Last week, the United States launched the largest offensive it has taken against al-Qaida in the last four years. The offensive was carried out in a series of drone strikes in Yemen, which has secretly become one of the primary fronts of the war on terror. The recent escalation of drone strikes in Yemen brings attention to the shadowy war that the United States has been waging around the world.
The United States has been engaged in a “Global War on Terror” since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. While Iraq and Afghanistan have been the primary focus of this war on terror, this global conflict extends to more than 75 countries around the world and has no end in sight.
On Sept. 20, 2001, President George W. Bush made a statement before Congress in which he said that the United States would wage a “war on terror” in response to the terrorist attacks. In his speech, the president stated who this war would be fought against. He said, “Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every government that supports them.”
On Oct. 7, 2001, after the Taliban failed to extradite Osama Bin Laden and expel the al-Qaida network from Afghanistan, the United States began Operation Enduring Freedom. On March 20, 2003, after Saddam Hussein failed to reveal his alleged stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, the United States began Operation Iraqi Freedom. These military operations are commonly referred to as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, although war was never officially declared. As of 2012, more than 2.4 million American soldiers had been deployed to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.
These two conflicts have been the primary focus of the war on terror but they do not even scratch the surface of the global war currently waged by the United States. As President Bush said, this is “a war against all those who seek to export terror.” The massive military operations conducted in Iraq and Afghanistan certainly draw a lot of attention, but the heart of the battle goes on behind the scenes and is conducted by special forces from organizations which most Americans do not even know exist.
In his reporting on Afghanistan, Jeremy Scahill of The Nation magazine found that the conventional forces occupying the country were not the ones hunting down al-Qaida leaders. Further investigation uncovered the Joint Special Operations Command, a branch of the military devoted to eliminating high-value targets and compiled of the most highly-trained forces America has to offer. JSOC directed the operation which killed Bin Laden, and has been expanded significantly under the Obama Administration.
This shadowy group of elite assassins conducts operations in over 75 countries, demonstrating the truly global nature of the war on terror. While President Barack Obama has denounced the war on terror in speeches, Special Operations forces have been deployed in 15 more countries than under President Bush. These military operations are focused on finding and eliminating individuals on the CIA’s “kill list.”
While the Bush Administration made significant efforts to capture suspected terrorists, their detention at military bases such as Guantanamo Bay sparked significant political backlash. The Obama Administration has seemingly favors killing suspects rather than capturing them, and thus conveniently avoids having to deal with prisoners.
Today, while conventional operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are winding down, the global war on terror rages on. This is a war fought all across the world, using special forces and robotics, with “no requirement for explicit Congressional authorization or budgetary oversight,” as highlighted in research published by Harvard University.
This global war is far from over. Washington Post reporter Greg Miller writes, “Among senior Obama administration officials, there is a broad consensus that such operations are likely to be extended at least another decade.”
As a nation, we should reconsider our commitment to this form of warfare and determine if we truly want to wage a long-term global war against a concept. These secretive military operations usually go unreported and the war on terror is hardly headline news anymore.
However, the body count of suspected terrorists continues to grow while the threat of al-Qaida remains. Perhaps exterminating people based on who they network with is not the best way to discourage individuals from wanting to take violent action against the United States.
Jason Roche is a Collegian columnist and can be reached at [email protected].
