War on Terrorism

Scoring the war on terror is a complicated task for most Americans. On any given day, they can skim a variety of news sources and get very different impressions about its status. By some accounts, the war is being won on its many fronts; by other accounts, it is a most miserable failure. An additional reason Americans find it difficult to judge the war is that much of it is being conducted secretly for security reasons. As this volume goes to press, no further terrorist attacks have occurred on American soil since September 11, 2001—another fact that makes it difficult to assess the war on terror. It either means that the war has been successful or simply that no new attacks have been attempted. Although the war on terrorism may be hard to evaluate, it is undeniable that Americans are vested in it. Either with criticism or compliments, everyone is talking about the efforts to reduce terrorism. The attacks of September 11, 2001, shook the nation to its core and challenged the prevailing notion that America was invulnerable to attack. Only a handful of people could have predicted that terrorists would have used airplanes as flying bombs to unleash terror and devastation on American soil. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, which killed over three thousand people, money was poured into the airline industry to prevent other jets from being hijacked in the same way. It soon became clear, however, that much more than just the airline industry needed protection from terrorism. Indeed, it did not take officials long to develop a list of sectors of society that were, on closer inspection, dangerously vulnerable to attack. The nearly eight thousand miles of borders the United States shares with Mexico and Canada were uncomfortably open, as were its twelve thousand miles of coastline. The nation's trucking, rail lines, and nuclear power plants also had very little security in place. National landmarks also seemed particularly defenseless; American treasures, such as Mount Rushmore and Ellis Island, appeared especially prone to attack because of their symbolic value. To take on the enormous task of safeguarding the nation, the Department of Homeland Security was created in the months following September 11. Among the daunting tasks the new department is responsible for is figuring out exactly who is in the country, and with what intentions. America is an open society, one that values individual privacy and freedom of choice and movement. Indeed, because of these qualities, America has traditionally been a beacon of freedom and opportunity to those around the world. After September 11, however, living in an open society seemed suddenly like a liability rather than an asset. After all, the September 11 terrorists had used legal channels to enter the country. Officials realized that radically new approaches would be needed to apprehend terrorists who had managed to blend into society. Part of the sweeping changes that occurred after September 11 thus affected privacy and freedom. The USA PATRIOT Act was adopted, which expands government powers and intelligence capabilities in order to ferret out terrorists living in the United States. Another program, called Total Information Awareness (TIA), was also developed to enhance intelligence capabilities and gather information about the civilian population. These two programs have met mixed reactions; some people appreciate efforts to scrutinize the population and claim they have nothing to hide; others complain that the new measures violate the civil liberties of ordinary Americans and contend that such breaches of privacy have little to do with counterterrorism. In addition to changes at home, the war on terror immediately spread overseas. Indeed, stamping out foreign-born terrorism became a key tenet of U.S. policy. To this end, in October 2001 U.S. and coalition forces ousted the fundamentalist Taliban government of Afghanistan. Many Americans saw this war as a direct retaliation for the September 11 attacks, as the Taliban had sheltered September 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden. In 2003 U.S. forces fought another war in Iraq to overthrow dictator Saddam Hussein. The Bush administration claimed that his regime was building weapons of mass destruction and had ties to terrorist groups. These military incursions made clear that America would be active abroad in its war on terrorism. A variety of operations continue overseas in a multitude of countries that are linked to terrorism in some way. Pakistan, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Libya, North Korea, Indonesia, and Europe are just some of the places where the United States has undertaken military, intelligence, and diplomatic operations relating to its war on terror. Although monumental changes have taken place since September 11, it remains, on the whole, unclear whether these efforts to reduce terrorism are indeed working. In fact, a dizzying array of conclusions has been drawn, making it nearly impossible to achieve consensus on the effectiveness of the war. For example, President George W. Bush, one of the most vocal supporters of the war on terrorism, claims that terrorists are being caught and thus the war on terrorism is succeeding. As he said in his State of the Union address in January 2003, "We have the terrorists on the run. We're keeping them on the run. One by one, the terrorists are learning the meaning of American justice." National Review contributor Kate O'Beirne agrees, confidently lauding the achievements of the war on terrorism: In the past two years, terrorist cells in Buffalo, Detroit, Seattle, and Portland, Ore., have been dismantled; criminal charges have been brought against 225 suspected terrorists; and 132 of those suspects have been convicted. Terrorists haven't carried out another attack here because the domestic war on terrorism, aimed at prevention, has worked. Other observers, however, look at the same list of accomplishments and conclude that when one terrorist is removed, a hundred step up to take his or her place. Author Scott Holleran, contributor to Capitalism Magazine, argued this point in a September 8, 2003, article entitled "Why We're Losing the War on Terror": The White House has made much of the fact that two-thirds of al Qaeda's leadership has been caught. Picking off top ter- rorists one by one will not win this war. As one Taliban fighter scoffed, when asked by the Associated Press to comment on [al] Qaeda leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's capture: "There are lots of people who can do his work." Indeed, critics of the war on terrorism believe it has in fact enlarged the terrorist problem and inspired more terrorists to take up arms against the United States. In her August 20, 2003, article "How America Created a Terrorist Haven," New York Times reporter Jessica Stern wrote: [The] bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad [Iraq] was the latest evidence that America has taken a country that was not a terrorist threat and turned it into one. . . . The occupation [of Iraq by American troops] has given disparate groups from various countries a common battlefield on which to fight a common enemy. Thus, measuring success seems to be a matter of how one interprets the facts. Because of this, evaluating the war on terrorism is very complicated. Another factor preventing the public from determining whether efforts to reduce terrorism have been successful has to do with secrecy. Many of the details of the war on terrorism are kept secret, in large part for security reasons. For example, if intelligence officers are able to infiltrate terrorist cells and make key arrests, those arrests will need to be kept from the public so as to prevent the enemy from learning who among them has been captured. Indeed, only a very select group of high ranking officials will even be aware that certain operations are ongoing. President Bush acknowledged this necessity when he addressed Congress on September 20, 2001, saying, "Our response [to the attacks of September 11, 2001] involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success." These secret fronts of the war on terror make it difficult to gauge its success, and it remains nearly impossible for the average citizen to monitor the war's progress. This secrecy has elicited many different reactions from Americans; some have supported the claim that secrecy is necessary. These Americans trust that their government will protect them as best it can. The secrecy has not boded well with others, however, who are accustomed to living in an open society where their government's actions are subject to public scrutiny. Perhaps the most difficult challenge facing those trying to evaluate the war is its ambiguous nature: Does the absence of attacks in the United States indicate that security measures are working, or that attacks have not been attempted? The absence of terrorism at home is indeed an eerie and confusing phenomenon. In late 2002 author Bill Powell pondered this predicament in an article for Fortune magazine: It has been a year since September 11 . . . and nothing has happened since. For all the warnings, for all the rumors of imminent dirty nukes, arrests of shoe bombers, and suspected sleeper cells, there has not, remarkably, been another attack. Not many people a year ago would have pre- dicted that. It would be nice, therefore, to think that nothing like what happened then could happen now. That the merciful quiet at home in the year since the 11th has been because we have taken the war to the enemy abroad and become vigilant and smart at home. In many ways, Americans can only speculate on whether efforts to reduce terrorism have met with success. While the efforts to prevent terrorism are visible all around us, their efficacy may not be definitively known until there is another attack. It is only then that changes to security will receive their first true test, and whatever weaknesses were left unaddressed will be made horribly clear. The viewpoints presented in At Issue: Are Efforts to Reduce Terrorism Successful? explore the gamut of actions being taken in the war against terrorism and offer insight into the wide range of interpretations of their success.