FPIF Special Report
September 2004
A Secure America
in a Secure World
| Foreign Policy In Focus |
II. Introduction
Everything changed on September 11, 2001, and the United States will never be the same. This conventional wisdom has become a mantra, repeated over and over again by the media, and it continues to echo throughout America. The immediate aftermath of Sept. 11 offered the United States and the Bush administration a fateful choice. The Bush administration could have chosen a path to respond to terrorism that built upon a renewed sentiment of interest in foreign policy, diplomacy, and international affairs on the part of U.S. citizens and that leveraged the spirit of international solidarity and goodwill toward Americans that emerged in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, represented most dramatically in the famous Le Monde headline: Nous sommes tous Américains—We are all Americans, now.
Nearly three years after the tragic and criminal attacks, the Bush administration has clearly squandered that opportunity and chosen a path to combat terrorism that has weakened multilateral institutions, undermined the international legal architecture, and transformed international support into growing anti-American sentiment. Its efforts in this area, despite its avowed successes, reflect a major failure of leadership and—more importantly—have made Americans more vulnerable rather than more secure.
Box 1: What Is Terrorism? |
There is no single, universally accepted definition of terrorism. Even U.S. government agencies use different definitions. For the purposes of this agenda, we adopted the definition of terrorism used by the Bush administration in its Homeland Security Strategy: “any premeditated, unlawful act dangerous to human life or public welfare that is intended to intimidate or coerce civilian populations or governments.” We consider this a useful definition, both because it captures the essence of what is involved in terrorist violence and because it is broad enough to include as terrorism acts committed by states as well as nonstate groups. According to this definition, a whole range of nations—including the United States—and numerous international terrorist groups like al-Qaida have engaged in terrorist acts. A consensus definition of terrorism has eluded even the U.S. government. The Pentagon, the FBI, the State Department, and the Department of Homeland Security as well as key government policy documents all use different definitions of terrorism, distinguished mainly by whether state agents are included. For example, the National Security Strategy articulated in September 2002 defines terrorism as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against innocents.” But the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism published in February 2003 adopts a version of the State Department definition, which excludes states: “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.” Meanwhile, the Department of Defense defines terrorism as “the calculated use, or threatened use, of force or violence against individuals or property to coerce or intimidate governments or societies, often to achieve political, religious, or ideological objectives.” Finally, the USA PATRIOT Act, adopted in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, adds yet another definition of terrorism to the U.S. criminal code (domestic terrorism) and amends three legal definitions of terrorism already on the books (federal terrorism, international terrorism, and terrorism transcending national borders). Section 802 of the PATRIOT Act defines domestic terrorism as involving “acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States,” if the actor’s intent is to “influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion.” This could be used to define as terrorism a whole range of nonviolent forms of political activism and dissent. |
Executive Summary | Introduction | A Failed Policy | A New Framework | Changing Course | Endnotes
App. 1: Funding for Counterterrorism | App. 2: Major U.N. Conventions Against Terrorism |
App. 3: U.N. Security Council Resolutions Regarding Terrorism Post-September 11, 2001
Foreign Policy In Focus Task Force on Terrorism
| Published by Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF), a joint project of the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC, online at www.irc-online.org) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS, online at www.ips-dc.org). ©2004. All rights reserved. Recommended Citation Web location: Production Information |
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