Essential Question 5

How has the west become a main point in the “War on Terror?”

3 aspects behind our conflict with militant Islamic groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

3 aspects behind our conflict with militant Islamic groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

  • Al Qaeda was behind:

    • 1993 truck bombing on world trade center

      • Killed 6, injured 1,000, $300,000,000 of damage

    • 1998 US embassy bombings in East Africa

      • 300 dead

    • October 2000 suicide of military destroyer USS cole in Yemen

      • 17 dead

      • 9/11- on September 11, 2001 Al Qaeda hijacked 4 planes

        • Two destroyed the Twin Towers in New York killing thousands of people

        • One hit into the Pentagon in Washington D.C. causing major damage

        • In one plane that was supposed to hit the White House, the passengers retook control of the plane and it crashed in a field in Pennsylvania

        • everyone on all the planes died

  • This all happened because:

  • US refused to pay these groups after winning the war against the Soviet Union after the they promised they would

  • The US’s strong support of Israel

  • They disagree with the US being the “World Police”

  • Extremists dislike the west secular attitude

Timeline

  1. September 11th 2001: Al Qaeda-led 9/11 attacks prompt then-president George W. Bush to initiate the war, targeting Al Qaeda’s headquarters and Taliban support in Afghanistan

  2. October 7 2001: The U.S. and the U.K. launch airstrike campaign Operation Enduring Freedom after the Taliban refused to extradite Osama bin Laden.

  3. October 10th 2001: Taliban refuses to tell where Bin Laden is

  4. December 2001: The ISAF is established to oversee all military operations in Afghanistan and train the Afghan National Security Forces. The same month, Hamid Karzai is sworn in as chairman of an interim government replacing the defeated Taliban

  5. March 2002: US launches project Anaconda (Plan to uproot Taliban and Al Qaeda holdouts

  6. May 1st 2003: Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Karzai announce that major combat in Afghanistan has ended and the focus has shifted to reconstruction

  7. October 29 2004: Osama bin Laden releases a video message claiming responsibility for 9/11 and threatening the West with more violence.

  8. 2012: Obama announces that the U.S. will withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014

Have our actions in the War in Afghanistan helped or hurt our image in the world?

  • Hurt our image

    • Although we killed Osama Bin Laden, Taliban and Al Qaeda are still around

      • Killing Osama Bin Laden does nothing because they can still get a new leader

    • We owe a lot of money

      • The US continues to pay money daily because of war

      • $1 Trillion dollars since 2001

    • 3,487 of our soldiers died

      • We still have 10,000+ troops in Afghanistan

    • Even though we are chasing Al Qaeda and the Taliban to Pakistan, they are still around
  • Helped our image
    • We took down an extremely dangerous threat
      • Bin Laden

Sources