In light of the soon-to-come end to the Iraq War it only seems appropriate to discuss and reassess what happened in Iraq and 'why'. In addition, what happened in Afghanistan and 'why'.
Ryan Stanley
Professor Craig
World Politics
9 December 2011
The War on Terror
“We condemn the Taliban regime!” – President George W. Bush
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2011 on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia caused major decisions to be made by the Bush Administration to fight terror wherever it may be in the Middle East region. Two of the most prominent operations have been the so-called wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, one of which we still fight today. The question of whether or not these wars were justified will be left to historians, but we can dig a little deeper and analyze how they are a realist type of move. The twist is, however, that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are very much liberal moves. Here we are presented with a situation in which it looks like one thing, but in fact is another. One would assume that realists do not mind war and are very concerned about security, but liberals are as well.
On September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda carried out a terrorist attack on the United States of America by hijacking four airplanes. The airplanes were passenger jets that were just taking their first flights of the day as many travelers packed on the planes to get to their destination. Three of the four targets were hit, but all hijackings were successful. The Pentagon, both towers of the World Trade Center, and a field in Pennsylvania were all hit, killing over one thousand Americans both on and off of the airplanes. This created a sense of nationalism and pride in all Americans as they just wanted to retaliate, they just wanted something done. George W. Bush was the President of the United States at the time. The Bush Administration decided that terrorism will not stand against the United States of America. In the wake of all of this activity, the Bush Administration moved troops into Afghanistan and Iraq.
The reasons President Bush gave for sending our troops into Iraq included the reason that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and he wanted to stop that process. The Bush Administration found a way to place this war alongside the war in Afghanistan to meet his objectives. His reasoning for entering Afghanistan, however, was directly tied to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 – we were fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Before sending troops to Afghanistan or Iraq, President George W. Bush addressed a joint-session of Congress in regard to retaliating after these atrocious attacks on the United States. President Bush made demands of the Taliban: deliver to the United States authorities all the leaders of Al Qaeda who hide in your land, release all foreign nationals including American citizens you have unjustly imprisoned, protect foreign aid workers and journalists who are working in your country, close every terrorist training camp in Afghanistan, and hand over ever terrorist and ever person in their support structure to appropriate authorities. In the same speech, Bush condemns the Taliban regime and the actions they take against their people. He notes that women are not allowed to attend school, that you can be jailed for owning a television, religion can only be practiced as the leaders dictate, and a man can be jailed because his beard is not long enough. In a sense he is condemning the actions the Taliban has taken against citizens' inalienable, human rights. As a result, the war on terror is declared not only on Al Qaeda, but the entire Taliban and all of their practices. In this case, you have to look below the surface as a typical person may coin this war to be done in a realist way: fighting back to protect ourselves and ensure security and stability of our interests in that region of the world. However, upon further analysis, President George W. Bush is sending a different analysis.
President Bush does a very similar thing when it comes to Iraq. In his announcement of action against Iraq on live television, Bush explains the weapons of mass destruction argument. However, he throws a number of words and phrases in the speech that send another underlying message. Bush says that Hussein is an atrocity against his people and that the people of the United States and its allies will outlaw a regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass destruction.
As we have discussed in class many times over, Liberalism is made up of two main ideas: liberal pacifism and liberal institutionalism. Liberal pacifism is the type of liberalism that the United States is famous for attempting to spread across the globe. Liberal pacifism is the idea that if you make governments accountable to the people – the people that carry the cost of war – war will disappear. Sometimes this needs to be done by military force itself, but it is only for the good of the rest of the world. In the United States, President Bush has been coined a neo-conservative, a conservative who does like to promote democracy around the world and “run other countries' shows”, as their critics would say. President Bill Clinton has done the same in the past, as well, selling weapons to Afghanistan that were then used against us. Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama all continued to have our military forces train Iraqi and Afghan police and military forces. This is a form of liberal institutionalism as we are sharing our soldiers and our knowledge in order to help create a peaceful Middle East so we can benefit in the long run. A common mistake people make is just associating war with realism. A large amount of the recent United States Presidents have attempted to spread our democratic message around the world – something this country has done for a very long time and is likely to do for a long time to come.
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Ryan I like your points. While it may seem bizarre to take such a roundabout path to liberal institutionalism, I think that was the overall goal of the Bush Administration: to create vibrant democracy in the Middle East that would help to pacify the region.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very controversial way to achieve peace; do you think that this is the best way to achieve peace in a region?
Ryan,
ReplyDeleteHow you would respond to the fact that Bush declared war on Afghanistan, when the majority of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia?
Wyatt -- I happen to think there's no silver bullet for achieving peace in a region. The liberalism argument makes sense, but the realism argument does, as well. A combination of both, along with a mix of constructivism probably works best. After all, states do not all believe in the same thing so it needs to appeal to all. The fact of the matter is that we can talk about theoretical solutions all we want, but that's where constructivism wins: theorists and world leaders need to come back to reality and realize that there is more underlying issues and make-ups of the states.
ReplyDeleteTony -- I like the fact that you said Bush declared war on Afghanistan, because war was never formally declared by Congress. It was an indirect declaration of war by Congress by channeling funding to the DOD in order to fund the war. The last war we formally declared by World War II. So yes, war was indirectly declared on Afghanistan and Iraq. However, I think the idea was more of a war on The Taliban and certain factions of it like Al Qaeda. In all of his speeches, George W. Bush (and Barack Obama, today) has always said we are at war with The Taliban and Al Qaeda. I think this is important to note because we are not necessarily fighting Afghanistan per se.
Ryan,
ReplyDeleteIf I call my dog a cat and it still barks; it is still a dog. So while the U.S may not see it as a way, I would argue a large majority of the world's population still sees it as a war. More importantly a rather large chunk of the Muslim population in the world sees it as a war on Afghanistan and Muslims in general.
So while we may not see it in a certain light, if the rest of the world sees it in that light. Our perception of it does not really matter.
Tony, I hear what you're saying and I would agree with you. However, I would argue that our perception of it does matter. What we think defines how the war is handled and how we coin the process (liberalism, realism, constructivism, etc.) Other states' thoughts may be different, and that definitely factors in, but ultimately we define how the war is going. And we have always said that it is a war against The Taliban and Al Qaeda as they are the ones that attacked us on September 11, 2001.
ReplyDeleteThe U.S. has recently supported Afghanistan in their transitional stages after the fall of The Taliban. This is sort of a: 'let's help you rebuild and support you as we have just invaded your country to fight a terrorist group that had government influence.'
My point was, and still is, that these 2 "wars" were never formal wars. I will never argue they weren't wars, in fact I would argue that they are wars (right or wrong) that were never directly and conventionally declared by the government of the United States of America.
Awesome discussion
Ryan (and Wyatt and Tony),
ReplyDeleteI think here you guys have forgotten to include an important point in your discussion. In both cases of Iraq and Afghanistan, the US is fighting non-state actors. In my opinion, perception is now about identity and not about the state or government that the “enemy” comes from. As your discussion makes clear, this identity based warfare makes for added layers of complexity that obscure a clear definition of “war” in the modern world.