Terrorism Through American Eyes

Terrorism Through American Eyes Jacob T. Blaznek Chapman University Abstract: The ‘War on Terror’ has been a highly debated topic since President Bush first said it after the attack on the United States on September 11th. Many articles and books have been written about the growing problem of terrorism and how the United States is handling it. Each article provides different ways that the United States has wrongly handled the situation and ways that they could improve their efforts to reduce terrorism. After the terrorist attack on World Trade Center and The Pentagon, the United States went to War against Al-Qaeda. Today, the US is still in a highly dangerous and expensive battle with these terrorists. My study examines the relationship between how people feel about the Presidents handling of foreign relations and their views on the defense budget. Also the relationship between the government’s efforts to reduce terrorism, whether the war was worth the cost, and whether or not the war helped reduce the threat of terrorism. The ‘War on Terror’ is looking to be politically and intellectually unsustainable unless new changes are made. Introduction Terrorism has become a hot topic in politics since the attack on the United States on September 11th 2001. The Nation has been trying to figure out new ways to prevent further terrorist attacks and deal with the number of terrorist groups arising across the world. The rise in terrorism has led to a war like no other seen before due to the wide spread terrorist groups, and different nations coming together to stop these terrorist activities. These events have led to a total reconstruction of the United States foreign polices and how they go about dealing with the problem of terrorism. My research from both scholarly articles and the ANES election study point out that the past 11 years of war was not worth the cost in lives or dollars, and there is a need to find a new way to deal with the terrorists. Also there is a need for government to increase its effort to reduce terrorism around the world in an effective way, according to public opinion people believe this past war has done nothing to reduce the threat of terrorism. However people still approve of the governments effort to reduce terrorism around the world. Change Foreign Relation Policy In Michael j. Boyle’s article from 2008, Boyle seeks out to explain that the need to go back to the way the world originally went about destroying terrorism needs to be used again. In most cases the terrorist encountered today are Muslim extremists. The reason they are committing these acts of violence are to achieve a certain goal. According to the NSC these enemies are politically motivated, non-state actors, committing premeditated violence against innocent non-combatants. (NCS 2002) If America wants to get back to their initial goals, American policy makers need to return to the ideals set by the National Security Council (NSC) of the United States in 2002. The goal was to establish a prohibition on non-states and states alike from aiding or engaging in terrorist activities. Today the government is too focused on promoting democracy around the world than it is in defeating terrorism. Trying to stop terrorism and promote democracy in the Middle East at the same time introduces blurred lines and causes states to defect from aiding the U.S. in deterring these Muslim extremists. American policy makers tried to tie these new problems with solutions used to solve old problems. Anatol Lieven and John C. Hulsman made the claim that both sides of the political spectrum related the lessons learned from recent wars of communism and fascism to this new ‘War on Terror’, when in reality these two types of wars are far from similar. (Lieven and Hulsman 2006) According to Michael Boyle, America’s right winged officials claimed that September 11th was a new Pearl Harbor and that it was a warning that new groups of terrorism were arising to endanger freedom to states around the world. Left-wingers concluded that that this was a battle between liberal democracy and its enemies. Each side had a slightly different interpretation of what was to come but they both saw this ‘Global War on Terror’ as connecting with WWII and the Cold War, when simply put, this was a whole new beast America needed to tackle. Boyle, Lieven and Hulsman all agree on one thing, the U.S. has ignored the lessons from the Cold War and have looked for quick ways to end the war on terror when in reality they are striving for unattainable ends. This is strongly shown in my research when looking at public opinion on whether or not the war was worth the cost. When the NSS first published their ideals about terrorism in 2002 they claimed that no indiscriminate harm done to non-combatants is justifiable and is considered terrorism. (National Security Council 2002) The Bush administration was trying to outlaw terrorism and link it with other outlawed social behavior such as genocide, slavery, and other behaviors in that nature. (NSC 2002) The goal was to support governments in the middle east that were against terrorist activity, encourage foreign states to castoff terrorism and contest the underlying conditions for Muslim extremism. The National Security Strategy in 2002 stated that the central purpose for the declaration of war on terror was to make terrorism unreasonable in all cases and to insure that states around the world assumed a responsibility to control the terrorist groups inside their own boarders by creating an anti-terror regime. Most states agreed with this and for many they were willing to keep these terrorist groups at bay. Some states however, are considered rouge states. These states do not physically help the terrorists, but instead of sending troops they will provide them with money or resources usually limited amounts to aid the extremists. Examples of these rouge states are Iran and North Korea. In 2008 North Korea has been taken off the rouge state list due to the inability to prove that North Korea was a state sponsor of terrorism after they were added to it in 1987 (Manyin at all. 2015). Yet there have been talks about adding them back to the list. (U.S. Congress 2015) Stephen M. Walt claims that the United States is a lot less popular than it thinks. Due to hostility towards America from Arab and Muslim nations, support for the ‘War on Terror’ has been limited. (Walt 2001) Walt and Boyle both agree that if the United States wanted to get back in the good graces of the international world it would have to pull out its hand from these Arab nations in certain ways. The United States would still have to have some control over the anti-terror regimes with the ability to also promote democracy and free enterprise as part of their foreign policy. However they can transfer the burden of controlling and administering the anti-terrorism measures over to a global regime, which would keep some of the heat off of the United States for stepping in too much in the Middle East. Doing this would also keep the U.S. from trying to mix the spread of democracy, and human rights to the prevention of terrorism. If America wants to keep its hegemonic status it would be necessary to tone down its policy choices to decrease the chance that other states would desert itself from the anti-terror regime. (Boyle 2008)(Walt 2001) This topic is prevalent and actually proved wrong in my own research by the people’s high approval of the Presidents handling of foreign relations. It could be that the people do not know everything that the president is actually doing, or that he is doing a very good job and there is no need for any reshaping of the way the President handles foreign relations. War Not Worth The Cost Paul Rogers article “The ‘War on Terror’ and International Security”, focuses mostly on the response to 9/11 and the repercussions that followed. Before September 11th 2001, the Bush administration had a precise neo-conservative outlook, a New American Century theory and saw America as being a key player in leading the world into a new era of peace. The New American Century looked to be on track and the world was slightly more peaceful but that all changed when the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked. This was the largest attack ever on such a large number of American civilians costing over 3,000 lives, which surpasses Pearl Harbor by 1,000. (McCormick pg. 208) Some analysts claim that declaring a ‘War on Terror’ was a mistake and the U.S. should have just caught the people responsible and brought them to justice instead of launching an enormous military response. At the beginning however this idea of ‘War on Terror’ seemed to be going well. Within weeks of the invasion of Afghanistan the Taliban was terminated and the Al-Qaeda regime was disposed of. Yet Bush’s administration wanted more and claimed they were going to punish the ‘axis of evil’ or the states that were know to be supportive of terrorism such as Iran, Iraq and North Korea. This brought on the Invasion of Iraq in 2003, with its main goal to end Saddam Hussein’s reign of power and cripple his regime. Saddam Hussein was the President of Iraq and was thought to be harboring Weapons of Mass Destruction. Three weeks after the invasion, the regime was terminated and President Bush made his ‘mission accomplished’ speech atop the USS Abraham Lincoln. A couple years later Saddam Hussein was captured, tried, and put to death. The New American Century seemed to be back on track and America once again leading the world into peace. Yet the outcomes were extremely different than what the U.S. had expected. The Terrorist attacks on US soldiers exponentially increased and al-Qaeda was becoming increasingly dangerous. The war is still raging on today even after the termination of Osama bin Laden in May 2011, which was thought to bring end to the conflict. Bombings became more frequent and even hit London and Madrid. The problem is that with every senior officer the U.S. kills using drones and Special Forces, there is another lined up to take over where the last left off. From 2001-2014 more than 1 trillion dollars has been spent on the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan alone. (Costsofwar 2015) The need to regain control in the Middle East, in some eyes caused more problems than good. The problem in the Middle East has increased with the crippled states becoming vulnerable to the terrorist recruitment. Rogers’ states that the nation needs to recognize these failures and prepare for the increase in security problems that lie ahead. If these disappointments are acknowledged are re-examined than it will be possible to make the appropriate changes and prevent upcoming discrepancies from a viewpoint of sustainable security. (Rogers 2011) Public Opinion The Council on Foreign Relations wrote a book called Public Opinion on Global Issues, in chapter 12a: “U.S. Opinion on Transnational Threats: Terrorism,” they discuss how the public views the issues of terrorism that are facing the country. With this book being written in 2009 it is slightly outdated and the opinions of Americans have changed. First, looking at Pew Research in 2014 on the public’s views on foreign policy and relations much can be concluded. 60% of people say that the U.S. should pay less attention to problems overseas and focus more on the problems right here on American soil. While just 38% think that it is the U.S. best interest of the future of the country to be active in foreign affairs. yet while looking at whether people think that the world would be better or worse without the U.S.’s involvement the percentages are slightly different. 53% of people think that the world would be worse if the U.S. was not involved. With 40% saying that the U.S. involvement makes foreign problems worse. On average far right winged and far left people agree that involvement is not a very bad idea but should be controlled and that without the US the world would be much worse. Young outsiders, and skeptics in the middle think that the US shouldn’t involve itself really at all and that U.S. involvement has make the world problems worse. Looking at the polls in 2009 the public’s concern of how big of a problem terrorism poses to the United States, less than half of Americans think it is a very big problem: around 44 percent, 38 percent believed it was only a moderately big problem, leaving 18 percent thinking its not a problem at all or it is only a small problem. However even with these low numbers, a majority of Americans think that International terrorism poses a serious threat to national security and that our foreign policy should be aimed at destroying global terrorism. The Majority of the public in general is in favor of the UN playing a larger role in combating terrorism leaving less of a burden on the United States. Americans support the United Nations Security Council having the ability and authority to use military action to negate a country from supporting terrorist groups. The public also supports the sending of elite fighting forces to apprehend alleged terrorists if the home country declines to take action themselves. There is a problem though when it comes to the effectiveness of the U.S. effort to fight terrorism. Public opinion states that they believe neither the United States nor al-Qaeda is winning the war. A significant majority, 56 percent, thinks that neither side is winning. Also, it is a near 50/50 split on whether the United States effort to weaken al-Qaeda has been a success or whether they have just strengthened them and caused them to become an increasing threat to commit terrorist attacks globally. Additionally, Americans believe that Iraq has become an increasing threat to commit acts of terror due to the U.S. invasion and the crippling and the poverty state they were left in. These numbers come from many studies done by Chicago Council on Global affairs in 2008, 2004, by GlobeScan in 2008, Gallup Poll 2004, USA Today Poll 2003, BBC 2008, 2006, CNN/ Opinion Research Corporation Poll 2007, and finally the Pew Global Attitudes Project in 2007. (U.S. Opinion on Transnational Threats: Terrorism) Combined these give a clear depiction of how Americans and other countries felt about these terrorists. Today some of those percentages are higher and some of them are lower. However people across the planet still are not in favor of terrorism, especially the terrorists’ tactics, and would like to see them become less of a threat. Intro to Research: This study looks into the relationship of the defense budget and foreign relations. Whether the war was worth the cost and efforts of government to reduce terrorism. Finally the wars effect on terrorism and government’s efforts to reduce terrorism. All of these are what Americans opinions are of the topic and how they feel about each topic. On average most people approve of the governments efforts to reduce terrorism. However many don’t believe the war was worth the cost and it does not matter their view of the governments effort to reduce terrorism. Also people believe that the war did noting to increase or decrease the threat of terrorism more than they believe it increased or decreased. There is a belief that people who want an increase to the defense budget think that the President is not handling foreign relations well and vise versa. I have realized a lot of the opinions that Americans had from 2001-2006 have changed tremendously from what they were in 2012-2015. People today are questioning the Presidents handling of foreign relations, and now believing that the war was not worth the cost and did nothing to increase or decrease the threat of terrorism. I have three hypotheses to go along with those statements and I use the ANES 2012 election study for my conclusions. Hypothesis One: Through my own research on these topics I have three hypothesis supported by these articles. My first hypothesis is as follows, if someone thinks there should be an increase to the Defense Budget than they disapprove the Pres. handling of Foreign Relations. Using the ANES study my findings are as follows: more than 60% of people who want to increase Defense spending disapprove of the Presidents handling of foreign relations. Where as 72% of people who want a decrease in defense spending, approve of the Presidents handling of foreign relations. I believe that the reason this is true is because the President is democratic and democrats usually advocate for less spending and so people who want less spending will also agree with what the president is trying to do overseas. The highest number of people, around 38%, want to increase defense spending, 31% of people don’t want the amount of spending to increase or decrease and 31% want it to be decreased. This graph portrays these findings: However, looking at just defense spending by itself In 2002 41% of Americans thought that the U.S. spent to little on the defense budget but in 2014 38% thought that the U.S. spent too much on the defense budget. That does not count for the answer of just enough spending though. The reason why this shift in thinking could have occurred could also be tied to the party that was in power during each of these polls. In 2002 Republicans were in office, they favor defense spending. In 2014 democrats were in office and they favor a decrease in defense spending. That is just one explanation in why that shift in beliefs could have occurred. In further research I would look at that variable. Then I used a regression to see what variables affected how people thought about the defense budget. Of the 4 variables that I used to see what changed people’s minds on Defense spending, the Approve or Disapprove of President Handling Foreign Relations had the highest impact on what made them chose to increase or decrease the defense spending. Shown by the Beta of .215. All of the four variables were significant however Approve/ Disapprove had a significance of .000, which is the strongest significance. The variable, War increase or decrease threat of terrorism, was also significant yet it only had a beta of .073 which means it didn’t really effect the way that people viewed the defense budget as much as approve or disapprove the Presidents handling of foreign relations. I feel that if the President doesn’t handle foreign relations correctly than an need for the a big defense budget would also be greater because the threat to the united states would increase and the U.S. would have to either be on the offensive or defensive side of the fight. Both sides would require a sound defense budget. Hypothesis 2: My second hypothesis is, people who approve of governments efforts to reduce terrorism, believe that the war was worth the cost. It might be a surprise, but that is actually incorrect. It turned out that it did not really matter how people felt on the government’s efforts to reduce terrorism because most of the citizens felt like the war was not worth the cost. Of the 5914 people who answered both questions 4170 people claimed that the war was not worth the cost. Also people who approve Governments efforts to reduce terrorism had the highest disapproval number with 2048 people choosing that it was not worth the cost. The United States has been at war since 2001 with the Middle East and until 2011 the United States was still fighting in Iraq and there are still troops stationed overseas. To many people that is just to long and has cost way to much to the tax payers with, in their eyes little results to show for it. With this hypothesis I went to other sources of public opinion such as Pew and Gallup to deepen my understanding of why people believe that the war was not worth the cost. What I found was that peoples opinion in 2001-2003 was much different than what their views are from 2008-2012. Peoples view on the war has become negative when they once thought it was a good idea and that is was worth it. In 2006 70% of people felt that the U.S. made the right decision to use military force in Afghanistan and in 2011 only 57% of people felt the same way. The day before the United States invaded Iraq there was a 70% approval rating, which was the highest public approval rating for a war in many years. Also In 2003 72% of people thought that using military force in Iraq was the right decision but in 2008 that number dropped to 38% and in 2012 it has decreased all the way to 30%. Those are two huge drops in approval ratings and that is due to the extensive amount of time spent fighting and putting American lives in danger. In 2002 47% of Americans felt the government should take the steps necessary to reduce terrorism even if it meant violating civil liberties but by 2011 only 25% of people felt this way. After September 11th many people thought that the government should do whatever it takes to rid the world of terrorists, but now that there hasn’t been much progress and people have seen second hand from media and other sources what is actually being done that approval rating has dropped significantly. Hypothesis 3: For my third hypothesis I believed that people who approve of governments efforts to reduce terrorism, believe that the war decreased the threat of terrorism. Once again this hypothesis was proven wrong. Most of Americans believe that the War did nothing to increase or decrease the threat of terrorism, around 50%. However 70% of people who think the war decreased the threat of terrorism also approve of the governments efforts to reduce terrorism. Shockingly however, 47% of people who believe the war increased the threat of terrorism also approve of the governments efforts to reduce terrorism. This is kind of contradicting, because if someone approves of the governments efforts to reduce terrorism how could they think that the war did nothing to decrease the threat, when the government conducted the war. Once again I went to a second source (Pew Research 2008) to go deeper into what my research was showing, In 2001 88% of people felt the government was doing a good job in reducing the threat of terrorism, but in 2010 only 69% of people think that they are still doing a good job. I believe that the reason this number has decreased so intensely is because of the large number of ISIS and ISIL threats that the United States has been receiving. In 2002 46% of Americans said that terrorism was the most important problem facing the U.S., in 2014 only 4% of Americans think that it is the most important problem facing the U.S.. This statistic in a way goes against what my research states. If people think that the war did nothing to increase or decrease the threat of terrorism how is it that hardly anyone thinks that it is not a big problem facing the U.S. especially with these new terrorist groups popping up and making waves in the media. Conclusion: Looking at both the scholarly articles and my own research I have concluded a couple things. First, there needs to be slight changes in the way that the U.S. handles foreign relations and its foreign policy. Secondly, the war was absolutely not worth the cost in regards to both, decreasing the threat of terrorism and the actual price in dollars, lives and resources. Public opinion has had a dramatic change in views on these topics from 2001-2014 and for the most part it is in negative views of the actions that the government has taken to reduce terrorism. However terrorism is still a very big problem in the world and the Unites States needs and is expected to make certain attempts to lower the threat and hopefully one-day decrease the threat fully. To some this is an impossible task but to others it is absolutely achievable with the correct changes and actions. Reference Page 1.) Boyle, M. (2008). The War On Terror In American Grand Strategy. International Affairs, 84(2), 191-209. 2.) Rogers, P. (2011). The 'War on Terror' and International Security. Irish Studies in International Affairs, 15-23. 3.) U.S. Opinion on Terrorism. (2009, Nov). Retrieved Apr, 2015. 4.) 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Retrieved May 14, 2015, from http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/26/section-6-foreign-affairs-terrorism-and-privacy/ 16.) 2014 Chicago Council Survey of American Public Opinion and US Foreign Policy Shows Public Support for "Active" Role in World Affairs. (n.d.). Retrieved May 14, 2015, from http://www.thechicagocouncil.org/press-release/2014-chicago-council-survey-american-public-opinion-and-us-foreign-policy-shows-public [Type text][Type text][Type text] 1 ‘War on Terror’ Through American Eyes