The War On Terror

The War on Terror: Not Just Military Power

Ryan Wulpi Indiana University-Purdue University at Fort Wayne

English W233-02 Professor Thomas Kaough

November 8, 2004

The United States became embroiled in the “war on terror” on September 11, 2001. The gruesome attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon aroused in Americans a sense of disbelief and anger. It awakened us to a dangerous new world and has shown us that there are people out there who hold a deep and profound hatred for our culture. The way we approached this “war on terror” has unfathomable consequences that reverberate around the world. We have become, since World War II, the beacon in this world of peace and stability. Other countries look to us to provide safety and security for our country and others. We need to examine the way we are communicating with other countries around the world and make fundamental changes on how we approach preemptive attacks on sovereign countries. One could make a case that the “war on terror” started on September 11th, while some analysts say that the United States has been the occasional target of terrorists at home and abroad for years. However, before Sept. 11th, the country basically disregarded the issue (Masci, Jost 2). Now the United States, as stated by President Bush, targets not only the individual terrorists, but also the countries that harbor them. That statement put the rest of the world on notice, that if you harbor terrorists we hold the right to attack. Hatred of American democracy may help explain what drove 19 young Arab men to turn four commercial airplanes into weapons that killed themselves and nearly 5,000 innocent people. But many experts suggest deeper motivations as well – from resentment of U.S. policies in the Middle East to the perception that the American way of life is so offensive to Islam that it must be destroyed. But anti-American sentiment is not limited to Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda terrorist network, who have been linked to the attacks on New York and Washington. The initiation of U.S. and British military action in

Afghanistan prompted anti-U.S. street demonstrations in the Islamic world from the West Bank to Indonesia. Many demonstrators waved pictures of bin Laden and burned American flags. Clearly, the roots of such widespread anger extend beyond the delusions of a fringe group of zealots (Cooper 2). Globalization plays a role in fanning antiAmerican sentiment by spreading U.S. economic and cultural influence throughout the world. Making matters worse, the televised image of the United States is often offensive to conservative societies. Demographic trends merely exacerbate the sense of powerlessness that feeds anti-Americanism. As a result of rapid population growth and economic stagnation in recent decades, more than half the population of Muslim and Arab countries today is under 25 and many are unemployed (Cooper 30). This antiAmerican attitude obviously becomes fomented at an early age. These terrorist leaders prey on uneducated, underprivileged young men. This stems from democratic institutions that are poorly developed in the Arab and Muslim world. The Muslim world never underwent a movement like the 18th century Enlightenment in the West, which hastened the demise of religious influence in government (Cooper 31). It took some very intelligent people to finally realize that the separation of church and state is essential to a burgeoning democracy. You can believe what you want to believe religiously, but you cannot force those views upon other peoples. This leads into the argument by critics that the United States uses its military and economic power to bully other governments into democracy. We think of ourselves as the champions of democracy, here to show the underdeveloped world that we mean business, that they better become a democracy or face the consequences. Democracy remains very new in the grand political scheme of the world and people still are not sure

if it works. We realize that it is the most viable means of running a fully functioning government along with free-market economics. This is a mammoth conundrum in the Islamic community. The lack of the most basic political institutions guaranteeing democratic freedoms leads some scholars to conclude that Islam and democracy are not compatible (Cooper 31). An argument can be made that this is inherently not correct. A few bad apples are taking a peaceful religion and perverting it to reach their own sadistic goals. Some observers suggest that radical fundamentalism has emerged as a vehicle for anti-American resentment mot because it is inherently at odds with Western values but because Islam often remains the only institution embraced by populations that globalization has left behind (Cooper 32). Poverty pervades most of the Arab and Muslim world, except for a handful of oil-rich countries. Some experts call for a massive increase in foreign assistance to those countries and other potential sources of antiAmerican terrorism. “The United States and the other industrial nations should launch a global ‘Marshall Plan’ to provide everyone on Earth with a decent standard of living,” wrote Dick Bell and Mitch Renner of the Worldwide Institute in Washington (Cooper 34). But other experts suggest that some American policies that have long inflamed the Muslim world may need to be re-examined (Cooper 33). Perhaps more than any issue, the U.S. support for Israel fuels the deepest antiU.S. resentment and frustration. At the same time, the United States historically has been more involved than any other country in repeatedly trying to broker peace agreements to resolve the conflict. However, in the eyes of many Muslims, U.S. policy in the ArabIsraeli has been blatantly one-sided, causing untold suffering and death among displaced

Palestinians while encouraging successive Israeli governments to expropriate territory in flagrant violation of longstanding agreements (Cooper 33). All of this goes to show that the policies the United States has to the Middle East, and underdeveloped nations in the world, have not worked and change is needed. We need to use diplomacy wherever possible and military power only sparingly. There needs to be a more balanced approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Now, this is not to say that we should appease the terrorists that conspire to kill Americans, but we must reach out to these countries and try to teach them about democracy, not beat them over the head with it. We have to show that our policies are not aimed at keeping our oil reserves lofty, but that we have a sincere longing for democratic peace and stability throughout the world. It is a momentous challenge, one that should not be taken lightly, as we are the vehicle for change, we just need to accomplish it in a democratic way.

Bibliography Cooper, Mary H. “Hating America.” CQ Researcher, Volume 11, Number 41. November 23, 2001 Jost, Kenneth and Masci, David. “War on Terrorism.” CQ Researcher Volume 11. Number 35. October 12, 2001.