The US and the global war against terrorism **

The US and the global war against terrorism

Almost six years ago, one of the most shocking and dramatic events took place in the United States of America. We can still recall the moment in which we turned on the TV and watched the World Trade Center falling down in ashes and one of the Pentagon wings completely gone. That was the moment in which not only international diplomacy but also human history took a brand new direction.

It was the first time that a terrorist attack had hit the US and affected the citizens directly. As many political analysts once claimed, important foreign policy changes were carried out after 9/11 and especially in regard to external relationships. A few weeks later, President Bus inmediately decided to declare a global war against terrorism. Although he wasn’t backed up by the United Nations Security Committee, he gathered the support of the Republican Party and the members of NATO to start war in the Middle East. At this point, after five years of fighting, the consequences it has brought can’t be ignored anymore and in this sense the American people are starting to work out new ways to make this conflict stop once and for all.

At the beginning, when war was officially declared on October 7, 2001, the US government announced that Afghanistan would be the first target because it was the place where Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda was hidden. Afterwards, they attacked Iraq and the United States government gave many different types of explanations to justify the true reason for going to war: economic interests, basically based on oil. Different political analysts after have concluded that the war hide important interests supported mainly by the most important petrol industries.

One justification was that Iraq was developing chemical plants to produce weapons of mass destruction. In this sense the UN formed a special committee known as the 9/11 committee to research and explore the area. And as a consequence of the lack of weapons of mass destruction all along the country the UN refused to support the United States in its war against Iraq.

Another aspect I would like to point out about the US explanations to justify war is that at some point, those who decided on aggression end up paying a price. Specialists say that nowadays terrorism is the main threat for the US and in order to face it the country decided to strengthen their national and international security as well as to become the leader of a war that hides many aspects that haven’t been totally discovered yet. It is not an easy but a rather complex reality that has to be solved urgently.

On one hand, the truth after all is that US citizens, who used to support the war that the government started after Wall Street, are suffering more than never the fact of living in a constant war. A great part of the nation is starting to march in order to re-establish peace and to convince the government to end up war. And also the US families are willing to have their sons back once for all.

On the other hand, we should analyze whether a nation can declare war on another one in spite of not having the support of the United Nations. Is there any valid explanation to sacrifice such a huge number of lives and cause serious harm in many aspects just in order to obtain nothing else but economic benefits?