Whats Up With Art and the War on Terror
Every bit we about the 20-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September xi, 2001, even as the sad events and August 26 truck-bombing tragedy in Afghanistan dominate much of the news, information technology is a good moment to remember what has gone right in the then-called war on terror these last 2 decades — and to thank those Americans and allies who have protected us.
Clearly, nosotros have had numerous failures, across the contempo massacre in Kabul. With regard to improving stability in the Centre E and reducing worldwide levels of terrorism, the so-called global state of war on terror has largely failed. Terrorism has endured in the broader Middle East, N Africa, and Due south Asia regions; today the number of attacks, and victims, worldwide are three to five times higher annually than in 2001. Radical clerics recruit terrorists far faster than Washington tin capture, kill, or deter them, and political conditions beyond the Middle Due east and North Africa remain violent and unstable. The Arab Leap in 2011 yielded more repression and jihadism than democracy and stability. Of course, this assessment must vary from country to country, just whatsoever fair reading of the show today must conclude on a somber note.
The homo and fiscal toll of the struggle confronting extremism and terrorism also has exceeded what its architects imagined. The price of the combined campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan totals $2 trillion in direct costs, but maybe closer to $4 trillion once the inevitable (largely future) costs of caring for war veterans and their survivors, too as other indirect costs, are included equally well. More than 7,000 Americans accept died in the 2 countries. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans died as well, though it is difficult to know, of form, what would take happened absent the U.Due south.-led interventions. And we volition soon find out what the future of Afghanistan will be like under Taliban rule ii.0.
However, to engagement what George W. Bush chosen the global state of war on terror has succeeded remarkably, if provisionally, in its single almost important goal from an American national security perspective: protecting the homeland, and Americans therein, from assault. This achievement has become internalized in our consciousness, most mundane in our thoughts. But information technology is remarkable. As the 20-year anniversary of 9/11 nears, we should accept a moment to ponder information technology.
Simply nigh 100 Americans have died in Salafist attacks in the The states since 9/11 — that is, attacks inspired or conducted past al-Qaida, ISIS, and related organizations that preach a perverted and inauthentic version of Islam that advocates death to "infidels" with the strategic purpose of driving the United States out of the broader Centre East and so that extremists volition have a greater take a chance of seizing powers.
That number of fatalities is 100 too many, of class. Just information technology is far fewer than might accept been expected on September 12, 2001, for example. Indeed, in the months subsequently 9/11, American intelligence worried about Al Qaeda gaining access to weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and using them on U.S. soil. In the adjacent few years, between 2002 and 2005, devastating attacks killed hundreds from Bali to Spain to London. And of course, violence in the broader Middle East itself connected to increase, skyrocketing in Iraq in particular.
But things became calmer in America. After a fall of anthrax attacks, other WMD anxieties, an attempted "shoe bombing" on an airline in U.S. skies, and National Guard personnel posted at iconic sites and airports and other fundamental transportation nodes around the state, things started to settle down for the most role. The nation has generally been rubber.
Armed services and intelligence operations abroad have been a big part of the reason why. Domestic policy has played a role also equally advancing technology, constabulary work, the Transportation Security Agency, the Section of Homeland Security, and improved intelligence take made the United States a far more challenging target for strange attackers. Additionally, U.S. troops have successfully hunted down endless leaders of extremist organizations. That will get harder now in and around Afghanistan. Simply we are also much better at it than before.
Yes, there have been many tragedies, specially between 2009 and 2017 — the November v, 2009 Fort Hood shooting in which xiii died, the Dec two, 2015 San Bernardino shootings that claimed fourteen lives, the horrible June 12, 2016 Orlando night society massacre in which 49 perished, the Oct 31, 2017 New York killings in which a truck mowed downwardly eight innocents. In that location were other deaths from "Salafist" or jihadi attacks linked to al-Qaida or ISIS too, mostly in that same period, in Fiddling Rock, Oklahoma, Chattanooga, Pensacola, Philadelphia, and Boston. There were other attempts, as at Times Square in 2010, as well every bit the attempted printer-cartridge bombings of 2010 and the "underwear bomber" the year before. But past any reasonable comparison — with the decease price of 9/eleven itself, with the casualties from other sources of violence here at abode, with what might have been — the terminal two decades take seen only a very express level of Salafist and Salafist-inspired violence on American soil.
In some cases, perhaps, the United States was but equally lucky after nine/xi equally it had been unlucky on that fateful day two decades ago. But for the about function, we accept been protected, not lucky — and for that, information technology is worth thanking all those who have contributed and given and sacrificed so much, including those who simply gave their lives in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan. Information technology is also important, equally we consider futurity policy options against violent extremism, to count our blessings and work hard to preserve and extend them. The last xx years take been frustrating and plush and inconclusive in many ways. Simply they have not been a failure.
Source: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/08/27/do-not-take-the-war-on-terrors-big-success-for-granted/
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