NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Criticism of the War on Terrorism

Criticism of the War on Terrorism addresses the issues, morals, ethics, efficiency, economics, and other questions surrounding the War on Terrorism. Arguments are also made against the phrase itself, calling it a misnomer. For other uses, see Ethics (disambiguation). ... This article is about U.S. actions, and those of other states, after September 11, 2001. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

The notion of a "war" against "terrorism" has proven highly contentious, with critics charging that it has been exploited by participating governments to pursue long-standing policy objectives, reduce civil liberties, and infringe upon human rights. Some argue that the term war is not appropriate in this context (as in War on Drugs), since they believe there is no tangible enemy, and that it is unlikely international terrorism can be brought to an end by means of war^[1]. Others note that "terrorism" is not an enemy, but a tactic; calling it a "war on terror," obscures differences between conflicts. For example, anti-occupation insurgents and international jihadists. Civil liberties is the name given to freedoms that protect the individual from government. ... Human rights are rights which some hold to be inalienable and belonging to all humans. ... For other uses, see War (disambiguation). ... Massive mark-ups for drugs, [http://www. ...

Terminology

Jason Burke, a journalist who writes about radical Islamic activity, has this to say on the terms "terrorism" and "war against terrorism": Jason Burke is an author and journalist with the British Sunday newspaper The Observer, where he is currently Europe editor. ... Terrorist redirects here. ... ...

Perpetual war

U.S. President George W. Bush articulated the goals of the "war on terrorism" in a September 20, 2001 speech, in which he said it "will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated."^[2] In that same speech, he called the war "a task that does not end." To critics, such goals create a state of perpetual war. They have argued that terrorism is itself only a tactic which can never be defeated.^[3] It is further disputed that the "War on Terrorism" qualifies as a war as there is no party whose defeat can bring victory. Ira Chernus, professor at the University of Colorado, argues that the ideology underlying the war on terrorism inevitably leads to a state of perpetual war, because it is based on Bush's domestic crusade against sin and evil.^[4] The notion of a perpetual war during which governments could take whatever actions they liked to maintain themselves in power, using the state of war as a pretext, forms a major theme in 1984, an influential book by George Orwell. Gore Vidal also subscribes to this notion in Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, first in a critical trilogy against the Bush Administration. Motto: (Out Of Many, One) (traditional) In God We Trust (1956 to date) Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner Capital Washington D.C. Largest city New York City None at federal level (English de facto) Government Federal constitutional republic - President George Walker Bush (R) - Vice President Dick Cheney (R) Independence from... George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is the 43rd and current President of the United States, inaugurated on January 20, 2001. ... is the 263rd day of the year (264th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 2001 Gregorian calendar). ... Terrorist redirects here. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... For other uses, see War (disambiguation). ... This article is about the Orwell novel. ... Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 [1] [2] â€“ 21 January 1950), better known by the pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. ... Eugene Luther Gore Vidal (born October 3, 1925) (pronounced , occasionally , , etc) is an American author of novels, stage plays, screenplays, and essays. ...

The Bush administration has given various answers concerning what would constitute victory. In a news conference on September 20, 2001, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, "I say that victory is persuading the American people and the rest of the world that this is not a quick matter that's going to be over in a month or a year or even five years. It is something that we need to do so that we can continue to live in a world with powerful weapons and with people who are willing to use those powerful weapons. And we can do that as a country. And that would be a victory, in my view".^[5] Donald Henry Rumsfeld (born July 9, 1932) is a U.S. Republican politician and businessman, who was the 13th Secretary of Defense under President Gerald Ford from 1975 to 1977, and the 21st Secretary of Defense under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2006. ...

Jacob Levenson wrote, "Three years after the United States attacked Afghanistan, it is extremely difficult for the press to gauge where the United States stands in the war on terror because the term itself obscures distinction".^[6]

It has also been noted that by formally styling the situation as a "war", some semblance of legitimacy is offered to many subsequent retaliatory acts undertaken by terrorists, since they simply become acts of war, wherin offensive strikes are permitted.

In May 2005 a new designation was introduced, "Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism (GSAVE)", but it was soon dropped quietly after the scathing public reception it met. The "Long War" has been launched as an alternative slogan, and was used by president Bush in his 2006 State of The Union speech. The Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism (GSAVE), a term devised in May 2005 by the administration of US President George W. Bush to replace G.W.O.T (Global War On Terror) as the acrononym designating US military operations across the world against various governments and terrorist organisations. ... The Long War was fought between the Habsburgs and the Ottoman Empire from 1593 to 1606, mostly in the Balkans. ...

Pre-emptive war

The justification given for the invasion of Iraq (prior to its happening) was to prevent terrorist or other attacks by Iraq on the United States or other nations. This can be viewed as a conventional warfare realisation of the war on terror. Conventional warfare means a form of warfare conducted by using conventional military weapons and battlefield tactics between two or more nation-states in open confrontation. ...

A major criticism levelled at this justification is that, according to war opponents, it does not fulfill one of the requirements of a just war and that in waging a war pre-emptively, the United States has undermined international law and the authority of the United Nations, particularly the United Nations Security Council. On this ground it has been advocated that by invading a country that does not pose an imminent threat and without UN support, the US has violated international law, including the UN Charter and the Nuremberg principles and is guilty of committing a war of aggression, which is considered to be a war crime. A fact for which officials and members of the Bush administration are potentially criminally culpable under the command responsibility. The doctrine of the just war has its foundations in ancient Greek society and was first developed in the Christian tradition by Augustine in Civitas Dei, The City of God, in reaction to the absolutist pacifist strain of Christian ethics based on the doctrine of Turn the other cheek espoused... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... The foundation of the U.N. The United Nations (UN) is an international organization whose stated aims are to facilitate co-operation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress and human rights issues. ... â€œSecurity Councilâ€ redirects here. ... The United Nations Charter is the constitution of the United Nations. ... The Nuremberg Principles were a set of guidelines for determining what constitues a war crime. ... In international law, a war of aggression is generally considered to be any war for which the purpose is not to repel an invasion, or respond to an attack on the territory of a sovereign nation. ... In the context of war, a war crime is a punishable offense under International Law, for violations of the laws of war by any person or persons, military or civilian. ... Peace Palace in The Hague Command responsibility, sometimes referred to as the Yamashita standard, or the Medina standard is the doctrine of hierarchical accountability in cases of war crimes. ...

Another criticism that has been raised is that the United States has set a precedent, under the premise of which any nation could justify the invasion of other states.

Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 800 Ã— 600 pixelsFull resolution (2848 Ã— 2136 pixel, file size: 1. ... Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 800 Ã— 600 pixelsFull resolution (2848 Ã— 2136 pixel, file size: 1. ... Visual diagram of a basic stencil. ...

"War on Terrorism" seen as pretext

Some have argued that part of the "War on Terrorism" has little to do with its stated purpose. They contend that Iraq had nothing to do with the September 11 attacks and that the invasion of a largely secular country was carried out on the basis of faulty or doctored intelligence. Excerpts from an April 2006 report compiled from sixteen US government intelligence agencies has strengthened the claim that engaging in Iraq has increased terrorism in the region.^[7]

Domestic civil liberties

The "War on terror" has been seen as a pretext for reducing civil liberties. Civil liberties is the name given to freedoms that protect the individual from government. ...

Within the United States, critics argue that the Bush Administration and lower governments have restricted civil liberties and created a "culture of fear". Bush introduced the USA PATRIOT Act legislation to the United States Congress shortly after the 11 September 2001 attacks, which significantly expanded U.S. law enforcement's power. It has been criticized as being too broad and having been abused for purposes unrelated to counter-terrorism. President Bush had also proposed Total Information Awareness, a federal program to collect and process massive amounts of data to identify behaviors consistent with terrorist threats. It was heavily criticized as being an "Orwellian" case of mass surveillance. George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is the 43rd and current President of the United States, inaugurated on January 20, 2001. ... Culture of fear is a term proposed in a variety of sociological theses, which argue that feelings of fear and anxiety predominate in contemporary public discourse and relationships, changing how we relate to one another as individuals and as democratic agents. ... The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 (Public Law 107-56), known as the USA PATRIOT Act or simply the Patriot Act, is an Act of Congress which U.S. President George W. Bush signed into law on October... Type Bicameral Houses Senate House of Representatives President of the Senate President pro tempore Dick Cheney, (R) since January 20, 2001 Robert C. Byrd, (D) since January 4, 2007 Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, (D) since January 4, 2007 Members 535 plus 4 Delegates and 1 Resident Commissioner Political... For the band, see The Police. ... The Information Awareness Office (IAO) was established by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense, in January 2002 to bring together several DARPA projects focused on applying information technology to counter transnational threats to national security. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... A closed-circuit television camera. ...

Many opponents focus on the domestic aspects, complaining that the government is systematically removing civil liberties from the population or engaging in racial profiling. They also allege that this approach increases public hostility to dissenting voices by encouraging the view that such people are being unpatriotic or even treasonous for simply disagreeing with the administration. Some, such as Giorgio Agamben, criticize a "generalised state of exception", which could be followed by a more or less deliberate strategy of tension (using false flags terrorist attacks and other ruse of war tactics). Racial profiling, also known as ethnic profiling, is the inclusion of racial or ethnic characteristics in determining whether a person is considered likely to commit a particular type of crime (see Offender Profiling). ... Giorgio Agamben (born 1942) is an Italian philosopher who teaches at the UniversitÃ IUAV di Venezia. ... A state of emergency is a governmental declaration that may suspend certain normal functions of government, may work to alert citizens to alter their normal behaviors, or may order government agencies to implement emergency preparedness plans. ... A strategy of tension (Italian: ) is a way to control and manipulate public opinion using fear, propaganda, disinformation, psychological warfare, agents provocateurs, as well as false flag terrorist actions (including bombings). ... False flag operations are covert operations conducted by governments, corporations, or other organizations, which are designed to appear as if they are being carried out by other entities. ... A ruse of war is an action taken by a belligerent in warfare to fool the enemy in order to gain intelligence or a military advantage against an enemy. ...

In the United Kingdom, critics have claimed that the Blair government has used the War on Terrorism as a pretext to radically curtail civil liberties, some enshrined in law since Magna Carta. For example: detention-without-trial in Belmarsh prison[3]; controls on free speech through laws against protests near Parliament[4] and laws banning the "glorification" of terrorism[5]; and reductions in checks on police power, as in the case of Jean Charles de Menezes (a Brazilian electrician shot dead after being mistaken for a terrorist[6]) and Mohammed Abdul Kahar (a Londoner shot by the Metropolitan Police after a false tip-off, but then released along with his brother without any charges[7]). For other people of the same name, see Tony Blair (disambiguation) Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born May 6, 1953)[1] is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, Leader of the Labour Party, and Member of Parliament for the constituency... Magna Carta Magna Carta (Latin for Great Charter, literally Great Paper), also called Magna Carta Libertatum (Great Charter of Freedoms), is an English charter originally issued in 1215. ... HM Prison Belmarsh is a high security prison in Thamesmead, Eastern London, England. ... Jean Charles de Menezes (7 January 1978â€“22 July 2005) was a Brazilian national living in the Tulse Hill area of south London. ... The 2 June 2006 Forest Gate raid saw the arrest of two men at their east London homes in Forest Gate by police acting on intelligence that they might be terrorists in possession of a chemical bomb. ... Metropolitan Police redirects here. ...

Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Menzies Campbell has also condemned Blair's inaction over the controversial US practice of extraordinary rendition, arguing that the human rights conventions to which the UK is a signatory (e.g. European Convention on Human Rights) impose on the government a "legal obligation" to investigate and prevent potential torture and human rights violations. [8] This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... The Right Honourable Sir Walter Menzies Campbell (born May 22, 1941) is a Scottish barrister and the Liberal Democrat member of Parliament for North East Fife. ... Extraordinary rendition and irregular rendition are terms used to describe the extrajudicial transfer of a person from one state to another with the intent of legally torturing them outside of the jurisdiction of a state which prohibits it. ... â€œECHRâ€ redirects here. ...

Defiance of international laws

Opponents feel the Bush administration is creative in suggesting legal loopholes and exception laws. However, most human rights organizations and even allies of America think there are breaches of international and US law. They point to the use of enemy combatant status, extraordinary rendition, alleged use of prisoner abuse which to observers outside the Bush administration constitutes torture. Human rights are rights which some hold to be inalienable and belonging to all humans. ... An enemy combatant has historically referred to members of the armed forces of the state with which another state is at war. ... Extraordinary rendition and irregular rendition are terms used to describe the extrajudicial transfer of a person from one state to another with the intent of legally torturing them outside of the jurisdiction of a state which prohibits it. ... Torture, according to international law, is any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has...

The status "enemy combatant" comes out of an assertion by the Bush administration that the Taliban regime created a "failed state", and that their supporters thus had no right to the treatment expected of a legitimate military of uniformed soldiers and officers under the Geneva Conventions. The term unlawful combatant (also unlawful enemy combatant or unprivileged combatant/belligerent) denotes a person denied the privileges of prisoner of war (POW) designation, in accordance with the Geneva Conventions; one to whom protection is recognised as due is a lawful or privileged combatant. ... Original document. ...

It is suggested that any enemy soldier therefore may be called an "enemy combatant" and as such are not protected by the Geneva Conventions. By extension, any Iraqi is considered to be an "unlawful combatant," and also do not fall under the protections of the Third Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, and after adoption of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, any (non)-American national, anywhere on earth, can be designated "enemy combatant." The Bush administration's position is that unlawful combatants have no rights under the Geneva Conventions and therefore can be sent anywhere without trial or charges. However, this claim is widely disputed by legal experts. For details on the subject see unlawful combatant. More specific is the case of Maher Arar,^[8] a Canadian citizen of Syrian birth. During a flight transfer in New York, he was approached by authorities and eventually sent to a Syrian prison for 374 days without charges. Under international law, Arar would have been exiled to Canada.^{[citation needed]} American birth is the only defense against forced exile. American national birth should not protect American-born terrorists or fail to protect naturalized citizens, yet it does both. Wikisource has original text related to this article: Third Geneva Convention The Third Geneva Convention (or GCIII) of 1949, one of the Geneva Conventions, is a treaty agreement that primarily concerns the treatment of prisoners of war (POWs), and also touched on other topics. ... Geneva Convention definition A prisoner of war (POW) is a soldier, sailor, airman, or marine who is imprisoned by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict. ... President George W. Bush signs into law S. 3930, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, during a ceremony on October 17, 2006 in the East Room of the White House. ... The term unlawful combatant (also unlawful enemy combatant or unprivileged combatant/belligerent) denotes a person denied the privileges of prisoner of war (POW) designation, in accordance with the Geneva Conventions; one to whom protection is recognised as due is a lawful or privileged combatant. ... Maher Arar (born 1970 in Syria) is a Canadian software engineer who was subjected to the United States policy of extraordinary rendition, a process where detainees are transferred from one country to another, with the expectation that they may be tortured in the country to which they are rendered. ...

Whatever the legal justification of the Bush administration, commentators note that command responsibility is a well established doctrine, making those responsible for these policies liable for prosecution. Peace Palace in The Hague Command responsibility, sometimes referred to as the Yamashita standard, or the Medina standard is the doctrine of hierarchical accountability in cases of war crimes. ...

Unilateralism

"You're either with us or against us in the fight against terror," a remark by U.S. President Bush in November 2001,^[9] has been a source of criticism. Thomas A. Keaney of Johns Hopkins University's Foreign Policy Institute said "it made diplomacy with a number of different countries far more difficult because obviously there are different problems throughout the world."^[10] November 2001 : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December November - The Doha Declaration slightly relaxes the grip of international intellectual property. ...

The US has a network of secret jails for terror suspects [9], Abu Ghraib is but one example. Many of the countries those jails are in would consider the existence of secret torture jails in their territory without their knowledge as an act of war if a lesser nation would have done it.

Independent journals in Iraq were repeatedly bombed to the ground in several locations (amid claims of mistaking them for al-Qaeda buildings), yet a memo about the planned bombing of the very same al-Jazeera TV headquarters without notifying first the peaceful allied nation of Qatar (where al-Jazeera resides) surfaced and embarrassed the Bush administration. [10]

This suggests the rights of other nations are to be rearranged retroactively by loopholes and exceptions to fit the needs of the "war on terror" being waged. In part by misleading allies rather than negotiating with them, which has been the reaction of smaller democracies fighting terrorism.

Pax Americana

One analysis is that the United States intends "to establish a new political framework within which [it] will exert hegemonic control" (World Socialist Web Site Editorial Board). Many people say the United States seeks to do this by controlling access to oil or oil pipelines. Hegemony (pronounced or ) (Greek: ) is the dominance of one group over other groups, with or without the threat of force, to the extent that, for instance, the dominant party can dictate the terms of trade to its advantage; more broadly, cultural perspectives become skewed to favor the dominant group. ... Pumpjack pumping an oil well near Lubbock, Texas Ignacy Åukasiewicz - inventor of the refining of kerosene from crude oil. ...

This view is shared by a broad variety of ideological streams, including social democrats (e.g. Michael Meacher: "The global war on terrorism has the hallmarks of a political myth propagated to pave the way for a wholly different agenda -- the U.S. goal of world hegemony, built around securing by force command over the oil supplies required to drive the whole project"); anarchists, Greens (e.g. George Monbiot); and Marxists. In addition, many people on this side of the political spectrum opine that the war is being fought to benefit domestic political allies of the Bush administration, especially arms manufacturers. (See Military-industrial complex.) Michael Hugh Meacher (born November 4, 1939) is a British Labour party politician, and Member of Parliament (MP) for Oldham West and Royton. ... George Monbiot. ... President Dwight Eisenhower famously referred to the military-industrial complex in his farewell address. ...

Proponents of the hegemony hypothesis point out that achieving such a situation is the stated aim of the Project for the New American Century, a conservative think tank that includes many prominent members of the Republican Party and Bush administration among its present and former members. It is even arguable that this attitude was what led to the rise in Middle Eastern hostility in the first place. ^{[citation needed]} The Project for the New American Century, or PNAC, is a Washington, DC, USA based think tank. ...

Methods

Many people contend that a "war" against terrorism is plainly wrong since terrorist attacks are considered criminal acts like murder and therefore should be investigated by the police with the perpetrators brought to justice and given a fair trial in a court of law. The use of the military often escalates violence by killing civilians and potentially creating more terrorists out of bereaved individuals seeking revenge.^{[citation needed]} Terrorist redirects here. ... for other uses please see Crime (disambiguation) A crime is an act that violates a political or moral law. ...

Many people believe that interrogation methods employed by U.S. forces violate international Geneva Conventions in places such as Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and Abu Ghraib, Iraq. They believe that if U.S. forces act immorally or unethically then those forces are no better than the insurgents they are trying to find. Original document. ... Map of Cuba with location of GuantÃ¡namo Bay indicated. ... It has been suggested that Nature of Abu Ghraib abuse be merged into this article or section. ... The US government and media was using the term insurgent as early as 1899 to describe rebels during the Philippine-American War, here Filipinos described as insurgents at the time lie in a trench after being executed by US forces. ...

Another criticism is that the "war on terrorism" is effectively an act of terrorism in itself. Critics point to incidents such as the Bagram torture and prisoner abuse scandal, the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal, the alleged use of chemical weapons against residents of Fallujah [11], and the use of military force to disperse anti-American demonstrations in Iraq [12][13]. In 2005, a 2,000-page U.S. Army report was obtained by the New York Times concerning the homicides of two unarmed civilian Afghan prisoners by U.S. armed forces in 2002 at the Bagram Collection Point. ... It has been suggested that Nature of Abu Ghraib abuse be merged into this article or section. ... Early detection of chemical agents Sociopolitical climate of chemical warfare While the study of chemicals and their military uses was widespread in China, the use of toxic materials has historically been viewed with mixed emotions and some disdain in the West (especially when the enemy were doing it). ... This article is about the city of Fallujah in Iraq. ...

Some Libertarians believe that a "war" against terrorism is wrong because it makes national security into such a high government priority, that any sacrifice of personal liberty and freedom is deemed necessary, no matter how large or small [14]. They believe this leads not only to an unjustified erosion of liberty, but to a general climate of fear in which people become unwilling to exercise their civil liberties. They warn of the danger of the public being enslaved under mass surveillance, as eventually everyone comes under suspicion of being a potential terrorist. This article does not adequately cite its references. ... Security measures taken to protect the Houses of Parliament in London, England. ... Liberty is generally considered a concept of political philosophy and identifies the condition in which an individual has immunity from the arbitrary exercise of authority. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Fear is an emotional response to impending danger, that is tied to anxiety. ... Civil liberties is the name given to freedoms that protect the individual from government. ... Slave redirects here. ... A closed-circuit television camera. ...

Critics also maintain that a strategy of tension was employed prior to the Iraq War, which is now being repeated against countries described as the "axis of evil", such as Iran. A strategy of tension (Italian: ) is a way to control and manipulate public opinion using fear, propaganda, disinformation, psychological warfare, agents provocateurs, as well as false flag terrorist actions (including bombings). ... For other uses, see Iraq war (disambiguation). ... For the movie Behind Enemy Lines II: Axis of Evil, see Behind Enemy Lines II. For cosmic anisotropy, see Anisotropy#Physics. ...

Aiding terrorism

British Liberal Democrat politician Shirley Williams writes that the American and United Kingdom governments "must stop to think whether it is sowing the kind of resentment which is the seedbed of future terrorism."^[11] The United Kingdom ambassador to Italy, Ivor Roberts, said that U.S. President Bush is "the best recruiting sergeant ever for al Qaeda."^[12] The United States granted "protected persons" status under the Geneva Convention to the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, an Iranian group classified by the U.S. Department of State as a terrorist organization, sparking criticism.^[13] The Liberal Democrats, often shortened to Lib Dems, are a liberal political party based in the United Kingdom. ... The Baroness Williams of Crosby Shirley Williams, Baroness Williams of Crosby, PC (born July 27, 1930), is a British politician. ... An ambassador, rarely embassador, is a diplomatic official accredited to a foreign sovereign or government, or to an international organization, to serve as the official representative of his or her own country. ... Sir Ivor Roberts (born 1946) is the British ambassador to Italy. ... MKO Logo The Mojahedin-e-Khalq is also known as the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), the Mujahideen al-Khalq, the Mujahideen al-Khalq Organization (MKO), or The Peoples Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI). ... The United States Department of State, often referred to as the State Department, is the Cabinet-level foreign affairs agency of the United States government, equivalent to foreign ministries in other countries. ...

Political Double-Standards of the Bush Administration

There have been important criticisms that there are double-standards in Bush Administration's War on Terrorism. These double-standards have involved the unwillingness of the United States to send military troops into Pakistan to search for Osama Bin Ladin because the Bush administration has been unwilling to violate the sovereignty of Pakistan, who has exported nuclear technology to North Korea. Whereas the Bush Administration has had no inhibitions about violating the sovereignty of Iraq on claims that Saddam Hussein used weapons of mass destruction on Kurdish citizens in Iraq, and had ties to al-Qaeda. These actions raise concern to critics about the objective of the invasion, mainly having it look like the real objective of the invasion in Iraq was to secure the oil reserves. Al-Qaeda (Arabic: القاعدة, the foundation or the base) is the name given to a worldwide network of militant Islamist organizations under the leadership of Osama bin Laden. ...

Many observe that the U.S. government has had no qualms about supporting groups opposing local administrations perceived to be hostile to U.S. interests.

Examples are Operation Condor in which the CIA tried to fight communism by supporting military leaders in South-America despite their less than democratic tactics. For other uses of Operation Condor, please see Operation Condor (disambiguation) Operation Condor (Spanish: OperaciÃ³n CÃ³ndor, Portuguese: OperaÃ§Ã£o Condor) was a campaign of political repressions involving assassination and intelligence operations officially implemented starting in 1975 by the right-wing dictatorships that dominated the Southern Cone in South... The CIA Seal The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is an American intelligence agency, responsible for obtaining and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, and individuals, and reporting such information to the various branches of the U.S. Government. ... Communism is an ideology that seeks to establish a classless, stateless social organization based on common ownership of the means of production. ... South America South America is a continent of the Americas, situated entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere. ... Forms of government Part of the Politics series Politics Portal This box: A dictatorship is an autocratic form of government in which the government is ruled by a dictator. ...

Also people note that the alleged mastermind behind the September 11, 2001 attacks was part of the Mujahedin who were sponsored, armed, trained and aided by the CIA to commit terrorist acts in Afghanistan to fight Russia after it invaded Afghanistan.[15][16][17][18] A sequential look at United Flight 175 crashing into the south tower of the World Trade Center The September 11, 2001 attacks (often referred to as 9/11â€”pronounced nine eleven or nine one one) consisted of a series of coordinated terrorist[1] suicide attacks upon the United States, predominantly... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... A Soviet soldier on guard in Afghanistan in 1988. ...

And Venezuela accuses the U.S. government of having a double standard on terrorism for giving safe haven to Luis Posada Carriles.^[14] Arrest photograph of Luis Posada Carriles Luis Clemente Faustino Posada Carriles (born February 15, 1928) is a Cuban-born Venezuelan anti-Castro terrorist. ...

Misleading information

Some critics argue that some politicians supporting the "war on terror" are motivated by reasons other than those they publicly state, and critics accuse those politicians of cynically misleading the public to achieve their own ends.

For instance, in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq, President Bush and members of his administration indicated that they possessed information which demonstranted a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. Published reports of the links began in late December, 1998. In January, 1999, Newsweek magazine published a story about Saddam and al-Qaeda joining forces to attack U.S. interests in the Gulf Region. ABC News broadcast a story of the link between the two soon after. ABC News video report Polls suggest that a majority of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein was linked to the attacks of September 11, 2001. Although this has been the position of the Bush Administration, an investigation by the 9/11 Commission found no credible evidence that Saddam Hussein helped al-Qaeda with the 9/11 attacks. Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda were alleged by some U.S. Government officials to have established a highly secretive relationship between 1992 and 2003, specifically through a series of meetings reportedly involving the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS). ... A sequential look at United Flight 175 crashing into the south tower of the World Trade Center The September 11, 2001 attacks (often referred to as 9/11â€”pronounced nine eleven or nine one one) consisted of a series of coordinated terrorist[1] suicide attacks upon the United States, predominantly... The Commissions seal The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, was set up in late 2002 to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 attacks, including preparedness for and the immediate response...

Regardless of whether or not the Bush administration was deliberately misleading the people, wrong information was distributed, resulting in increased support for the war.

Amnesty International Secretary General Irene Khan criticized the use of pro-humanitarian arguments by Coalition countries prior to its 2003 invasion of Iraq, writing in an open letter: "This selective attention to human rights is nothing but a cold and calculated manipulation of the work of human rights activists. Let us not forget that these same governments turned a blind eye to Amnesty International’s reports of widespread human rights violations in Iraq before the Gulf War."^[15] Amnesty International (commonly known as Amnesty or AI) is a pressure group that promotes human rights. ... Irene Zubaida Khan (born 1956 in Dhaka, Bangladesh) is the seventh and current Secretary General of human rights organization Amnesty International. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with multinational force in Iraq. ... Year 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The subject of this article is the 2003 invasion of Iraq. ... For other uses, see Iraq war (disambiguation). ...

Decreasing international support

British citizens have repeated stated they do not support Bush's War and hold the belief that its aim was to steal Iraqi oil. Statistics used by the US to justify the war have also be proven to be fake. In 2002, strong majorities supported the U.S.-led War on Terrorism in Britain, France, Germany, Japan, India, and Russia. By 2006, supporters of the effort were in the minority in Britain (49%), France (43%), Germany (47%), and Japan (26%). Although a majority of Russians still supported the War on Terrorism, that majority had decreased by 21%. Whereas 63% of the Spanish population supported the War on Terrorism in 2003, only 19% of the population indicated support in 2006. 19% of the Chinese population supports the War on Terrorism, and less than a fifth of the populations of Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan support the effort. Indian support for the War on Terrorism has been stable.^[16] Andrew Kohut, speaking to the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, noted that, according to the Pew Research Center polls conducted in 2004, "majorities or pluralities in seven of the nine countries surveyed said the U.S.-led war on terrorism was not really a sincere effort to reduce international terrorism. This was true not only in Muslim countries such as Morocco and Turkey, but in France and Germany as well. The true purpose of the war on terrorism, according to these skeptics, is American control of Middle East oil and U.S. domination of the world."^[17] The U.S. House Committee on International Relations (also known as the House International Relations Committee, the House Foreign Relations Committee or the House Foreign Affairs Committee), is a standing committee of the United States House of Representatives which is in charge of bills and investigations related to the foreign... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ...

Role of U.S. media

Researchers in the area of communication studies and political science have found that American understanding of the war on terror is directly shaped by how the mainstream news media reports events associated with the war on terror. In Bush’s War: Media Bias and Justifications for War in a Terrorist Age^[18] political communication researcher Jim A. Kuypers illustrated “how the press failed America in its coverage on the War on Terror.” In each comparison, Kuypers “detected massive bias on the part of the press.” This researcher called the mainstream news media an “anti-democratic institution” in his conclusion. “What has essentially happened since 9/11 has been that Bush has repeated the same themes, and framed those themes the same whenever discussing the War on Terror,” said Kuypers. “Immediately following 9/11, the mainstream news media (represented by CBS, ABC, NBC, USA Today, New York Times, and Washington Post) did echo Bush, but within eight weeks it began to intentionally ignore certain information the president was sharing, and instead reframed the president's themes or intentionally introduced new material to shift the focus.” Jim A. Kuypers is an American Academic specializing in communication studies at Virginia Tech. ...

This goes beyond reporting alternate points of view, which is an important function of the press. “In short,” Kuypers explained, “if someone were relying only on the mainstream media for information, they would have no idea what the president actually said. It was as if the press were reporting on a different speech.” The study is essentially a “comparative framing analysis.” Overall, Kuypers examined themes about 9-11 and the War on Terror that the President used, and compared them to the themes that the press used when reporting on what the president said.

“Framing is a process whereby communicators, consciously or unconsciously, act to construct a point of view that encourages the facts of a given situation to be interpreted by others in a particular manner,” wrote Kuypers. These findings suggest that the public is misinformed about government justification and plans concerning the war on terror.

Others have also suggested that press coverage has contributed to a public confused and misinformed on both the nature and level of the threat to the U.S. posed by terrorism. In his book, Trapped in the War on Terror^[19] political scientist Ian S. Lustick, claimed, “The media have given constant attention to possible terrorist-initiated catastrophes and to the failures and weaknesses of the government's response.” Lustick alleged that the War on Terror is disconnected from the real but remote threat terrorism poses, and that the generalized War on Terror began as part of the justification for invading Iraq, but then took on a life of its own, fueled by media coverage.

Media researcher Stephen D. Cooper’s analysis of media criticism Watching the Watchdog: Bloggers As the Fifth Estate^[20] contains many examples of controversies concerning mainstream reporting of the War on Terror. Cooper found that bloggers’ criticisms of factual inaccuracies in news stories or bloggers’ discovery of the mainstream press’s failure to adequately check facts before publication caused many news organizations to retrack or change news stories.

Cooper found that bloggers specializing in criticism of media coverage advanced four key points: 1. Mainstream reporting of the war on terror has frequently contained factual inaccuracies. In some cases, the errors go uncorrected; moreover, when corrections are issued they usually are given far less prominence than the initial coverage containing the errors. 2. The mainstream press has sometimes failed to check the provenance of information or visual images supplied by Iraqi “stringers” (local Iraqis hired to relay local news). 3. Story framing is often problematic; in particular, “man-in-the-street” interviews have often been used as a representation of public sentiment in Iraq, in place of methodologically sound survey data. 4. Mainstream reporting has tended to concentrate on the more violent areas of Iraq, with little or no reporting of the calm areas.

British objections to the phrase "war on terrorism"

The Director of Public Prosecutions and head of the Crown Prosecution Service in the UK, Ken McDonald — Britain's most senior criminal prosecutor — has stated that those responsible for acts of terror such as the 7 July 2005 London bombings are not "soldiers" in a war, but "inadequates" who should be dealt with by the criminal justice system. He added that a "culture of legislative restraint" was needed in passing anti-terrorism laws, and that a "primary purpose" of the violent attacks was to tempt countries such as Britain to "abandon our values." He stated that in the eyes of the UK criminal justice system, the response to terrorism had to be "proportionate, and grounded in due process and the rule of law": The Director of Public Prosecutions is the officer charged with the prosecution of criminal offences in several criminal jurisdictions around the world. ... The Crown Prosecution Service, or CPS, is a non-ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom responsible for public prosecutions of people charged with criminal offences in England and Wales. ... Sir Kenneth Donald John Macdonald, QC, is Director of Public Prosecutions of England and Wales [1]. In that office he is ex officio head of the Crown Prosecution Service. ... Locations of the bombings, overlaid onto a real-path map of the London Underground The 7 July 2005 London bombings (also called the 7/7 bombings) were a series of coordinated terrorist bomb blasts that hit Londons public transport system during the morning rush hour. ... The study of criminal justice traditionally revolves around three main components of the criminal justice system: police courts corrections Nowadays, it is sometimes argued that psychiatry is also a central part of the criminal justice system. ... Within law, the principle of proportionality is used to describe the idea that the punishment of a certain crime should be in proportion to the severity of the crime itself. ...

This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... For other uses, see Fantasy (disambiguation). ...

Pejorative terms

Critics have replaced "war on terrorism" or related phrases with pejorative terms:

Look up ad hominem in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Pax Americana (Latin: American Peace) is a term to describe the period of relative peace in the Western world since the end of World War II in 1945, coinciding with the dominant military and economic position of the United States. ... Project for the New American Centurys Logo The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) is an American neoconservative think tank based in Washington, D.C., co-founded as a non-profit educational organization by William Kristol and Robert Kagan in early 1997. ... Slang is the use of highly informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speakers dialect or language. ... Twit can mean: A British slang referring to a silly, annoying, ineffectual, and/or imbecilic person. ... Sacha Noam Baron Cohen[1] (born October 13, 1971) is an English comedian, writer and actor most noted for his comic characters Borat (a Kazakh reporter), Ali G (a junglist-hip hop gangsta wannabe from Staines, England) and Bruno (a flamboyantly gay Austrian fashion reporter). ... Borat Sagdiyev (Kazakh and Russian: Ð‘Ð¾Ñ€Ð°Ñ‚ Ð¡Ð°Ð³Ð´Ð¸ÐµÐ²) is a fictional Kazakh journalist portrayed by British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. ... For other uses of the term, see Iraq war (disambiguation) The 2003 invasion of Iraq (also called the 2nd or 3rd Persian Gulf War) began on March 20, 2003, when forces belonging primarily to the United States and the United Kingdom invaded Iraq arguably without the explicit backing of the... The War on Errorism is the ninth studio album by the punk rock band NOFX released on May 6, 2003. ... NOFX is an American punk rock band formed in Berkeley, California, in 1983. ... â€œDHSâ€ redirects here. ... Robert Anton Wilson Robert Anton Wilson or RAW (January 18, 1932 â€“ January 11, 2007) was a prolific American novelist, essayist, philosopher, psychologist, futurologist, anarchist, and conspiracy theory researcher. ... The Chasers War on Everything, often shortened to The War, is a satirical television comedy series broadcast on ABC TV in Australia. ... The ABC or Australian Broadcasting Corporation is the national, Australia. ...

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