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war on terrorism

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• Middle East Policy Council - What exactly is the "War on Terror?"
• United States Institute of Peace - "Rethinking the War Terror"
• University of Hawaiʻi Pressbooks - The War on Terror
• Brookings - Nasty, Brutish and Long: America’s War on Terrorism
• Khan Academy - September 11th
• Chemistry LibreTexts - The War on Terror
• Council of Europe - War and terrorism

war on terrorism , term used to describe the American-led global counterterrorism campaign launched in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 . In its scope, expenditure, and impact on international relations , the war on terrorism was comparable to the Cold War ; it was intended to represent a new phase in global political relations and has had important consequences for security, human rights , international law , cooperation, and governance .

The war on terrorism was a multidimensional campaign of almost limitless scope. Its military dimension involved major wars in Afghanistan and Iraq , covert operations in Yemen and elsewhere, large-scale military-assistance programs for cooperative regimes, and major increases in military spending. Its intelligence dimension comprised institutional reorganization and considerable increases in the funding of America’s intelligence -gathering capabilities, a global program of capturing terrorist suspects and interning them at Guantánamo Bay , expanded cooperation with foreign intelligence agencies, and the tracking and interception of terrorist financing. Its diplomatic dimension included continuing efforts to construct and maintain a global coalition of partner states and organizations and an extensive public diplomacy campaign to counter anti-Americanism in the Middle East . The domestic dimension of the U.S. war on terrorism entailed new antiterrorism legislation, such as the USA PATRIOT Act ; new security institutions, such as the Department of Homeland Security ; the preventive detainment of thousands of suspects; surveillance and intelligence-gathering programs by the National Security Agency (NSA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and local authorities; the strengthening of emergency-response procedures; and increased security measures for airports, borders, and public events.

The successes of the first years of the war on terrorism included the arrest of hundreds of terrorist suspects around the world, the prevention of further large-scale terrorist attacks on the American mainland, the toppling of the Taliban regime and subsequent closure of terrorist-training camps in Afghanistan , the capture or elimination of many of al-Qaeda ’s senior members, and increased levels of international cooperation in global counterterrorism efforts.

However, critics argued that the failures of America’s counterterrorism campaign outweighed its successes. They contended that the war in Afghanistan had effectively scattered the al-Qaeda network, thereby making it even harder to counteract, and that the attacks in Afghanistan and Iraq had increased anti-Americanism among the world’s Muslims, thereby amplifying the message of militant Islam and uniting disparate groups in a common cause. Other critics alleged that the war on terrorism was a contrived smokescreen for the pursuit of a larger U.S. geopolitical agenda that included controlling global oil reserves, increasing defense spending, expanding the country’s international military presence, and countering the strategic challenge posed by various regional powers.

By the time of U.S. Pres. George W. Bush ’s reelection in 2004, the drawbacks of the war on terrorism were becoming apparent. In Iraq , U.S. forces had overthrown the government of Saddam Hussein in 2003, and U.S. war planners had underestimated the difficulties of building a functioning government from scratch and neglected to consider how this effort could be complicated by Iraq’s sectarian tensions, which had been held in check by Saddam’s repressive regime but were unleashed by his removal. By late 2004 it was clear that Iraq was sinking into chaos and civil war; estimates of the number of Iraqi civilians killed during the period of maximum violence—roughly 2004 to 2007—vary widely but generally exceed 200,000. U.S. casualties during this period far outnumbered those suffered during the initial 2003 invasion. Afghanistan, which for several years had seemed to be under control, soon followed a similar trajectory, and by 2006 the U.S. was facing a full-blown insurgency there led by a reconstituted Taliban.

The Bush administration faced domestic and international criticism for actions that it deemed necessary to fight terrorism but which critics considered to be immoral, illegal, or both. These included the detention of accused enemy combatants without trial at Guantánamo Bay and at several secret prisons outside the United States, the use of torture against these detainees in an effort to extract intelligence, and the use of unmanned combat drones to kill suspected enemies in countries far beyond the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.

By the last years of Bush’s presidency, public opinion had turned strongly negative concerning his handling of the Iraq War and other national security matters. This discontent helped Barack Obama , an outspoken critic of Bush’s foreign policy , win the presidency in 2008. Under the new administration, the expression war on terrorism —still closely associated with Bush policies—quickly disappeared from official communications. Obama made the rejection explicit in a 2013 speech in which he stated that the United States would eschew a boundless, vaguely defined “global war on terrorism” in favour of more focused actions against specific hostile groups. Under Obama, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were gradually wound down, although at the end of Obama’s presidency in 2016 there were still U.S. troops in both countries.

It is worth noting that beneath Obama’s rejection of the war on terrorism as a rhetorical device and as a conceptual framework for national security there were important continuities with the policies of his predecessor. The Obama administration, for example, greatly expanded the campaign of targeted killings carried out with drones, even eliminating several U.S. citizens abroad whom it deemed threatening. Special operations forces were greatly expanded and increasingly deployed to conduct low-profile military interventions in countries outside of acknowledged war zones. And U.S. security agencies continued to exercise the wide-ranging surveillance powers that they had accumulated during the Bush administration despite protests from civil liberties groups.

Afghanistan, Iraq, and the “war on terror”

I.  Introduction

Composite portrait: (top) President George W. Bush aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln announces the end of major combat in Iraq, May 1, 2003 (Stephen Jaffe, AFP); (middle right) U.S. Marines arrest Iraqi council members (hooded) in Baghdad, Nov. 2, 2004 (Anja Niedringhaus, AP); (bottom) Mosul’s Old City neighborhood reduced to ruins by U.S. bombardments in a campaign against ISIS, July 14, 2017 (Andrea Dicenzo, AFP)

II.  Five dimensions of the “war on terror”

Misnamed “counterterrorism” wars, congressional authorizations and “forever wars”, iii.  framing and selling the “war on terror”, historical antecedents, the reagan administration’s “war on terrorism”, the george w. bush administration’s “war on terror”, iv.  the futility of american techno-war in afghanistan.

• 2001 Odyssey: Defeating the Taliban and losing sight of bin Laden

Explaining the U.S. failure in Afghanistan

Deception and confusion, v.  pyrrhic victory in iraq, background on u.s.-iraq relations.

• The invasion of Iraq

Occupational hazards

Insurgency and counterinsurgency, sectarian conflict and terrorism, costs of war and public opinion, vi.  counterterrorism:  “the world is a battlefield”, imprisonment and torture at guantánamo, killing by remote control, vii.  homefront, anti-muslim prejudice and government surveillance, international and domestic terrorism, peace protests and politics, viii.  lessons and legacies, about the authors, recommended resources, did you know.

•  Of the nineteen men who carried out terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001, not one was from Afghanistan or Iraq.
•  Osama bin Laden, the Saudi native who masterminded the 9/11/2001 attacks, had been a de facto ally of the United States during the 1980s, recruiting Islamic jihadists to help defeat a Soviet-backed government in Afghanistan.
•  In declaring a “war on terror” on September 20, 2001, President George W. Bush followed the playbook of the Reagan administration which declared a “war on terrorism” in 1984, linking terrorism to nation-states.
•  U.S. forces mainly fought insurgents, not terrorists, in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Bin Laden escaped to Pakistan in December 2001.
•  The Afghanistan Papers , released in 2019, documented how senior U.S. officials “failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan through the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable,” according to Washington Post correspondent Craig Whitlock. [1]
•  During the 1980s, the Reagan administration was on friendly terms with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, providing military assistance to Iraq in its war against Iran.
•  Though Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration made oil-rich Iraq the next target, claiming that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.  No such weapons were found. [2]
•  On Feb. 15, 2003, between six and eleven million people demonstrated in 650 cities around the world against the threatened U.S. invasion of Iraq. [3]
•  With France, Germany, and other members of the UN Security Council opposing war against Iraq, the UN did not approve it, thus making the war illegal under international law.
•  The broader U.S. counterterrorism mission ran afoul of international humanitarian laws.  Human rights groups documented a wide pattern of torture and brutal treatment at U.S. overseas detention centers, notably Abu Ghraib in Iraq, Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, and Guantánamo in Cuba.
•  As part of its “war on terror,” the U.S. assassinated suspected terrorists anywhere in the world via remotely controlled armed drones.  In February 2014, the European Parliament rebuked such methods, calling on member states to “oppose and ban the practice of extrajudicial targeted killings” and to “not perpetrate unlawful targeted killings or facilitate such killings by other states.” [4]
• The human costs of the U.S. “war on terror” were considerable.  Some 241,000 people were killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan between 2001 and 2021, including more than 71,000 civilians, and another 300,000 people were killed in Iraq, two-thirds of whom were civilian.  Over 14,500 U.S. soldiers and contractors lost their lives in these war zones. [5]

Costs of War Project summary chart (click to enlarge)

Maintaining U.S. hegemony required an extensive network of military bases and installations abroad – some 800 as of 2022 – along with numerous military partnerships.  According to the Costs of War Project at Brown University:  “From 2018 to 2020, the United States government undertook what it labeled ‘counterterrorism’ activities in 85 countries.”  In thirteen of those countries – Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Kenya, Nigeria, Mali, Libya, Cameroon, Niger, and Tunisia – U.S. personnel were engaged in some form of combat, drone strikes, special forces missions, or planning and control operations.  The U.S. conducted joint military exercises in 41 countries and training operations in 79. [9]   In 2021, U.S. military expenditures totaled $801 billion (not including veterans’ health care costs), constituting 38 percent of $2,113 billion in global military expenditures, far more than any other nation.  The U.S. was also the world’s largest arms dealer, accounting for 39 percent of major arms deliveries worldwide between 2017 and 2021. [10]

*         *          *          *          *

A second plane closes in on World Trade Center Tower 2 in New York, City, just before impact, Sept. 11, 2001 (Reuters)

On the morning of September 11, 2001, nineteen men – fifteen from Saudi Arabia, two from United Arab Emirates, one from Lebanon, and one from Egypt – highjacked four U.S. commercial jets and turned them into attack missiles.  Using small knives, pepper spray, and physical force, the hijackers gained entry into the airplane cockpits.  As four of the hijackers – Mohamed Atta, Ramzi Binalshibh, Marwan al Shehhi, and Ziad Jarrah – had previously attended flight schools in Florida, Arizona, and Minnesota, they knew how to reroute the Boeing jets to designated targets. [14]   Two of the aircraft struck the World Trade Center in New York City causing the massive, 110-story Twin Towers to collapse.  One smashed into the Pentagon.  Another, presumably headed for the White House, crashed into an empty field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers courageously fought the hijackers.  All in all, nearly 3,000 people died and over 6,000 were injured.  Americans were shocked and outraged, bewildered as to why this happened, and fearful of future attacks. [15]

Osama bin Laden, speaking at a news conference in Afghanistan, May 26, 1998 (AP)

Bin Laden put his manifesto into practice by orchestrating two bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on August 7, 1998.  A total of 224 people were killed, including twelve Americans.  President Bill Clinton responded by ordering Tomahawk cruise missiles fired at four paramilitary training camps in Afghanistan associated with al Qaeda, and a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, erroneously identified as a chemical weapons plant. [17]  Clinton also authorized the CIA to assassinate bin Laden, but the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center was unable to locate him for three years running.  Beginning in September 1999, the CIA picked up international “chatter” indicating that a major terrorist attack on U.S. soil was being planned.  The chatter increased in 2001, but neither the CIA nor the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was able to discover the plan or identify the operatives. [18]

President George W. Bush addressing Congress, Sept. 20, 2001 (photo by Eric Draper, G. W. Bush Presidential Library)

On September 20, Bush delivered a televised address to a joint session of Congress in which he announced a new “war on terror” and outlined multiple objectives.  Though presented in seamless sequence, the objectives entailed distinct operational missions:  (1) protect the American people from future terrorist attacks, (2) bring bin Laden and al Qaeda leaders to justice, (3) defeat all terrorist groups with international capabilities, and (4) counter, possibly by war, any nation that aided or harbored terrorist groups. [21]

In sympathy with Americans after 9/11, members of a Maasai tribe in Kenya donated 14 cows to the U.S., given to diplomat William Brancick at a ceremonial gathering (photo by Josh Haner)

Bush attempted to sweep away the difficulties of international cooperation by brazenly calling on all other nations to follow the U.S. lead.  “Every nation in every region now has a decision to make:  Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists,” he said. [28]   While virtually every government in the world sympathized with Americans in the aftermath of 9/11, the implication that any government that disagreed with the U.S. over targets or strategy was “with the terrorists” hardly facilitated global teamwork.  The Bush administration intended to call the shots in the newly announced global “war on terror.”  As one unnamed senior official told New York Times reporters, “The fewer people you have to rely on, the fewer permissions you have to get.” [29]

White House principals (L-R) Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, George Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Colin Powell (Ron Edmonds, AP)

The military option meant targeting nation-states.  At a meeting of the principals on September 12, Vice President Chaney explained, “To the extent we define our task broadly, including those who support terrorism, then we get to states.  And it’s easier to find them than to find bin Laden.”  In another meeting on September 25, Bush affirmed, “We can’t define the success or failure in terms of capturing UBL [bin Laden].” [31]

Taliban ambassador to Pakistan Abdul Salam Zaeef at a news conference, Oct. 10, 2001 (BBC News)

Bush’s conflation of al Qaeda with the Taliban was the origin of much misery to come.  Whereas al Qaeda represented a real threat to the security of the United States, the Taliban did not.  The Taliban did not participate in the planning or implementation of the 9/11 attacks; nor did they endorse the terrorist actions afterward.  Indeed, the chief spokesperson for the Taliban at the time, Foreign Minister Wakeel Ahmed Mutawakel, told the Arab television network Al Jazeera, “We denounce this terrorist attack, whoever is behind it.”  The Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, also condemned the attacks.  “We want to tell the American children that Afghanistan feels your pain,” said the ambassador. “We hope the courts find justice.” [35]

Map of U.S. Operation Neptune Spear that killed bin Laden on May 2, 2011 (Wikipedia, click to enlarge)

For some twenty years, tens of thousands of U.S. troops were sent to Afghanistan to buoy up the central government in Kabul.  They fought, not against terrorists threatening the United States, but against a reconstituted Taliban insurgency; against local Afghans enraged by U.S. military assaults (air strikes, night raids, and drone attacks) that killed an estimated 71,000 civilians; and against a corrupt kleptocracy in Kabul. [44]   On May 2, 2011, a Navy Seal team killed Osama bin Laden in his Pakistani hideout.  Yet this action had no virtually effect on the U.S. counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan, which continued for another decade. [45]

The American optic also prevented U.S. leaders from including the Taliban in the new Afghan government formed in the fall of 2001, and from facilitating reconciliation between Taliban leaders and their rivals.  Alissa J. Rubin, a journalist who covered the war in Afghanistan during the early years, described the Taliban’s initial attempts at reconciliation:

It was in the waning days of November 2001 that Taliban leaders began to reach out to Hamid Karzai, who would soon become the interim president of Afghanistan:  They wanted to make a deal.  “The Taliban were completely defeated, they had no demands, except amnesty,” recalled Barnett Rubin, who worked with the United Nations’ political team in Afghanistan at the time.  Messengers shuttled back and forth between Mr. Karzai and the headquarters of the Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, in Kandahar. . . . But Washington, confident that the Taliban would be wiped out forever, was in no mood for a deal. [47]

At a Pentagon press briefing on November 19, 2001, Rumsfeld was asked:  “Mr. Secretary, we’re getting reports that Mullah Mohammed Omar is trying to negotiate a surrender from Kandahar – surrender for himself, the Taliban, including those now being encircled by Northern Alliance forces at Kunduz.  Is that true?  And if so, what are the terms of the surrender the United States will accept?”  Rumsfeld curtly replied, “The United States is not inclined to negotiate surrenders.” [48]   This dismissive attitude carried over into the UN-sponsored conference in Bonn, Germany, where a new Afghan central government was formed in early December 2001.  According to Carter Malkasian, a civilian Pentagon adviser with firsthand experience in Afghanistan, “Rumsfeld vetoed any peace with the Taliban.  He also sent a private warning to Karzai that any deal would be against U.S. interests.” [49]

Journalist Anand Gopal

Although Afghan military commanders had been fighting each other over political power since the late 1970s, negotiations, compromises, switching sides, and reconciliations were part of the Afghan way of war.  Once it became clear that the Taliban government would not prevail against the Americans and their allies, “it didn’t take long for Taliban leaders to flock to the proverbial bargaining table, hoping to cut deals with the new government,” according to Pakistani journalist Anand Gopal who conducted extensive interviews in Afghanistan.  “It was a replay, in their minds, of their own rise to power, when they had struck accords with anyone willing to submit to their authority.”  Gopal describes the efforts of Mullah Obaldullah, a senior Taliban leader, to find an accommodation with the invading Americans:

“We expected that if we offered no resistance, they would accept us and we could live in peace,” said former minister of defense Mullah Obaidullah, one of the movement’s most senior figures.  Obaidullah, a confidant of supreme leader Mullah Omar, attempted multiple times to engineer deals with the new authorities.  In January 2002, he contacted Kandahar governor Gul Agha Sherzai with a compelling offer:  in return for amnesty, he would pledge loyalty to the Karzai government, forswear political life, and submit to regular government monitoring.  Joining him were six other leading Taliban officials, including the notorious one-eyed, one-legged Mullah Turabi, who as minister of justice and head of the religious police had been a zealot’s zealot, an architect of edicts outlawing everything from kite flying to music.  The group now accepted the US-backed government’s legitimacy, and after Sherzai signed off on the deal, retired quietly to their home villages. . . .

The Obaidullah group, and the three top Taliban officials who went to Khas Uruzgan in January 2002 in search of a pact (only to be stymied by the standoff between the district’s competing governors) were far from the only ones looking to make arrangements.  In fact, from Washington’s list of the twenty-seven most wanted Taliban, a majority attempted to engineer similar deals. . . . No sooner had the olive branch been extended, however, than it was withdrawn.  When news of Sherzai’s deal with Obaidullah and his comrades surfaced, U.S. officials were furious.  Responding to Washington’s pressure, Sherzai reversed his position, announcing that all Taliban would be detained and handed over to the Americans.  Obaidullah and company fled to Pakistan. [51]

Ironically, in the view of many Afghans, the Americans themselves had switched sides.  During the 1980s, the U.S. had armed and aided Mujahideen jihadists against a Soviet-backed government, whereas now the U.S. was fighting the Taliban, an offshoot of the Mujahideen.  Some former Mujahideen fighters, such as Abdul Salam Zaeef, helped found the Taliban movement in September 1994. [52]   Former Mujahideen commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, once a favorite of the U.S., asked rhetorically, “What’s the difference between the Soviet occupation and the American occupation?  Is there a difference? . . . Afghans are fighting the U.S. presence in Afghanistan with the same motivation that they did the Soviets.  There is not difference between the two jihads. . . . Yesterday, they called us freedom fighters.  But when we do the same thing today, they call us their enemies, and they call us terrorists.” [53]

The fifth dimension

Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld, the major architects of the war against Iraq, testify before the 9-11 Commission, March 2004 (Wikiwand)

On September 14, Wolfowitz went public.  “It’s not just simply a matter of capturing people and holding them accountable,” the deputy secretary of defense told the press, “but removing the sanctuaries, removing the support systems, ending states who sponsor terrorism.”  Wolfowitz said that the U.S. would wage “a campaign, not a single action” against terrorist groups and the governments that support them. [59]   In a meeting of the principals the following day, he suggested that it would be easier to win a war against Iraq than against Afghanistan, given the latter’s reputation as “the graveyard of empires.”  Rumsfeld, for his part, complained that Afghanistan lacked adequate military targets and asked again whether it was time to attack Iraq.  At another meeting on September 25, Rumsfeld queried, “Look, as part of the war on terrorism, should we be getting something going in another area, other than Afghanistan, so that success or failure and progress isn’t measured just by Afghanistan?” [60]

Speaking before the UN Security Council on Feb. 5, 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell accused Iraq of developing WMD, including dry anthrax that can kill in small amounts (AP)

To be sure, nuclear proliferation was and is a danger to the world community, but Bush proffered a skewed view of the problem by ascribing the danger only to governments deemed unfriendly to the U.S., and not to America’s friends.  Israel, for example, acquired its nuclear arsenal without protest from the United States.  In a 2002 report titled “Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East,” Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, noted that the following nations in the Middle East and South Asia possessed weapons of mass destruction:  Egypt (chemical), India (chemical, biological, nuclear), Iran (chemical, biological), Israel (chemical, biological, nuclear), Libya (chemical), Pakistan (chemical, biological, nuclear), and Syria (chemical, biological). [64]   The U.S. itself possessed large caches of all three types of weapons of mass destruction and an ample supply of missiles to deliver them; and U.S. leaders never renounced the first use of such weapons.

UN Special Commission on Iraq chairman Hans Blix briefs the UN Security Council on the search for WMD, March 7, 2003 (Arms Control Assn.)

Hans Blix, the Swedish diplomat who served as the UN’s chief weapons inspector from 2000 to 2003, described the Bush administration as having “the same mind frame as the witch hunters of the past,” looking for evidence to support a foregone conclusion of guilt.  Speaking with CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour one year after the invasion, he said that the primary difficulty his team faced was the “problem of proving the negative.  For example, how can you prove that there is not a tennis ball in this room?  Or that there is no anthrax in all of Iraq?”  He added, “There were about 700 inspections and in no case did we find weapons of mass destruction.”  In the end, said Blix, America’s pre-emptive war “bred more terrorism there and elsewhere.” [72]

Richard A. Clarke, White House counterterrorism czar, resigned over the Iraq War in March 2003 (Simon & Schuster photo)

Clarke, appointed by President Bill Clinton in May 1998 as the first National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counterterrorism, resigned in March 2003, charging that the Iraq War was a diversion from the nation’s counterterrorism efforts.  In his book, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror (2004), he wrote, “In Muslim countries, the U.S. invasion of Iraq increased support for al Qaeda and radical anti-Americanism.  Elsewhere, we were now seen as a super-bully more than a superpower, not just for what we did but for the way we did it, disdaining international mechanisms that we would later need.”  Clarke took issue with Bush’s claim during the 2004 election campaign that the U.S. was “fighting the terrorists in Iraq so that we don’t have to fight them in the streets of America.”  In his view, Bush “never points out that our being in Iraq does nothing to prevent terrorists from coming to America, but does divert funds from addressing our domestic vulnerabilities and does make terrorist recruitment easier.” [73]

Although a majority of U.S. citizens voiced support for the war when it began, many people in the U.S. and across the world were not taken in by the Bush administration’s pre-war propaganda. [75]   Antiwar protests increased in number and size over the course of 2002.  They peaked on Feb. 15, 2003, when somewhere between six and eleven million people demonstrated in 650 cities around the world to protest the threatened U.S. invasion of Iraq. [76]   Three million marched in Rome, the largest single antiwar demonstration in history; another 1.5 million in Madrid, one million in Great Britain, and close to half a million in New York City. [77]   Phyllis Bennis, one of the organizers in the U.S., commented on how these worldwide demonstrations affected the outcome of a war resolution pushed by the U.S. and Britain in the UN Security Council:

It was an amazing moment – powerful enough that governments around the world, including the soon-famous “Uncommitted Six” in the Security Council, did the unthinkable: they too resisted pressure from the United States and the United Kingdom and said no to endorsing Bush’s war.  Under ordinary circumstances, alone, U.S.-dependent and relatively weak countries like Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Guinea, Mexico and Pakistan could never have stood up to Washington.  But these were not ordinary circumstances.  The combination of diplomatic support from “Old Europe,” Germany and France who for their own reasons opposed the war, and popular pressure from thousands, millions, filling the streets of their capitals, allowed the Six to stand firm. [78]

London antiwar protest, Feb. 15, 2003 (Wikipedia)

U.S. and British representatives, recognizing that they did not have the votes to pass their war resolution, refrained from submitting it.  President Bush nonetheless announced that the U.S. would proceed with the invasion, joined by a “coalition of the willing.”  He asserted that Saddam Hussein was in breach of Security Council Resolution 1441 passed on November 8, 2002, and of previous resolutions calling on him to give up WMD, even though UN inspectors were still conducting investigations.  France responded that these previous resolutions were insufficient grounds for war. [79]   This claim was reinforced by the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva which declared on March 18:

A war waged without a clear mandate by the Security Council would constitute a flagrant violation of the prohibition of the use of force.  Security Council Resolution 1441 does not authorise the use of force.  Upon its adoption, France, Russia and China, three permanent members of the Security Council, issued a declaration indicating that the Resolution excludes such authority.  The bottom line is that nine members of the Security Council, including the five permanent members, need to actively approve the use of force – such support is blatantly lacking. [80]

The U.S. war against Iraq, as such, was illegal under international law.  It was not undertaken for self-defense and not approved by the UN Security Council, the only two legal bases for war.  Asked in September 2004 whether the invasion of Iraq was illegal, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told BBC News, “Yes, if you wish.  I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter from our point of view; from the charter point of view, it was illegal.” [81]

The invasion of Iraq ultimately undermined America’s standing in the world.  According to the Pew Research Center (June 3, 2003):

The war has widened the rift between Americans and Western Europeans, further inflamed the Muslim world, softened support for the war on terrorism, and significantly weakened global public support for the pillars of the post-World War II era – the U.N. and the North Atlantic alliance. . . . In addition, majorities in five of seven NATO countries surveyed support a more independent relationship with the U.S. on diplomatic and security affairs.  Fully three-quarters in France (76%), and solid majorities in Turkey (62%), Spain (62%), Italy (61%) and Germany (57%) believe Western Europe should take a more independent approach than it has in the past. [82]

So much for following the U.S. lead.  When President Bush visited stalwart ally Prime Minister Tony Blair in London in November 2003, he was met by 110,000 protesters at Trafalgar Square.  When he visited Ireland in June 2004, 10,000 people turned out for a “Stop Bush” rally in Dublin, while others marched in Shannon, Galway, and other Irish cities. [83]

Congress was quick to act after the 9/11 attacks.  On September 14, 2001, both chambers passed an Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) that permitted the president to “use all necessary and appropriate force” against “those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.”  The act furthermore empowered the president to take action against any nation that harbored terrorist organizations (as defined by the U.S.) “in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States.” [85]   The vote was 420 to 1 in the House and 98 to 0 in the Senate.  The 2001 AUMF did not define terrorism nor mention any specific enemy.  Hence, presidents were free to fill in the blanks. [86]   National security expert Karen J. Greenberg writes:

Riddled with imprecision, its terminology was geared to codify expansive powers.  The president could ‘use all necessary and appropriate force’ with no limits specified and could do so against a nameless set of enemies. . . . The battlefield, like the enemy, was nameless. . . . Nor was there a mention of what could signal the end of conflict.  In sum, it was to be a war with neither temporal nor geographical boundaries, and lacking definitional limits when it came to the enemy. [87]

Representative Barbara Lee

The one dissenting House member, Barbara Lee, Democrat of California, explained her vote in a later interview.  “Growing up with stories and being in a military family,” she said, “I understand that we don’t want to send our young men and women into harm’s way if we can avoid that.”  Her father was a veteran of World War II and Korea.  She was concerned that Congress was rushing to approve a war without a clear strategy or endgame.  She confirmed her decision to vote against the measure after attending a memorial service at the Washington National Cathedral for the victims of 9/11, where President Bush vowed to “rid the world of evil.”  Reverend Nathan Baxter, in prayer, called upon the nation’s leaders to “consider the necessary actions for national security” but not allow the U.S. to “become the evil we deplore.” [88]   In later years, many members of Congress, including future president Senator Joe Biden, regretted their vote for war.

On October 30, 2017, two weeks after four U.S. service members were killed in Niger in a counterterrorism mission, a Congressional Hearing was held in which Senator Benjamin Cardin of Maryland appealed for a new approach:

It seems we have U.S. troops deployed almost everywhere in the world. In addition to significant deployments in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, and major deployments in South Korea, Japan, and Europe, U.S. forces are and have been engaged in counterterrorism operations in Yemen, Somalia, Ethiopia, Libya, and Chad, with extensive advice, train, and capacity-building efforts in many more. . . .

The United States has relied for too long on military force as the first response to the problems of terrorism, insurgency, and instability abroad.  In this [Donald Trump] administration, one wonders – one wonders whether it has become the first and only response.  It has proposed a dramatic increase in the defense budget, while the foreign affairs’ budget has been slashed by 30 percent.  Very soon, practically the only tools left in the U.S. foreign toolbox will be the massive hammer applied everywhere for lack of better options.  We need to both authorize and to set limits on the use of that hammer.  In so doing, perhaps the administration will rediscover the necessity and the value of diplomacy, development, and support for human rights as the means to build a safer world for everyone, especially the United States. [91]

In February 2019, Rep. Barbara Lee introduced legislation to repeal the 2001 AUMF.  “The authorization to use military force has been used over 41 times in about 19 countries not related at all to 9/11,” she said.  “It’s also been used for domestic spying in the United States.  It’s been used in Somalia, Yemen, you name it.  It’s been used all over the world as the basis to use force, and to bomb and engage in military operations.” [92]   The House passed Rep. Lee’s bill by a vote of 268-161, but the Senate failed to pass a corresponding measure and thus the AUMF lived on. [93]

*          *          *          *          *

Theodore Roosevelt

Roosevelt’s claim was a ruse, as there was no international law or institution to support this self-assigned hemispheric policeman role.  Nor did the concept of “chronic wrongdoing” have any legal legitimacy.  It was a pliable, amorphous rationale that allowed U.S. leaders to use it as they saw fit – which they did.  Over the next thirty years, the U.S. conducted numerous military interventions in Central American and Caribbean nations, generally to secure U.S. economic interests and client governments.  The Roosevelt Corollary paralleled the equally misleading “civilizing missions” of Great Britain and France in Asia and Africa.

Woodrow Wilson

President Woodrow Wilson offered a variation of the “civilizing mission” in his war message to Congress on April 2, 1917.  The United States, he said, would fight for “the rights of all mankind” and to make the world “safe for democracy.”  Such high-minded idealism was needed to convince Americans to enter the slaughterhouse of the Great War (First World War).  Promoting human rights and democracy, however, were hardly the war goals of the U.S. and its allies.  Indeed, in the aftermath of the war, the British and French expanded their empires in the Middle East and the U.S. continued to lord over the Philippines and impose authoritarian military rule in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. [95]

Harry S. Truman

The term “terrorist” was occasionally used during the Cold War, mainly to bolster the “bad guy” image of communists.  President Harry Truman employed it in his Truman Doctrine speech of March 1947, when he declared that the Greek state was “threatened by the terrorist activities of several thousand armed men, led by communists.”  This was a half-truth at best, as the Greek royalist government was violently repressive and had outlawed the Greek communist party – which formerly held seats in the national legislature.  According to one U.S. official, “That the Greek government was corrupt, reactionary, inefficient, and indulged in extremist practices was well known and incontestable.” [97]  Truman nonetheless depicted the Greek civil war as a mythic battle between democracy and totalitarianism, establishing the dominant U.S. ideological framing of the Cold War. [98]

Lyndon B. Johnson

The Kennedy and Johnson administrations similarly employed the “terrorist” label to depreciate communist-led North Vietnam and its southern allies.  As communications professor Carol Winkler notes, “All violent acts of the Viet Cong, the NLF [National Liberation Front], or the North Vietnamese were [labeled] terrorism.  All actions by the United States and its allies were [labeled] counterterrorism.” [99]   The CIA’s Orwellian-named “Counter Terror” program initiated in 1965 was described by one CIA analyst as an attempt to use “techniques of terror – assassination, abuses, kidnappings and intimidation – against the Viet Cong leadership.”  The operation was renamed the Phoenix program in 1968 and expanded into a systematic assassination campaign responsible for the deaths of some 20,000 people. [100]

Jimmy Carter

U.S. Cold War policy was officially designated as “containment,” indicating a defensive mission, but the U.S. also undertook offensive actions aimed at undermining states deemed friendly to the Soviet Union.  Afghanistan was one such state.  In the summer of 1979, President Jimmy Carter signed off on a CIA program to secretly aid the Mujahideen guerrillas who were attempting to oust a communist-led government.  The jihadist rebellion prompted Soviet military intervention in December 1979, which in turn led to a major war.  Beyond aiding the Mujahideen, the U.S. collaborated with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to recruit, arm, train, and finance Islamic jihadists from around the world. [101]

President Ronald Reagan, 1981 (Ron Edmonds, AP)

President Ronald Reagan, known as the Great Communicator, sounded the alarm bell in a letter to Congress on April 26, 1984, asserting that international terrorism posed a “growing threat to our way of life . . . a frightening challenge to the tranquility and political stability of our friends and allies . . . [and] a severe challenge to America’s foreign policy.”  He linked these alleged threats to rival nations, stating that “the training and support of terrorist groups and activities by a number of countries has reached alarming proportions.”  The U.S., as such, must “assure that the states now practicing or supporting terrorism do not prosper in the designs they pursue.” [108]

April 19, 1986: People look at the damage caused by a US air raid on Tripoli. The strike was allegedly directed at key military sites but missiles also hit Ben Ashur, a densely populated suburb in the capital (Joel Rabine, AFP)

All in all, during President Ronald Reagan’s eight years in office (1981-1989), there were 518 U.S. fatalities attributable to international terrorism, 248 military and 270 civilian.  Most of the deaths occurred in two incidents:  the bombing of Marine barracks in Lebanon in October 1983, which killed 241 U.S. military personnel, and the bombing of Pam Am Flight 103 over Scotland in December 1988, which killed 190 U.S. citizens.  The first incident was war related, as the Marines entered a volatile area occupied by Lebanese, Israeli, Palestine Liberation, and Syrian-backed forces.  The bombing of the Pam Am flight also had military overtones, as Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi appears to have directed this act of terrorism in response to the U.S. bombing of Libya in April 1986 – which killed at least 37 people and injured 93, including two of Qadhafi’s sons (casualty reports vary).  Other U.S. civilian deaths, including 26 embassy personnel, totaled 80 between 1981 and 1989, or about ten per year. [113]   Murders in the U.S. during this same eight-year period totaled 162,000, or over 20,000 per year. [114]

The CIA “assassination manual,” authorized by CIA supervisor Duane Clarridge, provided illustrated instructions in Spanish on how to make a bomb and blow up a local police station (click to enlarge).

The contradictions in the 1980s were most notable in the Reagan administration’s rhetoric and policies toward Nicaragua.  In seeking to undermine and overthrow the leftist Sandinista government – which came to power in a popularly supported revolution in July 1979 – the U.S. organized a counterrevolutionary group, known as the Contras, which attacked villages, laid road mines, and murdered government employees, including teachers and health workers. [123]   The discovery of a CIA-produced “assassination manual” in October 1984 confirmed the administration’s culpability as a state sponsor of terrorism. [124]   The 134-page manual, written in Spanish, encouraged the “selective use of violence” against Nicaraguan officials, judges, security officers, and others.  “If possible, professional criminals should be hired to carry out specific selective ‘jobs,’” the manual advised.  Other pages explained how to assassinate victims with a rope, wire, belt, pistol, rifle, shotgun, machine gun, or explosives. [125]

Adm. Stansfield Turner

Gejdenson’s subcommittee held a three-day hearing in mid-April 1985.  Among those testifying was former CIA director Admiral Stansfield Turner who acknowledged, “Rightly or wrongly, there are many of us today who see the actions of the Contras as being beneath the ethical standards we would like the United States to employ.  And specifically, I believe it is irrefutable that a number of the Contras’ actions have to be characterized as terrorism, as State-supported terrorism.” [128]

Al Qaeda terrorism

Osama bin Laden, age 16 (second from right), with 21 members of his family in Falun, Sweden, in 1971.  One of his elder brothers was conducting business there with Volvo (Camera Press)

Osama bin Laden (on right) with two of his brothers and two unrelated women during a visit to Oxford, England, in 1971 ( The Times , London)

The leader of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, did not begin his life as a terrorist.  He was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 1957, the 17 th of 52 (half) brothers and sisters.  His father, Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a native of Yemen, accrued substantial wealth in the construction business and became close to the Saudi royal family.  Osama graduated from King Abdul-Aziz University in Jeddah with a degree in public administration in 1981.  He used his inherited wealth and knowledge of construction to establish a prominent role for himself in support of the Mujahideen revolt in Afghanistan during the 1980s, working in tandem with Pakistani and U.S. (CIA) agents.

Alia Ghanem, Osama bin Laden’s mother (photo by David Levene, The Guardian , 2018)

Osama’s mother, Alia Ghanem (Hamida al-Attas), was born in Syria and married Osama’s father at the age of fourteen.  She was his fourth wife and they divorced soon after Osama’s birth.  Osama helped raise her other children from a later marriage to Mohammed al-Attas.  Journalist Martin Chulov interviewed Ghanem in 2018.  She described her firstborn son, Osama, as shy, smart, and pious.  “He was a very good child until he met some people who pretty much brainwashed him in his early 20s,” said Ghanem.  “You can call it a cult.  They got money for their cause. I would always tell him to stay away from them, and he would never admit to me what he was doing, because he loved me so much.” [137]  None of Osama’s brothers and sisters endorsed terrorism, and most were decidedly pro-Western in their dress and attitudes.

Aerial view of the Pentagon Building in Washington, DC, three days after a plane crashed into the SW corner of the building, resulting in 189 fatalities (DoD photo)

The manufactured themes of the Reagan administration’s “war on terrorism” rose to the fore again in the George W. Bush administration’s post-9/11/2001 “war on terror.”  There was one huge difference.  The 9/11 attacks immediately convinced Americans of the real danger of international terrorism, and thus the vast majority were eager to support the administration’s counterterrorism program.  The president needed only to define the threat and direct the response.  According to Bruce Hoffman, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, “the phrase ‘war on terror,’ was an enormously compelling summons to battle, but it was enormously misleading.”  U.S. policies, he argued, should have focused “on the group, the individuals that had caused the 9/11 attacks and were continuing to threaten us.  Once it became a war on terror, it became anything that scared us.” [139]

Richard Jackson writes that Bush administration officials “employed a hyperbolic language of threat that directly echoed Reagan’s earlier formulations.”

According to the administration, terrorism posed not just a threat of sudden violent death to individual citizens, but a “threat to civilization,” a “threat to the very essence of what you do,” a “threat to our way of life,” and a threat to “the peace of the world.”  The cold war notion of a “threat to our way of life” vastly inflates the purported danger:  instead of a tiny group of dissidents with resources that do not even begin to rival that of the smallest states, it implies that today’s terrorists are as powerful as the Soviet empire was once thought to be with all of its military resources. [141]

The connection between terrorist groups and nation-states was initially made through the presence of bin Laden and al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan.  Though the Taliban had no part in the 9/11 attacks or in al Qaeda’s international operations, the Bush administration equated the two and proceeded to overthrow the Taliban government using massive air power in combination with local alliances (see Section IV).  The next target, Iraq, required more sleight-of-hand to justify U.S. military intervention, as no connections could be found between Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda or 9/11.  The president nonetheless charged in his State of the Union Address on January 29, 2002, “Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror,” although he did not specifically link Iraq to al Qaeda. [142]

Bush administration officials presented Saddam Hussein as the new Adolf Hitler.

The administration’s most potent rhetorical strategy was to frame terrorists and alleged terrorists such as Saddam Hussein as “evil doers.”  Bush used the terms “evil” or “evil doers” nine times at a press conference on the White House lawn on September 16, 2001. [143]   He repeated these terms six times in a speech on October 11, and three more times in a speech on November 10. [144]  He told Newsweek in November that Saddam Hussein was “evil.” [145]   Such rhetoric had strategic implications.  If Saddam Hussein was an “evil” leader, then peace negotiations were futile and he must be removed by force.  Indeed, administration propaganda was designed to remake Saddam Hussein into a new Adolf Hitler in the minds of Americans, thus justifying a U.S. war to oust him.

A few weeks after President Bush’s State of the Union address, New York Times correspondent Robert Worth reflected on the connections between the incipient “war on terror” and the Cold War.  In an article titled “Truth, Right and the American Way; A Nation Defines Itself by Its Evil Enemies,” he noted that during President Bush’s recent tour of Asia “some world leaders worried publicly that the war on terrorism was starting to look suspiciously like the last great American campaign – against Communism.”

It is hard to miss the cold war echoes.  Once again America’s allies are being told that the world is divided starkly into zones of good and evil, darkness and light, and that “the United States and only the United States can see this effort through to victory,” as Vice President Dick Cheney told a gathering at the Council on Foreign Relations two weeks ago.

America’s discovery of an enemy who is not merely an enemy, but “evil,” has impeccable historical credentials. In a long history of responding to real and perceived threats, it seems clear that this large, heterogeneous country defines itself in part through its nemeses. . . . And to the extent that those enemies are seen as evil, America can regard itself as good, a desire rooted in the Puritan vision of establishing a new Eden in a fallen world. . . .

The country’s religious roots and its continuing high level of religious faith make Americans more likely to see enemies not just as opponents but as evil.  Linked to that is the belief that America is the world’s last best hope of liberty, so that those who oppose America become the enemies of freedom. [149]

The framing of Hussein as “evil” established the basis for fearful forecasts that if the Iraqi leader were left to his own devices, he would acquire weapons of mass destruction and either attack the United States or pass them on to terrorists.  This framing was extremely potent.  In the public mind, it diminished the need for actual evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, as the very idea that Saddam Hussein could acquire such weapons and would use them was enough for many Americans to support a U.S. invasion.

President Bush, aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, declares victory in Iraq on May 1, 2003 (Scott Applewhite, AP)

On May 1, 2003, President Bush stood on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier, USS Abraham Lincoln , 30 miles off the coast of San Diego, with a large banner inscribed with “mission accomplished” behind him.  He declared that major U.S. combat operations in Iraq were over.  “The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror.  We’ve removed an ally of al Qaeda, and cut off a source of terrorist funding.”  As is common in U.S. foreign policy, the president mixed security rationales (stopping terrorism) with idealistic ones (promoting freedom and democracy).  “In this battle,” he continued, “we have fought for the cause of liberty . . . the tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free.” [151]

Misleading the public

• President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice made a total of “237 misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq” in 125 separate appearances between March 17, 2002 and January 22, 2004. “Most of the misleading statements about Iraq – 161 statements – were made prior to the start of the war.  But 76 misleading statements were made by the five Administration officials after the start of the war to justify the decision to go to war.”
• “The 237 misleading statements can be divided into four categories. The five officials made 11 statements that claimed that Iraq posed an urgent threat; 81 statements that exaggerated Iraq’s nuclear activities; 84 statements that overstated Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons capabilities; and 61 statements that misrepresented Iraq’s ties to al Qaeda.”
• “Between September 12, 2002, and July 17, 2003, President Bush [alone] made 55 misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq in 27 separate public appearances. . . . Some of the misleading statements by President Bush include his statement in the January 28, 2003, State of the Union address that ‘the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa’; his statement on October 2, 2002, that ‘the Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency’; and his statement on May 1, 2003, that ‘the liberation of Iraq . . . removed an ally of al Qaeda.’”
• Misleading statements about Iraq made by other principals include: 51 by Vice President Cheney, 52 by Secretary Rumsfeld, 50 by Secretary Powell, and 29 by National Security Advisor Rice. [156]

Many of the commentators “shared with Mr. Bush’s national security team a belief that pessimistic war coverage broke the nation’s will to win in Vietnam, and there was a mutual resolve not to let that happen with this war,” according to the New York Times .  Initial efforts were aimed at making the case for war against Iraq:

In the fall and winter leading up to the invasion, the Pentagon armed its analysts with talking points portraying Iraq as an urgent threat. The basic case became a familiar mantra: Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons, was developing nuclear weapons, and might one day slip some to Al Qaeda; an invasion would be a relatively quick and inexpensive “war of liberation.” [157]

The administration’s propaganda campaign was largely successful.  A Pew survey taken in October 2002 found that 66% of American adults said that Saddam helped the terrorists involved in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  Two-thirds of Americans, as such, believed a lie perpetrated by administration officials.  The mainstream media in the U.S. did little to counter administration propaganda.  In a scholarly study of television news media in the eight months leading up to the Iraqi invasion (August 1, 2002 through March 19, 2003), political scientists Danny Hayes and Matt Guardino found that “Bush administration officials were the most frequently quoted sources, the voices of anti-war groups and opposition Democrats were barely audible, and the overall thrust of coverage favored a pro-war perspective. . . . With relatively little debate among U.S. elites about the wisdom of invading Iraq, news coverage privileged the Bush administration’s hawkish position.  Alternative perspectives from actors within the United States – either from members of Congress or anti-war groups – were given scant air time.” [158]   There was, in short, more domestic opposition to the incipient war than reported in the mainstream media (see Section VII).

President Barack Obama delivers an address to the nation on U.S. counterterrorism strategy, Sept. 10, 2014 (White House photo by Pete Souza)

President Barack Obama, upon entering the White House in January 2009, dropped the phrase “war on terror” but nonetheless continued many of the policies marked out by the Bush administration.  According to scholars Richard Jackson and Chin-Kuei Tsui, “the Obama administration has in many respects expanded Bush’s war on terror to new regions and theaters.”  Indeed, “every major facet of the Bush-led ‘war on terror’ approach has been continued, institutionalized, and in many cases, expanded and intensified.  Moreover, Obama’s counterterrorism approach continues with the same broad underlying concepts, narratives, frames, assumptions and philosophy.” [161]

In September 1999, George W. Bush, then a presidential candidate, introduced his proposed defense program at the Citadel military school in Charleston, South Carolina.  His speech was written by Richard Armitage, a veteran of the CIA’s Phoenix program which was responsible for the deaths of some 20,000 Vietnamese civilians during the Vietnam War. [162]   Bush proclaimed that “a revolution in the technology of war” was at hand and the U.S. needed to take advantage of it:

Our forces in the next century must be agile, lethal, readily deployable . . . We must be able to project our power over long distances . . . Our military must be able to identify targets by a variety of means – from a Marine patrol to a satellite – then be able to destroy those targets almost instantly, with an array of weapons . . . In the air, we must be able to strike from across the world with pinpoint accuracy . . . perhaps with unmanned systems. [163]

Bush’s words provided an endorsement at the highest levels for the technologist dreams of those who had shaped the development of American military forces since the end of World War II.  The opportunity to implement these dreams of unrivaled American superiority would come after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.  The newly announced “war on terror” would provide the opportunity to showcase the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) which included an expansive information and surveillance infrastructure, more powerful and precise aerial weaponry, robotics, and other innovations. [164]

Gen. Tommy Franks

Integrating RMA innovations in battlefield operations was the job of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, a high-tech command-post reminiscent of the Starship Enterprise on Star Trek.  High-flying UAVs, which one Air Force officer likened to a low-earth orbit satellite, provided panoramic views of regions the size of Illinois, while low-flying UAVs honed in on “kill targets.”  Once identified, officers could order air-strikes through the Pentagon’s secure internet server, communicating with Special Forces equipped with satellite telephones and laptop computers hooked up to modems.  CENTCOM commander General Tommy Franks, who led the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, wrote that the “revolution in sensor technology, coupled with flying observation platforms (many mounted on new Unmanned Aerial Vehicles), promised today’s commanders the kind of Olympian perspectives that Homer had given his gods.” [172]   For those living under this Olympian surveillance, however, the experience may be more aptly described as a technological police state, being in constant fear of attack, a state of terror.

Neighbors gathered near the wreckage from a U.S. drone strike in the courtyard of Zemari Ahmadi’s home in Kabul that killed ten people, August 29, 2021 (Jim Huylebroek, New York Times)

In the very last U.S. drone strike on August 29, 2021, just prior to the departure of U.S. troops, ten people, including seven children, were killed in a Kabul neighborhood.  The Pentagon immediately denied any wrongdoing, declaring the strike “righteous” and insisting that it had killed a terrorist transporting a bomb.  Only after the New York Times conducted an independent investigation, interviewing survivors and providing clear proof of the identities of the targeted individuals, did the Pentagon acknowledge, two weeks later, that the drone strike had killed civilians.  The suspected terrorist, Zemari Ahmadi, was a well-known humanitarian aid worker with an international nongovernmental agency, and the presumed bomb was a set of water containers.  The Times obtained video footage of the strike through a Freedom of Information lawsuit against the Pentagon.  The Pentagon’s own review of the botched strike remains classified, except for a one-page “fact sheet” made public which asserts that the U.S. officers responsible followed proper procedures and hence there was no basis for criminal proceedings. [175]

2001 Odyssey:  Defeating the Taliban and losing sight of bin Laden

Massoud’s supporters in Kabul mourn his death on Sept. 10, 2001 (Kamran Jebreili, AP)

The United States, having armed and aided the Mujahideen guerrillas during the 1980s, steered clear of the Afghan civil war, but took renewed interest in Afghanistan when Osama bin Laden settled there in 1996.  Unable to convince the Taliban leadership to extradite bin Laden to the U.S., the CIA began supplying Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud, known as “the lion of Panjshir,” with over $200,000 per month along with communications equipment in an effort to undermine the Taliban.  On September 9, 2001, al Qaeda operatives posing as filmmakers killed Massoud – a present from Osama bin Laden to the Taliban.

Abdul Rashid Dostum near Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan, Nov. 2001 (Darko Bandic, AP)

Dostum’s Uzbek fighters, some on horseback, began a campaign to capture the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif on October 17.  They were aided by the overwhelming firepower of U.S. B-52 bombers and AC-130H Specter gunships fed live video from Predator surveillance drones, which annihilated hundreds of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters who had taken refuge in a fort in Mazar-i-Sharif.  Major Kurt Sonntag, a Special Forces officer, found utter “carnage” when he arrived on the scene.  “Every tree was stripped of all its bark and leaves,” he said.  “All the walls were hammered.  All the vehicles were riddled.  Every bit of livestock was dead.  And there were bodies and pieces of bodies everywhere.”  After the fall of Mazar-i-Sharif on November 9, Northern Alliance forces successfully laid siege to the city of Kunduz, the last remaining Taliban stronghold in the north.  Surrendering Taliban troops were transported to Sheberghan prison in sealed containers, a death trap in which some 1,000 prisoners died in transit. [179]   Surviving al Qaeda fighters, meanwhile, made their way to the Tora Bora caves near the Khyber Pass in eastern Afghanistan.

Bin Laden’s escape prompted an investigation by the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, chaired by former anti-Vietnam War protestor and future secretary of state Senator John Kerry.  The official report, released in 2009, noted the real possibility of capturing or killing bin Laden and questioned the reluctance of top U.S. military leaders to pursue him:

There were enough U.S. troops in or near Afghanistan to execute the classic sweep-and-block maneuver required to attack bin Laden and try to prevent his escape.  It would have been a dangerous fight across treacherous terrain, and the injection of more U.S. troops and the resulting casualties would have contradicted the risk-averse, “light footprint” model formulated by Rumsfeld and Franks.  But commanders on the scene and elsewhere in Afghanistan argued that the risks were worth the reward.  After bin Laden’s escape, some military and intelligence analysts and the press criticized the Pentagon’s failure to mount a full-scale attack despite the tough rhetoric by President Bush.  Franks, Vice President Dick Cheney and others defended the decision, arguing that the intelligence was inconclusive about the Al Qaeda leader’s location.  But the review of existing literature, unclassified government records and interviews with central participants underlying this report removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora. [181]

The Senate report did not speculate as to why administration officials were so “risk-averse,” given the American public’s view that capturing or killing bin Laden was the number one counterterrorism mission.  One possibility, unmentioned in the report, was that key Bush administration officials wanted the “war on terror” to continue, irrespective of bin Laden, as the administration was already reviewing plans for an invasion of Iraq.  Had bin Laden been captured or killed in December 2001, the American public may well have concluded that there was no need for further military actions.  As it was, President Bush played down bin Laden’s escape.  At a news conference on March 13, 2002, he was asked by a reporter:  “Mr. President, in your speeches now you rarely talk or mention Osama bin Laden.  Why is that?”  Bush responded that “people don’t understand the scope of the mission.  Terror is bigger than one person.  And he’s just – he’s a person who’s now been marginalized. . . . So I don’t know where he is.  You know, I just don’t spend that much time on him.”  Bush went on to boast about U.S. military operations in Afghanistan which ousted the Taliban government in Kabul in roughly six weeks.  “We have a good strategy.  We are showing the world we know how to fight a guerrilla war with conventional means.” [182]

President Bush speaking at The Citadel, Dec. 11, 2001 (White House photo by Tina Hager)

The “war on terror” had turned a corner.  War, rather than police and intelligence operations, were touted as the primary means of combatting global terrorism – which now became conflated with insurgency.  President Bush trumpeted U.S. military prowess in another speech at The Citadel in Charleston on December 11, 2001.  “These past two months have shown that an innovative doctrine and high-tech weaponry can shape and then dominate an unconventional conflict,” he said.  “Our commanders are gaining a real-time picture of the entire battlefield, and are able to get targeting information from sensor to shooter almost instantly. . . . And our special forces have the technology to call in precision air strikes – along with the flexibility to direct those strikes from horseback, in the first cavalry charge of the 21 st century.  This combination – real-time intelligence, local allied forces, special forces, and precision air power – has really never been used before.” [183] Bush did not mention the errant U.S. airstrike that killed a number of U.S. and allied soldiers and almost killed Karzai.

Hamid Karzai in Kabul, Dec. 2001 (Brennan Linsley, AP)

The first Afghan leader, Hamid Karzai, was chosen at an international conference at the Hotel Petersburg in Bonn, Germany, in early December 2001.  Karzai was born into a distinguished Pashtun family of the Popalzai clan in Kandahar.  During the 1980s, he had run a non-governmental organization that assisted the Mujahideen.  He was nicknamed “Gucci guerrilla” for spending most of his time networking in the lobby of the Islamabad Holiday Inn.  The following decade, Karzai worked as a consultant for Unocal Corporation which was interested in building a Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline from the Caspian region to the Indian Ocean.  Karzai initially supported the Taliban when it emerged in the fall of 1994 but cut ties in 1997 “after he saw the Taliban as they really were,” in the words of his brother, Ahmed Karzai.  After his father’s assassination in July 1999, Hamid Karzai became the khan (chief) of the Popalzai clan and supported the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance.

(1) Diplomatic failure:  Making the Taliban the enemy

Ethnic groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan (Brown Univ. Choices Program). Pashtun identity extends across national borders.

U.S. leaders were nevertheless able to convince the United Nations to provide an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to secure the Afghan capital and surrounding area, thus lending an air of international legitimacy to the war.  In August 2003, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) took command of the ISAF mission and expanded its operations to the whole country.  Forty-two nations contributed troops to ISAF before it closed down in December 2014 and turned responsibility for security over to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces. [189]

(2) Indiscriminate assaults on civilians and the environment

Abdul Haq (right), hero of anti-Soviet resistance (BBC News)

Abdul Haq, a former Mujahideen commander who fought with the U.S. against the Taliban until he was killed on October 26, 2001, was highly critical of U.S. bombing practices.  In an interview with journalist Anatol Lieven in Peshawar, Pakistan, on October 11, he said, “Military action by itself in the present circumstances is only making things more difficult – especially if this war goes on a long time and many civilians are killed.”  He continued:

We should be concentrating on avoiding bloodshed as far as possible. The Taliban are like a crystal ball.  They are very hard, but brittle.  If they are hit in the right way, they will shatter into a million pieces.  But bombing the whole of Afghanistan is not the right way.  Instead, we should undermine the central leadership, which is a very small and closed group and the only thing which holds them all together.  If they are destroyed, every Taliban fighter will pick up his gun and blanket and disappear back home, and that will be the end of the Taliban.  But the US is trying to show its muscle, score a victory and scare everyone in the world.  They don’t care about the suffering of the Afghans or how many people we will lose.  And we don’t like that. [194]

Analogous to its British and Russian predecessors, the U.S.-NATO occupation uprooted communities, altered local power structures, and aggravated tensions between the Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara, Noorzai, and Pashtun ethnicities along with localized tribes. [195]   With few al Qaeda leaders actually in Afghanistan, the U.S. military spent most of its time fighting local Afghanis opposed to the foreign occupation.  Journalist Anand Gopal described the insurgent movement as a “mélange of nationalists and Islamists, shadowy kohl-eyed mullahs and head-bobbing religious students as well as erudite university students, poor illiterate farmers and veteran anti-Soviet commanders” unified in their aversion to foreign occupation. [196]

Ali Kadhim Hashim stands in front of his home where 14 family members were killed, including his parents, wife, and children, in a U.S. Marine helicopter attack in al-Nasiriyya on March 23, 2003 (Reuben E. Brigety II, Human Rights Watch)

Marc Herold, a professor of economic development at the University of New Hampshire, undertook a careful analysis of witness accounts and media reports concerning U.S.-NATO bombing raids in the first twenty weeks of the war.  He tabulated the costs as follows:

• between 3,000 and 3,400 civilians killed directly by U.S. bombs and missiles;
• another 4,000-6,000 civilians injured, many requiring protheses;
• 4,000-6,000 dead Taliban and allies;
• an additional 3,300 Afghan refugees dying of hunger, disease and cold in camps;
• an additional estimated 5,000 war widows and thousands of orphans;
• destroyed animals and livestock;
• an infrastructure further destroyed – bridges, power plants, water supplies, roads, communication systems, hundreds of incinerated trucks, burned fuel storage facilities, etc.;
• environmental costs, including loss of agricultural lands and forest fires. [197]

Anthony H. Cordesman and Arleigh A. Burke, in a study for the Pentagon titled “The Ongoing Lessons of Afghanistan” (May 6, 2004), stated that it “seems possible that total casualties range from 1,500 to 3,000 by late December 2001, but there is no way to estimate such figures or to separate the constant casualties from factional fighting, warlordism, and sheer banditry from those caused by the US and its non-Afghan allies.”  The authors nonetheless documented a dozen actions in which U.S. airstrikes killed civilians between October 8, 2001 and January 24, 2002.  These included the killing of four UN workers in Kabul, raids “on fleeing supporters of Sheik Omar in Khakriz (north of Khandahar) [that] may have killed 30-70 civilians,” an air strike near Khost in which 12-27 persons were killed, the bombing of a weapons depot in the village of Qualai Niazi that killed “part of a wedding party,” and, on January 24, 2002, U.S. special operations that killed 16-18 “innocent civilians targeted by a rival Afghan faction.” [198]   The latter refers to a situation in which Afghan factions intentionally misinform U.S. commanders that their rivals are Taliban or al Qaeda in order to have them neutralized.  U.S. commanders, being unfamiliar with the people, language, culture, and politics of the regions they occupied, sometimes fell for these ruses. [199]

On July 1, 2002, a U.S. airstrike in the town of Deh Rawood killed dozens of civilians at a wedding party (Assoc. for Diplomatic Studies and Training)

The January 24 th incident prompted the first public protest in Kabul against occupying U.S. forces.  Afghan President Hamid Karzai demanded that U.S. and Coalition forces “take all necessary measures to ensure that military activities to capture terrorist groups do not harm innocent Afghan civilians.”   Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah more emphatically averred, “This situation has to come to an end.  Mistakes can take place, human errors are possible, but our people should be assured that every measure was taken to avoid such incidents.”  In Washington, meanwhile, President Bush blithely asserted in his State of the Union Address on January 29 that “new technologies help to protect our soldiers, and as importantly help protect innocent lives.” [200]

The “mistakes” continued, however, and increased.  A Human Rights Watch report tallied the human toll:  In 2006, U.S. and NATO airstrikes resulted in 116 Afghan civilian fatalities in 13 bombings; in 2007, there were 321 civilian fatalities in 22 bombings.  “The harm done by airstrikes,” noted the report, “is not limited to the immediate civilian casualties”:

Airstrikes have caused significant destruction of civilian property, and have also forced civilians to flee and vacate villages, adding to the internally displaced population of Afghanistan.  In every case investigated by Human Rights Watch where airstrikes hit villages, many civilians left the village because of damage to their homes but also because of fear of further strikes.  People from neighboring villages also sometimes fled in fear of future strikes on their villages.  They have also had significant political impact, outraging public opinion in Afghanistan and undermining public confidence in both the Afghan government and its international backers. [202]

President Karzai, despite being wholly dependent on U.S. support, issued an appeal on April 26, 2008.  “I am not happy with civilian casualties coming down; I want an end to civilian casualties,” he said.  “Because the war against terrorism is not in Afghan villages, the war against terrorism is elsewhere, and that’s where the war should go.” [203]   Karzai wanted the U.S. and NATO forces to focus on stopping the infiltration of militants from Pakistan, not on subduing Afghan communities.

McChrystal was correct in acknowledging that the bombing attacks were alienating the Afghan people and undermining popular support for the U.S.-backed government, but “tactical victories” nonetheless remained the paramount U.S. military objective.  Moreover, the very nature of the war – a war in which U.S. and Coalition forces could not distinguish between insurgents and the general population – assured high levels of civilian casualties.  In March 2010, the New York Times reported:

American and NATO troops firing from passing convoys and military checkpoints have killed 30 Afghans and wounded 80 others since last summer, but in no instance did the victims prove to be a danger to troops, according to military officials in Kabul. “We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat,” said Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who became the senior American and NATO commander in Afghanistan last year. . . . Though fewer in number than deaths from airstrikes and Special Forces operations, such shootings have not dropped off, despite new rules from General McChrystal seeking to reduce the killing of innocents.  The persistence of deadly convoy and checkpoint shootings has led to growing resentment among Afghans fearful of Western troops and angry at what they see as the impunity with which the troops operate – a friction that has turned villages firmly against the occupation. [206]

U.S. Special Operations soldier conducting offensive operations in Logar Province, July 28, 2018 (photo by Sgt. Nicholas Byers, military.com)

The surge also produced more civilian casualties.  To take one example, on July 23, 2010, NATO responded to attacks on its “clearing operations” in the Sangin Valley in Helmand Province by firing a rocket that hit a large family compound in Rigi village, killing as many as 52 civilians.  U.S. and NATO officials immediately denied any wrongdoing.  “Any speculation at this point of an alleged civilian casualty in Rigi village is completely unfounded,” said ISAF Communication Director Rear Admiral Greg Smith. “We are conducting a thorough joint investigation with our Afghan partners and will report any and all findings when known.”  The Afghan government refused to whitewash the affair, declaring:  “Based on reports by the National Directorate of Security, a house in Rigi village in Sangin district of southern province of Helmand was hit with a rocket launched by NATO/ISAF troops leaving 52 civilians dead including women and children.”  The government’s press release editorialized that “success over terrorism does not come with fighting in Afghan villages, but by targeting its sanctuaries and financial and ideological sources across the borders,” meaning al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan. [207]

Afghans hold anti-U.S. demonstrations in Jalalabad province in March 2012, following the shooting of villagers allegedly by a U.S. soldier (Reuters)

The Wall Street Journal reported in May 2011 that U.S. “hunter-killer” teams, operating with maximum secrecy, had conducted thousands of raids over the past year, killing 3,200 “insurgents” and capturing well over twice that number.

Costs of War Project summary of Afghan War fatalities, Sept. 2021

American lives were indeed sacrificed in Afghanistan along with many others.  According to the Cost of War Project at Brown University, over the course of the 20-year war in Afghanistan, 2,324 U.S. military personnel and over 3,900 U.S. contractors and others lost their lives.  The toll among Afghans was much greater:  69,095 National Military and Police, 52,893 opposition fighters (Taliban and other insurgents), and 46,319 civilians.  Also killed were 1,144 Allied troops (NATO), of which 457 were British, 446 humanitarian aid workers, and 74 journalists.  All told, the war took the lives of over 176,000 people and injured and made homeless many more. [212]   This is a huge toll for an unnecessary war.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, 2010

General McChrystal, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan in 2009-2010, acknowledged deficiencies in the U.S. way of war in a speech before the Council of Foreign Relations in October 2011:  “Most of us – me included – had a very superficial understanding of the situation and history, and we had a frighteningly simplistic view of recent history, the last fifty years,” he said.  The retired four-star general noted that U.S. personnel did not know the country’s languages (mainly Dari and Pashto) and did not make “an effective effort” to learn them.  Such cultural ignorance, he judged, impeded the military’s ability to build support for the host nation’s government and to counter the insurgents’ strength. [214]

U.S. Army Captain Brittany Ramos Debarros

U.S. Army Captain Brittany Ramos Debarros initially held out hope for such programs when she was deployed to the Kandahar province in 2012.  “When I was stationed in Afghanistan,” she recalled, “I really believed that we were there to help the Afghan people.  But you can’t take a situation that’s designed for violence and use it to build up healthy and safe communities.” [219]

We were trying to build something in our image without real buy-in or leadership from Afghan people, not because there was an unwillingness, but because of our arrogance.  The U.S. military is an institution designed to do as much violence as possible.  You can’t use it and tweak it a little and act like it’s going to give you a different result. [220]

Losing the war

U.S. Army Pfc. Shawn Williams is evacuated after being injured by a roadside bomb in Kandahar province, June 17, 2011 (DoD photo)

In the last years of the war, U.S. troops bestowed more training, weapons, and advanced gear upon Afghan security forces, only to find that some of the weapons and gear found their way into the hands of insurgents.  In November 2017, the New York Times reported that Taliban fighters were using captured Star-Wars-like headgear containing night goggles, and automatic rifles with telescope sights that could shoot out lasers, to overrun police posts. [221]

Despite a notable record of atrocities by this time, U.S. tactics did not change.  Human Rights Watch reported in October 2019:

Search operations in Afghan villages to “kill or capture” insurgents conducted at night (“night raids”) have long raised controversy in Afghanistan because they frequently harm civilians and civilian property. . . . Afghan and foreign healthcare workers, journalists, and community elders all described abusive raids and indiscriminate airstrikes as having become a daily fact of life for many communities – often with devastating consequences.  Speaking to Human Rights Watch, one diplomat familiar with Afghan strike force operations referred to them as “death squads.”

The Afghan special forces that carried out many of these night raids, noted the report, were largely “recruited, trained, equipped, and overseen by the CIA.”  Oftentimes, they were joined by U.S. Special Forces, primarily Army Rangers, in “kill-or-capture operations.” [225]

Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. envoy, and Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, Taliban delegation leader, shake hands after signing a peace agreement in Doha, Qatar, February 29, 2020 (Ibraheem al Omari, Reuters)

On September 2, 2019, the Trump administration’s special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, an Afghan-born former ambassador to Afghanistan (2004-05), Iraq (2005-07), and the UN (2007-09), reached an agreement with Taliban representatives in Doha, Qatar, without the participation of the Afghan government.  The Taliban negotiating team included five former Guantánamo detainees.  The agreement stipulated that the U.S. would remove 5,400 troops from Afghanistan within 135 days, and the remaining 8,600 U.S. and Coalition forces would leave by May 2021.  Taliban leaders, in turn, agreed not to target U.S. troops in the ensuing months, to dialogue with the Afghan government, and most importantly, “to prevent any international terrorist groups or individuals, including al-Qa’ida and ISIS-K, from using Afghan soil to threaten the security of the United States, its allies and other countries.” [226]

(3) Abusive, corrupt, and inept governance

Rumsfeld (center), Ismail Khan (left), and Special US Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad (right) in Herat, April 27, 2002 (DoD photo)

The Bush administration publicly ignored the atrocities and sordid practices of its Afghan allies, preferring to celebrate the “liberation” of Afghanistan.  Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, after meeting with Ismail Khan in Herat on April 29, 2002, described Khan as “an appealing person . . . thoughtful, measured and self-confident.”  Speaking at a press conference in Washington shortly after his visit to Herat, Rumsfeld emphasized that “in the bulk of the country the armies, the militias, the forces that exist there, almost all of which have U.S. Special Forces involved with them and advising them and participating, are by their presence contributing to stability.” [233]

Former Taliban fighters crammed into a jail complex in Shebargan, Dec. 9, 2001, after surrendering to the Northern Alliance (Yuri Kozyrev, AP)

Afghan prisons were also mismanaged and rife with abuse, contributing to the appalling human rights climate bred by the war.  The International Committee of the Red Cross reported massive prison overcrowding, harsh conditions, lack of clarity about the legal basis for detention, prisoners held “incommunicado” in isolation cells, and inmates being subjected to cruel treatment in violation of the Geneva Conventions. [243]

The CIA also gave cash “to warlords, governors, parliamentarians, even religious leaders,” according to the Washington Post :

The U.S. military and other agencies also abetted corruption by doling out payments or contracts to unsavory Afghan power brokers in a misguided quest for stability.  “We had partnerships with all the wrong players,” a senior U.S. diplomat told government interviewers.  “The U.S. is still standing shoulder-to-shoulder with these people, even through all these years.  It’s a case of security trumping everything else.” [245]

Pentagon officials came up with a name for the corruption:  VICE, or Vertically Integrated Criminal Enterprise.  As VICE grew to alarming proportions, U.S. officials worried that it would undermine their nation-building project.  John Allen, the top commander in Afghanistan in 2012, told a Senate committee that year:  “We know that corruption still robs Afghan citizens of their faith in the government, and that poor governance itself often advances insurgent messages.” [246]

The Taliban, for their part, also sought to win the hearts and minds of Afghans, notwithstanding its own brutal violence and extortion operations.  As described by a former Taliban commander in the northern province of Kunduz, “They were cruel before [Mullah Omar died in 2013], but now they are trying to show a different face.  They have to show they can do everything the government can – but better.”  Under the leadership of Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, the Taliban deemphasized their draconian social codes and began attending to basic needs and resolving local disputes.  According to Dr. Ashley Jackson, co-director of the Centre for the Study of Armed Groups at the Overseas Development Institute, the Taliban “are working assiduously to out-govern [Ashraf] Ghani’s internationally recognized National Unity Government.”  In the district of Charkh, they seemed to be succeeding:

Administrators there are widely seen as fair and honest, making them outliers in a country consistently ranked among the world’s most corrupt.  Locals say there is remarkably little crime.  Disputes among neighbors or families are rare, and when they arise, the district governor or judge quickly settles them.  A health official regularly monitors clinics to make sure that doctors and nurses are present and that medicines are stocked.  Across the district’s schools, government teachers actually show up, and student attendance is high – an anomaly in a state system where absenteeism is rife. [250]

Centralization and economic policies

Village elders meet in Marja, Helmand Province, in March 2010 (Moises Saman, New York Times )

Two other facets to consider in terms of popular support for the Kabul government were the degree of centralization enforced and the viability of its economic policies.  Much decision-making power in Afghanistan has traditionally been vested in tribal councils ( jirgas and shuras ) and local and provincial governments.  Any attempt to create a uniform pattern, especially quickly, was not likely to succeed. [251]   This was true for the Taliban government, which imposed strict social edicts across the board, as well as for the previous communist government, which promoted national economic modernization and women’s advancement.  In particular, any government attempting to impose restrictions on poppy growing, the lifeblood of many poor farmers, was sure to arouse opposition.  The Karzai government and its successor, the Ashraf Ghani government, both quietly allowed poppy growing despite international censure.

There was little creative thinking with regard to restructuring the Afghan economy to meet basic needs.  The models supported by both Karzai and Ghani aligned with the International Monetary Fund and other free market promoters.  Ghani had studied at the American University of Beirut and joined a mostly Pashtun group known as the Beirut club.  This was an Afghan version of Chile’s infamous “Chicago Boys” who trained at the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman and imported neoliberal doctrine back into their home countries.  In his 2008 book,  Fixing Failed States , Ghani rejected national economic planning and social welfare state theories, and touted the importance of free-markets and multinational corporations in national development as well as integration into the global capitalist economy.  Ghani praised the formula of American southern states with their “low taxes, weak unions and business-friendly state governments” and military bases. [252]

President Barack Obama shakes hands with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, standing next to Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah during a NATO meeting on Afghanistan in Warsaw, July 9, 2016 (Janek Skarzynski, AFP)

In practical terms, this meant that the government created no viable alternatives to the growing poppy plants and the making and selling opium.  The overall income generated by this business was estimated in 2019 at between $1.2 billion and $2.1 billion, which exceeded the value of the country’s legal exports, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. [253]   The Taliban taxed this income in areas under their control, while top government officials ran profitable opium export operations for their own benefit.  General Douglas Lute quipped to SIGAR interviewers:  “We stated that our goal is to establish a ‘flourishing market economy.’  I thought we should have specified a flourishing drug trade – this is the only part of the market that’s working.” [254]

Afghan women march to demand rights after the Taliban regain power, Kabul, Sept. 19, 2021 (AP)

The Kabul government’s promotion of women’s rights generated a large measure of popular support in urban areas and among women generally, but there was resistance in conservative rural areas, often Pashtun.  The conflict over women’s rights was part of a long-running “culture war” dating back to 1919, when King Amanullah Khan began pushing Western-style reforms. [257]  During the 1970s and 1980s, women’s rights advanced due in large part to the efforts of communist-led movements and governments.  The Taliban abruptly reversed this progress during their rule (1996-2001), instituting an oppressive patriarchal system.

Craig Whitlock, author

The shock of losing the war for Americans was anticipated to some degree by the release of the “Afghanistan Papers” by the Washington Post in December 2019.  The papers documented how senior U.S. officials “failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable,” according to investigative reporter Craig Whitlock. [260]   The New York Times similarly proclaimed in a front-page story, “Public Was Duped on Afghan War” (December 10, 2019). [261]

Photojournalist Anja Niedringhaus was shot dead by an Afghan policeman in April 2014 while waiting in her car for a colleague. The International Women’s Media Foundation established the Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Journalism Award in 2015 (AP photo)

The irony of these confessions is that, despite their confusion, the top tier of military planners and decision-makers did not rethink or change their aggressive war strategy.  Indeed, from 2017 through 2019, U.S. military leaders relaxed the rules of engagement for airstrikes, resulting in more death and destruction.  Neta Crawford, director of the Costs of War project at Brown University, notes, “In 2019 airstrikes killed 700 civilians – more civilians than in any other year since the beginning of the war in 2001 and 2002.” [266]   Some of the incidents were reported in the New York Times :  “C.I.A.-Led Afghan Forces Leave Grim Trail of Abuse” (December 31, 2018); “To Push Pace of Peace Talks in Afghanistan, U.S. Increases Strikes on Taliban” (February 9, 2019); and “U.S. Airstrikes Said to Kill at Least 10 Afghan Civilians” (February 11, 2019). The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) reported on March 25, 2019, that 13 civilians had been killed, mostly children, in an air strike by “international forces” near the northern city of Kunduz the previous week, according to preliminary findings. [267]

Confusion and disorientation also plagued active-duty U.S. soldiers.  Sgt. James LaPorta of the Marines Corps Infantry, for one, spoke of his motivation to go to war and his experiences in Afghanistan, filmed in the documentary, “Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror”:

I didn’t know anything about politics. I just knew we were attacked and I didn’t even know by who.  I didn’t understand the political environment around 9/11.  It was just sort of a call to serve, wanting to serve my country.  So, ten days after I graduated high school, I got into the Marine Corps.

James LaPorta

LaPorta was shipped off to Afghanistan, arriving on July 2, 2009, as a new offensive surge was getting under way.  His battalion commander welcomed the group with a speech that stressed the importance of their mission and noted that the largest helicopter operations since the Vietnam War were underway. On his first day of combat, LaPorta crammed into a helicopter that made its way to a small community of dirt huts surrounded by walls and fields.  It was quiet for the first 20 minutes, then the company began to take on fire.  The insurgents were well hidden.  “We don’t know who are the good guys and who are the bad guys,” said La Porta.  “The Taliban don’t wear uniforms.  They blend in with the local populace.”  Corporal Lance Sharp was hit.  LaPorta remained at his side as his blood poured into the ground.  Sharp could not be saved.  LaPorta asked himself, “What am I doing here?”

We had no idea what we were doing.  We did not know what the objective was.  I did not fire a single round until July 31, 2009.  This guy steps out from behind cover with an AK-47.  So I aimed down low on him.  The person that I shot didn’t look any older than 15.  And I’ve thought about what put us there in that moment.  Who was this person?  Were they really Taliban or were they forced to fight?  What if someone was invading my country?  Would I take a shot at them? [268]

Erik Erikson at the gravesite of his friend in Arlington National Cemetery

Erik Edstrom graduated from West Point and deployed to combat in Afghanistan as an infantry officer in the spring of 2007.  He led roughly 30 men in the poverty-stricken districts of Maywand and Zhari within Kandahar Province.  By the end of his tour eleven months later, 25 percent of his men had become casualties.  Yet, as he later wrote, “it was the Afghan people, not U.S. soldiers, who have been the greatest – and most numerous – victims of America’s longest war.  Nearly 4 million Afghans have been displaced from their homes.  Likewise, amid the fighting, the number of Afghan civilians who were injured or killed by our troops was multiples higher.”  At one point, he witnessed “the Arkansas National Guard shooting a busload of passengers, which should have been a court-martial offense, but was swept under the rug.”  More commonly, he saw Americans who “would not consult Afghan people about their opinions” and who “would patrol in a manner that was very aggressive.” [269]

And so I saw on a systematic basis, if I put myself in their shoes, I would never want to cooperate with the U.S.  What was it that we were doing that was particularly endearing?  We are asking them to cooperate with our invasion of their country during our war.  When dozens of wedding parties or funeral parties were struck by drones, you could see that whatever good will might have been achieved was going to dissipate.

Beyond these experiences, Edstrom noted bitterly that “the causes that these [U.S.] soldiers were being asked to participate in did not actually have anything to do with the national security of the people of the United States. . . . There is no betrayal more intimate than being sent to kill or die for nothing by your own countrymen.”

When I returned to America, the war came home with me, along with the regret of having harmed the people of Afghanistan. In the spring of 2011, while serving in the Honor Guard, I buried Tyler Parten, one of my close friends from West Point, in Arlington National Cemetery.  As the officer-in-charge, I had the somber job of handing the folded American flag to Tyler’s crying mother. [270]

Writing about his experiences in Un-American: A Soldier’s Reckoning of Our Longest War (2020), Edstrom came to the view that the “future of humanity depends on our ability to grow our capacity for cooperation, not conflict.” [271]

Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani

Indeed, in January 2020, the Iraqi Parliament passed a resolution demanding an end to “any foreign presence on Iraqi soil” and an end to the “use of Iraqi airspace, soil and water for any reason” by foreign forces, meaning the United States.  There were 5,200 U.S. troops in Iraq at the time.  The non-binding measure was largely a reaction to the U.S. assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis at the Baghdad International airport on January 3, 2020.  General Soleimani was on his way to meet Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi.  The murders were carried out by U.S. armed drones launched from the al-Asad airbase in western Iraq. [274]

Anti-American protest in Baghdad, Jan 24, 2020 (Halan Akoy, VOA)

Two days later, thousands of Iraqis filled Baghdad’s Firdos Square to honor the assassinated leaders and protest this act of U.S. terrorism.  Another demonstration was held on January 24 that drew some 250,000 protesters, many heeding the call of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.  People waved Iraqi flags and held up signs that read “no, no to America” and “no, no to occupation.”  Some men expressed their anger by burning a paper American flag, while others carried signs saying, “I am an Iraqi against the presence of America.”  Some signs said more directly, “Death to America” or “Death to Israel.”  Hoda Hashimi, an employee with the Ministry of Trade, was more diplomatic, telling a reporter, “We don’t want Americans to leave, we want the troops to leave.  We want Americans to support our country but with contracts, not troops.” [275]

Baghdad protest, Jan. 24, 2020. This young man’s sign says “I am an Iraqi against the presence of America” (Heather Murdock, VOA)

In late January, Iraq’s prime minister asked the U.S. to send a delegation to discuss a mechanism for withdrawing U.S. troops.  The U.S. State Department said in response that it was ready to “recommit to our strategic partnership – [but] not to discuss troop removal.” [276]

The region was divided up by imperial powers in the Sykes-Picot Pact (DT)

The nation of Iraq originated in a secret treaty between British and French statesmen in 1916.  The Sykes-Picot pact plotted to carve up the Ottoman empire after the First World War, assuming an Allied victory, with the British ruling the Mesopotamia region (Iraq) and the French governing Greater Syria.  The plan was more or less implemented through a League of Nations mandate in the aftermath of the war.  Iraq, as a British client state, was nominally ruled by the Hashemite monarchy and an elected Parliament in which British officials often interfered.

Iraq is divided into three major ethnic-religious-cultural groups (DT)

The coup took place on February 8, 1963.  Baathist rebels captured and executed Qasim and his top lieutenants, then went on a systematic killing spree of Communist party members.   According to a contemporary account by Time magazine, “Hundreds of dogged men in green armbands, carrying mimeographed lists of Red leaders complete with home addresses and auto license plate numbers, methodically hunted down Communists . . . By last week the new regime had killed or jailed nearly 2,500 dissident Communists.  This was enough to win the applause of Western diplomats.” [284]  It is known that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad had prepared a list of “known communists” to be targeted for capture or execution. [285]   James Akins, attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, 1963-1965, recalled in a 2004 interview that the 1963 Iraqi “revolution was of course supported by the U.S. in money and equipment as well. . . . It wasn’t talked about openly – that we were behind it – but an awful lot of people knew.” [286]   Ali Saleh Sa’adi, the Minister of the Interior of the new Baath government, plainly commented, “We came to power on a CIA train.” [287]

US envoy Donald Rumsfeld greets Iraqi President Saddam in Baghdad, Dec. 20, 1983 (Iraqi television, rebroadcast by CNN, Wikimedia)

U.S. officials were aware of Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against Iranian troops but said nothing about it.  The Reagan administration, in fact, approved the sale of chemical and biological agents to Iraq.  The Washington Post reported that a “1994 investigation by the Senate Banking Committee turned up dozens of biological agents shipped to Iraq during the mid-‘80s under license from the Commerce Department, including various strains of anthrax, subsequently identified by the Pentagon as a key component of the Iraqi biological warfare program.  The Commerce Department also approved the export of insecticides to Iraq, despite widespread suspicions that they were being used for chemical warfare.” [295]

A Kurdish woman weeps over the grave of a lost relative on the 33rd anniversary of the chemical attack on Halabja, (March 16, 2021, Shwan Mohammed, AFP)

When Kurds in the north rebelled against Iraq in the late 1980s, Hussein used chemical weapons on Kurdish villages, including a devastating attack on the city of Halabja in March 1988, which instantly killed 5,000 people. [298]   This time, the Reagan administration publicly condemned the attack as “abhorrent and unjustifiable,” but it still took no action against Iraq.  A half-year later, State Department spokesman Charles E. Redman told the press, “As a result of our evaluation of the situation, the United States government is convinced that Iraq has used chemical weapons in its military campaign against Kurdish guerrillas.”  Redman did not acknowledge Iraqi attacks against civilians, however.  He reported that during a one-hour meeting between Secretary of State George Shultz and Saadun Hammadi, Iraq’s foreign minister, “The Secretary stressed to Dr. Hammadi that we attach great importance to the further development of our relationship with Iraq, but that we do not intend to pursue this course if illegal Iraqi use of chemical weapons and other human rights abuses continue.” [299]   The U.S., in short, let the Iraqi government off with a warning.

As the overriding geopolitical concern of the Reagan administration was to ensure that Iraq was not defeated by Iran, Iraq’s use of WMD against Iran was facilitated rather than curbed.  According to the report:

The Iraqis used mustard gas and sarin prior to four major offensives in early 1988 that relied on U.S. satellite imagery, maps, and other intelligence.  These attacks helped to tilt the war in Iraq’s favor and bring Iran to the negotiating table, and they ensured that the Reagan administration’s long-standing policy of securing an Iraqi victory would succeed.  But they were also the last in a series of chemical strikes stretching back several years that the Reagan administration knew about and didn’t disclose. . . . The Reagan administration decided that it was better to let the attacks continue if they might turn the tide of the war. And even if they were discovered, the CIA wagered that international outrage and condemnation would be muted. [300]

The Persian Gulf War and its aftermath, 1991

A National Victory Day parade was held in Washington, DC, on June 8, 1991, to celebrate the US victory in the Persian Gulf War. President Bush Sr. greets Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf at the head of the parade (NARA).

Saddam Hussein remained a friend of the U.S. until he sent his troops into Kuwait in August 1990, in a dispute over oil drilling and financial loans.  Having turned on a U.S. ally, Hussein lost his protective shield and was henceforth depicted as another Adolf Hitler.  When Hussein refused to withdraw his troops from Kuwait, the U.S. organized a UN-backed coalition to force the issue, launching the Persian Gulf War in early 1991. [302]   Iraqi troops were expelled from Kuwait but Hussein remained in power, as there was no UN mandate for regime change and President Bush Sr. was cognizant of the practical difficulties of administering a country of some 20 million people divided by religion and ethnicity. [303]

Although the Hussein government was intransigent and often deceptive about its possession of WMD, UN inspectors nevertheless supervised the destruction of considerable amounts of materials over the next decade.  As Walter Pincus of the Washington Post wrote in March 2003:

Administration officials, in making the case against Iraq, repeatedly have failed to mention the considerable amount of documented weapons destruction that took place in Iraq between 1991 and 1998, when the previous U.N. Special Commission on Iraq had inspection teams in the field.  In that period, under U.N. supervision, Iraq destroyed 817 of 819 proscribed medium-range missiles, 14 launchers, 9 trailers and 56 fixed missile-launch sites.  It also destroyed 73 of 75 chemical or biological warheads and 163 warheads for conventional explosives.  Destruction of biological weapons — which were not discovered to be in Iraq’s possession until 1995 — was less advanced. The main facility where biological weapons were produced and developed, Al Hakam, was destroyed along with 60 pieces of equipment taken from three other facilities. In addition, 22 tons of growth media for biological weapons were destroyed. [308]

U.S. and British leaders gave little credence to this progress in WMD disarmament as they made their case for continued sanctions against Iraq.  Hussein’s removal, not WMD disarmament, was their overriding goal.  The sanctions against Iraq severely restricted Iraqi oil exports, which in turn created a humanitarian crisis within the country.  In 1997, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan announced that 31 percent of children under the age of five in Iraq suffered from malnutrition.  Three years later, UNICEF reported that 25 percent of children in south and central provinces of Iraq suffered from chronic malnutrition, which was often irreversible, and nine percent from acute malnutrition. [309]   In response, a number of countries sought to ease the sanctions against Iraq, but the U.S. and Great Britain resisted.  President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in a joint press conference on March 27, 2003, blamed the humanitarian disaster solely on the Iraqi leader.  Blair declared, “Over the past five years, 400,000 Iraqi children under the age of five died of malnutrition and disease . . . because of the nature of the regime under which they are living.” [310]

Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, outlines the cruise missile strike planned for the Iraqi Intelligence Service in downtown Baghdad, June 26, 1993 (Politico)

The U.S. and Britain also kept the pressure on Iraq by enforcing no-fly zones over its southern and northern regions and by periodically bombing Iraq through the Clinton years.  On June 27, 1993, the U.S. launched twenty-three cruise missiles at Iraq’s intelligence headquarters in downtown Baghdad.  Seven missed their target and struck a residential neighborhood nearby in the middle of the night and killed six people, including a man found with his baby son in his arms and one of Iraq’s most celebrated painters, Laylah al-Attar, director general of the Saddam Center for Arts.  The pretext for the bombing was to punish Hussein for allegedly having plotted to assassinate President Bush during a visit to Kuwait.  Washington claimed to have proof that Iraqi military intelligence was behind the assassination attempt; however, FBI scientist Fred Whitehurst and other experts deemed the evidence inconclusive. [311]

The 9/11/2001 terrorist attack provided the neo-cons with an unexpected opportunity to pursue their goal of regime change in Iraq (see Section II).  The following day, September 12, Richard Clarke, chief counterterrorism adviser on the National Security Council, recorded in his memoir:

I walked into a series of discussions [in the White House] about Iraq.  At first I was incredulous that we were talking about something other than getting al Qaeda.  Then I realized with almost a sharp physical pain that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were going to try to take advantage of this national tragedy to promote their agenda about Iraq.  Since the beginning of the administration, indeed well before, they had been pressing for a war with Iraq. [318]

On September 20, 2001, PNAC issued an open letter to President Bush stating that “even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.” [319]   The die was cast.  Whether or not Saddam Hussein had ties to al Qaeda, Bush would find a way to justify the overthrow of the Iraqi leader.  He would make the case that Iraq’s presumed possession of WMD combined with his allegedly “evil” nature made it incumbent upon the U.S. to oust him (see Section III).  Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill later reflected:

From the start, we were building the case against Hussein and looking at how we could take him out and change Iraq into a new country.  And if we did that, it would solve everything.  It was all about finding a way to do it.  That was the tone of it.  The President saying, “Fine.  Go find me a way to do this.” [320]

The administration moved steadily toward its goal over the next eighteen months.  On February 16, 2002, Bush authorized the CIA to aid opposition groups and initiate sabotage and disinformation operations in Iraq.  During the first two weeks of March, the Pentagon conducted a major war exercise, code-named Prominent Hammer, in preparation for an Iraqi invasion. [321]

As the momentum toward war increased, former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft offered a prescient, sober analysis of the situation.  “Think carefully,” he wrote in the Wall Street Journal in August 2022.  “Our pre-eminent security priority — underscored repeatedly by the president — is the war on terrorism.  An attack on Iraq at this time would seriously jeopardize, if not destroy, the global counterterrorist campaign we have undertaken.” He predicted that a U.S. invasion would be “very expensive” and “bloody,” and “very likely would have to be followed by a large-scale, long-term military occupation.”

But the central point is that any campaign against Iraq, whatever the strategy, cost and risks, is certain to divert us for some indefinite period from our war on terrorism.  Worse, there is a virtual consensus in the world against an attack on Iraq at this time.  So long as that sentiment persists, it would require the U.S. to pursue a virtual go-it-alone strategy against Iraq, making any military operations correspondingly more difficult and expensive.  The most serious cost, however, would be to the war on terrorism.  Ignoring that clear sentiment would result in a serious degradation in international cooperation with us against terrorism.  And make no mistake, we simply cannot win that war without enthusiastic international cooperation, especially on intelligence. [322]

Bush administration officials paid no heed.  On September 12, President Bush spoke at the United Nations, warning that if Iraq did not comply with UN resolutions, the U.S. “would not stand by and do nothing while dangers gather.”  Two weeks later, Bush was asked by a reporter, “Mr. President, do you believe that Saddam Hussein is a bigger threat to the United States than al Qaeda?”  He answered, “They’re both risks, they’re both dangerous. . . . but the danger is, is that they work in concert.  The danger is, is that al Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddam’s madness and his hatred and his capacity to extend weapons of mass destruction around the world.  Both of them need to be dealt with.” [323]   Though Saddam Hussein had no connection to al Qaeda, Bush made it appear to be so.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein talks with Republican Guard officers in Baghdad on March 1, 2003 (Iraqi News Agency, AP)

On February 12, 2003, with preparations for war in Iraq were underway, Senator Robert Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, spoke in opposition to the Bush administration’s policies on the Senate floor.  “The doctrine of preemptive war . . . appears to be in contradiction to international law and the UN charter,” he stated.  “And it is being tested at a time of worldwide terrorism, making many countries wonder if at some time they will be on our – or some other nation’s – hit list.”  He added that the “case this administration tries to make to justify its fixation with war is tainted by charges of false documents and circumstantial evidence.” [325]

The U.S. invasion of Iraq, 2003

A US soldier watches as Hussein’s statue is pulled down in central Baghdad on April 9, 2003 (Reuters)

While most Iraqis – particularly Kurds in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south – were happy to be rid of Saddam Hussein, the invasion caused much death, destruction, and suffering.  According to one report, “The Associated Press canvassed sixty of Iraq’s 124 hospitals immediately after the end of major combat operations and calculated that at least 3,420 civilians died.  The Associated Press described the count as ‘fragmentary’ and said, ‘the complete toll – if it is ever tallied – is sure to be significantly higher.’” [328]

Iraqis run for cover as British tanks open fire on Iraqi positions in the outskirts of Basra, March 30, 2003 (Anja Niedringhaus, AP)

More civilian casualties resulted from air strikes.  “All of the fifty acknowledged attacks targeting Iraqi leadership failed,” noted the Human Rights Watch report.  “While they did not kill a single targeted individual, the strikes killed and injured dozens of civilians.  Iraqis who spoke to Human Rights Watch about the attacks repeatedly stated that they believed the intended targets were not even present at the time of the strikes.”  Strikes against electrical power stations and other “dual-use” infrastructure caused indirect harm due to the disruption of basic services.  The report criticized the U.S. and U.K. for not doing “an adequate job of investigating and analyzing why civilian casualties occur.  That job, left largely to organizations like Human Rights Watch, should be the responsibility of parties to the conflict.” [329]

David Kay at a 2002 press conference (U.S. State Dept. photo by Barry Fitzgerald)

In the aftermath of the war, U.S. inspectors found no WMD in Iraq.  David Kay, who headed the U.S. search team (Iraq Survey Group), initially believed that Iraq had WMD, but after ten months of searching, found nothing of significance.  He resigned his position on January 23, 2004, telling the press, “I think there were stockpiles at the end of the first Gulf War and a combination of UN inspectors and unilateral Iraqi action got rid of them.” [332]

Iraqis loot the oil ministry storage facility in Baghdad, April 9, 2003 ( Baltimore Sun )

The first indication of the Bush administration’s deficient planning and off-kilter assumptions was a massive looting spree in Baghdad on April 9, 2003, the very day that Hussein’s statue was toppled.  According to journalist Peter Maass, who was there, the city was teeming with “swarms of people using trucks, taxis, horses, and wheelbarrows to cart away whatever they could from government buildings and banks, museums, and even hospitals.” [340]

Jay Garner (R.D. Ward, DoD)

On April 11, 2003, Garner arrived in Baghdad with a small team of eight people to assess the damage to the electrical grid, sewage facilities, hospitals, government buildings, and other infrastructure.  His reconstruction plans embraced both rebuilding and reconciliation.  His plan for maintaining law and order, for example, involved reconstituting some 250,000 Iraqi soldiers as a constabulary force.  “We wanted to keep them in their unit structures, because they had already had a command-and-control system,” Garner told an interviewer.  “They had vehicles, what was left.  They knew how to take orders and they had the basic skill sets to do the things you need to do in early reconstruction of a country.  So they were a labor force, and they [would] provide a certain amount of security, like guard static locations – guard buildings, guard ammo dumps or displaced ammunition, that type of thing.” [345]

U.S. administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer (left) sits next to Ahmad Chalabi in Baghdad, July 13, 2003 (AFP)

Bremer made larger errors of judgment that were not countermanded, issuing two edicts that he had prepared before arriving.  One disbanded the Baath Party and prohibited its higher-level members from participating in positions of political or economic leadership.  The second dissolved the Iraqi army, leaving hundreds of thousands of armed men unemployed.  These edicts were approved by Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, but not vetted by other national security principals – CIA director George Tenet and Secretary of State Colin Powell expressed surprise.  Garner, still in Baghdad, along with the CIA station chief in the city were shocked upon hearing of the edicts.  The two paid a visit to Bremer to convince him to soften the orders.  Bremer would not budge.  “Look, I have my orders, this is what I’m doing,” he said.  Garner and the CIA station chief then warned Bremer that, if carried out, the edicts would undermine the Iraqi economy by depriving it of talented administrators, and they would furthermore drive “30,000 to 50,000 Baathists underground” to take up arms against the U.S. [347]

The Bush administration’s inept management was exacerbated by poorly vetted privatization schemes.  According to Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winner in Economics and New York Times columnist (May 5, 2004):

Much has been written about the damage done by foreign policy ideologues who ignored the realities of Iraq, imagining that they could use the country to prove the truth of their military and political doctrines.  Less has been said about how dreams of making Iraq a showpiece for free trade, supply-side tax policy and privatization – dreams that were equally oblivious to the country’s realities – undermined the chances for a successful transition to democracy.  A number of people, including Jay Garner, the first U.S. administrator of Iraq, think that the Bush administration shunned early elections, which might have given legitimacy to a transitional government, so it could impose economic policies that no elected Iraqi government would have approved.  Indeed, over the past year the Coalition Provisional Authority has slashed tariffs, flattened taxes and thrown Iraqi industry wide open to foreign investors – reinforcing the sense of many Iraqis that the United States came as occupiers, not liberators.

Krugman noted that “economic planning has been subcontracted – after a highly questionable bidding procedure – to BearingPoint, a consulting firm with close ties to Jeb Bush” (the president’s brother).  The administration also “extended privatization to core military functions,” including “personal bodyguards to U.S. officials, as guards for U.S. government installations and – the latest revelation – as interrogators in Iraqi prisons.” [353]

Rahab Ali al-Musawi, 18, looks on while her three-month-old boy Ali Mohammed reacts to treatment for diarrhea in the General Teaching Hospital for Children in Baghdad, June 3, 2004 (Anja Niedringhaus, AP)

Also disconcerting for Iraqis was the decline in health and educational services due to inadequately funded government ministries.  Rather than fund the state health-care system, occupation officials promised to construct dozens of private clinics across the country.  Most of these never materialized, resulting in a decline in accessibility of basic medicines and equipment.  Doctors would prescribe medicines that pharmacies could not provide and IVs and needles had to be reused.  Doctor and nurse shortages became worse, especially as violence increased across Iraq.  The inability of occupation officials to provide clean water throughout the country along with the overflow of raw sewage into city streets resulted in outbreaks of cholera and other diseases for which hospitals were ill-equipped to treat. [358]   Schools damaged by fighting were never properly repaired and classrooms lacked basic textbooks and school supplies.  In 2005, according to an Iraqi government survey supported by UNICEF, one in six Iraqi children did not attend primary school. [359]

Gen. John Abizaid (DoD)

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez

On July 25, 2003, newly appointed CENTCOM commander General John Abizaid upgraded the insurgency to “a classical guerrilla-type campaign against us.”  It’s a “low-intensity conflict,” he said, “but it’s war.” [364]  Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, in charge of day-to-day operations, revealed another element in play.  The presence of U.S. troops in Iraq was attracting Islamic jihadists from outside the country.  As Sanchez tried to explain to CNN on July 27, “This is what I would call a terrorist magnet, where America, being present here in Iraq, creates a target of opportunity.”  He added, “The key that we must not lose sight of is that we must win this battle here in Iraq.  Otherwise America will find itself taking on these terrorists at home.” [365]

Still, the security situation in Iraq continued to decline.  A Time magazine article (December 8, 2003) written by Brian Bennett and Vivienne Walt, based in Baghdad, called attention to the conundrum of more aggressive patrolling resulting in less security:

U.S. troops face a difficult task in trying to root out the violent insurgents who want to drive them out of Iraq.  But in pursuing this deadly enemy, the Americans are frequently guilty of excesses that are turning ordinary Iraqis into foes.  Bush’s Thanksgiving visit [to Baghdad] meant little to Iraqis, who cite three areas of concern:  the killing of innocents, the “disappearance” of countrymen detained by U.S. forces, and the destruction of buildings, including family homes. . . . As U.S. forces employ more aggressive tactics to take on the resistance, these grievances are only getting worse, setting back the effort to win over local hearts and minds.  “Before the Americans came, we heard a lot about their respect for human rights,” says Khalid Mustafa Akbar, at a mourning tent for his three brothers who were shot dead while driving their pickup by a U.S. patrol outside Tikrit last week.  “But then we found it is only talk.”

U.S. officials claimed they kept no record of noncombatant fatalities.  They did acknowledge, however, that some 5,000 “suspected terrorists” were being held in custody as of early December (often without charges and without notifying families) and that a number of private houses had been demolished in Tikrit and elsewhere. [374]

First Battle of Fallujah: U.S. Marines clear portions of the city, April 7, 2004 (Marine Cpl. Matthew J. Apprendi)

Upon viewing the shocking images, Bush and company pressed General Sanchez to launch a retaliatory attack on the city.  Major General James Mattis and Lieutenant General James Conway argued against the order, citing the danger to civilians and the unlikelihood that they would apprehend the perpetrators, but they were overruled.  Operation Vigilant Resolve went forward on April 4.  Over the next six days, three Marine battalions established a cordon around the city, then began a slow, methodical advance into the city, fighting door-to-door.  Artillery and air strikes were called in to pulverize selected buildings where insurgents were thought to be hiding.  A mosque was destroyed, resulting a public relations disaster for the U.S.  In all, an estimated 220 Iraqi civilians were killed during the first two weeks of fighting.  The Coalition furthermore faced a mutiny from Iraqi forces attached to the 1 st Marine Division who refused to advance into the city.

Second Battle of Fallujah:  A U.S. Marine takes away a handcuffed captured man in the center of the city, Nov. 12, 2004 (Anja Niedringhaus, AP Pulitzer Prize winning photo)

The First Battle of Fallujah marked a victory for the insurgents, albeit a temporary one.  The Marines returned in November 2004 to fight the Second Battle of Fallujah and establish control over the city.  U.S. military officials estimated that roughly 80 percent of the civilian population fled the city before the attack.  U.S. troop fatalities from hostile incidents peaked during those two months of battle – 126 in April 2004, and 125 in November 2004. [376]

US Marines arrest city council members Nasar Wa Sulaan, Taha Rasheed, and others during a raid in the Abu Ghraib district of Baghdad, Nov. 2, 2004 (Anja Niedringhaus, AP)

Among Iraqis, particularly in Sunni provinces, the U.S. practice of detaining Iraqi men on mere suspicion of being associated with the insurgency was a major source of antagonism.  As of November 2003, the U.S. held 8,300 Iraqis in detention.  Two years later, the number rose to 13,000, with an additional 12,000 detained by Iraqi authorities. [380]   According to a 2006 investigative report by Amnesty International, “Since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 tens of thousands of people have been detained by foreign forces, mainly the US forces, without being charged or tried and without the right to challenge their detention before a judicial body.” [381]   Added to this injustice was the systematic abuse and humiliation of prisoners by U.S. military personnel, almost all of whom had no training in prison management. [382]

Hooded man at Abu Ghraib, Nov. 4, 2003 (Wikipedia)

One photo, taken on November 4, 2003, that became the iconic symbol of abuse at Abu Ghraib (but was tame enough to share in public media) showed a detainee nicknamed Gilligan (Abdou Hussain Saad Faleh) standing on a box with a hood over his head and wires attached to his hands.  He was told that if he fell off the box he would be electrocuted.  A staff sergeant stands at right while another took the picture.  The photo was one of hundreds released by the U.S. government’s Criminal Investigation Command.

Iraqi women wait outside the prison in Abu Ghraib, near Baghdad, where their male family members are being held, May 2, 2004 (Anja Niedringhausm, AP)

U.S. officials claimed that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were isolated incidents and not indicative of U.S. policy.  This claim was disputed by the Red Cross, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch, all of which documented abuses at Abu Ghraib and beyond, indicating a wide pattern of torture and brutal treatment at U.S. overseas detention centers.  Eleven U.S. soldiers were convicted of crimes related to the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, with variable sentences, but no senior U.S. military or administrative officials faced charges.  The Pentagon furthermore classified (kept secret) many of photos in the name of national security.  In 2017, a U.S. District Court judge ordered the Pentagon to release roughly 2,000 additional photos taken at Abu Ghraib and other sites in Iraq and Afghanistan. [385]

Many Sunni Iraqis regarded the de-Baathification order as a step toward “de-Sunnification,” or the disempowerment of Sunnis in favor Shiites and the Kurds. [388]   When Fallujah and other Sunni-dominated cities rebelled in 2004, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi vowed to crush the insurgency and “annihilate those terrorist groups,” which appeared to include Sunni insurgents. [389]   Terrorist groups were in fact forming and arriving in Iraq.  According to terrorism scholars Jessica Stern and Megan McBride, “with the U.S. invasion in March 2003, terrorism within Iraq’s borders rose precipitously.”

The presence of U.S. troops in the country served as a powerful recruiting tool.  Numerous jihadi leaders around the globe described the U.S. occupation as a boon for their efforts.  An Al Qaeda strategist, the Syrian born Mustafa bin Abd al Qadir Setmariam Nasar, who wrote under the pen-name al Suri, claimed that the war in Iraq almost single-handedly rescued the jihadi movement. [390]

Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), a Sunni terrorist group led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, arrived about five months after the invasion.  The group targeted not only the Coalition armies and officials, but also Iraqi Shiites.  (Although AQI adopted the al Qaeda brand name, Osama bin Laden opposed AQI’s practice of targeting other Muslim groups.)  The group is suspected of bombing one of the holiest Shiite mosques, the al-Askari Shrine in the city of Samara in February 2006, which set off a wave of retaliatory violence that left over 100 dead.  Mutual attacks continued for the next two years, creating a virtual Sunni-Shiite civil war.

President Bush and Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki of Iraq shake hands after their meeting, Sept. 25, 2007 (White House photo by Eric Draper)

On November 17, 2008, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari and U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker signed two agreements establishing a timetable for U.S. withdrawal and addressing other issues.  The Security Agreement stipulated that all U.S. combat forces would be withdrawn from Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009, and all U.S. forces would be out of Iraq by December 31, 2011.  The Strategic Framework Agreement reinforced Iraqi sovereignty by revoking legal immunity for private contractors and U.S. military personnel outside U.S. facilities, requiring civilian detainees and prisoners of war to be handed over to Iraqi authorities after 24 hours, mandating that U.S. military missions be “fully coordinated” with Iraqis, and prohibiting the U.S. from using Iraq as a launching pad for attacks against other countries. [394]   The latter stipulation marked an ironic twist from the original U.S. mission to prevent Iraq (under Saddam Hussein) from becoming a launching pad for terrorist attacks.

In June 2014, ISIS took control of the cities of Mosul and Tikrit, and ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi announced the formation of a caliphate stretching across eastern Syria and western Iraq.  Although ISIS was in essence an insurgency seeking control of territory and administering that territory once controlled, its savage methods reinforced the view in Washington that it was a terrorist group.  ISIS fighters were fanatical and brutal against their enemies, killing, raping, kidnapping, and threatening religious and ethnic minorities, including Yazidis, Shiite Muslims, and Christians.  They destroyed Shiite mosques and Christian churches, including the 1600-year-old Mar Bernham monastery built by the Assyrian King Senchareb. [402]

Residents carry the bodies of several people killed in bombed out Mosul, March 24, 2017 (Felipe Dana, AP)

Civilian casualties of the U.S. air war were considerable.  Navigating through the rubble of the once-thriving city of Mosul, CNN senior international correspondent Awra Damon, commented, “It’s hard to imagine that any rules were followed or how anyone survived.”  She noted that a “month-long investigation by the Associated Press found that 9,000 to 11,000 civilians were killed in Mosul, a third of them from Coalition airstrikes.”  Investigative journalists Azmat Khan and Anand Gopal traveled to various areas heavily bombed by the U.S. and its Iraqi allies.  They determined that one in five of the 27,500 Coalition air strikes over Iraq had resulted in at least one civilian death, and suggested that this latest surge of airstrikes “may be the least transparent war in recent American history.” [404]

Amnesty International reported that U.S. airstrikes killed hundreds of civilians in Mosul inside their own homes or in places of refuge.  In one of the deadliest strikes on March 17, 2017, “up to 150 people were reported killed in the Jadida neighborhood of West Mosul.”  According to Donatella Rovera, Senior Crisis Response Adviser at Amnesty International who carried out field investigations in Mosul:

Evidence gathered on the ground in East Mosul points to an alarming pattern of US-led coalition airstrikes which have destroyed whole houses with entire families inside.  The high civilian toll suggests that coalition forces leading the offensive in Mosul have failed to take adequate precautions to prevent civilian deaths, in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.  The fact that Iraqi authorities repeatedly advised civilians to remain at home instead of fleeing the area, indicates that coalition forces should have known that these strikes were likely to result in a significant number of civilian casualties.  Disproportionate attacks and indiscriminate attacks violate international humanitarian law and can constitute war crimes. [405]

A man overcome with grief after finding a loved one dead amid the rubble of a destroyed home following a U.S. airstrike in Mosul (Marcus Yam, Los Angeles Times )

The Irish Times described a “panorama of destruction in the neighborhood of Jadida so vast one resident compared the destruction to Hiroshima, Japan.  There was a charred arm, wrapped in a piece of red fabric poking from the rubble, rescue workers in red jumpsuits who came wore face masks to avoid the stench, some with rifles slung over their shoulders, searching the wreckage for bodies.” [406]   These comments exemplify the heavy human costs of the U.S. air assaults.  To be sure, ISIS was to blame for much of the killing in the region, but this does not exonerate the U.S. for its wanton destruction of cities and resulting civilian casualties.  The humanitarian crisis continued after ISIS collapsed in 2019.  Three years later, some 55,000 people affiliated with ISIS, 93 percent women and children, were being held at the Al Hol detention camp in northern Syria, guarded by the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.  The latter also held about 10,000 men suspected of being ISIS fighters in two dozen prisons in the area. [407]

Other fatalities from seventeen years of war include 48,000 to 52,000 Iraqi military and police, 35,000 to 40,000 opposition fighters, 8,175 U.S. military personnel and contractors, 323 Allied troops, 277 journalists and media workers, and 63 humanitarian workers – all told, 276,000 to 308,000 people.  While the Shia-Sunni sectarian war can be blamed for many fatalities, this conflict was in large part a product of the “failed state” created by the U.S. invasion.  As U.S. ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad lamented in 2006, the toppling of Hussein regime opened a “Pandora’s box” of volatile ethnic and sectarian tensions, with Sunni and Shiite extremist groups committing acts of terrorism against their fellow Muslims. [409]

Retired Lt. General Greg Newbold, former Director of Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff (2000-2002), was more specific in identifying U.S. failures, featured in a Time Magazine article in April 2006:

What we are living with now is the consequences of successive policy failures.  Some of the missteps include: the distortion of intelligence in the buildup to the war, McNamara-like micromanagement that kept our forces from having enough resources to do the job, the failure to retain and reconstitute the Iraqi military in time to help quell civil disorder, the initial denial that an insurgency was the heart of the opposition to occupation, alienation of allies who could have helped in a more robust way to rebuild Iraq, and the continuing failure of the other agencies of our government to commit assets to the same degree as the Defense Department.  My sincere view is that the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions – or bury the results.

Contrarily, Donald Rumsfeld expressed no regrets for the U.S. invasion.  In his 2011 memoir, “Known and Unknown,” he insisted, “Ridding the region of Saddam’s brutal regime has created a more stable and secure world.” [410]

Brookings Institution casualty chart, Iraq War, 2003-2013

The American public initially shared Rumsfeld’s optimism but soon came to a more somber view of U.S. involvement in Iraq.  Within a year, it was widely recognized that there were no WMD in Iraq, although many Americans still believed there was a connection between Hussein and al Qaeda.  Second, the public grew more pessimistic as invasion turned into a prolonged occupation and counterinsurgency war.  Third, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in April 2004 led many Americans to question whether the U.S. was indeed the “good guy” in the Iraq mission.  Fourth, the rising number of fatalities and injuries suffered by U.S. troops – with 331 killed in the three-month period from April through June 2007 – prompted critical questions as to the purpose of the war and when it would end.  Fifth, for some Americans at least, there was growing concern over Iraqi casualties and suffering.

• Turkey: 15% favorable vs. 72% unfavorable
• Egypt: 19% favorable vs. 79% unfavorable
• Jordan: 12% favorable vs. 86% unfavorable
• Lebanon: 45% favorable vs. 49% unfavorable
• Tunisia: 45% favorable vs. 45% unfavorable
• Pakistan: 12% favorable vs. 80% unfavorable
• Turkey: 12% vs. 58%
• Egypt: 37%  vs. 52%
• Jordan: 14%  vs. 67%
• Lebanon: 42%  vs. 47%
• Tunisia: 26%  vs. 57%
• Pakistan: 15% vs. 37%

*          *          *          *          *

• dismissing a UN resolution passed a year earlier on the Prevention of an Outer Space Arms Race by declaring its intent to deploy weapons in space;
• rejecting a UN draft proposal to enforce a 29-year-old treaty against germ warfare;
• refusing to participate in an environmental summit in Bonn in which 178 nations agreed to rules for cutting the emissions of greenhouse gases that cause global warming;
• demanding, virtually alone at a UN conference, that an agreement to limit illegal trafficking in small arms be watered down; and
• repudiating participation in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), its purpose being to investigate and prosecute individuals accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, or war crimes. [415]

The International Criminal Court, headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands.

Regarding the latter, the administration not only rejected participation in the ICC – a potential ally in the quest to bring terrorists to justice – but also vilified the new, permanent international court.  The court was officially established on July 1, 2002, after 60 countries ratified the Rome Statute.  At the behest of the Bush administration, Congress passed the American Servicemembers’ Protection Act on August 2, 2002.  The act prohibits any U.S. government official from cooperating with the ICC, bans U.S. military assistance to ICC signatories except for certain allies and clients, and authorizes the president to use “all means necessary and appropriate” to free U.S. government employees and certain other categories of U.S. citizens from ICC detainment, should this ever occur. [416]   In essence, this law was a militant statement against supranational authority and a “rules-based international order.” [417]

VP Dick Cheney in his West Wing office, March 19, 2003 (White House photo by David Bohrer)

We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side, if you will.  We’ve got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world.  A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies, if we’re going to be successful.  That’s the world these folks operate in, and so it’s going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective. . . . It is a mean, nasty, dangerous dirty business out there, and we have to operate in that arena.  I’m convinced we can do it; we can do it successfully.  But we need to make certain that we have not tied the hands, if you will, of our intelligence communities in terms of accomplishing their mission. [418]

To keep the program under wraps, the White House dissuaded Congressional committees from requiring the CIA to answer questions in open testimony about the conditions under which detainees were held, citing national security concerns. [420]   According to a 2022 report by Human Rights Watch researchers Letta Tayler and Elisa Epstein:

With the participation of at least 54 governments, the CIA secretly and extrajudicially transferred [or kidnapped] at least 119 foreign Muslims from one foreign country to another for incommunicado detention and harsh interrogation at various CIA black sites.  At least 39 of the men were subjected to “waterboarding,” “walling,” “rectal feeding” – a form of rape – and other forms of torture.  The U.S. military also held thousands of foreign Muslim security detainees and prisoners-of-war – including some women and boys – at its detention centers abroad including Abu Ghraib in Iraq, Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, and its naval base at Guantánamo, and also subjected many to physical and psychological abuse. [421]

Another means of dealing with suspected terrorists and “militants” was to assassinate them via armed drones, a new technology.  The use of drone weaponry allowed the U.S. to “hit any target anytime in the world, any weather, day or night,” in the words of General David Deptula, dean of the Air Force Association’s Billy Mitchell School of Airpower Studies. [422]   Suspects were killed without benefit of trial, judge, or jury; indeed, many did not even know they were “suspects.”

Detainees upon arrival at Camp X-Ray, Guantánamo, January 2002 (Photo by Shane T. McCoy, U.S. Navy)

The Bush administration denied those detained the right to a fair trial under U.S. law ( habeas corpus Constitutional rights) and protections against torture and ill-treatment under international law.  Administration officials claimed that Guantánamo lay outside U.S. jurisdiction, as the base was permanently leased rather than owned by the U.S.  This was patently false as every aspect of the base operated under U.S. law.  The prisoners were called “detainees” rather than “prisoners” in order to avoid international requirements related to the treatment of prisoners-of-war; and unlike prisoners-of-war, the detainees could be held indefinitely as the “war on terror” had no end.

In another case, reported the New York Times :

In May 2003, Afghan forces captured Prisoner 1051, an Afghan named Sharbat, near the scene of a roadside bomb explosion, the documents show.  He denied any involvement, saying he was a shepherd.  Guantánamo debriefers and analysts agreed, citing his consistent story, his knowledge of herding animals and his ignorance of ‘simple military and political concepts,’ according to his assessment.  Yet a military tribunal declared him an “enemy combatant” anyway, and he was not sent home until 2006. [428]

The Bush administration justified its kidnapping and incarceration program by asserting that many of the detainees were high-level al Qaeda operatives who would provide critical information when interrogated.  “However,” according to Honigsberg, “over time it became apparent that not one of the initial three hundred captives, known as enemy combatants, was anything more than a low- to mid-level participant.  A study published in 2006 that relied exclusively on government records and documents concluded that 55 percent of the detainees had not committed any hostile acts against the United States or its allies.  Only 8 percent were characterized as al Qaeda fighters.” [429]   In other words, 92 percent of the detainees knew nothing about al Qaeda, and among the alleged al Qaeda fighters, only a handful, if any, might have had knowledge of planning and operations.

UK citizens (L-R) Asif Iqbal, Shafiq Rasul, and Ruhel Ahmed were released from Guantánamo in August 2004. Rasul and Iqbal were petitioners in the Supreme Court case, Rasul v. Bush (photo by Lala Ráscic)

In June 2004, the Supreme Court ruled in Rasul v. Bush that the detainees at Guantánamo had the right to consult with lawyers and petition federal courts to review the legality of their detentions.  Still, the Bush administration continued to impede meaningful legal hearings, arguing that any trial in which evidence was presented would compromise CIA, military, and FBI investigations and sources of information. [430]   In lieu of court trials, Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 which gave statutory authorization to existing Combatant Status Review Tribunals.  Detainees were brought before these military tribunals but not allowed to see the classified evidence against them.  In virtually all cases, their status as “enemy combatants” was confirmed.

According to a 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee report on torture, “On July 24, 2002, the attorney general verbally approved the use of 10 interrogation techniques, which included: the attention grasp, walling, the facial hold, the facial slap (insult slap), cramped confinement, wall standing, stress positions, sleep deprivation, use of diapers, and use of insects.”  Other so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” were also used, according to the report:

At least five CIA detainees were subjected to ‘rectal rehydration’ or rectal feeding without documented medical necessity.  The CIA placed detainees in ice water “baths.”  The CIA led several detainees to believe they would never be allowed to leave CIA custody alive, suggesting to one detainee that he would only leave in a coffin-shaped box. . . . CIA officers also threatened at least three detainees with harm to their families – to include threats to harm the children of a detainee, threats to sexually abuse the mother of a detainee, and a threat to “cut [a detainee’s] mother’s throat.” [436]

Abu Zubaydah’s drawings, provided by his lawyer Mark Denbeaux (CNN)

Among those tortured was Abu Zubaydah, a Saudi national who was suspected of being an Al Qaeda member and arrested in Pakistan on March 28, 2002.  The CIA thought they had captured al Qaeda’s Number 3 man.  He was hauled off to “black sites” and horribly tortured before being sent to Guantánamo in September 2006 for more “enhanced interrogation techniques.”  Interrogators eventually discovered that he had never been a member of al Qaeda or fought American forces.  He was still imprisoned when ProPublica published in May 2018 a series of Zubaydah’s drawings of the torture techniques to which he had been subjected over the years.  CIA interrogators said they wanted Zubaydah to “remain in isolation and incommunicado for the remainder of his life,” according to the 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee report, no doubt to protect themselves from criminal charges.  In December 2019, Zubaydah’s lawyer Mark Denbeaux released a report entitled “How America Tortures” that included Zubaydah’s drawings, which in turn were republished in the New York Times .  Though never charged with a crime, Zubaydah remained at Guantánamo in a state of indefinite detention. [437]

Zubaydah’s drawings of water torture techniques

In May 2005, Amnesty International issued a 164-page report chastising the administration for fostering a “culture of impunity” at Guantánamo:  “Over a year after the Abu Ghraib torture scandal broke, and as evidence of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment by US forces in the ‘war on terror’ continues to mount, not one US agent has been charged with ‘war crimes’ or ‘torture’ under US law.” [439]

This drawing by Abu Zubaydah shows a CIA-approved torture technique called “cramped confinement” (Mark Denbeaux’s report)

The following year, a detailed and lengthy Senate Intelligence Committee report concluded that “CIA personnel, aided by two outside contractors, decided to initiate a program of indefinite secret detention and the use of brutal interrogation techniques in violation of U.S. law, treaty obligations, and our values.  This Committee Study documents the abuses and countless mistakes made between late 2001 and early 2009.” [442]   The committee report spelled out the administration’s unnecessary, counterproductive, and egregious practices:

• “The CIA’s use of its enhanced interrogation techniques was not an effective means of acquiring intelligence or gaining cooperation from detainees. . . . While being subjected to the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques and afterwards, multiple CIA detainees fabricated information, resulting in faulty intelligence.” (This was an important acknowledgement that torture did not enhance national security, but rather, misled counterterrorist agencies.)
• “The CIA’s justification for the use of its enhanced interrogation techniques rested on inaccurate claims of their effectiveness.” (The CIA lied about the reputed benefits of its torture techniques in order to continue them.)
• “The interrogations of CIA detainees were brutal and far worse than the CIA represented to policymakers and others. . . . The conditions of confinement for CIA detainees were harsher than the CIA had represented to policymakers and others.” (The CIA did not reveal the extent of its detainee abuses.)
• The CIA “repeatedly provided inaccurate information to the Department of Justice” and impeded effective oversight of its activities by Congress, the White House, and the Office of Inspector General. (U.S. accountability procedures were ignored.)
• “The CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program damaged the United States’ standing in the world, and resulted in other significant monetary and non-monetary costs.” [443]

Majid Khan (attorney courtesy photo to Carol Rosenberg)

Among the detainees tortured was Majid Khan, a Pakistani citizen and legal U.S. resident who graduated from a suburban Baltimore high school in 1999.  While on a trip to Pakistan to find a marriage partner in February 2002, he was recruited by al Qaeda. “I was stupid, so incredibly stupid,” he later reflected.  “But they promised to relieve my pain and purify my sins.  They promised to redeem me, and I believed them.”  On March 5, 2003, the 23-year-old Khan was apprehended by the Pakistani police and turned over to the CIA.  Khan told his captors everything he knew about al Qaeda – he had been a courier – but the CIA thought he knew more and decided to use “enhanced interrogation techniques” on him.  He was flown to a secret CIA detention center where he was kept in dungeon-like conditions and tortured – his arms chained in ways to make sleep impossible, his body submerged in icy cold water, and water poured into his nose and mouth to make him feel like he was drowning (waterboarding).  His whereabouts were kept secret from his family for three and a half years.

On September 6, 2006, President Bush announced that fourteen high-value detainees, including Khan, were at Guantánamo.  Khan was never tried in a court of law, but on April 15, 2007, he was given a chance to appeal his status as an “enemy combatant” before a Combatant Status Review Tribunal.  A prosecutor read the “facts” of his case, then Khan was escorted out of the room while the review committee heard classified information.  The committee ruled against Khan’s release.  Khan came to the conclusion that the information being withheld from him was not about his involvement in al Qaeda, which he had readily divulged, but about the abuse he had received at the hands of his captors, which U.S. officials wanted to keep secret.  As he later wrote in a letter:

U.S.A. government made a big mistake by torturing a permanent resident of U.S.A.  They had no option but to make me Top Secret detainee to do coverup on their mistake.  Not only that I was resident of U.S.A. but I officially Spoke English and if I had gone to media to show the world what they did to me then [that would put] lots of people in Washington in bad spot, possibly for long time in prison.  That is the very reason they made me Enemy Combatant, taking away all my rights, that is the very reason they made me Top Secret.  So the public won’t know what I got to Say about the crime that Bush Administration committed in the name of Good American people or in the name of So Called “War on Terror.” [445]

Khan’s accusations of torture were verified by the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on torture, released December 9, 2014, which revealed that Khan had been subjected to “rectal feeding,” a form of rape, among other forms of abuse. [446]

Hassan bin Attach (Wikipedia)

One of the detainees cleared for transfer, in April 2022, was Hassan bin Attash, a citizen of Yemen.  He was picked up by Pakistani intelligence on September 11, 2002.  Only 16 years old at the time, he was accused of working with senior level al-Qaeda operatives but never charged with a crime.  He endured two years of torture at various “black sites” in other countries before being transferred to Guantánamo in September 2004.  He is the younger brother of another Guantánamo detainee, Walid bin Attash, who was formally charged with selecting and helping to train several hijackers of the 9/11 attacks.  Walid was also tortured in the secret U.S. prison network before being transferred to Guantánamo in September 2006.  The brothers were never allowed to see or talk to each other.  Hassan became fluent in English during his long imprisonment and stated that he wants to become an Arabic-English translator after release. [449]

Mohammed al-Qahtani was cleared for transfer in February 2022 after being detained for over 20 years.  He was suspected of being a potential “20 th hijacker” in the 9/11 attacks but was never put on trial.  The Saudi native was captured along the Pakistani frontier in December 2001 and endured “brutal interrogation by the U.S. military inside a wooden hut at Camp X-Ray in late 2002 and early 2003,” according to the New York Times :

Hour-by-hour logs leaked to Time magazine showed military interrogators placed Mr. Qahtani in solitary confinement, stripped him naked, forcibly shaved him, and subjected him to prolonged sleep deprivation, dehydration, exposure to cold, and various psychological and sexual humiliations like making him bark like a dog, dance with a man and wear women’s underwear on his head.  They extracted a confession, which he later recanted.  Mr. Qahtani’s treatment was so degrading and abusive that the Bush administration official overseeing military commissions, Susan J. Crawford, concluded in 2008 that he could not be prosecuted. [450]

All in all, the abusive U.S. counterterrorist program violated U.S. and international laws, and undermined America’s self-declared leadership in the global “war on terror.”  According to legal expert Peter Jan Honigsberg:

It did not have to be this way.  We did not have to abandon our grand legal system, a system that has contributed to making the United States the most esteemed nation in the world.  We could have applied the rule of law to the people we have held since 9/11 and still protected ourselves and our nation from terrorists.  We could have charged accused terrorists with specific federal crimes or with war crimes and provided them a fair and meaningful hearing on the accusations.  It would not have been hard to do the right thing. [451]

MQ-1_Predator unmanned aircraft, fitted with missiles

The use of Remotely Piloted Vehicles, or drones, became a standard feature of America’s “war on terror,” used for both surveillance and assassinations.  Drone crews at the Creech Air Force Base in Indian Springs, Nevada, consisted of a sensor operator who guided the drone’s surveillance camera, an intelligence analyst who interpreted and documented video footage, and a pilot who directed the drone.  The crew was directed by a coordinator – from the CIA or JSOC, or possibly an authorized ground commander – who the crew called “the customer,” as in “the customer is always right.”  In actuality, the directing agencies often got it wrong.  “A survey published in 2020 found that 40 percent of drone crew members reported witnessing between one and five civilian killings,” noted the New York Times .  “Seven percent had witnessed six or more.” [452]

Pakistanis burn a mock drone aircraft during a rally against drone attacks in Peshawar on May 13, 2011 ( Christian Science Monitor )

As high-level al Qaeda members were difficult to find, the Bush administration’s drone program focused on assassinating Taliban leaders; and as the Taliban leadership moved into the Waziristan region of northwestern Pakistan, also known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), U.S. drone strikes followed.  The first drone strike in Pakistan targeted the house of local Pashtun tribal leader Sher Zaman Ashrafkhel.  Five people were killed, including Sher Zaman and his two sons, aged 16 and 10, and a young Taliban leader named Nek Mohammed. [453]

As the war in Afghanistan dragged on and frustrations mounted in Washington, the Bush administration loosened the rules of engagement for drone strikes, allowing for more civilian deaths.  In December 2007, according to counterinsurgency experts David Kilcullen and Andrew Exum, President Bush “authorized a broad expansion of drone strikes against a wide array of targets within Pakistan:  Qaeda operatives, Pakistan-based members of the Afghan Taliban insurgency and, in some cases, other militants bent on destabilizing Pakistan.”  Writing in the New York Times in May 2009, the authors argued that the costs of these drone attacks outweigh their presumed benefits:

First, the drone war has created a siege mentality among Pakistani civilians. . . . Press reports suggest that over the last three years drone strikes have killed about 14 terrorist leaders.  But, according to Pakistani sources, they have also killed some 700 civilians.  This is 50 civilians for every militant killed, a hit rate of 2 percent, hardly “precision.” . . . Second, public outrage at the strikes is hardly limited to the region in which they take place, areas of northwestern Pakistan where ethnic Pashtuns predominate.  Rather, the strikes are now exciting visceral opposition across a broad spectrum of Pakistani opinion. . . .

Imagine, for example, that burglars move into a neighborhood.  If the police were to start blowing up people’s houses from the air, would this convince homeowners to rise up against the burglars?  Wouldn’t it be more likely to turn the whole population against the police?  And if their neighbors wanted to turn the burglars in, how would they do that, exactly?  Yet this is the same basic logic underlying the drone war. [455]

Their advice went unheeded.  The Obama administration ordered 57 drone strikes in Pakistan in 2009, and 121 in 2010, according to the Costs of War Project at Brown University.  According to national security expert Karen J. Greenberg, President Obama’s increasing use of drones was prompted in large part by difficulties associated with capturing, detaining, and prosecuting prisoners – and Obama had promised to close down the Guantánamo prison.  “Between the presidential inauguration in January 2009 and the spring of 2011,” she notes, “the Obama administration had launched more than two hundred drone strikes, resulting in well over one thousand deaths, and had taken into custody only one suspected terrorist abroad.” [456]

Voice of America (VOA) map of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in Pakistan

The researchers from the Stanford International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic (Stanford Clinic) and the Global Justice Clinic at New York University (NYU Clinic) spent nine months in the FATA region of Pakistan in 2011-2012, conducting more than 130 interviews with victims, witnesses, and experts.  They also reviewed thousands of pages of documentation and media reporting in order to produce a comprehensive account of U.S. drone strikes in the region.  Their September 2012 study, like the 2014 Senate report on torture, revealed major deficiencies in U.S. policy:

• “The US government’s failure to ensure basic transparency and accountability in its targeted killing policies, to provide necessary details about its targeted killing program, or adequately to set out the legal factors involved in decisions to strike hinders necessary democratic debate about a key aspect of US foreign and national security policy.”
• “In public statements, the US states that there have been ‘no’ or “single digit’ civilian casualties. . . . The best currently available public aggregate data on drone strikes are provided by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism ( TBIJ ), an independent journalist organization. TBIJ reports that from June 2004 through mid-September 2012, available data indicate that drone strikes killed 2,562-3,325 people in Pakistan [alone], of whom 474-881 were civilians, including 176 children.  TBIJ reports that these strikes also injured an additional 1,228-1,362 individuals.”
• U.S. drone strikes caused “considerable and under-accounted harm to the daily lives of ordinary civilians, beyond death and physical injury.  Drones hover twenty-four hours a day over communities in northwest Pakistan, striking homes, vehicles, and public spaces without warning.  Their presence terrorizes men, women, and children, giving rise to anxiety and psychological trauma among civilian communities.  Those living under drones have to face the constant worry that a deadly strike may be fired at any moment, and the knowledge that they are powerless to protect themselves.  The US practice of striking one area multiple times, and evidence that it has killed rescuers, makes both community members and humanitarian workers afraid or unwilling to assist injured victims.  Some community member shy away from gathering in groups, including important tribal dispute-resolution bodies . . . Some parents choose to keep their children home, and children injured or traumatized by strikes have dropped out of school.”
• “US targeted killings and drone strike practices undermine respect for the rule of law and international legal protections and . . . may facilitate recourse to lethal force around the globe by establishing dangerous precedents for other governments. . . . and as more countries develop lethal drone technologies, these risks increase.” (Any nation can apply the rationale of “self-defense” to justify offensive, “preemptive” attacks against those it deems a security threat.)
• “The strikes have certainly killed alleged combatants and disrupted armed actor networks. However, serious concerns about the efficacy and counter-productive nature of drone strikes have been raised.  The number of ‘high-level’ targets killed as a percentage of total casualties is extremely low – estimated at just 2%.  Furthermore, evidence suggests that the US strikes have facilitated recruitment to violent non-state armed groups, and motivated further violent attacks. . . . Drone strikes have also soured many Pakistanis on cooperation with the US and undermined US-Pakistani relations.  One major study shows that 74% of Pakistanis now consider the US an enemy.” [457]

Pakistani funeral for people reportedly killed by a drone attack in Miranshah, North Waziristan, June 16, 2011 (Hashbunullah, AP, Christian Science Monitor )

On March 17, 2011, a U.S. drone fired two missiles into a large gathering near a bus depot in the town of Datta Khel, North Waziristan.  The explosions killed 42 people and injured 14.  The Obama administration publicly insisted that all those killed were insurgents.  This was not the case, however, according to the testimony of nine witnesses, survivors and family members.  The dead included 35 tribal and village leaders who had gathered for a jirga , a decision-making and dispute-resolution meeting.  There were four Taliban members present, as they were involved in one of the disputes to be settled.  According to a Pakistani military commander, Brigadier General Abdullah Dogar, the village leaders had alerted the local military post of the planned jirga ten days beforehand. [458]

Rather than acknowledge its errors and compensate the families, the Obama administration, like the Bush administration, went on the rhetorical offensive.  John Brennan, President Obama’s Chief Adviser on Counterterrorism and the U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, held a news conference on June 29, 2011, in which he declared:

One of the things President Obama has insisted on is that we’re exceptionally precise and surgical in terms of addressing the terrorist threat.  And by that I mean, if there are terrorists who are within an area where there are women and children or others, you know, we do not take such action that might put those innocent men, women and children in danger.  In fact I can say that the types of operations that the U.S. has been involved in, in the counter-terrorism realm, that nearly for the past year there hasn’t been a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the capabilities that we’ve been able to develop. [459]

In another speech on April 30, 2012, Brennan described U.S. drone use as “legal and ethical,” and if targeted properly, “a wise choice” as well. [460]

Abdulrahman al-Awlaki (Wikipedia)

Two weeks later, another U.S. armed drone killed al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, also a U.S. citizen, who had traveled to Yemen to visit his grandfather.  Also killed was Abdulrahman’s teenage cousin and five other civilians.  They had been eating dinner at an outdoor restaurant.  Abdulrahman’s grandfather, Nasser al-Awlaki, later visited the site and stood over his grandson’s grave asking why he was killed.  “Nearly two years later,” he wrote in a New York Times op-ed, “I still have no answers.  The United States government has refused to explain why Abdulrahman was killed.”  The grandfather continued:

Abdulrahman was born in Denver. He lived in America until he was 7, then came to live with me in Yemen. He was a typical teenager — he watched “The Simpsons,” listened to Snoop Dogg, read “Harry Potter” and had a Facebook page with many friends. He had a mop of curly hair, glasses like me and a wide, goofy smile.

In 2010, the Obama administration put Abdulrahman’s father, my son Anwar, on C.I.A. and Pentagon “kill lists” of suspected terrorists targeted for death. A drone took his life on Sept. 30, 2011.  The government repeatedly made accusations of terrorism against Anwar – who was also an American citizen – but never charged him with a crime.  No court ever reviewed the government’s claims nor was any evidence of criminal wrongdoing ever presented to a court.  He did not deserve to be deprived of his constitutional rights as an American citizen and killed.

A country that believes it does not even need to answer for killing its own is not the America I once knew.  From 1966 to 1977, I fulfilled a childhood dream and studied in the United States as a Fulbright scholar, earning my doctorate and then working as a researcher and assistant professor at universities in New Mexico, Nebraska and Minnesota.  I have fond memories of those years. . . .

After returning to Yemen, I used my American education and skills to help my country, serving as Yemen’s minister of agriculture and fisheries and establishing one of the country’s leading institutions of higher learning, Ibb University.  Abdulrahman used to tell me he wanted to follow in my footsteps and go back to America to study.  I can’t bear to think of those conversations now. [464]

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed a lawsuit in 2012 challenging the government’s killing of U.S. citizens.  In  Al-Aulaqi v. Panetta  (sometimes called  Al-Awlaki v. Panetta ) the ACLU and CCR charged that the assassinations violated the Constitution’s fundamental guarantee against the deprivation of life without due process of law.  No other nation had assumed this “right” to assassinate people outside of armed conflicts.  A federal district court heard oral arguments in July 2013 and dismissed the case in April 2014.  The families received no compensation or apologies. [465]

Raqqa, Syria, endured withering coalition airstrikes (Ivor Prickett, New York Times )

The U.S. attack on the Islamic State in Syria proceeded with little regard for civilian casualties.  That is the conclusion of an in-depth investigation by New York Times journalists in 2021.  According to Dave Philipps, Eric Schmitt and Mark Mazzetti:

A single top secret American strike cell launched tens of thousands of bombs and missiles against the Islamic State in Syria, but in the process of hammering a vicious enemy, the shadowy force sidestepped safeguards and repeatedly killed civilians, according to multiple current and former military and intelligence officials.  The unit was called Talon Anvil, and it worked in three shifts around the clock between 2014 and 2019, pinpointing targets for the United States’ formidable air power to hit: convoys, car bombs, command centers and squads of enemy fighters.

But people who worked with the strike cell say in the rush to destroy enemies, it circumvented rules imposed to protect noncombatants, and alarmed its partners in the military and the C.I.A. by killing people who had no role in the conflict: farmers trying to harvest, children in the street, families fleeing fighting, and villagers sheltering in buildings. [467]

U.S. airstrikes on the town of Al-Baghuz Fawqani in Syria in March 2019 killed dozens of people, including women and children.  Air Force personnel who witnessed the strike via drone surveillance alerted the Defense Department inspector general’s office, but a subsequent investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing beyond reporting procedures.  The inspector general’s report noted that 56 people had been killed in the strike and that 52 were “enemy fighters.”  All adult males at the site, whether armed or not, were classified as fighters.  Eugene Tate, a former evaluator for the Defense Department, was critical of the whitewash, saying, “But if the same mistakes were being made over and over again for years, shouldn’t someone have done something about it.  It doesn’t sit well with me, and I’m not sure it should sit well with anyone else.” [468]

Ben Emmerson, UN special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights (Martial Trezzini, AP)

In January 2013, the UN began an investigation of U.S. drone attacks.  In announcing it, Ben Emmerson, the special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, explained, “The exponential rise in the use of drone technology in a variety of military and non-military contexts represents a real challenge to the framework of established international law.” [469]   President Obama responded by issuing a new Presidential Policy Guidance directive in May 2013 that set a new theoretical standard of “near certainty” that civilians would not be harmed in drone strikes.  At the same time, he appointed John Brennan as CIA director, in charge of most drone strikes, and ordered his Justice Department to resist all efforts to expose the administration’s secret legal reasoning behind drone strikes.

Drone operators (Military.com)

That was certainly the case with the U.S. drone program as a whole, but drone operators were not necessarily immune to the human consequences of their actions.  Neal Scheuneman, for one, a drone sensor operator who retired as a master sergeant from the Air Force in 2019, related his anguish over drone strikes in a New York Times exposé titled “The Unseen Scars of the Remote Control Kill” (April 17, 2022):

A fighter jet might see a target for 20 minutes.  We had to watch a target for days, weeks and even months.  We saw him play with his kids.  We saw him interact with his family.  We watched his whole life unfold.  You are remote but also very much connected.  Then one day, when all parameters are met, you kill him.  Then you watch the death.  You see the remorse and the burial.  People often think that this job is going to be like a video game, and I have to warn them, there is no reset button.

Moral injury arises from engaging in actions that transgress one’s deeply held beliefs or being subjected to experiences that “overwhelm one’s sense of goodness and humanity.” [475]

In late 2019, Bennett Miller, an intelligence analyst, watched as a drone missile hit its target, an Afghan man said to be a high-level Taliban financier.  “For a week, the crew watched the man feed his animals, eat with family in his courtyard and walk to a nearby village,” noted the Times .  Then the kill order came “and the pilot fired a missile as the man walked down the path from his house.”

Watching the video feed afterward, Mr. Miller saw the family gather the pieces of the man and bury them.  A week later, the Taliban financier’s name appeared again on the target list.  “We got the wrong guy.  I had just killed someone’s dad,” Mr. Miller said.  “I had watched his kids pick up the body parts.  Then I had gone home and hugged my own kids.”  The same pattern occurred twice more, he said, yet the squadron leadership did nothing to address what was see as the customer’s mistakes.  Two years later, Mr. Miller was near tears when he described the strikes in an interview at his home.  “What we had done was murder, and no one seemed to notice,” he said.  “We just were told to move on.”

Former drone pilot James Klein (Hannah Yoon, New York Times )

James Klein, a former Air Force captain who flew drone Reapers at Creech Air Force Base from 2014 to 2018, noted an incident in which his crew was ordered to attack an Islamic State fighter who was pushing another man in a wheelchair on a busy city street.  The strike killed the targeted man along with three people nearby.  “There was no reason to take that shot,” Klein recounted.  “I talked to the pilot after, and she was in tears.  She did not fly again for a long time and ended up leaving for good.”  Others left as well, creating a high turnover rate in the 2,300-person drone program. [476]

Homeland Security Advisory System

The post-9/11 spirit of national unity translated into greater trust of the nation’s leaders.  Though the Bush administration had been rather inept in preventing the tragedy, the president saw his job approval rating rise by 35 percentage points in the space of three weeks after 9/11.  President Bush rode the wave, galvanizing Americans with his call to arms, vowing to take down the terrorists and their state supporters.  A survey poll in mid-September 2011 indicated that 77% of Americans favored U.S. military action, believing that the U.S. would “retaliate against whoever is responsible for the terrorist attacks.” In another poll in October 2001, 60 percent of American adults expressed trust in the federal government, a level not reached during the previous three decades. [478]   This trust carried over to the November 2002 mid-term elections, enabling Republicans to pick up eight seats in the House and two in the Senate, bucking the historical trend in which the president’s party loses seats in mid-term elections. [479]

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America photo

A Pew Research Center report, published in early July 2019, found that 64 percent – or almost two-thirds – of veterans said that the war in Iraq “was not worth fighting,” and 58 percent said the same about the war in Afghanistan.  Although U.S. soldiers were generally welcomed as “heroes” when they returned from their tours of duty, many had a difficult time readjusting to civilian life.  Suicides among active-duty personnel and veterans reached alarming proportions.  As of June 2021, 30,177 had taken their own lives.  According to the Costs of War Project, “the U.S. military suicide rate, historically low, has climbed significantly since 2004:  four times as many service members have died by suicide than in combat in the post-9/11 wars, signaling a widespread mental health crisis.”  Among the contributing factors were traumatic brain injuries, often due to blast exposure, affecting as many as 20 percent of post-9/11 service personnel. [483]

Practical problems also beset military and veteran families.  A survey conducted by the Military Family Advisory Network between October and December 2021 found that one-fifth of active service families and nearly two-fifths of veteran families surveyed reported less than $500 of emergency savings or no emergency savings fund.  The survey report noted that “nearly a quarter of enlisted families are experiencing food insecurity and that more than 60 percent of respondents pay more than they can comfortably afford for housing.”  A U.S. Department of Veterans study in January 2020 documented that 37,252 veterans experienced homelessness, roughly the same as the year before. [486]

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (left) looks on as an audience member flashes a sign that reads “Islamophobia is not the answer” at a rally in Oklahoma City, Feb. 26 2016 (Vox)

Also fueling anti-Muslim prejudice were white nationalist groups and Republican legislators in conservative states.  Between 2010 and 2017, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Republicans introduced 201 “anti-Sharia law” bills in state legislatures, and passed fourteen.  The legislation was meaningless except for its anti-Muslim symbolism.  The model legislation, published by the American Public Policy Alliance, prohibits a foreign law from overriding a state or federal law in U.S. courts, which is already the case under the U.S. Constitution. [493]

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Congress hurriedly passed the Patriot Act as a counterterrorist measure.  The act increased the ability of law enforcement and intelligence agencies to conduct surveillance, collect personal and business information, and obtain search warrants more easily.  The House passed the act, 357-66; and the Senate, 98-1.  The only “nay” vote in the Senate came from Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, who later explained:

The Patriot Act, to me, represented unchecked executive power.  Congress was giving authorities to law enforcement that they had long requested, even before 9/11, and was agreeing to do so with minimal oversight built into the system.  Suddenly, law enforcement had access to broad swaths of information via roving wiretapping authorities and expanded search warrants.  The law also expanded the definition of terrorism, enabling law enforcement to use its new authorities in more instances, including in drug enforcement and to surveil political activists. [496]

Apart from the Patriot Act, President Bush issued a secret presidential order in early 2002 that allowed the National Security Agency (NSA) to eavesdrop on Americans without the usual court-approved warrants required for domestic spying.  When the New York Times discovered the program in late 2004, White House officials asked the newspaper to keep it secret.  In December 2005, however, the Times broke the story after further research and interviews had shown that several administration officials and members of Congress from both major parties believed that the “special collection program” was illegal. [497]

Demonstrators hold up their signs during the “Stop Watching Us: A Rally Against Mass Surveillance” march near the U.S. Capitol in Washington, October 26, 2013 (Jonathan Ernst, Reuters)

Congress nonetheless aided government surveillance by passing amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) in 2007 and 2008 that protected private companies from lawsuits if they cooperated voluntarily with U.S. intelligence data collection.  Federal spy programs, which included names such as MonsterMind, X-Keyscore, Boundless Information, and PRISM, were revealed to the public on June 6, 2013, via documents released by Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor.  As the Washington Post reported, “The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track foreign targets.”  The companies include “Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, [and] Apple.”  Other articles revealed that the U.S. government was spying on leaders of other countries, including Germany’s Angela Merkel. [498]

In June 2019, FBI assistant directors Michael McGarrity and Calvin Shivers issued a statement titled “Confronting White Supremacy,” noting that “there have been more domestic terrorism subjects disrupted by arrest and more deaths caused by domestic terrorists than international terrorists in recent years.” [506]   A White House report on domestic terrorism in June 2021 put the matter in perspective:

Domestic terrorism is not a new threat in the United States.  It has, over centuries, taken many American lives and spilled much American blood – especially in communities deliberately and viciously targeted on the basis of hatred and bigotry.  After the Civil War, for example, the Ku Klux Klan waged a campaign of terror to intimidate Black voters and their white supporters and deprive them of political power, killing and injuring untold numbers of Americans.  The Klan and other white supremacists continued to terrorize Black Americans and other minorities in the decades that followed. . . .

Today’s domestic terrorists espouse a range of violent ideological motivations, including racial or ethnic bigotry and hatred as well as anti-government or anti-authority sentiment. . . . We have seen certain communities among our diverse nation – including racial, ethnic, and religious minorities; immigrants; LGBTQI+ individuals; women and girls, as well as law enforcement officers, public servants, and government officials – who have been deliberately and most often targeted by domestic terrorists. [507]

Right-wing insurrection at the nation’s Capitol, Jan. 6, 2022. A police officer was beaten, a rioter was shot, and three others died during the rampage. (Photo by Jose Luis Magana, AP)

The right-wing’s culture war in the U.S. has pushed beyond the boundaries of debate.  The infamous lethal assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, was fueled at the top by President Trump’s insistence that the 2020 election results must be overturned, and at the bottom by a host of right-wing groups that had become increasingly assertive in challenging social justice causes such as the Black Lives Matter movement.   In the aftermath of the January 6 th attack, FBI director Christopher Wray told Congress that the insurrection was not an isolated event, and that “the problem of domestic terrorism has been metastasizing across the country for a number of years.” [508]   Indeed, members of the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Patriotic Front, and other militant groups were encouraged by rightist media commentators and mainstream Republican Party leaders who propagated the idea that political liberalism and multiculturalism were un-American and even treasonous.  Wrapped in American flags, the militants purported to represent the true American way, their efforts to undermine democratic elections notwithstanding.  According to Time magazine:

To hear some of their members tell it, the groups’ goal is not just to confront local opponents but also to undermine the U.S. government, which they see as having been “coopted by a cabal of elites actively trying to strip American citizens of their rights,” in the words of the indictment against one of the Oath Keepers involved on Jan. 6.  “This all ends when we refuse to obey tyrants,” the Seattle Proud Boys chapter posted on Telegram last December, one of more than a dozen local groups that have grown in membership since Jan. 6, 2021. [509]

British peace movement’s sardonic poster of PM Tony Blair who backed the US invasion (Imperial War Museums, London)

The Bush administration’s rush to war in Afghanistan in the fall of 2001 sparked scattered protests around the United States and in other countries.  On September 29, 2001, some 20,000 people demonstrated in Washington, DC, another 10,000 in San Francisco, and smaller numbers in New York City, Los Angeles, and elsewhere.  The demonstrations were organized by ANSWER – Act Now to Stop War and End Racism – a leftist, anti-imperialist group.  Outside the U.S., on October 14, some 200,000 demonstrators took part in a peace march in central Italy, while 70,000 marched in Calcutta, India.   Smaller protests of 5,000 to 25,000 people took place that fall in Barcelona, London, Glasgow, Berlin, Gothenburg (Sweden), and Sydney and Melbourne (Australia).  Demonstrators in London on November 18 waved placards that read “Stop the War” and “Not in My Name.”  Some members of Parliament voiced criticism of Prime Minister Tony Blair’s support for the war in Afghanistan. [510]

Religious leaders and denominations were important players in the budding peace movement.  In January 2003, some 3,500 religious leaders gathered at the Washington National Cathedral and held a dramatic candlelight procession from the cathedral to the White House.  Catholic bishops issued a statement in November 2002 expressing concern that the resort to war “would not meet the strict conditions in Catholic teaching for overriding the strong presumption against the use of force,” that the use of force “might provoke the very kind of attacks that it is intended to prevent,” that war “could impose terrible new burdens on an already long-suffering civilian population” in Iraq, and that such a war “could lead to wider conflict and instability in the region.”  Similar statements urging peaceful resolution were issued by Protestant churches, including the American Baptist Churches USA, United Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ, Episcopal Church, Lutheran World Federation, and United Methodist Church; by some Jewish groups such as the Tikkun Community and Shalom Center in Philadelphia; and by the Muslim American Society and Council on American-Islamic Relations. [518]

Berlin antiwar protest in front of Brandenburg Gate, Feb. 15, 2003 (Sean Gallup, Mondoweiss) New York City rally against war in Iraq, Feb. 15, 2003 (Elvert Barnes) Huge crowds of anti-war demonstrators jammed into midtown New York on Saturday as protesters in dozens of U.S. cities joined large crowds worldwide in voicing opposition to war with Iraq.  Demonstrators converged near the United Nations to protest the possible war in just one of the more than 600 anti-war rallies around the globe. . . . Besides protests in large cities such as Chicago, Illinois; and Los Angeles, California; rallies were held across the United States in smaller towns such as Gainesville, Georgia; Macomb, Illinois; and Juneau, Alaska, according to the anti-war group United for Peace and Justice. . . .  The main demonstration [in New York City] stretched 20 blocks down First Avenue, and overflowed onto Second and Third avenues as more people tried to reach the rally.  Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu and actors Susan Sarandon and Danny Glover were among the speakers at the New York demonstration.  Bundled in a heavy coat and scarf against the freezing cold, Tutu told the cheering crowd, “We are members of one family, God’s family, the human family.”

Some 3 million people filled St. John Lateran Square in Rome in protest against war, Feb. 15, 2003 (Plinio Lepri, AP) Peace rally in Hyde Park, London, Feb. 15, 2003 (Imperial War Museums) Police in London, England, said turnout Saturday was 750,000, the largest demonstration ever in the British capital. . . . In Germany, 500,000 protested, and 300,000 gathered in 60 towns and cities across France. . . .  Protests were peaceful, but violence broke out at a rally in Athens, Greece, when dozens of hooded demonstrators among a large crowd threw rocks and gasoline bombs at police, who responded by firing tear gas. . . . Tens of thousands demonstrated in Melbourne, Australia, on Friday — the biggest peace march the city has seen since the Vietnam War — and on Saturday, tens of thousands of anti-war campaigners flocked to other cities in Australia and New Zealand. [519]

Rep. Dennis Kucinich

Two days after the global demonstrations, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Democrat of Ohio, told an audience in Los Angeles:

We [Congress] did not authorize an eye for an eye.  Nor did we ask that the blood of innocent people, who perished on September 11, be avenged with the blood of innocent villagers in Afghanistan.  We did not authorize the Administration to wage war anytime, anywhere, anyhow it pleases.  We did not authorize war without end.  We did not authorize a permanent war economy.  Yet we are upon the threshold of a permanent war economy.

After publication of his speech on the internet, Kucinich received more than 10,000 emails.  “I’ve read through a lot of them now,” he told The Nation .  “The people understand something most of Congress does not:  There is nothing unpatriotic about challenging this Administration’s policies. . . . There’s nothing unpatriotic about asserting human values and defending democratic principles.  A lot of Americans are telling me this is the highest form of patriotism.” [521]

President Obama salutes a team carrying a casket with the remains of Army Sgt. Dale R. Griffin who died in Afghanistan, at the Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, Oct. 29, 2009 (Susan Walsh, AP)

During his first term, Obama more or less fulfilled his pre-election promises, withdrawing most troops from Iraq while increasing the number in Afghanistan from 30,000 to 110,000.  The surge resulted in an increase in casualties all around with no improvement in the strategic outlook.  In his second term, Obama reversed course and downsized U.S. forces in Afghanistan to previous levels, while slightly increasing the number of troops in Iraq to about 5,000 in 2016, mainly to fight ISIS. [526]   Overall, Obama proved to be rather hawkish in foreign affairs, despite having received the Nobel Peace Prize in October 2009 “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”  He authorized more drone assassinations than his predecessor, bombed Libya (creating a new failed state), and invested in the largest nuclear arms buildup since the Cold War. [527]

IVAW WInter Soldier hearings, March 2008 (FAIR)

Peace activists, including veterans, drew attention to the increasing number of war casualties.  In July 2004, Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) was founded at the annual convention of Veterans for Peace.  The veterans called for immediate withdrawal of all Coalition forces in Iraq, reparation payments to the Iraqi people, and more support services for U.S. military personnel and veterans.  In March 2008, IVAW held Winter Soldier hearings – modeled on the 1971 hearings of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War – which included testimony from U.S. soldiers and Iraqi and Afghani civilians on the brutal effects of war.  That same month, IVAW held vigils across the nation marking the death of the 4,000 th U.S. soldier in Iraq.  By May, IVAW had 38 local chapters. [529]

Antiwar veterans and their allies gathered in Chicago in May 2012, at the site of the largest NATO summit in the organization’s history. The Memorial Day theme was “Honor the Dead, Heal the Wounded, Stop the Wars.” Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars along with women from Afghans for Peace led a peace march of thousands to the summit gates. Iraq Veterans Against the War then held a ceremony where more than 40 veterans spoke before hurling their war medals toward the gates of the NATO summit (see the video recorded by Democracy Now! here ):

My name is Iris Feliciano.  I served in the Marine Corps.  And in January of 2002, I deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.  And I want to tell the folks behind us, in these enclosed walls, where they build more policies based on lies and fear, that we no longer stand for them.  We no longer stand for their lies, their failed policies and these unjust wars.  Bring our troops home and end the war now.  They can have these back.

My name is Greg Miller.  I’m a veteran of the United States Army infantry with service in Iraq 2009.  The military hands out cheap tokens like this to soldiers, servicemembers, in an attempt to fill the void where their conscience used to be once they indoctrinate it out of you.  But that didn’t work on me, so I’m here to return my Global War on Terrorism Medal and my National Defense Medal, because they’re both lies.

My name is Maggie Martin.  I was a sergeant in the Army . I did two tours in Iraq.  No amount of medals, ribbons or flags can cover the amount of human suffering caused by these wars.  We don’t want this garbage.  We want our human rights.  We want our right to heal.

On April 4, 2004, Army Specialist Casey Sheehan was killed while on a mission in Sadr City.  His mother, Cindy Sheehan, was devastated.  She and a few other military families who had lost loved ones met with President Bush at Fort Lewis, near Tacoma, Washington, in June of 2004.  Sheehan noted in a later interview that the president seemed “sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis” and that he “feels pain for our loss,” but she could not reconcile his empathetic statements with the fact that there was no good reason for the war. [530]

“Peace Mom” Cindy Sheehan in front of the White House, Nov. 7, 2006 (Ben Schumin)

In her grief, Sheehan decided to take action.  At the invitation of the American Friends Service Committee, she spoke at the opening of an exhibit in Washington titled “Eyes Wide Open: The Human Cost of War,” which coincided with President Bush´s second inauguration in January 2005.  That same month, she began an organization called Gold Star Families for Peace, appealing to families with members killed in Iraq or Afghanistan.  In August, Sheehan requested another personal meeting with Bush and began a campout near the president’s ranch in Crawford, Texas.  The camp, known as “Camp Casey,” attracted hundreds of others and caught the media’s attention, making her well-known.  The second meeting with Bush never occurred.

*          *          *           *          *

“Meanwhile,” writes Andrew Bacevich:

naked Russian aggression in Ukraine has also offered an excuse for Washington to treat as old news or no news the embarrassing debacle of the US withdrawal from Kabul in August 2021.  The Pentagon thereby effectively shrugs off a humiliating episode that capped 20 years of misguided and mismanaged military efforts in Afghanistan.  Among the proponents of American militarism, few things are more important than forgetting – no, obliterating – those two decades of dismal failure and disappointment.  In essence, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has enabled Washington to do just that.  As if by magic, Putin has changed the subject.

As happened after the Vietnam War, cautionary lessons from the U.S. “war on terror” may be trampled asunder so as not to inhibit future U.S. power projection.  “Just as the foreign-policy establishment once absolved itself of responsibility for Vietnam and labored to ignore its lessons,” continues Bacevich, “so, too, the current generation of that establishment is palpably eager to move on.  Its members welcome the prospect of a ‘New Cold War’ that would enable the United States to relive the ostensible glory days of the last one, which included, of course, not only the Vietnam War but also Korea, a nuclear arms race, and a pattern of CIA ‘dirty tricks’ among other abominations.” [541]   In all this, what is forgotten is how much suffering, harm, and destruction has been caused by U.S. wars.

• creating economies that are ecological, sustainable, and meet basic human needs;
• building societies in which people cooperate, learn social skills and concepts (recognizing our interdependence), work for the common good, and tolerate differences;
• establishing political systems that are democratic and accountable to the people, focused on solving real problems, attentive to justice, and committed to the peaceful settlement of disputes, domestically and internationally.

*          *          *          *          *

Photo caption sources abbreviations :.

• AFP – Agence France-Presse
• AP – Associated Press
• BBC – British Broadcasting Corporation (news corporation)
• CNN – Cable News Network
• DoD – U.S. Department of Defense
• DT – Deutsche Welle (German news corporation)
• NARA – U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
• VOA – Voice of America

[1] Craig Whitlock, “At War with the Truth,” The Washington Post , December 9, 2019.  See also, Craig Whitlock,  The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War  (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2021).

[2] Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said that UN weapons inspectors “had found no evidence of the continuation or resumption of programs of weapons of mass destruction.” United Nations Security Council press release, “UN Inspectors Found No Evidence of Prohibited Weapons Programmes as of 18 March Withdrawal, Hans Blix Tells Security Council,” 5 June 2003, https://www.un.org/press/en/2003/sc7777.doc.htm.

[3] Paul Blumenthal, “The Largest Protest Ever was 15 Year Ago.  The Iraq War Isn’t Over.  What Happened?” Huffington Post , February 15, 2018, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-happened-to-the-antiwar-movement_n_5a860940e4b00bc49f424ecb; and “The Anti-War Movement,” CBS News , January 17, 2003, https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/the-anti-war-movement.

[4] Amrit Singh and Jessica Scholes, “Denmark, the CIA, and the Killing of Anwar al-Awlaki,” Open Society Justice Initiative, April 30, 2014, https://www.justiceinitiative.org/voices/denmark-cia-and-killing-anwar-al-awlaki.

[5] Neta C. Crawford and Catherine Lutz, “Human Cost of Post-9/11 Wars: Direct War Deaths in Major War Zones,” Costs of War Project, Watson Institute International & Public Affairs, Brown University, September 1, 2021,  https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2021/Costs%20of%20War_Direct%20War%20Deaths_9.1.21.pdf; “Afghan Civilians” (April 2021), Costs of War Project, https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/afghan; and “Iraqi Civilians” (June 2021), Costs of War Project, https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/iraqi.

[6] The term “imperial presidency” was popularized by Arthur Schlesinger in The Imperial Presidency (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1973).  See also, Tom Head, “History of the Imperial Presidency,” ThoughtCo., April 3, 2019, https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-the-imperial-presidency-721446.  The framing of history to reinforce beliefs in the noble character of the U.S. and its presumed beneficial role in the world is often labeled “exceptionalism,” indicating that the U.S. stands far above other nations in moral character.  This egocentric-nationalistic concept has been analyzed by many scholars, including Andrew Bacevich in The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2008).

[7] “The National Security Strategy of the United States of America,” September 2002, https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/national/nss-020920.pdf.

[8] U.S. actions overseas are invariably shaped by larger strategic goals.  On U.S. hegemony, see Noam Chomsky, in Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance  (New York: Henry Holt, 2003).  The idea of “hegemony” is distinguished from “empire” in that hegemony does not necessitate direct political control over other lands and peoples but still indicates dominance over others.  Similar to the “civilizing missions” of the former British and French empires, U.S. hegemony has been obfuscated by “elevated ideals” and “altruism” along with “intentional ignorance” by the American public (43).

[9] “United States Counterterrorism Operations, 2018-2020,” Costs of War Project, https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/2021/USCounterterrorismOperations; and George Petras, Karina Zaiets, and Veronica Bravo, “U.S. Counterterrorism operations touched 85 countries in the last 3 years alone,” USA Today , October 5, 2021, https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/2021/02/25/post-9-11-us-military-efforts-touched-85-nations-last-3-years/6564981002.

[10] William Hartung, “We’re #1: The U.S. Government is the World’s Largest Arms Dealer,” Forbes , March 18, 2022, https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhartung/2022/03/18/were-1-the-us-government-is-the-worlds-largest-arms-dealer/?sh=3ca723965bb9; and “World military expenditure passes $2 trillion for first time,” Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), April 25, 2022, https://www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2022/world-military-expenditure-passes-2-trillion-first-time.

[11] The five-point paradigm in this essay is original, but the basic idea of a trajectory of operational goals was articulated by the editors of The Nation in “Present at the Dissolution” (August 18/25, 2003).  See also, Jonathan Schell, The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2003), 324-33.  Schell points out that the Bush administration, by defining the enemy vaguely as “terrorism” rather than al Qaeda, made military action rather than police action the mainstay of “counterterrorism” operations.

[12] Richard Jackson, an international politics scholar, has pioneered the examination of discursive frames related to the “war on terror” in Writing the War on Terrorism: Language, politics and counter-terrorism (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2005), and “Genealogy, Ideology, and Counter-Terrorism: Writing Wars on Terrorism from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush Jr.,” Studies in Language and Capitalism , Issue 1, 2006: 163-193.

[13] Investigative journalists and human rights organizations have done much to pull back the curtain on the brutal nature of U.S. counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations.  See Azmat Khan, Lila Hassan, Sarah Almukhtar, and Rachel Shorey, “The Civilian Casualty Files, New York Times , December 18, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/civilian-casualty-files.html; and Human Rights Watch, “Terrorism / Counterterrorism,” https://www.hrw.org/topic/terrorism-counterterrorism.  See also, Anand Gopal, No Good Men Among the Living (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2014); Jeremy Scahill, Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield (New York: The Nation Books, 2013); and Nick Turse and Tom Englehardt, Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050 (Chicago: Dispatch Books, 2012).

[14] The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States , Official Government Edition (Washington, D.C.:  U.S. Government Printing Office, 2004), 224-25, 246.

[15] J. Samuel Walker, The Day That Shook America: A Concise History of 9/11 (Topeka: University of Kansas Press, 2021); and Hannah Hartig and Carroll Doherty, “Two Decades Later, the Enduring Legacy of 9/11,” Pew Research, September 2, 2021, https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/09/02/two-decades-later-the-enduring-legacy-of-9-11.

[16] Osama bin Laden, “Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders,” February 23, 1998, https://irp.fas.org/world/para/docs/980223-fatwa.htm.  The fatwa also denounced the U.S. economic blockade against Iraq and the U.S. alliance with Israel.  It was signed by, in addition to bin Laden (Shaykh Usamah Bin-Muhammad Bin-Ladin), Ayman al-Zawahiri of the Jihad Group in Egypt, Abu-Yasir Rifa’i Ahmad Taha of the Egyptian Islamic Group, Shaykh Mir Hamzah of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Pakistan, and Fazlur Rahman of the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh.  Regarding U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia, in August 1990, U.S. officials promised Saudi leaders that the bases would be temporary, but this proved not to be the case.  The bases were not dismantled until 2003, when major U.S. air operations were moved the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.  The U.S. still maintained a training mission at the Eskan Village, a Saudi-owned complex outside Riyadh.  See Richard A. Clarke, “Mission to Jeddah,” August 7, 2015, https://mei.edu/publications/mission-jeddah.

[17] Barton Gellman and Dana Priest, “U.S. Strikes Terrorist-Linked Sites in Afghanistan, Factory in Sudan,” Washington Post , August 21, 1998, https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/eafricabombing/stories/strikes082198.htm.  The Afghan paramilitary camps were also supported by Pakistan’s Inter-Services intelligence (ISI).  Five ISI officers were reportedly killed in the U.S. cruise missile attacks.  The missiles crossed Pakistan’s air space without permission, prompting an official protest in Islamabad; and there were anti-American demonstrations in Pakistani streets as well.  The attack on Sudan, which killed one person and injured ten, was condemned by the Arab League as a violation of Sudan’s national sovereignty.  Sudan demanded an apology and requested a UN Security Council investigation into the attack, but the Clinton administration blocked this option.  The administration offered no proof of chemical weapons production.   Raymond Bonner, “Pakistan Condemns U.S. Attack on Afghanistan,” New York Times , August 22, 1998, https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/world/africa/082298attack-pakistan.html; and “Sudan demands U.S. apology for missile attack,” CNN, August 23, 1998, http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/africa/9808/23/sudan.apology.

[18] There were, in fact, many leads on which the FBI did not follow through.  Karen J. Greenberg, in Rogue Justice: The Making of the Security State (New York: Crown Publishers, 2016), notes that “the Phoenix FBI office had been reporting on suspected ‘Al Qaeda operatives’ who had sought training at flight schools,” particularly Zacarias Moussaoui, but the FBI unit chief had judged “that there was not ‘sufficient evidence of Moussaoui’s connection to a foreign power.’”  FBI agent Coleen Rowley, who knew of this situation, was taken aback when FBI Robert Mueller announced to the nation in May 2002 that the FBI had no advance warning of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  President Bush and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice made statements to the effect that no one could have imagined the 9/11 terrorist attacks, thus exonerating themselves and the FBI and CIA.

[19] Bob Woodward, Bush at War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002), 96.  Woodward was not present at the meetings of the principals but reconstructed the conversations based on interviews with more than one hundred sources and four hours of exclusive interviews with President George W. Bush.

[20] Woodward, Bush at War , 111, 113.

[21] “President Bush’s address to a joint session of Congress and the nation,”  Washington Post , September 20, 2001.  The president’s quotes in this section are from this speech.  The speech was reportedly written by Michael J. Gerson, an idealistic conservative who later published a book titled Heroic Conservatism: Why Republicans Need to Embrace America’s Ideas (And Why They Deserve to Fail If They Don’t) (HarperOne, 2007).

[22] “Secretary’s Corner,” Homeland Security, August 2, 2021, https://www.dhs.gov/secretary.

[23] James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, “Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts,” New York Times , December 16, 2005.  The secret order was signed in 2002.

[24] David Hastings Dunn, “Bush, 11 September and the Conflicting Strategies of the ‘War on Terrorism,’” Irish Studies in International Affairs 16 (2005), 17.

[25] Jake Sherman and Agathe Sarfati, “Reflecting on the UN’s Role in Counterterrorism Twenty Years After 9/11, International Peace Institute Global Observatory , June 1, 2021, https://theglobalobservatory.org/2021/06/reflecting-on-the-uns-role-in-counterterrorism-twenty-years-after-9-11.

[26] Generally speaking, terrorism is a tactic of violence and intimidation used against civilians outside of war, designed to advance political causes.  This tactic may be employed by individuals, secretive cells, political groups, insurrectionary forces, or nations (including governments against their own people).  On September 23, 2001, President Bush signed Executive Order 13224 which defined terrorism as “an activity that (i) involves a violent act or an act dangerous to human life, property, or infrastructure; and (ii) appears to be intended – (A) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (B) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (C) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, kidnapping, or hostage-taking.”  “Executive Order 13224 (Sept. 23, 2001),” U.S. State Department, https://www.state.gov/executive-order-13224.  There is nevertheless significant ambiguity in the term “terrorist.”  States typically apply it to delegitimize guerrilla movements and insurrections they oppose, while endorsing other violent groups they support (e.g., “freedom fighters”).  The word “terrorism” comes from the Latin terrere , “to frighten.”  It came into use during the French Revolution when Maximilien Robespierre created the “regime of terror” (1793-1794), executing rivals by the guillotine.  During the 19 th century, terrorism became more associated with clandestine groups and individuals, especially anti-state anarchists.  Though state terrorism has continued – e.g., governments and related death squads who murder dissidents and opponents – the word terrorism is more often used today to describe the violence of non-state groups such as al Qaeda, while state terrorism is often referred to as repression.  See Lukasz Kamienski, “Defining Terrorism: Issues and Problems,” in Frank C. Shanty, ed., Counterterrorism: From the Cold War to the War on Terror (ABC-CLIO, August 2012), 7.

[27] “Foreign Terrorist Organizations, U.S. State Department Bureau of Counterterrorism, https://www.state.gov/foreign-terrorist-organizations; and “State Sponsors of Terrorism (U.S. list),” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Sponsors_of_Terrorism_(U.S._list).  Given that 15 of the suicidal hijackers on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia, some questioned whether the Saudi state lent support to the terrorists.  The FBI conducted an investigation of Saudi Arabia’s role in aiding the 9/11 hijackers, but the full report was classified and the 130-page overview released was heavily redacted.  The overview noted that two of the hijackers were assisted by a network affiliated with the Saudi government, including its Los Angeles consulate.  In June 2022 family members of those killed in the 9/11 attack sent a petition with 1,800 signatures to U.S. officials asking the State Department to designate Saudi Arabia as a state sponsor of terrorism.  The family members wrote, “After nearly 21 years, we are as determined as ever to hold the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia accountable for its role in the mass murder of our loved ones.”  Julian E. Barnes and Edward Wong, “Democratic Lawmakers Urge Biden to Ensure Saudi Ties Serve the U.S.,” New York Times , June 8, 2022.

[28] Bush repeated this line on November 6; see “’You are either with us or against us,’” CNN, November 6, 2001.  The first to use this line, however, was Senator Hilary Clinton of New York who told Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News on September 13, 2001: “Every nation has to either be with us, or against us. Those who harbor terrorists, or who finance them, are going to pay a price.”  See Eamon M. Cunningham, Understanding Rhetoric: A Guide to Critical Reading and Argumentation (Boca Raton, FL: Brown/Walker Press, 2018), 263.

[29] Elaine Sciolino and Steven Lee Meyers, “U.S. Plans to Act Largely Alone,” New York Times , October 7, 2001.

[30] The day after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush described them as “acts of war.”  A few days later, he referred to the wreckage in New York City as “the signs of the first battle of the war.”  Al Qaeda, too, described its jihad against the U.S. as a “war” in its 1998 fatwa , “Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places.”  Both uses of “war” elided the legal definition of war under international law, which limits “war” to conflicts between states.  Matthew Evangelista, “Coping with 9/11: Alternatives to the War Paradigm,” pp. 2-3, Costs of War Project, Watson Institute International & Public Affairs, Brown University, 2011, https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/2011/coping-911-alternatives-war-paradigm.

[31] Woodward, Bush at War , 43, 133.

[32] Woodward, Bush at War , 48; and Scott Horton,  Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan (Chicago: The Libertarian Institute, 2017), 60.  Woodward notes that “Rumsfeld worried that a coalition built around the goal of taking out as Qaeda would fall apart once they succeeded in the mission, making it more difficult to continue the war on terrorism elsewhere.”  Horton concurs, writing, “In other words, if the U.S.A. won by defeating the enemy, the war would be over.  So, to avoid that problem, they would have to be far more ambiguous about just who was to be included as enemy targets in the war.”

[33] Regarding wider wars, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, in an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press on September 30, 2001, was asked by Tim Russert, “After we are done with al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, hopefully successfully, will we then turn our attention to other states that have harbored terrorists like Iraq?”  Rumsfeld replied:  “Well, I think that we’re already turning our attention to other states.  Our focus – I mean, if al Qaeda is one of the terrorist networks that exist in the world – and the president has said that this is a broad-based effort, not simply al Qaeda – and if al Qaeda’s in 50 or 60 countries, which we know, then clearly this is not a single-country problem, nor are we thinking about a single country.”  “Text: Rumsfeld on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press,’” Washington Post , September 30, 2001.  General Wesley K. Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, wrote in his book, Winning Modern Wars: Iraq, Terrorism, and the American Empire (New York; Public Affairs, 2004):   “As I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat.  Yes we were still on tract for going against Iraq, he said.  But there was more.  This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan. . . . He said it with reproach – with disbelief, almost – at the breadth of the vision.  I moved the conversation away, for this was not something I wanted to hear.  And it was not something I wanted to see moving forward, either. . . . I left the Pentagon that afternoon deeply concerned” (page 130).

[34] “President Bush’s address to a joint session of Congress and the nation,”  Washington Post , September 20, 2001.

[35] “Asia pledges cooperation in hunt for attackers,” CNN World, September 13, 2001,https://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/east/09/12/asia.reaction/index.html; and “Taliban diplomat condemns attack,” CNN World, September 12, 2001, https://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/central/09/11/afghan.taliban.

[36] The 9/11 Commission Report , 333.

[37] Michael A. Lev, “Taliban maintains refusal to turn over bin Laden,” Chicago Tribune , October 3, 2001, https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/sns-worldtrade-taliban-chi-story.html.

[38] “Bush rejects Taliban offer to hand Bin Laden over,” The Guardian , October 14, 1001, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism5; “Bush won’t bargain for bin Laden,” Baltimore Sun , October 15, 2001, https://www.baltimoresun.com/bal-te.attacks15oct15-story.html; and Evangelista, “Coping with 9/11: Alternatives to the War Paradigm,” 8.

[39] Documents released by the U.S. State Department in response to Freedom of Information Act requests show that Taliban representatives met 30 times with Clinton administration officials, and three times with George W. Bush administration officials.  Though diplomatic efforts failed to pressure the Taliban to extradite Osama bin Laden to the U.S., according to a National Security Archive report, “The Taliban claimed that 80% of their officials and a majority of Afghans oppose Osama bin Laden’s presence, yet also claimed that the Taliban would be overthrown were they to extradite bin Laden, due to his popularity in Afghanistan and around the Muslim world.”  “The Taliban File Part IV,” August 18, 2005, The National Security Archive, George Washington University,  https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB97/index3.htm.  See also, Kabir Mohabbat and Leah McInnis, Delivering Osama: The Story of America’s Secret Envoy (S. M. Kabir Mohabbat and L. McInnis, 2004, 2011, 2020).  Mohabbat, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1956 – and a supporter of the Bush administration – acted as an unofficial U.S. envoy in meeting with Taliban leaders on a number of occasions and attempting to work a deal for the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden.  His book documents meetings between Taliban and U.S. representatives on November 2, 2000, March 21, 2001, and September 16, 2001, as well as his own meetings with Taliban leaders as an unofficial U.S. liaison.  The Nov. 2, 2000, meeting took place in Frankfurt, Germany.  Mohabbat, who served as an interpreter, reported that those in attendance included, on the Taliban side, Mullah Abdul Jalil, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mullah Abdul Razaq, the Minister of Commerce, Mullah Ahmed Jan, Governor of Zabol Province, and others (p. 218); and on the U.S. side, “Alan Eastern, Jeff Lindstead, Frank (the Assistant Director of Anti-Terrorism, State Department), Big Gary (Director of the CIA for Middle Eastern Affairs in Washington and well over six foot and 200 pounds), and Gary’s deputy, also named Gary (who we came to call Small Gary simply because he was shorter and skinnier than Big Gary” (p. 220).

[40] David B. Ottaway and Joe Stephens, “Diplomats Met With Taliban on Bin Laden,” Washington Post , October 29, 2001; and Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick,  The Untold History of the United States (New York: Gallery Books, 2019), 506.

[41] Woodward, Bush at War , 316.

[42] Gallup, “Presidential Approval Ratings — George W. Bush,” https://news.gallup.com/poll/116500/presidential-approval-ratings-george-bush.aspx.

[43] Carlotta Gall, The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghanistan, 2001-2014 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2014), 222.  See also, “The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghanistan 2001-2014: A conversation with Carlotta Gall,” Woodrow Wilson Center video, April 11, 2014, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/the-wrong-enemy-america-afghanistan-2001-2014.

[44] “Afghan Civilians,” Costs of War Project, Watson Institute, Brown University, https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/afghan.

[45] See Peter Bergen, The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2021).

[46] Alissa J. Rubin, “U.S. Passed on Taliban Surrender, and 20 Years of War Followed,” New York Times , August 23, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/23/world/middleeast/afghanistan-taliban-deal-united-states.html.

[47] Rubin, “U.S. Passed on Taliban Surrender.”

[48] “Text: Pentagon Briefing with Secretary Rumsfeld,” Washington Post , November 19, 2001, https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/specials/attacked/transcripts/rumsfeldtext_111901.html.

[49] Carter Malkasian, The American War in Afghanistan: A History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), 74.

[50] Rubin, “U.S. Passed on Taliban Surrender.”

[51] Anand Gopal, No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War Through Afghan Eyes (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2015), 192-93.

[52] For background on the Taliban and the Afghan way of war, see Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000); and Gopal, No Good Men Among the Living .

[53] Mujahideen commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, interviewed in “Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror” (Netflix film series), Season 1, Episode 4, “The Good War.”  On the other side of the coin, in terms of switching sides, military commander Abdul Rashid Dostum defended the Soviet-backed government in the 1980s, then became an ally of the U.S. two decades later.

[54] Alex Strick Van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn, An Enemy We Created: The Myth of the Taliban-Al Qaeda Merger in Afghanistan (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).

[55]  Fareed Zakarea, “A Turnaround Strategy,”  Newsweek , February 9, 2009, 37.  See also, John Mueller, The Stupidity of War: American Foreign Policy and the Case for Complacency (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2021).  Mueller, a political scientist associated with the conservative Cato Institute, writes that the better approach to counterterrorism “would have been to go after the al-Qaeda perpetrators directly rather than to wage war against Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban group, which had nothing to do with the terrorist attack.  Helping in the effort might have been Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the chief (and almost only) supporters of the Taliban.  In result, al-Qaeda might have been routed and a frustrating and disastrous 20-year war might well have been avoided” (pp. 16-17).

[56] Andrew Bacevich, “One Very Long War From Vietnam to Afghanistan,” Common Dreams , January 24, 2022, https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/01/24/one-very-long-war-vietnam-afghanistan.  The organizing principle of the Cold War included framing the pursuit of U.S. global power, influence, and hegemony as a function of “national security” or even “national defense.”  Hence, U.S. leaders expressed fears of “losing” China, Vietnam, Cuba, and other nations, as if all belonged in the U.S. orbit.  President George W. Bush connected the “war on terror” to the cold war against communism in a graduation speech at West Point on June 1, 2002, emphasizing moral continuity.  “Because the war on terror will require resolve and patience, it will also require firm moral purpose.  In this way our struggle is similar to the Cold War.  “President Bush Delivers Graduation Speech at West Point,” June 1, 2002, White House archives, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020601-3.html.

[57] “Iraq Liberation Act of 1998,” Public Law 105-338 – Oct. 31, 1998, https://www.congress.gov/105/plaws/publ338/PLAW-105publ338.pdf.  The Project for the American Century (PNAC) was a neo-conservative think tank with ties to the American Enterprise Institute.  Founded by William Kristol and Robert Kagan in the spring of 1997, PNAC envisioned unchallenged U.S. hegemony in the world, especially in the oil-rich Middle East.  The group was forthright in advocating U.S global domination, building on publisher Henry Luce’s advocacy of American hegemony, termed “the American Century,” in February 1941.  Kagan wrote in April 1996 that the U.S. should actively use its military strength and other means “to maintain a world which both supports and rests upon American hegemony.”  Robert Kagan, “American Power – A Guide for the Perplexed,” Commentary 101 (April 1996); quoted in Andrew Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 85.

[58] Woodward, Bush at War , 83-84; and Richard A. Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror (New York: Free Press, 2004), 30-31.

[59] Elisabeth Bumiller and Jane Periez, “After the Attacks: The Overview; Bush and Top Aides Proclaim Policy of ‘Ending’ States That Back Terror; Local Airports Shut After an Arrest,” New York Times , September 14, 2001, A1.

[60] Woodward, Bush at War , 83-84, 137.

[61] Ali Soufan, interviewed in “Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror” (Netflix film series), Season 1, Episode 4, “The Good War.”

[62] President George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, January 29, 2002, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020129-11.html.

[63] The “axis of evil” frame also allowed for an expansion of designated enemies.  Conservative editor and Project for the American Century member Norman Podhoretz, wrote in his journal, Commentary , in September 2002:  “The regimes that richly deserve to be overthrown and replaced are not confined to the three-singled out members of the ‘axis of evil.’  At a minimum, the axis should extend to Syria and Lebanon and Libya, as well as ‘friends’ of America like the Saudi royal family and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, along with the Palestinian Authority, whether headed by [Yasser] Arafat or one of his henchmen.”  Norman Podhoretz, “In Praise of the Bush Doctrine,” Commentary , September 2002, https://www.commentary.org/articles/norman-podhoretz/in-praise-of-the-bush-doctrine.

[64] Anthony H. Cordesman, Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East: Regional Trends, National Forces, Warfighting Capabilities, Delivery Options, and Weapons Effects (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and international Studies, 2002), 17-19, 22, 27-31, 37-40, 53-59, 90-94, 98-103; also cited in Stone and Kuznick, The Untold History of the United States , 518.

[65] The alternative to military force is diplomacy, and the major diplomatic accord designed to limit and prevent the spread of nuclear weapons is the Non-Proliferation Treaty, signed in 1968.  According to the U.S. State Department website:  “The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, more commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), has made the world safer and more prosperous for over fifty years.  The NPT, with its three pillars of nonproliferation, disarmament, and peaceful uses of nuclear energy, is the cornerstone of the global nuclear nonproliferation regime.  The Treaty first entered into force in 1970 and was extended indefinitely in 1995.  Today, the NPT has become nearly universal, with 191 States Parties.  Over the years, the NPT has helped prevent additional states from acquiring nuclear weapons, provided the confidence necessary to facilitate cooperation on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and fostered a security environment that has enabled dramatic reductions in nuclear stockpiles and that is essential for future progress on nuclear disarmament.  The United States is committed to upholding and strengthening the NPT while restoring U.S. leadership on arms control and nonproliferation.   Effective arms control enhances stability, transparency, and predictability while reducing the possibility of costly, dangerous arms races.  Working closely with our partners and allies around the world, the United States will address 21 st century challenges while preserving and strengthening the Treaty for future generations. . . . The Treaty allows for the Parties to gather every five years for the NPT Review Conference (RevCon) to review its operation.”  U.S. Department of State, “Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,” https://www.state.gov/nuclear-nonproliferation-treaty.

[66] The National Security Strategy of the United States of America , September 2002, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/nsc/nss/2002.  Section V states:  “The United States will not use force in all cases to preempt emerging threats, nor should nations use preemption as a pretext for aggression. Yet in an age where the enemies of civilization openly and actively seek the world’s most destructive technologies, the United States cannot remain idle while dangers gather. We will always proceed deliberately, weighing the consequences of our actions.”

[67] Patrick Hayden, “The War on Terror and the Just Use of Military Force,” in Tom Lansford, Robert P. Watson, and Jack Covarrubias, America’s War on Terror (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009), 66.

[68] See Daryl G. Kimball, “Separating Fact from Bush Administration Fiction About Iraq’s Suspected WMD (Again),” Arms Control Association, February 9, 2011, https://www.armscontrol.org/blog/2011-02-09/separating-fact-bush-administration-fiction-about-iraqs-suspected-wmd-again.

[69] “Interview With Condoleezza Rice; Pataki Talks About 9-11; Graham, Shelby Discuss War on Terrorism,” CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, aired September 8, 2002.  President Bush followed Rice’s “mushroom cloud” warning with one of his own a month later, saying, “we cannot wait for the final proof – the smoking gun – that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”  David E. Sanger, “Threats and Responses: The President’s Speech,” New York Times , October 8, 2002.

[70] Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (New York: Doubleday, 2007), 486; cited in Stone and Kuznick, The Untold History of the United States , 515.

[71] David Zarefsky, “Making the Case for War: Colin Powell at the United Nations,” Rhetoric and Public Affairs 10, no. 2 (2007): 284–85.

[72] Bonnie Azab Powell, “U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix faults Bush administration for lack of “critical thinking” in Iraq” (CNN reporter Christiane Amanpour interviews former U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix), UC Berkeley News, March 18, 2004, https://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/03/18_blix.shtml.  See also, Hans Blix, Disarming Iraq (New York: Pantheon, 2004.

[73] Clarke, Against All Enemies , 273, 289-90.

[74] Bruno Tertrais, War without End: A View from Abroad (London: New Press, 2004), 85; and Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiére, Terrorism and the War in Iraq (Washington, D.C.: Center on the United States and France, May 2003), 1; cited in Robert A. Pape, “Soft Balancing against the United States,” International Security , Vol. 30, No. 1 (Summer 2005), 29-30.

[75] According to a Congressional Research Study:  “In mid-January 2003, polls showed that a majority of Americans wanted the support of allies before the United States launched a war against Iraq.  The polls shifted on this point after the State of the Union message, with a majority coming to favor a war even without explicit U.N. approval.  Polls shifted further in the administration’s direction following Secretary Powell’s February 5 th presentation to the Security Council.  Although subsequent polls showed some slippage in support for a war, President Bush’s speech on the evening of March 17 rallied public support once again.  A Washington Post -ABC News poll taken just afterward, showed that 71% supported war with Iraq and that 66% supported the President’s decision not to seek a U.N. Security Council vote.”  “Iraq War: Background and Issues Overview,” April 22, 2003, CRS Report for Congress, April 22, 2003, page 4, https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metacrs4941.

[76] Paul Blumenthal, “The Largest Protest Ever was 15 Year Ago.  The Iraq War Isn’t Over.  What Happened?” Huffington Post , February 15, 2018, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-happened-to-the-antiwar-movement_n_5a860940e4b00bc49f424ecb.

[77] “Largest antiwar rally, Guinness Book of Records, https://guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/74335-largest-anti-war-rally.

[78] Phyllis Bennis, “February 15, 2003. The Day the World Said No to War,” Institute for Policy Studies, February 15, 2013, https://ips-dc.org/february_15_2003_the_day_the_world_said_no_to_war.

[79] Ewen MacAskill and Julian Borger, “Iraq war was illegal and breached UN charter, says Annan,” The Guardian , September 15, 2004, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/16/iraq.iraq.  On November 8, 2002, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1441 which demanded that Iraq allow inspections for WMD to resume within the next 45 days.  The resolution required Iraq to provide a full accounting of all aspects of its programs “to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and other delivery systems” as well as the “precise locations of such weapons, components, subcomponents, stocks of agents, and related material and equipment.”  United Nations Security Council, “Resolution 1441 Adopted by the Security Council at its 4644 th meeting, on 8 November 2002,” https://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/documents/1441.pdf.  Speaking after the adoption of Resolution 1441, U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte insisted that the U.S. could interpret Iraq’s subsequent compliance on its own and take action against Iraq, all but nullifying the principle of collective decision-making and action.  He stated that if the Security Council failed to act decisively in the event of a further Iraqi violation, “this resolution does not constrain any Member State from acting to defend itself against the threat posed by Iraq, or to enforce relevant UN resolutions and protect world peace and security.”  Council Members, he added, “can rely on the United States to live up to its responsibilities if the Iraqi regime persists with its refusal to disarm.”  The said “responsibilities,” however, were not conferred upon the U.S. by the UN but rather self-asserted as a Great Power.  Russian Ambassador Sergey Lavrov stated that the resolution “does not contain any provisions about automatic use of force.”  “Security Council members say new Iraq measure contains no automatic triggers for force,” UN News , November 8, 2002, https://news.un.org/en/story/2002/11/50892-security-council-members-say-new-iraq-measure-contains-no-automatic-triggers.

[80] “Iraq – ICJ Deplores Moves Toward a War of Aggression on Iraq,” International Commission of Jurists Legal Resource Center, March 18, 2003, http://www.icj.org/news.php3?id_article=2770&lang=en.

[81] “Iraq war illegal, says Annan,” BBC News, September 16, 2004, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3661134.stm.

[82] “Views of a Changing World 2003: War With Iraq Further Divides Global Publics,” Pew Research Center report, June 3, 2003, https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2003/06/03/views-of-a-changing-world-2003.

[83] “Bush wraps up UK visit: Mass antiwar protests in London,” CNN, November 20, 2003, https://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/11/20/britain.bush/index.html; and “Thousands protest at Bush visit to Ireland,” The Irish Times , June 26, 2004, https://www.irishtimes.com/news/thousands-protest-at-bush-visit-to-ireland-1.983207.

[84] Stephanie Savell, “The 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force: A Comprehensive Look at Where and How It Has Been Used,” Cost of War project, Watson Institute for International & Public Affairs, Brown University, December 14, 2021, https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2021/Costs%20of%20War_2001%20AUMF.pdf; and Karen J. Greenberg, Subtle Tools: The Dismantling of American Democracy from the War on Terror to Donald Trump (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2021), 11-15.

[85] Public Law 107-40, 107 th Congress, Joint Resolution: To authorize the use of United Sates Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States,” https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ40/PLAW-107publ40.pdf.

[86] David Abramowitz, “The President, the Congress, and Use of Force: Legal and Political Considerations in Authorizing Use of Force Against International Terrorism.” Harvard International Law Journal 43 (2002), 73-74.  The initial White House draft of the AUMF legislation had sought even more powers, including full presidential authority “to deter and pre-empt any future acts of terrorism or aggression,” thus allowing the U.S. to engage in preemptive attacks; also waiving human rights restrictions on foreign aid and restricting Congressional access to classified briefings.  Congress diluted these original proposals but still provided the White House with substantial leeway, which it used to conduct drone strikes in nations with which the U.S. was not at war, to detain “enemy combatants” at the Guantánamo prison without charges, and to secretly collect information on Americans without warrants.

[87] Greenberg, Subtle Tools , 13.  Karen J. Greenberg is an American historian, professor, author, and founder and director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University School of Law.

[88] Austin Wright, “How Barbara Lee Became An Army of One,” Politico Magazine , July 30, 2017, https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/30/how-barbara-lee-became-an-army-of-one-215434.

[89] “H.J.Res.114 – Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002” (Public Law No: 107-243, October 16, 2002), 107 th Congress (2001-2002), https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/house-joint-resolution/114/text.

[90] Ambassador Spiers wrote in Vermont’s  Rutland Herald in March 2004; quoted in Katrina vanden Heuvel, “It’s Not a ‘War’ on Terror,” The Nation , September 8, 2006, https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/its-not-war-terror-0.  See also, Carol K. Winkler, In the Name of Terrorism: Presidents on Political Violence in the Post-World War II Era (New York: SUNY Press, 2006).  Winkler writes (pp. 15-16):  “For administrations that focus on crime as the featured element of their terrorism narratives, the ideological force of the term in comparatively small. . . . The war narrative, by contrast, invites the public to embrace an ideological perspective related to the conflict.  The culture is under attack, not from an individual as the crime narrative would portend, but from a menacing group that threatens the continued existence of America’s cherished values.”

[91] “Statement of Hon. Benjamin L. Cardin, U.S. Senator from Maryland,” The Authorizations for the Use of Military Force: Administration Perspective; Hearing before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, 115 th Congress, First Session, October 30, 2017 (Washington: U.S. Government Publishing Office, 2019), pp. 3-5, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-115shrg37142/html/CHRG-115shrg37142.htm.

[92] Rep. Barbara Lee, interviewed in “Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror” Netflix documentary film, Season 1, Episode 5, “Graveyard of Empires.”

[93] Miriam Khan, “House votes to repeal 2002 AUMF in effort to rein in presidential war powers,” ABC News, June 17, 2021, https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/house-votes-repeal-2002-aumf-effort-rein-presidential/story?id=78337823.

[94] Theodore Roosevelt, “Fourth Annual Message to Congress,” December 6, 1904, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29545.

[95] President Woodrow Wilson, “Joint Address to Congress Leading to a Declaration of War Against Germany (1917),” April 2, 1917, U.S. National Archives, https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/address-to-congress-declaration-of-war-against-germany.   See Charles F. Howlett, Jeremy Kuzmarov, and Roger Peace, “United States Participation in World War One,” United States Foreign Policy History and Resource Guide website, 2018, https://peacehistory-usfp.org/ww1 ; and Roger Peace, “’Yankee Imperialism,’ 1901-1934,” United States Foreign Policy History and Resource Guide website, 2018, https://peacehistory-usfp.org/yankee-imperialism .

[96] “Inaugural Address of President John F. Kennedy, Washington, D.C., January 20, 1961,” Presidential Library, https://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations/Inaugural-Address.aspx.

[97] The U.S. official quoted was Joseph Jones, special assistant to the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, cited in Lawrence S. Wittner,  American Intervention in Greece, 1943-1949  (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), 77.

[98] See Roger Peace, “Cold War interventionism, 1945-1990,” United States Foreign Policy History and Resource Guide website, 2019, https://peacehistory-usfp.org/cold-war , especially Section IV.

[99] Winkler, In the Name of Terrorism , 35.

[100] Alfred W. McCoy, “Imperial Hubris: Information Infrastructure and America’s Ascent to Global Power,” Internet Archive, pp. 18-19, https://archive.org/stream/Imperial-Hubris-Alfred-W-McCoy/McCoy_Definitivo_djvu.txt.  See also, Roger Peace, John Marciano, and Jeremy Kuzmarov, “The Vietnam War,” United States Foreign Policy History and Resource Guide website, 2017, https://peacehistory-usfp.org/vietnam-war .  Another Orwellian named program, “Operation Ranch Hand,” involved spraying nineteen million gallons of environmental poisons – Agent Orange and Agent Blue – on five million acres in South Vietnam (America’s ally), resulting in miscarriages and birth defects long after the war ended.

[101] Elizabeth Schmidt, Foreign Intervention in Africa after the Cold War: Sovereignty, Responsibility, and the War on Terror (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2018), 6.  See also, John K. Cooley, Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism , 3rd ed. (Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, 2002); Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (New York: Penguin, 2004); and Mahmood Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War and the Roots of Terror (New York: Pantheon, 2004).

[102] According to the historian David Gibbs, U.S. officials eschewed a negotiated settlement in Afghanistan.  In 1989, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev proposed a general settlement of the Afghan War entailing a symmetrical cutoff of all Soviet aid to the Najibullah government and all U.S. aid to the Mujahideen.  President George H. W. Bush (Sr.) was not interested, expecting a Mujahideen victory.   President Mohammad Najibullah was prescient in warning that instability and more war would ensue if the Islamic fundamentalists took over.  David M. Gibbs, “Afghanistan and the politics of quagmire: A retrospective analysis of US policy,” in Adenrele Awotona, ed.,  Rebuilding Afghanistan in Times of Crisis: A Global Response (London: Routledge, 2019), 159.  On U.S. perceptions of success, see “The Brzezinski Interview with  Le Nouvel Observateur  (1998),” https://dgibbs.faculty.arizona.edu/brzezinski_interview.

[103] For background on counterterrorism operations, see Walker, The Day that Shook America , Chapter One.

[104] The Reagan administration’s muscular policies included supporting insurgencies in Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Angola, Mozambique, and Cambodia, aiding client states and allies, including El Salvador, Chile, and South Africa, irrespective of human rights abuses; burying détente with the Soviet Union (at least initially); and operating without regard to international law, exemplified by the U.S. invasion of Grenada in October 1983, which the UN General Assembly’s denounced as a “flagrant violation of international law.”  Richard Bernstein, “U.S. Vetoes U.N. Resolution ‘Deploring’ Grenada Invasion,” New York Times , October 29, 1983.  See also, Philip W. Travis, Reagan’s War on Terrorism in Nicaragua: The Outlaw State (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2017); and David C. Wills, The First War on Terrorism: Counter-terrorism Policy during the Reagan Administration (New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003).

[105] Don Dberdorfer, “Haig Calls Terrorism Top Priority, Washington Post , January 29, 1981.  Haig wanted the U.S. media and public to focus on the human rights abuses of U.S. adversaries such as the Soviet Union, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Libya, rather than U.S. friends such as the Salvadoran, Chilean, and South African governments.  Regarding the South African government, whose Apartheid policies discriminated against the 80% black majority, President Reagan resisted the international campaign of sanctions, boycotts, and divestments aimed at ending the Apartheid system, calling instead for “constructive engagement.”  Congress nevertheless passed the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 over President Reagan’s veto.

[106] Philip Taubman, “U.S. Tries to Back Up Haig on Terrorism, New York Times , May 3, 1981.

[107] On U.S. support for violently repressive regimes in Latin America, see Stephen G. Rabe,  The Killing Zone: The United States Wages Cold War in Latin America  (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).  On El Salvador, see From Madness to Hope: the 12-year war in El Salvador: Report of the Commission on the Truth for El Salvador  (1993), https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/file/ElSalvador-Report.pdf; Guy Gugliotta and Douglas Farah, “12 Years of Tortured Truth on El Salvador,” Washington Post , March 21, 1992; and Mark Danner,  The Massacre at El Mozote  (New York: Vintage, 1994).  The human rights movement that emerged in the U.S. during the 1970s was largely motivated by the contradiction between official U.S. pronouncements in support of political freedom, democracy, and human rights, and actual foreign policy practices that flagrantly ignored these principles, particularly in Latin America.  Congress and the Carter administration restricted U.S. aid to some repressive governments, notably Guatemala and Argentina, and not others, notably Iran.  The Reagan administration sought to return to the pre-human rights movement nationalist standard of rewarding client states irrespective of human rights abuses.

[108] “Statement by the Principal Deputy Press Secretary on Combatting Terrorism (NSC-NSDD-138),” April 26, 1984, https://irp.fas.org/offdocs/nsdd/nsdd-138.htm.

[109] Ronald Reagan, “Proclamation 5266 – A time of Remembrance for All Victims of Terrorism Throughout the World,” October 19, 1984; Ronald Reagan, “Remarks at Annual Convention of the American Bar Association,” July 8, 1985; Ronald Reagan, “Remarks to the International Forum of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States,” April 23, 1986; and Ronald Reagan, “The President’s News Conference,” May 7, 1986; also quoted in Jackson, “Genealogy, Ideology, and Counter-Terrorism,” 166, 168, 170.  Unless otherwise noted, all speeches of President Reagan can be found in The Public Papers of President Ronald W. Reagan, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/public-papers-president-ronald-reagan.

[110] George Shultz, “Terrorism and the Modern World,” October 25, 1984, Current Policy, U.S. Dept. of State Bulletin , Vol. 84 (December 1984), link.gale.com/apps/doc/A3536847/AONE?u=anon~73f05acd&sid=googleScholar&xid=06417278; quoted in Jackson, “Genealogy, Ideology, and Counter-Terrorism,” 166.

[111] Public Report of the Vice President’s Task Force on Combatting Terrorism , February 1986, U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1986), 5.

[112] “United States Crime Rates 1960-2019, https://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm; “Motor vehicle fatality rate in U.S. by year,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year; “United States drug overdose death rates and totals over time,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_drug_overdose_death_rates_and_totals_over_time; and Chris Robbins, “Lightning Stats for Injuries & Fatalities 1940 to 2015, September 16, 2016, https://www.iweathernet.com/thunderstorms/annual-lightning-injuries-fatalities-1940-to-2015.

[113] Wills, The First War on Terrorism , 6-10.  According to Wills, during Reagan’s eight-year term of office, there were 636 international terrorist incidents and, of these, 126 involved some level of violence, injury, or attempted harm to Americans.  Wills briefly lists the 126 incidents, which reveal a total of 518 U.S. deaths over eight years, 248 military and 270 civilian.  The military deaths include four U.S. officers killed in El Salvador in 1985, a country riven by civil war in which the U.S. backed the Salvadoran military.  Following the Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon, U.S. warships shelled Syrian-backed militias for two months before withdrawing the Marines in February 1984.

[114] “United States Crime Rates 1960-2019,” https://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm.

[115] Richard Jackson, “Genealogy, Ideology, and Counter-Terrorism, 166.

[116] Ronald Reagan, “Remarks at Annual Convention of the American Bar Association,” July 8, 1985; also quoted in Jackson, “Genealogy, Ideology, and Counter-Terrorism,” 180.

[117] United Nations Charter, https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/chapter-1.

[118] Secretary of State George Shultz, “The Struggle Against Terrorism,” Address before the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith on the Occasion of Receiving the Joseph Prize for Human Rights in Palm Beach, Florida, February 12, 1988, reprinted in Current Policy No. 1045, U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, Washington, D.C., online.

[119] Gregory Francis Intoccia, “American Bombing of Libya: An International Legal Analysis,” Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law , Vol. 19, Issue 2 (1987), 199.  Intoccia provides a brief history of the lead-up to the U.S. bombing of Libya, the main points of which follow:  Although Libyan leader Col. Muammar Qadhafi did not acknowledge support for terrorist activities, various intelligence agencies in Europe linked Libyan agents to terrorist bombings of Rome and Vienna airline offices in December 1985, which Qadhafi referred to as “heroic.”  The Abu Nidal organization, deemed a Palestinian terrorist organization, also had its headquarters in Libya.  In mid-January 1986, the U.S. imposed economic sanctions against Libya.  This was followed two weeks later by U.S. Navy exercises in international waters that Libya claimed as its own.  On March 24, 1986, Libyan forces fired six missiles at U.S. planes operating more than twelve miles away from the Libyan coastline but within waters which Libya considered its own.  The U.S. Navy responded by attacking two Libyan patrol boats and one missile site.  On April 5, 1986, a bomb explosion in a West German discotheque frequented by American servicemen killed three, including two Americans, and wounded 154, including 50 to 60 Americans.  France expelled two Libyan diplomats and two other Arabs who were purportedly communicating with people believed to be planning attacks against American installations and personnel in Europe.  Such was the lead-up to the U.S. bombing of Libya on April 15, 1986, which, according to Libyan officials, killed 37 and injured 93.  Among those killed was a young girl who Qadhafi claimed was his stepdaughter.  Two of his sons were wounded.  Intoccia notes that the U.S. ambassador to the UN, Vernon Walters, “defended the American raid in the UN as being in accordance with international law. . . . Referring to the bombing of the West German discotheque, he said:  ‘In light of this reprehensible act of violence – only the latest in an ongoing pattern of attacks by Libya – and clear evidence that Libya is planning a multitude of future attacks, the United States was compelled to exercise its rights of self-defense’” (191).  Intoccia examines the legality of retaliatory measures and concludes that “contemporary international standards regarding use of force no longer allow states to resort to armed retaliation.  This appears to be a settled doctrine although some evidence exists that the international community is increasingly tolerant of some types of reprisals” (200).  Retaliatory measures worked both ways, as following the U.S. bombing of Libya, explosions “ripped through American business offices in France and British business offices in Lebanon.  Throughout the world, threats were made on American installations” (186-87).

[120] Intoccia, “American Bombing of Libya: An International Legal Analysis,” 187-89; and United Nations General Assembly Resolution 41/38, “Declaration of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the Organization of African Unity on the aerial and naval military attack against the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya by the present United States Administration in April 1986, https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/495/46/IMG/NR049546.pdf?OpenElement.

[121] Ronald Reagan, “Remarks Announcing the Release of the Hostages from the Trans World Airlines Hijacking Incident,” June 30, 1985; Ronald Reagan, “Remarks Following Discussions with Prime Minister Shimon Peres of Israel,” October 17, 1985; Ronald Reagan, “Remarks at a White House Meeting With Members of the American Business Conference,” April 15, 1986; and “Speech to the National Association of Evangelicals,” March 8, 1983.

[122] The framing of history to reinforce beliefs in the noble character of the U.S. and its outsized role in the world is often labeled “exceptionalism.”   On the debate over the character of U.S. foreign policies among historians, see Roger Peace, “Introduction: The Fifth Estate,” U.S. Foreign Policy History & Resource Guide, 2021, https://peacehistory-usfp.org/intro .

[123] For a comprehensive overview of U.S. policies in Central America during the Carter and Reagan years, see William M. LeoGrande,  Our Own Backyard:  The United States in Central America, 1977-1992  (Chapel Hill: Univ. of N. Carolina Press, 1998).  On the Reagan administration’s framing of its proxy war against Nicaragua, the salience of its arguments, public opposition to Reagan’s policies in Nicaragua, and transnational connections between U.S. activist groups and the Nicaraguan government and communities, see Roger Peace, A Call to Conscience: The Anti-Contra War Campaign (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2012); and Virginia S. Williams, Roger Peace, and Jeremy Kuzmarov, “Central America wars, 1980s,” United States Foreign Policy History & Resource Guide, 2018, updated January 2022, https://peacehistory-usfp.org/central-america-wars .

[124] On U.S.-supported Contra terrorism, see Gordon Mott, “In a Nicaraguan Village, ‘We’re Used to Gunfire,’” New York Times , Nov. 11, 1984; and Reed Brody, Contra Terror in Nicaragua: Report of a Fact-Finding Mission, September 1984-January 1985 (Boston: South End Press, 1985).  In December 1984, Contra commander Bosco Matamoros acknowledged that “several hundred cases” of rebel attacks against civilians had taken place over the past two years.  Joel Brinkley, “Nicaragua Rebels Accused of Abuses,” New York Times , Dec. 27, 1984.

[125] “C.I.A. Said to Produce Manual for anti-Sandinistas,” New York Times , Oct. 15, 1984.

[126] Joel Brinkley, “Democrats Assail C.I.A. Primer for Latin Rebels,” New York Times , Oct. 18, 1984, A6.

[127] Joanne Omang, “Inquiry Finds Atrocities By Nicaraguan ‘Contras,’” Washington Post , March 7, 1985, A14.

[128] Statement of Adm. Stansfield Turner, Former Director of Central Intelligence” (April 16, 1985), U.S. Support for the Contras, Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, Ninety-Ninth Congress, First Session, April 16, 17 and 18, 1985 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985), 4.

[129] In 1983, the Reagan administration created a special propaganda agency, the Office for Public Diplomacy (S/LPD), for the purpose of spreading its views on Central America.  The overall theme for propagation was summarized in the agency’s “Public Diplomacy Action Plan” dated March 12, 1985: “The Nicaraguan Freedom Fighters are fighters for freedom in the American tradition; FSLN are evil.”  [Col. Daniel Jacobowitz, “Public Diplomacy Action Plan: Support for the White House Educational Campaign,” March 12, 1985, National Security Archive, Iran-Contra collection, IC00934, 2-3.  The agency was called the Office of Public Diplomacy (S/LPD).]   An investigation into S/LPD’s operations by the General Accounting Office in 1987 led to the conclusion that the agency had engaged “in prohibited, covert propaganda activities designed to influence the media and the public to support the Administration’s Latin American policies.”  [Harry Van Cleve, Comptroller General of the U.S. General Accounting Office, non-classified letter to Rep. Jack Brooks and Rep. Dante B. Fascell, Sept. 30, 1987, National Security Archive, Iran-Contra collection, IC04287.]  A later investigation by the House Committee on Foreign Affairs confirmed that S/LPD had illegally used taxpayer funds for the purpose of domestic propaganda.  The committee report, dated September 7, 1988, stated that the agency employed “groups of private citizens outside the government” which “raised money for Contra weapons, lobbied the Congress, ran sophisticated media campaigns in targeted Congressional districts, and worked with S/LPD to influence American public opinion through manipulation of the American press.”[Committee on Foreign Affairs Staff Report, U.S. House of Representatives, State Department and Intelligence Community Involvement in Domestic Activities Related to the Iran/Contra Affair , Sept. 7, 1988, 24, National Security Archive, Nicaragua collection, NI02137.]

[130] Ronald Reagan, “Remarks to Jewish Leaders During a White House Briefing on United States Assistance for the Nicaraguan Democratic Resistance,” March 5, 1986, also quoted in Jackson, “Genealogy, Ideology, and Counter-Terrorism,” 175.

[131] Ronald Reagan, “Remarks at the Heritage Foundation Anniversary Dinner, April 22, 1986,” also quoted in Jackson, “Genealogy, Ideology, and Counter-Terrorism,” 175.

[132] Melinda Beck, with David Newell and Margaret Garrard Warner, “Aid to the Contras: Saying No – For Now,” Newsweek , March 31, 1986, 20; and Douglas Farah and Walter Pincus, “CIA, Contras and Drugs: Questions on Links Linger, Washington Post , October 31, 1996.

[133] The report, “Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy,” prepared by the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, December 1988, noted:  “The private efforts on behalf of the Contras attracted a number of drug traffickers . . . George Morales . . . in fact delivered planes, weapons and money to the Contras who were desperate for help at the time.  When his relationship with the contras developed more fully, Morales began to take advantages of the Contra infrastructure to enhance his drug operations” (pp. 124-25).  Available online: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/north06.pdf.

[134] “Case Concerning the Military and Paramilitary Activities In and Against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America), Judgment of 27 June 1986,” International Court of Justice, https://www.icj-cij.org/public/files/case-related/70/070-19860627-JUD-01-00-EN.pdf.  See also, Abram Chayes, “Nicaragua, the United States, and the World Court,” Columbia Law Review , Vol. 85, No. 7 (Nov. 1985): 1445-1482.  Regarding the injury caused by the U.S.-directed Contra War, according to Lynn Horton, in Peasants in Arms: War and Peace in the Mountains of Nicaragua, 1979-1994 (Athens: Ohio Univ. Center for International Studies, 1998) , “Out of a population of approximately 3.5 million, 30,865 Nicaraguans were killed during the war” (p. xv).

[135] Another travesty to democratic accountability was the Iran-Contra affair, in which Reagan administration officials illegally sold arms to Iran and used the money to illegally purchase arms for the Contras at a time when Congress had banned it.  Fourteen persons were charged with criminal offenses.  Four were convicted of felony charges after trial by jury, seven pleaded guilty either to felonies or misdemeanors, and one had his case dismissed because the Administration refused to declassify information deemed necessary to the defendant by the trial judge.  Two cases that were awaiting trial were aborted by pardons granted by President George H. W. Bush in December 1992.  Bush granted pardons to six defendants in all, including Duane Clarridge and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger.  In defense of the pardons, Bush stated, that “the common denominator of their motivation – whether their actions were right or wrong – was patriotism.”  See “The 1992 Pardons” and other website pages of “Understanding the Iran-Contra Affairs,” Brown University, https://www.brown.edu/Research/Understanding_the_Iran_Contra_Affair/about.php.

[136] Bill Clinton, “Address to the Nation by the President,” August 20, 1998, The White House archives, https://clintonwhitehouse6.archives.gov/1998/08/1998-08-20-president-address-to-the-nation.html; and “President Bush’s address to a joint session of Congress and the nation,”  Washington Post , September 20, 2001.  On al Qaeda and its appeal, see Daniel L. Byman, “Review of Al-Qaeda as an Adversary: Do We Understand Our Enemy?” World Politics 56, no. 1 (2003): 139–63. There was some understanding in Washington that political actions could mitigate terrorist attacks and retard terrorist recruitment; hence the Clinton administration belatedly initiated talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in late December 2000, although the negotiations were ultimately unsuccessful.

[137] Martin Chulov, “My son, Osama: the al-Qaida leader’s mother speaks for the first time,” The Guardian , August 2, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/03/osama-bin-laden-mother-speaks-out-family-interview.  For more photos of Osama bin Laden, see “Osama bin Laden: his life in pictures,” The Guardian , May 7, 2011, https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2011/may/02/osama-bin-laden-in-pictures.  See also, Bergen, The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden .

[138] “From decorated veteran to mass murderer,” 2001, CNN, https://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/people/shows/mcveigh/profile.html.

[139] Bruce Hoffman, interviewed in “Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror” Netflix documentary film, Season 1, Episode 5, “Graveyard of Empires.”

[140] “President’s Remarks at National Day of Prayer and Remembrance, the National Cathedral,” September 14, 2001.  Unless otherwise noted, transcripts of President Bush’s speeches can be found in “Selected Speeches of President George W. Bush, 2001 – 2008,” White House Archives, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/bushrecord/documents/Selected_Speeches_George_W_Bush.pdf.

[141] Jackson, “Genealogy, Ideology, and Counter-Terrorism,” 169.  Jackson quotes Colin Powell’s “Remarks by the Secretary of State to the National Foreign Policy Conference for Leaders of Nongovernmental Organizations,” October, 26, 2001; George W. Bush’s “Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People,” September 20, 2001: and Bush’s “State of the Union Address,” January 29, 2002.

[142] George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, January 29, 2002.

[143] Manuel Perez-Rivas, “Bush vows to rid the world of ‘evil-doers,’” CNN Washington Bureau, September 16, 2001, https://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/16/gen.bush.terrorism; and George W. Bush, “Remarks by the President Upon Arrival,” September 16, 2001, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010916-2.html.

[144] “Department of Defense Service of Remembrance at the Pentagon,” October 11, 2001; and “Address to the United Nations General Assembly,” November 10, 2001.

[145] Howard Fineman, “The Bushes’ Saddam Drama,” Newsweek , January 7, 2007, https://www.newsweek.com/bushes-saddam-drama-98559.

[146] Daniel Heradstveit and G. Matthew Bonham, “What the Axis of Evil Metaphor Did to Iran,”  Middle East Journal  61, no. 3 (2007), 423.

[147] Heradstveit and Bonham, “What the Axis of Evil Metaphor Did to Iran,” 423. 425.

[148] “Medieval Sourcebook:  Urban II (1088-1099):  Speech at Council of Clermont, 1095, Five versions of the Speech,” Fordham University, https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/urban2-5vers.asp.

[149] Robert Worth, “Truth, Right and the American Way; A Nation Defines Itself By Its Evil Enemies,” New York Times , February 24, 2002.

[150] “Text of Speech by Vice President Cheney” (speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors), New York Times , April 9, 2003.  Prior to this, President Bush warned in his “Address to the United Nations General Assembly,” November 10, 2001:  “And all the world faces the most horrifying prospect of all:  These same terrorists are searching for weapons of mass destruction, the tools to turn their hatred into holocaust.  They can be expected to use chemical, biological and nuclear weapons the moment they are capable of doing so.  No hint of conscience would prevent it.”

[151] “President Bush Announces Major Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended:  Remarks by the President from the USS Abraham Lincoln At Sea Off the Coast of San Diego, California,” May 1, 2003, The White House archives, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/05/20030501-15.html.

[152] David E. Sanger, “Bush Cites Philippines as Model in Rebuilding Iraq,” October 18, 2003, New York Times , A1; and “Remarks by the President to the Philippine Congress,” Manila, Philippines, October 18, 2003, White House archives, https://2001-2009.state.gov/p/eap/rls/rm/2003/25455.htm.  On the U.S.-Filipino War, see Brian D’Haeseleer and Roger Peace, “The War of 1898 and the U.S.-Filipino War, 1899-1902,” Section VI, United States Foreign Policy History and Resource Guide website, 2016,  https://peacehistory-usfp.org/1898-1899 .

[153] Terrence Hunt, “Bush calls for Mideast freedom,” Tallahassee Democrat , November 7, 2003, p. 1.  President Bush also raised the issue of freedom in the Middle East in a speech at the United Nations in September; and G. G. LaBelle, “Arabs to Bush:  Butt Out,” Tallahassee Democrat , November 8, 2003.

[154] “The Second Inaugural Address,” January 20, 2005, Selected Speeches of President George W. Bush, 2001-2008, p. 274, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/bushrecord/documents/Selected_Speeches_George_W_Bush.pdf.

[155] “President Bush Delivers State of the Union Address,” January 23, 2007, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/01/20070123-2.html.

[156] U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform – Minority Staff Special Investigations Division, “Iraq on the Record: The Bush Administration’s Public Statements on Iraq,” March 16, 2004, https://www.cs.cornell.edu/gries/howbushoperates/pdf_admin_iraq.pdf.

[157] David Barstow, “Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand, New York Times , April 20, 2008.

[158] Hartig and Doherty, “Two Decades Later, the Enduring Legacy of 9/11”; and Danny Hayes and Matt Guardino, “Whose Views Made the News?  Media coverage and the March to War in Iraq,” Political Communication , 27 (2010), 59, 61, 80, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10584600903502615.  Hays and Guardino examined every ABC, CBS, and NBC Iraq-related evening news story – 1,434 in all – in the 8 months before the invasion.  They write that their “findings support the view that the media’s performance did not live up to the democratic standards most journalists hold themselves to, much less those expected by their critics” (80).

[159] David Barstow, “Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand, New York Times , April 20, 2008.

[160] “Poll: 70% believe Saddam, 9-11 link,” AP wire service, September 6, 2003, https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-09-06-poll-iraq_x.htm.

[161] Richard Jackson and Chin-Kuei Tsui, “Obama and the adaptive evolution of US counterterrorism,” in Michelle Bentley and Jack Holland, eds., The Obama Doctrine: A legacy of continuity in US foreign policy? (London: Routledge, 2016), 73.  See also, Trevor McCrisken, “Ten Years on: Obama’s War on Terrorism in Rhetoric and Practice.” International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs) , Vol. 87, No. 4 (2011): 781–801; and Jeremy Kuzmarov, Obama’s Unending Wars: Fronting the Foreign Policy of the Permanent Warfare State (Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2019).

[162] James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet (New York: Penguin Books, 2004), 45-46; and Jeremy Kuzmarov, “The Phoenix Program Was a Disaster in Vietnam and Would Be in Afghanistan – And the NYT Should Know that,” History News Network, September 2007, https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/116462.

[163] George W. Bush, “A Period of Consequences,” speech at The Citadel, South Carolina, September 23, 1999, http://www3.citadel.edu/pao/addresses/pres_bush.html.  See also, Andrew Cockburn, Kill Chain: The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins (New York: Henry Holt, 2015), 62, 63.

[164] Robert Tomes, U.S. Defense Strategy from Vietnam to Operation Iraqi Freedom: Military Innovation and the new American Way of war, 1973-2003 (New York: Routledge, 2007).  On the Carter administration’s advancement of the revolution in military affairs in the late 1970s, see Jeremy Kuzmarov, “The Improbable Militarist: Jimmy Carter, the Revolution in Military Affairs and Limits of the American Two-Party System,” Race, Class and Corporate Power , Vol. 6, Issue 2 (2018), https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1128&context=classracecorporatepower.

[165] James Kitfield, War & Destiny: How the Bush Revolution in Foreign and Military Affairs Redefined American Power (Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2005), 25; Dale R. Herspring, Rumsfeld’s Wars: The Arrogance of Power (University Press of Kansas, 2008); and Mike Davis, “War-Mart Revolution in Slouching Towards Baghdad: It’s all the Network,” San Francisco Chronicle , March 9, 2003.

[166] Alfred W. McCoy, “Imperial Illusions: Information Infrastructure and the Future of U.S. Global Power,” in Alfred W. McCoy, Josep M. Fradera, and Stephen Jacobson, eds., Endless Empire: Spain’s Retreat, Europe’s Eclipse, America’s Decline (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2012), 375.

[167] Max Boot, War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today (New York: Gotham Books, 2006), 363.  See also, Eugene Jarecki, The American Way of War: Guided Missiles, Misguided Men and a Republic in Peril (New York: The Free Press, 2008); and Benjamin S. Lambeth, Air Power Against Terror: America’s Conduct of Operation Enduring Freedom (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation National Defense Research Institute, 2005).

[168] Dana Priest and William M. Arkin, Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State (Boston: Little & Brown, 2011), 182, 186; Anne Hagedorn, The Invisible Soldiers: How America Outsourced Our Security (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014); Annie Jacobsen, The Pentagon’s Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America’s Top Secret Military Research Agency (Boston: Little & Brown, 2015), 369; Moshe Schwartz and Jennifer Church, “Department of Defense’s Use of Contractors to Support Military Operations,” Congressional Research Service , May 17, 2013; and Simon Chase and Ralph Pezzullo , Zero Footprint: The True Story of a Private Military Contractor’s Covert Assignments in Syria, Libya and the World’s Most Dangerous Places (Boston: Little & Brown, 2016).

[169] Other technological innovations included unmanned Global Hawk surveillance drones equipped with light censors capable of seeing two hundred miles away, backpack surveillance kits, high-resolution geo-spatial maps that produced digital imagery through tiny surveillance cameras, micro-processing devices planted on telephone poles, and polymer ice (a synthetic substance that could be thrown from the back of Humvees to make an enemy slip).  Science Application International Corporation (SAIC), a Fortune 500 company run by J. Robert Beyster, developed weather forecasting systems, iris scans, fingerprint readers, and a robotic sensor to detect and destroy Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).  SAIC was also a leader in computer data mining technologies used for tracking terrorists online.  See Dr. J. Robert Beyster, The SAIC Solution: How We Built an $8 Billion Employee-Owned Technology Company (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2007); Jeremy Kuzmarov, “Distancing Acts: Private Mercenaries and the War on Terror,” The Asia Pacific Journal , December 29, 2015; and Kate Brannen, “Spies for Hire Now at War in Syria: Army Sinking Millions of Dollars Into Private intelligence Contractors for the Fight,” The Daily Beast , August 8, 2016, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/09/spies-for-hire-now-at-war-in-syria.html.

[170] Vernon Loeb, “Afghan War is a Lab for U.S. Innovation, New Technologies Are Tested in Battle,” Washington Post , March 26, 2002; Jacobsen, The Pentagon’s Brain, 378, 379; Priest and Arkin, Top Secret America , 29; Wilson W. Wong, Emerging Military Technologies (New York: Praeger, 2013), 71; and Sharon Weinberger, The Imagineers of War: The Untold History of DARPA, the Pentagon Agency that Changed the World (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017), 318.

[171] Steven E. Jones, Against Technology: From the Luddites to Neo-Luddites (New York: Routledge, 2006), 34.

[172] Boot, War Made New, 364.  After 9/11, Pentagon officials immediately placed calls to technology companies for new innovations.  See “Biometric Identification and the New Face of Terror: New Technologies,” in Government Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism and Government Information of the Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, 107 th Congress, 1 st Session, November 14 th , 2001; Alan Leo, “Fighting Drugs, Fighting Terror,” MIT Technological Review , May 3, 2002; and Jason Ackleson, “Securing Through Technology? ‘Smart Borders’ After September 11 th ,” in David Clarke, ed., Technology and Terrorism (New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2004), 60.

[173] Marc W. Herold “Afghanistan as Empty Space: The Perfect Neocolonial State of the 21 st Century,” http://www.grassrootspeace.org/m_herold_afghanistan_0406.pdf.  See also, Robert H. Latiff, Future Peace: Technology, Aggression and the Rush to War (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame Press, 2022).

[174] On January 19, 2022, following revelations by the New York Times of U.S. air strikes killing large numbers of civilians in Syria in 2019, a group of Democratic senators sent a letter to President Joe Biden urging an overhaul of the administration’s system of accountability.  “When there is little policy change or accountability for repeated mistakes this grave and this costly,” the senators wrote, “it sends a message throughout the U.S. armed forces and the entire U.S. government that civilian deaths – including deaths where there was no military target – are the inevitable consequence of modern conflict, rather than avoidable and damaging failures of policy.”  Catie Edmondson, “Democrats Rebuke Policy On Drone Use,” New York Times , January 21, 2022, A11.

[175] Charlie Savage, Eric Schmitt, Azmat Khan, Evan Hill and Christoph Koetti, “Newly Declassified Video Shows U.S. Killing of 10 Civilians in Drone Strike,” New York Times , January 19, 2022; and Letta Tayler and Elisa Epstein (Human Rights Watch), “’Legacy of the ‘Dark Side’: The Costs of Unlawful U.S. Detentions and Interrogations Post-9/11,” January 9, 2022, Brown University, Watson Institute International & Public Affairs, https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/2022/DetentionandTorture, p. 22.  As of January 2023, none of the surviving relatives of those killed had received monetary compensation from the U.S. government.  Azmat Khan, “U.S. Military Inquiry Reveals Errors in Botched Kabul Drone Strike,” New York Times , January 7, 2023.

[176] Loyalties in Afghanistan are divided among tribes, ethnic groups, and religious affiliations, with loyalty to the nation often lagging behind these.  The population of Afghanistan in the year 2000 was about 21 million.  The main ethnic groups consisted of Pashtun with about 40% of the population, mainly in the south and encompassing northwestern Pakistan; Tajiks, with about 30%, primarily in the north and east; Hazaras, the descendants of East Asian Mongols, with about 15%, primarily in the mountainous center; Uzbeks, with historic ties to Central Asia, Russia, and Turkey, with about 10%, mainly in the north; and Baluchi, with about 2%, in the south, extending across the borders of Iran and Pakistan.  Pashto (spoken by Pashtuns) and Dari are the official languages, but a number of other languages are also spoken in different parts of the country.  Many citizens are multi-lingual.  The Hazaras are Shiite Muslim, in contrast to the vast majority of Afghans who are Sunni Muslim.  The Hazaras have been targeted at times by Sunni zealots.  For more background, see Carter Malkasian, The American War in Afghanistan: A History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021); and “The Afghan Taliban,” Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation, https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/mappingmilitants/profiles/afghan-taliban#text_block_16833.

[177] Barry Bearak, “Over World Protests, Taliban Are Destroying Ancient Buddhas,” New York Times , March 4, 2001, https://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/04/world/over-world-protests-taliban-are-destroying-ancient-buddhas.html.

[178] “Bomb kills 3 U.S. soldiers, 5 Afghan fighters,” CNN, December 5, 2001; Gary Schroen, First In: An Insider’s Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan (New York: Ballantine Books, 2005), 38; and Noah Shachtman, “How Technology Almost Lost the War,” Wired Magazine , November 27, 2007.  The misdirected bomb was apparently caused by an air controller confusing the GPS coordinates.  The CIA officer who helped save Karzai’s life, Greg Vogle, became the key envoy between Karzai and the American government.  In 2010, the Wall Street Journal profiled Vogle, without using his name, calling him a “pivotal behind-the-scenes power broker in Kabul.”  Mustafa Ariaie, “America’s Longest War: An Afghan’s Perspective,” CovertAction Magazine , December 26, 2020, https://covertactionmagazine.com/2020/12/26/americas-longest-war-an-afghans-perspective.

[179] Sonntag quoted in Boot, War Made New , 373.  On military hardware, see Lambeth, Air Power Against Terror , 256; and David A. Fulghum and Robert Wall, “Heavy Bomber Attacks Dominate Afghan War,” Aviation Week and Space Technology , December 3, 2001, 22.  On the Kunduz massacre, see “Obama orders review of alleged slayings of Taliban in Bush era,” CNN, July 13, 2009, http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/12/obama.afghan.killings.

[180] Bergen, Manhunt , 48, 50-51. See also, Gary Berntsen and Ralph Pezzullo, Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA’s Key Field Commander (New York: Crown, 2005); Priest and Arkin, Top Secret America , 232; and Peter Beaumont and Rory McCarthy, “Daisy Cutters Dropped on Caves,” The Guardian , December 10, 2001, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/dec/11/afghanistan.rorymccarthy.  Berntsen notes in Jawbreaker , “I’d sent my request for 800 U.S. Army Rangers and was still waiting for a response.  I repeated to anyone at headquarters who would listen: We need Rangers now! The opportunity to get bin Laden and his men is slipping away!” (290).  The requests were denied.

[181]  “Tora Bora Revisited: How We Failed to Get Bin Laden and Why It Matters Today,”  A Report to Members of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, John F. Kerry, Chairman, 111 th  Congress, First Session, November 30, 2009  (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2009), Executive Summary, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CPRT-111SPRT53709/html/CPRT-111SPRT53709.htm.

[182] “President Bush Holds Press Conference,” The White House, March 13, 2002, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020313-8.html.  See also, Horton, Fool’s Errand , 63, 66-67.

[183]  President George W. Bush, “Address at The Citadel,” Charleston, South Carolina, December 11, 2001,”  Selected Speeches of President George W. Bush, 2001-2008,  pp. 94-95, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/bushrecord/documents/Selected_Speeches_George_W_Bush.pdf.

[184] John Glasser and John Mueller, “Terrorist ‘safe havens’ are a myth – and no reason for continuing the war in Afghanistan,”  Los Angeles Times , August 19, 2019, https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-08-16/terrorist-safe-havens-war-afghanistan.

[185] Mark Landler, “A Nation Challenged: Afghan Leader; Hailed Abroad, Karzai Is Ignored at Home,” New York Times , February 2, 2002.  On Hamid Karzai, see Jeremy Kuzmarov, “You Have to Not Mind Killing Innocents,” in Hannah Gurman, ed., A People’s History of Counterinsurgency (New York: The New Press, 2013); and Ariaie, “America’s Longest War: An Afghan’s Perspective.”  The Bonn conference determined that an interim government (under Karzai) would rule for 6 months, followed by a loya jirga  (grand assembly) which would create an 18-month transitional government. The transitional government’s job would be to create a constitution and organize elections for a permanent government.  Karzai was elected president in 2004 and re-elected in 2009; he stepped down in 2014.

[186] Matt Waldman, “System Failure: The Underlying Causes of US Policy-Making Errors in Afghanistan.” International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-) 89, no. 4 (2013): 827.

[187] The 9/11 Commission Report , 231, 170.

[188] John Quigley, “The Afghanistan War and Self-Defense,” Valparaiso University Law Review , Vol. 37, No 2 (2003), 541, 545.  For a brief review of relevant sections of the UN Charter related to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, see Rabia Khan, “Was the NATO Invasion of Afghanistan Legal?” E-International Relations, November 6, 2013, https://www.e-ir.info/2013/11/06/was-the-nato-invasion-of-afghanistan-legal.  See also, Michael Mandel, How America Gets Away with Murder: Illegal Wars, Collateral Damage, and Crimes Against Humanity (London: Pluto Press, 2004), 37, 38.

[189] “International Security Assistance Force (ISAF),” Institute for the Study of War, https://www.understandingwar.org/international-security-assistance-force-isaf.

[190] Seth G. Jones, “The Rise of Afghanistan’s Insurgency: State Failure and Jihad.” International Security 32, no. 4 (2008), 31.  Jones interviewed Richard Armitage on October 17, 2007.  See also, Carlotta Gall, The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghanistan, 2001-2014 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2014), 60-61.

[191] Yaron Steinbuch, “Founder of Haqqani network is dead, Taliban say,” New York Post , September 4, 2018; and Mark Mazetti, The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army and War at the Ends of the Earth (New York: Penguin, 2013), 34, 35.  See also Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould, Invisible History: Afghanistan’s Untold History (San Francisco: City Lights, 2009).

[192] “Rumsfeld: Major combat over in Afghanistan,” CNN, May 1, 2003, https://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/central/05/01/afghan.combat.

[193] Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), What We Need to Learn: Lessons from Twenty Years of Afghanistan Reconstruction , August 16, 2021, page 16, https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/lessonslearned/SIGAR-21-46-LL.pdf.

[194] Quoted in Noam Chomsky and Vijay Prashad, “The reality behind the US ‘withdrawal’ from Afghanistan,” AlterNet, May 7, 2021, https://chomsky.info/20210507-2.  See also, “U.S. bombs are boosting the Taliban,” The Guardian , November 1, 2001, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/nov/02/afghanistan.terrorism9; and Gall, The Wrong Enemy , 28.

[195] Carlotta Gall, “NYU Report Casts Doubt on Taliban’s Ties with Al Qaeda” New York Times , February 6, 2011; Gareth Porter, “Shattering the Myth of Taliban/Al Qaeda Ties,” Counterpunch, February 8, 2011, https://www.counterpunch.org/2011/02/08/shattering-the-myth-of-taliban-al-qaeda-ties.

[196] Matthew Hoh, Talk before the Tulsa Council on Foreign Relations, December 2010; “Matthew Hoh’s Afghanistan: An Insider Talks,” The Nation , January 3, 2011, 15; and Anand Gopal, “Who Are the Taliban? The Afghan War Deciphered,” December 4, 2008, TomDispatch.com, https://tomdispatch.com/anand-gopal-making-sense-of-the-taliban.

[197] Marc W. Herold, “’Collateral Damage’? Civilians and the US Air War in Afghanistan,” Sicherheit Und Frieden (S+F) / Security and Peace 20, no. 1 (2002), 19.  See also, Marc Herold, “Truth as Collateral Damage: Civilian Deaths From U.S./NATO Air Strikes,” The Guardian , October 22, 2008.

[198] Anthony H. Cordesman and Arleigh A. Burke, “The Ongoing Lessons of Afghanistan: Warfighting, Intelligence, Force Transformation, and Nation Building,” Center for Strategic and International studies, May 6, 2004, pp. 66, 63-64, https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/media/csis/pubs/afghanlessons.pdf.

[199] Patricia Gossman of Human Rights Watch reports, as one example of misinformation supplied to the U.S. military, an air strike on December 23, 2001, that killed some 65 elders traveling to Kabul for Karzai’s inauguration.  U.S. officials claimed for months the elders were al-Qaeda members, despite much evidence to the contrary.  Patricia Gossman, “How US-Funded Abuses Led to Failure in Afghanistan,” Human Rights Watch, July 6, 2021, https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/07/06/how-us-funded-abuses-led-failure-afghanistan.

[200] Cordesman and Burke, “The Ongoing Lessons of Afghanistan,” 65; and George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, January 29, 2002.

[201] “Airstrike Killed Afghan Civilians, U.S. General Says,” Washington Post , July 7, 2002.

[202] “’Troops in Contact,’ Airstrikes and Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan,” Human Rights Watch, September 8, 2008, https://www.hrw.org/report/2008/09/08/troops-contact/airstrikes-and-civilian-deaths-afghanistan#.

[203] Carlotta Gall, “Afghan Leader Criticizes U.S. on Conduct of War,” New York Times , April 26, 2008.

[204] Abdul Waheed Wafa and John F. Burns, “U.S. Airstrike Reported to Hit Afghan Wedding,” New York Times , November 5, 2008.

[205]  Carlotta Gall and Taimoor Shah, “Afghan Villagers Describe Chaos of U.S. Strikes,”  New York Times , May 14, 2009; and “The U.S. War in Afghanistan, 1999-2021,” Council on Foreign Relations, https://www.cfr.org/timeline/us-war-afghanistan.  See also, “Amnesty International Lists 83 Afghan Civilians Killed in NATO Airstrike in Kunduz,” Amnesty International, October 30, 2009; Tom Engelhardt, “The Wedding Crashers”  Tomdisaptch.com , July 15, 2008; Patrick Cockburn, “Who Killed 120 Civilians? The U.S. Says It’s Not a Story,”  Counterpunch , May 11, 2009; Gall,  The Wrong Enemy , 104; and Priest and Arkin,  Top Secret America , 233.

[206] Richard A. Oppel Jr., “Tighter Rules Fail to Stem Deaths of Innocent Afghans at Checkpoints,” New York Times , March 26, 2010.

[207] “Afghan president says NATO responsible for 52 civilian deaths,” CNN World, July 27, 2010, http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/07/26/afghanistan.nato.karzai/index.html; and Jean MacKenzie, “Afghanistan: In search of the true civilian toll,” GlobalPost (Agence France-Presse), August 12, 2010, https://theworld.org/stories/2010-08-09/afghanistan-search-true-civilian-toll.

[208] MacKenzie, “Afghanistan: In search of the true civilian toll.”

[209]  Anand Gopal, “The Other Afghan Women,”  The New Yorker , September 13, 2021, 43.

[210]  Julian Barnes, “US Secretly Adds Strike Teams – As ‘Hunter-Killer’ Squads Gain Favor in Afghan Effort, White House Has Bolstered Their Raids,”  Wall Street Journal , May 6, 2011, A6; Craig Whitlock, “Members of U.S. platoon in Afghanistan accused of killing civilians for sport,”  Washington Post , September 18, 2010; and Whitlock, “Stryker platoon leader’s talk to Afghan villagers recorded,  Washington Post , October 28, 2010.

[211] Greg Waldmann, “Hidden in Plain Sight,” Open Letters Monthly, 2014, https://www.openlettersmonthlyarchive.com/olm/hidden-in-plain-sight.

[212]  “Human cost of Post-9.11 Wars (chart),” Cost of War Project, Watson Institute International & Public Affairs, Brown University, September 2021, https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2021/WarDeathToll.

[213] Shah Mahmoud Hanifi, “A Deep History of Water in Afghanistan” (lecture), December 7, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKn1l8Uau1w; and Hanifi, “Environmental War Crimes in Afghanistan,”  South Asia Avante-Garde: A Dissident Literary Anthology (2002), http://saaganthology.com/environmental-war-crimes-in-afghanistan.  Dr. Shah Mahmoud Hanifi is a Professor of History and the founding coordinator of the Middle Eastern Communities and Migrations minor at James Madison University.  The danger to human health posed by the toxic burn pits in Afghanistan and Iraq was recognized in a bill passed by Congress in August 2022, enabling U.S. veterans to obtain health care from Veterans Administration hospitals for exposure.  “Exposure from trash fires is believed to have led to a number of ailments and respiratory illnesses among veterans such as bronchial asthma, allergic rhinitis, sleep apnea, bronchitis and sinusitis, as well as different kinds of cancer,” noted the New York Times (Aug. 20, 2022). . . . At issue is legislation that would affect an estimated 3.5 million veterans and rival the Agennt Orange Act that increased access to care for Vietnam War veterans exposed to the toxic substance that was used as an herbicide and endangered generations of Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians.”  Oddly, the article says nothing about Afghanis and Iraqis affected by the toxic burn pits, though their exposure was greater and longer.  Nor did the NBC television news story that evening mention Afghanis or Iraqis.  Stephanie Lai, “Spending Dispute Halts Health Bill for Veterans,” New York Times , August 2, 2022, 12A.

[214] Tim Mak, “McChrystal: Understanding of Afghanistan ‘frighteningly simplistic,’” Politico , October 7, 2011, https://www.politico.com/story/2011/10/mcchrystal-understanding-of-afghanistan-frighteningly-simplistic-065398.  The Pentagon spent relatively little on its language training program, but it did hire thousands of Afghan interpreters to serve with U.S. Army units and Special Forces.  The interpreters translated languages, often explained regional traditions and cultures – which is not to say that the traditions were respected – and sometimes gathered military-related information from local villagers, which in turn made them targets of the Taliban.

[215] Sonali Kolhatkar and James Ingalls, Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence  (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2006), 58.  See also, Hannah Gurman, “Tribal Engagement and the Heavy History of Counterinsurgency Light,” Small Wars Journal , June 6, 2010, https://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/journal/docs-temp/452-gurman.pdf.

[216] Montgomery McFate and Janice H. Laurence, “Introduction: Unveiling the Human Terrain System” in Social Science Goes to War: The Human Terrain System in Iraq and Afghanistan (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 2.  See also, Montgomery McFate and Steve Fondacaro, “Reflections on the Human Terrain System During the First 4 Years,” Prism , Vol. 2, No. 4 (July 2010): 63-82, https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/journals/prism%20/v2i4/f_0024156_19701.pdf.

[217] “American Anthropological Association’s Executive Board Statement on the Human Terrain System Project,” November 6, 2007, http://s3.amazonaws.com/rdcms-aaa/files/production/public/FileDownloads/pdfs/pdf/EB_Resolution_110807.pdf.  The statement applied to HTS programs in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

[218] Major Mark W. Lee, “The Afghanistan-Pakistan Hands Program,” U.S. Army, February 12, 2014, https://www.army.mil/article/115523/the_afghanistan_pakistan_hands_program; and Shah Mahmoud Hanifi, “Imperial Cartography and National Mapping in Afghanistan,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 54 (July 2022), 345, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journal-of-middle-east-studies/article/imperial-cartography-and-national-mapping-in-afghanistan/051C28304DABDADD350436F505867F39.  See also, Mark Price, Weaponizing Anthropology: Social Science in Service of the Militarized State (Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2011); and Rochelle Davis, “Culture as a Weapon System,” Middle East Report , Summer 2010, 9, 11.

[219] Capt. Brittany Ramos, interviewed in “Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror” Netflix documentary film, Season 1, Episode 4, “The Good War.”

[220] Cecilia Saixue Watt, “’It’s horrible to watch’: US veterans on seeing Afghanistan fall to the Taliban,” The Guardian , August 30, 2021,  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/31/us-veterans-afghanistan-fall-taliban.

[221] Tamoor Shah and Rod Nordland, “Guided by Night Vision, Taliban Units Overrun Police Posts,” New York Times , November 15, 2017, A10.

[222] Alex Ward, “Trump has tripled the pace of US bombing in Afghanistan,” Vox Media, November 21, 2021, https://www.vox.com/world/2017/11/21/16684628/trump-afghanistan-bomb-troops.

[223] W.J. Hennigan, “Air Force Drops the non-Nuclear Mother of all Bombs in Afghanistan,” Los Angeles Times , April 14, 2017, http://www.latimes.com/politics/washington/la-na-essential-washington-updates-white-house-drops-mother-of-all-bombs-1492102824-htmlstory.html.  The Islamic State, or ISIS, originated in 2014 in Iraq and spread into isolated areas of war-torn Afghanistan.  This offshoot of al Qaeda was not welcomed by the Taliban and the two groups fought each other on occasion.

[224] Helene Cooper and Mujib Marshall, “A Giant U.S. Bomb Strikes ISIS Caves in Afghanistan,” New York Times , April 14, 2017, 1.

[225] Human Rights Watch, “’They’ve Shot Many Like This’: Abusive Night Raids by CIA-Backed Afghan Strike Forces,” October 31, 2019, https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/10/31/theyve-shot-many/abusive-night-raids-cia-backed-afghan-strike-forces.  One example cited in the report:  “In March 2018, Afghan paramilitary forces raided the home of a staff member of an Afghan nongovernmental organization (NGO). The forces arrived late at night at the family compound and separated the women from the men. They singled out the staff member’s brother and took him to another part of the house.  They shot him, leaving the body, and left with another male family member, whom the government later denied holding.”  The report provided many other examples.

[226] “Joint Declaration between the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the United States of America for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan,” signed in Doha, Qatar, February 29, 2020.

[227] Mark Landler, “In Pulling Troops Out, A President Becomes An Unlikely Insurgent,” New York Times , September 2, 2021.  When the U.S.-backed government in Kabul fell to the Taliban, numerous U.S. political leaders raised the alarm of a Taliban-terrorist alliance.  In response, Paul Pillar, who served in senior government positions in intelligence and counterterrorism agencies, wrote that such notions were based on the mistaken belief that the Taliban were interested in promoting international terrorism.  He wrote that the Taliban “have always been narrowly focused on power in Afghanistan and the political and social order of Afghanistan.  They have shown no interest in international terrorism. . . . This is illustrated by the current fierce conflict between the Taliban and the Afghan branch of the so-called Islamic State or ISIS. For anyone hoping to see this branch of ISIS quashed, the Taliban represent the best bet for doing so.”  Paul Pillar, “Taliban and Al Qaeda: If there’s no war, there won’t be an alliance,” Responsible Statecraft, August 19, 2021, https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/08/19/taliban-and-al-qaeda-if-theres-no-war-there-wont-be-an-alliance/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=taliban-and-al-qaeda-if-theres-no-war-there-wont-be-an-alliance.

[228] Gossman, “How US-Funded Abuses Led to Failure in Afghanistan.”  See also, “Afghanistan:  Forces Linked to Vice President Terrorize Villagers,” Human Rights Watch, July 31, 2016, https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/07/31/afghanistan-forces-linked-vice-president-terrorize-villagers.

[229] Rod Nordland, “Accused of Rape and Torture, Exiled Afghan Vice President Returns,” New York Times , July 22, 2018.

[230] “’All Our Hopes Are Crushed’: Violence and Repression in Western Afghanistan,” Human Rights Watch , Vol. 14, No. 7, November 2002, page 4.  See also, “General Mohammad Ismail Khan,” GlobalSecurity.org, https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/afghanistan/ismail.htm.

[231] Gossman, “How US-Funded Abuses Led to Failure in Afghanistan.”

[232] Joseph Goldstein, “U.S. Soldiers Told to Ignore Sexual Abuse of Boys by Afghan Allies, New York Times , September 20, 2015.  The article also told of Lance Corporal Gregory Buckley Jr. who told his father before being killed in 2012 that he was troubled by the screams of young boys.  “At night we can hear them screaming, but we’re not allowed to do anything about it.”  See also, David Zucchino and Taimoor Shah, “Rare Response to Accusations Afghan Boy Was Fatally Raped: Arrests,” New York Times , October 9, 2020, A16.

[233] “’All Our Hopes Are Crushed,’” 8; and Norah Niland, “The Great Deception: Only Democratic Delusions for Afghans,” Costs of War Project, Watson Institute, 2011, pages 8-9, https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2011/The%20Great%20Deception.pdf.  See also, Romain Malejacq, Warlord Survival: The Delusion of State Building in Afghanistan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2019).

[234] Gossman, “How US-Funded Abuses Led to Failure in Afghanistan.”

[235] Cheryl Benard, “The Next Afghanistan,” in Afghanistan: State and Society, Great Power Politics, and the Way Ahead: Findings from an International Conference, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2007 (Rand Corporation Center for Middle East Public Policy, 2008), page 52, https://www.rand.org/pubs/conf_proceedings/CF238.html.  Egregious abuses by Afghan security personnel were more than tolerated.  The worst abusers, such as Abdul Raziq, police chief of Kandahar, were lauded by top U.S. military officials as effective anti-Taliban fighters.  A belated investigative article by the New York Times , based on 50,000 hand-written complaints to Afghan officials between 2011 and 2021, and hundred of follow-up interviews with Afghans over the course of one year, revealed hundreds, if not thousands, of abductions, disappearances, torture, and extrajudicial killings.  “Many American commanders, diplomats and their allies in Afghanistan knew at the time they were bankrolling a war that strayed far outside international law,” wrote the Times .  But this did not hinder U.S. support for Raziq’s operations.  In hindsight, Razig’s “acts not only discredited the American war effort – breeding profound resentment that pushed people to support the Taliban – but embodied it in many ways as well.  Across Afghanistan, the United states elevated and empowered warlords, corrupt politicians and outright criminals to prosecute a war of military expediency in which the ends often justified the means. . . . Many Afghans came to revile the American-backed government and everything it represented. . . . It was not that everyone embraced the Taliban, residents said; they just came to detest the Afghan government and the Americans who propped it up.”  Azam Ahmed and Matthieu Aikins, “America’s Monster: How the United States Backed Kidnapping, Torture and Murder in Afghanistan,” New York Times , May 23, 2024.

[236] Tara Copp, “The US Spent $83 billion Training Afghan Forces.  Why Did They Collapse So Quickly,” Defense One , August 14, 2021, https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2021/08/us-spent-83-billion-training-afghan-forces-why-did-they-collapse-so-quickly/184529.

[237] Ann Jones “Meet the Afghan Army: Is It a Figment of Washington’s Imagination?” in Nick Turse, ed., The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan (New York: Verso, 2016), 77, 80.

[238] Obaid Younossi, Peter Dahl Thruelsen, Jonathan Vaccaro, Jerry M. Sollinger, and Brian Grady, “The Long March: Building an Afghan National Army,” National Defense Research Institute (RAND Corporation), 2009, page xiii, https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2009/RAND_MG845.pdf.

[239] T. Christian Miller, Mark Hosenball, and Ron Moreau, “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight,” Newsweek , March 20, 2010, http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2010/03/20/the-gang-that-couldn-t-shoot-straight.phtml; and Jeremy Kuzmarov, Modernizing Repression: Police Training and Nation Building in the American Century (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2012), 1.

[240] David Isenberg, “It’s Déjà Vu for DynCorp All Over Again,” Huffpost , May 25, 2011, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/its-dj-vu-for-dyncorp-all_b_792394; and Jill R. Aitoro, “Afghan Subcontractors,” Washington Business Journal , October 3, 2013, https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/blog/fedbiz_daily/2013/10/dyncorp-faces-harsh-allegations-from.html.

[241] Younossi & all, “The Long March,” 3.  The 28 percent literacy rate in Afghanistan was reported by UNICEF (United Nation’s Children Fund) in 2008.

[242] Miller & all, “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight”; and Kuzmarov, “’You Have to Not Mind Killing Innocents,’” 192, 193.

[243] William Fischer, “Rights: Afghan Prison Looks Like Another Guantanamo,” Inter Press Service, January 15, 2008, cited in American Civil Liberties Union, Freedom of Information Act request, April 23, 2009, https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/safefree/bagramfoia.pdf; and Kuzmarov, “’You Have to Not Mind Killing Innocents,’” 194.

[244] Ariaie, “America’s Longest War”; and Douglas Valentine, The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World (Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2017), 375, 376.

[245] Craig Whitlock, “Consumed by Corruption” (The Afghanistan Papers: A secret history of the war series), Washington Post , December 19, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-corruption-government.

[246] Frank Vogl, “Afghan corruption imperils future success,” USA Today , February 10, 2013, https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/02/10/afghan-corruption-imperils-future-success-column/1907287.

[247] Miller & all, “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.”

[248] Jason Motlagh, “Highway to Hell: A Trip Down Afghanistan’s Deadliest Road, Rolling Stone , January 22, 2021, https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/afghanistan-war-taliban-kabul-kandahar-road-1112819; and Mueller,  The Stupidity of War , 101.

[249] Tom Vanden Brook, “Fraud, waste and abuse in Afghanistan: Inspector general reflects on US failures,” USA Today , August 18, 2021, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/08/18/afghanistan-inspector-general-john-sopko-reflects-waste-abuse/8180105002.  See also, “US has a big part to play in Afghan corruption,” Washington Post , November 7, 2012.

[250] Ashley Jackson, “The Taliban’s Fight for Hearts and Minds,” Foreign Policy , September 12, 2018, https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/12/the-talibans-fight-for-hearts-and-minds-aghanistan.  In 2009, the Washington Post reported that many Afghans preferred the severe but decisive authority of the Taliban compared to the “corruption and inefficiency of Karzai’s appointees.”  Griff Witte, “Taliban Establishes Elaborate Shadow Government in Afghanistan,” Washington Post , December 8, 2009, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/07/AR2009120704127.html.

[251] According to international studies scholars Alan Richards and Steven Simon, once the Bush administration became committed to nation-building in Afghanistan, it oversold its ability to remake the country:  “The Bush administration and its cheerleaders sold the notions that in Afghanistan, they could create a centralized, pro-American state where no such state had ever been successfully constructed; that they could transform rural mores; and that they could redefine traditional personal status arrangements.  All this, their Ponzi pitch went, would be somehow achievable in a reasonable time frame, with minimal casualties and financial costs.”  Alan Richards and Steven Simon, “Afghanistan Was a Ponzi Scheme Sold to the American Public, Foreign Policy , September 2, 2021, https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/02/afghanistan-ponzi-scheme-united-states-war.

[252] Ariaie, “America’s Longest War;” and Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart, Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).

[253] “Afghanistan opium survey 2019,” United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, February 2021, page 5, https://www.unodc.org/documents/crop-monitoring/Afghanistan/20210217_report_with_cover_for_web_small.pdf.

[254]  Craig Whitlock, “At War with the Truth,”  Washington Post , December 9, 2019.

[255]  Matthew Rosenberg and Adam Nossiter, “After 7 Years of Failing to Fix Afghanistan, Ghani Makes a Hasty Escape,”  New York Times , August 18, 2021, A8.

[256]  Jon Lee Anderson, “After the Fall: The Taliban fought for decades to retake Afghanistan.  How will they rule?”  The New Yorker , February 28, 2022, 55.  Following the fall of the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan, the Taliban issued a decree in May 2022 requiring women to cover their faces, accompanied by escalating punishments.

[257] For background on democracy and women’s rights, see Anna Larson, “Democracy in Afghanistan: Amid and Beyond Conflict,” United States Institute of Peace Special Report , No. 497, July 2021; Caroline Alexander, “As Taliban Return, a History of Afghan Women’s Rights,” Bloomberg Equality , August 18, 2021, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-18/the-up-and-down-history-of-afghan-women-s-rights-quicktake; and Hannibal Travis, “Freedom or Theocracy?  Constitutionalism in Afghanistan and Iraq,” Northwestern Journal of International Human Rights , Vol. 3, Issue 1, Article 4 (Spring 2005).  The Afghan constitution of 1923 established an elected parliament that co-ruled with the monarchy.  The system developed in fits and starts, buffeted by coups, civil wars, and corruption.  According to Hannibal Travis (p. 5):  “In 1959, Prime Minister [Muhammed] Daoud [King Zahir Shah’s first cousin] created a major cultural crisis when the wives and daughters of the Afghan royal family appeared unveiled for the first time since Amanullah’s reign [which ended in 1933].  Many religious leaders publicly condemned this display, but Daoud argued that Islam did not make the veiling and seclusion of women obligatory.  Other educated women, particularly in Kabul, then began to abandon the veil, including growing numbers of nurses, midwives, and teachers.  In response, the more conservative mullahs provoked riots and acid attacks on unveiled women, until Daoud had about 50 of them jailed and charged with treason and heresy.  Daoud’s government quelled an armed uprising in Kandahar with advanced weaponry obtained from the Soviet Union.  Daoud finally released the mullahs from custody, and they brought the unrest to a halt, agreeing that each Afghan family would be allowed to decide for itself whether its women would practice purdah [the veiling of women and their general concealment].”  The culture war continued in the 1970s and 1980s, with “communists and fundamentalists” dividing the country between them.

[258] “Pentagon Briefing with Secretary Rumsfeld,” Washington Post , November 19, 2001.

[259] Jennifer Fluri, “Reflections on Gender and Development in Afghanistan 2001-2021,” University of Colorado Boulder website, September 9, 2021, https://www.colorado.edu/geography/2021/09/09/jennifer-fluri-reflections-gender-and-development-afghanistan-2001-2021.

[260] Craig Whitlock, “At War with the Truth,” The Washington Post , December 9, 2019.

[261] Thomas Gibbons-Neff, “Public Was Duped on Afghan War,” New York Times , December 10, 2019, A1.

[262] Whitlock, The Afghanistan Papers , xiv, xv.  In addition to SIGAR interviews, Whitlock made use of (1) confidential memoranda from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, composed of an estimated 59,000 pages and released in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the National Security Archive, a nonprofit research institute based at George Washington University; (2) oral history interviews with officials who served in the U.S. embassy in Kabul, conducted by the nonprofit Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training – the diplomats “who vented about Washington’s fundamental ignorance of Afghanistan and its mishandling of the war” (p. xvii); (3) oral history interviews of more than 3,000 U.S. troops conducted between 2005 and 2015 by the Army’s Operational Leadership Experience project, part of the Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; and (4) interviews of about 100 Bush administration officials conducted by the Miller Center, a nonpartisan affiliate of the University of Virginia.

[263] Whitlock, The Afghanistan Papers , xvii.

[264] Craig Whitlock, “The Afghanistan Papers, A secret history of the war,”  Washington Post , December 9, 2019.  Before being assigned to the White House, General Lute served as Director of Operations on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, overseeing U.S. military operations worldwide.  From 2004 to 2006, he was Director of Operations for the United States Central Command, with responsibility for U.S. military operations in 25 countries across the Middle East, eastern Africa and Central Asia, in which over 200,000 U.S. troops operated.  In 2007 President Bush named him Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor, tasked with coordinating the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  He was retained on the National Security Council by President Barak Obama and his focus shifted to South Asia.  Following his six years in the White House, Lute was appointed Permanent Representative to the North Atlantic Council, NATO’s standing political body, assuming this post from 2013 to 2017.

[265] Whitlock, The Afghanistan Papers , xv.

[266] Neta C. Crawford, “Afghanistan’s Rising Civilian Death Toll Due to Airstrikes, 2017-2020,” Costs of War project, Watson Institute International & Public Affairs, Brown University, December 7, 2020, https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/2020/AirstrikesAfghanistan.

[267] Mujib Mashal, “C.I.A.-Led Afghan Forces Leave Grim Trail of Abuse,” New York Times , December 31, 2018, A1; Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Mujib Mashal, “To Push Pace of Peace Talks in Afghanistan, U.S. Increases Strikes on Taliban,” New York Times , February 9, 2019, A6; and David Zucchino and Taimoor Shah, “U.S. Airstrikes Said to Kill at Least 10 Afghan Civilians,” New York Times , February 11, 2019, A7.  “Thirteen Civilians, Mostly Children, Believed Killed In Afghan Air Strike, UN Report Finds,” Radio-Free-Europe-Radio-Liberty, March 25, 2019, https://www.rferl.org/a/thirteen-civilians-mostly-children-believed-killed-in-afghan-air-strike-un-report-finds/29840653.html.

[268] Sgt. James LaPorta, interviewed on “Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror” Netflix documentary film, Season 1, Episode 4, “The Good War.”

[269] Erik Edstrom, “How American Politics Got Troops Stuck—and Killed—in Afghanistan,” Politico Magazine , May 4, 2021, https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/05/04/afghanistan-war-erik-edstrom-first-person-485227.

[270] Erik Edstrom, interview, “Dissenting veterans on post-9/11 wars.” Radio Open Source, May 26, 2022, https://radioopensource.org/paths-of-dissent/?mc_cid=1ec50391d4&mc_eid=d97819f774; and Edstrom, “How American Politics Got Troops Stuck – and Killied – in Afghanistan.”

[271] Erik Edstrom, Un-American: A Soldier’s Reckoning of Our Longest War (New York: Bloomsbury, 2020), Epigram.

[272] Andrew J. Bacevich, “Why Did We Fight the Iraq War?” New York Times Book Review , May 12, 2019, 14.  See also, Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2003-2005 (New York: Penguin Books, 2007); and Andrew Bacevich, “My son was killed in Iraq 14 years ago – who’s responsible?” Boston Globe , May 27, 2021.

[273] Joel D. Preston and Frank K. Sobchak, eds., The U.S. Army and the Iraq War (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army War College Press, 2019, Vol. 2, 639; quoted in Mueller, The Stupidity of War , 116.

[274]  Lolita C. Baldor and Robert Burns (AP), “General says US troops to remain in Iraq,”  Military Times , December 9, 2021, https://www.militarytimes.com/flashpoints/2021/12/09/general-says-us-troops-to-remain-in-iraq.  The vote on the bill in the 328-member Iraqi Parliament was 170-0, with 158 members not attending or not voting.  Iran responded to the killing of General Soleimani by firing a barrage of missiles at the al-Asad airbase on January 8, 2020.  No U.S. troops were killed but more than 100 service members suffered traumatic brain injuries from the blasts.

[275]  Alissa J. Rubin, Ben Hubbard, Farnaz Fassihi, and Steven Erlanger, “Iraqi Leaders Vote to Expel U.S. Troops,”  New York Times , January 6, 2020, A1; Mohammed Tawfeeq, “Hundreds of thousands protest US troop presence in Iraq,” CNN, January 24, 2020; Alissa J. Rubin and Falih Hassan, “Baghdad Protesters Demand the Removal of U.S. Forces,”  New York Times , January 25, 2020, A6; and Heather Murdock, “Tens of Thousands Turn Out in Baghdad for Anti-US Protest,” January 24, 2020,  Voice of America News , https://www.voanews.com/a/archive_tens-thousands-turn-out-baghdad-anti-us-protest/6183096.html.

[276]  Miriam Berger, “Invaders, allies, occupiers, guests: A brief history of U.S. military involvement in Iraq,”  Washington Post , January 11, 2020.

[277]  Annie Karni and Eric Schmitt, “In Winding Down Wars, Biden Takes Two Paths for Iraq and Afghanistan,”  New York Times , July 27, 2021, A5.

[278]  Baldor and Burns, “General says US troops to remain in Iraq.”

[279]  Mosheh Gains, Saphora Smith, Courtney Kube and Abigail Williams, “2 American service members, 1 British soldier killed in rocket attack on Iraqi base,” NBC News, March 12, 2020, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/2-americans-1-british-national-killed-rocket-attack-iraqi-base-n1156311.

[280] Alissa J. Rubin and Eric Schmitt, “Iraq Fumes, Blaming U.S. Airstrikes for Deaths of Soldiers and Police Officers,” New York Times , March 14, 2020, A24.

[281] “Iraq election: Nationalist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr claims victory,” BBC News, October 12, 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-58881596; and Jane Arraf, “After Election, Iraqi Cleric Once Targeted by U.S. Emerges as a Vital Ally,” New York Times , October 17, 2021.  Muqtada al-Sadr is the youngest son of a revered Shiite cleric, the Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr, who was assassinated by Saddam Hussein’s henchmen in 1999.  The Saeroun party won 73 seats in the 329-member Council of Representatives in October 2021.  It was one of seven parties to win over 10 seats.  There were 22 other parties that gained between one and five seats; and another 43 independent candidates.  To gain a majority on any legislative proposal, the Saeroun party would need to find 92 votes from other parties or independent members.  The Iraqi Constitution reserves 25% of all seats in the Council of Representatives for women.

[282] Dana Adams Schmidt, “CIA Head Warns of Danger in Iraq,” New York Times , April 29, 1959; and Brandon Wolfe-Hunnicutt, “Embracing Regime Change in Iraq,” Diplomatic History , Vol. 39, No. 1 (January 2015), 103.  The relationship between Qasim and Nasser was contentious, a rivalry, despite their common affinity for Arab nationalism and oil nationalization.  President Dwight Eisenhower issued the Eisenhower Doctrine in January 1957, with Congress approving in March, which declared that the U.S. would aid any government in the Middle East threatened by “armed aggression from another state.”  This was largely a cover for mobilizing against any government deemed unfriendly to U.S. economic interests or friendly to communist parties or the Soviet Union.

[283] Wolfe-Hunnicutt, “Embracing Regime Change in Iraq,” 114-115.  The State Department had already met with representatives of the International Petroleum Company on October 26, 1962 and informed them that Qasim would not “last much longer.”

[284] “Iraq: Green Armbands, Red Blood,” Time , February 22, 1963, http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,828007,00.html.

[285] Wolfe-Hunnicutt, “Embracing Regime Change in Iraq,” 118.  Primary source:  “Baghdad (William Lakeland, First Secretary of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad) to State (U.S. State Department) ,no. 513, “Opponents of Qasim Regime [Hashemites] Urge Intervention,” January 31, 1962, John F. Kennedy National Security Files, 3: 108.  See also, Said Aburish, A Brutal Friendship: The West and the Arab Elite (New York: St. Martin’s, 1998).

[286] Akins quoted in Michel Despratx and Barry Lando, “Iraq: Crimes and Collusions: 40 Years of Western Support for the Baathists,” Le Monde Diplomatique , English Edition, November 2004, cited in Wolfe-Hunnicutt, “Embracing Regime Change in Iraq,” 117.

[287] Patrick Cockburn, “Revealed: How the West Set Saddam on the Bloody Road to Power,” The Independent , June 28, 1997, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/revealed-how-the-west-set-saddam-on-the-bloody-road-to-power-1258618.html.

[288]  According to a short biography of Saddam Hussein:  “Hussein was born in 1937 in Tikrit, Iraq.  He grew up in a very poor area of Iraq and did not finish the equivalent of high school until 1959, when he was twenty-two.  His official biography notes that his father died before he was born (although some accounts suggest that his father abandoned the family) and his mother remarried.  His step-father rejected Saddam, putting him to work as a sheep-herder rather than sending him to school.  When he was ten, he went to live with an uncle (his mother’s brother) in Baghdad, who was a passionate Arab nationalist.  For most of his teenage years, he was a member of a violent street gang.  He combined his political leanings with this violent streak, by joining (at age 19) the radical Baath party, which had as its goal the overthrow of the Iraqi government.  Within two years, he led an assassination attempt against Iraqi leader Abdul Karim Qassim during which Hussein was shot in the leg.  The assassination failed, and Hussein escaped to Egypt in 1959. . . . He returned to Iraq after the successful Baathist coup of 1961, in which Qassim was overthrown. He worked in the internal security forces as an interrogator and practiced torture as a regular part of his job.  Another coup landed Saddam in jail for two years, until he escaped in 1966.  He quickly consolidated control over the Baath Party’s internal security organization, and when the party regained control over Iraq in a 1968 coup, Hussein became the head of the new government’s internal security network.  Over the next ten years, he strengthened his personal control over the internal police, and in 1979 removed his own cousin from the presidency through an internal party coup.”  “A First-Lens Analysis Saddam Hussein: A Profile,” https://wwnorton.com/college/polisci/lenses/protect/print/cs_pg_hussein1.htm.  See also, Said Aburish, Saddam Hussein: The Politics of Revenge (New York: Bloomsbury, 2000).

[289] “Nationalizing of Oil Completed by Iraq,” New York Times , December 9, 1975.

[290] As of July 4, 1979, Iraq employed 62,500 teachers at 23,804 literacy centers in teaching some 1.2 million women and over 527,000 men to read and write.  Christopher J. Lucas, “Arab Illiteracy and the Mass Literacy Campaign in Iraq,” Comparative Education Review 25, no. 1 (1981), 82.

[291] Kathleen Moore, “Iraq: The Rise and Fall of Saddam Hussein,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, December 15, 2003, https://www.rferl.org/a/1105321.html.

[292] “World Oil Reserves 1948 – 2001: Annual Statistics and Analysis,” Eneregy Exploration & Exploitation, Vol. 19, Numbers 2 & 3, 262, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1260/0144598011492561.

[293] For a short, pithy critique of the Carter Doctrine, see Andrew J. Bacevich, “Kissing the Carter Doctrine Goodbye (Shouldn’t Be This Hard),” The American Conservative , May 2, 2020, https://www.theamericanconservative.com/kissing-the-carter-doctrine-goodbye-shouldnt-be-this-hard.

[294] Joyce Battle, ed., “Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein: The U.S. Tilts toward Iraq, 1980-1984,” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 82, February 25, 2003, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82.

[295] Michael Dobbs, “U.S. Had Key Role in Iraq Buildup,” Washington Post , January 8, 2003.

[296] Weldon C. Matthews, “The Kennedy Administration and Arms Transfers to Ba’thist Iraq,”  Diplomatic History , Vol. 43, No. 3 (2019): 469-492; and “Gulf Crisis Grows into War with Iraq,”  Congressional Quarterly Almanac 1990 , 46th edition: 717-56 (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, 1991), http://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/cqal90-1118567.

[297] Peter Hahn, “A Century of U.S. Relations with Iraq,” Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective , April 2012, https://origins.osu.edu/article/century-us-relations-iraq?language_content_entity=en.  See also, Seymour M. Hersh, “U.S. Secretly Gave Aid to Iraq in Its War Against Iran,” New York Times , Jan. 26, 1992. Hersh notes that “the Reagan Administration had permitted Iraq’s allies in the Middle East to ship American-made arms to Baghdad,” thought to have begun in 1982.

[298] “Iraqi Kurds mark 25 years since Halabja gas attack,” BBC News, March 16, 2013, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-21814734.  In addition to immediate fatalities at Halabja, another 10,000 were blinded, maimed, or otherwise severely disabled.  According to the U.S. State Department, Hussein launched chemical attacks at 40 Kurdish villages in all.  “Saddam’s Chemical Weapons Campaign: Halabja, March 16, 1988,” Bureau of Public Affairs, U.S. State Department, March 14, 2003.  Significantly, this information was not published in 1988 after the chemical attacks happened and were confirmed by the U.S., but only became of topic of public interest when the U.S. was ready to go to war against Saddam Hussein.

[299] Julie Johnson, “U.S. Asserts Iraq Used Poison Gas Against the Kurds,” New York Times , September 8, 1988, A1.

[300] Shane Harris and Matthew M. Aid, “Exclusive: CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran,” Foreign Policy , August 26, 2013, https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26/exclusive-cia-files-prove-america-helped-saddam-as-he-gassed-iran.0

[301] The White House, “National Security Directive 26,” October 2, 1989, page 2, https://bush41library.tamu.edu/files/nsd/nsd26.pdf; and Joseph Stieb, The Regime Change Consensus: Iraq in American Politics, 1990-2003 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 18-19.

[302] On the Persian Gulf War, see Brian D’Haeseleer, Jeremy Kuzmarov, and Roger Peace, “The Post-Cold War era,” Section III, U.S. Foreign Policy History & Resource Guide, 2020, https://peacehistory-usfp.org/post-cold-war-era .  Tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers were killed in the “shock and awe” U.S. air war.  Middle East Watch estimated 2,500-3,000 civilian deaths, not including “the substantially larger number of deaths that can be attributed to malnutrition, disease and lack of medical care caused by a combination of the U.N.-mandated embargo and the allies’ destruction of Iraq’s electrical system, with its severe secondary effects.”  Contrary to U.S. claims of “precision bombing,” the human rights group noted the destruction of some 400 homes, 19 apartment buildings, four hospitals and medical clinics, two schools, one mosque, and numerous hotels, restaurants and commercial buildings.  Middle East Watch, Needless Deaths in the Gulf War: Civilian Casualties During the Air Campaign and Violations of the Laws of War  (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1991), section: “Introduction and Summary of Conclusions,” https://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1991/gulfwar/INTRO.htm.

[303] In September 1992, eighteen months after the Persian Gulf war ended, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney said, “I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him [Hussein’s forces] from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we’d achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq.”  Once out from under Bush Sr.’s shadow, however, Cheney made a 180-degree turn and called for Hussein’s ouster.  Randal C. Archibold, “Edwards Notes Cheney Warned of Getting ‘Bogged Down’ in Iraq,” New York Times , September 30, 2004.

[304] R. W. Apple Jr., “After the War: Politics; Another Gulf War?  New York Times , March 10, 1991.

[305] George Bush and Brent Scowcroft,  A World Transformed  (New York, 1998), 383-84.

[306] Joyce Battle, “The Iraq War – Part I: The U.S. Prepares for Conflict, 2001,” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 326, Timeline, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB326/IraqWarPart1-Timeline.pdf; Sewell Chan, “Ahmad Chalabi, Iraqi Politician Who Pushed for U.S. Invasion, Dies at 71,” New York Times , November 3, 2015; and Aram Roston, “Iraqi politician’s suit against Jordan dismissed,” NBC News, August 28, 2007, https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna20483866.  Chalabi’s conviction was later overturned with the help of U.S. officials.  He served as Iraq’s deputy prime minister from May 2005 to May 2006, as well as Iraq’s Minister of Oil within that period.  See also, Kenneth M. Pollack, “Ahmad Chalabi, RIP,” Brookings, November 4, 2015, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2015/11/04/ahmad-chalabi-rip.

[307] “Defense Planning: Guidance FY 1994-1999,” April 16, 1992, page 22, https://www.archives.gov/files/declassification/iscap/pdf/2008-003-docs1-12.pdf.  For an overview of U.S. global strategy, see Andrew J. Bacevich,  America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History  (New York: Random House, 2016); and Douglas Little,  American Orientalism: The United States and the Middle East since 1945  (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002).

[308] Walter Pincus, “U.S. Lacks Specifics on Banned Arms,” Washington Post , March 16, 2003.  See also, “Iraq: A Chronology of UN Inspections” (no date), https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2002-10/features/iraq-chronology-un-inspections.  The Arms Control Association Special Report cites numerous instances of Iraqi intransigence and concealment, but also the achievements of the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) in overseeing the destruction of Iraq’s chemical, biological, and missile programs:  “UNSCOM destroyed more than 38,000 filled and unfilled chemical munitions.  UNSCOM also oversaw the destruction of 690 tonnes of chemical warfare agents, more than 3,000 tonnes of precursor chemicals, and roughly 600 pieces of production equipment.  With varying degrees of confidence, UNSCOM further certified that another 34,000 special munitions and 823 tonnes of key precursors had been destroyed during the Gulf War and that Iraq had unilaterally destroyed another 13,660 special munitions and about 200 additional tonnes of key precursors after the war.  UNSCOM also verified that more than 600 additional pieces of production and analytical instruments were no longer operational.  Inspectors also succeeded in uncovering Iraq’s VX program, which Baghdad had tried to conceal, as well as additional chemical weapons research and development projects on which Iraq had not volunteered information.  UNSCOM supervised the dismantlement of Iraq’s top chemical weapons complex, the al-Muthanna State Establishment, and put other sites under monitoring.”

[309] United Nations, “Report of the Secretary-General Pursuant to Paragraph 3 of Resolution 1111 (1997),” S/1997/935, November 28, 1997; and United Nations, Security Council Committee established by Resolution 661, Summary Record, Meeting 195, S/AC.25/SR.195, March 20, 2000; cited in Joy Gordon, “The Enduring Lessons of the Iraq Sanctions,”  Middle East Report  294 (Spring 2000), https://merip.org/2020/06/the-enduring-lessons-of-the-iraq-sanctions.

[310] “President Bush, Prime Minister Blair Hold Press Availability,” Camp David, Maryland, March 27, 2993, White House archives, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030327-3.html.

[311] “Raid on Baghdad: The Iraqi Capital; On Baghdad Streets, Angry Demands for Revenge,” New York Times , June 28, 1993; Tim Weiner, “Plot by Baghdad to Assassinate Bush is Questioned,” New York Times , October 25, 1993; Seymour M. Hersh, “A Case Not Closed,” The New Yorker , November 1, 1993; Scott Shane, “When the threat of Hussein hit home for Bush, Baltimore Sun , February 22, 2003;  Robert Fisk, The Great War For Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 715; and Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, Al Gore: A User’s Manual (London: Verso, 2000), 212.

[312] Robert Kagan, “Saddam’s Impending Victory,” Weekly Standard , February 2, 1998; quoted in Andrew Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 88.

[313] “Iraq Liberation Act of 1998,” Public Law 105-338 – Oct. 31, 1998, https://www.congress.gov/105/plaws/publ338/PLAW-105publ338.pdf.

[314] John F. Harris and John M. Goshko, “Clinton Makes Case for Strike Against Iraq,” Washington Post , February 18, 1998, A1.

[315] Joe Biden, “I Meant No Disrespect,” letter to The Washington Post , September 19, 1998.

[316] The Project for a New American Century envisioned not only the takeover of Iraq, but also the decapitation of other regimes regarded as adversaries of the U.S., including Iran, Syria, and Libya.  See Norman Podhoretz, “In Praise of the Bush Doctrine,”  Commentary , September 2002.

[317] Ron Suskind, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), 85-86; cited in Stone and Kuznick, The Untold History of the United States , 513.

[318] Clarke, Against All Enemies , 30.

[319] Michael Cooper and Marc Santora, “Mideast Hawks Help to Develop Giuliani Policy,” New York Times , October 25, 2007; and Jonathan Stein and Tim Dickinson, “Lie by Lie: A Timeline of How We Got Into Iraq,” Mother Jones , September/October 2006, https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/12/leadup-iraq-war-timeline; also cited in Stone and Kuznick, The Untold History of the United States , 503.

[320] Suskind, The Price of Loyalty , 85-86; cited in Stone and Kuznick, The Untold History of the United States , 513.

[321] Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), 45; Joyce Battle, “The Iraq War – Part I: The U.S. Prepares for Conflict, 2001,” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 326, Timeline (through February 2010), https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB326/IraqWarPart1-Timeline.pdf; Julian Borger, “Bush ‘wanted war in 2002,’” The Guardian , February 23, 2004, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/feb/24/historybooks.usa; and Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt, “Military Would Be Stressed By a New War, Study Finds,” New York Times , May 24, 2002, A8. The Borger article reviews Rowan Scarborough’s recently published book, Rumsfeld’s War: The Untold Story of America’s Anti-Terrorist Commander (New York: Regnery Publishing, January 2004).

[322] Brent Scowcroft, “Don’t Attack Saddam,” Wall Street Journal , August 15, 2002, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1029371773228069195.

[323] “Bush’s UN speech: Full Text,” BBC News, September 13, 2002, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2254712.stm; and “The Rest of the Story: Iraq’s Links to Al Qaeda,” The White House, September 15, 2006, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/09/20060915-4.html.

[324] “Public Law 107-243, 107 th Congress:  Joint Resolution:  To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq,” October 16, 2002, https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ243/PLAW-107publ243.pdf.  Senator Joe Biden, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, facilitated the passage of the act; see Jeremy Kuzmarov, “Biden’s Key Role in the Crime of the Century: The 2003 U.S. Invasion of Iraq,” January 19, 2021, https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/01/19/bidens-key-role-in-the-crime-of-the-century-the-2003-u-s-invasion-of-iraq.

[325] Victoria Carty, “The Anti-War Movement Versus the War Against Iraq ,” International Journal of Peace Studies , Vol. 14, No. 1 (Spring/Summer 2009), 33.

[326] Capt. Gregory Ball, “2003 – Operation Iraqi Freedom,” Air Force Historical Support Division, https://www.afhistory.af.mil/FAQs/Fact-Sheets/Article/458942/operation-iraqi-freedom.

[327] Max Fisher, “The Truth About Iconic 2003 Saddam Statue-Toppling,” The Atlantic , January 3, 2011; Lloyd C. Gardner, The Long Road to Baghdad: A History of U.S. Foreign Policy from 1970s to the Present (New York: The New Press, 2008), 170; and George W. Bush, “Remarks on the Rescue of U.S. Prisoners of War and an Exchange With Reporters,” April 13, 2003, The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-the-rescue-us-prisoners-war-and-exchange-with-reporters.

[328] Niko Price “3,240 Civilian Deaths in Iraq,” Associated Press, June 10, 2003; cited in Human Rights Watch, “Summary and Recommendations: Principal Findings,” Off Target: The Conduct of the War and Civilian Casualties in Iraq , December 2003, https://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/usa1203/3.htm#_Toc57442226.

[329] Human Rights Watch, “Summary and Recommendations: Principal Findings.”

[330] President George W. Bush, Address of the President to the Nation, September 7, 2003, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/09/20030907-1.html.

[331] Carl Conetta, “The Wages of War: Iraqi Combatant and Noncombatant Fatalities in the 2003 Conflict,” Project on Defense Alternatives Research Monograph #8 , October 20, 2003, http://www.comw.org/pda/0310rm8.html.  In this thoroughly researched report, Conetta writes:  “More generally, the casualty costs of Operation Iraqi Freedom are relevant in assessing the notion of a ‘new warfare,’ which has helped shape recent American debates about the utility of war.  One premise of the ‘new warfare’ hypothesis is that precision technologies and new warfighting techniques now allow the United States to wage war while incurring dramatically fewer casualties — especially civilian casualties.  Although Operation Iraqi Freedom was supposed to exemplify the new warfare, it provides no unambiguous support for the hypothesis regarding civilian casualties.”

[332] “US chief Iraq arms expert quits,” BBC News, January 24, 2004, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3424831.stm.

[333] Lloyd C. Gardner, “Mr. Rumsfeld’s War,” in Lloyd C. Gardner and Marilyn B. Young, Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam:  Or, How Not to Learn from the Past (New York: The New Press, 2007), 193.

[334] United Nations Security Council press release, “UN Inspectors Found No Evidence of Prohibited Weapons Programmes as of 18 March Withdrawal, Hans Blix Tells Security Council,” 5 June 2003, https://www.un.org/press/en/2003/sc7777.doc.htm.  According to the Arms Control Association:  “UN weapons inspectors worked in Iraq from November 27, 2002 until March 18, 2003.  During that time, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the United Nations Monitoring, Verification, and Inspections Commission (UNMOVIC) conducted more than 900 inspections at more than 500 sites.  The inspectors did not find that Iraq possessed chemical or biological weapons or that it had reconstituted its nuclear weapons program. Although Iraq was cooperative on what inspectors called ‘process’ – allowing inspectors access to suspected weapons sites, for example – it was only marginally cooperative in answering the questions surrounding its weapons programs.  Unable to resolve its differences with Security Council members who favored strengthening and continuing weapons inspections, the United States abandoned the inspections process and initiated the invasion of Iraq on March 19.”  Arms Control Association, “Disarming Saddam – A Chronology of Iraq and UN Weapons Inspections from 2002-2003,” August 2017, https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/iraqchron.

[335] “Transcript: David Kay at Senate hearing,” CNN, January 28, 2004, https://www.cnn.com/2004/US/01/28/kay.transcript.

[336] Bob Woodward, State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 278-79.

[337] “This Will Be a Campaign Unlike Any Other in History,” Wall Street Journal , March 22, 2003; and Bacevich, America’s War for the Greater Middle East , 248-51.

[338] George W. Bush, “President Discusses the Future of Iraq,” Washington Hilton Hotel, February 26, 2003, The White House, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030226-11.html.

[339] Susan L. Carruthers, The Good Occupation: American Soldiers and the Hazards of Peace (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016), 2.  Carruthers notes that the president’s analogy to WWII occupations was further flawed by the fact that the occupations of Germany and Japan lasted until 1955 and 1952, respectively, with the island of Okinawa remaining under U.S. sovereignty until 1972; and after the end of formal occupation, U.S. troops were garrisoned in both countries.

[340] Fisher, “The Truth About Iconic 2003 Saddam Statue-Toppling.”

[341] Sean Loughlin, “Rumsfeld on looting in Iraq: ‘Stuff happens,’” CNN, April 12, 2003, https://www.cnn.com/2003/US/04/11/sprj.irq.pentagon.

[342] Elisabeth Bumiller and David E. Sanger, “A Nation at War: The President; How 3 Weeks of War in Iraq Looked From the Oval Office,” New York Times , April 14, 2003, A1.

[343] “Maxwell Reid Thurman, General, United States Army,” Arlington National Cemetery, http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/mthurman.htm.

[344] Woodward, State of Denial , 108.

[345] “Interview Lt. Gen. Jay Garner (Ret.),” Frontline (transcript), Public Broadcasting Station, October 9, 2003, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/yeariniraq/interviews/garner.html.

[346] Corey Adwar, “The Former Head Of The US Occupation In Iraq Did 2 Very Embarrassing Things On His First And Last Days On The Job,” Insider , August 8, 2014, https://www.businessinsider.com/l-paul-bremer-was-embarrassed-on-first-and-last-days-in-iraq-2014-8.  One commander who rejected the order was U.S. Army Col. H.R. McMaster who told PBS Frontline:  “There just is not sufficient justification to shoot somebody because they’re carrying a computer out of the old Ministry of Education building.”

[347] “Losing Iraq,” PBS Frontline (interviews), July 29, 2014, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/losing-iraq.  Bremer claimed to not remember the comment of the CIA station chief that “30,000 to 50,000 Baathists” would be driven underground.

[348] James P. Pfiffner, “US Blunders in Iraq:  De-Baathification and Disbanding the Army,” Intelligence and National Security , Vol. 15, No. 1 (February 2010), 79.  The quote within Pfiffner’s is from George Tenet, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 427.  As explained by Pfiffner, Bremer’s two orders involved:  “(1) the decision to bar from government work Iraqis who ranked in the top four levels of Saddam’s Baath Party or who held positions in the top three levels of each ministry; (2) the decision to disband the Iraqi Army and replace it with a new army built from scratch.”

[349] See Woodward, State of Denial .

[350] President George W. Bush, “President Discusses the Future of Iraq,” April 28, 2003, The White House archives, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/04/20030428-3.html.

[351] On the frailties of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams organized by the U.S. State Department, see Peter Van Buren, We Meant Well:  How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2011).   In the film, “The Lost Year in Iraq,” Col. T.X. Hammes, a counterinsurgency expert and adviser to Iraq’s Interior Ministry, noted, “We had so many of these very, very young people that are dedicated Americans, brave enough to take a chance and go into Iraq to try to do something right for their country.  But [they] didn’t get any training; they have no background. . . . And yet we put them in charge of planning at [the] national level.”  Frontline, “ The Lost Year in Iraq : Introduction,” October 17, 2006, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/yeariniraq/etc/synopsis.html.

[352] Pfiffner, “US Blunders in Iraq,” 76.  As explained by Pfiffner, Bremer’s two orders involved:  “(1) the decision to bar from government work Iraqis who ranked in the top four levels of Saddam’s Baath Party or who held positions in the top three levels of each ministry; (2) the decision to disband the Iraqi Army and replace it with a new army built from scratch.  These two fateful decisions were made against the advice of military and CIA professionals and without consulting important members of the President’s staff and cabinet.”

[353] Paul Krugman, “Battlefield of Dreams,” New York Times , May 4, 2004.

[354] Jeremy Kuzmarov, “War Without End: The Iraq War in Context,” Global Policy Forum, January 2009, https://archive.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/occupation/2009/01warcontext.htm.  The economic dimension of the U.S. takeover of Iraq is analyzed by sociology professor Michael Schwartz in War Without End: The Iraq War in Context (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2008), available online through researchgate.net:  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/294728347_War_Without_End_The_Iraq_War_in_Context.

[355] James Glanz, “Rebuilding of Iraqi Pipeline as Disaster Waiting to Happen,” New York Times , April 25, 2006.

[356] James Glanz and Erik Eckholm, “Transition in Iraq: Bricks, Mortar and Money; Reality Intrudes on Promises in Rebuilding of Iraq,” New York Times , June 30, 2004.

[357] Neela Banerjee and John H. Cushman Jr., “The Struggle for Iraq: The Economy; Unemployed Iraqis Say New Jobs Will Pay Off in Greater Security for All,” New York Times , February 8, 2004.

[358]  James Glanz and Denise Grady, “Cholera Epidemic Infects 7,000 People in Iraq,”  New York Times , September 12, 2007; “Cholera Outbreak Highlights Iraq’s Plight,” Associated Press, October 5, 2007; and Schwartz, War Without End , 166.

[359] “As Iraqi children return to school, UNICEF urges more aid,” UN News, October 8, 2007, https://news.un.org/en/story/2007/10/235302-iraqi-children-return-school-unicef-urges-more-aid.

[360] “Violent Response: The U.S. Army in al-Falluja,” Human Rights Watch, June 16, 2003, https://www.hrw.org/report/2003/06/16/violent-response/us-army-al-falluja#.  President Bush did not explicitly say “mission accomplished” in his speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, but a large banner with that inscription hung from the ship behind Bush.

[361] “Third Infantry Division Commander Live Briefing from Iraq” (May 15, 2003), and “Maj. Gen. Odierno Video-On teleconference from Baghdad” (June 18, 2003), cited in Bacevich, America’s War for the Greater Middle East , 258; and Pauline Jelinek, “Rumsfeld downplays resistance in Iraq,” Kitsap Sun , July 19, 2003, https://products.kitsapsun.com/archive/2003/06-19/179739_rumsfeld_downplays_resistance_i.html.

[362] “White House defends Bush remark on Iraqi attacks,” CNN, July 3, 2003, https://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/07/03/bush.comment/index.html; and Gardner, The Long Road to Baghdad , 180.

[363] “Iraq Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction & Security in Post-Saddam Iraq,” The Brookings Institution, July 31, 2006, pp. 21, 5, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/index20060731.pdf.

[364] “DoD News Briefing – Mr. Di Rita and Gen. Abizaid” (July 16, 2003), cited in Bacevich, America’s War for the Greater Middle East , 258-59.

[365] Lt. Gen. Sanchez Interview on CNN” (July 27, 2003), and “Briefing on the First Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq” (September 9, 2003), cited in Bacevich, America’s War for the Greater Middle East , 259-60.

[366] “Briefing on the First Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq” (September 9, 2003), cited in Bacevich, America’s War for the Greater Middle East , 259-60.

[367] As examples of the invisibility of the enemy, a bomb exploded outside the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad on August 7, killing 17 and injuring dozens; and twelve days later, a suicide bomber drove a truck full of explosives to the UN headquarters in Baghdad, killing 22 and wounding over 100.  In the aftermath, a news correspondent asked Bremer, “With this new kind of attack, how can you secure this city and this country?”  Bremer replied, “We’ll do our best to find these people before they attack and to deal with them, and we will.”  “Losing Iraq,” PBS Frontline.

[368] “Commander, 4 th Infantry Division, Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno, via Teleconference from Tikrit, Iraq” (October 27, 2003), cited in Bacevich, America’s War for the Greater Middle East , 259.

[369] Dexter Filkins, “The Fall of the Warrior King, The New York Times Magazine , October 23, 2005, https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/23/magazine/the-fall-of-the-warrior-king.html.  Filkins reported from The New York Times Baghdad bureau in Iraq from 2003 to 2006.

[370] Ali A. Allawi, who served in a variety of positions in the Iraqi government, wrote:  “The measures that were used [by U.S. and Coalition forces] were mainly ineffective.  They were also deeply offensive to the cultural and religious mores of what was still a tribal society.  It is not so much that the US forces deliberately trampled over these sensibilities, rather that they were generally ignorant of them.  The searching of homes without the presence of a male head of household, body searches of women, the use of sniffer dogs, degrading treatment of prisoners, public humiliation of the elderly and notables, all contributed to the view that the Americans had only disdain and contempt for Iraq’s traditions.  These stories of American insensitivity to local customs grew in the telling and became in the hands of the insurgents and their sympathisers a deliberate programme on the part of the USA to undermine the religious and cultural roots of the country.”  Allawi also noted a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate in October 2003 which concluded that the growing insurgency was driven by local factors and drew its strength from deep grievances and a widespread hostility to the presence of foreign troops.  Ali A. Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace (USA: Yale University Press, 2007), 186.

[371] Bacevich, America’s War for the Greater Middle East , 261, 263.  A study commissioned by the UN Development Programme, the “Iraq Living Conditions Survey,” estimated 24,000 war-related Iraqi deaths between March 2003 and May 2004, including both civilians and combatants.  “Iraq Living Conditions Survey 2004,” United Nations Development Programme, https://web.archive.org/web/20060529152450/http://www.iq.undp.org/ILCS/overview.htm.

[372] “Poll: 70% believe Saddam, 9-11 link,” AP wire service, September 6, 2003, https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-09-06-poll-iraq_x.htm.

[373] “Text of President Bush’s 2004 State of the Union Address,” Washington Post , January 20, 2004, https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/transcripts/bushtext_012004.html.

[374] Brian Bennett and Vivienne Walt, “Losing Hearts And Minds,” Time , December 3, 2003, http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,552124,00.html.

[375] Timothy S. Williams, with Nicholas I. Schlosser, “The Battle for Fallujah,” U.S. Marines in battle:  Fallujah, November-December 2004 , page 3, https://www.usmcu.edu/Portals/218/FALLUJAH.pdf.

[376] “Iraq Index,” Brookings, page 4.

[377] Anthony H. Cordesman, Charles Loi, and Vivek Kocharlakota, “IED Metrics for Iraq: June 2003 – September 2010,” Center for Strategic & International Studies, November 11, 2010, https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/publication/101110_ied_metrics_combined.pdf.  Remarkably, the Second Battle of Fallujah was treated by Air Force Magazine as a model for counterinsurgency warfare.  Editor Rebecca Grant wrote, “The proper integration of airpower into Fallujah’s ground operation provided on call strike and created an unprecedented level of urban warfare competence.  The new model added to the ‘margin of superiority’ for ground forces.”  Rebecca Grant, “The Fallujah Model,” Air Force Magazine , February 2005, https://www.airforcemag.com/PDF/MagazineArchive/Documents/2005/February%202005/0205fallujah.pdf.

[378] Eric Schmitt, “Iraq-Bound Troops Confront Rumsfeld Over Lack of Armor, New York Times , December 8, 2004.

[379] Thom Shanker, “’Stop-Loss’ Will All but End by 2011, Gates Says,” New York Times , March 18, 2009.

[380] “Iraq Index,” Brookings, page 18.

[381] “Beyond Abu Ghraib: detention and torture in Iraq,” Amnesty International, March 6, 2006, page 16, https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde14/001/2006/en.

[382] A number of prison administrators were brought in from the U.S. without adequate vetting.  Lane McCotter, for example, an Abu Ghraib prison official who helped train guards, had been forced to resign as corrections department director in Utah in 1997 when a mentally ill inmate died after guards left him shackled naked to a restraining chair for hours.  As Director of the Texas Department of Corrections, McCotter had forced thousands of inmates into tiny isolation chambers for record periods.  Another prison official at Abu Ghraib, Don Bordenkircher, had overseen the infamous Tiger Cages in Vietnam when he worked for the USAID’s Office of Public Safety (OPS).  The Assistant director of Iraq’s prison, John J. Armstrong, had been forced to resign as head of the Department of Corrections in Connecticut after settling a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the families of two inmates who died in a supermax facility which the National Prison project referred to as a “high tech dungeon.”  One of the victims had been hit by a guard with a stun gun after he had gone into diabetic shock.  Armstrong had also ignored complaints of sexual abuse of female guards on his watch.  His appointment reflects the tough on crime attitude prevalent among Bush-type conservatives which frequently led to a disregard for human rights – whether in the U.S. or Iraq.  Kuzmarov, Modernizing Repression , 249-51.

[383] Seymour M. Hersh, “Torture at Abu Ghraib:  American soldiers brutalized Iraqis.  How far up does the responsibility go?” The New Yorker , April 30, 2004, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/05/10/torture-at-abu-ghraib.

[384] Dana Milbank, “U.S. Tries to Calm Furor Caused by Photos, Washington Post , May 1, 2004.

[385] Annys Shin, “In 2004, CBS aired photos of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib,” Washington Post , April 19, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/in-2004-cbs-aired-photos-of-prisoner-abuse-at-abu-ghraib/2018/04/17/f1fb902e-2c6a-11e8-8ad6-fbc50284fce8_story.html.  Some of the photos can be seen on the Wikimedia website, “Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse,” https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_prisoner_abuse.

[386] Mona Mahmood, Maggie O’Kane, Chavala Madlena, and Teresa Smith, “”Revealed: Pentagon’s link to Iraqi torture centres,” The Guardian , March 6, 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/06/pentagon-iraqi-torture-centres-link; and “Iraq: Wikileaks Documents Describe Torture of Detainees, Human Rights Watch, October 23, 2010, https://www.hrw.org/news/2010/10/23/iraq-wikileaks-documents-describe-torture-detainees#.

[387] Charles J. Lister, The Syrian jihad: Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and the Evolution of an Insurgency (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 290; and Michael E. Schmidt and Eric Schmitt, “Weapons Sales to Iraq Move Ahead Despite U.S. Worries,” New York Times , December 28, 2011.

[388] Najim Abed Al-Jabouri and Sterling Jensen, “The Iraqi and AQI Roles in the Sunni Awakening,”  Prism , Vol. 2, Issue 1 (December 2010), pp. 11-12, https://cco.ndu.edu/Portals/96/Documents/prism/prism_2-1/prism_volume_2_issue_1.pdf.

[389]  “Iraqi PM vows to crush insurgents,” BBC News, July 15, 2004, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3896853.stm.  Iyad Allawi was a pro-U.S., Shiite politician and rival of Ahmad Chalabi (his second cousin) who helped prepare the way for the American invasion in 2003 by persuading Iraqi troops not to fight.  As a result, he was “often vilified by Iraqis, particularly Sunnis, as a Western puppet,” according to  The New Yorker  (January 16, 2006).  “Allawi was anointed Iraq’s leader in June [2004], in a formal ceremony with Paul Bremer III, the outgoing administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority.  Since Allawi took office, Iraq has become unmoored by violence, and his efforts to restore security have been the central obsession of his leadership.”  One such effort involved shooting seven suspected terrorists in the head without a trial, as reported by Paul McGeough for the Sydney  Morning Herald .  “This is how we must deal with the terrorists,” said Allawi.  Jon Lee Anderson, “A Man of the Shadows: Can Iyad Allawi hold Iraq together?”  The New Yorker , January 16, 2005.

[390]  Jessica Stern and Megan K. McBride, “Terrorism and the 2003 Invasion of Iraq,” Costs of War Project, Watson Institute International & Public Affairs, Brown University (2013), page 1, https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/2013/terrorism-after-2003-invasion-iraq.

[391]  Al-Jabouri and Jensen, “The Iraqi and AQI Roles in the Sunni Awakening,” 3-4.  Najim Abed Al-jabouri was a major general in the new Iraqi police and the mayor of Tal Afar, Ninevah, from 2005 to 2008.

[392] Al-Jabouri and Jensen, “The Iraqi and AQI Roles in the Sunni Awakening,” 9.  See also, Patrick Cockburn, The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq (New York: Verso, 2007).  Cockburn, an investigative reporter residing in Baghdad in early 2007, did not view the U.S. surge of troops as changing the faulty dynamics of the U.S. occupation.  He writes:  “The U.S. had failed to pacify Iraq between 2003 and 2007.  Now, with much of the US public openly disillusioned with the war, Bush was to try for victory once again.  The US army was to go on fighting the 5 million-strong Sunni community as it had been doing since the capture of Baghdad (xiii). . . . Above all, the Bush administration was determined to put off the day, at least until after the Presidential election in 2008, when it had to admit that the US had failed in Iraq” (xiv). . . . There was a central lesson of four years of war which Bush and Tony Blair never seemed to take on board though it was obvious to anybody living in Iraq: the occupation was unpopular and becoming more so by the day” (xvi). . . . Opinion polls consistently showed this trend.  A comprehensive survey of Iraqis has been conducted by ABC News, USA Today, BBC and ARD annually over the last three years.  Its findings illuminate the most important trends in Iraqi politics.  They show that by March 2007 no less than 78 percent of Iraqis opposed the presence of US forces, compared to 65 per cent in November 2005 and 51 per cent in February 2004.  In the latter year [2004] only 17 per cent of the population thought that violence against US forces was acceptable while by 2007 the figure had risen to 52 per cent.  This pool of people sympathetic to Sunni insurgents and Shia militias was so large as to make it difficult to control and impossible to eliminate them” (xvii).

[393]  “Iraqi PM: Shooting Was “In Cold Blood,”  CBS News , September 19, 2007, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iraqi-pm-shooting-was-in-cold-blood.  For a detailed description of the massacre, see “Nisour Square Massacre,” Citizens’ Oversight Projects, https://copswiki.org/Common/NisourSquareMassacre; and “Private Security Contractors in Iraq: Background, Legal Status, and Other Issues,” Congressional Research Service, September 29, 2008, p. 10, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL32419/13.

[394] “Private Security Contractors in Iraq,” 10.

[395]  “Remarks of President Barack Obama – As Prepared for Delivery; Responsibly Ending the War in Iraq,” Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, February 27, 2009, The White House, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/realitycheck/the-press-office/remarks-president-barack-obama-ndash-responsibly-ending-war-iraq.

[396]  Tim Arango and Michael S. Schmidt, “Despite Difficult Talks, U.S. and Iraq Had Expected Some American Troops to Stay,  New York Times , October 21, 2011; James Jeffery (former U.S. ambassador to Turkey and to Iraq), “Behind the U.S. Withdrawal from Iraq,”  The Washington Institute for Near East Policy , November 2, 2014, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/behind-us-withdrawal-iraq; and Kuzmarov, Obama’s Unending Wars , 178.  On September 1, 2010, the U.S. formally ended Operation Iraqi Freedom – after the loss of 4,431 military personnel – and began Operation New Dawn. U.S. fatalities during Operation New Dawn totaled 74, of which 38 were killed in action and 36 died from non-hostile causes.  U.S. Department of Defense, “Casualty Status,” March 7, 2022, https://www.defense.gov/casualty.pdf.

[397]  Emma Sky,  The Unraveling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq  (New York: Public Affairs, 2015), 322; Kuzmarov,  Obama’s Unending Wars , 179; Liz Sly, “Arab Spring Style Protests Take Hold in Iraq,”  Washington Post,  February 8, 2013; and Patrick Cockburn,  The Rise of the Islamic State: ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution  (London: Verso, 2014), 47.  Al-Maliki’s nationalist ideals were inspired by his grandfather, Mohammed Hassan Abul Mahasin, a poet and rebel fighter who opposed the British occupation of Iraq in the 1920s before becoming education minister.

[398]  Rod Nordland, “Maliki Contests the Result of Iraq Vote,”  New York Times , March 27, 2010.

[399] Tim Arango, “Dozens Killed in Battles Across Iraq as Sunnis Escalate Protests Against Government,” New York Times , April 23, 2013.

[400] “Terrorist March in Iraq: The U.S. Response ,” Hearing Before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, 113 th Congress, 2 nd Session, July 23, 2014 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2014), page 5.

[401] Jessica T. Matthews, “Iraq Illusions,” New York Review of Books , August 14, 2014, https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/08/14/iraq-illusions/

[402] Cockburn, The Rise of the Islamic State , x, xi; Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror (New York: Regan Arts, 2015), 24-38; and Wayne Madsen, Unmaking ISIS: The Shocking Truth (San Diego, CA: Progressive Press, 2016), 76, 143.

[403] “Timeline: the Rise, Spread, and Fall of the Islamic State,” Wilson Center, October 28, 2019, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/timeline-the-rise-spread-and-fall-the-islamic-state; and Zack Beauchamp, “The US and Iran are tacitly cooperating in Iraq,” Vox Media, November 17, 2015,  https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/17996024/the-us-and-iran-are-tacitly-cooperating-in-iraq.

[404] Awra Damon (narrator), “Mosul survivors search for loved ones,” CNN video recording, https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2018/01/19/mosul-isis-one-year-trump-damon-pkg.cnn/video/playlists/mosul; and Azmat Khan and Anand Gopal, “The Uncounted: An on-the-ground Investigation Reveals that the U.S. Led Battle Against ISIS – Hailed as the most precise Air Campaign in History – is Killing Far More Iraqi Civilians Than the Coalition Has Acknowledged,” New York Times Magazine, November 19, 2017, 43-47.

[405] “Iraq: Civilians killed by airstrikes in their homes after they were told not to flee Mosul,” Amnesty International, March 28, 2017, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/03/iraq-civilians-killed-by-airstrikes-in-their-homes-after-they-were-told-not-to-flee-mosul.

[406] Tim Arango, “Mosul air strikes by US-led coalition leave ‘panorama of destruction,’ Deaths of many civilians in fight against Isis described by Iraqi commander as ‘normal thing,'” The Irish Times , ” March 28, 2017.

[407] Charlie Savage, “Penned in Desert Camps, the Children of ISIS Are Stuck in Limbo,” New York Times , July 20, 2022.

[408] “Iraqi Civilians,” Costs of War Project, Watson Institute International & Public Affairs, Brown University, June 2021, https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/iraqi.  There were also incidents, reminiscent of My Lai in Vietnam, where the U.S. military covered up outright murders of civilians.  The story of the Haditha Massacre was not revealed until a Freedom of Information request was filed by In the Dark podcast in 2020.  The story, with accompanying photos, was published in The New Yorker in 2024.  See Madeleine Baran, “The Haditha Massacre: Photos that the Military Did Not Want the World to See,” The New Yorker , August 27, 2024, https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/in-the-dark/the-haditha-massacre-photos-that-the-military-didnt-want-the-world-to-see.

[409] Neta C. Crawford and Catherine Lutz, “Human Cost of Post-9/11 Wars: Direct War Deaths in Major War Zones, Afghanistan and Pakistan (October 2001 – October 2019), Iraq (March 2003 – October 2019); Syria (September 2014-October 2019); Yemen (October 2002-October 2019); and Other,” November 13, 2019, Costs of War Project, Watson Institute International & Public Affairs, Brown University, https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2021/WarDeathToll; and Borzou Daragahi, “Envoy to Iraq Sees Threat of Wider War,” Los Angeles Times , March 7, 2006.

[410] Lieutenant General Greg Newbold (Ret.), “Why Iraq Was a Mistake,” Time Magazine , April 9, 2006, https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,1181629-2,00.html; and Robert D. McFadden, “Donald H. Rumsfeld, Defense Secretary During Iraq War, Is Dead at 88,” New York Times , June 30, 2021.

[411] Scott McClellan, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception (New York: Public Affairs, 2008), xiii.

[412] Gallup Historical Trends, “Iraq,” https://news.gallup.com/poll/1633/iraq.aspx.

[413] “Pew Global Attitudes Project, 2012 Spring Survey Topline Results,” July 10, 2012, https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2012/07/Pew-Global-Attitudes-Project-Arab-Spring-TOPLINE-Tuesday-July-10-2012.pdf.

[414] Joanna Sweatt, “19 Years After the Invasion: A Reflection on the U.S. Military Presence in Iraq,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft webinar (comments), March 23, 2002; and Robert Draper, “Iraq, 20 Years Later: A Changed Washington and a Terrible Toll on Americans,” New York Times , March 20, 2023.

[415] Steven Thomas and Warren P. Strobel, “Bush sets lone wolf strategy for U.S.,” Tallahassee Democrat , July 26, 2001; and Stone and Kuznick, The Untold History of the United States , 542.  President Bill Clinton signed the Rome Statute of the ICC on December 31, 2000, but President Bush “suspended” Clinton’s signature.  Continuing in this vein, in December 2001, the Bush administration withdrew the U.S. from the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviet Union thereby opening the way to a new nuclear arms race.  Terence Neilan, “Bush Pulls Out of ABM Treaty; Putin Calls Move a Mistake,” New York Times , December 13, 2001.

[416] Jean Galbraith, “The Bush Administration’s Response to the International Criminal Court,” University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, 2003, https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2450&context=faculty_scholarship.

[417] U.S. officials have typically distorted the language of internationalism in order to make it conform to U.S. interests and actions, conflating Pax Americana with the “rules-based international order” and branding U.S. adversaries as “rogue nations.”  Quite apart from this nationalistic and propagandistic framing, the “rules-based international order” has been in the making since the first international conference to establish the “laws and customs of war” took place in Brussels, Belgium, in 1874, and later conferences at The Hague in the Netherlands in 1899 and 1907.   At the Hague convention of 1899, leaders of major nations agreed to create a Permanent Court of Arbitration in order to mediate disputes between nations.  They sought to limit the death and destruction of wars by prohibiting the use of poisons, the bombardment of undefended towns and villages, the killing of prisoners, and the looting of property.  This was before two world wars and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  In the aftermath of the Second World War, a new surge of international rule-making took place.  In the interest of peace and human rights, political leaders created the United Nations (1945) and adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the Convention Against Genocide (1948).  They established the basis of international humanitarian law in the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977.  Subsequent accords include the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), which the U.S. belatedly ratified in 1992, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984), which the U.S. ratified in 1994, and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998), which the U.S. did not join.  International human rights law is furthermore buttressed by regional human rights courts such as the European Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and by ad hoc international criminal tribunals such as those created for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.  On another front, international disarmament treaties have banned the production, stockpiling, and use of biological and chemical weapons, cluster bombs, and land mines (the U.S. did not ratify the latter two treaties); they have restricted the proliferation of nuclear weapons and established “nuclear free zones” in certain regions; and they have prohibited the deployment of weapons in outer space and on the ocean floor.  For background, see “Disarmament Treaties Database,” United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, http://disarmament.un.org/treaties; and “Frequently Asked Questions on International Law Aspects of Countering Terrorism,” United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2009, https://www.unodc.org/documents/terrorism/Publications/FAQ/English.pdf.

[418] “The Vice President appears on Meet the Press with Tim Russert,” Camp David, Maryland, September 16, 2001, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/vicepresident/news-speeches/speeches/vp20010916.html.

[419] Tayler and Epstein, “’Legacy of the ‘Dark Side,’” 7.

[420] “How 9/11 shaped Foreign Policy: The Legacy of the Attacks,” Council on Foreign Relations, https://www.cfr.org/timeline/how-911-reshaped-foreign-policy; and Dana Priest, “CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons,” Washington Post , November 2, 2005.

[421] Tayler and Epstein, “’Legacy of the ‘Dark Side,’” 2-3.  See Letta Tayler on the Costs of War Project’s webinar, “Lebacy of the ‘Dark Side’: The Costs of Unlawful U.S. Detentions and Interrogations Post-9/11” (52 minutes), September 13, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DHfSAmTT9o.

[422] Cockburn, Kill Chain , 168-69.  General Billy Mitchell, the reputed father of the U.S. Air Force in the 1920s, had envisioned the use of air power alone to win wars, unaided by armies and navies.  According to one Air Force reviewer, Mitchell envisioned “being able to attack rapidly and persistently anywhere on the globe with a wide range of munitions.”  Maj. Randy Kee, USAF, “Brig Gen Billy Mitchell’s Continuing Legacy to USAF Doctrine,” page 3, https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/ASPJ/journals/Chronicles/kee1.pdf.

[423] Scahill, Dirty Wars , 182-83.  See also, Nick Turse, “The Special Ops Surge: America’s Secret War in 134 Countries,” January 16, 2014, http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog//175794; and Nick Turse, The Changing Face of Empire: Special Ops, Drones, Spies, Proxy Fighters, Secret Bases, and Cyberwarfare (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2012).

[424] Jonathan Masters, “Guantanamo Bay: Twenty Years of Counterterrorism and Controversy,” Council on Foreign Relations, October 5, 2021, https://www.cfr.org/article/guantanamo-bay-twenty-years-counterterrorism-and-controversy; and “Final Report: Guantanamo Review Task Force, January 22, 2010” (sponsored by six U.S. government agencies), https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/ag/legacy/2010/06/02/guantanamo-review-final-report.pdf.  According to the latter, “By the end of 2002, 632 detainees had been brought to Guantanamo. In 2003, 117 additional detainees were brought to the base, with 10 more detainees added in 2004, 14 detainees in 2006, five detainees in 2007, and one detainee in 2008.  Since 2002, a total of 779 individuals have been detained at Guantanamo.”  The great majority of detainees came from Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Pakistan.

[425] Carol Rosenberg, “The Secret Photos of Guantánamo Bay,” New York Times , June 12, 2002.

[426] Peter Jan Honigsberg,  Our Nation Unhinged: The Human Consequences of the War on Terror (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 77-78.

[427] Honigsberg, Our Nation Unhinged , 83-85.

[428] Charlie Savage, William Glaberson, and Andrew W. Lehren, “Classified Files Offer New Insights Into Detainees,” New York Times , April 24, 2011.

[429] Honigsberg, Our Nation Unhinged , 77.

[430] Honigsberg, Our Nation Unhinged , 154.

[431] “US: Landmark Supreme Court Ruling on Detainees,” Human Rights Watch, June 12, 2008, https://www.hrw.org/news/2008/06/12/us-landmark-supreme-court-ruling-detainees.

[432] “International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance,” December 20, 2006 (entry into force December 23, 2010), UN Treaty Collection, https://treaties.un.org/pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=IND&mtdsg_no=IV-16&chapter=4&clang=_en.

[433] “Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment,” United Nations General Assembly resolution 39/46 adopted December 10, 1984, Article Two, https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-against-torture-and-other-cruel-inhuman-or-degrading.  See also, International Committee of the Red Cross, “What does the law say about torture?” June 24, 2011, https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/faq/torture-law-2011-06-24.htm; and UN Office of Counter-Terrorism, “International Legal Instruments,” https://www.un.org/counterterrorism/international-legal-instruments.

[434] The White House, February 7, 2002, “Memorandum for: The Vice President, The Secretary of State, The Secretary of Defense, The Attorney General, Chief of Staff to the President, Director of Central Intelligence, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Subject: Humane Treatment of Taliban and al Qaeda Detainees,” http://www.pegc.us/archive/White_House/bush_memo_20020207_ed.pdf.

[435] Honigsberg, Our Nation Unhinged , 8, 19-20.  See also, Karen J, Greenberg, Rogue Justice: The Making of the Security State (New York: Crown Publishers, 2016).

[436] “Report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program, together with Forward by Chairman Feinstein and Additional and Minority Views,” December 9, 2014 (unclassified sections only), pages 36, xiii, https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/publications/CRPT-113srpt288.pdf.  Only the 700-page Executive Summary of the 6000-page report is available, the rest being classified.  See also, Reed Brody, Getting Away with Torture: The Bush Administration and Mistreatment of Detainees (Human Rights Watch, 2011).

[437] Raymond Bonner, “Pictures From an Interrogation: Drawings by Abu Zubaydah,” ProPublica, May 30, 2018, https://www.propublica.org/article/abu-zubaydah-drawings-pictures-from-an-interrogation; Mark Denbeaux, “How America Tortures,” Seton Hall Public Law Research Paper Forthcoming, posted December 2, 2019, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3494533; Carol Rosenberg, “What the C.I.A.’s Torture Program Looked Like to the Tortured,” New York Times , December 4, 2019 (updated Nov. 6, 2021); and Robert F. Worth, “Throwing Away the Key: The appalling story of a man held captive by the C.I.A. for 20 years” [Review of Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy, The Forever Prisoner: The Full and Searing Account of the C.I.A.’s Most Controversial Covert Program (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2022)], The New York Times Book Review , May 22, 2022, 8.

[438] George W. Bush, “Statement by the President, United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture,” June 26, 2003, The White House, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/06/20030626-3.html.  The general pattern in Washington for dealing with human rights abuses was to cover up those committed by the U.S. and its allies while highlighting those of geopolitical rivals.  For example, on September 25, 2007, President Bush spoke before the UN General Assembly.  He hailed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, omitted any discussion of U.S. human rights abuses, and highlighted abuses by “Belarus, North Korea, Syria, and Iran, brutal regimes [that] deny their people the fundamental rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration.”  He also denounced the governments of Burma, Cuba, Zimbabwe, and Sudan as “tyrannical” regimes.  President George W. Bush, “President Bush Addresses the United Nations General Assembly,” The White House, September 25, 2007, https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/09/20070925-4.html.

[439] Amnesty International, “Guantanamo and beyond: The continuing pursuit of unchecked executive power,” May 13, 2005, page 5, https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr51/083/2005/en.

[440] David Barstow, “Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand, New York Times , April 20, 2008.

[441] Scott Shane, “U.S. Practices Torture After 9/11, Nonpartisan Review Concludes,” New York Times , April 16, 2013.

[442] “Report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence,” v.

[443] “Report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence,” xi-xxvi.  See also, Rebecca Gordon, American Nuremberg: The U.S. Officials Who Should Stand Trial for Post-9/11 War Crimes (New York: Hot Books, 2016).

[444] Stephen Grey and Don van Natta Jr., “In Italy, Anger at U.S. Tactics Colors Spy Case,” New York Times , June 26, 2005.  Another name for Abu Omar was Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr.

[445] Honigsberg, Our Nation Unhinged , 124.

[446] Carol Rosenberg, “For First Time in Public, a Detainee Describes Torture at C.I.A. Black Sites,” New York Times , October 28, 2021.

[447] Carol Rosenberg, “U.S. Official Ends Sentence of Terrorist Who Was Tortured by C.I.A.,” New York Times , March 11, 2022.

[448] “The Guantánamo Docket,” New York Times , Updated May 5, 2022; and Masters, “Guantanamo Bay: Twenty Years of Counterterrorism and Controversy.”

[449] Carol Rosenberg, “Youngest Detainee is Cleared for Transfer,” New York Times , April 27, 2022; “The Guantánamo Docket”; “Hassan bin Attash,” The Rendition Project, https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/prisoners/hassan-binattash.html; and “Walid Mohammed bin Attash,” The Rendition Project, https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/prisoners/walid-binattash.html.

[450] Carol Rosenberg and Charlie Savage, “Panel Backs Transfer of Mentally Ill Guantánamo Detainee Suspected of 9/11 Role,” New York Times , February 4, 2022.

[451] Honigsberg, Our Nation Unhinged , 5.

[452] Dave Philipps, “The Unseen Scars of the Remote-Controlled Kill: Civilian Deaths Haunt U.S. Crews,” New York Times , April 17, 2022.

[453] Alice Ross, “Ten Years On: Eyewitnesses Describe the Aftermath of the First Pakistan Drone Strike, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism , June 17, 2014, ttps://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2014-06-17/ten-years-on-eyewitnesses-describe-the-aftermath-of-the-first-pakistan-drone-strike; and Avery Plaw, Matthew S. Fricker, and Brian Glyn Williams, “Practice Makes Perfect?: The Changing Civilian Toll of CIA Drone Strikes in Pakistan.” Perspectives on Terrorism 5, no. 5/6 (2011), 52.

[454] James Cavallaro, Stephan Sonnenberg, and Sarah Knuckey,  Living Under Drones: Death, Injury and Trauma to Civilians from US Drone Practices in Pakistan (Stanford, NY:  International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic, Stanford Law School; NYU School of Law, Global Justice Clinic, 2012), 40, https://law.stanford.edu/publications/living-under-drones-death-injury-and-trauma-to-civilians-from-us-drone-practices-in-pakistan.

[455] David Kilcullen and Andrew McDonald Exum, “Death From Above, Outrage Down Below,” New York Times (op-ed), May 16, 2009.  David Kilcullen was an Australian counterinsurgency adviser to Gen. David Petraeus, 2006 to 2008, and Andrew Exum was an Army officer in Iraq and Afghanistan, 2002 to 2004.

[456] Zeeshan-ul-hassan Usmani and Hira Bashir, “The Impact of Drone Strikes in Pakistan, Costs of War Project, Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University, December 4, 2014, page 4, https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/2014/impact-drone-strikes-pakistan; and Greenberg, Rogue Justice , 220.  See also, Jessica Purkisss and Jack Serle, “Obama’s covert drone war in numbers: ten times more strikes than Bush,” The Bureau of Investigative Journalism , January 17, 2017, https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-01-17/obamas-covert-drone-war-in-numbers-ten-times-more-strikes-than-bush.

[457] Cavallaro, Sonnenberg, and Knuckey, Living Under Drones , v-ix.  See also, “The Civilian Impact of Drones: Unexamined Costs, Unanswered Questions,” Center for Civilians in Conflict, Columbia Law School Human Rights Clinic, 2012, https://civiliansinconflict.org/?s=Civilian+Impact+of+Drones+Unexamined.

[458] Cavallaro, Sonnenberg, and Knuckey, Living Under Drones , 57-62.  The Associated Press also conducted an investigation of the drone strike and noted that four Taliban were present.

[459] Plaw, Fricker, and Williams, “Practice Makes Perfect?” 57.  See John Brennan on C-SPAN, “Obama Administration Counterterrorism Strategy, June 29, 2011, https://www.c-span.org/video/?300266-1/obama-administration-counterterrorism-strategy.

[460] Robert Chesney, “Text of John Brennan’s Speech on Drone Strikes Today at the Wilson Center, The White House, Office of the Press Secretary April 30, 2012, https://www.lawfareblog.com/text-john-brennans-speech-drone-strikes-today-wilson-center.

[461] Elizabeth Palmer, “Will Pakistan court ruling against U.S. drone strikes force new PM to stick to promises?” CBS News , May 16, 2013, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/will-pakistan-court-ruling-against-us-drone-strikes-force-new-pm-to-stick-to-promises.

[462] “NA unanimously passes resolution against US drone strikes,” Dawn.com, December 10, 2013, https://www.dawn.com/news/1061704; and

[463] Peter Hamby, “10 more secrets from campaign 2012,” CNN, November 4, 2013, https://www.cnn.com/2013/11/04/politics/double-down-2012-campaign/index.html.

[464] Nasser al-Awlaki, “The Drone That Killed My Grandson,” New York Times , July 17, 2013.

[465] “ Al-Aulaqi v. Panetta – Constitutional Challenge to Killing of Three U.S. Citizens,” ACLU, June 4, 2014, https://www.aclu.org/cases/al-aulaqi-v-panetta-constitutional-challenge-killing-three-us-citizens?redirect=targetedkillings; and “Legal Sidebar: No Remedy for Drone Deaths,” April 30, 2014, Congressional 4Research Service Reports on Miscellaneous Topics, https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/noremedy.html.

[466] Jo Becker and Scott Shane, “Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will,” New York Times , May 29, 2012.  See also, Edward Wong, “U.S. Fails to Assess Civilian Deaths in Yemen War, G.A.O. Report Finds,” New York Times , June 8. 2022; Jeremy Scahill, “The Drone Papers,”  The Intercept , October 15, 2015, https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/the-assassination-complex; and Cockburn,  Kill Chain , 145.

[467] Dave Philipps, Eric Schmitt and Mark Mazzetti, “Civilian Deaths Mounted as Secret Unit Pounded ISIS,” New York Times , December 12, 2021.

[468] Erik Schmitt and Dave Philipps, “How the U.S. Hid an Airstrike That Killed Dozens of Civilians in Syria,” New York Times , November 13, 2021; and Schmitt and Philipps, “Pentagon Faults Review of Lethal ’19 Airstrike but Finds No Wrongdoing,” New York Times , May 18, 2022.

[469] Rebecca DiLeonardo, “UN rights expert announces investigation in to use of drone strikes,” Jurist , Jan. 24, 2013, http://jurist.org/paperchase/2013/01/un-rights-expert-announces-investigation-into-use-of-drone-strikes-by-us-and-other-nations.php.

[470] Spencer Ackerman, “Fewer deaths from drone strikes in 2013 after Obama policy change,” The Guardian , December 31, 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/31/deaths-drone-strikes-obama-policy-change.

[471] Scott Shane, “Drone Strikes Reveal Uncomfortable Truth: U.S. Is Often Unsure About Who Will Die,” New York Times , April 23, 2015.  See also, Conor Friedersdorf, “The Obama Administration’s Drone-Strike Dissembling,” The Atlantic , March 14, 2016, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/the-obama-administrations-drone-strike-dissembling/473541.

[472] Nicholas Grossman, “Trump Cancels Drone Strike Civilian Casualty Report: Does It Matter?” War on the Rocks ( Texas National Security Review ), April 2, 2019, https://warontherocks.com/2019/04/trump-cancels-drone-strike-civilian-casualty-report-does-it-matter; and Spencer Ackerman, “Trump Ramped Up Drone Strikes in America’s Shadow Wars,” Daily Beast , November 26, 2018, https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-ramped-up-drone-strikes-in-americas-shadow-wars.

[473] See Peter Singer, Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21 st Century (New York: Penguin, 2008); and Hugh Gusterson, “Towards an Anthropology of Drones: Remaking Space, Time and Valor in Combat,” in The American Way of Bombing: Changing Ethical and Legal Norms, From Flying Fortresses to Drones (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013), 201.

[474] “Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Philip Alston,” UN Human Rights Council, 14 th session, May 28, 2010, page 25, https://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/14session/A.HRC.14.24.Add6.pdf.  See also Medea Benjamin, Drone Warfare: Killing By Remote Control (London: Verso, 2013), 86.

[475] Suite, “High Suicide Rates Among United States Service Members and Veterans of the Post-9/11 Wars,” 16-18; and Nancy Sherman, Afterwar Healing the Moral Injuries of Our Soldiers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 8.  See also, Kelly Denton-Borhaug, “Moral Injury and the Forever Wars: What Americans Don’t Want to Hear,” TomDispatch, August 3, 2021, https://tomdispatch.com/moral-injury-and-the-forever-wars.

[476] Philipps, “The Unseen Scars of the Remote-Controlled Kill.”

[477] Chris McGreal, “Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians, The Guardian , April 5, 2010, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/apr/05/wikileaks-us-army-iraq-attack; and Charlie Savage, “Soldier Admits Providing Files to WikiLeaks,” New York Times , February 28, 2013.  See also, YouTube video, “Collateral Murder – Wikileaks – Iraq” (sign in required):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0.

[478] Hartig and Doherty, “Two Decades Later, the Enduring Legacy of 9/11.”

[479]  Robert P. Saldin, “Foreign Affairs and the 2008 Election,”  The Forum , Vol. 6, Issue 4 (2008), 5, https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/saldin/files/foreign_affairs_and_the_2008_election.pdf.

[480]  “During the year after 9/11, more people enlisted into the military than in any single year since then.  In total, 181,510 Americans enlisted into active-duty service that year, and 72,908 joined the reserves, according to the USO [United Service Organizations].”  Nikki Wentling, “A generation shaped by 9/11: Stories of Americans inspired to serve,”  Stars and Stripes , September 10, 2021, https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2021-09-10/war-on-terror-americans-military-service-attacks-2838073.html#:~:text=During%20the%20year%20after%209,reserves%2C%20according%20to%20the%20USO.

[481] David L. Evans, “The United States Did Not Go to War in Afghanistan,” Passport , Vol. 52, No. 3 (January 2022), 48.

[482] Crawford and Lutz, “Human Cost of Post-9/11 Wars.”

[483] The survey poll of 1,284 U.S. military veterans was taken between May 14 and June 3, 2019, reported in Oriana Pawlyk, “Most Veterans Say Iraq, Afghanistan Wars Weren’t Worth It: Pew Report,” Military.com, July 10, 2019, https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/07/10/most-veterans-say-iraq-afghanistan-wars-werent-worth-it-pew-report.html; and Thomas Howard Suitt III, “High Suicide Rates Among United States Service Members and Veterans of the Post-9/11 Wars,” Costs of War Project, Brown University, June 21, 2021, 1, 3, 4, 18.  See also, “Those Who Can’t Forget: Portraits of Nine Families That Have Lost a Service Member to the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” New York Times Magazine , September 23, 2018.

[484] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Table 7. Employment status of veterans 18 years and over by presence of service-connected disability, reported disability rating, period of service, and sex, August 2021, not seasonally adjusted,” April 21, 2022, https://www.bls.gov/news.release/vet.t07.htm; and Patricia Kime, “Service Academies Report Highest Number of Sexual Assaults Ever,” Military News , February 18, 2022, https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/02/18/service-academies-report-highest-number-of-sexual-assaults-ever.html.

[485] Amelia Sharp, “Alcohol Abuse Among Veterans,” American Addition Centers, April 13, 2022, https://americanaddictioncenters.org/veterans/alcoholism; and U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, “PTSD and Substance Abuse in Veterans” (2019), https://www.ptsd.va.gov/understand/related/substance_abuse_vet.asp.

[486] Tevah Gevelber, “Military families facing housing, health, and food challenges, survey finds:  The results may help explain in part why the military is having recruiting troubles,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, July 17, 2022, https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/07/17/military-families-facing-housing-health-and-food-challenges-survey-finds/?mc_cid=557b19596c&mc_eid=d97819f774; and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, “VA Homeless Programs,” January 6, 2022, https://www.va.gov/HOMELESS/pit_count.asp.  See also, “What are the biggest problems facing veterans returning home from conflict?” National Academy of Sciences, https://thesciencebehindit.org/what-are-the-biggest-problems-facing-veterans-returning-home-from-conflict.

[487] “Remarks of President Barack Obama – State of the Union Address As Delivered,” The White House, January 13, 2016, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/01/12/remarks-president-barack-obama-%E2%80%93-prepared-delivery-state-union-address; and Gevelber, “Military families facing housing, health, and food challenges, survey finds.”

[488] “Estimate of U.S. Post-9/11 War Spending, in $ Billions FY 2001 – FY2022,” Costs of War Project, Brown University, September 2021, https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2021/BudgetaryCosts.  In addition to the amounts noted, the Costs of War Project adds in Homeland Security Prevention and Response to Terrorism at $1.117 trillion, for a total of over $8 trillion.  See also, Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes, The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict (New York: W. W. Norton, 2008).

[489] Samuel Stebbins and Evan Comen, “Military spending: 20 companies profiting the most from war,” USA Today , February 21, 2019.

[490] “President Bush’s address to a joint session of Congress and the nation,”  Washington Post , September 20, 2001.

[491] Arshad Ahmed and Farid Senzai, “The USA Patriot Act: Impact on the Arab and Muslim American Community,” January 1, 2004, Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, https://www.ispu.org/the-usa-patriot-act-impact-on-the-arab-and-muslim-american-community.

[492] Daniel Lefitas, The Terrorist Next Door: The Militia Movement and the Radical Right (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2002), 339; and Andrew Walsh, “The Trouble with Missionaries,” Religion in the News , Summer 2003, Vol. 6, No. 2, https://www3.trincoll.edu/csrpl/RINVol6No2/Trouble%20with%20Missionaires.htm.

[493] “Anti-Sharia law bills in the United States,” Southern Poverty Law Center, February 5, 2018, https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/02/05/anti-sharia-law-bills-united-states.

[494] William Kates, “Poll: Many favor limiting Muslims: Nearly half say U.S. government should curtail civil rights,” Tallahassee Democrat , December 18, 2004.  On statements issued by Islamic scholars and community leaders, see “Muslims Condemn Terrorist Attacks,” Islamic Society of Greater Lansing, https://www.lansingislam.com/muslims-condemn-terrorist-attacks.html.

[495] Diala Shamas and Mermeen Arastu, Mapping Muslims: NYPD Spying and Its Impact on American Muslims , The Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) Project, CUNY School of Law, page 8, https://www.law.cuny.edu/wp-content/uploads/page-assets/academics/clinics/immigration/clear/Mapping-Muslims.pdf; and Avram Bornstein, “Antiterrorist Policing in New York City after 9/11: Comparing Perspectives on a Complex Process.” Human Organization 64, no. 1 (2005): 55.

[496] Russ Feingold, “Why I Opposed the Patriot Act,” The Nation , October 26, 2021, https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/patriot-act-anniversary.

[497] James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, “Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts,” New York Times , December 16, 2005; and David Hastings Dunn, “Bush, 11 September and the Conflicting Strategies of the ‘War on Terrorism,’” Irish Studies in International Affairs 16 (2005), 17.

[498] Barton Gellman and Laura Poitras, “U.S., British intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program,” Washington Post , June 7, 2013.

[499] Charlie Savage, “Letter Reveals C.I.A. Collects Data That Invades Americans’ Privacy,” New York Times , February 11, 2022,

[500] Greenberg, Rogue Justice , 261.  Greenberg is the director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University School of Law.

[501] “Terrorism 2002/2005,” U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, https://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/terrorism-2002-2005.  The FBI sought to protect Americans against violent religious extremism from all sources.  It prevented “a plot to attack an Islamic center in Pinellas Park, Florida,” as well as a “plot by a prison-originated, Muslim convert group to attack U.S. military, Jewish, and Israeli targets in the greater Los Angeles area.”  The report also noted “special interest extremists active in the animal rights and environmental movements” who were responsible for a number of attacks targeting “materials and facilities rather than persons.”

[502] Audra D. S. Burch and Luke Vander Ploeg, “Surge in Hate Crimes Against Black People Is Seen in F.B.I. Data,” New York Times , May 17, 2022.

[503] For an overview, see Chris Wilson, “41 Years of Mass Shootings in the U.S. in One Chart,” Time , April 16, 2021, https://time.com/4965022/deadliest-mass-shooting-us-history.

[504] Josh Rubin and Matt Smith, “’I am the shooter,’ Nidal Hasan tells Fort Hood court-martial,” CNN, August 6, 2013, https://www.cnn.com/2013/08/06/justice/hasan-court-martial/index.html.

[505] Katharine Poppe, “Nidal Hasan: A Case Study in Lone-Actor Terrorism,” George Washington University Program on Extremism, October 2018, page 9, https://extremism.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs2191/f/Nidal%20Hasan.pdf.

[506] “Confronting White Supremacy: Statement Before the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties,” June 4, 2019, FBI News , https://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/confronting-white-supremacy.  In 2009, Congress passed the Hate Crimes Prevention Act which expanded FBI authority to investigate crimes committed against persons or property motivated by bias against race, religion, and ethnicity/national origin, and added to this list bias against disability, sexual orientation, gender, or gender identity.  The 1968 federal hate-crime law extends to crimes motivated by actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin, but only if the victim is engaged in a federally protected activity, like voting or going to school.  The 2009 Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was passed after a gay man (Shepard) and a black man (Byrd) were brutally murdered in separate incidents.

[507] “National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism,” Executive Office of the President, National Security Council, June 2021, pages 4, 6, 30, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/National-Strategy-for-Countering-Domestic-Terrorism.pdf.

[508] Joanna Walters and Alvin Chang, “Far-right terror poses bigger threat to US than Islamist extremism post-9/11,” The Guardian , September 8, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/08/post-911-domestic-terror.  See also, Daniel Byman, Spreading Hate: The Global Rise of White Supremacist Terrorism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022), which offers a comprehensive overview of white power terrorism from the U.S. to New Zealand and considers how governments can protect the public from white power terrorism; and Yan Lucas, “Proud Boy leader pleads guilty to Jan. 6 conspiracy, agrees to cooperate with DOJ,” National Public Radio, April 8, 2022, https://www.npr.org/2022/04/08/1091693738/proud-boy-leader-pleads-guilty-to-jan-6-conspiracy-agrees-to-cooperate-with-doj.

[509] W. J. Hennigan and Vera Bergengruen, “For the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, Jan. 6 Was Just the Start,” Time , July 11, 2022, https://time.com/6195133/jan-6-proud-boys-oath-keepers-growing-threat.  Guy Reffitt, a leader of the Texas militant group call the Three Percenters, entered the Capitol on January 6 with a handgun and led physical attacks on police officers.  He was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for his actions.  Another rioter, Robert Scott Palmer, received a five-year sentence after throwing a fire extinguisher at police.  The model for slandering liberals as treasonous was set by Ann Coulter in Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003).  During the mid-1990s, Republican Party leader Newt Gingrich set the tone by issuing a set of guidelines for Republican candidates that consisted of 100 derogatory words with which to label their liberal opponents.  See McKay Coppins, “The Man Who Broke Politics: Newt Gingrich turned partisan battles into bloodsport, wrecked Congress, and paved the way for Trump’s rise. Now he’s reveling in his achievements,” The Atlantic , November 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/newt-gingrich-says-youre-welcome/570832.

[510] “Thousands join anti-war march,” BBC News, November 18, 2001; “Antiwar protesters gather in London,” UPI, November 18, 2001, https://www.upi.com/Defense-News/2001/11/18/Antiwar-protesters-gather-in-London/24601006121059; and “Protests against the war in Afghanistan,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_the_war_in_Afghanistan.  According to the ANSWER coalition website (https://www.answercoalition.org/who_we_are):  “A distinguishing feature of the organizing principles and work of the ANSWER coalition, in contrast with the traditional U.S. peace movement, was its uncompromising support in defense of the rights of the Palestinian people.”

[511] John Nichols, “Kucinich Rocks the boat,” The Nation , March 25, 2002.

[512] Jerry Isaacs, “75,000 march in Washington against US militarism and Israeli aggression,” Worldwide Socialist Web Site, April 22, 2002, https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2002/04/demo-a22.html.  The September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, https://peacefultomorrows.org, was born when a small group of family members of those killed on 9/11 connected after reading each others’ pleas for nonviolent and reasoned responses to the terrorist attacks.  Several of these individuals met one another when they participated in the “Walk for Healing and Peace” from Washington, D.C. to New York City in late 2001 organized by Kathy Kelly of Voices in the Wilderness (now Voices for Creative Nonviolence).  In January, 2002 four family members traveled to Afghanistan in a delegation organized by Medea Benjamin of Global Exchange to witness the consequences of U.S. military action there and to express their concern that high numbers of civilian casualties would increase terrorist recruitment rather than making the U.S. and the world safer.  This core group decided to unite in order to strengthen their message and voices.  Peaceful Tomorrows was launched as a project of the Fellowship of Reconciliation USA in February 2002.

[513] United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), “History 2003-2013,” http://www.unitedforpeace.org/about/get-involved/history; and Sarah Coffey and Jen Mehigan, “Anti-war rally draws thousands to D.C.,” United Press International, Top News , January 18, 2003, https://www.upi.com/Top_News/2003/01/18/Anti-war-rally-draws-thousands-to-DC/32381042928297.  UFPJ includes national peace organizations such as Peace Action, Veterans for Peace, Fellowship of Reconciliation, and War Resisters League; religious-affiliated groups such as the National Council of Churches, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Pax Christi, Episcopal Peace Fellowship, and Congregational Just Peace; other groups such as American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Democratic Socialists of America, CODEPINK, and National Lawyers Guild; and numerous state and local groups.  UFPJ, “Member groups,” http://www.unitedforpeace.org/member-groups.

[514] David Cortright, A Peaceful Superpower: Lessons from the World’s Largest Antiwar Movement (New York: New Village Press, 2023), 43, 74, 61-63, 79, 81, 113-16.

[515] Military Families Speak Out, “Mission Statement,” https://militaryfamiliesspeakout.com; and Jim O’Brien, “Historical Notes on Historians Against the War,” July 2019, https://www.historiansforpeace.org/our-history.  The group changed its name to Historians for Peace and Democracy in the spring of 2017.

[516] Sam Hamill, ed., Poets Against the War (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2003), xviii-xix; and Mark Gregory, “Poets for Peace,” March 2003, http://unionsong.com/reviews/peace/poets.html.

[517] “Musicians Band Together Against War Threat,” Billboard , Music News, February 27, 2003, https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/musicians-band-together-against-war-threat-72172; and “36 cities tell Bush: Give peace a chance,” People’s World , January 17, 2003, https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/36-cities-tell-bush-give-peace-a-chance; and “The Anti-War Movement,” CBS News , January 17, 2003, https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/the-anti-war-movement.

[518] United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, “Statement on Iraq, 2002,” Washington DC, November 13, 2002, https://www.usccb.org/resources/statement-iraq-2002; and Cortright, A Peaceful Superpower , 91-93.

[519] “Cities jammed in worldwide protest of war in Iraq,” CNN, February 16, 2003, https://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/02/15/sprj.irq.protests.main.

[520] Phyllis Bennis, “February 15, 2003. The Day the World Said No to War,” Institute for Policy Studies, February 15, 2013, https://ips-dc.org/february_15_2003_the_day_the_world_said_no_to_war.

[521] John Nichols, “Kucinich Rocks the boat,” The Nation , March 25, 2002. In April 2007, Kucinich co-sponsored a bill to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. The resolution attracted 26 co-sponsors, including Barbara Lee and Jim McDermott. H-Res. 799 was referred to the House Judiciary Committee and died there.

[522] Helen Dewar, “Lott Calls Daschle Divisive,” Washington Post , March 1, 2002; and “Daschle: Congress won’t ‘rubber-stamp’ Bush,” CNN, March 3, 2002, https://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/03/03/Daschle.terror/index.html.

[523] Richard Benedetto, “Poll: Most back war, but want U.N. support,” USA TODAY , March 16, 2003.  The poll was a combined USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup poll taken of 1,007 adults March 14-15, with a margin of error +/-3 percentage points.

[524] Carty, “The Anti-War Movement Versus the War Against Iraq,” 33.

[525] Gary C. Jacobson, “A Tale of Two Wars: Public Opinion on the U.S. Military Interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 40, no. 4 (2010), 602.

[526] Miriam Berger, “Invaders, allies, occupiers, guests: A brief history of U.S. military involvement in Iraq,” Washington Post , January 11, 2020; and Congressional Research Service, “Department of Defense Contractor and Troop Levels in Afghanistan and Iraq: 2007-2020,” Updated February 22, 2021, https://sgp.fas.org/crs/natsec/R44116.pdf.

[527] “The Nobel Peace Prize for 2009,” NobelPrize.org, https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2009/press-release; and Loren Thompson, “Obama Backs Biggest Nuclear Arms Buildup Since Cold War,”  Forbes , December 15, 2015, https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2015/12/15/obama-backs-biggest-nuclear-arms-buildup-since-cold-war/?sh=bd9d31e2a0f5.  On Libya, see Elizabeth Schmidt, “Africa and the War on Terror,” United States Foreign Policy History and Resource Guide website, 2021, Section V,  https://peacehistory-usfp.org/africa-wot .  On the peaceful diplomacy side, the Obama administration negotiated an agreement with Iran limiting its nuclear development and eased travel restrictions to Cuba.

[528] Regarding protests, see Bryan Wright, “Daniel Ellsberg Among Anti-War Protesters Arrested At The White House,” NPR, December 16, 2010, https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2010/12/16/132119597/daniel-ellsberg-among-anti-war-protesters-arrested-at-the-white-house; and Ellen Davidson, “113 Antiwar Protesters Arrested at White House Fence,” The Indypendent , March 20, 2011, https://indypendent.org/2011/03/113-antiwar-protesters-arrested-at-white-house-fence.

[529] Iraq Veterans Against the War, “History of IVAW,” https://www.ivaw.org/history.  The group later changed its name to About Face: Veterans Against the War.  See also, Nan Levinson, War Is Not a Game: The New Antiwar Soldiers and the Movement They Built (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2014).

[530] David Henson, “Bush, Sheehans share moments,” The Reporter (Vacaville, CA), July 24, 2004; and “Cindy Sheehan Is Working To Bring Our Troops Home: ‘Mr. President. You have daughters. How would you feel if one of them was killed?’” Buzzflash Interview, October 7, 2004, https://web.archive.org/web/20070423184537/http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/04/10/int04050.html.  President Bush told an audience of military leaders, soldiers, and diplomats in March 2008, “The battle in Iraq is noble, it is necessary, and it is just. . . .  And with your courage the battle in Iraq will end in victory.” “Bush: Iraq War “Noble” and “Necessary,” CBS News , March 19, 2008, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bush-iraq-war-noble-and-necessary.

[531] “Cindy Sheehan,” Americans Who Tell the Whole Truth (biography), https://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org/portraits/cindy-sheehan; and “Cindy Sheehan,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cindy_Sheehan#cite_note-24. Cindy Sheehan’s published works include an account of her first year of activism called Not One More Mother’s Child , a collection of her writing and speeches, Dear President Bush , and Peace Mom: A Mother’s Journey through Heartache to Activism .

[532] Ewan Palmer, “Trump Claims ‘I Had to Run the Military’ but Mark Esper Reveals ‘Four Noes,’” Newsweek , May 9, 2022, https://www.newsweek.com/trump-mark-esper-60-minutes-book-missiles-mexico-fired-1704665.

[533] “Roll Call 350, Bill Number: H. R. 7900, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023, United States House of Representatives, July 14, 2022, https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2022350; and Catie Edmondson, “House Passes $84 Billion Military Bill to Counter Threats From Russia and China,” New York Times , July 15, 2022.

[534] Austin Wright, “How Barbara Lee Became An Army of One,” Politico Magazine , July 30, 2017, https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/30/how-barbara-lee-became-an-army-of-one-215434.

[535] Crawford and Lutz, “Human Cost of Post-9/11 Wars”; and “Estimate of U.S. Post-9/11 War Spending, in $Billions FY2001-FY2022, Costs of War Project, https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2021/BudgetaryCosts.

[536] Trita Parsi, “Why non-Western countries tend to see Russia’s war very, very differently,” MSNBC, April 11, 2022, https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/ukraine-russia-war-looks-very-different-outside-west-n1294280.    Parsi cites as examples of “blatant illegality,” the “Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq, the Obama administration’s regime-changing intervention in Libya,” U.S. tacit endorsement of “Israeli occupation” (despite UN Resolution 242 which calls for Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories following the Six-Day War in June 1967), and the U.S. “’global war on terror,’ which has destabilized much of the Middle East and North Africa.”  Similarly, the New York Times reported that the “NATO-led intervention in Libya in 2011 and the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 have only heightened mistrust of the West.”  Hannah Beech, Abdi Latif Dahir, and Oscar Lopez, “More Nations Straddle Sides This Cold War,” New York Times , April 25, 2022.

[537] David E. Sanger, “Putin Spins a Conspiracy Theory That Ukraine Is on a Path to Nuclear Weapons,” New York Times , February 23, 2022.

[538] Elena Becatoros and Jon Gambrell, “As Putin marks Victory Day, his troops make little war gains,” AP News, May 9, 2022, https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/putin-mark-victory-day-russia-presses-ukraine-assault-84585115.

[539] Valerie Hopkins, Neil MacFarquhar, Ivan Nechepurenko, and Michael Levenson, “Russia Exploits Capture of Ukrainians to Push False Premise of Terror.” New York Times , May 19, 2022.

[540] “Putin says Russia will achieve goals in Ukraine, won’t bow to the West,” Reuters , March 16, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-crisis-putin-idCAKCN2LD1M7; and Matina Stevis-Gridneff and Richard Pérez-Peña, “Russia Flagship Sinks in Black Sea; E.U. Could Ban Oil,” New York Times , April 15, 2022, A9.  See also, Gavriel Rosenfeld, “Understanding How Counterfactuals Shape Putin’s Worldview and Historical Rhetoric,” History News Network , April 24, 2022, https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/183038.  There are, of course, differences in the way Russia and the U.S. managed public opinion.  The Russian Duma passed legislation making the dissemination of “false information” about the Ukrainian conflict a crime punishable by up to 15 years in prison, effectively shutting down all independent sources of information and locking up outspoken critics.  U.S. officials, in contrast, manipulated sources of information, conducted a virulent media propaganda campaign, and wrapped themselves in the flag of patriotism to deflect critical questioning.  See Masha Gessen, “Moscow Dispatch: Manufactured Reality,” The New Yorker , March 14, 2022, 18-19; and Victor Jack, “Russia expands laws criminalizing ‘fake news,’” Politico , March 22, 2022, https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-expand-laws-criminalize-fake-news.

[541] Andrew J. Bacevich, “America’s Militarism Will Be Its Downfall,” The Nation , April 18, 2022, https://www.thenation.com/article/world/america-militarism-ukraine-king/?mc_cid=9604b63c5d&mc_eid=d97819f774.  Bacevich cites as an example of drawing the wrong lesson an essay in  Foreign Affairs titled, “The Return of the Pax Americana?”  He writes, “The question mark is misleading.  An exclamation point would more accurately have captured the aims of its authors.  Michael Beckley and Hal Brands teach at Tufts and Johns Hopkins, respectively.  Both are also senior fellows at the hawkish American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.  And both welcome the Ukraine War as the medium that will reignite an American commitment to the sort of assertive and muscular approach to global policy favored in militaristic quarters.  Russian President Vladimir Putin, they write, has handed the United States ‘a historic opportunity to regroup and reload for an era of intense competition’ – with not only Russia but also China meant to be in our crosshairs.  The call to reload is central to their message. . . . Notably, their essay contains only a single passing reference to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and no mention whatsoever of what two decades of post-9/11 US war-making yielded and at what cost.”

[542] Sylvie Corbet and Jeffrey Schaeffer, “Milley likens defense of Ukraine to D-Day,” (Associated Press) Tallahassee Democrat , June 7, 2022, 9A.

[543] Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Peter Baker, “President Says He’d Use Force to Defend Taiwan From a Chinese Attack,” New York Times , May 24, 2022.

[544] Andrew Bacevich, “Imperial Detritus: Henry Luce’s Dream Comes Undone,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, July 13, 2022, https://quincyinst.org/tag/henry-luce.  See also, Connor Echols, “What ever happened to the ‘rules-based international order?’ Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, August 9, 2022, https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/08/09/what-ever-happened-to-the-rules-based-international-order.  The blowback from continuing drone strikes is of three kinds: (1) outrage by affected groups, especially when civilians are killed; (2) mimicry by other nations who assassinate their designated foes in other countries; (3) and international anarchy, or the inability to establish legal parameters around killing and war.

[545] More specifically, the evolving international moral architecture includes the following: (1) prohibitions against national aggression and military interventionism written into the charters of the United Nations (1945) and the Organization of American States (1948); (2) the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, approved by the United Nations General Assembly on December 9, 1948; (3) human rights guidelines set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 10, 1948, and nine subsequent binding human rights treaties; (4) humanitarian laws governing the treatment of civilians and prisoners of war, via the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols; (5) the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, entered into force in 2002, whose mandate is to investigate and prosecute individuals accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, or war crimes; (6) arms control treaties that ban the production and use of chemical and biological weapons, limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and establish nuclear-free zones in space and certain regions of the earth; and (7) the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change (1992) and other ecological measures, including the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (1993) and UN Sustainable Development Goals which address poverty, gender bias and illiteracy, among other inequities.

[546] See Armand Clesse, “America’s Classical Security Dilemma: Search for a New World Order,” World Affairs: The Journal of International Issues 8, no. 2 (2004): 10–16.

Cite this article

• Arab-Israeli Relations
• Proliferation
• Palestinians
• Gulf States

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• Middle East
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• Arab & Islamic Politics
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The Battle of Ideas in the War on Terror: Essays on U.S. Public Diplomacy in the Middle East

Robert Satloff is the Segal Executive Director of The Washington Institute, a post he assumed in January 1993.

Introduction

Even before the flames raging within the twisted steel of the fallen World Trade Center towers were extinguished, a debate began to flare up regarding the motivations of the perpetrators. How could Arab Muslim society produce young, well-educated men filled with such hatred toward America that they would kill more than 3,000 innocents -- as well as themselves -- to prove a point? Some argued that the killers were representative of a strain of Muslim revulsion at "who we are" -- that is, a profound hatred of American values, culture, and society. Others argued that disgust over "what we do" -- U.S. policy regarding Israel, oil, Arab autocrats, and Islam itself -- was the main source of the animus. Advocates of each position had their policy prescriptions readily at hand. The latter argued that we should change our policy to reduce the level of disgust among Arabs and Muslims. The former suggested nothing but staying the course, arguing that military victory alone would alter the calculus of hatred. This collection of essays owes its origin to my dissatisfaction with both sets of recommendations for U.S. policy.

A relatively small but still sizable, intensely ambitious, and disproportionately powerful subgroup of Muslims do indeed hate "who we are." For the most part, these are Islamists -- Muslims who reject modern notions of state, citizen, and individual rights and instead seek to impose a totalitarian version of Islam on peoples and nations around the globe. Within this subgroup are those who seek power through revolutionary or violent means and others who seek it through evolutionary or nonviolent means. While the former are unabashed terrorists, it is equally true that the latter can never be democrats.

There are also many Muslims who, while not Islamists, are genuinely angered by certain U.S. policies abroad. U.S. policy analysts would be doing their country a disservice by not recognizing this fact. While the outrage expressed by these Muslims may be episodic and almost surely lacks the operational significance often ascribed to it, it is nonetheless real and cannot merely be wished away by changing the topic.

And, lest we forget, there is a large percentage of Muslims whose daily lives are not animated by any of these issues. These are the tens of millions whose energies are completely sapped by the uphill struggle to eke out a living. They might have some passing knowledge of goings-on in faraway Baghdad or Gaza and may, if asked, express an opinion on them. But their interests and concerns are consumed by more urgent demands.

Regarding the various stripes of Islamists, the United States can do nothing to soften their hearts or change their minds. The goal of U.S. policy should instead be to seek their defeat -- through military means for those who use violence to gain power, and through political means for those whose tactics take a more circuitous path to the same objective. There is no benefit to be gained from targeting public diplomacy toward the Islamists.

Regarding other Muslims who actively critique U.S. policy, there is much the United States can do apart from the obviously self-defeating approach of changing policies to appease the critics. Given the structural biases, shoddy journalism, and intellectual drivel that passes for political discourse in many corners of the Middle East, America's top priority vis-a-vis these Muslims should be to make sure that their opinions are at least based on accurate, dispassionate information. In this regard, public diplomacy can help to create a "level playing field" so that U.S. policies (and the people advocating them) receive a fair hearing in the court of public opinion. Numerous tactical options flow from this strategy.

And regarding the millions of poor and struggling Muslims, the goal of U.S. policy should be to help provide them with the economic, educational, social, and other tools required to leave poverty behind and become constructive and contributing members of their societies. A wide range of policy instruments are available to achieve this goal, complemented by public diplomacy that underscores America's concern and commitment on a personal level.

The story does not end there, however. The key ingredient missing from most analyses of the "why do they hate us?" problem is a recognition that the first two groups of Muslims -- those whose hatred arises from "who we are" and those whose critique is based on "what we do" -- are also battling each other over the fate and direction of their societies. On rare occasions -- Algeria in the 1990s, for example -- this battle has devolved into a shooting war. More commonly, it is a battle of ideas over how to organize societies. The fact that this battle rages in most countries without too many bombs going off or too many dead bodies piling up neither renders it any less momentous nor makes the imperative of victory any less urgent.

The United States has a vital stake in the outcome of this battle, both for the sake of Muslims themselves and for the security of Americans and U.S. interests in Arab and Muslim countries. Without reservation or apology, America's strategy should be to help non- and anti-Islamist Muslims beat back the Islamist challenge. This strategy must be pursued even if many of these putative Muslim allies express bitter dislike for certain aspects of U.S. foreign policy.

In the post-September 11 era, public diplomacy should be focused on fighting the battle of ideas in Muslim societies. This is a battle that can be won, though it will take more time, money, commitment, and ingenuity than the U.S. government has so far been willing to dedicate to the task.

This set of essays discusses the many problems plaguing public diplomacy in the post-September 11 era and proposes how the United States should pursue what many regard as a mission impossible. Collectively, the essays span the three years since September 11. Four of them were written expressly for this collection, while the balance appeared previously in various publications and are reprinted here as originally published.

There are distinct advantages to using this format. A series of brief essays on discrete subtopics, written and developed over time, both makes the subjects discussed more accessible and provides a chronological context to evolving debates over public diplomacy. This approach may mean that some issues appear fresher and seem to merit more detailed discussion than others. Hopefully, that problem is outweighed by the benefits of following the intellectual odyssey that I undertook as I focused on the public diplomacy challenges facing America since September 11.

Seven months after the al-Qaeda attacks in the United States, my family and I moved from Washington to Rabat, Morocco, capital of a populous Arab Muslim country located at a strategic point between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, just nine miles from Europe. We lived in Rabat for more than two years, during a time of great challenge and turbulence. We traveled to every corner of the country and met Moroccans from all walks of life. I traveled to many corners of the Middle East as well. My wife and I learned much through our children and their experiences; one of our sons attended an outstanding local Moroccan school, while another attended the Rabat American School, an institution that provides the finest of American-style education to a student body that is overwhelmingly non-American. And, not being American officials ourselves, we were free to explore certain places at certain times when our diplomat friends did not have this license, such as when the entire family drove to downtown Rabat to witness one of the largest anti-Iraq war protests in the Middle East.

My summary assessment -- that the battle of ideas can be won if the United States is willing to commit itself to helping its current and potential Muslim allies "fight the fight" -- emerges in large part from my experience abroad. While this theme is present in several of the early essays in this collection, it is expounded with increasing confidence and buoyancy over time. Without minimizing the daunting obstacles that lie ahead, I am convinced that a public diplomacy infused with hope, optimism, candor, creativity, resources, and an entrepreneurial approach to building and supporting allies is the right strategy for America in the Middle East.

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How the War on Terror Warped the American Left

A new book on how 9/11 altered the national psyche also demonstrates how it stunted progressive politics.

Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (NOA) using AI narration.

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T hree now-infamous paragraphs from Susan Sontag stung like a slap to the face in the disorienting days that followed the 9/11 attacks. Asked by The New Yorker to reflect on what had occurred only 48 hours earlier, Sontag found “stupid” the “confidence-building and grief management” that filled the media. “Where is the acknowledgment,” she asked, “that this was not a ‘cowardly’ attack on ‘civilization’ or ‘liberty’ or ‘humanity’ or ‘the free world’ but an attack on the world’s self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions?”

Most anyone with a heartbeat, and certainly anyone who could smell the acrid air of Manhattan at the time, clouded with the ashes of thousands of people, took offense at Sontag’s coldness. Her first error was one of timing and tone—surely there was a deeper context for the attack worth unpacking, but maybe wait just a couple of days? But even more appalling in retrospect was the shallowness of Sontag’s context, as predictable and one-dimensional as what George W. Bush would yell through a bullhorn at Ground Zero: To her, 9/11 was not a moment of American victimhood, but actually a revelation of American malignancy, proof of the country’s own victimizing nature.

In all that would transpire in the years after 9/11, Sontag and others who shared her immediate reaction would have reason to consider themselves prophets: the invasion of Iraq, carried out under false pretense; the expansion of the surveillance state; the obscene torture at Abu Ghraib and massacre of women and children in places like Haditha ; the whole extrajudicial existence of Guantánamo Bay; the dangerous expansiveness of phrases such as enemy combatant and even terrorist .

Throttled by fear, America lost its mind. An overwhelming majority now agree on this point—a Pew poll in 2019 found that 62 percent of respondents thought the Iraq War was “not worth fighting” (even 64 percent of veterans concurred). So scarring were the failed attempts at nation building that strong isolationist strains run through both major American political parties today. But certain parts of the left could never see the War on Terror as a deviation. What it laid bare for them was what they’d always felt to be true: that the United States was a racist, hungry hegemon anxious to maintain its imperialistic power and economic hold on the world. For the extreme fringes (of the left, but also the right), the leap toward imagining 9/11 as a false-flag operation seemed logical, a perfect excuse for America to manifest its essential evil.

The War on Terror reinforced a paranoid style on the left that has stunted progressive politics, a Chomskyite turn that sees even the democratic socialism of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as too incremental . If America is irredeemable, this thinking goes, then justice demands no less than a complete reboot of the country. In time for the 23rd anniversary of 9/11—and two years after America’s chaotic departure from Afghanistan—a new book offers an exhaustive version of this story of fundamental depravity: Richard Beck’s Homeland: The War on Terror in American Life .

Graeme Wood: The never-ending Guantánamo trials

“The most important political story of the past two decades isn’t the intensifying conflict between Republicans and Democrats,” Beck, a writer at the literary magazine n+1 , states near the end of his 500 pages, in what can be read as a summary of his book. “It is the story of an empire, a world­-spanning political and economic system, that clawed its way to the top of the global power hierarchy and is now determined to imprison and kill as many people as it needs to in order to stay there.”

In its claustrophobia and pessimism, Beck’s book itself can be read as an artifact. If he’s looking to gauge the War on Terror’s effect on “American life,” he need look no further than his own worldview. He witnessed the collapse of the Twin Towers on television when he was 14, and his generation came of age under the presidency of George W. Bush and the wars he began. What impressions might that leave on a young person? It might make him come to see the United States as a kind of Mafia boss whose violence is so great that it can be undone only by violence. It might make him dismiss the compromises and slowness of politics as pointless. It might make him categorical and essentialist, convinced that systems must collapse and towers must fall for any change at all to occur in the world.

I thought at first, based on his subtitle, that Beck would be presenting an account of the insidious ways that the War on Terror, particularly in its early and deadliest years, leaked into culture and society. And he does do this. He looks at how the invasion of Afghanistan and then Iraq made SUVs and Iron Man and shows like 24 popular in the United States; how social media’s business interest in collecting personal data converged with the National Security Agency’s desire to do the same; how the number of mass shootings, articles of clothing we had to remove at airports, and anxieties (about Muslims and immigrants) increased. These close readings of the subtle and not-so-subtle ways that the war came home, even though the fighting itself was far away and mostly invisible to Americans, are the most successful parts of Homeland .

A number of studies in the years after 9/11 found an increased prevalence of PTSD and other signs of trauma even among those who only watched the massacre live on television. The sense of collective fear, the worry that another terrorist attack could—that it most likely would —happen again, shaped the American response, and explains so many of the pathological excesses. Fear makes you act irrationally, makes you more suspicious of your neighbor or even tolerant of torture if it gives you the illusion that you can walk into a public space without panicking. Beck may have been too young to remember, but I recall what it felt like to step onto a train or an airplane in 2002—after months that saw anthrax attacks and the shoe bomber, not to mention the MISSING posters still up everywhere in New York City. You looked around at who else was there. You shamefully engaged in your own acts of profiling.

This does not excuse the way the government acted, the PATRIOT Act’s disregard for civil liberties, or the numbers of hate crimes against Muslim Americans (or the hell that those Americans surely encountered making their way through an airport). It does not excuse the rush to war in Iraq, or the demand for a conformity of opinion that (momentarily) halted the career of people like Bill Maher (who echoed Sontag’s thoughts on cowardice) and the members of the band formerly known as the Dixie Chicks (who insulted President Bush). It definitely does not excuse the torture and indefinite detentions. But it does explain what happened in psychological terms that are entirely human. These societal and political failures did not occur in a vacuum. They were a reaction to an event in which 2,977 people were killed before the eyes of everyone in the country.

Beck never acknowledges this fear as a universal response to terror. What he sees at work is specific to Americans, an enactment of a “national mythology” forged in the 17th century. There is nothing very original about this analysis, which follows a narrative thread back to the helplessness of the early European colonists as they faced a forbidding wilderness full of Native people who did not exactly want them there. As Beck recounts it, the shame and vulnerability, articulated in captivity narratives in which white women were stolen by American Indians, transformed into an embrace of righteous, no-holds-barred violence to bring back civilizational order—Daniel Boone, Natty Bumppo, Davy Crockett, and John Wayne became the stars of these shows.

Beck finds potency in the Freudian concept of “repetition compulsion,” a desire to play out an original trauma, in this case expiating that 17th-century shame again and again, with violence. Americans, he argues, are hardwired by these mythologies: “They let Americans know what they should expect from life, how they should inhabit the world, and what they should do when the enemy (especially a nonwhite enemy) shows up at the front door.” September 11 was thus a triggering event. The Iraqis and Afghans that American soldiers detained, Beck writes, were “a new kind of Indian.” When the guards at Abu Ghraib took photos of a dead captive, “they might as well have scalped him.”

This is history as a skipping record. It leaves little room for ethical development over time, no place for correction. Aspects of “The 1619 Project” offered the same fatalism: a country stained with the birthmark of slavery as forever and always racist. The clear implication is that the only change possible is a revolutionary one that smashes the experiment and starts from scratch.

Conor Friedersdorf: 1776 honors America’s diversity in a way 1619 does not

But placating a racist id was just part of the war’s story for Beck. That made it possible. To understand the real motives behind the breadth of the global War on Terror, he turns from Freud to Marx. The world economy, with America at its center, has been slowing since the 1970s. This has led to a severe dearth of formal employment everywhere, but especially in places such as Africa and the Middle East, creating what Marx originally called “surplus populations,” people for whom capitalism has not created enough work. The central motivator for terrorism, according to Beck, is this: an economic grievance against a superpower that is unable to grow or spread the wealth but is also holding on to its position of dominance at all costs.

With this economic explanation in hand, the War on Terror appears as an excuse to strengthen America’s grip on the world’s economy and beat back any of those surplus populations that might dare to object. Why did the United States invade Iraq and refuse to withdraw even after the war had drained trillions of dollars, taken thousands of lives, and become politically unpopular at home? Easy. The invasion happened, Beck writes, in order “to force Iraq to join the twenty-first-century capitalism club, to make it subject to the same incentives and rules and pressures that structured the economies of all the other countries that had accepted the fact of America’s global leadership.” Because of stagnating growth and the ever-hungry demands of capitalism for more capital, Iraq needed a good hazing.

This is the left’s familiar catechism. Beck presents it as revelatory, but it comes off as tedious—at one point, he takes up most of one long chapter recounting the rapacious origins of capitalism, going back roughly 500 years to the Italian city-states. This thinking also verges on the kind of conspiracism that fixates on secret associations, such as the Bilderberg Meetings, manipulating economies for the sake of a neoliberal world order. Elements of his interpretation have some explanatory power—the United States is losing its footing; declining growth and ballooning levels of income inequality are an enormous problem. But he also leaves out so much texture for fear of diluting a story that can have only one villain.

Beck does not want to take ideology or religious radicalization into account; anyone who would do so is racist. He avoids looking too closely at the interests of other countries that also seek to extend their power—what, for example, Russia or China or Iran might want. “One of the war’s fundamental goals was to confirm the hypothesis that in the twenty-first century the rest of the world would automatically defer to America, simply by virtue of America’s overwhelming military strength,” he writes. But if you ask the Houthis or Xi Jinping, I’m not sure that experiment worked out. The War on Terror had instead a humbling effect on America’s willingness to project its might: At the moment, the United States spends the same amount of its GDP on defense—about 3 percent—as it did in 1999.

When Beck applies his fixed worldview to 2024, his blinkers become obvious. In Russia’s war to swallow Ukraine, he spares some sympathy for President Vladimir Putin, who must deal with an American government that has “lavished Ukraine with military aid while simultaneously looking to expand NATO’s membership.” That the Ukrainians themselves have asked for this help in order to preserve their sovereignty seems irrelevant to Beck. What he recommends for Ukrainians and their American backers is “restraint, serious diplomatic engagement, and caution.” No such moderation applies when he turns to the Palestinians. Their enemy, Israel, is an extension of America in the region, a “snarling dog,” a “nation of settler colonialists” that is doing nothing more in Gaza than quenching its “bloodlust.” His analysis ends there; because Palestinians are “the contemporary world’s paradigmatic example of a surplus population,” no other interpretation is needed—nothing, for example, about Iran’s interests as expressed through its proxies, or Israelis’ own legitimate desire for safety, given those proxies’ eliminationist goals.

W ell past 450 pages, around the start of his epilogue, I found myself wondering: Where does someone like Richard Beck turn to for hope?

Not to electoral politics. He admits that he refused to vote in 2012, when Barack Obama was up for reelection. Obama had outlawed torture and was withdrawing from Iraq; in one of his first major foreign-policy acts as president, he had flown to Cairo to address the Muslim world. But Beck saw only a sleek veneer. The war was continuing more quietly—with drones—and Obama would not be holding any top Bush-administration officials accountable for their crimes. So Beck opted out.

Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter felt like what he was looking for. These major protest movements attacked “impunity culture” and displayed some of the “disruptive substance” that Beck had found lacking in the more staid demonstrations against the Iraq War—and resembled, Beck writes approvingly, a “rebellion” or an “uprising” that would overturn normal operations. But even though these movements took on deep structural issues—racism and income inequality—they were not radical enough, he now thinks, because both assumed the legitimacy of the American government, that the “system” itself could be reformed.

Hope finally appears in the shape of a movement that went even further, the 2016 Standing Rock protest, in which Native American tribes and their supporters tried to block the construction of an oil pipeline on land that contained sacred burial sites. The movement established a tent city that grew to more than 10,000 people, and as with Occupy, one of its objectives was to create a kind of alternative society. It lasted for nearly a year before being violently dispersed by a combination of National Guard forces, local police, and private contractors. What Beck found “personally clarifying” was the way the protest positioned itself. “Standing Rock didn’t just dispute the wisdom of building a pipeline; it disputed the United States’ claim to the land itself,” he writes. “It disputed the assumption on which the whole U.S. project rests.”

Ben Rhodes: The 9/11 era is over

It occurred to me while reading Homeland that I witnessed a very different scene on television at basically the same age that Beck experienced 9/11. A couple of months after I turned 13, the Berlin Wall came down. I watched madly joyful people taking pickaxes to the Wall and streaming through the new holes into West Berlin. What I took away on some subconscious level was not the triumph of democracy over autocracy or capitalism over communism, but something much more elemental: that a mass of regular people could together exert their political will, creating possibilities.

What Beck saw on 9/11 was a different sort of rupture—a massacre that closed down and hardened society. The men who jolted the U.S. back into history that day did so not by mobilizing people, but by creating a spectacle that in one morning led to a series of cascading catastrophes that citizens felt powerless to avoid. What followed provoked an abiding question for Beck: “Did Americans—­all of them—­get to decide what their government did?” The images I took in were of a peaceful revolution that anyone could join, whereas Beck’s formative experience was a passive one: helplessly watching a televised, world-rending explosion.

The epidemic of mass shootings snowballed during the War on Terror—of 148 such incidents since 1982, Beck writes, 115 took place during the war, including 41 of the 50 deadliest. When a teenager gears himself up like a soldier, equipped with a GoPro camera, and enters a school looking to kill, it is an event “engineered for maximum media coverage and spectacular resonance,” and Beck can’t help but feel that a society warped by 9/11 and the militaristic response lurks in the background. Each shooting, he writes, “has restaged the war’s two central traumas: the trauma of sudden and devastating victimization, on the one hand, and the trauma of committing mass violence, on the other.”

The observation sounds right, and points to the war’s invasiveness, its deadly creep into the way we think and behave. But Beck doesn’t quite see how it has conditioned his own instincts as well. His rejection of politics, his desire to rip it all out from the root, the Manichaean way he has come to see America as a force of darkness, the sense that only through the most “disruptive substance” will a better world emerge—all of this, too, is a legacy of September 11.

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How 9/11 Reshaped Foreign Policy

The events of September 11, 2001, set in motion sweeping changes to U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism practices, launched two major wars, and altered Americans’ daily routines. This timeline traces three pivotal years whose reverberations continue today.

Unprecedented Attacks Reveal Intelligence Gaps

In the deadliest terrorist assault in U.S. history, nineteen al-Qaeda members hijack four commercial airliners and crash two into the World Trade Center towers in New York City and one into the Pentagon outside of Washington, DC. The fourth plane crashes in rural Pennsylvania after passengers try to wrestle back control. The attacks, which killed 2,977 people , are the culmination of nearly a decade of efforts by Osama bin Laden—motivated by radical Islamist ideology—to kill American soldiers and civilians. Later investigations find that the hijackers, most of them Saudi nationals, entered the United States and attended flight training schools largely without raising alarms. CIA Director George Tenet later says that “the system was blinking red,” but despite White House briefings on the bin Laden threat , intelligence agencies and domestic law enforcement failed to share crucial information.

Bush Visits Ground Zero

President George W. Bush visits Manhattan to address rescue workers at the World Trade Center site, a ten-block area of rubble that ultimately takes nine months to clear. Later that day, speaking at the Washington National Cathedral, Bush vows to “answer these attacks, and rid the world of evil.” He also declares a national state of emergency , which gives him expanded powers to mobilize the military. A week later, he issues a second emergency declaration that grants the executive branch sweeping powers to target terrorist financing around the world. These emergency declarations are renewed each year by Bush and subsequent presidents and remain in force today.

Bush Authorizes CIA Detention Program

In a secret memorandum, Bush grants the CIA new and open-ended authority to capture and detain anyone who it determines poses a “ continuing, serious threat ” [PDF] to the United States. Previously, the CIA had only a limited ability to detain specific individuals pending legal charges. The directive sets in motion what eventually becomes a sprawling global network of CIA “ black sites ,” or unofficial, undisclosed detention and interrogation centers. The first such detainee, commonly known as Abu Zubaidah, is captured in Pakistan in March 2002 and transferred to a black site in Thailand.

Anthrax Mailings Stir Panic

A spate of letters containing anthrax, a highly lethal virus, are delivered to newsrooms and congressional offices just a week after the 9/11 attacks, killing five people and sparking nationwide alarm. The letters’ allusions to Islamist ideology and the refined nature of the anthrax raise fears that the biological attacks are state-sponsored; The White House and U.S. intelligence agencies point the finger at Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. However, many initial findings are later discredited , and the FBI, following its largest investigation to date, eventually pins the blame on American scientist Bruce Ivins. After Ivins commits suicide in 2008, the FBI closes the case, though many questions remain , including about Ivins’s culpability.

Congress Authorizes Broad Military Response

Bush signs a joint resolution of Congress authorizing the president to use “all necessary and appropriate force” against those who “planned, authorized, committed, or aided” the 9/11 attacks, or who harbored anyone who did. The Bush administration initially uses the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) to go after al-Qaeda and its Taliban sponsors in Afghanistan but later expands its scope to include any forces “associated” with al-Qaeda around the world. The AUMF becomes the basis [PDF] for U.S. military actions in at least fourteen countries across Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, including the proliferation of drone strikes under President Barack Obama, which raises ongoing concerns that the authorization is used far beyond its original intent.

A Global ‘War on Terror’

In an address before a joint session of Congress, Bush outlines what he describes as a global, open-ended “ war on terror ” and announces the creation of an Office of Homeland Security to protect the United States from future attacks. He demands that the Taliban government in Afghanistan hand over all al-Qaeda members on its soil, including bin Laden, and warns the world that “either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.” The U.S. government uses the term “global war on terror” to describe its far-reaching military response to the 9/11 attacks and its new, sweeping domestic counterterrorism measures until the designation is officially retired by Obama.

Invasion of Afghanistan Begins

After the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) invokes its collective self-defense mechanism for the first time, U.S. and UK forces begin air strikes against targets in Afghanistan. Ground forces follow within days. The U.S.-led invasion, called Operation Enduring Freedom, is supported by local anti-Taliban forces and troops from twenty-seven coalition countries. By December, the Taliban government collapses, but bin Laden evades capture. NATO assumes command of international security operations in 2003, and the occupation and counterinsurgency mission in Afghanistan continues for nearly two decades .

Patriot Act Expands Counterterrorism Powers

Bush signs the Patriot Act, legislation that aims to strengthen the federal government’s counterterrorism response. The expansive bill includes provisions to bolster cooperation between law enforcement and intelligence agencies; strengthen banking regulations to combat terrorist financing; create new definitions and penalties for terrorist activity; and dramatically expand domestic surveillance. Critics allege that the law is too broad and was rushed through . Press reports later reveal a massive collection of Americans’ phone records by the National Security Agency (NSA) based on Patriot Act authorities [PDF], which prompts Congress to place new limits on domestic surveillance.

A New Era for Airport Security

Bush signs legislation to create the federal Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which assumes responsibility for airport security from private firms . In the coming years, the TSA rolls out a host of new passenger-safety procedures and restrictions following a series of failed airline plots, beginning with Richard Reid’s attempted shoe bombing in December 2001. The measures include luggage screenings, full-body scanners, shoe removal, pat-downs, restrictions on liquids, increased scrutiny of personal electronics, and limitations on in-flight movement. Critics say the new status quo is an expensive and likely ineffective overreaction that leads to unnecessary delays as well as ethnic and religious profiling .

Guantanamo Bay Repurposed for Terrorist Suspects

The first terrorism detainees arrive at the U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, a military outpost that has been leased from Cuba since 1903. The new detention facility is initially used to hold suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters captured in Afghanistan, but individuals held by the CIA at black sites, including alleged 9/11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, are later transferred there. The facility becomes a lightning rod for international criticism of the Bush administration’s counterterrorism policies, fueled by accusations of torture and other mistreatment of detainees violating international norms . At its peak, Guantanamo held more than five hundred detainees; thirty-nine remain today.

Bush Raises Alarm on ‘Axis of Evil’

In his first State of the Union address since 9/11, Bush welcomes the transitional leader of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, and warns that “our war against terror is only beginning.” Noting U.S. military deployments in the Philippines, Somalia, and elsewhere, he says that Washington will oppose “outlaw regimes” anywhere in the world. He singles out Iran, North Korea, and Iraq—citing Baghdad’s purported development of anthrax—as an “axis of evil.” Critics, including some EU and UK officials , say the speech undermines diplomatic efforts. Some analysts contend that it sours Iran’s budding cooperation with the United States in Afghanistan and contributes to North Korea’s withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 2003.

The ‘Torture Memos’

Top Bush administration lawyers issue the first [PDF] in a series of classified memos providing legal justification for a wartime president to authorize “enhanced interrogation” methods such as waterboarding, stress positions, and extended sleep deprivation. The controversial guidance, which is not revealed publicly until 2004, asserts that such practices do not constitute torture. The administration also claims that al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters are not entitled to Geneva Convention protections for prisoners of war. In 2009, the incoming Obama administration, which considers the techniques torture, bans them . In 2014, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence releases its highly critical investigation into the CIA’s interrogation program, finding the techniques to be counterproductive for intelligence gathering.

Bush Connects Iraq to Terrorism

In a speech before the UN General Assembly, Bush delivers an ultimatum to Saddam’s government, which he calls a “grave and gathering danger.” He accuses Iraq of violating a slew of UN Security Council resolutions dating back to 1991, including its obligations to destroy all weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and allow weapons inspectors unfettered access to facilities. He also says Iraq has refused to end its support for terrorist organizations, including al-Qaeda, whose members Bush says “are known to be in Iraq” despite U.S. intelligence doubts . He warns that Baghdad is developing chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons that could be passed to terrorist groups, an assertion that is contested by many U.S. allies, and says that the United States will act alone if necessary.

Congress Authorizes a War in Iraq

Bush signs into law a second authorization for use of military force (AUMF), which allows him to defend against “the continuing threat posed by Iraq” and cites the Saddam government’s purported harboring of al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups and its alleged stockpiles of WMD. Critics later claim that subsequent presidents abused the 2002 AUMF to conduct unrelated military operations, including the Obama administration’s 2014 offensive against the self-proclaimed Islamic State in Iraq, and the Donald Trump administration’s 2020 killing of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad.

Security Council Returns Inspectors to Iraq

After weeks of U.S. diplomacy to convince skeptics including China, France, and Russia, the UN Security Council unanimously adopts a resolution giving Baghdad “a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations” and ordering the deployment of international weapons inspectors. Saddam agrees, and on November 27 inspectors from the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency return to Iraq . In the coming months, inspectors find a cache of aged chemical warheads and several banned missiles but conclude that they are remnants of previous weapons efforts . They find no evidence of an ongoing WMD program. The Bush administration, which asserts that Saddam is hiding evidence, begins a push for a second UN resolution to explicitly authorize international military force against Iraq.

Department of Homeland Security Is Born

Bush signs legislation creating the cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The broadest reorganization of the federal government since World War II, the law centralizes more than twenty disparate domestic security functions under the aegis of DHS. These include immigration and border agencies; the TSA; the Coast Guard; the Secret Service; the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA); and various nuclear and cybersecurity agencies. Supporters say the new arrangement boosts coordination between agencies and prevents the kind of intelligence gaps that led to the 9/11 attacks. Critics say it does little to improve cooperation between the FBI and CIA, duplicates essential functions, contributes to the militarization of local police forces, and threatens civil liberties .

Powell’s UN Address Cites Faulty Intelligence

Secretary of State Colin Powell lays out the administration’s most comprehensive case for an invasion of Iraq, centered on claims of an active WMD program and Iraqi ties to al-Qaeda. The presentation at the United Nations comes days after Bush asserts that Saddam is seeking nuclear material from Africa, a claim unsupported by U.S. intelligence . Despite Powell’s assertions, multiple post-invasion investigations, including by the U.S.-led Iraq Survey Group and the bipartisan Iraq Intelligence Commission [PDF], find no evidence of collusion between Iraq and al-Qaeda nor of an active Iraqi weapons program.

Operation Iraqi Freedom Begins

After Washington’s attempt to win UN support fails, a coalition primarily consisting of U.S. and UK forces invades and quickly overwhelms the Iraqi Army. On May 1, Bush declares the end of major combat operations, but it is only the beginning of nearly a decade of occupation and counterinsurgency. U.S. troop levels peak at [PDF] more than 160,000 in 2008. The conflict—including the invasion, the resulting civil war, and the subsequent rise of the Islamic State—kills nearly five thousand U.S. service members and an estimated half million Iraqis and costs the U.S. government some $2 trillion. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan maintains that the invasion violates international law , and weapons inspectors end their search in 2005 having never found WMD.

9/11 Commission Report Spurs Reforms

A bipartisan national commission created by Congress to investigate 9/11 releases its findings , concluding that the success of the plot was due to multiple intelligence failures , particularly a lack of communication between intelligence agencies and domestic law enforcement. The report also points to weaknesses in immigration and aviation security systems as well as a general inability across government to grasp the threat of transnational terrorism. It leads to the creation of the National Counterterrorism Center within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to coordinate the efforts [PDF] of the CIA, NSA, and other intelligence services. The report finds no Iraqi connection to the attacks, and its conclusion that the government of Saudi Arabia was not involved spurs ongoing controversy .

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A Timeline of the U.S.‑Led War on Terror

By: History.com Editors

Updated: May 5, 2020 | Original: February 1, 2019

As much of the nation was just starting the day on the morning of September 11, 2001 , 19 terrorists hijacked four East Coast flights, crashing three of the airplanes into targets in New York and Washington, D.C., with the fourth plane slamming into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers fought back. 

In the end, 2,977 people died, making it the deadliest attack on U.S. soil in history.

The al Qaeda -led attacks prompted President George W. Bush to announce a global “War on Terror” military campaign, in which he called on world leaders to join the U.S. in its response.

“Every nation in every region now has a decision to make,” he said in a national address. “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.”

Below is a timeline of notable events.

America Responds to 9/11

•  Sept. 11, 2001 : Terrorists hijack four U.S. planes, crashing two into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, while a third hits the U.S. Pentagon minutes later. The fourth plane, targeted to hit the White House, crashes in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers attacked the terrorists. The death toll, not including the `9 hijackers, was 2,977.

•  Sept. 12, 2001 : Bush addresses the nation, announcing war and stating : “The United States of America will use all our resources to conquer this enemy. We will rally the world. We will be patient. We’ll be focused, and we will be steadfast in our determination. This battle will take time and resolve, but make no mistake about it, we will win.”

•  Sept. 20, 2001 : In a speech addressing Congress and the nation, Bush announces the War on Terror , saying, “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.”

•  Sept. 25, 2001 : Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announces the anti-terror campaign as “Operation Enduring Freedom,” which he says will take years to fight. The following day, Saudi Arabia ends diplomatic ties with Afghanistan’s Taliban government.

War in Afghanistan Begins

•  Oct. 7, 2001 : Airstrikes by the United States and Great Britain are launched in Afghanistan at Taliban and al Qaeda training camps and targets. “What America is tasting now is only a copy of what we have tasted,” al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden says in a video statement released the same day. “Our Islamic nation has been tasting the same for more than 80 years of humiliation and disgrace, its sons killed, and their blood spilled, its sanctities desecrated.”

•  Oct. 19-20, 2001 : The ground war begins, with special forces striking in Kandahar. In the coming weeks, Britain, Turkey, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, France and Poland all announce they will deploy troops to Afghanistan.

•  Nov. 9, 2001 : The Afghan Northern Alliance captures Mazar-e-Sharif, a Taliban stronghold. 

• Nov. 13, 2001 : Kabul falls following airstrikes and ground attacks by the United States and Afghan Northern Alliance.

• Dec. 6-17, 2001: The Battle of Tora Bora rages in a cave complex in Eastern Afghanistan’s White Mountains. U.S.-led coalition forces attempt to capture al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, but he escapes.

• Dec. 7, 2001: Kandahar, the last major stronghold of the Taliban, falls.

•  Feb. 21, 2002 : A video confirms the execution -style death of Wall Street Journal reporter  Daniel Pearl  by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a self-described mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.

•  June 13, 2002 : Hamid Karzai, a favored candidate of the U.S., is elected by a traditional Afghan Loya Jirga council to a two-year term as Afghanistan’s transitional head of state. In 2004, he becomes Afghanistan’s first democratically elected president.

Iraq War Begins

•  March 19, 2003 : U.S. and coalition forces invade Iraq following intelligence that the country and its dictator, Saddam Hussein, possessed or were developing weapons of mass destruction.

• May 1, 2003 : Bush delivers a speech aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln proclaiming, “ Mission Accomplished ,” saying that major combat efforts for the war in Iraq will end. “The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11th, 2001 and still goes on,” he says.

•  Aug. 19, 2003 : Twenty-three people, including a top United Nations official, are killed and 100 wounded after a suicide bomber drives a truck into UN headquarters in Baghdad.

• Dec 13, 2003: Saddam Hussein is captured by U.S. soldiers in ad-Dawr, Iraq.

•  March 11, 2004 : A coordinated bombing of four commuter trains in Madrid kills 191 people and injures more than 2000. Islamic militants, based in Spain but inspired by al Qaeda, are later considered the prime suspects.

•  July 7, 2005 : Terrorist bombings on the London Underground and atop a double-decker bus kill 52 people and injure more than 700. Documents recovered in 2012 will reveal the attacks were planned by a British citizen working for al Qaeda.

Saddam Hussein, Bin Laden Killed

•  Dec. 30, 2006 : After being sentenced to death by hanging for war crimes and crimes against humanity, Saddam Hussein is executed in Baghdad.

•  June 30, 2009 : Sgt. Bowe R. Bergdahl walks away from his post in Afghanistan and is kidnapped by the Taliban. Released in 2014, he is later dishonorably discharged.

•  Aug. 30, 2010 : In an Oval Office address, President Barack Obama declares an end to U.S. combat operations in Iraq.

•  May 2, 2011 : Osama bin Laden is killed by U.S. special operations forces during a raid at an Abbottabad, Pakistan compound.

•  June 22, 2011 : In a televised address, Obama announces a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and a hand-over of power to Afghani security by 2014.

•  August 2011 : Thirty-eight service members are killed when the helicopter they are aboard comes under fire. This month becomes the deadliest ever for U.S. forces in Afghanistan with 66 fatalities.

•  Dec. 28, 2014 : The War in Afghanistan officially ends , though Obama states 10,800 U.S. troops will remain.

•  Jan. 28, 2019 : The U.S. and Taliban leaders work toward an agreement for the withdrawal of the 14,000 U.S. troops who remain in Afghanistan. 

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Chapter 7 Essay Questions

These questions are designed to help you understand this chapter’s concepts and express your understanding in your own words.

Please note that this exercise is for self-study, and your instructor will not be able to see the answer you have written.

1. Throughout history there has been a lot of wars and conflict. Write an essay making a case for when it is just to go to war.

• Reflect on past instances where going to war was justified
• Evaluate the ideas of old and new wars. What are different
• What are some of the moral and ethical dilemmas of wars?
• What are some of the issues of sovereignty as it relates to war?

2. Globalization and transnationalism have changed the characteristics of war. It is sometimes difficult to determine who the clear enemy is. Write an essay focusing on war and terrorism within a national boundary.

• What is domestic terrorism?
• Why do we pay less attention to domestic terrorism?
• How does technology help facilitate terrorist activities?
• How do you defend against an enemy that you cannot clearly define?
• Are you willing to give up some of your liberties and privacy for safety?

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Two Decades Later, the Enduring Legacy of 9/11

Table of contents, a devastating emotional toll, a lasting historical legacy, 9/11 transformed u.s. public opinion, but many of its impacts were short-lived, u.s. military response: afghanistan and iraq, the ‘new normal’: the threat of terrorism after 9/11, addressing the threat of terrorism at home and abroad, views of muslims, islam grew more partisan in years after 9/11.

Americans watched in horror as the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, left nearly 3,000 people dead in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Nearly 20 years later, they watched in sorrow as the nation’s military mission in Afghanistan – which began less than a month after 9/11 – came to a bloody and chaotic conclusion.

The enduring power of the Sept. 11 attacks is clear: An overwhelming share of Americans who are old enough to recall the day remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. Yet an ever-growing number of Americans have no personal memory of that day, either because they were too young or not yet born.

A review of U.S. public opinion in the two decades since 9/11 reveals how a badly shaken nation came together, briefly, in a spirit of sadness and patriotism; how the public initially rallied behind the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, though support waned over time; and how Americans viewed the threat of terrorism at home and the steps the government took to combat it.

As the country comes to grips with the tumultuous exit of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan, the departure has raised long-term questions about U.S. foreign policy and America’s place in the world. Yet the public’s initial judgments on that mission are clear: A majority endorses the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, even as it criticizes the Biden administration’s handling of the situation. And after a war that cost thousands of lives – including more than 2,000 American service members – and trillions of dollars in military spending, a new Pew Research Center survey finds that 69% of U.S. adults say the United States has mostly failed to achieve its goals in Afghanistan.

This examination of how the United States changed in the two decades following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is based on an analysis of past public opinion survey data from Pew Research Center, news reports and other sources.

Current data is from a Pew Research Center survey of 10,348 U.S. adults conducted Aug. 23-29, 2021. Most of the interviewing was conducted before the Aug. 26 suicide bombing at Kabul airport, and all of it was conducted before the completion of the evacuation. Everyone who took part is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the  ATP’s methodology .

Here are the questions used  for the report, along with responses, and  its methodology .

Shock, sadness, fear, anger: The 9/11 attacks inflicted a devastating emotional toll on Americans. But as horrible as the events of that day were, a 63% majority of Americans said they couldn’t stop watching news coverage of the attacks.

Our first survey following the attacks went into the field just days after 9/11, from Sept. 13-17, 2001. A sizable majority of adults (71%) said they felt depressed, nearly half (49%) had difficulty concentrating and a third said they had trouble sleeping.

It was an era in which television was still the public’s dominant news source – 90% said they got most of their news about the attacks from television, compared with just 5% who got news online – and the televised images of death and destruction had a powerful impact. Around nine-in-ten Americans (92%) agreed with the statement, “I feel sad when watching TV coverage of the terrorist attacks.” A sizable majority (77%) also found it frightening to watch – but most did so anyway.

Americans were enraged by the attacks, too. Three weeks after 9/11 , even as the psychological stress began to ease somewhat, 87% said they felt angry about the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Fear was widespread, not just in the days immediately after the attacks, but throughout the fall of 2001. Most Americans said they were very (28%) or somewhat (45%) worried about another attack . When asked a year later to describe how their lives changed in a major way, about half of adults said they felt more afraid, more careful, more distrustful or more vulnerable as a result of the attacks.

Even after the immediate shock of 9/11 had subsided, concerns over terrorism remained at higher levels in major cities – especially New York and Washington – than in small towns and rural areas. The personal impact of the attacks also was felt more keenly in the cities directly targeted: Nearly a year after 9/11, about six-in-ten adults in the New York (61%) and Washington (63%) areas said the attacks had changed their lives at least a little, compared with 49% nationwide. This sentiment was shared by residents of other large cities. A quarter of people who lived in large cities nationwide said their lives had changed in a major way – twice the rate found in small towns and rural areas.

The impacts of the Sept. 11 attacks were deeply felt and slow to dissipate. By the following August, half of U.S. adults said the country “had changed in a major way” – a number that actually increased , to 61%, 10 years after the event .

A year after the attacks, in an open-ended question, most Americans – 80% – cited 9/11 as the most important event that had occurred in the country during the previous year. Strikingly, a larger share also volunteered it as the most important thing that happened to them personally in the prior year (38%) than mentioned other typical life events, such as births or deaths. Again, the personal impact was much greater in New York and Washington, where 51% and 44%, respectively, pointed to the attacks as the most significant personal event over the prior year.

Just as memories of 9/11 are firmly embedded in the minds of most Americans old enough to recall the attacks, their historical importance far surpasses other events in people’s lifetimes. In a survey conducted by Pew Research Center in association with A+E Networks’ HISTORY in 2016 – 15 years after 9/11 – 76% of adults named the Sept. 11 attacks as one of the 10 historical events of their lifetime that had the greatest impact on the country. The election of Barack Obama as the first Black president was a distant second, at 40%.

The importance of 9/11 transcended age, gender, geographic and even political differences. The 2016 study noted that while partisans agreed on little else that election cycle, more than seven-in-ten Republicans and Democrats named the attacks as one of their top 10 historic events.

It is difficult to think of an event that so profoundly transformed U.S. public opinion across so many dimensions as the 9/11 attacks. While Americans had a shared sense of anguish after Sept. 11, the months that followed also were marked by rare spirit of public unity.

Patriotic sentiment surged in the aftermath of 9/11. After the U.S. and its allies launched airstrikes against Taliban and al-Qaida forces in early October 2001, 79% of adults said they had displayed an American flag. A year later, a 62% majority said they had often felt patriotic as a result of the 9/11 attacks.

Moreover, the public largely set aside political differences and rallied in support of the nation’s major institutions, as well as its political leadership. In October 2001, 60% of adults expressed trust in the federal government – a level not reached in the previous three decades, nor approached in the two decades since then.

George W. Bush, who had become president nine months earlier after a fiercely contested election, saw his job approval rise 35 percentage points in the space of three weeks. In late September 2001, 86% of adults – including nearly all Republicans (96%) and a sizable majority of Democrats (78%) – approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president.

Americans also turned to religion and faith in large numbers. In the days and weeks after 9/11, most Americans said they were praying more often. In November 2001, 78% said religion’s influence in American life was increasing, more than double the share who said that eight months earlier and – like public trust in the federal government – the highest level in four decades .

Public esteem rose even for some institutions that usually are not that popular with Americans. For example, in November 2001, news organizations received record-high ratings for professionalism. Around seven-in-ten adults (69%) said they “stand up for America,” while 60% said they protected democracy.

Yet in many ways, the “9/11 effect” on public opinion was short-lived. Public trust in government, as well as confidence in other institutions, declined throughout the 2000s. By 2005, following another major national tragedy – the government’s mishandling of the relief effort for victims of Hurricane Katrina – just 31% said they trusted the federal government, half the share who said so in the months after 9/11. Trust has remained relatively low for the past two decades: In April of this year, only 24% said they trusted the government just about always or most of the time.

Bush’s approval ratings, meanwhile, never again reached the lofty heights they did shortly after 9/11. By the end of his presidency, in December 2008, just 24% approved of his job performance.

With the U.S. now formally out of Afghanistan – and with the Taliban firmly in control of the country – most Americans (69%) say the U.S. failed in achieving its goals in Afghanistan.

But 20 years ago, in the days and weeks following 9/11, Americans overwhelmingly supported military action against those responsible for the attacks. In mid-September 2001, 77% favored U.S. military action, including the deployment of ground forces, “to retaliate against whoever is responsible for the terrorist attacks, even if that means U.S. armed forces might suffer thousands of casualties.”

Many Americans were impatient for the Bush administration to give the go-ahead for military action. In a late September 2001 survey, nearly half the public (49%) said their larger concern was that the Bush administration would not strike quickly enough against the terrorists; just 34% said they worried the administration would move too quickly.

Even in the early stages of the U.S. military response, few adults expected a military operation to produce quick results: 69% said it would take months or years to dismantle terrorist networks, including 38% who said it would take years and 31% who said it would take several months. Just 18% said it would take days or weeks.

The public’s support for military intervention was evident in other ways as well. Throughout the fall of 2001, more Americans said the best way to prevent future terrorism was to take military action abroad rather than build up defenses at home. In early October 2001, 45% prioritized military action to destroy terrorist networks around the world, while 36% said the priority should be to build terrorism defenses at home.

Initially, the public was confident that the U.S. military effort to destroy terrorist networks would succeed. A sizable majority (76%) was confident in the success of this mission, with 39% saying they were very confident.

Support for the war in Afghanistan continued at a high level for several years to come. In a survey conducted in early 2002, a few months after the start of the war, 83% of Americans said they approved of the U.S.-led military campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan. In 2006, several years after the United States began combat operations in Afghanistan, 69% of adults said the U.S. made the right decision in using military force in Afghanistan. Only two-in-ten said it was the wrong decision.

But as the conflict dragged on, first through Bush’s presidency and then through Obama’s administration, support wavered and a growing share of Americans favored the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. In June 2009, during Obama’s first year in office, 38% of Americans said U.S. troops should be removed from Afghanistan as soon as possible. The share favoring a speedy troop withdrawal increased over the next few years. A turning point came in May 2011, when U.S. Navy SEALs launched a risky operation against Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan and killed the al-Qaida leader.

The public reacted to bin Laden’s death with more of a sense of relief than jubilation . A month later, for the first time , a majority of Americans (56%) said that U.S. forces should be brought home as soon as possible, while 39% favored U.S. forces in the country until the situation had stabilized.

Over the next decade, U.S. forces in Afghanistan were gradually drawn down, in fits and starts, over the administrations of three presidents – Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Meanwhile, public support for the decision to use force in Afghanistan, which had been widespread at the start of the conflict, declined . Today, after the tumultuous exit of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, a slim majority of adults (54%) say the decision to withdraw troops from the country was the right decision; 42% say it was the wrong decision. 

There was a similar trajectory in public attitudes toward a much more expansive conflict that was part of what Bush termed the “war on terror”: the U.S. war in Iraq. Throughout the contentious, yearlong debate before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Americans widely supported the use of military force to end Saddam Hussein’s rule in Iraq.

Importantly, most Americans thought – erroneously, as it turned out – there was a direct connection between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks. In October 2002, 66% said that Saddam helped the terrorists involved in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

In April 2003, during the first month of the Iraq War, 71% said the U.S. made the right decision to go to war in Iraq. On the 15th anniversary of the war in 2018, just 43% said it was the right decision. As with the case with U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, more Americans said that the U.S. had failed (53%) than succeeded (39%) in achieving its goals in Iraq.

There have been no terrorist attacks on the scale of 9/11 in two decades, but from the public’s perspective, the threat has never fully gone away. Defending the country from future terrorist attacks has been at or near the top of Pew Research Center’s annual survey on policy priorities since 2002.

In January 2002, just months after the 2001 attacks, 83% of Americans said “defending the country from future terrorist attacks” was a top priority for the president and Congress, the highest for any issue. Since then, sizable majorities have continued to cite that as a top policy priority.

Majorities of both Republicans and Democrats have consistently ranked terrorism as a top priority over the past two decades, with some exceptions. Republicans and Republican-leaning independents have remained more likely than Democrats and Democratic leaners to say defending the country from future attacks should be a top priority. In recent years, the partisan gap has grown larger as Democrats began to rank the issue lower relative to other domestic concerns. The public’s concerns about another attack also remained fairly steady in the years after 9/11, through near-misses and the federal government’s numerous “Orange Alerts” – the second-most serious threat level on its color-coded terrorism warning system.

A 2010 analysis of the public’s terrorism concerns found that the share of Americans who said they were very concerned about another attack had ranged from about 15% to roughly 25% since 2002. The only time when concerns were elevated was in February 2003, shortly before the start of the U.S. war in Iraq.

In recent years, the share of Americans who point to terrorism as a major national problem has declined sharply as issues such as the economy, the COVID-19 pandemic and racism have emerged as more pressing problems in the public’s eyes.

In 2016, about half of the public (53%) said terrorism was a very big national problem in the country. This declined to about four-in-ten from 2017 to 2019. Last year, only a quarter of Americans said that terrorism was a very big problem.

This year, prior to the U.S. withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan and the subsequent Taliban takeover of the country, a somewhat larger share of adults said domestic terrorism was a very big national problem (35%) than said the same about international terrorism . But much larger shares cited concerns such as the affordability of health care (56%) and the federal budget deficit (49%) as major problems than said that about either domestic or international terrorism.

Still, recent events in Afghanistan raise the possibility that opinion could be changing, at least in the short term. In a late August survey, 89% of Americans said the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan was a threat to the security of the U.S., including 46% who said it was a major threat.

Just as Americans largely endorsed the use of U.S. military force as a response to the 9/11 attacks, they were initially open to a variety of other far-reaching measures to combat terrorism at home and abroad. In the days following the attack, for example, majorities favored a requirement that all citizens carry national ID cards, allowing the CIA to contract with criminals in pursuing suspected terrorists and permitting the CIA to conduct assassinations overseas when pursuing suspected terrorists.

However, most people drew the line against allowing the government to monitor their own emails and phone calls (77% opposed this). And while 29% supported the establishment of internment camps for legal immigrants from unfriendly countries during times of tension or crisis – along the lines of those in which thousands of Japanese American citizens were confined during World War II – 57% opposed such a measure.

It was clear that from the public’s perspective, the balance between protecting civil liberties and protecting the country from terrorism had shifted. In September 2001 and January 2002, 55% majorities said that, in order to curb terrorism in the U.S., it was necessary for the average citizen to give up some civil liberties. In 1997, just 29% said this would be necessary while 62% said it would not.

For most of the next two decades, more Americans said their bigger concern was that the government had not gone far enough in protecting the country from terrorism than said it went too far in restricting civil liberties.

The public also did not rule out the use of torture to extract information from terrorist suspects. In a 2015 survey of 40 nations, the U.S. was one of only 12 where a majority of the public said the use of torture against terrorists could be justified to gain information about a possible attack.

Concerned about a possible backlash against Muslims in the U.S. in the days after 9/11, then-President George W. Bush gave a speech to the Islamic Center in Washington, D.C., in which he declared: “Islam is peace.” For a brief period, a large segment of Americans agreed. In November 2001, 59% of U.S. adults had a favorable view of Muslim Americans, up from 45% in March 2001, with comparable majorities of Democrats and Republicans expressing a favorable opinion.

This spirit of unity and comity was not to last. In a September 2001 survey, 28% of adults said they had grown more suspicious of people of Middle Eastern descent; that grew to 36% less than a year later.

Republicans, in particular, increasingly came to associate Muslims and Islam with violence. In 2002, just a quarter of Americans – including 32% of Republicans and 23% of Democrats – said Islam was more likely than other religions to encourage violence among its believers. About twice as many (51%) said it was not.

But within the next few years, most Republicans and GOP leaners said Islam was more likely than other religions to encourage violence. Today, 72% of Republicans express this view, according to an August 2021 survey.

Democrats consistently have been far less likely than Republicans to associate Islam with violence. In the Center’s latest survey, 32% of Democrats say this. Still, Democrats are somewhat more likely to say this today than they have been in recent years: In 2019, 28% of Democrats said Islam was more likely than other religions to encourage violence among its believers than other religions.

The partisan gap in views of Muslims and Islam in the U.S. is evident in other meaningful ways. For example, a 2017 survey found that half of U.S. adults said that “Islam is not part of mainstream American society” – a view held by nearly seven-in-ten Republicans (68%) but only 37% of Democrats. In a separate survey conducted in 2017, 56% of Republicans said there was a great deal or fair amount of extremism among U.S. Muslims, with fewer than half as many Democrats (22%) saying the same.

The rise of anti-Muslim sentiment in the aftermath of 9/11 has had a profound effect on the growing number of Muslims living in the United States. Surveys of U.S. Muslims from 2007-2017 found increasing shares saying they have personally experienced discrimination and received public expression of support.

It has now been two decades since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon and the crash of Flight 93 – where only the courage of passengers and crew possibly prevented an even deadlier terror attack.

For most who are old enough to remember, it is a day that is impossible to forget. In many ways, 9/11 reshaped how Americans think of war and peace, their own personal safety and their fellow citizens. And today, the violence and chaos in a country half a world away brings with it the opening of an uncertain new chapter in the post-9/11 era.

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America’s War on Terrorism Essay

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Terrorism, propagated by Islamic Extremists, has cost the lives of countless innocent inhabitants, for a long time. These terrorists majorly attack the United States citizens. The newsagents have aired various cases of terrorism from time to time over an incredibly longer period. One of the worst incidents or terror attacks was experienced in 11 th September 2001, with the bombing of the Pentagon and World Trade Center.

As a result, the United States retaliated by ambushing many of these terrorists from their hideouts and thus significantly reducing cases of terror attacks (Gale, Radu & Sicherman, 2009). One of the major breakthroughs in this fight was the recent execution of the leader of Al Qaeda Network, Osama bin Laden. However, the US government should not celebrate yet for this milestone, but it should be more vigilant to curb any retaliatory attacks (Ross, 2011).

Moreover, with the advancement of technology, the United States military is to fight this menace and significantly impede terrorists’ operations. On the other hand, terrorists have taken advantage of technology to perpetrate terror to innocent victims. Terrorists now use sophisticated weaponry to carry out their ill-fated missions, in the name of fighting for their religion. Terror groups have now gone global, with followers being almost in every nation (Noritz, 2009).

Over the past years, many critics have raised the issue as to whether this war is worth its taking. The war against terrorism has cost the United States large sums of taxpayers’ money that could have been used elsewhere to uplift the economy. However, in my opinion, it is worthwhile. Among the benefits of this undertaking are improved security to the citizens of the United States.

The resilient and unending war against the terrorists has made the US citizens to have free movement without fear of recurrent attacks. This has resulted in saving innocent lives and helped safeguarding the welfare of citizens, thus promoting economic growth. Besides, the war has aided significantly in reducing threats from the terror perpetrators (Noritz, 2009).

In addition, the battle on terrorism has significantly reduced recurrent attacks. The US Army has deactivated most terrorist activities, thus diminishing their strength for further attacks. Furthermore, the US involvement in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan has led to the elimination of autocratic rule based on corruption and nepotism and brought democracy to those involved nations. As a result, these countries will experience economic development and thus improve people’s living standards.

Through this war, the US military forces have gained vast knowledge about how best to fight enemies, not only the terrorist attackers. As a result, the US government has reinforced its military prowess in terms of efficiency, better organization structure and weaponry sophistication through technology incorporation. This makes the US military the best in the world.

The involvement of US in War against terrorism has made US earn recognition from other countries. Nations such as India, Britain and the East African states face the challenge of terrorism and with total cooperation, they will gradually put terrorism at bay. This way, they will create strong international relations and thus, promote peace among world nations. Moreover, through the war on terrorism, the US government has sensitized other nations towards the fight for democracy and proper governance.

Conversely, the war against terrorism costs the US government loads of money. Critics argue against the fight, claiming that terrorism is currently not a serious threat to the residents. Moreover, they argue that the money used for terrorism war could be utilized better in other economy stimulating activities such as trade, or it could be channeled to the healthcare system. Others argue that the US army is using too much force while fighting against terrorism, thus compromising human rights.

Gale, S., Radu, M. & Sicherman, H. (2009). The war on terrorism: 21st-century perspectives . New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

Ross, D. (2011). Why al Qaeda is winning the war we’re fighting, and the war we think we’re fighting . Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Noritz, J. (2009). Pirates, terrorists, and warlords: the history, influence, and future of armed groups around the world . New York, NY: Skyhorse Publishers.

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The evening of Sept. 11, President Bush spoke to the American people from the Oval Office in a nationally televised address: "The pictures of airplanes flying into buildings, fires burning, huge structures collapsing, have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness, and a quiet, unyielding anger. These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat. But they have failed; our country is strong. "A great people has been moved to defend a great nation. Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shattered steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve. "America was targeted for attack because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light from shining." These terrorist attacks were an act of war against the United States. In a meeting on September 12 with his National Security Team , President Bush said, "The deliberate and deadly attacks which were carried out yesterday against our country were more than acts of terror. They were acts of war. This will require our country to unite in steadfast determination and resolve. Freedom and democracy are under attack.

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The War on Terror, Essay Example

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The War on Terror: Enriching the Military-Industrial Complex since 2001!

There are many Americans – usually after a long session of watching Fox News with a glazed look in their eyes and a slipstream of drool coming out the side of their mouths — who probably lay awake at night, worrying about whether the largest standing army in the world is quite big enough??  After all, the Cold War has been over for decades and the fight against the creeping tentacles of Communism and the specter of the Red Menace has long since subsided, and in that lull, there was every danger that the American military, voracious eater of more than half of our national budget, might have to tighten its belt and go on the economic equivalent of the Atkins diet.

But never fear, stalwart Americans!  The Bush administration, taking political advantage of the ghastly tragedies of September 11 th (‘cause when life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade!), has found a new way to keep the coffers of our Department of the Defense nice and fat! Enter: the War on Terror, or the Next Best Thing since the Bay of Pigs!  The War on Terror has kept Americans nice and scared, just as its big brother, the Cold War, did before it, and the great thing about scared people is that they will pay up the nose in order to feel safe again!  As an advertising campaign, the War on Terror has been eminently successful: its customers (the American public), are flocking in to pay for (through their taxes) the product that the government is now offering us (the perception of security).

The best part about this is that, unlike the Cold War, the War on Terror never has to end! The problem with the Cold War is that once the USSR had fallen, there was no need to fight anymore.  But with the War on Terror, when we are done with one country –Iraq, for instance — we can simply go on to the next!  Iran! Syria! The Ukraine!  The possibilities are virtually mind-boggled, and limited only by the scope of our paranoid imagination!

So do not worry about having to cut the military budget any time soon, or fret that we will have to waste money that could otherwise be spent on war on piddling things like education, infrastructure or healthcare.  With the War on Terror, there is no end in sight and absolutely no chance of military budget cuts! Hurray for safety, apple pie, and the American way!

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Home — Essay Samples — Government & Politics — Terrorism & Political Violence — War on Terror

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Sri Lanka: Activity of The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (ltte)

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Pagers Explode Across Lebanon in Apparent Attack on Hezbollah

The attack killed 11 people, including a young girl. Officials briefed on the operation say Israeli operatives planted explosives in pagers Hezbollah bought from a Taiwanese company. Israel declined to comment.

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Patrick Kingsley Euan Ward and Ronen Bergman

Here are the latest developments.

Hundreds of pagers blew up at the same time across Lebanon on Tuesday in an apparently coordinated attack that targeted members of Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militant group in the region, Lebanese and Hezbollah officials said.

The Israeli military declined to comment, but American and other officials briefed on the operation said Israel was responsible for the attack and had executed it by hiding small amounts of explosive material in each pager within a new batch of pagers made in Taiwan and imported into Lebanon.

The attack came a day after Israeli leaders had warned that they were considering stepping up their military campaign against Hezbollah, which has been firing on northern Israel since last year in solidarity with Hamas and its war with Israel in Gaza.

Hezbollah accused Israel of orchestrating the attack on Tuesday and vowed to retaliate for what it called “blatant aggression.”

The wave of explosions left many people in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, in a state of confusion and shock. Witnesses reported smoke coming from people’s pockets, followed by small blasts that sounded like fireworks or gunshots. Amateur footage broadcast on Lebanese television showed chaotic scenes at hospitals, as wounded patients with mangled hands and mutilated faces sought treatment. Sirens blared throughout the city.

Lebanon’s prime minister, Najib Mikati, characterized the attack as “criminal Israeli aggression” and called it “a serious violation of Lebanese sovereignty.” Here is what else to know:

Thousands injured: Officials said that the death toll had risen to 11 people. Hezbollah said at least eight of its fighters had been killed. Lebanon’s Ministry of Health said that a young girl was also among those killed and that more than 2,700 others were injured. Lebanon’s health minister, Dr. Firass Abiad, said many of the victims had injuries to their faces, particularly the eyes, as well as to their hands and stomachs. Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amini , suffered injuries to his hand and face when a pager he was carrying exploded, according to Iranian state news media reports.

Hezbollah’s pagers targeted : Three officials briefed on the attack said that the operation had targeted hundreds of pagers belonging to Hezbollah operatives who have used such devices for years to make it harder for their messages to be intercepted. The use of pagers had became even more widespread after the Oct. 7 attacks, when Hezbollah’s chief warned that Israeli intelligence had penetrated the cellphone network, security experts said. The devices were programmed to beep for several seconds before exploding, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Escalating conflict : The blasts appeared to be the latest salvo in an 11-month conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that began last October, after Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militia, began firing into Israeli territory in solidarity with its ally, Hamas, which is also backed by Iran. The conflict has largely remained contained to exchanges of missiles and rockets, but for months, leaders on either side have warned that it could expand into a war involving ground forces.

Assassination attempt : On Tuesday afternoon, before the pager explosions in Lebanon, the Israeli military had accused Hezbollah of attempting to assassinate a retired senior member of the country’s security services with an explosive device that could be remotely detonated from Lebanon. The same operatives were behind a similar attempted attack in Tel Aviv last year, the military said.

Syrian attacks: In Syria, at least 14 people were injured by pager explosions in the apparently coordinated attack on Hezbollah, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor.

Pager danger: Lebanon’s health ministry has put all hospitals in Lebanon on “maximum alert,” and has requested citizens to discard their pagers.

Johnatan Reiss and Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting.

Anushka Patil

Lebanon’s health minister, Dr. Firass Abiad, said on Tuesday evening that health officials were beginning to direct the injured to medical facilities outside of Beirut and its southern suburbs, where hospitals are overwhelmed, state news media reported.

One of those hospitals, the American University of Beirut Medical Center, said earlier Tuesday that it had received more than 160 “seriously injured” people in the span of three hours and that more were on their way.

The World Health Organization said it was assisting hospitals in Lebanon and providing supplies because many health facilities were at capacity with injured patients. The U.N.’s public health agency described the situation as an “emergency,” according to a statement.

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Sheera Frenkel and Ronen Bergman

Israel planted explosives inside new beepers sold to Hezbollah, officials say.

Israel carried out its operation against Hezbollah on Tuesday by hiding explosive material within a new batch of Taiwanese-made pagers imported into Lebanon, according to American and other officials briefed on the operation.

The pagers, which Hezbollah had ordered from Gold Apollo in Taiwan, had been tampered with before they reached Lebanon, according to some of the officials. Most were the company’s AR924 model, though three other Gold Apollo models were also included in the shipment.

The explosive material, as little as one to two ounces, was implanted next to the battery in each pager, two of the officials said. A switch was also embedded that could be triggered remotely to detonate the explosives.

At 3:30 p.m. in Lebanon, the pagers received a message that appeared as though it was coming from Hezbollah’s leadership, two of the officials said. Instead, the message activated the explosives. Lebanon’s health minister told state media at least 11 people were killed and more than 2,700 injured.

The devices were programmed to beep for several seconds before exploding, according to three of the officials.

The American and other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity given the sensitive nature of the operation.

Hezbollah has accused Israel of orchestrating the attack but has described limited details of its understanding of the operation. Israel has not commented on the attack, nor said it was behind it.

On Wednesday, Gold Apollo sought to distance itself from the devices used in the attack, saying that they had been made by another manufacturer, B.A.C. Consulting, which Gold Apollo said had an address in Budapest and made the pagers under a license. Efforts to contact B.A.C. were not immediately successful, and calls to a number listed on its website rang unanswered.

Independent cybersecurity experts who have studied footage of the attacks said it was clear that the strength and speed of the explosions were caused by a type of explosive material.

“These pagers were likely modified in some way to cause these types of explosions — the size and strength of the explosion indicates it was not just the battery,” said Mikko Hypponen, a research specialist at the software company WithSecure and a cybercrime adviser to Europol.

Keren Elazari, an Israeli cybersecurity analyst and researcher at Tel Aviv University, said the attacks had targeted Hezbollah where they were most vulnerable.

Earlier this year, Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, strictly limited the use of cellphones, which he saw as increasingly vulnerable to Israeli surveillance, according to some of the officials as well as security experts.

“This attack hit them in their Achilles’ heel because they took out a central means of communication,” Ms. Elazari said. “We have seen these types of devices, pagers, targeted before but not in an attack this sophisticated.”

Over 3,000 pagers were ordered from the Gold Apollo company in Taiwan, said several of the officials. Hezbollah distributed the pagers to their members throughout Lebanon, with some reaching Hezbollah allies in Iran and Syria. Israel’s attack affected the pagers that were switched on and receiving messages.

It remained unclear on Tuesday precisely when the pagers were ordered and when they arrived in Lebanon.

As people gathered to donate blood at Red Cross centers across Lebanon on Tuesday, various medical professional groups called on their members, including oral surgeons, pharmacists and veterinarians, to report to local hospitals and provide what help they could, state media reported.

Hwaida Saad

Hezbollah told The New York Times that six of the nine people killed in the coordinated pager explosions were Hezbollah fighters.

The death toll has risen to at least nine killed, according to the U.N.’s special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert. “The developments today mark an extremely concerning escalation,” she said in a statement.

A doctor who visited hospitals in Sidon where some of the wounded were taken said so many people have suffered wounds to their eyes that there is a shortage of eye surgeons. The doctor, Abdulrahman al Bizri, said the hospitals he visited were flooded with people who have injured eyes, faces and hands, and the medical staffs are struggling to treat them all. “The eye injuries won’t be easy and need long treatment,” he said.

At least 14 people in Syria were injured by pager explosions in the apparently coordinated attack on Hezbollah, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor.

Laurence Tan

Medics collected blood donations in Sidon and Beirut’s southern suburbs on Tuesday after hundreds of pagers blew up at the same time in an apparently coordinated attack across Lebanon.

Schools across Lebanon will be closed on Wednesday, Lebanese state media said, citing a statement from the country’s minister of education, Abbas Al-Halabi.

Farnaz Fassihi

Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon is injured in the attack, state media reports.

Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amini, lost one eye and severely injured his other eye when a pager he was carrying exploded in a simultaneous wave of blasts targeting wireless electronic devices, according to two members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps briefed on the attack.

The Guards members, who had knowledge of the attacks and spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said Mr. Amini’s injuries were more serious than Iran initially reported and that he would be medevacked to Tehran for treatment.

Hossein Soleimani, the editor in chief of Mashregh, the main Revolutionary Guards news website, confirmed the extent of Mr. Amini’s injuries in a post on X . “Unfortunately the injuries sustained by Iran’s ambassador were extremely severe and in his eyes,” Mr. Soleimani wrote.

A video of Mr. Amini being transported to the hospital, published by Iranian news media outlets, shows him on a chaotic Beirut street with his eyes covered by bandages and the front of his white shirt covered in blood.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, condemned the attack in a call with Lebanon’s foreign minister and said Iran was ready to medevac the ambassador and other injured people to Iran for medical treatment if needed, according to a statement released by his office. He spoke to Mr. Amini’s wife in Beirut and wished the ambassador a speedy recovery, the statement said.

The attacks appeared to mostly target members of Hezbollah, a political and militia group backed and supported by Iran. Hezbollah and Israel have engaged in intense clashes across their borders since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel last year. Hezbollah accused Israel, which did not comment, of responsibility for the blasts.

Narges Ghadirian, the ambassador’s wife, said in a post on X earlier on Tuesday that her husband “is slightly injured but thank God he is all right and the danger has passed.”

Iranian media reported that two of the ambassador’s bodyguards were also injured because they were carrying pagers that exploded. Tasnim News agency, which is affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, said similar devices also exploded in Syria.

One of the Guards members said the pagers, including the one used by the ambassador, beeped for about 10 seconds before exploding, prompting some victims to hold the devices close to their eyes and faces to check for a message. The two Guards members said the pagers were used only by Hezbollah members and operatives and not widely distributed among ordinary citizens.

Iran appoints its ambassadors in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen — allied countries that are known regionally as the “axis of resistance’— from the senior ranks of the Revolutionary Guards because they also serve as liaisons with militant groups backed by Iran.

The news of the explosions rattled many Iranian supporters of the government who took to social media to express what they feared was Israel’s ability to cause widespread harm remotely. They also said the explosions had outed Hezbollah members, whose identities are typically secret, because video footage of the blasts and their aftermath went viral and victims were seen being injured and seeking medical treatment at hospitals.

A former vice president of Iran, Mohammad Ali Abtahi, called the means of attack “a new phase in technological warfare replacing conventional war” on Telegram. Mr. Abtahi, a politician from the reformist faction, was stationed in Lebanon in the 1980s.

Israel has carried out a series of covert operations in Iran as part of the shadow war between the two countries. Israel assassinated Iran’s top nuclear scientist and deputy defense minister, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh , in 2020 using an A.I.-assisted robot controlled remotely via satellite. In February, Israel blew up two major gas pipelines in Iran, disrupting service to several cities, and, in 2021, an Israeli hack of Iran’s oil ministry servers disrupted gasoline distribution nationwide.

Tensions are already high between Iran and Israel after the assassination of Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran in July. Iran pledged to retaliate against Israel but so far has refrained from doing so after diplomatic efforts warned Tehran that responding risked an Israeli retaliation and wider war.

Some conservative Iranian pundits on Tuesday called on the government to act on its pledge of retaliation against Israel, saying not doing so could embolden Israel to carry out more strikes.

Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesman, told reporters, “we would urge Iran not to take advantage of any incident, any instability, to try to add further instability and to further increase tensions in the region.”

Michael Crowley contributed reporting from Washington.

Hiba Yazbek and Anushka Patil

Israel attacks central Gaza, and civil officials say at least five were killed.

Israeli airstrikes on homes near the Bureij neighborhood in central Gaza on Tuesday morning killed at least five people, including a child, and dozens remained trapped under the rubble at nightfall, the local emergency services said.

The Palestinian Civil Defense said that it had received dozens of calls for help from people who were wounded and trapped and that more than 50 people, including several families, were believed to be inside the buildings when they were hit.

Emergency crews on the scene could hear injured survivors screaming for help, but were forced to retreat after being targeted by Israeli aircraft, according to Mahmoud Basal, a Civil Defense spokesman. Unless medics and rescuers were granted safe access to the site and allowed to bring heavy equipment, including excavators, the scale of the tragedy could rise dramatically, he warned.

The Israeli military said that it had targeted sites near the Bureij neighborhood, where it said fighters were preparing to fire anti-tank missiles and rifles at Israeli troops. The military said it was reviewing reports of civilians being harmed, and it did not respond to the accusation that rescue workers were being prevented from reaching the victims.

Photos from several news agencies at the scene showed extensive destruction, with bloodied limbs of people visible in the rubble. Clothing and household items, including chairs and blankets, could be seen in one building whose facade had been blown off, and children and other residents of the camp were walking through the streets with their meager belongings in hand. At the al-Awda hospital in central Gaza, where some of the victims were taken, photos showed families bent in grief over the bodies of their relatives.

Hamas, the armed group that controlled Gaza before Israel’s invasion last year in response to the Oct. 7 attacks, said in a statement that the intensive bombardment had killed and wounded dozens of people in their homes and accused Israel of deliberately targeting Palestinian civilians.

Israel has repeatedly denied that its forces purposely target civilians and has accused Hamas of hiding its fighters and weapons among noncombatants.

Other Israeli strikes across Gaza on Tuesday, including several in Gaza City, killed at least 13 other people, including women and at least one child, Mr. Basal said. The Gaza Health Ministry said on Tuesday afternoon that at least 26 Palestinians had been killed in Israeli strikes over the past 24 hours.

Iran has offered to send a plane to evacuate some of the wounded to Tehran for treatment, particularly those with severe eye injuries, said Lebanon’s foreign minister, Abdallah Bou Habib.

Aaron Boxerman

Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesman, said the United States was “not involved” in the apparently coordinated attack in Lebanon, nor had it received any advance notice about it. “At this point, we are gathering information,” Miller said. Miller also said that he had “no assessment” to offer about whether Israel might be responsible for the explosions.

It was too soon to say how the attack could impact negotiations for a cease-fire in Gaza, Miller said. The United States was continuing to tell Israel and "other parties" that they should seek a “diplomatic resolution” to the ongoing war, he added.

Lebanon’s foreign minister, Abdallah Bou Habib, said the country was bracing for a major retaliation by Hezbollah. “If Israel thinks by this that they’re going to return their displaced people from the north of Israel, they are mistaken. This escalates this war,” Bou Habib said in a phone call with The New York Times.

He added that the Lebanese government was now preparing to lodge a complaint at the U.N. Security Council. “Hezbollah are definitely going to retaliate in a big way. How? Where? I don’t know,” he said after speaking Tuesday with Hezbollah officials.

The son of a Hezbollah lawmaker, Ali Ammar, was among those killed in the blasts. Lebanon’s prime minister, Najib Mikati, visited Beirut’s southern suburbs on Tuesday to pay condolences to the parliamentarian.

Johnatan Reiss

The Israeli chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, held a security briefing with other senior generals Tuesday evening, the military said in a statement. The officers reviewed “preparation for defensive and offensive operations on all fronts,” according to the statement.

While no new guidelines have been issued for Israeli civilians, the military said Israelis should continue exercising “alertness.”

A graphic video from social media , recorded in Bahman Hospital in Beirut and verified by The New York Times, shows scores of injured individuals bleeding on stretchers and beds. The injuries vary in severity. Some people appear to be missing parts of their hands.

Three minutes from inside the hospital in Lebanon showing how overwhelmed the hospital with Hezbollah’s member after the cyberattack. pic.twitter.com/77aHBUcIRW — Asaad Sam Hanna (@AsaadHannaa) September 17, 2024

Matthew Mpoke Bigg

Hezbollah started using paging devices more widely after Oct. 7, experts say.

Senior members of Hezbollah have used pagers for years but the practice became more widespread after the Oct. 7 attacks, when the group’s leader warned members that Israeli intelligence had penetrated the cellphone network, security experts said Tuesday.

As a result, thousands of rank-and-file members of Hezbollah — and not just fighters — switched to a new system of wireless paging devices, said Amer Al Sabaileh, a regional security expert and university professor based in Amman, Jordan. He said his information was based on extensive contacts in Lebanese political and security circles.

It was not immediately clear how those devices were distributed, but large numbers of pagers exploded at approximately the same time on Tuesday in Lebanon, causing thousands of injuries, according to Lebanese health authorities.

Since the advent of cellphones and smartphones, pagers have fallen out of use, though they remain in use by some people for quick and private contact.

Hezbollah has been security conscious about telecommunications for years, Mr. Al Sabaileh said, and has long banned its operatives from using cellphones while they are traveling in the south of the country near the Israel border. Cellphones can be used to locate the person carrying them.

But, he said, that became more urgent after Oct. 7, when some of the Hezbollah’s senior members were assassinated in airstrikes. In February, Hezbollah’s chief, Hassan Nasrallah, warned members during a speech that their phones were dangerous and could be spied on by Israeli forces, saying they should break or bury them.

Iran, whose government has for decades supplied Hezbollah with arms, technology and other forms of military aid, and would have been pivotal both to any decision to switch to the system and in the delivery of the technology, the experts said.

Experts said that they did not know the precise arrangement for the distribution of the paging devices to Hezbollah members, nor how they had been compromised, but a key element of the new paging system was that it did not use the technology that is the basis of most conventional cellphone networks, and therefore were harder to track electronically.

David Wood, a senior Lebanon analyst with the International Crisis Group think tank, described it as a “limited, closed network.”

He said that in the short term, Hezbollah would likely resort to other methods of communication, potentially one that avoided electronic means altogether.

“It will obviously make coordination more difficult and more risky and without a doubt this is a serious blow to Hezbollah’s operational capacity,” he said.

Mr. Sabaileh said the explosions would be a psychological blow for Hezbollah because it showed the capacity of Israel to strike not just fighters but anyone connected with the group as they went about their daily business.

“It’s like doing an operation in every part of Hezbollah’s territory,” Mr. Sabaileh said, adding that the group would likely see it as a prelude to an Israeli escalation of the conflict, potentially on the ground. “The way they are targeted and the timing looks like a movie — making devices explode all at the same time everywhere is shocking.”

U.N. spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said the developments in Lebanon were “extremely concerning” given the volatile situation in the region. “We deplore the civilian casualties that we have seen,” Dujarric said, adding that the U.N. was following events closely. “We cannot underscore enough the risks of escalation in Lebanon and in the region.”

Sanjana Varghese

Video from social media, verified by The New York Times, shows two injured people on a busy street in Beirut after explosions across the city.

Hezbollah accused Israel of responsibility for the blasts in a second statement, adding that there would be “punishment for this blatant aggression.”

Residents in Lebanon are scared to answer calls. One resident, Khadijeh Fouani, was preparing winter food supplies when she answered her phone by crying out, "Please hang up, hang up!"

The office of Lebanon’s prime minister, Najib Mikati, labeled the incident “criminal Israeli aggression” in a statement, adding that it was “a serious violation of Lebanese sovereignty.”

Ahmad Ayoud, a butcher from the Basta neighborhood in Beirut, said he was in his shop when he heard explosions. Then he saw a man in his 20s fall off a motorbike. He appeared to be bleeding. “We all thought he got wounded from a random shooting,” Ayoud said. “Then, a few minutes later, we started hearing of other cases. All were carrying pagers.”

Here is a look at Hezbollah and what a wider war would mean for Lebanon.

For months, concerns have grown that the war in Gaza might ignite a second conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, the well-armed militia that is loosely allied with Hamas and based just across Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.

The two sides have repeatedly traded strikes since the Gaza war began in October, killing civilians and combatants in Lebanon and Israel, with most of the civilian casualties in Lebanon. The hostilities have also forced more than 150,000 people on both sides of the border to leave their homes for temporary shelters. That has put pressure on the Israeli government to make the north of the country safe for residents again by pushing Hezbollah back from the border region.

The pagers that exploded across Lebanon on Tuesday came a day after Israeli leaders warned that they were considering stepping up their military campaign against Hezbollah. Israel hasn’t commented on whether it was behind the attacks, but tensions between the two countries were already rising.

Here’s a look at Hezbollah and what a wider war would mean for Lebanon.

What is Hezbollah?

Hezbollah has opposed Israel since the group’s very beginnings. It was founded in the 1980s, after Israel, responding to attacks, invaded and occupied southern Lebanon, intending to root out the Palestine Liberation Organization, which was then based in the country.

But Israel soon ran into a new enemy, one whose guerrilla fighters quickly grew effective at bedeviling the far-better-equipped Israeli forces: Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim popular movement that made driving Israel out of Lebanon a major goal.

By 2000, Israel had withdrawn from Lebanon, making Hezbollah a hero to many Lebanese. It fought Israel again in 2006, launching a military operation into its southern neighbor that led to a fierce counterattack. In that war, Israel rained bombs on southern Lebanon and Beirut, the capital; the fighting killed more than 1,000 Lebanese.

Yet, the Israeli military never managed to overwhelm Hezbollah in 34 days of war, allowing the group and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, to emerge as stars in an Arab world wearily accustomed to being defeated by Israel.

Hezbollah soon allied with Iran, and they became close partners.

Though the group retains a large and loyal following among Shiite Muslims because of the social services and political power it offers them — as well as the authoritarian tactics it uses to quell any dissent — many Lebanese see the group as an obstacle to progress that keeps threatening to drag the country into an unwanted war.

Hezbollah, considered a terrorist group by the United States and other countries, has evolved from a fighting force into a dominant political one, accruing significant influence in Lebanon’s government.

What would a wider war mean for Lebanon?

Lebanon can hardly afford a new conflict with Israel.

The country is reeling from years of an economic crisis that has left countless Lebanese in poverty and a political one that has stripped citizens of many basic services. The strikes at the border have displaced about 100,000 Lebanese civilians, depriving many of their income and their homes, and have cost the country billions of dollars in lost tourism and agricultural revenue, Lebanese officials say.

Even some of Hezbollah’s traditionally loyal Shiite Muslim constituents in southern Lebanon are questioning the price of the current fighting. As a result, analysts say, Mr. Nasrallah knows he has to step carefully. He has said that Hezbollah does not want a broader conflict, while warning that his fighters are prepared for one — and that Israel will face serious consequences if it comes.

A Hezbollah-Israel war could also metastasize into a larger regional war that would dwarf the ongoing fighting. Such a conflict could draw in Iran, as well as the United States, which has been working to avert further escalation.

Though jitters have grown with the frequency and deadliness of each side’s strikes, Israel, Hezbollah and Iran do not want a full-fledged war , analysts and U.S. officials say. Yet, the only near-certain way to avoid one, they say, is to end the fighting in Gaza with a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas, whose Oct. 7 attack led to the war in the enclave.

How strong is Hezbollah?

Through propaganda videos and calibrated strikes, Hezbollah has repeatedly displayed signs of a bulked-up arsenal that analysts say is capable of inflicting heavy damage on Israeli cities. Its forces are also battle-tested after years of fighting against rebels in Syria, where Hezbollah sent thousands of fighters during that country’s civil war to help prop up the government of President Bashar al-Assad, a close ally of Iran and Hezbollah.

Estimates vary about just how many missiles Hezbollah has and just how sophisticated its systems are. The Central Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook says the group may have more than 150,000 missiles and rockets of various types and ranges. It also estimated that the group had up to 45,000 fighters, though Mr. Nasrallah has claimed to have 100,000.

But analysts and Israeli officials say Hezbollah’s arsenal is considerably more dangerous than Hamas’s because of its precision-guided missiles, which could target critical Israeli infrastructure and military assets.

Hezbollah has also displayed exploding drones that can elude Israel’s Iron Dome, the detect-and-shoot-down system designed to protect the country from incoming rockets and missiles. The group also appears to have anti-tank missiles that fly too fast and too low for the Iron Dome to intercept.

Euan Ward contributed reporting.

Lebanon's health minister, Dr. Firass Abiad, said in a news conference that eight people were killed by exploding paging devices and more than 2,700 were wounded, including approximately 200 in serious condition.

Dr. Abiad said many of the victims had injuries to their faces, particularly the eyes, as well as to their hands and stomachs. One of those killed was an 8-year-old girl, he said.

The wave of explosions left many people in Beirut in a state of confusion and shock. "It is complete chaos," said Um Saleh, a homemaker who lives in the southern suburbs of the city. "I cannot find an explanation to what happened this afternoon.”

Anjana Sankar

Here’s a look at some of the key events in the conflict in the Middle East.

Wireless devices were exploding across Lebanon, the day after Israel warned it would escalate its campaign against the powerful Iran-backed militia.

Tensions have been high for months in the wake of high-profile assassinations of senior leaders of the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah. Those killings in July intensified the longstanding conflict between Israel and Iran, which backs Hamas and Hezbollah.

They also fueled alarm among global leaders, including in the United States, where the Biden administration has urged restraint to prevent a broader war from engulfing the region.

Here are some of the key developments in recent months.

Jan. 2: A Hamas leader’s killing in Beirut

Hamas accused Israel of killing Saleh al-Arouri, a senior leader, along with two commanders from its military wing in an explosion in a suburb of Beirut, Lebanon’s capital. Previously, Beirut had been far from the cross-border violence between Israel and Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese militia that, like Hamas, is aligned with Iran. Mr. al-Arouri was the first high-level Hamas official to be killed outside the West Bank and Gaza in recent years. Israeli officials declined to comment, but Lebanese and U.S. officials attributed the attack to Israel.

Jan. 6: Hezbollah’s retaliation against Israel

In response to Mr. al-Arouri’s assassination, Hezbollah fired a volley of rockets at a small military base in northern Israel. Though Hezbollah said it caused casualties, the Israeli military reported no injuries and responded with its own strikes in Lebanon. Analysts viewed Hezbollah’s response as a symbolic act rather than a significant escalation, with the group firing about 40 rockets toward Mount Meron, an area housing a military radar station.

April 1: Airstrikes in Damascus

Israel carried out airstrikes that hit part of the Iranian Embassy complex in Damascus, Syria, killing three senior Iranian commanders and four officers involved in Iran’s covert operations. The attack, one of the deadliest in the yearslong shadow war between Israel and Iran, increased regional tensions, which were already strained over the war in Gaza and hostilities involving Iran-backed groups. Israeli officials, speaking anonymously, confirmed the strike but denied that the targeted building had diplomatic status.

April 14: A barrage of missiles and drones against Israel

Iran retaliated for the Damascus strikes by launching more than 300 drones and missiles against Israel , its first open attack on Israel from Iranian soil. The strikes, aimed at military targets, caused minor damage and injured a young girl. Israel intercepted most of the projectiles and others were shot down by U.S. and Jordanian defenses. The calibrated attack, telegraphed well in advance, demonstrated Iran’s effort to avoid mass casualties or direct war, analysts said.

July 13: An airstrike in a designated humanitarian zone of Gaza

Israel tried to kill Muhammad Deif, a top Hamas military commander in Gaza, in an airstrike that the territory’s health ministry said killed 90 people and injured 300 others. The strike hit a strip of coastal land known as Mawasi, which Israel had designated as a humanitarian zone, and where thousands of displaced Palestinians were living. Mr. Deif, believed to be a mastermind behind the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, had long been a high-priority target, and after weeks of uncertainty about his condition, Israeli authorities said in August that he had been killed . Hamas has not explicitly confirmed or denied Israel’s claim.

July 27: Rocket strikes in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights

A rocket from Lebanon struck a soccer field in the Druse town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, killing 12 teenagers and children, according to the Israeli military. It was the deadliest single attack from across Israel’s northern border in months of hostilities. Israel accused Hezbollah, but the group denied responsibility.

July 30: A second strike in Beirut

Israel targeted Fuad Shukr, a senior Hezbollah leader and close adviser to the organization’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in a deadly strike in Beirut . Israeli officials described the attack as a response to the Golan Heights rocket strike, but the assault quickly raised concerns in the region about Israel’s willingness to strike deep within Lebanese territory.

July 31: A top Hamas official is killed in Tehran

Hours after the strike in Beirut, Ismail Haniyeh, one of the most senior Hamas leaders and a key figure in the stalled cease-fire talks, was assassinated in Iran , where he had gone for the inauguration of that country’s new president. Iran and Hamas said Israel had carried out the killing, and they vowed to retaliate. Mr. Haniyeh, who had led Hamas’s political office and helped manage negotiations for a cease-fire, was killed by an explosive device covertly smuggled into the guesthouse in Tehran where he was staying, according to seven Middle Eastern officials, including two Iranians, as well as an American official.

Aug. 25: Israel says it thwarted a major attack

The Israeli military said it had launched airstrikes against Hezbollah forces that had been preparing an “extensive” attack against Israel, destroying what it said were thousands of rocket launch barrels. Hezbollah later said it had retaliated for Mr. Shukr’s killing by launching hundreds of rockets at Israeli military positions — believed to be one of its largest barrages in months — though Israel said there had been “very little damage.”

The strikes came after cross-border strikes between Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon had escalated sharply. A week earlier, an Israeli airstrike hit a factory in a small town in southern Lebanon, killing at least 10 civilians , according to Lebanese officials. It was one of the largest death tolls in a single strike in Lebanon since the war in Gaza began.

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• 9/11 and the Start of the War on Terror

9/11 and the Start of the War on Terror - Essay Example

• Subject: History
• Type: Essay
• Level: College
• Pages: 30 (7500 words)
• Downloads: 2
• Author: maxie08

Extract of sample "9/11 and the Start of the War on Terror"

The incident led to roughly 3,000 fatalities, majority of whom were innocent civilians. President Bush acted in response to these attacks with demands for the protection of liberty, and for the punishment of the terrorists (Lankford 420). The President was determined about the worldwide nature of the impending war, declaring that “This is not… just America’s fight. And what is at stake is not just America’s freedom. This is the world’s fight. This is civilization’s fight. This is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom” (Jackson 195).

The President even mentioned the responsibility of NATO members to help the U.S. government in its war against terrorists, considering their involvement as unavoidable (Robertson 174): Perhaps the NATO charter reflects best the attitude of the world: An attack on one is an attack on all. The civilized world is rallying to America’s side… They understand that if this terror goes unpunished, their own cities, their own citizens may be next. Terror unanswered can not only bring down buildings, it can threaten the stability of legitimate governments.

Afterward, the President introduced the concept of ‘War on Terror’. By introducing this concept the President characterized terrorism as any action which the U.S. assumes endangers liberty, sovereignty, and the American way of life, further declaring that those who support such acts are terrorists themselves. But how one views or identifies terrorism has huge influence on the validity of such daring efforts at unilateral global disunion (Robertson 174-175). This essay discusses that due to constant threats posed by malicious terrorists and the following 9/11 incidence, the United States embarked on devising effective measures, for instance, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), in quest to combat terror both within its borders and in the world.

The War on Terror President George W. Bush acted in response to the September 11 incident by creating new objectives in foreign policy, and trying to expand presidential power. After 9/11, Bush started to develop a new foreign policy system, establishing new priorities for U.S. foreign affairs. Prior to 9/11, Bush continued almost all international commitments of the Clinton government, except the pulling out from involvement in the Middle East peace process (Buckley & Singh 12-13). Events on September 11 changed all of these, and motivated ingenious measures headed by the presidency.

Temporarily, the War on Terror has reformed almost all American foreign policy priorities and commitments. Bush specified a policy of resisting and fighting terrorist activities with military power everywhere they are present, and also using military force against foreign regimes that support and protect terrorists. This policy, known as the Bush Doctrine, also involves the killing of foreign and terrorist leaders linked to terrorist attacks against the U.S. This new policy was immediately realized through the war in Afghanistan (Buckley & Singh 13).

The Bush Doctrine greatly resembles the Truman Doctrine, promising American intervention anywhere in the world to fight a specific adversary. A large number of recent U.S. operations have currently been reshaped as anti-terrorism, and broadened to accommodate new priorities and objectives. A perfect case in point is Columbia, wherein the American support for the government in its fight against the revolutionaries who were financially supported by the drug trade industry has shifted into a battle against terrorists hostile to U.S. interests overseas (Svendsen 120).

Bush explained the vague idea of the War on

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