Ending war on terror US Congress passed a resolution within three days of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. It gave the president the authority to wage war anywhere in the world where Al-Qaeda, held responsible for 9/11, was suspected to have a presence. For 13 years, the US has been operating under emergency wartime powers granted under the 2001 “Authorization for Use of Military Force.” It arms the president with extraordinary authorities at home and abroad. The war on terror which began in 2001 is still continuing though under a slightly different name. This means that America has been at war for more years than it spent fighting the Civil War, World War I and World War II combined. Is there any chance the US will wind up this war anytime soon? If the mixed messages President Barack Obama sent on the threat presented by Al-Qaeda in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night are anything to go by, the answer is in the negative. In his 2012 State of the Union address Obama had touted the defeat of Al- Qaeda at American hands. “Al-Qaeda operatives who remain are scrambling, knowing that they can’t escape the reach of the United States of America,” he said. Since the killing of Osama Bin Laden in 2011, the White House has stressed publicly that the organization that attacked the US on 9/11 is a shadow of its former self. But on Tuesday the president sang a different tune. While Al-Qaeda’s core has been forced into hiding, the group’s affiliates have expanded their influence, he said in what appears to be a justification for continuing a war which is proving counterproductive in every respect. Yes, the operative word is counterproductive. For evidence, you need to look no further than our region. From Libya to Lebanon, Syria to Yemen, Iraq to Afghanistan, North Africa and Middle East, the region is showing signs of instability. After Muammar Gaddafi fell in Libya, the mercenaries he had hired returned to Mali. In the Libyan city of Benghazi, a US ambassador and three Americans were murdered by terrorists. Terrorism seems to be returning to Egypt, the Sinai is now a no man’s land. It was the US-led war that brought Al-Qaeda to Iraq. Anbar province is now hosting Al-Qaeda. Fallujah and Ramadi have fallen once again. Western powers who once aggressively worked for regime change in Syria are now worried over that country collapsing into Iraq-like chaos. In the heart of Kabul, a bomb exploded this month in a restaurant favored by foreign officials, followed by machine-gunning of dining patrons in which 21 were killed. Pakistan has become a safe haven for the Afghan Taliban. Anti-American elements in the Khyber region have been blocking a US troop exodus to the sea. More people in more countries now hate America than ever before. Extraordinary security measures undertaken by the US government might have spared America’s hinterland a major terrorist attack after the 9/11 horror, but the fact that on Aug. 1, 2012 the White House decided to close down 19 diplomatic missions in the Middle East and North Africa and issue a worldwide travel alert tells its own story. It is becoming more and more clear that to declare war on an elusive or unidentifiable enemy was wrong. Rather, policing and intelligence should have been the backbone of US efforts. A RAND research study found that most of the terrorist groups that existed worldwide between 1968 and 2006 ended their activities because of operations carried out by local police or intelligence agencies or because they negotiated a settlement with their governments. Military force was rarely the primary reason a terrorist group closed shop or was defeated. The resilience of terrorist groups in our region should trigger a fundamental rethinking of US strategy. Like India and other democracies, the US needs to conduct its anti-terrorism campaigns within a more normal legal framework, rather than rely on blanket wartime authority granted in a panic after Sept. 11.
Posted on: Mon, 03 Feb 2014 06:39:16 +0000