US military may dampen human rights focus in Africa

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Military Operations ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Global War On Terror ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
Drone Strikes ◽  
Security Assistance ◽  
Regional Engagement ◽  
Global War

Significance The attack comes amid fears over increasing securitisation of the US government's engagements and policy towards Africa, just as AFRICOM reaches the tenth anniversary of its establishment. Security assistance to African countries has increased dramatically as part of the global war on terror. Impacts The Trump administration's prioritisation of security assistance will increase African public scepticism of US regional engagement. Drone strikes and special operation forces will be AFRICOM’s preferred means of direct military operations. A new controversy akin to the 2012 coup in Mali which was led by a US-trained officer could undermine US military standing on the continent.

scholarly journals Captured by the camera's eye: Guantánamo and the shifting frame of the Global War on Terror

2010 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 1721-1749 ◽  
Author(s):  
ELSPETH VAN VEEREN
Keyword(s):  
Public Relations ◽  
War On Terrorism ◽  
Global War On Terror ◽  
Global War On Terrorism ◽  
Guantanamo Bay ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Media ◽  
Donald Rumsfeld ◽  
Global War

AbstractIn January 2002, images of the detention of prisoners held at US Naval Station Guantanamo Bay as part of the Global War on Terrorism were released by the US Department of Defense, a public relations move that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld later referred to as ‘probably unfortunate’. These images, widely reproduced in the media, quickly came to symbolise the facility and the practices at work there. Nine years on, the images of orange-clad ‘detainees’ – the ‘orange series’ – remain a powerful symbol of US military practices and play a significant role in the resistance to the site. However, as the site has evolved, so too has its visual representation. Official images of these new facilities not only document this evolution but work to constitute, through a careful (re)framing (literal and figurative), a new (re)presentation of the site, and therefore the identities of those involved. The new series of images not only (re)inscribes the identities of detainees as dangerous but, more importantly, work to constitute the US State as humane and modern. These images are part of a broader effort by the US administration to resituate its image, and remind us, as IR scholars, to look at the diverse set of practices (beyond simply spoken language) to understand the complexity of international politics.

The barbarians of Fallujah

Race & Class ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-36
Author(s):  
Matt Carr
Keyword(s):  
War On Terror ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Moral Legitimacy ◽  
Moral Imperative ◽  
Global War On Terror ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
Global War ◽  
The City

The `global war on terror' is often represented as a struggle between incompatible opposites, of good versus evil, terror versus democracy and civilisation versus barbarism. The deployment of such dichotomies was part of the background to the onslaught on Fallujah in 2004, serving to provide the US military with the appearance of moral legitimacy, as it turned the city to rubble in order to `save' it. In the US media, the arrogant assumption that the US is civilisationally superior both to the `barbarians' its armies were fighting in the city and to the broader mass of the Iraqi population, was a recurring theme among neo-conservative and pro-war liberal ideologues. Yet, with the city's destruction presented as a moral imperative on behalf of civilised values, there has been scant examination of the allegations that US forces were guilty of war crimes. Moreover, the attack on Fallujah shows that civilisation and barbarism are not diametrically opposed concepts in a `global war on terror' which continues to cause more death and destruction than the violence it is supposedly intended to eliminate.

scholarly journals Blurred lines

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Omar Dewachi
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Global War On Terror ◽  
Moral Framework ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Polio Vaccination ◽  
The Us ◽  
Global War ◽  
Vaccination Campaigns

The neutrality of medicine and health care professionals in different conflict settings in the Middle East have come under scrutiny in recent human rights reports, and should be seen as part of the broader fallout of the US-led ‘global war on terror.’ The last two decades of US military attacks on health infrastructures in Iraq and the use of polio-vaccination campaigns to track down ‘terrorists’ are acts of war that have further blurred the lines between health care and warfare. The failure of international legal processes and institutions to prevent such assaults or to prosecute those responsible raises questions about the Eurocentric system of checks and balances that shape international humanitarian law and its invocation as a ‘legal’ and ‘moral’ framework.

Congress offers few limits on US military action

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Coming Out ◽  
Cruise Missile ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
Content Type ◽  
White House ◽  
Military Action ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Executive Authority ◽  
The Us ◽  
Trump Administration

Significance The US cruise missile strike in response to the Syrian government’s nerve agent attack and hawkish rhetoric coming out of the White House about North Korea have highlighted the legal leeway for the president to order pre-emptive military action under executive authority without securing congressional approval in advance. The Trump administration ordering unilateral operations could set the presidency against Congress over the making of foreign policy and shape the political calculus of the White House when mulling military action. Impacts The Syria strike may revive the AUMF debate in Congress about updating legal authority for anti-IS military operations. Making threats to international adversaries could lock the White House into unintended escalations to avoid losing face. Repeated military operations without congressional buy-in could see greater contestation of Trump’s international agenda by Congress.

War and Terror

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Avinash Paliwal
Keyword(s):  
War On Terror ◽  
Global War On Terror ◽  
Military Action ◽  
Global Trend ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Global War

The Taliban’s destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha in March 2001 outraged India (and the world). It killed any scope for conciliation with the Taliban. In this context, the US decision to take military action in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks was welcomed by many in India. However, Washington’s decision to undertake such action without UN approval (which came only in December 2001) sparked another round of debate between the partisans and the conciliators. As this chapter shows, the former were enthusiastic about supporting the US in its global war on terror, but the latter advocated caution given Washington’s willingness to partner with Islamabad. Despite the global trend to ‘fight terrorism’, the conciliators were successful in steering India away from getting involved in Afghanistan militarily.

Deterrence and Democracy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Falkenrath
Keyword(s):  
War On Terror ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Global War On Terror ◽  
Counter Terrorism ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The Us ◽  
Democratic Societies ◽  
Global War ◽  
Taking Action ◽  
The Given

This chapter examines strategy and deterrence and traces the shift from deterrence by ‘punishment’ to deterrence by ‘denial’ in Washington’s conduct of the Global War on Terror. The former rested on an assumption that the consequences of an action would serve as deterrents. The latter may carry messages of possible consequences, but these are delivered by taking action that removes the capabilities available to opponents – in the given context, the Islamist terrorists challenging the US. Both approaches rest on credibility, but are more complex in the realm of counter-terrorism, where the US authorities have no obvious ‘return to sender’ address and threats to punish have questionable credibility. In this context, denial offers a more realistic way of preventing terrorist attacks. Yet, the advanced means available to the US are deeply ethically problematic in liberal democratic societies. However, there would likely be even bigger questions if governments failed to act.

Plausible Legality

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Sanders
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Habeas Corpus ◽  
Global War On Terror ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Drone Strikes ◽  
Indefinite Detention ◽  
Global War ◽  
Enhanced Interrogation

After 9/11, American officials authorized numerous contentious counterterrorism practices including torture, extraordinary rendition, indefinite detention, trial by military commission, targeted killing, and mass surveillance. While these policies sparked global outrage, the Bush administration defended them as legally legitimate. Government lawyers produced memoranda deeming enhanced interrogation techniques, denial of habeas corpus, drone strikes, and warrantless wiretapping lawful. Although it rejected torture, the Obama administration made similar claims and declined to prosecute abuses. This book seeks to understand how and why Americans repeatedly legally justified seemingly illegal security policies and what this tells us about the capacity of law to constrain state violence. It argues that legal cultures shape how political actors interpret, enact, and evade legal norms. In the global war on terror, a culture of legal rationalization encouraged authorities to seek legal cover—to construct the plausible legality of human rights violations—in order to ensure impunity for wrongdoing. In this context, law served as a permissive constraint, enabling abuses while imposing some limits on what could be plausibly legalized. Cultures of legal rationalization stand in contrast with other cultures prevalent in American history, including cultures of exception, which rely on logics of necessity and racial exclusion, and cultures of secrecy, which employ plausible deniability. Looking forward, legal norms remain vulnerable to manipulation and evasion. Despite the efforts of human rights advocates to encourage deeper compliance, the normalization of post-9/11 policy has created space for the Trump administration to promote a renewed culture of exception and launch bolder attacks on the rule of law.

Pulmonary Pathology Diagnoses in the US Military During the Global War on Terrorism

Lung ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael R. Lewin-Smith ◽  
Adriana Martinez ◽  
Daniel I. Brooks ◽  
Teri J. Franks
Keyword(s):  
War On Terrorism ◽  
Global War On Terrorism ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
Pulmonary Pathology ◽  
Global War

scholarly journals Organizacyjne i personalne ramy „globalnej wojny z terroryzmem” w świetle orzecznictwa sądów amerykańskich

Poliarchia ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (9) ◽  
pp. 51-95
Author(s):  
Dariusz Stolicki
Keyword(s):  
Use Of Force ◽  
The United States ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
Global War On Terror ◽  
Global War ◽  
The Impact

The Organizational and Personal Framework of the “Global War on Terror” in the Light of the Decisions of the United States Courts The article analyses the law of military detention applicable to the ongoing conflict with Al‑Qaeda and associated forces, to the extent that that law emerges from the jurisprudence of U.S. federal courts, and particularly of the D.C. Circuit. It discusses four major issues: the types of organizations against which military force can be used in accordance with the Congressional authorization, the range of persons subject to military detention in connection with such use of force (in terms of both legal categories and factual predicates), the scope of the battlefield on which the use of force is authorized, and the extent to which American citizens or foreigners lawfully present in the U.S. territory enjoy special immunity from military detention. The article concludes that the impact of the D.C. Circuit decisions on those questions extends beyond the issue of military detention, and provides the general legal framework applicable to other military operations directed against terrorist organizations in the Middle East, such as target strikes or the campagin against the self‑styled Islamic State.

Jihadist expansion into West Africa will take time

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Ivory Coast ◽  
West African ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Intelligence Sharing ◽  
Joint Operations ◽  
Hit And Run ◽  
Security Assistance

Significance While the overall number of incidents is fewer than a dozen since the rise of the region's jihadist insurgencies in the early 2010s, the trend lends credence to growing warnings about the jihadist threat to coastal West African countries. Concern has focused on Ivory Coast and Benin, but there is also nervousness about Ghana, Togo and even Senegal. Impacts Western governments will boost security assistance to coastal states. Intelligence sharing and joint operations will not forestall cross-border hit-and-run attacks. Most regional states will resort to security-focused responses whose abuses drive jihadist recruitment.

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