References: Bergen. P., (2010). The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict Between America and Al-Qaeda. New York: Simon and Schuster…
For more than ten years, the west has done its utmost to crush on al Qaeda’s operational competences, which may perhaps have been diminished. The organization’s Taliban protectors were toppled in Afghanistan, and its easily accessible training camps, at one time the destination for jihadist volunteers worldwide, have been dispersed. In addition, al Qaeda attacks in Indonesia, Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Turkey between 2002 and 2006 prompted those governments to attempt to dismantle local terrorist networks. Cooperation among security services and law enforcement organizations worldwide has made its operating environment increasingly hostile (Ashour, 2011). Accordingly, al Qaeda has not been able to carry out a significant terrorist operation in the West since 2005, although its ability of mounting plausible, worrisome threats is not in question.…
Dr Toby Dodge has identified several faulty assumptions that underpin military intervention, which explain why the US failed to bring order and development to Afghanistan and Iraq. One of these assumptions is that military force can achieve political ends, something which it did not do in Afghanistan. Henry A. Crumpton, a former CIA officer who was largely involved in ousting the Taliban, confessed that winning the war in Afghanistan required the US to “get in at a local level and respond to people’s needs so that enemy forces cannot come in and take advantage.” In ignoring this fundamental aspect of counterinsurgency, efforts succeeded only in keeping urgent problems at bay while hoping that the situation in Afghanistan would improve on its own. This brings us to a second faulty assumption underpinning military intervention: the overestimation of the stability, competence and popularity of the intervener’s local allies.…
Wei, L. (August 2010). Terrorism’s New Frontiers. Beijing Review, Vol. 53, Issue 31, pp 13. Retrieved on 9/9/2013 from http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.liberty.edu:2048/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=0b0e8b95-14ad-45df-928e-599544912e63%40sessionmgr110&vid=2&hid=119…
Rahman, K. "Conflict and Security." Www.eldis.org. Institute of Policy Studies, Pakistan, 2001. Web. 11 Dec. 2013.…
These less developed parts of the world have attracted U.S. military intervention for the past two decades. Historical data reveals a constant and continuous threat by religious extremists and political idealists from Gap countries struggling to obtain prosperity. Barnett also describes a previous assumption that large prosperous countries considered “less included” regions as non-threatening, because they lacked a large-scale military force. But we can never under estimate individuals that are willing to give “life and country” for their cause and beliefs. Furthermore he mentions how the attack on September, 2001 serves as supportive evidence. This devastating event continues to shape our government and influence our defense strategies. It has resulted in the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, military restructuring, and moreover, the launching of the global war on…
Among the countless repercussions from September 11 is a new rationale for doling out security assistance: the war on terrorism. Not since anticommunism was used to excuse the arming and training of repressive governments during the cold war has there been such a broad, fail-safe rationale to provide military aid and arms to disreputable foreign militaries. Already the largest weapons supplier in the world, the U.S. government is now providing arms and military training to an even wider group of states in the name of “homeland security.”…
Counter-Terrorism strategy before 9/11: Since the creation of Pakistan in August ,1947 various governments have taken several measures to combat terrorism as well as introduced special legal measures to deal with criminals offended outside the regular criminal regime. This included, The public Representative Offices Disqualification Act (PRODA) 1949, The Elected Bodies Disqualification Order (EBDO) in August,1959, Suppression of Terrorist Activities (Special Courts) ordinance 1957 and Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 which were the main tools to suppress terrorism activities and a strategy for terrorism. However this research deals with Counter-Terrorism strategy which was initiated in 1990’s and in the aftermath of 9/11.…
Sovereign states became obsessed with being ‘secure’ and soon this idea became pandemic phenomena around world. The notion of security became contested among the American public and this drove the Bush administration to launch “The war on terror”. US tropes invaded Afghanistan to dispose of Al-Qaida. Soon the Taliban regime has been terminated and the Al-Qaida movement dispersed, abandoned training camps were destroyed (Rogers 2004). The “War on terror” appeared to be progressing with the enemy eliminated. However the America government sought a new technique to keep their nation terrorised beyond the pervious emphasis on Al-Qaida. Bush embraced a number of new rouge states that constituted an “axis of evil”. Those include North Korea, Iran and Iraq. All in the name of democracy which has become an integral part of US current international security…
Overall, the last decade and a half have been forgettable and largely a mistake on the US’s behalf. The entire war on terror failed as a whole with ground troops fighting despite early success with the defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan following 9/11. Yet, afterwards, the Taliban resurged and the USMNT did little to quell this resurgence. In Afghanistan, more than three hundred thousand Afghan civilians died during the bombing campaign(Choices 187), demonstrating a horrible and tragic failure on the US’s behalf to bring freedom and security to civilians where these terrorists were in control. Furthermore, in Pakistan, in 2009 alone, another twenty-five thousand Pakistanis were killed by militants as well as hundreds of soldiers(Choices 196),…
In one of the harshest countries in the world, both socially and geographically, a notorious regime emerged to fill the leadership void left by years of war. At first, they were greeted as bringers of hope to a hopeless society, but soon after brought oppression and fear to all. The Taliban, or “students,” were only brought to the attention of most westerners after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. However, they have a much deeper history rooted as far back as the Soviet Union’s invasion and occupation of the region. In order to comprehend the rise, fall and re-emergence of the Taliban, three men must be mentioned: Mohammad Omar, Ahmad Shah Massoud, and the most famous terrorist alive, Osama bin Laden.…
An investigation by the US Congress into weapons of mass destruction made a chilling prediction of terrorists mounting an attack using biological or nuclear weapons within the next five years. The six month inquiry mentioned Pakistan as one of the likeliest…
“Most Muslims are not fundamentalists, and more fundamentalists are not terrorists, but more present day terrorists are Muslims and proudly identify themselves as such.” writes Bernard Lewis in ‘The Crisis of Islam’. But Dr. Martin Luther King logically said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”…
The ‘analysis’ about the ‘wiping out’ of al Qaeda and the sharp diminution in its ability to target America and Europe is based on the number of al Qaeda terrorists killed by the drones inside Pakistan. As if to confirm this, a meeting took place between an al Qaeda leader and Mullah Umar in the presence of other commanders in which the al Qaeda representative was quoted as appealing for help for more attacks by allies in Pakistan. Pakistan’s wrath against the CIA after the Raymond Davis case in Lahore early 2011 had brought the US-Pakistan quarrel to a boiling point. Since then, and since the May 2 attack that killed Osama bin Laden, the relationship has been hurtling downhill, ending in Pakistan’s decision not to attend the Bonn conference on Afghanistan. This would then lead to many arguing that with this all as a backdrop, how Pakistan could possibly be cooperating with the US on the drone…
“It seems an obvious thing to say, but you should not imagine that we Pakistanis are all potential terrorists, just as we should not imagine that you Americans are all undercover assassins.”…