The War on Terror

The War on Terror; an assertion that came from George W. Bush during his time as President. This wasn’t just for 9/11 attacks, this was a battle to stop all terrorist threats. Were we, as Americans, naive to think this could never happen on our soil? As the leading nation of democracy and freedom, did we threaten other countries sovereignty from within? Before that day, I thought I could count on my government’s intelligence community to receive, aggregate and use that information to predict future terrorist attacks on our soil. What was the aftermath of such atrocities? The War on Terror, is it our war alone?

From the beginning, the War on Terror was not only a physical battle, but an ideological battle – a fight against global terrorists and their murderous ideology. On September 11, 2001, terrorists successfully crashed two airplanes into the World Trade Centre and one into the Pentagon, which resulted in the death of more than 2,700 people. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, were acts of war against the United States, peaceful people throughout the world, and the very principles of liberty and human dignity.

The attackers were Islamic terrorists from Saudi Arabia and several other Arab nations. Reportedly financed by the al-Qaeda terrorist organization of Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden, they were allegedly acting in retaliation for America’s support of Israel, its involvement in the Persian Gulf War and its continued military presence in the Middle East. It would seem the attacks were more than a retaliation. Some speculated this was an inside job and was orchestrated to push a political or financial agenda. Conspiracy theorists believe that the government wanted to use the attacks to justify an invasion on Iraq and Afghanistan to secure oil interests.

In the days preceding the attacks, an ‘extraordinary’ amount of put options (investments that pay off only when a stock drops in price) were placed on the stocks of two airlines – American and United, which happened to be the airlines hijacked during 9/11. As such, some theorists believe that traders had been given advance warning of the attacks and were cashing in on the tragedy. The United States has the most powerful Air Force in the world and to have four planes high jacked, flown to their perspective target without being engaged by our air superiority is a embarrassment.

2. Why didn’t we know about it? These attacks were never expected and as a result, national security measures needed to change and change fast. The “war on terror” is unlike any other war the U.S has ever fought. This new enemy does not identify themselves with uniforms, but rather they blend into the civilian population, which makes them almost impossible to identify and their attacks can happen anywhere and anytime.

3. what are we doing about it? The Global War on Terror is a military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom and supported by other NATO members. It was originally against al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations with the purpose of eliminating them. This paper discusses how the Bush Administration handled the War on Terror as well as different aspects of it, including its terminology, its objectives, its military operations and criticism against it.

…er 17, 2001). A fight vs. evil, Bush and Cabinet tell U.S. NY Daily News. Retrieved from http://articles.nydailynews.com/2001-09-17/news/18363867_1_camp-david-gulf-war-terrorists on May 23, 2011.