The “War On Terror” has made the U.S. more Vulnerable

The “War On Terror” has made the U.S. more Vulnerable

Introduction

Terrorism means violence against a ruling system (political, economic, or social) to air grievances and compel change. It has been used throughout modern history by political and religious extremists. Terrorist acts are often aimed at government property or major public spaces; some attacks are perpetrated against government officials while others are committed against civilians. “Global War On Terror” (GWOT) began with the al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on targets in New York and Washington DC on 11 September 2001. Although Islamist terrorist attacks hade been made against US targets around the world through the 1990s, the successful attacks upon US soil galvanised a response on the part of the Bush administration and many of its traditional allies and partners. (Thompson 2010, 63)

Thesis Statement

Research has shown that responding to the 9/11 attacks with the “War on Terror” has made the US more vulnerable because it has created huge deficits, diminished America's standing in the world, and weakened the rights of its citizens.

Discussion

There is not any consensus on the relationship between terror and terrorism. Some see terrorism as the more organised form of terror, and yet others stress that terror is a state of mind while terrorism refers to organised social activity. The most polarised views are that terror can occur without terrorism, and that terror is the key to terrorism. Terrorism does not only produce terror; and terror is perhaps not even the main result for the majority of the audience of an act or campaign of terrorism. Psychologists define the psychological condition of terror as extreme fear or anxiety. Though terrorism is a real, not an imaginary danger, it is a vague, incomprehensible, unpredictable and unexpected menace. (Bamford 2005, 45-50)

Uncertainty about what sort of behaviour to expect from others results in disorientation. An implicit assumption is that the product of terrorism is terror. But who exactly is terrorised? The immediate victim of a terrorist bomb explosion may be dead before he gets a chance to be filled with terror. The potential fellow victims, in a hostage situation where one hostage has been killed to show that the terrorists mean business in their demands, are those most likely to be terror-stricken. (Galston 2002, 60)

The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard B. Myers, called the military operations of War on Terror "only the beginning of a global campaign and perhaps the most visible component" in the long war against terrorism . (Zunes 2010, 62)

A number of other Islamist extremist organisations have operated in South-East Asia as part of the general war between jihadist organisations and 'the West', including Laskar Jihad and the Front Pembela Islam in Indonesia and Abu Sayyaf and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the Philippines, all of which have ties to al-Qaeda. (Boyne 2003, 89-90)

The war on terror remains controversial, not least among those who argue that the term itself is seriously misleading in ...