War on terror

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Clockwise from top right: The ruins of the World Trade Center after the September 11, 2001 attacks; US soldiers in a Chinook transport helicopter in Afghanistan; A bomb explodes near a US convoy near Baghdad; US soldiers in action in Afghanistan
Collage of images from the war on terror:
top left: the ruins of the World Trade Center after the attacks of September 11, 2001,
top right: US soldiers with a Chinook transport helicopter in Afghanistan,
bottom left: a bomb explodes near a US Convoy near Baghdad,
bottom right: US soldiers in action in Afghanistan.

The war on terror ( English War on Terror ) or war on terrorism ( English War on Terrorism or Global War On Terrorism , GWOT for short ) was a political slogan that was widespread , especially by the then US administration under George W. Bush which summarized political, military and legal steps against international terrorism after the attacks of September 11, 2001 . The Bush administration understood this to mean the fight against both terrorist organizations and states that support terrorist organizations.

At the end of March 2009, the then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the now incumbent Obama administration would no longer use the term. In 2013, President Barack Obama reaffirmed the use of “persistent efforts against networks of extremists” that threaten America instead of this catchphrase.

According to a study by the IPPNW , well over a million people were killed in the “war on terror”.

Concept history

The term "war on international terrorism " was first used by the US administration under President Ronald Reagan in 1985 , after the 1984 attack on the international peacekeeping forces in Beirut and several plane attacks. This term summarized measures taken by the American government in the Middle East and North Africa. Before that, it was last used by Time in 1977 in connection with the liberation of the Landshut hostages in Mogadishu . Immediately after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 , the expression was taken up again by the US administration under President George W. Bush , who announced that he wanted to wage a worldwide "war on terrorism".

The concept builds on similar, by previous US administrations coined terms like " war on poverty " ( "War on Poverty" ) or " war on drugs " ( "War on Drugs" to). In his speech on September 16, 2001, Bush said: "This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while." After criticism for the word crusade (Engl. Crusade ) Bush apologized; the term was no longer used. At the same time, the expression "war on terror" is criticized because of its literal meaning of a "war against horror" (see also section on criticism ). However, the term terrorism was first used in 1920 after the Wall Street bombing. Because of the perpetrators' goal of creating "panic" and "horror", the perpetrators have been labeled terrorists.

proclamation

George W. Bush proclaims the "war on terror"

The key phrases of President George W. Bush's address to Congress on September 20, 2001 were:

“Our war on terror starts with al-Qaeda , but it doesn't end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach is found, stopped and defeated.
[…]
Americans shouldn't expect a fight, but a protracted campaign, unlike any we've seen. This could include dramatic attacks that are televised and covert operations that remain secret even if successful. We will cut off the terrorists' funds, pitting them against one another, driving them from place to place until there is no refuge or rest for them. And we will pursue the states that provide aid to terrorism or offer it a safe haven. Every country in every region has to decide now - either it is on our side or on the side of the terrorists. "

As a result, the US government received worldwide support from other governments in their efforts to establish a “coalition against terror”.

Further development of international law

After the attacks on September 11, 2001, the US government no longer saw terrorism as a criminal act, but as a form of war. The international community has largely subscribed to this view by granting the USA the right to self-defense in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter and thus further developing international law.

The Bush administration is convinced that the American nation can feel safe again after global terrorism is eliminated. It has legitimized pre- emptive interventions by stating that a pre- emptive strike is sometimes the only way of defense. The principle of sovereign states, which underlies the UN order, was thus replaced by a system in which the USA could decide whether military intervention was legitimate.

Effect of the war on terror

After the attacks of September 11, 2001, suicide killers and the network behind them were interpreted as a great power and a new kind of permanent war began. With the "war on terror", the number of jihadists has multiplied. The political scientist Peter R. Neumann estimated in 2015 that there were over a hundred thousand jihadists; he predicted an increase in terrorism.

Reactions

U.N.

After the 9/11 attacks, the UN Security Council took action with Resolutions 1368 and 1373 and the Counter Terrorism Committee . The anti-terrorism conventions that had been enacted in the UN General Assembly since the 1960s also found new attention after the terrorist attacks on the USA and were increasingly ratified. The United Nations Security Council unanimously passed a resolution submitted by the United States to combat international terrorism , which became binding on all member states of the UN through application of Chapter VII of the UN Charter . In Article 41 of Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, measures to the exclusion of armed violence such as B. Embargoes or the breakdown of diplomatic relations listed.

NATO

On September 12, 2001, NATO declared an alliance case under Article 5 of the NATO Charter for the first time in its history, subject to “if the terrorist attacks were directed against the USA” . The NATO charter speaks of an “armed attack” and the exercise of the right of self-defense recognized in Article 51 of the UN statutes .

Afghanistan / Taliban

Bush's address, however, was also a concrete appeal to the Taliban in power in Afghanistan at the time to give up support for the al-Qaida terror network and, in particular, to extradite its leader Osama bin Laden . Since this appeal by the US leadership was unsuccessful, the US and UK began air strikes against Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, at the same time dropping food rations to make it clear that the attacks were not aimed at the people of Afghanistan. Despite military successes such as the “liberation of Afghanistan” from the Taliban regime, it was not possible to capture the leadership of al-Qaida during the war .

However, the war was also heavily criticized from several sides. For example, President Bush's decision of February 7, 2002 to deny the Taliban combatant status and thus restrict the validity of the international law of war is now largely seen as legally unjustified.

Actions

Measures (selection)

Nationally and internationally there have been and are a number of measures and actions by the US government that are related to the fight against terrorism :

Operation Enduring Freedom

The Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF, Engl. Operation enduring freedom ) of 7 October 2001 to 28 December 2014 was off the target command and training facilities for terrorists to fight terrorists, caught to take and bring them to justice. It consisted of two largely independent sub-operations, which take place in Afghanistan (war 2001–2002, aim including the overthrow of the Taliban ) and in the sea area at the Horn of Africa . In addition, third parties should be permanently discouraged from supporting terrorist activities. Up to 70 nations were involved in these operations, including Germany. The operation was led by the American regional command USCENTCOM with headquarters in Tampa / Florida.

The legal basis for the OEF was Resolution 1368 of the United Nations Security Council of September 12, 2001, which condemned the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington as an armed attack on the United States and as a threat to international peace and security.

The German contribution essentially consisted of a marine contingent that operated from Djibouti in the Red Sea , the Gulf of Aden and the western part of the Indian Ocean . The Bundeswehr also provided air transport forces, paramedics, NBC defense forces, special forces and the necessary support forces.
In March 2007, the German Bundestag decided by a large majority to use reconnaissance tornadoes in Afghanistan.

Disappearances of terror suspects

Amnesty International logo . One of the organization’s central areas of activity is to draw attention to the fate of people who have “disappeared”, kidnapped by state security forces for political or religious reasons. The organization criticized the kidnapping of terror suspects and the operation of secret prisons by the US.

As part of the war on terror, the US had started kidnapping terrorist suspects since 2001 and detaining them for long periods of time in secret prisons that the US military referred to as black sites without trial . Several cases have become known in which, after several months or even years of imprisonment, it turned out that the arrested were innocent or the victim of mistake. The best known case in Germany is Murat Kurnaz .

According to Amnesty International , this is practiced in a large number of other countries in addition to the USA.

The procedure coincided with the definition of enforced disappearance , which was defined as a crime against humanity in the Rome Statute , which came into force in 2002 . It forms one of the legal norms for the case law of the International Criminal Court in The Hague . The administration of President Bush has long demanded immunity for US citizens, which the criminal court refused to grant. The USA has signed bilateral agreements with more than 50 states to prevent extradition of US citizens from these countries to The Hague. In 2003, the US government cut military aid to 35 countries that had not yet signed such agreements.

In Germany in 2007 arrest warrants were issued against 10 CIA agents in connection with the kidnapping of the German citizen Khaled al-Masri . In Italy, 26 CIA agents are wanted by arrest warrant for the kidnapping of Imam Abu Omar .

According to official US data, the secret prisons operated by the CIA were closed in the course of 2006. According to a report in the Financial Times, this decision, which has long been requested by the UN Human Rights Council, was accelerated by the fact that interrogation specialists from the CIA refused to continue interrogating prisoners in these facilities because of the unclear legal situation.

On January 22, 2009, the second day after he took office, President Barack Obama ordered the closure of all secret CIA prisons with immediate effect and prohibited the use of torture by the CIA. However, the closure of Guantanamo Prison has been suspended.

36 "permanently disappeared" suspects

In 2006, a merger publish six human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch , a list of 36 people, caught either known or highly likely by US authorities under suspicion of terrorism were held, and "disappeared" the (Engl. Disappeared ) are. They did not appear again, nor would the US authorities answer questions about their fate or their whereabouts. This situation had not changed significantly by April 2009. The law professor Margaret Satterthwaite said:

“By the time the US government clears up the fate and whereabouts of these individuals, these people will still be missing, and enforced disappearances are one of the most serious international human rights violations . (Until the US government clarifies the fate and whereabouts of these individuals, these people are still disappeared, and disappearance is one of the most grave international human rights violations.) "

Effects in Germany

In the course of the "war on terror", extensive measures were introduced in Germany to protect endangered objects and to monitor suspects, which are justified with the protection of internal security :

The necessity and effectiveness of these measures is sometimes controversial. It is also controversial whether civil rights, and in particular civil liberties, are inadmissibly curtailed.

Fatalities

According to a study by the IPPNW , the number of victims of the “War on Terror” in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2001 to 2014 - if the sources are conservatively interpreted - amount to well over 1 million deaths.

criticism

Critics are of the opinion that there is a contradiction, a declaration of war to make, to declare war without a state. The “war on terrorism” thus creates a permanent state of emergency and creates a law-free space in which “ unlawful combatants ” can be interned and tortured in disregard of the Geneva Conventions - such as in Guantánamo Bay or Abu Ghraib . It is also stated that war rhetoric influences - like the popularized catchphrase “Fourth World War” - the fear of many people who perceived attacks in their dimensions as a declaration of war. The use of the term is much more an attempt by a government to justify wars of aggression (such as the one on Iraq ) and the restriction of fundamental rights (e.g. through the Patriot Act ). High-ranking American institutions such as the US Supreme Court also take a critical position on this (see the fundamental decisions Rasul against Bush and Hamdan against Rumsfeld ).

In addition, it is unclear under what conditions the “war on terrorism” could ever come to an end: Terrorism is not a clearly defined enemy, but a method to achieve political goals. This terminology carries the risk of loosening binding legal frameworks. Against this background, both American and international critics have sharply criticized the creation of the Military Commissions Act . The law came into effect in October 2006 and gives the President very far-reaching powers over the treatment of so-called " illegal enemy combattants ". This also includes illegal torture methods such as waterboarding .

The Patriot Act is also criticized, which restricts fundamental rights and partially abolishes the separation of powers in the USA.

The politician Michael Meacher wrote in The Guardian that in September 2000 the neoconservative think tank " Project for the New American Century " had issued a document entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses" for Dick Cheney , Donald Rumsfeld , Paul Wolfowitz , Jeb Bush (George Bush's younger brother), and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff). The plan showed that Bush's cabinet intended to implement the Pax Americana to take military control of the Gulf region, regardless of whether Saddam Hussein was in power or not. Written a year before September 11th, North Korea, Syria and Iran were labeled as dangerous regimes and their existence justified the creation of a "global command and control system". The document would be "a blueprint for US world domination" (blueprint in the sense of "a plan") and a better explanation of what happened before, during, and after 9/11 than the global war on terrorism provides. " (Original quote: " Finally - written a year before 9/11 - it pinpoints North Korea, Syria and Iran as dangerous regimes, and says their existence justifies the creation of a "worldwide command and control system". This is a blueprint for US world domination. But before it is dismissed as an agenda for rightwing fantasists, it is clear it provides a much better explanation of what actually happened before, during and after 9/11 than the global war on terrorism thesis. This can be seen in several ways. " )

See also

literature

  • Jean Baudrillard: The Spirit of Terrorism . 2nd Edition. Passagen, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-85165-610-5 .
  • Markus Holzinger: The looping of the right. 10 years of anti-terror war . In: Blätter für Deutsche und Internationale Politik , issue 2/2011, pp. 64–72.
  • Richard Jackson: Writing the War on Terrorism. Language, Politics and Counter-Terrorism . Manchester United Press, Manchester / New York 2005, ISBN 0-7190-7121-6 (English).
  • Markus Kotzur : “War on Terrorism” - political rhetoric or new contours of the “concept of war” in international law? In: Archiv des Völkerrechts (AVR), Vol. 40 (2002), pp. 454–479.
  • Johann Ulrich Schlegel: Terror and Freedom . Nomos, Baden-Baden 2016, ISBN 978-3-8487-2527-4 .
  • Wolf Wetzel : War is peace. About Baghdad, Srebrenica, Genua, Kabul to… Unrast-Verlag, Münster 2002, ISBN 3-89771-419-1 .

Web links

Commons : War on Terror  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Obama: 'Global War on Terror' Is Over , US News, May 23, 2013
  2. ^ Andrian Kreye : Bush's war rhetoric has had its day. In: Süddeutsche.de . Süddeutscher Verlag , May 17, 2010, accessed on September 3, 2015 .
  3. ↑ a b Whoever bans B and C weapons can also outlaw A weapons. In: IPPNW . October 11, 2013, accessed September 3, 2015 .
  4. ^ The White House - Ronald Reagan
  5. ↑ Chomsky: On the "War on Terrorism," September 3, 2004.
  6. ↑ Jonathan Lyons, "Bush enters Mideast's rhetorical minefield" (Reuters: September 21, 2001). Greenspun.com
  7. ^ Beverly Gage, The Day Wall Street Exploded: A Story of America in its First Age of Terror. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 160-161.
  8. ^ German translation of George W. Bush's address to Congress on September 21, 2001 ( Memento of December 17, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ^ War on terrorism , by Ulrich Schneckener, Science and Politics Foundation, March 2, 2003
  10. ↑ US Military Interventions Abroad - Renaissance of the Powell Doctrine ( Memento from March 31, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), by Alexander Wolf, in: The foreign policy of the USA, President Obama's new course and the future of transatlantic relations, Ed .: Reinhard C. Meier-Walser, Hanns Seidel Foundation, 2009, pp. 254f.
  11. ↑ They're rattling again , by Uwe Pörksen, Deutschlandradio Kultur, April 13, 2010
  12. ↑ On the future of terror , by Wolfgang Günter Lerch, FAZ, November 30, 2015
  13. ↑ UN Conventions on Terrorism ( Memento from August 5, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  14. ↑ Charter of the United Nations of June 26, 1945
  15. ↑ press release d. NATO September 12, 2001. NATO, September 12, 2001, accessed May 27, 2017 .
  16. ↑ The War in Afghanistan. A Legal Analysis . In: Michael Schmitt (Ed.): International Law Studies . No. 85 . Naval War College, Newport, RI 2009, p. 247 ff .
  17. ↑ Source AA: http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/www/de/laenderinfos/laender/laender_ausgabe_html?type_id=10&land_id=188
  18. ↑ zeit.de March 9, 2007: Fear under the dome
  19. ↑ a b Amnesty International: Off the Record - US Responsibility for Enforced Disappearances in the “War on Terror” (PDF; 100 kB)
  20. ↑ Amnesty International: Nobody is allowed to “disappear”! Archived from the original on March 28, 2009 ; Retrieved October 23, 2008 .
  21. ↑ USA cancel military aid to 35 states. In: Spiegel Online. July 2, 2003, accessed August 20, 2008 .
  22. ↑ Al-Masri kidnapping: arrest warrants against 13 CIA agents , Die Zeit, January 31, 2007 ( Memento of February 2, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  23. ^ Investigations against the CIA also in Italy , the daily newspaper, February 1, 2007
  24. ^ Arrest warrant for 26 people in Italy Flight to Egypt ( Memento from October 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Blick.ch The list of Henry Habegger and Beat Kraushaar | 01:21 | February 1, 2007
  25. ↑ CIA officials refused to interrogate them in secret prisons. In: Spiegel Online. September 21, 2006, accessed August 22, 2008 .
  26. ↑ Guantanamo will be closed within a year. In: the standard. January 22, 2009. Retrieved January 22, 2009 .
  27. ^ Off the Record. ( Memento from June 14, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 47 kB) US Responsibility for Enforced Disappearances in the “War on Terror”. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch et al. Retrieved from Ney York Law School
  28. ↑ Dafna Linzer: The Detention Dilemma. Dozens of Prisoners Held by CIA Still Missing, Fates Unknown. ProPublica, April 22, 2009
  29. ↑ Michael Meacher: This war on terrorism is bogus
  30. ↑ Matthias Heine: Stop saying “blueprint”, you show-off! , at welt.de
  31. ↑ Michael Meacher: This war on terrorism is bogus