Who said fight terror with terror

Survivors push for clarity as the 20th anniversary of the al-Qaeda attacks that killed nearly 3, nears. Twenty years ago, for a brief moment, the soul of the American people feared what the world fears all the time. By Chris Moody. Published On 8 Sep More from News. At COP26, nations strike climate deal that falls short. What has the COP26 climate summit achieved?

Dozens of Maoist rebels killed in India gun battle. It could easily reconstitute itself even if the United States captures or kills bin Laden and his lieutenants.

Future attacks might even involve the use of sophisticated germ warfare or radiological weapons, if not nuclear weapons. As at the start of the cold war, the United States response has begun with the arduous task of assembling a global coalition. In the new war against terrorism the United States also faces ideologically motivated foes who do not shrink from death. That is a tall order. Will Washington again overemphasize military force to achieve its goals and give short shrift to the non-military instruments of statecraft?

Will it again focus so narrowly on battle that it forgets other important foreign-policy goals? Will it cut deals today to gain support from other nations that will return to haunt it down the road-in much the same way that supporting the shah led to a deeply hostile Iran and arming Afghan rebels to fight the Soviet Union contributed to the terrorist threat the United States faces today?

Will it repudiate its own values at home as it tries to fend off an enemy abroad? It is crucial that the United States fight its new war against terrorism with the dedication and vigor that President Bush has promised. It is also crucial that it fight that war wisely. Washington must recognize the complexities of its new fight-and the pitfalls that lie before it.

Much of the fight will be conducted through diplomatic pressure; economic, financial, and political sanctions; and intelligence and law enforcement cooperation. But the first phase-capturing or killing bin Laden, destroying his Al Qaeda network in Afghanistan, and deposing the Taliban regime-will be predominantly military.

The administration launched the first phase of its military campaign on October 7, when United States and British forces struck from the air targets in Afghanistan. The first weeks of the campaign showed just how difficult things could be. Although United States and British forces quickly destroyed obvious Taliban and Al Qaeda targets, they also hit several civilian sites.

These accidents raised tensions within the international coalition the White House had painstakingly assembled in support of the operation, and especially with neighboring countries, such as Pakistan, that fear pro-Taliban sentiments within their own societies. Both bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar escaped capture, perhaps by fleeing to remote caves and valleys.

But they may also have taken refuge somewhere in the city of Khandahar, calculating that they would be safe from attack because of the American desire to avoid hitting civilians. But given the fractious nature of Afghani politics, both within and across ethnic groups, it was far from clear that the political campaign could ever catch up with the military one.

When attacks on front-line Taliban forces finally began in the third week of the campaign, they did not produce immediate gains by Northern Alliance forces. With luck, the military campaign against Afghanistan will end in a matter of weeks or months-with bin Laden and his network inside the country eliminated and the Taliban regime toppled from power.

But achieving this set of objectives will require a major and prolonged undertaking with significant costs.

And when it succeeds, the campaign against terrorism that Bush promised will only have begun. Just as the Korean War blunted communist expansion but did not end it, the administration will need to turn to a long, grinding, difficult and expensive campaign to disrupt, deter, and defeat terrorist operations elsewhere in the world. And while military force will continue to play some role in this effort, it will be a distinctly secondary role. Ivo H. Ultimately, for the Bush administration to succeed in its campaign against terrorism it must push ahead on three other fronts.

First, it must maintain the anti-terrorism coalition it has assembled in support of military operations in Afghanistan. The coalition is critical because the United States cannot defeat terrorism on its own: it needs other countries to share information about terrorist activities; impose tighter controls over illicit money, weapons and technology flows; isolate and pressure states that sponsor and support terrorists; and strike militarily if targets for action present themselves.

Unfortunately for the Bush administration, the anti-terrorism coalition is not robust. In the Persian Gulf war, more than two dozen countries, including several Arab nations, contributed troops to the fighting.

In contrast, American and British forces carried out the initial military operations in Afghanistan alone. Four other countries-Australia, Canada, France, and Germany-have offered to contribute forces at some future point. But significantly, no troops from the Arab or Islamic world participated in the fighting. Only Oman and Pakistan allowed their territory to be used as staging areas for thrusts into Afghan territory.

These governments fear, however, that joining with Washington will inflame anti-American sentiment in their own societies. Nor are Islamic countries the only ones unsure of how far to follow Washington. The issue most likely to fracture the coalition is Iraq.

President Bush quickly ruled out that option. Making Iraq the subject of military attack in a second phase of the campaign against terrorism poses problems for the Bush administration. The United States would almost certainly have to carry out the attack on its own and perhaps even without access to bases in the Persian Gulf area, making it far more difficult to win.

Russia, which has provided Washington with considerable intelligence cooperation since the crisis began, has good relations with Baghdad. To make matters worse for the administration, these same constraints hold with respect to using military force against Iran or Syria, two countries that have actively sponsored and harbored terrorist groups like Lebanon-based Hezbollah.

Iraq, Iran, and Syria are not the only issues that could fracture the antiterrorism coalition. Should military operations in Afghanistan drag on, or result in large numbers of civilian deaths, the Bush administration could find itself under increasing pressure abroad to end the mission prematurely.

The challenge facing the Bush administration in the near term is to strike the proper balance between its short-term military objectives in Afghanistan and elsewhere and its longer term objective to sustain the international cooperation necessary to conduct a successful fight against global terrorism. In doing so, it will attempt to make the mission define the coalition, rather than letting the coalition define the mission.

But it may then find itself confronting what every administration fears: what it wants to do, and perhaps should do, does not mesh with what it can do on its own. There may be times in the campaign against terrorism-as during the cold war itself-when going it alone is both necessary and desirable, but this should be the exception rather than the rule. Ultimately, the fight against global terrorism is one that the United States cannot win on its own.

The second step Washington must take is to improve homeland security. Much of the focus will understandably be on spending more money on the problem, but the immediate challenge will be to ensure that money is spent wisely. And here the core challenge is to organize the government so that it is more effective in providing homeland security.

As Dwight D. President Bush moved swiftly to address the organizational issue. Critics countered that a White House coordinator, even one who was a friend of the president, could not begin to meet the challenge facing the country.

We will rally the world. We will be patient. This battle will take time and resolve, but make no mistake about it, we will win. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated. Islamic militants, based in Spain but inspired by al Qaeda, are later considered the prime suspects.

Documents recovered in will reveal the attacks were planned by a British citizen working for al Qaeda. Bowe R. Bergdahl walks away from his post in Afghanistan and is kidnapped by the Taliban. Released in , he is later dishonorably discharged.

This month becomes the deadliest ever for U. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. The United States launched the war in Afghanistan following the September 11, terrorist attacks. The conflict lasted two decades and spanned four U.

By August , the war began to come to a close with the