of the value of their intent or objective; and consistently assessed, and indicted, on the mere basis of the actus reus and the contours of their identity. 69 Terrorism was imputed even when Muslims were engaged in righteous resistance.

The campaign that ascribed terror to Muslim bodies was not merely epistemological. More pointedly, the law spearheaded it. In fact, every war, executive order, piece of legislation, and policy that dealt with terrorism — or counterterrorism — was built upon the Islamophobic baseline that expressions of Muslim identity were tied to a propensity for terrorism. 70 This baseline sits at the center of federal policies, like the “Muslim Ban” 71 and the PATRIOT Act. 72 It sits at municipal- and state-level state action, such as Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) 73 and anti-Sharia bans. 74 Even the newly established Department of Homeland Security reflected the anti-Muslim fixation of the federal government, dissolving the borders between immigration regulation and surveillance. 75

Beyond law, policing “Muslim terrorism” drove the reformation of executive-branch institutions. “Structural Islamophobia” legitimized the conflation of terrorism with Muslim identity, functioning both as legal authority and a profound message to citizens to partake in the national project of policing and punishing Muslims. 76 In that vein, the War on Terror was as much a societal crusade as it was a state-sponsored campaign. As law scholar Professor Naomi Mezey theorizes, “law’s power is discursive and productive as well as coercive. Law participates in the production of meanings within the shared semiotic system of a culture, but is also a product of that culture and the practices that reproduce it.” 77 The “shared rage” of legal dictate and vigilante violence in the United States and beyond curated a unified front against Muslim communities, categorically profiled as presumptive terrorists. 78

“September 11, 2001 was a world event but it was also a globalized event,” observed surveillance scholar David Lyon, pointing to how the ensuing War on Terror was also transnational. 79 In the words of the President leading the charge, the War on Terror was not America’s fight alone. In the immediate wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, President George W. Bush lobbied the world’s nations to join in on the “civilization[al]” war against Islamic terrorism. 80 In praxis, this encompassed Muslim-majority societies and communities across the globe.

By rhetoric and legal fiat, the Bush Administration — and the several that followed — legitimized a globalized effort cracking down on Muslim communities. Domestic counterterror laws were fused together with global policing and war, creating a landscape where “Muslimness” 81 was suspicious transnationally and vulnerable to an expanding network of anti-terror policy. Instead of “sell[ing] democracy to the third world” and the broader community of nations, 82 the United States peddled the War on Terror and its bellicose charge of standing “with us or against us” in regard to Islam and its followers. Michael Flynn, former Army lieutenant general who served as the National Security Adviser under President Trump, called the War on Terror a “world war,” 83 which oriented the might of America and the nations flanked alongside it against an amorphous target that took the form of any, and all, Muslims.

Through the law of counterterrorism, governments bent on persecuting their Muslim populations were granted unequivocal decree, from the world’s principal superpower, to do so with renewed impunity. The War on Terror, in short, extended carte blanche to governments across the world to crack down on their Muslim populations with enhanced vigor and American support. 84 This was particularly true for governments bent on crushing self-determination movements from Muslim populations. This included the disputed territory of Kashmir, which maintains a position of legal limbo while interlocked between Pakistan and India, 85 and the Uyghur in northwest China, whose quest for independence since the creation of the modern Chinese state in 1949 has been suffocated by a total surveillance state. 86

Being labeled a “terrorist” before and especially during the War on Terror was a death blow. This held particularly true for Muslims who already carried the stain of suspicion with them as a consequence of their faith, physical complexion, lands of origin, and a matrix of these factors and more. 87 Islamophobia, adapted from its imperial roots to serve modern political aims, became the new instrument for political control and imperial domination. 88 Fighting for freedom, for Muslim communities during the global War on Terror, would garner no sympathy.

Rather, it invited scrutiny, surveillance, and the swinging sword of the state. American law, accompanied by propaganda that conflated Muslim identity and the embodiment of terrorism into an unbreakable monolith, sharpened the sword.

B. Freedom in Whiteness

Whiteness is a wand that, at once, inspires reverence and affirms innocence. Like magic, those who behold it stare in awe, while those who hold it carry enviable power. Outsiders are seduced by its pull and climb against the push of reality to reach it. 89

Beyond its magic, whiteness is synonymous with first-class citizenship. 90 It “remains a deeply entrenched property interest” that confers a range of substantive rights and societal benefits to those who possess it. 91 In the United States, and settler-colonial states around the globe, displaced and relegated people are conditioned to achieve whiteness, incentivized by the formal rewards and the psychological legitimacy that come with it. 92 In many cases, whiteness was fully conflated with formal citizenship. 93 Being white, particularly in nations where it is the standard, enables the existential expanse to “ be ” without being judged; to belong without the burden of explanation.

Whiteness, in these contexts, is freedom — or, at minimum, the optimal pathway toward attaining it and evading the indictments that curb it. Whiteness, in its American form and European analogs, is synonymous with both, without the necessity of hyphens. It is a unitary identity denied, if not impossible, to Afro-Britons or Muslim-Americans, among others. That extension of freedom, and its accompanying virtues, is perhaps the greatest privilege emanating from whiteness — making it as valuable a commodity as any.

As Césaire theorizes within the dialectic of colonialism and civilization, whiteness is also heroism — and that very enterprise of struggling for freedom. 94 This motif of heroism is built upon the premise that only specific peoples, white populations, are deserving of freedom and the panoply of virtues that precede and emanate from it. 95 This presumption, explicitly revealed by postcolonial thinkers, has been made clear all over again today by mainstream media narratives aligning heroism with white Ukrainians, then juxtaposing it with Muslim actors.

In his landmark text The Fire Next Time , James Baldwin examines the racial composition of heroism vis-à-vis the Black experience during the Civil Rights Era. Through one of the most notable Civil Rights figures, Malcolm X, Baldwin interrogates the racial anatomy of heroism in America:

The conquests of England, every single one of them bloody, are part of what Americans have in mind when they speak of England’s glory. In the United States, violence and heroism have been made synonymous except when it comes to blacks, and the only way to defeat Malcolm’s point is to concede it and then ask oneself why this is so. 96

Malcolm’s point, relayed by Baldwin and echoed in this Essay, is that violence is justified as heroic when administered by white bodies. More so, it carries with it the presumption of righteousness and “glory” regardless of whether the aim is illicit or unjust, such as the English colonization of African nations or the French experiment in Algeria. 97 Presumed heroism is built into the construction of whiteness; it is not only denied to Black people and Muslims on account of their racialization as irredeemably violent but also foreclosed to them despite pursuing just ends. Within a “racialized imperial context,” heroism is less defined by the act and more defined by the subject. 98 If the latter is white, then the title will be doled out.

Let me be emphatically clear — conceptions of whiteness are by no means uniform across global societies. When examining foreign contexts, one must be careful not to impose American understandings of race, racism, and in particular, whiteness into foreign contexts. 99 This not only disfigures or hides the distinct experiences of nonwhite and non-Black peoples, but it also forces American racial constructs into countries or case studies where they do not fit or make sense. 100 However, in a world inflected by the War on Terror and infected by the “barbarism” of European and American imperialisms, 101 the conceptions of “whiteness” and “terrorism” have become more globalized than ever before. 102 This simultaneously reflects American intellectual exceptionalism’s extensive reach and the global resonance of the hard and soft power of America’s War on Terror.

The racialized discourse around terrorism further illustrates how freedom and innocence are inscribed into whiteness and made inimical to Muslimness. Professor Caroline Mala Corbin writes:

It is not difficult to uncover two coexisting narratives about terrorism occurring in the United States. The first is the idea that “all terrorists are Muslim,” which sometimes even morphs into “all Muslims are terrorists.” The second is that “white people are never terrorists.” Neither are true. Despite the starkness of these summaries, they capture the general tenor of these widespread narratives. 103

The coexisting narratives Corbin interrogates transcend American borders, given their global legs and resonance from the War’s legal propaganda machine. Whiteness disables the envisioning of those who are held to be terrorists, and its very construction is inimical to the racial formation of terrorism. 104

Terrorism, in the modern imagination, is more racial identity than political act. Echoing the formative observations of Professors Leti Volpp, Natsu Taylor Saito, and Erik Love, Corbin observes how terrorism is conflated with “Muslimness,” how whiteness sources exemption from terrorism. 105 Furthermore, the charge of terror is naturally linked to Muslim bodies, alongside the collective guilt all observers of the religion bear when a culprit of terror is a Muslim. It disentangles the individual actor from the enterprise of terror even when engaged in its furtherance. 106

In short, whiteness confirms innocence even when the subject’s action states and shows otherwise. 107 This innocence frames those who possess it, particularly when engaged in rightful resistance, as freedom fighters. On the other side of Corbin’s binary, Muslim actors struggling for self-determination — already perceived through the prism of terrorism — can hardly be viewed as freedom fighters because their very being, particularly during the War, is wed to anti-Western violence.

Being white is no fault of Ukrainians. It does not curb the righteousness of their struggle, nor should it lessen the sympathy or support given to the millions of refugees pushed out of their homeland. 108 However, racial privilege is not a matter of placing blame or measuring sympathy. It just is . It provides clarity to the myth that every refugee is equal, and that her upward mobility in a foreign land will be determined by her “work,” “luck,” or “drive.” 109 It provides crucial color and context to the global canvas of struggles that cast some as freedom fighters and others as terrorists.

The world has been conditioned to stomach Muslim death, while white suffering is pointedly aberrant and unacceptable. Governments’ rushing aid and the global media’s sympathetic lens confirm this through the scale and tenor of support. The words of a former deputy prosecutor general of Ukraine, interviewed by the BBC, articulated the global sympathy for whiteness unfolding during the Russian invasion: “It’s very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blond hair . . . being killed everyday.” 110

This admission was unfiltered and honest. It spoke of the empathy extended because of shared race and shared appearance. 111 Even more, it is a statement that could be elevated into some grand score, spoken on behalf of a world cheering the Ukrainian fight for freedom. They cheer for a people brandishing Molotov cocktails and makeshift guns, just like Kashmiris or Palestinians bearing similar arms but bereft of the limitless prowess of whiteness.

II. In Living Color: Clashing Theaters of Struggle

The reports from Ukraine in the wake of the Russian invasion were startling. Thousands of internally displaced people were pushed into makeshift bomb shelters, towns and cities were pummeled by ongoing Russian airstrikes, and refugees crowded train stations and border crossings. Most moving among the stories were those of everyday Ukrainians taking arms against one of the world’s strongest military forces to protect their loved ones and to defend their land. 112 The images of resistance were similar to those memorialized in The Battle of Algiers , and live battles for survival across the Middle East and Muslim societies unfolded in real time, in the same hemisphere.

Unlike for peoples from non-European nations, the public lauded Ukrainians’ pelting stones and whatever else they could grab hold of to defend themselves. 113 Scenes of elders taking arms, 114 millionaire athletes leaving luxury for love of land, 115 and a president refusing evacuation invitations and declaring that “this might be the last time you see me alive” 116 “powered a global narrative of good against evil, imperialism against sovereignty, of David vs. Goliath.” 117 This positive coverage was nonexistent for kindred struggles for self-determination in Muslim-majority societies, and more often than not, reversed to dub the colonized as the wrongdoer and the colonizer as the victim.

This Part investigates these double standards, rooted in race and realpolitik , that drive the framing of Ukrainians as freedom fighters and Muslims, similarly campaigning for dignity, as terrorists. Section II.A analyzes the demonization of Muslims striving for self-determination and the lack of media coverage on them in comparison with coverage of their Ukrainian counterparts.

Section II.B investigates the role of race in realpolitik and how the alignment of the two uplifts struggles as worthy quests for independence while their misalignment renders such struggles as terroristic.

A. When Muslims Fight Back

Nations that came together to stand against the Russian invasion and isolate Putin were on the right side of history and the human rights divide — this time. Yet similar struggles taking place in Yemen, Palestine, Kashmir, and other countries for years in different theaters, with distinct contexts but similar dynamics, have been ignored or demonized. Yet the essence of these quests for self-determination against military actions has produced dramatically different treatments from Western governments and radically contrasting coverage from media outlets of record. 118

As I note in the Washington Post :

Regular Palestinians resisting state seizure of their homes in Sheikh Jarrah and other occupied territories are conflated with armed militants, rendering them “terrorists.” The reoccurring killing of civilians in Gaza by Israeli airstrikes is defended with the same excuses Putin’s propaganda has adapted for Ukraine’s invasion — that women and children are being used as “human shields,” and that justifies striking civilian targets. 119

However, Palestinian lives are met with dismissal, both in life and in death, and judged through the lens of terrorism. 120

Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world, provides a lucid case study of this double standard. For roughly seven years, a Saudi regime, flanked by the United Arab Emirates and backed by the United States, has relentlessly pummeled Yemen in its quest to broaden its regional influence against Iran. 121 Moreover, as I write:

The grossly asymmetrical “war” the Houthi rebels — who are linked to the Zaydi branch of Shiite Islam, which dominated Yemen for centuries but was repressed by the Yemeni government — has sunk Yemen into widespread famine and on the cusp of collapse. Instead of global condemnation, Yemenis struggling for their very survival have been met with silence, American-supplied weapons [for the Saudis], and the incessant indictment of terrorism. The war has caused an estimated 233,000 deaths, including 131,000 from indirect causes such as lack of food, health services, and infrastructure due to a Saudi-led blockade. 122

The double standards are not isolated to the Middle East or the Arabic-speaking world. In January 2019, the Indian military moved into Kashmir and fully claimed the disputed territory. 123 Powered by an imperial mission fueled by Hindutva goals, or Hindu supremacy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the legal revocation of Kashmir’s autonomy and then claimed the land between India and Kashmir by military annexation. 124 In swift action, Indian police arrested and imprisoned Kashmiri governmental leaders, jailed notable societal figures en masse, arrested activists and journalists, and classified Kashmiri Muslims as presumptive “terrorists” on account of just being Muslim — let alone for speaking up for their claims of independence from Indian military occupation. 125

These Muslim-majority and nonwhite populations face the very struggle advanced by the Ukrainian people: “They, too, put their very lives on the line against global (and regional) superpowers, some wielding rocks and other makeshift weapons to protect their land, loved ones, and way of life — a trilogy of motivations that world leaders have invoked as part of their solidarity to Ukrainian resistance.” 126 The similarities are stunning, and too stark to ignore. Yet, the universal solidarity extended to Ukrainians — by international media channels, politicians and pundits, and governments across the world — is juxtaposed with the opposition and demonization for Palestinians, Yemenis, and Kashmiris by these very same actors. Such responses contribute to the continued dehumanization of these peoples and derail their struggles for dignity.

A handful of voices, during the thick of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, make sense of the stark double standards. Writing for Brookings , sociology Professor Rashawn Ray observes what so many have been afraid to voice:

“European” has become a code word for white and a justification of the primary reason that people should care about the conflict, displacement, and killing. Bloody conflicts in Syria, Somalia, and other places have not received the wide-reaching international media coverage — or urgent international government action — that the invasion of Ukraine has inspired. 127

As Professor Cornel West unequivocally states, “race matters” on domestic and international issues. 128 But more than just “mattering,” race often determines which struggles are worth covering and uncovering, and dictates which peoples are worth humanizing and which people are to remain invisible. The force of race, through its humanizing and demonizing effect, functions alongside political interests — interests that determine whether a group fighting for its independence will be lionized or vindicated, demonized or ignored.

B. Race and Realpolitik

In the immediate aftermath of the Russian invasion, I wrote in the Washington Post :

[W]hat explains the world of difference between the Ukrainian struggle and the ongoing quests for self-determination in Muslim-majority lands? Within the realm of geopolitics, race, religion, and interests still matter. The three are deeply entwined, particularly in relation to the Middle East and the Muslim world, where a protracted war on terror renders anybody Arab, Brown, or Muslim as a putative terrorist — notwithstanding the righteousness of their struggle or the unhinged imperialism of their opponents. 129

That question, months later, remains as stark as when it was when initially conceived.

Political interests, combined with the enduring effects of Islamophobia and racism, provide a guide toward sobering answers. In an illustration of the raw pull of American interests, the Biden Administration tightened its relations with Saudi Arabia and Prince Mohammed bin Salman in March 2022 to increase oil production — the very regime relentlessly pummeling Yemen. 130 The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the state that actively exports Wahhabism — the interpretation of Sunni Islam adopt-ed by transnational terror networks like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and Al-Qaeda — continues to be the strongest American ally in the region. 131 The Saudi-American bond is still strong, despite the Kingdom’s leader being Prince bin Salman, a person widely regarded as the culprit behind the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post journalist living in the United States. 132

Race, racism, or Islamophobia alone do not dictate which groups are excused from demonization and which are met with its judgment. States are rational actors, and the salience of race is shaped alongside the shape and scale of those interests. What formative critical race theorist and Professor Derrick Bell dubbed “self-interest leverage” 133 characterizes American foreign policy not only at large but also with the Middle East in particular, where the policy double standards are fully exposed. Beyond casting nations, transnational groups, and political parties that conflict with its regional interests as terrorists, the United States has pounced on ethnic and sectarian rivalries to carry forward its objectives in the Middle East. 134 Racialization, thus, is central to American regional policy, is deeply abetted by exploitation of other constructions, and divides to expand its influence.

The humanitarian plight of Yemenis, for instance, does not fall in the calculus of American interests because Yemen stands as the poorest nation in the region and is Saudi Arabia’s target. 135 This very assessment holds true for Palestinians, vying for some semblance of statehood. The State of Israel, alongside Saudi Arabia, is a staunch ally of the United States and the majority of European states. 136 In turn, it curates a reality on the ground where Palestinians are extended little support from international state solidarity and media coverage from mainstream media outlets — which, instead, often conflate their struggle for self-determination with terrorism. 137 The current media imbalance dedicated to Palestine and Israel transcends that of legacy media, with social media platforms, dubbed “surveillance intermediaries” by law Professor Alan Rozenshtein, 138 censoring Palestinian voices from their digital pages and timelines. 139 Mainstream media outlets erasing Muslim voices from their coverage and governments conspiring with Big Tech to censor, or shadow ban, dissidents from virtual platforms also unfold in India, Kashmir, and Myanmar 140  — places, amongst others, where Muslim factions struggle to make their voices heard and push forward independence movements. 141

Within the matrix of political and economic interests driving state and corporate media actors, race must be figured into  — not outside — its algorithm. The zeal of support for Ukrainians is a product of the alignment of whiteness with American and European opposition to Russian imperial interests. The two, combined, amplify the degree of rhetorical and symbolic support from governments and private actors, and accordingly, the degree of political support for Ukrainian soldiers fighting Russia and practical aid to refugees. Race and realpolitik , in this regard, are baked into one another.

The Syrian Revolution of 2011 — which emerged during the wave of Arab Spring movements — serves as a telling counterexample. Though the conflict had its own distinctions and complexities, the Syrian people fended against an authoritarian government backed by the very Russian regime that besieged Ukraine in March 2022. 142 Sympathy for the Syrian people within the United States and Europe was fractured at best. The debate over whether to support the Syrian people was a deeply contested wedge issue among politicians and the people, riddled by the very War on Terror racialization that colored freedom-fighting Syrians as presumptive terrorists. 143 This racialization was put into sharp relief when the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and its backers in Moscow violently crushed the Syrian Revolution, after which millions of Syrian refugees poured into Europe and the United States. 144 Upon arrival, they were profiled as putative terrorists due to their nationality, and most fiercely, their Muslim faith. 145

Unlike Ukrainian refugees, displaced Syrians were not welcomed as (defeated) freedom fighters. Rather, they met the scrutiny of counter-terror suspicion instantly upon arrival, and when admitted into the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, or Italy, their faith and phenotype carried that indelible marker of threat and looming fear of terrorism wherever they went. 146 American and European interests were invariably aligned with the Syrian Revolution. Yet the racial and religious identity of those fighting for it were misaligned with and bereft of the resonance of whiteness that Ukrainians carry.

The public’s imagination of the freedom   fighter  and the  terrorist  is intensely shaped by race and racism. There is a certain envisioning, one of “lay Ukrainians taking arms and throwing molotov cocktails as heroes and Muslims engaged in the very same acts, in pursuit of the same self-determination, as extremists.” 147 While state heads and governmental leaders demonstrate solidarity with Ukrainian people fighting for independence, Yemenis, Kashmiris, Palestinians, and other besieged peoples linger on the “uncivilized” side of the racial and geopolitical divide, “for a world of support that may never come.” 148 Césaire rightfully observes: “Between colonizer and colonized there is room only for forced labor, intimidation, pressure, the police, taxation, theft, rape, compulsory crops, contempt, mistrust, arrogance, self-complacency, swinishness, brainless elites, degraded masses.” 149

The praxis of this observation is accurate yet powerfully reshaped by race in two fundamental ways. First, the racial dissonance of a white imperial actor and nonwhite colonized subjects intensifies the scale of these effects. Second, if the subjects of imperialism are white, like the Ukrainians, then the world — principally the Western world — will not tolerate their subjugation. This is particularly the case for the brutal subjugation of war, where the horror of white bodies slain and spread across newsreels and virtual timelines will spur explosions of emotion seldom assigned to nonwhite victims, particularly Muslims during the War on Terror.

Finally, one cannot overlook the underbelly of anti-Soviet sentiment undergirding popular discourses around Ukraine. Russia, particularly for older generation Americans, is invariably viewed from the prism of the Cold War. 150 Vladimir Putin, the Russian President driving the siege, is himself a holdover of the former Soviet Union — which tightens the conflation between modern Russia and the old Soviet regime. 151 While the shadow of Cold War tension colors the political and popular perception of Russia and its invasion of Ukraine, the conflict remains a pointedly ideological clash. It is, unlike conflicts with Arab nations or crusades against Muslim actors, bereft of the racial and racist narratives that drive state-sponsored and societal responses.

Ukrainians are viewed as unequivocally white, which is also the case for their Russian foes, which begs the question: How much more intense would global support, and racialized sympathy, be for the Ukrainians if their adversaries were nonwhite?

III. Refuge from War and Racism

‘ You either open the door or we die . . . .’ He finally opened the door. We were the only three Africans in that particular train. And the train was not full .

— Orah, an African student fleeing besieged Ukraine 152

It should be no surprise that nations are willing to open the door to refugees they laud as freedom fighters. Conversely, it is no surprise when they close and lock the door to those branded as undesirables or, worse, those suspected as terrorists. Security is a fundamental raison d’être of the state and taking in actors that jeopardize it would undermine this state interest. Freedom fighters enrich the nation, while terrorists threaten it.

The racial formulation of “freedom fighter” has implications beyond the theater of battle. The legal and media framing follows the subject wherever she goes and, most powerfully, when the fighter becomes the refugee seeking safe haven beyond her homeland. This Part examines this existential shift from fighter to refugee and the impact of the battlefield racialization that stays with the white freedom fighter and stains the identity of the nonwhite terrorist in search of refuge. Section III.A examines the practical effects of refugee resettlement, while section III.B investigates the role of media coverage in this process.

A. The Wedge Between Nonwhiteness and Refugee Resettlement

Security, as scholars within and beyond the law have observed for decades, is intimately enmeshed with race and the intrusion of racism. 153 This is also the case with the converging questions around immigration and refugee resettlement, where in the United States and Europe, the standing authority of whiteness filters the desirable from the undesir-able, the future patriot from the imminent pariah. 154 Indeed, racialized notions of “superiority and inferiority at the same time drove the new settler states toward racially exclusive immigration policies” and refugee resettlement policies. 155 White immigrants are seldom viewed as inferior aliens in these contexts, where their whiteness renders their status invisible and blends them into the majority.

In Black Skin, White Masks , the postcolonial thinker Frantz Fanon observes that the “European has a fixed concept of the Negro.” 156 This static understanding of Blackness, and in particular Black masculinity in Fanon’s case, is wed to tropes like violence and threat. 157 As he experienced as a native of Martinique in France, this understanding is also wed to lack of civility and education. 158 Critical scholars label this permanent frame of understanding another racial or ethnic group as “essentialism,” whereby magnificently diverse peoples are reduced to a flat and intractable essence. 159 As feminist scholar Professor Diana Fuss claims, “essentialism is classically defined as a belief in a true essence — that which is most irreducible, unchanging, and therefore constitutive of a given person or thing.” 160

This “fixed” essence of nonwhite refugee was on full display following the Russian invasion, offering yet another window into the racial double and triple standards emanating from Ukraine. As documented firsthand through social media, Black refugees endured horrific racism from Ukrainian officials during the evacuation process. 161 Black people were removed from evacuation trains to make room for white Ukranians and subjected to arbitrary drug tests. 162 This maltreatment unfolded again when Black Ukrainians and nationals from other countries reached the borders of other nations and faced being denied accommodation at shelter centers or excluded from entry altogether — “we are only taking in Ukranians.” 163 The latter meant, in practice, that we are only taking in white people . The anti-Black racism saturating the evacuation echoed, during a wartime moment no less, that the “undesirable” essence ascribed to Black people often superseded the humanitarian imperative to aid a people fleeing war and fending for their very survival. 164 As Black Twitter echoed over and again during the Russian invasion, “even in imminent danger, racism does not rest.” 165

This very principle applies to Muslim refugees fleeing war-torn Ukraine and, even more so, in the waves of accosted people fleeing their native lands in the Middle East. Refugees from the Ukraine, specifically white refugees, were met with welcoming zeal and open arms from nations throughout and beyond Europe. 166 White Ukrainians fleeing their homeland were less so “immigrants,” rather “accosted neighbors” in immediate need of rescue. If they chose to stay within the nations that absorbed them, they were presumptive citizens, or “noncitizen citizens” — evading the stigma of perpetual foreignness that is tattooed on Muslim immigrants. 167 This stigma persists beyond the bounds of formal citizenship for Muslim citizens of France or the United States, where “substantive citizenship” remains defined along racial lines; 168 and terror suspicion “undoes” the perceived citizenship of Muslims who hold its formal status. 169

Muslims, in places where the War on Terror rages forward, are often cast as “alien citizens.” 170 As a consequence of state and societal suspicion, they possess a legal status of citizenship eroded by the societal hostility and state-sponsored suspicion converging upon their bodies and communities. 171 For them, formal status is contrary to the psychological stigmas spurred on by racism and Islamophobia, which hold their faith and phenotype at odds with prevailing conceptions of racialized citizenships. 172 European nations rushing to absorb Ukrainian refugees offer immediate “psychological membership” on account of racial concor-dance. 173 The process engages in what German immigration scholar Professor Christian Joppke calls the “problem of ethnic selectivity,” wherein states formally prefer and proactively resettle individuals that look like, and share traditions and values with, most of their citizens. 174

On the other hand, European nations closed their borders to the waves of refugee populations escaping war from Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and more. The “Fortress Europe,” the staunch continental opposition to refugees, was a clearly racial and racist movement building impregnable walls that deflected Muslim immigrants and refugees. 175 People oftentimes sought to penetrate the “Fortress” through extralegal means, only to be denied upon arrival or found dead miles from the seashore. 176 These are risks that Ukrainian refugees did not have to face.

Muslim immigration is not only a wedge issue in Europe but also a matter that has revised and currently defines the political landscape across the continent. Staunch opposition to new Muslim entrants has given rise to and emboldened preexisting populist movements and parties. Through the lenses of terrorism and “civilization,” former fringe parties have stormed the mainstream with their anti-Muslim rhetoric and policy proposals. 177 These same voices rose to welcome (white) Ukrainian refugees in the days following the Russian invasion, which not only illustrates the salience of race with regard to European immigration but also admits the supremacy of race — and indeed whiteness — within that political realm.

European nations were ready to admit Ukrainian refugees while maintaining steadfast opposition to absorbing Muslim entrants. Spain’s far-right politician Santiago Abascal revealed this, in spades, when he announced in Parliament that anyone can see the “difference” between Ukrainian refugees “and the young men of Muslim origin and military age trying to ‘colonize’ Europe.” 178 Abascal’s statement spewed racism. While many would condemn the explicit nature of his remarks, “[t]he world has rushed to welcome White Ukranian refugees, yet has brutally tried to stop the waves of refugees coming from Africa, Central America, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan[,] and Myanmar.” 179

A rightful tragedy and contradiction riddled the mise-en-scéne across Europe in the midst of a new continental war. Nations, like Ireland, absorbed 100,000 Ukrainian refugees in rapid order while millions of Syrians lingered between the status of statelessness and despair, still searching for somewhere to land. 180 Even France, the center of anti-Muslim xenophobia and state-sponsored Islamophobia in Europe, pivoted to admit more than 10,000 Ukrainian refugees 181 and sent a clear message to Muslims — even those from Francophone African nations — that Islam stands as the fundamental barrier to entry. The most hostile anti-Muslim populists in France, including a right-wing presidential hopeful, lent support for the Ukrainian refugees piling into France. 182 However, that candidate explicitly qualified that Arab refugees are to be denied — without exception. 183 In political parlance, Arab was an umbrella term that encompassed Muslim immigrants.

The freedom fighter, even after they flee, will be lauded. When they reach domestic shores, they will be let in with a hero’s standing ovation and welcome. They will then be celebrated with the measure of care, the compassion, and the resources needed to start anew. Even when they are not a citizen, they will be treated as such and will be adorned with many of the benefits and privileges longtime residents of the nation have enjoyed 184  — benefits nonwhite citizens still have yet to receive.

The terrorist, however, is castigated wherever they stand. They become more of a threat when absorbed into the nation. They are to be barred, at all costs, from coming in and becoming part of the nation. Their customs, faith, and very being are emblematic of disorder and disaster, which the state and its polity must keep tabs on, keep their gaze squarely upon, and keep at a safe distance from.

B. Media Double Standards

For Western journalists and global audiences conditioned by wartime reporting during the past twenty years, the images of war were wed to the Middle East and not “us.” 185 The very people that inhabited these lands embodied the menace of war and terror. 186 War and terror , outside of this context and specifically within Europe, were absurd and out of place. It did not belong in Ukraine but rather belonged in Syria, Afghanistan, and Muslim-majority societies oriented around the Western imagination of forever war and the fixed state of disorder. 187 Since war was alien to Europe and indigenous to the Middle East, the immigrants spilling out of the latter were alien too, Western media seemed to say.

The deeply racial labels of “terrorist” or “freedom fighter,” and their loaded proxies, riddled the early coverage of war in Ukraine and the refugee crisis that followed. It stained a righteous stand for self-determination with the familiar taint of whiteness and the forceful tenor of Islamophobia gripping the continent — while the world watching this pattern plummeted toward yet another war. The clasped hands of whiteness and Islamophobia also steered media coverage of the refugee crisis, which relayed rich and layered stories of Ukrainian refugees while, conversely, sidelining coverage of Afghans and Syrians who have long suffered from statelessness and media silence. 188 Or, they seemed to refer to Muslim or Middle Eastern refugees only as a counterpoint to the ample coverage extended to Ukrainians, a counterpoint often doused in the images from the War on Terror plaguing media representations and misrepresentations of Muslim refugees. 189

The recent trend to address and cover the racial double standards is an incremental step forward. However, this exposure is seldom followed with substantive analysis, and it relegates immigrants of color into mere reference points for racism. It often ceases at that point for Arab and African, Black and Muslim subjects fleeing crisis. On the other hand, “[t]here has been no shortage of stories comparing the rush of love directed at Ukrainian refugees to the xenophobia unleashed against nonwhite immigrants, by European and American media outlets.” 190 Furthermore, this coverage is not accompanied or met with what Afghan, Syrian, and Rohingya refugees require — humanizing and dedicated reporting, sustained attention, and the layered storytelling dedicated, in seemingly endless order, to Ukrainians.

The mere mention of nonwhite subjects of war as reference points perpetuates their objectification and essentialization as nameless victims of forever wars. What may seem a progressive step for media outlets identifying this racism is undergirded by an orientation that prioritizes white victims of war. As I write in Anadolu :

Non-white refugees do not simply exist to evidence racism in refugee resettlement and immigration. Nor are they a homogenous bloc that only warrants reference to gratify the liberal sensibilities of journalists, or entire media outlets, keen on representing themselves as non-racists. Particularly when their media coverage, or lack thereof, shows otherwise. 191

For decades, yellow journalism has dominated Western media coverage. Yet even more indelible is the color of whiteness, which often taints journalistic ethics and prioritizes the struggles “of those that look like the people who hold power, believe like them, and share kindred traditions.” 192 Among the first to identity this was the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association in Washington, D.C., which called out the racism that saturated the media coverage of Ukraine in the wake of the Russian invasion. 193 The organization stated that “[n]ewsrooms must not make comparisons that weigh the significance or imply justification of one conflict over another — civilian casualties and displacement in other countries are equally as abhorrent as they are in Ukraine.” 194

Journalistic ethics are founded upon a commitment to fair, balanced, and objective coverage. However, the weight of whiteness and the imprint of political interests on newsrooms have undermined this mission and exposed double standards that call their integrity into question.

[D]o not make me into that man of hatred for whom I feel only hatred . . .  .

— Aimé Césaire 195

If you live, live free .

Or die like the trees, standing up .

— Mahmoud Darwish 196

The pursuit of freedom is a universal one. It transcends faith and race and races through the veins of every human. The world sees this, unfolding in real time, in nations where peoples of all shades root their boots to the soil against the march of foreign empire and the reign of foreign order. Like oaks in Europe and olive trees in the Levant, they stand, resolute, prepared to sacrifice themselves for a natural love that precedes colonial law imposed by man.

Yet man has enmeshed racism into law. Law is manipulated, over and again, to cast nonwhites as terrorists, while those claiming the pinnacle of the racial caste often evade that indictment. This dialectic was firmly in place before the siege of Ukraine in late March 2022. However, the latest chapter of European war, which could ignite a third world war, illustrates how race, steered by realpolitik , drives the making of terrorists and freedom fighters and the unmaking of people clinging on to their dignity in the face of formidable military and media erasure. 197

In the weeks and months after the invasion, and during the thick of the protracted siege, Ukrainian flags were ubiquitous throughout the United States. The show of solidarity was sublime, and perhaps even surprising, during a moment when rights-based internationalism has plummeted within the American consciousness. 198 The blue and yellow flags were hung up on restaurant windows, while Americans wore them as pins and waved them in front of schools and state buildings alongside the red, white, and blue. These were not Ukrainians expressing their patriotism but rather everyday Americans demonstrating solidarity with a foreign people, a besieged people, who fell victim to an imperial power. The scale of the solidarity was staggering particularly because this was a war that did not directly involve the United States. The American government was a bystander, for once, that pulled out of a twenty-year war and occupation with Afghanistan only months before — the first global theater of its War on Terror. 199

After a lecture in March at the University of San Diego School of Law, I counted twelve Ukrainian flags on my fifteen-minute Uber ride from the campus to San Diego. I counted zero for the unfolding struggles for survival in Kashmir, East Turkestan, Yemen, or Palestine. 200 These flags, draped atop businesses or hanging from residential poles, would invite suspicion, scorn, or both. Their connection to Islam, regardless of the symbols they stood for or their patent secularity, would pause even natives of those lands from waving them during a War on Terror, let alone everyday Americans — who rushed to place Ukrainian flags front and center on their homes, automobiles, and lapels in the days after Russia’s invasion.

Flags are symbols, and they represent far more than national allegiance. In this instance, the display of Ukrainian flags represents solidarity and support, compassion and concern. Few hardly squint or hesitate when a Yemeni village is leveled by American drones or when French airstrikes rain down and “rock the Casbah.” 201 The world is desensitized to imperial violence inflicted on Muslims, who are still branded terrorists, while state-sponsored terror is relentlessly unleashed against them.

As I have written before, Muslims are only newsworthy when they are villains, not victims. 202 The world stands idle as Muslim bodies, fighting for freedom or buried under colonial rule, are gunned down in the name of counterterrorism. Their bodies, dehumanized in life and in death, stand as relics of a colonial past that many across Europe still doggedly cling on to with fists of rage. For the French, colonial Algeria is inextricably tied to their heritage, and for Americans, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are core threads of their cultural conditioning. 203 Instead of undoing these psychoses, the law has reproduced them. Instead of disentangling racism from humanity, the media confirms it.

For Muslims, who have endured these colonial and postcolonial wars and the tragedy of forced displacement that follows, Ukraine is a painful blow. It is another reminder that their bodies, their beings, are worth less — and too often, are worthless . It is difficult for them, and those cognizant of the lurid and lucid double standards emanating from Ukraine, to dream of a uniform standard applied across race, religion, and the realpolitik in between. It is difficult to imagine a world where the theaters of resistance in the Algerian Casbah or Kashmir receive the same light as the struggles in Ukraine. These dreams, instead, are incessantly interrupted by crashing reality. A reality delivered in songs of silence, and scores of violence, that whisper: “ Drop your bombs between the Minarets, Down the Casbah way.” 204

*Harvard University, Scholar in Residence, Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Initiative for a Representative First Amendment (IfRFA); Associate Professor of Law, Wayne State Univ. School of Law; Co-Director, Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights. Author of the critically acclaimed book, American Islamophobia: Understanding the Roots and Rise of Fear (2018), and the upcoming book The New Crusades: Islamophobia and the Global War on Muslims (forthcoming 2023)

^ Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism 44 (Joan Pinkham trans., 2001).

^ The Battle of Algiers (Igor Film & Casbah Film 1966).

^ For a subaltern exposé of the French occupation of Algeria from one of its fiercest French critics, see Albert Camus, Algerian Chronicles ( Alice Kaplan ed., Arthur Goldhammer trans., Belknap Press 2014) (1958).

^ Aimé Césaire theorizes how colonialism degrades the colonizer and its “soul” and, through its pillaging and plundering of colonized peoples, reduces it to barbarism. Césaire, supra note , at 47–48.

^ Jean-Paul Sartre, Colonialism and Neocolonialism 75 (Azzedine Haddour et al. trans., Routledge 2001) (1964). “The entire project of European overseas expansion and settlement had been driven by a sense of superiority over other cultures, religions, and races.” Christian Joppke, Selecting by Origin: Ethnic Migration in the Liberal State 35 (2005).

^ Depicting how Algerian women toppled prevailing stereotypes of “passivity” and “submissiveness” by weaponizing these qualities against the disarmed French soldiers who did not consider them threats, the film’s representation of the Muslim woman freedom fighter was particularly transformative and unprecedented in cinema. For a scholarly critique of these tropes, and the gendered Islamophobia they still give rise to, see Khaled A. Beydoun & Nura A. Sediqe, Unveiling , 111 Calif. L. Rev . (forthcoming 2023), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4054865 [ https://perma.cc/R95P-L4AL ].

^ See James McDougall, A History of Algeria 86–129 (2017) for an analysis of the colonial laws enforced by the French to seize Algerian lands and strip the rights of the natives, from 1830 through 1944.

^ See generally Césaire, supra note . “A civilization that uses its principles [laws] for trickery and deceit is a dying civilization.” Id . at 31.

^ The term “terrorist,” perhaps more than any other political or criminal indictment, is strategically ambiguous — enabling state actors to deploy it in ways that advance their specific political interest, or mandate. American law, for example, has several definitions of the term across its network of federal laws. For an analysis of these legal definitions, and what “terrorism” means according to American interests, see Keiran Hardy & George Williams, What is “Terrorism”?: Assessing Domestic Legal Definitions , 16 UCLA J. Int’l L. & Foreign Affs . 77, 154–59 (2011).

^ This Essay defines the “War on Terror” as the domestic and global campaign commenced by President George W. Bush on September 20, 2001, nine days after the 9/11 terror attacks. President Bush declared, before Congress: “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.” President George W. Bush, Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People (Sept. 20, 2001).

^ Manifest destiny is the ideologically driven belief, often steered by religion, that dispossession of another peoples’ land is the intended fate of the colonial power. This belief is, in many cases, “inexorably entwined with race and racism.” Laura E. Gómez, Manifest Destinies: The Making of the Mexican American Race 4 (2007).

^ Césaire , supra note , at 42.

^ See The Battle of Algiers , supra note .

^ See Taras Kuzio, Inside Putin’s Ukraine Obsession , Atl. Council: UkraineAlert (Jan. 27, 2022), https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/inside-putins-ukraine-obsession [ https://perma.cc/SR98-JX6Q ].

^ For an intimate analysis of the genesis and impact of Black Lives Matter, see Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation (2016).

^ Leti Volpp, The Citizen and the Terrorist , 49 UCLA L. Rev . 1575, 1575–86 (2002).

^ Natsu Taylor Saito, Symbolism Under Siege: Japanese American Redress and the “Racing” of Arab Americans as “Terrorists ,” 8 Asian L.J. 1 , 12 (2001).

^ See generally Khaled A. Beydoun, Exporting Islamophobia in the Global “War on Terror ,” 95 N.Y.U. L. Rev. Online 82 (2020) (examining how American War on Terror policy and rhetoric facilitated the persecution of Muslim populations in nations across the world, with a specific focus on China and India).

^ Khaled A. Beydoun, Islamophobia: Toward a Legal Definition and Framework , 116 Colum. L. Rev. Online 108, 115 (2016). In my previous work, I define “private Islamophobia” as anti-Muslim animus or violence inflicted by individual bigots or actors not tied to the state, id . at 111, and “structural Islamophobia” as law, policy, and action taken by a state agency or actor, id . at 114.

^ “Racialization” is defined as the process of extending racial meaning — itself “an unstable and ‘decentered’ complex of social meanings constantly being transformed by political struggle” assigned to identities in society. Michael Omi & Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States 110 (3d ed. 2015).

^ See Frantz Fanon, Wretched of the Earth (1961), for a formative analysis of the psychological impact of colonization on peoples dispossessed of their lands and disconnected from their independence. See also Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism (1993), a collection of essays examining how modern and postmodern imperial campaigns shaped the making of colonial culture and inspired the intellectual and practical resistance of its colonized subjects.

^ See Devon W. Carbado, Afterword: Critical What What? , 43 Conn. L. Rev. 1593 (2011), for a historical review tracking the intellectual genesis of critical race theory from its formative stages into its fifth decade. “Critical race theory expresses skepticism toward dominant legal claims of neutrality, objectivity, color blindness and meritocracy.” Charles R. Lawrence III et al., Introduction to Words that Wound: Critical Race Theory, Assaultive Speech, and the First Amendment 1, 6 (Mari J. Matsuda et al. eds., 1993).

^ Rashawn Ray & Alexandra Gibbons, Why Are States Banning Critical Race Theory? , Brookings: FixGov (Nov. 2021), https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/07/02/why-are-states-banning-critical-race-theory [ https://perma.cc/W5KD-T6AH ].

^ See Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia: Understanding the Roots and Rise of Fear 28 (2018) (defining Islamophobia “as the presumption that Islam is inherently violent, alien, and unassimilable, a presumption driven by the belief that expressions of Muslim identity correlate with a propensity for terrorism”).

^ Id . at 19.

^ Natalia Zinets & Aleksandar Vasovic, Missiles Rain Down Around Ukraine , Reuters (Feb. 24, 2022, 7:45 PM), https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-orders-military-operations-ukraine-demands-kyiv-forces-surrender-2022-02-24 [ https://perma.cc/4D32-QRXS ].

^ See Khaled A. Beydoun, Opinion, The World of Inconsistencies Between Ukraine, The Middle East and Beyond , Wash. Post . (Mar. 7, 2022, 12:57 PM), https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/07/ukraine-palestinians-kashmir-yemen [ https://perma.cc/C94N-QE98 ].

^ For an example of this framing, see Sebastian Junger, Can Ukrainian Freedom Fighters Stand Up to the Russian Military? History Suggests They Can , Vanity Fair (Mar. 7, 2022), https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/can-ukrainian-freedom-fighters-stand-up-to-the-russian-military [ https://perma.cc/NXD8-HCNJ ].

^ Another angle that illustrates the resonance, and reception, of Ukrainian whiteness across Europe was the refugee crisis that instantly followed the Russian invasion. For a trenchant analysis of the role of race in this crisis, see Rashawn Ray, The Russian Invasion of Ukraine Shows Racism Has No Boundaries , Brookings: How We Rise (Mar. 3, 2022), https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2022/03/03/the-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-shows-racism-has-no-boundaries [ https://perma.cc/925V-STRT ].

^ Char Adams et al., “ Open the Door or We Die”: Africans Report Racism and Hostility Trying to Flee Ukraine , NBC News (Mar. 1, 2022, 5:35 PM), https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/open-door-die-africans-report-racism-hostility-trying-flee-ukraine-rcna17953 [ https://perma.cc/SMP4-7CFJ ].

^ Césaire , supra note , at 68.

^ This Essay recognizes the colonial roots of the descriptor, the “Middle East,” which is rooted in Orientalist imagining. However, I adopt it situationally in this Essay for purposes of brevity and familiarity. Second, it defines “nonwhite” along political discursive lines. This designation is not defined along American formal classifications of whiteness and nonwhiteness, but the political construction of whiteness as applied to Muslim bodies and populations. For example, Arab, Middle Eastern and North African Americans, Muslim and otherwise, are formally classified as white by controlling executive branch agencies. Yet, the political construction of these identities, before and particularly during the War on Terror, has been that of nonwhiteness. See Khaled A. Beydoun, Boxed In: Reclassification of Arab Americans on the U.S. Census as Progress or Peril? , 47 Loy. U. Chi. L.J . 693, 703–16 (2016) (examining how formal whiteness applied to Arab Americans diverges from their lived political experiences).

^ Ben Kesslen, CBS News’ Charlie D’Agata Apologizes for Saying Ukraine More “Civilized” than Iraq, Afghanistan , N.Y. Post (Feb. 26, 2022, 9:21 PM) (quoting D’Agata), https://nypost.com/2022/02/26/cbs-news-charlie-dagata-apologizes-for-saying-ukraine-more-civilized-than-iraq-afghanistan [ https://perma.cc/96D2-6DR8 ]; see also Annabel Nugent, CBS News Foreign Correspondent Apologises for Saying Ukraine is More “Civilized” than Iraq and Afghanista n, The Indep . (Feb. 27, 2022), https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/charlie-dagata-cbs-apology-ukraine-iraq-b2024265.html [ https://perma.cc/Z56C-5NLX ].

^ Kesslen, supra note .

^ See Norman L. Cigar, Genocide in Bosnia (1995), for a historical account of the Serbian war crimes committed against the Muslim people of Bosnia in the 1990s.

^ The work of Edward Said, particularly his book Covering Islam , delved into the misrepresentations of the faith curated by mass media outlets before 9/11 and the ensuing War on Terror. In it, he observed: “Given the present circumstances, with neither ‘Islam’ nor ‘the West’ at peace with each other or with themselves, it may seem exceptionally futile to ask whether, for members of one culture, knowledge of other cultures is even possible.” Edward W. Said, Covering Islam 127 (1981).

^ Michael Lipka & Conrad Hackett, Why Muslims Are the World’s Fastest-Growing Religious Group , Pew Rsch. Ctr . (Apr. 6, 2017), https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/06/why-muslims-are-the-worlds-fastest-growing-religious-group [ https://perma.cc/U4CA-EP2Z ] (stating that Muslims numbered 1.8 billion in 2015).

^ Sahar Aziz, The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom 6 (2022).

^ Id .; see also Robert Allison, The Crescent Obscured: The United States and the Muslim World 45–46 (1995) (“Americans regarded Muhammad as a dangerous false prophet and as the creator of an evil and religious political system. . . . Islam, as the Americans saw it, was against liberty, and being against liberty, it stopped progress.”). See Khaled A. Beydoun, Between Muslim and White: The Legal Construction of Arab American Identity , 69 N.Y.U. Ann. Surv. Am. L . 29 (2013), for an examination of how American courts denied the naturalized citizenship of Muslim immigrants from 1790 through 1944 on account of caricaturing Islam as inassimilable and uncivilized, and ultimately irreconcilable with whiteness.

^ Volpp, supra note , at 1586.

^ Said theorized this master discourse as a process whereby the West, or the “Occident,” defined itself as the mirror opposite image of the Muslim world, which comprised a segment of the “Orient.” See generally Edward Said, Orientalism (1978). For a critical analysis of Orientalism , focusing on how Said’s theoretical binary essentialized the two spheres he was invested in critiquing and undoing, see generally Daniel Martin Varisco, Reading Orientalism: Said and the Unsaid (2007).

^ The starkest example of this transnational masculine Muslim violence, or impending “clash of civilizations” pitting Islam against the West, is Professor Samuel P. Huntington’s influential book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996). Professor Hamid Dabashi, a postcolonial critic, observes: “By 2000, the ideas of [Francis] Fukuyama and Huntington had so utterly stormed Washington that militant Islamism had moved to the center of its short attention span.” Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks 13 (2011).

^ See Beydoun & Sediqe, supra note .

^ Fatima Mernissi, Sheherazade Goes West: Different Cultures, Different Harems 11 (2001).

^ Postcolonial scholar Professor Gayatri Spivak’s characterization of imperial patriarchy captures the gendered and racial essence of the War as “[w]hite men [joined by white women] saving brown women from brown men.” Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Can the Subaltern Speak? , in Can the Subaltern Speak: Reflections on the History of an Idea 22, 50 ( Rosalind Morris ed., 2010).

^ See generally Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (2011); Lila Abu-Lughod, Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others , 104 Am. Anthropologist 783 (2002) (critiquing the War on Terror charge to “liberat[e] Muslim women,” id . at 785).

^ For a rich discussion demystifying this gendered binary and illuminating the rich panoply of gendered expressions in Iran, a Shiite Muslim–majority nation, see generally Afsaneh Najmabadi, Women with Mustaches and Men Without Beards: Gender and Sexual Anxieties of Iranian Modernity (2005).

^ “[A]nyone who racially ‘looks Muslim’ is similarly vulnerable to Islamophobia. Many South Asian Americans are Muslim, but many others are Hindu, Sikh, Christian, Buddhist, or have no religion at all.” Erik Love, Islamophobia and Racism in America 3 (2017).

^ I define “private Islamophobia” as anti-Muslim animus or violence inflicted by individual bigots or actors not tied to the state. Beydoun, supra note , at 111–19.

^ “While violence and terror are the principal makers of Muslim masculinity, the veil and its accompanying dialectic of subordination makes it its feminine analog.” Beydoun & Sedique, supra note , at 20.

^ It is important to note that counterterror and collateral suspicion also implicate non-Muslims discursively profiled as Muslims, including Latino, South Asian, and Sikh Americans. See Vinay Harpalani, DesiCrit: Theorizing the Racial Ambiguity of South Asian Americans , 69 N.Y.U. Ann. Surv. Am. L . 77, 162 (2013).

^ See generally Khaled A. Beydoun, Acting Muslim , 53 Harv. C.R.–C.L. L. Rev . 1 (2018), for a theoretical analysis of how expressions of Muslim identity invite suspicion, and how Muslims negotiate these expressions and behaviors to stave off stigma.

^ See generally Karen Engle, Constructing Good Aliens and Good Citizens: Legitimizing the War on Terror(ism) , 75 U. Colo. L. Rev . 59 (2004). Principal among “good Muslim” expressions are “denouncing terrorism, supporting the war on terror, and waving the American flag.” Id . at 62–63; see also Mahmood Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, The Cold War, and the Roots of Terror (2004) (examining the genesis of the good-bad Muslim binary and its global application).

^ Beydoun, supra note , at 50.

^ While memory, and misrepresentation, of the Crusades is also deployed in the United States, it has special force in Europe. This is largely attributed to the Muslim world’s immediate geographic proximity to Europe, and the continent’s longstanding engagement with the Middle East and Muslim-majority countries. Professor Erika Lee, a historian, writes:

^ The French conquest of Algeria, which prefaces this Essay in the Introduction, is replete with examples of the Islamophobic bind between racialized violence and faith. “In Algiers, in the late nineteenth century, an entire school of psychiatry had been established to explain this kind of violence. More specifically, psychiatrists sought to make a link between Islam and what they called the ‘Arab mentality.’” Andrew Hussey, The French Intifada: The Long War Between France and Its Arabs 172–73 (2014).

^ “[T]here developed a certain intimacy between Europe and the Arabs that in another context Germaine Tillon has referred to as complementary antagonism, a sort of hostility that also included a knowing affection, long years of mutually engrossing experience, and grudging acknowledgement of each other’s actuality.” Edward Said, The Politics of Dispossession 162 (1994).

^ Loi 2004-28 du 15 mars 2004, en application du principe de laïcité, le port de signes ou detenues manifestant une appartenance religieuse dans les écoles, collèges et lycées publics [Law 2004-28 of March 15, 2004, on application of the principle of secularism, the wearing of signs or detainees manifesting a religious affiliation in public schools, colleges and high schools]. See generally John R. Bowen, Why the French Don’t Like Headscarves: Islam, The State, and Public Space (2007), for a comprehensive analysis of the historical and sociological factors that gave rise to the 2004 Hijab Ban, and collateral measures restricting other forms of Islamic covering in France.

^ Beydoun, supra note .

^ Political ideology is imputed on account of identity, even when the act is untethered to one.

^ Beydoun, supra note , at 117.

^ Exec. Order No. 13,769, 82 Fed. Reg. 8977 (Jan. 27, 2017), revoked by Exec. Order No. 13,780, 82 Fed. Reg. 13,209 (Mar. 6, 2017). Although the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ban, Trump v. Hawaii, 138 S. Ct. 2392, 2408 (2018) (holding that “[t]he President lawfully exercised that discretion based on his findings . . . that entry of the covered aliens would be detrimental to the national interest”), President Joe Biden removed it in 2021.

^ See Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 (PATRIOT Act), Pub. L. No. 107-56, 115 Stat. 272 (2001) (codified as amended in scattered sections of the U.S. Code); see also Patriot Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005, Pub. L. No. 109-177, 120 Stat. 192 (2006) (amending the PATRIOT Act).

^ CVE, dubbed the “Mapping Muslims” program, was pioneered in the United States by the New York Police Department, whereby federal law enforcement collaborated closely with local law enforcement to surveil and collect data on Muslim subjects of interests. Beydoun, supra note , at 118–19. CVE was practically steered on a local level, whereby law enforcement issued wires and planted informants within Muslim geographies, such as mosques and community centers. Id . President Barack Obama elevated CVE into his signature counterterror program during his second term, in 2014. Samuel J. Rascoff, Establishing Official Islam? The Law and Strategy of Counter-Radicalization , 64 Stan. L. Rev . 125, 127 (2012).

^ See Yaser Ali, Comment, Shariah and Citizenship — How Islamophobia Is Creating a Second-Class Citizenry in America , 100 Calif. L. Rev . 1027, 1061–66 (2012). For a comprehensive examination of the anti-Sharia movement, see Khaled A. Beydoun, On Sacred Land , 105 Minn. L. Rev . 1803, 1828–36 (2021).

^ See generally Susan M. Akram & Kevin R. Johnson, Race, Civil Rights, and Immigration Law After September 11, 2001: The Targeting of Arabs and Muslims , 58 N.Y.U. Ann. Surv. Am. L . 295 (2002), for an analysis of the strident policies enacted to police Muslims in the immediate wake of the 9/11 terror attacks.

^ Naomi Mezey, Law as Culture , 13 Yale J.L. & Human . 35, 47 (2001).

^ Muneer I. Ahmad, A Rage Shared by Law: Post–September 11 Racial Violence as Crimes of Passion , 92 Calif. L. Rev . 1259, 1318 (2004).

^ David Lyon, Surveillance After September 11 , at 109 (2003).

^ President George W. Bush, Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the Nation (Sep. 20, 2001). President George W. Bush gave the amorphous campaign its formal name nine days after the 9/11 terror attacks, when he lobbied Congress to support full-scale war against the Taliban. Id .

^ The appearance or performance of Muslim identity.

^ Mary L. Dudziak, Desegregation as a Cold War Imperative , 41 Stan. L. Rev . 61, 63 (1988).

^ Michael T. Flynn & Michael Ledeen, The Field of Fight 2 (2016).

^ See generally Beydoun, supra note .

^ For historic background on Kashmir and its precarious positionality, see generally Jasjit Singh, Kashmir, Pakistan, and the War on Terror , 13 Small Wars & Insurgencies 81 (2002).

^ See generally Darren Byler, In the Camps: China’s High-Tech Penal Colony (2021), for a trenchant examination of the cutting-edge technologies the Chinese are currently employing to persecute the Uyghur and other ethnic Muslims in China.

^ Islamophobia is rooted in imperialism, and namely, Orientalism. As media studies Professor Deepa Kumar observes: “[N]otions of race and of Muslims as inferior beings could come to the fore in a context where European nations were in a position to actually challenge and eventually dominate once-powerful Muslim empires .” Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire: 20 Years After 9/11 20 (2021).

^ The French historian Arthur de Gobineau wrote: “The only history is white,” illustrating that beyond formal citizenship and legal status, modern epistemology is built upon histories crafted by white men that center white narratives. Césaire , supra note , at 71.

^ See generally Linda Bosniak, The Citizen and the Alien: Dilemmas of Contemporary Membership (2006), for an articulation of the informal and formal rights attached to citizenship status, which is reshaped and stratified by race.

^ Khaled A. Beydoun & Erika Wilson, Reverse Passing , 64 UCLA L. Rev . 282, 299 (2017). See generally Cheryl I. Harris, Whiteness as Property , 106 Harv. L. Rev . 1707 (1993) (discussing the property value attached to whiteness, and the legal and de facto incentives attached to passing as white).

^ In the United States, for instance, whiteness was conflated with naturalized citizenship. This prevailed from 1790 until 1952, when racially restrictive legislation prohibited the naturalization of immigrants deemed nonwhite by civil courts. See Ian Haney Lopez, White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race 31 (1996).

^ “The status of intending citizen . . . was only open to whites from 1790 to 1870,” and presiding civil court judges decided who could become white — and thus, a naturalized citizen — until 1952. Hiroshi Motomura, Americans in Waiting: The Lost Story of Immigration and Citizenship in the United States 123 (2006).

^ Césaire , supra note , at 67–68.

^ “No race has a monopoly on beauty, on intelligence, on strength,” and heroism and freedom. Aimé Césaire, Notebook of a Return to the Native Land 44 (Annette Smith ed., Clayton Eshleman trans., Wesleyan U. Press 2013) (1939).

^ James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time 58 (1963).

^ Every imperial project is racialized. Here, I am referring specifically to imperial interplays involving a white colonizer and nonwhite colonized populations, whereby the racial dissonance enables what Césaire calls “thingification,” or the commodification of racialized colonial subjects as tools to serve the interests of the colonizer. Césaire , supra note , at 42.

^ For a framework of race adapted for globalized analysis, see generally Michelle Christian, A Global Critical Race and Racism Framework: Racial Entanglements and Deep and Malleable Whiteness , 5 Socio. Race & Ethnicity 169 (2018).

^ “While the black/white paradigm has played a profound role in our nation’s history, it does not address the myriad issues related to those caught in blurry and gray portions of the divide, both in law and praxis, such as those of Japanese, Chinese, and Indian descent,” and indeed, Arab and (nonwhite and non-Black) Muslim populations. John Tehranian, Performing Whiteness: Naturalization Litigation and the Construction of Racial Identity in America , 109 Yale L.J . 817, 847 (2000).

^ “To go further, I make no secret of my opinion that at the present time the barbarism of Western Europe has reached an incredibly high level, being only surpassed — far surpassed, it is true — by the barbarism of the United States.” Césaire , supra note , at 47. Césaire drew this conclusion in 1950, a position that would be deepened by modern American War on Terror imperialism.

^ For an analysis of the global impact of the George Floyd murder and the wave of protests it inspired, see Jason Silverstein, The Global Impact of George Floyd: How Black Lives Matter Protests Shaped Movements Around the World , CBS News (June 4, 2021, 7:39 PM), https://www.cbsnews.com/news/george-floyd-black-lives-matter-impact [ https://perma.cc/XC2M-SHCY ].

^ Caroline Mala Corbin, Terrorists Are Always Muslim but Never White: At the Intersection of Critical Race Theory and Propaganda , 86 Fordham L. Rev . 455, 457 (2017).

^ Id . at 458–62.

^ See generally Khaled A. Beydoun, Lone Wolf Terrorism: Types, Stripes and Double Standards , 112 Nw. U. L. Rev . 1213 (2018).

^ The January 6, 2021, insurrections were a stunning demonstration of the presumed innocence of violent white actors, who were permitted to organize and collect despite being armed and openly expressing violent aims. Policing measures applied to Black and Muslim activists would have certainly aborted the insurrection, or violently crushed it. See Chauncey Devega, Imagine Another America: One Where Black or Brown People Had Attacked the Capitol , Salon (Jan. 7, 2022, 6:00 AM), https://www.salon.com/2022/01/07/imagine-another-america-one-where-black-or-brown-people-had-attacked-the-capitol [ https://perma.cc/SH4N-CAM2 ].

^ As of March 19, 2022, the refugee count outside of Ukraine had reached three million. For a data analysis explaining why Ukrainian refugees, on account of race and other factors, have been treated better than other displaced groups in Europe have been, see Youyou Zhou, Nicole Narea & Christina Animashaun, Europe’s Embrace of Ukrainian Refugees, Explained in Six Charts and One Map , Vox (Mar. 19, 2022, 8:00 AM), https://www.vox.com/22983230/europe-ukraine-refugees-charts-map [ https://perma.cc/7RZW-UEBY ].

^ The “bootstraps myth,” which pervades American and European rightwing and centrist narratives, holds that, “[i]n the absence of rigid social hierarchies, one is what one achieves. The horizons are open, the opportunities boundless, and the realization of them depends on an individual’s energy, system, and perseverance, in short, the capability for and willingness to work.” Samuel P. Huntington, Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity 71 (2004).

^ Arab News, “ European People with Blue Eyes and Blonde Hair Being Killed” What a BBC Interviewee Commented ., YouTube , at 0:01 (Mar. 1, 2022), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU-8gKaUO_Y [ https://perma.cc/948J-76N3 ]; see also Moustafa Bayoumi, They Are “Civilised” and “Look Like Us”: The Racist Coverage of Ukraine , The Guardian (Mar. 2, 2022, 10:35 AM), https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/02/civilised-european-look-like-us-racist-coverage-ukraine [ https://perma.cc/RN2X-KGHF ].

^ Bayoumi, supra note 110.

^ Beydoun, supra note 30.

^ See Viacheslav Ratynskyi, Photograph of a Ukrainian Civilian Training to Throw Molotov Cocktails, in From Molotov Cocktails to Anti-tank Barricades, Ukraine Residents Prepare to Defend Cities , Reuters (Mar. 6, 2022, 7:29 PM), https://www.reuters.com/news/picture/from-molotov-cocktails-to-anti-tank-barr-idUSRTS62SIY [ https://perma.cc/56AM-G6J2 ].

^ See, e.g ., Aleksandar Vasovic & Polina Nikolskaya, In Ukraine Conflict, Even the Elderly Are Getting Ready to Fight , Reuters (Feb. 20, 2022, 11:40 AM), https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-conflict-even-elderly-are-getting-ready-fight-2022-02-20 [ https://perma.cc/NC5C-3DFM ].

^ Wladimir Klitschko and Oleksandr Usyk Ready to Fight for Ukraine in War with Russia , Sky Sports (Mar. 1, 2022, 12:56 PM), https://www.skysports.com/boxing/news/30778/12554423/wladimir-klitschko-and-oleksandr-usyk-ready-to-fight-for-ukraine-in-war-with-russia [ https://perma.cc/NF78-BMQB ].

^ Barak Ravid, Zelensky to EU Leaders: “ This Might Be the Last Time You See Me Alive ,” Axios (Feb. 25, 2022), https://www.axios.com/2022/02/25/zelensky-eu-leaders-last-time-you-see-me-alive [ https://perma.cc/D5JL-V6TK ].

^ Id .; see also Patrick Kingsley, Evictions in Jerusalem Become Focus of Israeli-Palestinian Conflict , N.Y. Times (Nov. 2, 2021), https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/07/world/middleeast/evictions-jerusalem-israeli-palestinian-conflict-protest.html [ https://perma.cc/K2KA-D5G6 ]. The claim that women and children are being used as “human shields” is a common talking point used by the Israel Defense Forces. See, e.g ., Michael Martinez, Is Hamas Using Human Shields in Gaza? The Answer Is Complicated , CNN (July 23, 2014, 8:23 AM), https://www.cnn.com/2014/07/23/world/meast/human-shields-mideast-controversy/index [ https://perma.cc/VEH6-DYAD ].

^ For a recent story illustrating how labeling Palestinians “terrorists” creates the justification for their extrajudicial killings, see Several Palestinians Killed by Israeli Forces: Ministry , Al Jazeera (Mar. 1, 2022), https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/1/palestinian-killed-by-israeli-forces-in-w-bank-ministry [ https://perma.cc/8CCB-LDW2 ]. See also Noura Erakat, Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine (2009) , for an examination of human rights challenges confronted by the Palestinian people living in the West Bank, Gaza, and within the boundaries of Israel.

^ For a comprehensive analysis of the Saudi war in Yemen and the regional politics that drive it, see May Darwich, The Saudi Intervention in Yemen: Struggling for Status , 20 Insight 125 (2018).

^ Beydoun, supra note 30.; see also Lisa Schlein, Conflict and Economic Collapse in War-Torn Yemen Worsening Hunger Crisis , VOA News (July 28, 2021, 12:32 PM), https://www.voanews.com/a/middle-east_conflict-and-economic-collapse-war-torn-yemen-worsening-hunger-crisis/6208845.html [ https://perma.cc/66ZX-RX3F ]; UN Humanitarian Office Puts Yemen War Dead at 233,000, Mostly from “Indirect Causes ,” UN News (Dec. 1, 2020), https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/12/1078972 [ https://perma.cc/3UC9-HZHK ].

^ Anchal Vohra, Argument, Modi Took Complete Control of Kashmir Two Years Ago — And Got Away with It , Foreign Pol’y (Aug. 3, 2021, 4:14 PM), https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/08/03/modi-took-control-of-kashmir-2-years-ago-and-got-away-with-it [ https://perma.cc/D4PF-4QG2 ].

^ See Devjyot Ghoshal & Alasdair Pal, Thousands Detained in Indian Kashmir Crackdown, Official Data Reveals , Reuters (Sept. 12, 2019, 6:57 AM), https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-kashmir-detentions/thousands-detained-in-indian-kashmir-crackdown-official-data-reveals-idUSKCN1VX142 [ https://perma.cc/R8J7-M5ZQ ], for a review of the mass arrests made after India’s military takeover of Kashmir in September 2019.

^ Beydoun, supra note ; see also Ray, supra note .

^ Ray, supra note .

^ Cornel West, Race Matters (1993).

^ Beydoun, supra note 30. There is no monolithic and integrated “Muslim world.” Rather, the global Muslim population is divided along lines of sect and confession, political identity, and nationality. Yet this Essay adopts the term as a shorthand way to describe the disparate population of Muslims across the globe.

^ Id .; see also Hans Nichols, Scoop: Biden Advisers Weigh Saudi Arabia Trip for More Oil , Axios (Mar. 6, 2022), https://www.axios.com/2022/03/06/biden-saudi-trip-oil [ https://perma.cc/RR2B-QLS2 ].

^ See Josh Rogin, America’s Allies Are Funding ISIS , Daily Beast (Apr. 14, 2017, 3:37 PM), https://www.thedailybeast.com/americas-allies-are-funding-isis [ https://perma.cc/7B72-RR9V ]. For an excellent overview of the history, theology, and modern-day relevance of Wahhabism, see generally Hamid Algar, Wahhabism: A Critical Essay (2002).

^ William Roberts, MBS Approved Operation to Capture or Kill Khashoggi , Al Jazeera (Nov. 16, 2021, 3:14 PM), https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/2/26/mbs-oversaw-saudi-killers-of-khashoggi-us-intel-report [ https://perma.cc/3JFD-HGGQ ].

^ Derrick A. Bell, Jr., Brown v. Board of Education and the Interest-Convergence Dilemma , 93 Harv. L. Rev . 518, 525 (1980). Professor Derrick Bell frames “self-interest leverage” as progressive policy being pushed when it aligns with American geopolitical interests. See id . at 523–25.

^ For an examination of how surveillance during the American War on Terror seizes upon sectarian division to advance its domestic footprint, see Khaled A. Beydoun, Bisecting American Islam? Divide, Conquer, and Counter-Radicalization , 69 Hastings L. J . 429, 467–85 (2018).

^ Alongside Israel, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the United States’s principal ally in the Middle East. Zack Beauchamp, Beyond Oil: The US-Saudi Alliance, Explained , Vox (Jan. 6, 2016, 9:00 AM), https://www.vox.com/2016/1/6/10719728/us-saudi-arabia-allies [ https://perma.cc/Y6TR-JL3F ].

^ Cf . Jacob Shamir & Khalil Shikaki, Self-Serving Perceptions of Terrorism Among Israelis and Palestinians , 23 Pol. Psych . 537 (2002) (concluding that “the definition of terrorism by both Israeli Jews and Palestinians is self-serving,” id . at 546).

^ Alan Z. Rozenshtein, Surveillance Intermediaries , 70 Stan. L. Rev . 99, 105 (2018). Rozenshtein describes these intermediaries as “large, powerful companies that stand between the government and our data and, in the process, help constrain government surveillance.” Id .

^ Tamara Kharroub, Systematic Digital Repression: Social Media Censoring of Palestinian Voices , Arab Ctr. Wash. D.C . (June 8, 2021), https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/systematic-digital-repression-social-media-censoring-of-palestinian-voices [ https://perma.cc/U4U7-SXEP ].

^ See Shirin Ghaffary, A Major Battle over Free Speech on Social Media is Playing Out in India During the Pandemic , Vox (May 1, 2021, 8:00 AM), https://www.vox.com/recode/22410931/india-pandemic-facebook-twitter-free-speech-modi-covid-19-censorship-free-speech-takedown [ https://perma.cc/7CRS-HHNX ]; Andrew Nachemson, Why Is Myanmar’s Military Blocking the Internet? , Al Jazeera (Mar. 4, 2021), https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/4/myanmar-internet-blackouts [ https://perma.cc/Z5PU-Q756 ].

^ Lindsay Maizland, India’s Muslims: An Increasingly Marginalized Population , Council on Foreign Rels . (July 14, 2022, 3:00 PM), https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/india-muslims-marginalized-population-bjp-modi [ https://perma.cc/4Z9R-KU3L ].

^ See Fiona Hill, The Real Reason Putin Supports Assad , Foreign Affs . (Mar. 25, 2013), https://www.foreignaffairs.com/syria/real-reason-putin-supports-assad [ https://perma.cc/8N9B-KEVD ].

^ Amina Dunn & Bradley Jones, Americans Divided over Decision to Withdraw from Syria , Pew Rsch. Ctr . (Jan. 18, 2019), https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/18/americans-divided-over-decision-to-withdraw-from-syria [ https://perma.cc/7BXF-85MU ].

^ Zoe Todd, By the Numbers: Syrian Refugees Around the World , PBS (Nov. 19, 2019), https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/numbers-syrian-refugees-around-world [ https://perma.cc/C7NR-SBZ3 ].

^ See Ben Jacobs, Trump Says Syrian Refugees Aren’t Just a Terrorist Threat, They’d Hurt Quality of Life , The Guardian (Sept. 21, 2016. 4:24 PM), https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/21/trump-syrian-refugees-terrorism-quality-life-bombing-attacks [ https://perma.cc/WEC6-QUCX ].

^ See Hassan Hankir & Hams Rabah, Arab Refugees See Double Standards in Europe’s Embrace of Ukrainians , Reuters (Mar. 2, 2022, 10:57 AM), https://www.reuters.com/world/arab-refugees-see-double-standards-europes-embrace-ukrainians-2022-03-02 [ https://perma.cc/GC3X-4MET ].

^ For an example of this perspective, and one that interrogates whether the Cold War “ever really ended,” see Robin Wright, Does the U.S.-Russia Crisis over Ukraine Prove That the Cold War Never Ended? , New Yorker (Feb. 19, 2022), https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/does-the-us-russia-crisis-over-ukraine-prove-that-the-cold-war-never-ended [ https://perma.cc/QRS4-BP59 ].

^ Putin served seventeen years in the Soviet Union’s federal surveillance agency, the KGB. See David Hoffman, Putin’s Career Rooted in Russia’s KGB , Wash. Post (Jan. 30, 2000), https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/russiagov/putin.htm [ https://perma.cc/FYL2-GSYN ].

^ Adams et al., supra note 33.

^ For example, national security in Western nations has been riddled with anti-Muslim animus. See Amna Akbar, Policing “Radicalization ,” 3 U.C. Irvine L. Rev . 809 (2013), for an examination of how federal community surveillance is pointedly steered by anti-Muslim philosophies of “radicalization” and “extremism.” For an analysis of how counter-radicalization runs counter to the spirit of the First Amendment Establishment Clause because of its pointedly anti-Muslim posture, see Rascoff, supra note , at 129–30.

^ For a recent treatise calling for racial justice within immigration law, see Kevin R. Johnson, Bringing Racial Justice to Immigration Law , 116 Nw. U. L. Rev. Online 1 (2021).

^ Joppke , supra note , at 36.

^ Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks 35 (Charles Lam Markmann trans., Pluto Press 1986) (1952).

^ For an examination of the hypermasculinization of Black male threat in relation to police brutality and the recent wave of Black Lives Matter protests, see D. Marvin Jones, The “Big Black Man” and Other Stories: George Floyd, Stereotypes, and the Shape of Fear , 75 U. Mia. L. Rev. Caveat 97 (2021). See generally Paul Butler, Chokehold: Policing Black Men (2017), for a trenchant analysis of police violence inflicted upon Black men essentialized as criminals and violent actors.

^ “There is nothing more exasperating than to be asked: ‘How long have you been in France? You speak French so well.’” Fanon , supra note , at 35.

^ Essentialism holds that people, and things, can be reduced to a core set of traits that characterize their very being. These traits, collectively, make up an essence, which gives rise to positive, negative, and benign stereotypes. Law scholar Professor Angela Harris argues against essentialism in relation to feminist theory, which she defines as “a unitary, ‘essential’ women’s experience [that] can be isolated and described independently of race, class, sexual orientation, and other realities of experience.” Angela P. Harris, Race and Essentialism in Feminist Legal Theory , 42 Stan. L. Rev . 581, 585 (1990).

^ Diana Fuss , Essentially Speaking: Feminism, Nature, and Difference 2 (1989).

^ Frank Langfitt & Eleanor Beardsley, International Students Are Facing Challenges as They Try to Evacuate Ukraine , NPR (Mar. 3, 2022, 1:09 PM), https://www.npr.org/2022/03/01/1083775486/africans-and-south-asians-are-having-an-especially-difficult-time-leaving-ukrain [ https://perma.cc/REA7-KD3L ].

^ “Several buses crossing every hour and not one foreigner allowed across. We finally made it across and we’re told accommodation at the hotel is only for Ukrainians. No sleep or food in 3 days . . . Why does nationality determine who rests?” Khanyi Mlaba, Black People in Ukraine Are Reporting Racism While Trying to Leave , Glob. Citizen (Feb. 28, 2022), https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/racism-leave-ukraine-asylum-black-people-of-color [ https://perma.cc/WJK4-PNMN ].

^ For a critical examination of the demonization of Blackness converging with the invisibility of Black immigrants, see Karla M. McKanders, Immigration and Racial Justice: Enforcing the Borders of Blackness , 37 Ga. St. U. L. Rev . 1139 (2021).

^ See, e.g ., @banks_camryn, Twitter (Mar. 1, 2022, 3:43 PM), https://twitter.com/banks_camryn/status/1498760743537283079 [ https://perma.cc/KD3W-CRJD ].

^ For a stunning example of warmth, Germans welcomed Ukrainian refugees with parties greeting them upon arrival. Damian Grammaticas, Germans Welcome Ukrainian Refugees by Train: “It Could Have Been Us ,” BBC (Mar. 3, 2022), https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60611188 [ https://perma.cc/ND92-7HH5 ].

^ “Noncitizen” refers to a status whereby people are viewed, and often treated, as full-fledged citizens despite not holding possession of formal citizenship. Bosniak, supra note , at 5.

^ Id . at 31 (“[T]here is often a gap between possession of [formal] citizenship status and the enjoyment or performance of citizenship in substantive terms.”). For a close examination of how French Muslim citizens, namely youth, are cast as outsiders despite holding French citizenship, see Jean Beaman, Citizen Outsider: Children of North African Immigrants in France (2017).

^ Leti Volpp, Citizenship Undone , 75 Fordham L. Rev . 2579, 2584 (2007).

^ See Leti Volpp, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and Alien Citizens , 103 Mich. L. Rev . 1595, 1626 (2005) (reviewing Mae Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (2004)) (using the term “alien citizen” to describe the dissonance between the legal status of citizenship and the political branding of Muslims as pariahs, eternal immigrants, or enemies of the state).

^ The substantive measures of citizenship also include “psychological membership” or marginalization. Bosniak , supra note , at 20.

^ Joppke , supra note , at 1–30.

^ Renata Brito, “ Fortress Europe” Opens for Ukrainian Refugees but Keeps Others Out , Christian Sci. Monitor (Mar. 1, 2022), https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2022/0301/Fortress-Europe-opens-for-Ukrainian-refugees-but-keeps-others-out [ https://perma.cc/F2UP-RGNR ].

^ “And those Third World migrants who dare risk their lives to migrate to First World countries without legal authorization are confronted with increasingly militarized border regimes negotiated by First and Third World nation-states, and which amount to multilateral projects for the regional containment of Third World persons beyond the First World.” E. Tendayi Achiume, Migration as Decolonization , 71 Stan. L. Rev . 1509, 1515 (2019).

^ See generally Huntington , supra note .

^ Kitty Holland, Ireland May Take In More Than 100,000 Ukrainian Refugees, Minister Says , Irish Times (Mar. 6, 2022, 4:03 PM), https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/ireland-may-take-in-more-than-100&ndash ;000-ukrainian-refugees-minister-says-1.4819785 [ https://perma.cc/R745-QBQX ].

^ Joseph Ataman & Camille Knight, France Prepares Accommodations for 10,000 Ukrainian Refugees , CNN (Mar. 9, 2022, 9:33 AM), https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-putin-news-03-09-22/h_45a9a6b63e598e289436fe0983769dbe [ https://perma.cc/RRE7-6ZUJ ].

^ French Far-Right Candidate Zemmour Says Ukrainians Welcome, But Not Arab Refugees , France 24 (Mar. 9, 2022, 12:17 PM), https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220309-french-far-right-candidate-zemmour-says-ukrainians-welcome-but-not-arab-refugees [ https://perma.cc/NH9R-PUQF ].

^ See Bosniak , supra note , at 5.

^ “They seem so like us. That is what makes it so shocking. . . . War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations. It can happen to anyone.” Daniel Hannan, Vladimir Putin’s Monstrous Invasion Is an Attack on Civilisation Itself , The Telegraph (Feb. 26, 2022, 5:00 PM), https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/vladimir-putins-monstrous-invasion-attack-civilisation [ https://perma.cc/G5E7-VGQD ].

^ See Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race and Representation After 9/11 (2012), for a critical examination of the most prominent stereotypes of Muslim men and women after the 9/11 terror attacks.

^ See generally Said , supra note .

^ Statelessness has been dubbed the “paradox of mobility and insecurity,” which is “a simultaneous tendency to migrate but without the protection or citizenship of a home state.” Sarah M.A. Gualtieri, Between Arab and White: Race and Ethnicity in the Early Syrian American Diaspora 168 (2009).

^ “[M]edia portrayals connected with events such as 9/11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the civil conflicts in Syria, and an increase in terror related activities across Europe have produced compelling images and narratives that paint Muslims . . . as violent.” Nazita Lajevardi, Outsiders at Home: The Politics of American Islamophobia 110 (2020).

^ Khaled A. Beydoun, Analysis — When Immigration Is No Longer a Wedge Issue: Ukranian Refugees and Journalistic Humanization of White Plight , Anadolu Agency (Mar. 25, 2022), https://www.aa.com.tr/en/analysis/analysis-when-immigration-is-no-longer-a-wedge-issue-ukrainian-refugees-and-journalistic-humanization-of-white-plight/2545523 [ https://perma.cc/7XAW-Y5MQ ]; see also, e.g ., Ray, supra note .

^ Press Statement, The Arab & Middle E. Journalists Ass’n, Statement in Response to Coverage of the Ukraine Crisis (Feb. 2022).

^ Aimé Césaire, Notebook of a Return to My Native Land 38 (1939).

^ Mahmoud Darwish, The Butterfly’s Burden 31 (2007).

^ There was early discussion that events in Ukraine could lead to World War III. See, e.g ., Bret Stephens, Opinion, This Is How World War III Begins , N.Y. Times (Mar. 15, 2022), https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/15/opinion/russia-ukraine-world-war-iii.html [ https://perma.cc/SL59-YX6H ].

^ See Khaled Ali Beydoun, Islamophobia, Internationalism, and the Expanse Between , 28 Brown J. World Affs . 101, 103–04 (2021).

^ Zeke Miller & Aamer Madhani, “ Overdue”: Biden Sets Aug. 31 for US Exit from Afghanistan , AP (July 8, 2021), https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-afghanistan-government-and-politics-86f939c746c7bc56bb9f11f095a95366 [ https://perma.cc/H8MP-UYJZ ].

^ Before it bore the name “Xinjiang,” the northwest territory home to fourteen million Uyghurs in northwest China was called East Turkestan. It is the indigenous land for Uyghur Muslims, who have endured an ethnic cleansing campaign steered by the Communist regime in China. For a brief history of East Turkestan from a Uyghur perspective, see East Turkistan: Brief History , World Uyghur Cong ., https://www.uyghurcongress.org/en/east-turkestan-2 [ https://perma.cc/U26K-4DX4 ].

^ The Clash , Rock the Casbah , on Combat Rock (CBS Records 1982).

^ Nadia El-Zein Tonova & Khaled A. Beydoun, Opinion, Why Muslim Lives Don’t Matter , Al Jazeera (Feb. 12, 2015), https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/2/12/why-muslim-lives-dont-matter [ https://perma.cc/Q9PF-UT85 ].

^ “As a young [French] man said in the train the other day: ‘Me, I don’t give a damn about Algeria, and I don’t like colonization either. But it’s our heritage. And you have to hold on to your heritage, even if it doesn’t pay.’” Camus , supra note , at 109.

^ The Clash , supra note .

• Critical Race Theory
• Human Rights
• Religion and the Law
• War on Terror

October 20, 2022

Presidential Powers, NSA Spying, and the War on Terrorism: Americans’ Attitudes on Recent Events - Overview

Download the full report and survey results >>

TAKE A SURVEY Compare Your Opinions With Those in Our Survey >> Tell a Friend >>

A majority of American voters reject the idea that the President has the power to act without the check of the courts and Congress to fight terrorism. Majorities disapprove of recent actions the government has engaged in to fight terrorism, and two-thirds believe changes are needed to the USA Patriot Act.

These are the findings of a recent national survey of 1,012 registered voters that Belden Russonello & Stewart conducted for the ACLU from February 8 through 12, 2006. The margin of sampling error for the entire survey is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points at the 95% level of tolerance.

When given a choice, voters are more likely to want Congress to “demand that the warrantless eavesdropping be stopped because it is illegal” (55%) than to “not question the eavesdropping as long as the President says he needs it to keep us safe” (39%).

Voters are also concerned about the Patriot Act. As Congress debates the future of the Patriot Act, two-thirds of voters who have heard of the Act (66%) believe “some changes need to be made” while only two in ten (20%) say it should be made “permanent.” Attitudes on the Patriot Act cross political party divides with Democrats (79% make changes), Independents (76%), as well as Republicans (50% make changes; 36% make permanent) saying changes need to be made.

Download the full report and survey results

The survey reveals the following points on American voters’ attitudes toward Presidential powers and government actions since 9/11:

• Six in ten (60%) say “the President should not be acting on his own in deciding how to fight terrorism without the checks and balances of the courts or Congress,” while less than four in ten (38%) believe the President “should have the power to take whatever actions he believes are necessary to protect the country from terrorists.”
• A majority of voters oppose the government eavesdropping on Americans’ calls to people overseas without a court warrant (54% disapprove; 44% approve).
• When asked to choose a majority (63%) express the view that the President can “effectively combat terrorism and follow the law and get court warrants to spy on Americans” while less than a third (33%) says “the President needs the ability to eavesdrop on Americans without a court warrant to fight against terrorism.”
• Voters are more likely to disbelieve the President when he says he “operated within the law and Constitution when authorizing eavesdropping without court warrants” than to believe he followed the law (51% to 43%).
• An even larger majority rejects the President’s claim that Congress gave him the authority to eavesdrop. Six in ten (61%) believe the President is wrong to assume that “the Congressional resolution to go to war in Afghanistan to fight terrorism also gave him permission to eavesdrop on Americans without a warrant.”
• Secret searches of individuals’ homes without telling them (82%; 70% strongly);
• Government-sanctioned torture (79%; 65% strongly);
• Requiring librarians to provide the names of individuals and the books they have read (64%; 47% strongly); and
• Indefinitely holding of detainees in Guantanamo (57%; 35% strongly).
• While there is a partisan divide on these issues, it is not as wide as some, and opposition to the President’s policies cannot be explained as simply anti-Bush. At least a third of Republican voters consistently express viewpoints in the survey that show they are concerned that the President is operating outside the law. We find: half of the Republicans (50%) who have heard about the Patriot Act think it needs changes rather than permanency; over a third of Republicans oppose the President’s policies of indefinite detention at Guantanamo (36%) and do not want the President acting on his own without regard to Congress or the Courts when he is combating terrorism (36%).
• Throughout the survey voters who express the most concern about the President’s actions to fight terrorism include African-American voters, younger voters (18 to 29), and those with high levels of education.

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Home — Essay Samples — Education — Textual Analysis — Analyzing the European Fight Against Terrorism Financing

Analyzing The European Fight Against Terrorism Financing

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Essay on “Global Terrorism- The Fight Against Terrorism” Complete Essay for Class 10 and Class 12.

GLOBAL TERRORISM – AMENACE TO HUMANITY

THE FIGHT AGAINST TERRORISM­­ ­— THE NEED OF THE HOUR

The world is today witnessing a rise of terrorist activities in different parts of the world.  A number of groups, owing allegiance to some political ideology or some particular religious beliefs, have chosen the path of violence and terror to achieve their objects.  These vested interests are rabid fundamentalists or fanatics having no sanctity for life. The know no principles or values.  They believe in the power of the gun and want to achieve their objects overnight.

While some of these groups are fighting for control over some pieces of land, others are fighting for spreading their own ideology or religious philosophies.  They choose to defy public opinion and refuse to see reason.  They think that their own view point or stand is the only right view point or stand, and that they have a right to convert other people to their thinking by force.  For this avowed purpose they do not hesitate from committing the worst of crimes including murder of innocent citizens, looting or burning property, kidnapping people, hijacking planes and creating terror in one way or the other.

Some of the important terrorist organizations operating in different parts of the world have already been identified. The Al0Aaeda in Afghanistan, the Jaishe Mohmmad and the Lashker-e-Toiba based in Pakistan, the Palestine Liberation Organisation in the Middle East, the LTTE in Sri Lanka, the Maoists in Nepal, the Naxalite organization called People’s War Group (PWA) in parts of India, the Naga National Council, several pro—Pakistan groups operating in Jammu and Kashmir, the Irish Army in the U.K., etc. are already playing havoc in their respective areas.  The number of these organizations is so large that it is difficult to list them out.  They have their own training systems where they catch hold of young boys and indoctrinate them in subtle ways through guile, treachery, temptations or money.  At several places they are running their own schools to ‘Catch them young’ and wash their brains.  Some of the Madarsas being run by Muslim fundamentalists are allegedly involved in this type of activities.

It would on September 11, 2001 that the world woke up to the dangers of this terrible menace.  A group of Al- Qaeda terrorists, guided and supported by the Taliban leader Osama Bin Laden based in Afghanistan, struck terror in the U.S.A. in a big way.  They hijacked four US planes from some US civilian airports.  While one of these planes hit against the US headquarters in Pentagon, another two planed brought down the towering World Trade Centre, killing at least 5000 innocent US citizens.  The fourth, luckily, missed the target.  It was, the reports say, scheduled to hit the White House, the residence of the US president.

George Bush, the President of the USA, swung into action and ordered US air force to attack Afghanistan and bring the terrorists to book.  In a massive attack, the Talibans were defeated and destroyed and a new government came to control Afghanistan.  Similarly America attacked Iraq as President Saddam himself appeared to be a big terror.  Iraq was badly damaged.  A group of terrorists trained in Pakistan attacked the Indian Parliament House on December 13, 2001 even when the Parliament was in session.  The Indian security personnel killed all the five attackers on the spot but the incident shook whole of the country and the world.  The war against terrorists is continuing and the world community has decided to continue to fight till terrorism is fully wiped out from the face of this earth.

The UNO has, in a resolution, called upon various nations to join hands and work as United Alliance to face this threat of terrorism anywhere at any time in the world.

Pak-trained terrorists continue to cross over to India and let loose a reign of terror in        J & K.  Terrorism has already taken a heavy toll of life and property.  It is a shame that even as the human civilization is marching ahead,  some people are bent upon pushing the world back to the age of barbarism and brutality full of chaos and indiscipline.  The law of the jungle will take us nowhere.  We can only pray for good sense of prevail so that the world is able to share and enjoy the blessings bestowed upon mankind by new leaps in the field of science and technology.

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I read it thoroughly it is very simple and effective essay on Global terrorism

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very knowledgeable essay

nice essay , i really loved the vocab used in this essay

It is a topic of most people’s concern today. I really liked this essay, including every points needed to be covered in the simplest way.

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Fight Against Terrorism

One of the main priorities of the State Security Service of Georgia is to fight against terrorism. In the modern world, the global threat of terrorism is constantly changing, unpredictable and ever increasing. The most obvious manifestation of the global threat of terrorism is "Islamic State". However, it does not exclude the threats coming from other terrorist groups ("Al-Qaeda", "Taliban" and others).

Recent developments in the Middle East have negative affect over the Caucasus Region. Although Georgia is not among the countries with high risk of terrorist attack, there are some challenges in this respect.

For Georgia it is vitally important to prevent and suppress any terrorist activities on its territory, as some of the states may rely on such activities for their own military and political intentions. In its counter terrorism activities, the main objective of the State Security Service is the reduction of the risks of terrorism and the protection of the state, its interests and citizens against all forms of terrorist activities. In this regard, the State Security Service has carried out a number of measures.

The aim of the above-mentioned measures was the detection and suppression of activities carried out by international terrorist organizations and persons related to them. Activities of the SSSG also aimed at detecting facts of using Georgian territory as the transit state for participation in military activities in Syria and Iraq. Active search of individuals connected with terrorist organizations, as well as operative control over the individuals and organizations disseminating radical ideology were conducted.

Particular attention has been paid by the SSSG towards prevention of using cyberspace for purposes of dissemination of radical ideology. In November 2015, access to the websites diffusing radical ideology and groups registered in social media were restricted.

In order to prevent the travel of Georgian citizens for the purposes of taking part in hostile activites, appropraite measures are carried out on regular basis. Information is permanently exchanged between the SSSG and parntrer countries on members of terrorist organization and/or associated persons as well as individuals intending to travel via transit.

In order to prevent entering or leaving the country for terrorist activities, border (so-called “green border”, as well as border crossing points) is properly controled in cooperation with the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia. Visitors are interviewed. All border crossing points are equipped with detectors of nuclear and radioactive materials/substances. Employees of border management authorities are regularly trained, inter alia, in the detection of forged travel documents.

The State Security Service actively cooperates with the USA, Israel, the UK and Germany in developing counterterrorism capabilities (investigative and analytical trainings), exchanging operative information and planning joint activities in and out of Georgia. Cooperation with neighboring states should be particularly noted.

Considerable attention is paid to enhancing the capabilities of readiness and responses to terrorist threats. National strategic objects and their subsidiary premises that might be the potential targets of terrorist attacks were officially documented and are analyzed in the light of possible risks. In addition, security measures on the places of public assembly bearing high risk (known as easy targets) have been assessed. Special unites responsible for counterterrorism activities are regularly trained/retrained in the field of tactical activities (sniper courses, counterterrorist actions in the urban conditions, operations on destruction of terrorists camps, mountainous training courses, etc.) and demining issues, as well as detection and suppression of means of mass destruction. Support of international partners’ should be noted in this respect. Material-technical base of tactical units for fight against terrorism has been improved.