Is Military Action Against Justified against Nations that Support Terrorism?

Is Military Action Against Justified against Nations that Support Terrorism? | Introduction

Perhaps the most controversial issue surrounding terrorism is how governments should respond to it. This controversy stems from the dual nature of terrorism—it has both criminal and military aspects. In countering terrorism, governments must deal with criminals—often murderers—who may have the organization, sophistication, and capacity for violence of a military force. Effective counterterrorism, therefore, often consists of both traditional law enforcement techniques and military operations.

A good example of the law enforcement approach was the U.S. government’s response to the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City on February 26, 1993, an attack that killed 6 people and injured more than 1,000 others. FBI agents handled the investigation of the bombing, and four assistant U.S. attorneys were put in charge of the prosecution. The FBI quickly apprehended 4 suspects with ties to Islamic fundamentalist groups, who were then tried and sentenced to 240 years in prison on May 25, 1994. In 1995, the alleged mastermind behind the bombing, Ramzi Yousef, was arrested in Pakistan, and a sixth conspirator was arrested in Jordan. In 1998, both men were also given 240-year sentences.

The United States has used a much different approach in responding to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, that destroyed the same World Trade Center complex that had been targeted in 1993 and killed more than 3,000 people. In an address to the nation just hours after the attacks, President George W. Bush warned that “our military is powerful, and it’s prepared.” He also promised that the United States would “make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.” Moreover, in pledging the United States to an ongoing “war on terrorism,” President Bush made it clear that U.S. counterterrorism efforts will be broader in scope than ever before and may rely much more on the use of military force than they have in the past.

State-sponsored terrorism
In contrast to the 1993 bombers, the terrorists who hijacked four airplanes on the morning of September 11 made no attempt to escape; instead, they perished along with their victims. When it was learned that the 19 hijackers had belonged to the al Qaeda terrorist network—a group led by Osama bin Laden and based largely in Afghanistan—President Bush re-emphasized that America’s response to September 11 would include targeting states that condone terrorism. On September 20, 2001, he warned that “every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” A month later, he declared, “Every nation has a choice to make. In this conflict, there is no neutral ground. If any government sponsors the outlaws and killers of innocents, they have become outlaws and murderers, themselves. And they will take that lonely path at their own peril.”

Bush’s statements were directed in part at the Taliban, the fundamentalist Muslim regime in Afghanistan that had harbored al Qaeda. But Bush also framed his statements as part of a larger campaign against terrorism, a campaign he vowed would go beyond capturing bin Laden or destroying the al Qaeda network. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz tried to clarify Bush’s position: “It’s not just simply a matter of capturing people and holding them accountable, but removing the sanctuaries, removing the support systems, ending states who sponsor terrorism.” He added, “And that’s why it has to be a broad and sustained campaign. It’s not going to stop if a few criminals are taken care of.”

A new kind of war?
Even in the emotional aftermath of September 11 there were some dissenters who did not share in the widespread support for the war on terrorism. Quentin Peel, the editor of London’s Financial Times, questioned the very concept of state-sponsored terrorism in a September 28 editorial:

Terrorism . . . does not need the resources of an identifiable government. It does not even need much of a base. In the modern age, it is highly mobile . . . Its agents live in London, Hamburg, Florida, you name it. The search for state sponsors may therefore prove to be dangerously irrelevant. . . . The only way to fight terrorism in the long term is to fight the causes of terrorism. That means tackling the misery and despair in countries such as Afghanistan. It means striving with every means available to bring peace to the Middle East.

Peel continued, “The danger of declaring war on terrorism is that it implies using the overwhelming power of the US . . . to crush the organisations espousing terrorism. But that will not remove the tactic of terrorism from the armoury of the desperate. If anything, it will reinforce its use as the only possible weapon.”

Critics of the war on terrorism have not only questioned the effectiveness of using military force against states thought to support terrorism, but also the morality of this approach. As Peel puts it, “How does one define the US practice of aerial bombardment from 30,000ft? Absolute accuracy cannot be guaranteed and civilian casualties are inevitable. . . . Does it not amount to terror tactics, even if some might say they were justified?” In their October 29, 2001, issue, the editors of the Nation emphasized that “Military actions inside Afghanistan must be circumscribed by limited political objectives and carried out with a minimum of civilian casualties.”

In preparing for and while conducting the Operation Enduring Freedom— as the invasion of Afghanistan was called—U.S. officials, well aware of dissenters’ concerns, emphasized how new, sophisticated targeting mechanisms and other weapons technologies would help minimize civilian casualties in Afghanistan. In addition, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld claimed that the United States intends to target governments that sponsor terrorism and not the people living under those regimes. In a September 27 New York Times article titled “A New Kind of War,” Rumsfeld wrote, “Our opponent is a global network of terrorist or- ganizations and their state sponsors, committed to denying free people the opportunity to live as they choose. While we may engage militarily against foreign governments that sponsor terrorism, we may also seek to make allies of the people these governments oppress.”

Throughout Operation Enduring Freedom, which resulted in the removal of the Taliban from power (but not the capture of Osama bin Laden), critics and supporters of the war on terrorism debated whether the war in Afghanistan was being waged in a just manner. Meanwhile, U.S. leaders prepared Americans and the international community for future engagements.

The Bush doctrine
In its May 2001 report, Patterns of Global Terrorism, the U.S. Department of State listed seven countries that the United States suspects of harboring or sponsoring terrorists before September 11: Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. In his January 29, 2002, State of the Union address, President Bush made it clear that the war on terrorism would not end in Afghanistan:

What we have found in Afghanistan confirms that, far from ending there, our war against terror is only beginning. Most of the 19 men who hijacked planes on September 11th were trained in Afghanistan’s camps, and so were tens of thousands of others. Thousands of dangerous killers, schooled in the methods of murder, often supported by outlaw regimes, are now spread throughout the world. . . . So long as training camps operate, so long as nations harbor terrorists, freedom is at risk.

Bush went on to discuss the threat that weapons of mass destruction— chemical, nuclear, or biological—could pose in the hands of terrorists, and to single out three nations in particular as targets in the war on terrorism:

[We must] prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction. . . . North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens. Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people’s hope for freedom. Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. . . . States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred . . . The United States will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.

While much of the public continued to support the war on terrorism, the prospect of a perpetual military campaign drew criticism from pacifists and human rights activists, as well as from those who thought President Bush was exceeding the limits of presidential authority. As the editors of the Progressive railed:

Bush views himself as unfettered by Congress or the Constitution to wage his worldwide campaign against terrorists and regimes that sponsor terrorism. In the first sentence of his State of the Union address, he declared “Our nation is at war,” but he never asked or received a formal declaration of war from Congress. And when Congress gave him authorization to use force in September [2001], it said that such use of force had to be limited to individuals, groups, or nations connected to the attacks of September 11. Congress did not give him carte blanche to wage war against any and all terrorists everywhere, or against regimes that seek chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons.

Moreover, political analysts were divided over whether Bush’s labeling of North Korea, Iran, and Iraq as an “axis of evil” was justified or overly aggressive.

The debate over whether the United States should use military force against these nations became particularly intense when, at a speech at West Point on June 1, 2002, President Bush spoke of the need to strike pre-emptively at terrorist threats. “If we wait for threats to materialize, we will have waited too long. . . . We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge,” he warned. On the one hand, Bush’s remarks echoed the consensus in the counterterrorism community that because it is impossible to defend against every possible terrorist attack, a more effective policy is to identify and neutralize terrorists threats before they are carried out. On the other hand, critics worried how the “Bush doctrine” of pre-emption—as it was soon dubbed—would be applied to states thought to support terrorism. As a Time editorial put it:

It . . . seems as if the U.S. has arrogated to itself the right to go to war whenever it sniffs danger from a regime it doesn’t like. . . . What happens if other nations follow the lead of the U.S. and incorporate pre-emption into their strategic thinking? (Imagine nuclear-armed India deciding to attack terrorist camps in nuclear-armed Pakistan.) That way lies international anarchy.

Controversy over the Bush doctrine also revived long-standing foreign policy debates over whether the United States should act unilaterally to protect U.S. interests or multilaterally in accordance with the United Nations.

Military action against Iraq
The controversy resulting from President Bush’s remarks at West Point was due in part to rumors that had been circulating in the media for months—rumors that the Bush administration intended to invade Iraq and remove dictator Saddam Hussein from power. Some foreign policy “hawks” cheered the idea, arguing that Iraq harbored an arsenal of biological and chemical weapons and was a chief sponsor of global terrorism. So-called “doves” countered that there was not enough evidence to support these charges, and contended that for the United States to invade Iraq without UN approval would be a violation of international law.

On September 12, 2002, President Bush made his case against Iraq before the UN General Assembly, summarizing the Iraqi government’s human rights violations against its own people as well as its history of noncompliance with UN weapons inspections that were imposed on Iraq after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Throughout the following winter, the Bush administration argued that Iraq was harboring weapons of mass destruction in violation of UN resolutions and that “regime change” was needed. However, U.S. proposals to forcibly depose Saddam Hussein met with sharp resistance from key UN members, including France, Russia, and Germany. On March 17, 2003, in a televised address, President Bush announced that the United States would invade Iraq despite opposition within the UN:

No nation can possibly claim that Iraq has disarmed. And it will not disarm so long as Saddam Hussein holds power. . . . Yet, some permanent members of the Security Council have publicly announced they will veto any resolution that compels the disarmament of Iraq. These governments share our assessment of the danger, but not our resolve to meet it. . . . We are now acting because the risks of inaction would be far greater. In one year, or five years, the power of Iraq to inflict harm on all free nations would be multiplied many times over.

America’s conflict with Iraq is one aspect of the broader issue of what role military force should play in countering state-sponsored terrorism. Military action against Iraq will be the next phase of the war on terrorism, but it is not likely to be the last. As President Bush noted on the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks, “America has entered a great struggle that tests our strength, and even more our resolve.” The viewpoints in At Issue: Is Military Action Justified Against Nations Thought to Support Terrorism? discuss America’s case against Iraq as well as the broader ethical issues involved in using military force to deter terrorism.