War on Terrorism: A Thumbnail Introduction

Dr. William E. DeMars
Chairman, Department of Government
Wofford College

I lived in Cairo, Egypt from 1996 to 2000 with my wife Therese and our three (and later four) children. During 1997 there were two large terrorist attacks in Egypt. One occurred in downtown Cairo just a quarter mile from the American University in Cairo where I was teaching at the time (we could read about it 20 minutes later at CNN.com while watching the smoke out the window). Another killed more than 60 tourists at an ancient monument in Luxor. While these events were horrible, they made surprisingly little impact on the daily lives of Americans like us living in Egypt. The terrorists never targeted resident foreigners in Egypt. We felt quite safe in some respects since the rate of violent crime was low and most Egyptians were extremely hospitable and would protect a foreigner if there were any trouble. On the other hand, we had greater safety worries from the street traffic and air pollution.

After 1997, terrorist attacks declined in Egypt. We only learned the true reason in the last few months: the leading Egyptian terrorist group stopped attacking targets in Egypt because they were in the process of joining forces with Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda to attack American targets. (So far Americans and other expatriates remain safe in Egypt, where we still have friends.)

September 11 was not the first time Al Qaeda has attacked Americans. The World Trade Center in New York was first bombed in 1993 in an attack that has since been traced to Al Qaeda. Before 18 American Marines were killed in Somalia the same year, Al Qaeda had provided training for Somali fighters to take on the Americans. Nineteen American soldiers were killed in the bombing of Kowbar Towers barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1996, and 17 more were killed in 2000 when the U.S.S. Cole was bombed in Aden Harbor, Yemen. In between, in August 1998, U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in Africa were attacked by car bombs, killing 224 people, mostly Africans. It was this embassy attack that finally alerted the U.S. government to the threat from Osama bin Laden’s group, and led to tracing the earlier attacks to Al Qaeda.

The current U.S. war on terrorism has at least five distinct dimensions. First, and probably most important, is governmental cooperation involving 60 national governments to track down and arrest perhaps ten thousand Al Qaeda activists trained by Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. This cooperation with include intelligence sharing, law enforcement, and military training. Second is the “Axis of Evil,” President Bush’s title for the three countries that are pursuing atomic, chemical, or biological weapons, and who may provide them to terrorists for use on American targets. I expect that the United States will soon overthrow the government of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, will attempt to persuade Iran to change its foreign policy, and will help pick up the pieces when North Korea finally falls apart.

The third dimension of the U.S. war on terrorism is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that has intensified in recent months. Very much against the wishes of President Bush, both the radical Palestinian suicide bombers and the Israeli military mounting incursions into Palestinian towns have done their best to insert their war into the American war on terrorism. How can the United States get intelligence and law enforcement cooperation from Arab governments or go after Saddam Hussein while fighting continues in Palestine and Israel? Secretary of State Colin Powell has this impossible puzzle to solve.

The fourth dimension is homeland security, an almost impossible task because the unpredictable nature of terrorism requires you to guard everything. The sight of armed National Guardsmen at American airports gives just a hint of what many other nations have faced for decades.

Finally, the war on terrorism must include some effort at religious and political dialogue with the Islamic world. The suicide hijackers of September 11 may have misinterpreted the Muslim faith to justify their action. But they have left an enormous challenge for the rest of us--Muslims, Christians, Jews, and those with other religious or philosophic beliefs. The question is thrust before us: How can we live together? Here at Wofford we can intensify our own practice of religious freedom. We can deepen our understanding of our own religious or philosophical tradition while learning about others, including Islam. Unlike the hijackers who changed our lives by taking lives, we can honor the freedom and reason of the human person.

(To learn more, see www.terrorismanswers.com.)