History has demonstrated that nations often compromise on guaranteeing civil rights to their citizens as they mobilize against threats to national security. In combating global terrorism after the scourge of September 11th, the US too fell victim to this perennial fate.
The 9/11 attacks marked an inflection point in American and, ultimately, world history. The hijacking of commercial airplanes to be used in the killing of 3000 American citizens laid bare the devastating capabilities of modern terrorist organizations and wrought a massive US-led counterterrorism offensive spanning twenty years. Yet, the US led campaign, while aimed at deterring the new threat terrorism posed, exceeded its security mandate through various domestic policies and actions committed abroad. Through privacy-breaching legislation such as the Patriot Act, prejudicial executive branch programs towards Muslim Americans, and the grossly inhumane treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo and Abu Graihb Prisons, US counterterrorism efforts infringed upon the civil rights of American citizens and prisoners of war. As a result, these actions seriously stained the US’s reputation for upholding the rule of law which in turn hindered their counterterrorism efforts abroad.
However, confronting global terrorism now occupies less attention from states than it has for the last two decades as new security concerns take centerstage in the international political theater. The recent passing of the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, along with the one-year anniversary of the US military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, serves as a glaring reminder of the new geopolitical reality. With war raging in Ukraine, tensions escalating between the US and China over the fate of Taiwan, and the ever-present climate dilemma, the international community has redirected its efforts away from combating terrorism, which many critics alleged were excessive in the first place for what they perceived as an exaggerated threat. Today, states’ counterterrorism efforts rely less on physical ground forces operating in foreign countries, but instead primarily employ modern military technology to neutralize terrorist threats. This is clearly evidenced through the US’s recent killing of top Al-Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, through a precision drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan in August of 2022.
As the world transitions away from counterterrorism to face these mounting challenges, the US is increasingly trying to revive the liberal international order and reassert itself as the leader thereof to overcome the new post-9/11 struggles. Yet, in order to do so, the aforementioned stumbles made during the war on terror must be acknowledged and avoided in the US’s renewed efforts, due to their fundamental incongruence with the principles that guide the coalition the US seeks to lead. Particularly, the necessity of protecting civil rights in the midst of conflict cannot be disregarded, but instead must be firmly apprehended by a reinvigorated liberal international order. Absent this, an American-led response will lack the legitimacy necessary to surmount the obstacles ahead.
As previously mentioned, the US exceeded in its efforts to combat terrorist threats in several instances following the 9/11 attacks, one of the most infamous being the passing of the USA/PATRIOT Act. Enacted by Congress in order to “deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the world, to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools, and for other purposes,” the Patriot Act was passed at a time of intense public anxiety over the threat of another terrorist attack on American soil. Indeed, the Patriot Act’s massive expansion of government surveillance on American citizens reflected the fear experienced in the wake of 9/11 and constituted one of the most significant threats to civil rights in contemporary American history. Legislators substantially rewrote the nation’s surveillance laws by enhancing the government’s authority to collect information on individuals through searching private property and monitoring personal third party interaction without notice. Additionally, the Patriot Act did not require the government to provide evidence that the information seized was done so on suspicion of criminal activity, but could justify their conduct by stating that they were searching for information “related to an ongoing terrorism or foreign intelligence investigation.” Along with other expansions of government surveillance authority, the Patriot Act undermined the guarantees of the US Constitution’s Fourth Amendment which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures by the state. In trampling upon the liberties codified by the Fourth Amendment, this legislation undermined the US’s global image as a steadfast steward of civil rights.
Further, the war on terror saw the civil rights of minority groups threatened as well, particularly those of Muslim Americans. In a wave of Islamophobic violence following September 11th, the FBI reported that 481 anti-Muslim hate crimes were committed in 2001, a staggering increase from only 28 reported in 2000. Further, hate crimes against Muslims increased exponentially by 500% between 2000 and 2009 even as the total number of hate crimes being committed in the US decreased by 18% during this same period.
Muslim Americans also faced encroachments on their civil rights through various executive branch policies, the most brazen of which being the 2002 Special Registration Program announced by then Attorney General John Ashcroft. Under this program, visitors to the US were singled out from men ages 16 and over from thirty-three majority Muslim countries to register with US immigration authorities in order to be fingerprinted, photographed, questioned, and subjected to routine reports. These policies imposed discriminative legal burdens on Muslims which the majority of Americans did not face, showing little regard towards their guarantee to equal protection under the law. Additionally, the inherent prejudice of these policies portrayed Muslims as the enemy in American society which contributed to their further stigmatization. However, it should be noted that the Bush and Obama Administrations did make efforts towards bettering relations with Muslim Americans through partnerships with civil society groups to promote Muslim advancement. Nonetheless, the treatment Muslims endured following 9/11 resulted in their misrepresentation as anti-American terrorists, in spite of the fact that the overwhelming majority of Muslims reject the violent extremism espoused by actual jihadists.
However, the most gruesome cases of civil rights violations resulting from counterterrorism efforts came from the treatment of prisoners at both Abu Graihb and Guantanamo Bay Prisons. At Abu Graihb, detainees were subjected to gross mistreatment including sexual abuse, beatings, and other severe forms of torture, as revealed through photographs leaked out of the facility in April 2004. Most detainees at Abu Graihb were not even associated with terrorist or insurgent forces in Iraq, but were instead civilians merely arrested at random military checkpoints. Similarly, several prisoners at Guantanamo were also civilians who were purported to be terrorists by bounty hunters being offered $5,000 by the US in Afghanistan and Pakistan in exchange for Al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects. Detainees at Guantanamo were almost always held without charge and forced to endure torture under the Bush Administration’s infamous “enhanced interrogation” program. Even today, 41 prisoners are still being held, almost all without charge or trial. Ultimately, American personnel at both prisons disregarded the legal standards of habeas corpus along with the prohibition against torture under the UN Convention Against Torture, severely infringing upon the rights of detainees.
Even though they were committed in the fight against terrorism, the previously mentioned actions against civil rights undermined US counterterrorism efforts. Privacy breaches under the Patriot Act engendered anxiety among Americans towards government surveillance, with a 2014 Pew Research study finding that 80% of respondents either “agree” or “strongly agree” that Americans should be more concerned with the government’s monitoring of phone calls and internet communications. Indeed, this sentiment contributed to a brewing lack of trust among Americans in their government and added to the dismay the public increasingly viewed the war on terror with. This disaffection was only amplified by the grievances of Muslim Americans who suffered through mistreatment and misrepresentation as a result of these actions.
Similarly, the treatment of prisoners at Abu Graihb and Guantanamo seriously stained America’s reputation for upholding the rule of law. These actions showed no respect for ensuring proper treatment of prisoners or the US’s own domestic legal standards in Middle-Eastern countries where American forces were deployed. Additionally, these violations of civil rights inadvertently aided terrorist organizations by providing them with propaganda material of US soldiers abusing prisoners that they employed to recruit new insurgents. Overall, the US’s mistreatment of prisoners added to the difficulty the US military already faced in working with security partners in Iraq and Afghanistan which ultimately hampered American counterterrorism efforts in these regions.
Yet, greater threats now present themselves in the international political arena and counterterrorism no longer receives the same degree of commitment as it had for the last twenty years. And as the US attempts to mobilize the liberal international community to confront these challenges, it appears ever more clearly why the errors of the war on terror must be acknowledged and avoided. Compromising on civil rights and disregarding the rule of law to achieve new security objectives will again be met with the same consequences that plagued American counterterrorism efforts during the war on terror. Not only will the practical effectiveness of a new American-led response be dulled, but its legitimacy in the eyes of its liberal allies will also be reduced. For how can the US claim to be the true leader of the liberal international order if it does not respect its core tenets in pursuing new security goals, and recognize where it strayed from these principles in the past as well? Even more so, the gravity of these new challenges, particularly that posed by China, means that the efforts of the US and its allies cannot afford to lack strength. No longer are primary threats posed by insurgents with AK-47s. Now, countries with advanced militaries that seek to see the liberal international order torn asunder and themselves crowned as the new global hegemon, constitute the struggles of the post-9/11 world.
Ultimately, an American-led coalition will be successful in confronting these challenges if the US adheres to the liberal values of the community that it attempts to revive, and acknowledges where it deviated from them in the past.