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After 23 Years, It’s Time to End the War on Terror for Good
Isn’t it time to free the country up to focus on truly pressing national concerns instead of letting the aberrations of the past continue to haunt the present moment?
Oct 03, 2024
September marked the 23rd anniversary of al Qaeda’s 2001 attacks on the United States, which left nearly 3,000 people dead. For the two decades since then, I’ve been writing, often for TomDispatch, about the ways the American response to 9/11, which quickly came to be known as the Global War on Terror, or GWOT, changed this country. As I’ve explored in several books, in the name of that war, we transformed our institutions, privileged secrecy over transparency and accountability, side-stepped and even violated longstanding laws and constitutional principles, and basically tossed aside many of the norms that had guided us as a nation for two centuries-plus, opening the way for a country now in Trumpian-style difficulty at home.
Even today, more than two decades later, the question remains: Will the war on terror ever end?
Certainly, one might be inclined to answer in the affirmative following the recent unexpected endorsement of presidential candidate Kamala Harris by two leading members of the George W. Bush administration which, in response to those attacks, launched the GWOT. First, Bush’s vice president, Dick Cheney, who, after September 11, sought to take the country down the path to what he called “the dark side” and was a chief instigator of the misguided and fraudulently justified invasion of Iraq in 2003, endorsed Vice President Harris. Then, so did Alberto Gonzales who, while serving as White House counsel to George W. Bush and then as his attorney general, was intricately involved in crafting that administration’s grim torture policy. (You remember, of course, those “enhanced interrogation techniques.”) He was similarly involved in creating the overreaching surveillance policy designed and implemented during the first years of the war on terror.
Consider those surprising endorsements by former Bush war hawks a possible coda for the war on terror as a major factor in American politics. In fact, for almost a decade and a half now, there have been signs suggesting that the denouement of that war might be at hand (though it never quite was). Those markers included the May 2011 lethal raid on the hideout of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden; President Barack Obama’s December 2011 authorization for the “final” withdrawal of American troops from Iraq (though a cadre of 2,500 military personnel are stationed there presently and another 900 are in neighboring Syria). In August 2021, 10 years after the killing of bin Laden, the U.S. did finally exit, however disastrously, from its lost war in Afghanistan. And in 2022, a U.S. drone strike killed bin Laden’s successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
The counterterrorism measures have had an impact on the American threat environment. As reported in the Department of Homeland Security’s 2024 Homeland Threat Assessment, in 2022, “Only one attack in the United States was conducted by an individual inspired by a foreign terrorist organization” such as al Qaeda or ISIS.
Terrorism Prosecutions
Notably, prosecutions of alleged international terrorists have declined precipitously since the Bush administration years (and some of the convictions then have been reversed or altered). In a 2009 report, the Justice Department stated that, “since September 11, 2001, the Department has charged 512 individuals with terrorism or terrorism-related crimes and convicted or obtained guilty pleas in 319 terrorism-related and anti-terrorism cases.” Soon after that, however, the decline began. TRAC, a database that monitors such cases, reported that, in October 2014, “[t]here were no prosecutions recorded that involved international terrorism.” By 2022, TRAC was reporting that the number of domestic terrorism prosecutions far outnumbered international terrorism cases, due in large part to the charges leveled against those involved in the January 6th insurrection. And that trend has only continued. This year, as TRAC indicated, “Overall, the data show that convictions of this type are down 28.6 percent from levels reported in 2019.”
And when it comes to terrorism prosecutions, something unthinkable not so long ago has now happened. Several judges have recently given early release or simply overturned cases involving individuals convicted and sentenced in jihadi-inspired terrorism cases during the first decade of the war on terror. In July 2024, Eastern District of Virginia Judge Leonie Brinkema threw out 3 of 10 charges against and overturned a conviction carrying a life sentence for Ali Al-Timimi, a U.S.-born computational biology scholar sentenced in 2004 for soliciting treason by inspiring his followers to commit acts of violence abroad to defend Islam. Judge Brinkema reversed her decision following a 2019 U.S. Supreme Court decision that found the term “crime of violence” to be “unconstitutionally vague.” Al-Timimi’s fate on the other counts is now on appeal. Having been released to home confinement after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, he now no longer faces a life sentence, though, as The Associated Press reports, he could potentially see “decades of prison time beyond the 15 years he already served.”
Nor was this Brinkema’s first reversal in a terrorism case. In 2018, she ordered the release of two prisoners convicted in what was known as the Virginia “Paintball Jihad” case following two Supreme Court rulings that held the charges in those cases to be similarly unconstitutionally vague.
If only in acting to restore a balance between punishment and the law, even when it comes to post-9/11 terrorism cases, Judges MacMahon and Brinkema had set an example for others.
And Judge Brinkema was not alone in reviewing and reversing post-9/11 terrorism convictions. This year, in two controversial cases, judges reassessed rulings they had once made, releasing from prison those they had sentenced in the war on terror years. Judge Colleen MacMahon granted “compassionate release” to James Cromitie, after six months earlier ordering the release of his three codefendants, commonly referred to collectively as the “Newburgh Four.” At sentencing, MacMahon had indicated her disagreement with the initial outcome of the case which led to 25-year sentences for the defendants convicted on charges that involved plotting to bomb synagogues and shoot down American planes with stinger missiles, describing their crime as that of “allegedly planting ‘bombs’ that were packed with inert explosives supplied by the FBI.” She further chastised the FBI in her compassionate release ruling, claiming, “Nothing about the crimes of conviction was of defendants’ own making. The FBI invented the conspiracy, identified the targets, manufactured the ordnance, federalized what would otherwise have been a state crime…, and picked the day for the ‘mission.’”
Four years earlier, in late 2019, a federal judge in Lodi, California overturned the conviction of Hamid Hayat, convicted in 2006 for attending a terrorist training camp in Pakistan and plotting an attack on this country, on the grounds that his counsel had ineffectively assisted him. Following that vacated conviction, the National Security Division at the Department of Justice reviewed the case and decided against filing new charges concluding “that the passage of time and the interests of justice counsel against resurrecting this 15-year-old case.” Having served 14 years of a 24-year sentence, Hayat was released.
The “passage of time” in these cases had led to a rethinking of the uses of justice and law after 9/11. Sadly enough, it has not resulted in sunsetting two of the major initiatives of the war on terror—the authorization for the initial military response to the 9/11 attacks that led to this country’s disastrous military engagements in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and the creation of the Guantánamo Bay Detention Facility.
The 2001 AUMF
One glaring element of the war on terror that has defied any sense of ending is the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force, or AUMF, passed by Congress in the days just after 9/11, which initially green-lit the invasion of Afghanistan. It’s still on the books.
Unlike prior authorizations for war, the 2001 authorization included no temporal limits, no geographical boundaries, and no named enemy. It was a classic blank check for launching attacks anywhere in the name of the war on terror and has indeed been used to justify attacks in dozens of countries throughout the Middle East and Africa, including against “unspecified organizations and individuals connected to international terrorism,” as a Council on Foreign Relations overview reports. As Georgetown professor Rosa Brooks has pointed out, the temporal open-endedness of that AUMF defied international law and norms in which “a state’s right to respond to an armed attack is clearly subject to some temporal limitations; it does not last indefinitely.” Or at least it shouldn’t.
Year after year, Congress has indeed considered sunsetting that 2001 AUMF, as well as the 2002 authorization for war in Iraq. After all, the landscape of international terrorism has changed vastly since the post-9/11 years. While the threat hasn’t disappeared, it has been transfigured. As the 2024 Annual Threat Assessment issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence points out, “While al Qaeda has reached an operational nadir in Afghanistan and Pakistan and ISIS has suffered cascading leadership losses in Iraq and Syria, regional affiliates will continue to expand.”
The war in Gaza has, of course, further changed the terrorism landscape. According to FBI Director Chris Wray, Hamas’ October 7th attack on Israel took the threat of foreign terrorism to “a whole ‘nother level.”
However, the 2001 authorization for the war on terror that remains in place is not an apt authorization for the new brand of terrorism or for the war in Gaza. It has so far made no difference that a 2022 National Security Strategy issued by the Biden White House pledged “to work with the Congress to replace outdated authorizations for the use of military force with a narrow and specific framework appropriate to ensure that we can continue to protect Americans from terrorist threats.” To date, no such narrowed framework has come into existence. And while Congress has repeatedly tried to sunset that piece of legislation, largely under the leadership of California Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Lee (the sole member of Congress who insightfully opposed it in 2001 on the grounds of its expansive overreach), such efforts have failed year after year after year. With Lee’s departure from office this coming January, the possibility of such a sunset will lose its most ardent proponent.
The Forever Prison
By far the most egregious relic of the war on terror is undoubtedly that forever war’s forever prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. True, the number of detainees still held there—30—is down dramatically from the “roughly 780 detainees” in 2002. And 16 of those detainees have now been cleared for release (a review board having determined that they no longer pose a threat to the United States), while three remain in indefinite detention, and 11 others are in the military commissions system either facing charges or convicted. And true, President Joe Biden’s administration has made some progress in those commissions, arranging plea deals to resolve the cases of those who have been charged, as in that of two detainees who had been tortured and who pleaded guilty to charges related to terrorist bombings in Bali, Indonesia.
But whatever progress has been made during this administration, there have been two major setbacks.
First, early in the fall of 2023, the Biden administration reportedly arranged for the transfer of 11 Yemeni detainees to Oman. As The New York Times‘s Carol Rosenberg reported, thanks to Hamas’ October 7th attack on Israel, “A military cargo plane was already on the runway at Guantánamo Bay ready to airlift the group of Yemeni prisoners to Oman when the trip was called off.” Had that transfer occurred, the prison population would have dwindled to 19. But worries about a newly unstable Middle East left members of Congress uneasy and, according to Rosenberg, they expressed their concerns to the State Department and so succeeded in halting the transfer.
Twenty-three years later, there is arguably no greater reminder of both the need to put the war on terror behind us and an all-American inability to do so than the continued existence of Guantánamo.
In July, however, a momentous forward step did take place. Brigadier General Susan Escallier, the Pentagon’s Convening Authority for Guantánamo, the person in charge of the military commissions there, finally authorized a plea deal that had been in the works for years. It involved three of five defendants in that prison’s signature case, the prosecution of those accused of conspiring in and abetting the 9/11 attacks, including their alleged mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The grim years of torture of those five codefendants at CIA “black sites” around the globe had long made it impossible to bring the case to court.
However, a deal was finally reached. As Chief Prosecutor Rear Admiral Aaron Rugh explained, “In exchange for the removal of the death penalty as a possible punishment, these three accused have agreed to plead guilty to all of the charged offenses, including the murder of the 2,976 people listed in the charge sheet.” Other parts of the agreement remain secret, but it still seemed like a huge step forward had been taken in bringing justice to the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks. After endless pretrial hearings, filings, and motions—and no trial—there seemed at least to be a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. In the words of Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the plea deal “was the best path forward to finality and justice.”
Unfortunately, only two days after the announced deal, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin mysteriously revoked it, issuing a two-page memorandum that managed to provide no explanation whatsoever for his decision.
Twenty-three years later, there is arguably no greater reminder of both the need to put the war on terror behind us and an all-American inability to do so than the continued existence of Guantánamo. There, at an estimated expense of more than $13 million per prisoner per year, judges and lawyers, many of whom favor plea deals, continue to play their roles as if a trial in the 9/11 case will ever be possible; as if the passage of time without resolution is an acceptable solution; and as if the example of indefinite detention, the use of torture, and a system that can’t adjudicate justice doesn’t continue to undermine the American promise of justice for all.
Moving Forward?
If only, in acting to restore a balance between punishment and the law, even when it comes to post-9/11 terrorism cases, Judges MacMahon and Brinkema had set an example for others. Certainly, at this truly late date, President Biden and Secretary of Defense Austin should have accepted—and should now reconsider and accept—the plea deal for those 9/11 co-defendants as a way of helping this country finally move past the 9/11 era and those endless, disastrous wars on terror. Isn’t it time to free the country up to focus on truly pressing national concerns instead of letting the aberrations of the past continue to haunt the present moment? Along these lines, perhaps it’s also the moment for Congress to sunset the 9/11 authorization for open-ended all-American global warfare.
Isn’t it truly time to move on from the war on terror’s lingering and painful legacy?
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Far-Right Endorsements Unmask Democratic Charade
The fight against Trump's authoritarianism, while certainly necessary, is being used as cover to shore up support for a status quo that is itself profoundly anti-democratic in its functioning.
Sep 14, 2024
In recent months, a curious phenomenon has emerged in American politics—the endorsement of Democratic candidates by figures traditionally associated with the Republican far right. Most notably, former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz Cheney made headlines by throwing their support behind Kamala Harris' presidential bid. This unexpected alliance has been framed by centrist media outlets as a heartening example of cross-party unity in the face of former President Donald Trump's purported threat to democracy. However, a more critical examination reveals that these endorsements are less a triumph of democratic values and more a damning indictment of the current political status quo.
The Illusion of a 'Popular Front'
Defenders of this unlikely alliance argue that it represents a necessary "popular front" against the authoritarian threat posed by Trump and his supporters. They contend that in times of crisis, we must set aside ideological differences and unite to preserve the foundations of our democracy. But this framing relies on a fundamentally flawed premise—that the system these centrists and right-wingers are rallying to protect is itself truly democratic.
The political establishment that the Cheneys and their Democratic allies seek to preserve is one that perpetuates endless wars and military interventions across the globe, from Iraq to Libya to the ongoing support for Israel's assault on Gaza. It allows for and exacerbates grotesque levels of economic inequality, with wealth increasingly concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite. This system routinely supports and arms authoritarian regimes when it aligns with U.S. corporate interests, from Saudi Arabia to Thailand. It oversees a mass incarceration system that disproportionately targets communities of color and fails to take meaningful action on existential threats like climate change due to the influence of fossil fuel lobbyists.
The Democratic Party's willingness to embrace far-right endorsements puts the lie to their posturing as champions of the working class and foes of elite power.
This is the system that the so-called "popular front" is mobilizing to defend. Not a beacon of democracy, but a corrupt oligarchy that masquerades as one. The fight against Trump's authoritarianism, while certainly necessary, is being used as cover to shore up support for a status quo that is itself profoundly anti-democratic in its functioning.
The embrace of figures like the Cheneys also reveals a deeply troubling moral relativism at the heart of the Democratic establishment. Dick Cheney, after all, was one of the primary architects of the Iraq War—a conflict built on lies that resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths and destabilized an entire region. He has been an unapologetic defender of torture and a champion of unchecked executive power.
That Democrats would welcome such a figure into their tent speaks volumes about their own moral compass and political priorities. It suggests that in their calculus, the taint of association with war criminals and corporate oligarchs is outweighed by the potential electoral benefits. This is not principled politics—it is cynical maneuvering that betrays any claim to real progressive values.
The Bankruptcy of Centrism and the Democratic Establishment
Central to understanding this phenomenon is recognizing the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of political centrism as it exists in the United States today. Centrists pride themselves on their supposed pragmatism and willingness to reach across the aisle. But in practice, this "pragmatism" almost always skews rightward, dragging the entire political spectrum in a more conservative direction.
We see this in the way that ideas once considered radical right-wing positions have become normalized as "centrist" compromises. We see it in the adoption of Republican framing on issues like crime, fracking, welfare, and national security. And we see it now in the lionization of figures like Dick Cheney as principled defenders of democracy, memory-holing their long records of supporting deeply anti-democratic policies.
This narrowing of the political spectrum has profound consequences for American democracy, effectively disenfranchising millions of citizens whose views and interests are not represented by either major party.
The Democratic Party's willingness to embrace far-right endorsements puts the lie to their posturing as champions of the working class and foes of elite power. Their rhetoric may occasionally nod to populist themes, but their actions reveal a party that is fundamentally comfortable with the current distribution of power and wealth in society. By welcoming figures like the Cheneys into their coalition, Democrats are sending a clear message—they are not opposed to elites per se, only to those particular elites who threaten their own place in the established order.
This elite consensus is evident in the policy priorities of Democratic administrations. Whether under former President Barack Obama or current President Joe Biden, we see a consistent pattern of bailing out banks and major corporations while offering only crumbs to struggling workers. We see promises of a new direction in foreign policy coupled with a continuation of the same interventionist approach.
The result is a democracy where the differences between the two parties, while real, are far narrower than their rhetoric would suggest. Both ultimately serve the interests of corporate power and the military-industrial complex, merely disagreeing on the details of implementation. This narrowing of the political spectrum has profound consequences for American democracy, effectively disenfranchising millions of citizens whose views and interests are not represented by either major party.
Moreover, this centrist consensus serves to stifle genuine debate and innovation in policymaking. By defining the range of "acceptable" ideas so narrowly, it excludes potentially transformative solutions to the pressing problems facing the country. Ideas like Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, or serious corporate regulation are dismissed as fringe or unrealistic, while failed policies of the past are recycled under new branding.
The Urgent Need for Alternatives
As we survey this bleak political landscape, the urgent need for genuine alternatives becomes increasingly apparent. While strategically it remains important to influence local and national elections, recent events in France serve as a stark reminder of the limitations of this approach.
French President Emmanuel Macron's appointment of Michel Barnier, a conservative politician, as prime minister following a fractured election result illustrates how centrist parties will ultimately betray the left in favor of the right. Despite the left-wing New Popular Front coalition winning the most seats in snap elections, Macron chose to align with the right, including placating the far-right National Rally. This decision reveals where the true class allegiances of centrist politicians lie—with the established order and corporate interests, rather than with progressive change.
Ultimately, the spectacle of Democrats embracing far-right endorsements should serve not as cause for despair, but as a clarion call for genuine, transformative change.
This pattern is not unique to France. In the United States, the Democratic Party's embrace of far-right endorsements follows a similar logic. By welcoming figures like the Cheneys into their fold, Democrats signal their willingness to preserve the status quo at the expense of meaningful reform. This move rightward is not an aberration but a reflection of the party's fundamental priorities.
The danger in this situation lies not just in the immediate policy implications, but in the long-term erosion of political possibilities. By supporting these endorsements, even tacitly through not challenging the Democrats to reject them, progressives risk ceding the ground of real transformative change to the right wing. The language of anti-elitism and systemic change, divorced from a genuinely progressive economic and social agenda, becomes the domain of right-wing populists.
The challenge, then, is twofold. On one hand, there is an urgent need to build political power outside of the two-party system. This means investing in grassroots organizing, mutual aid networks, and alternative economic structures that can provide a glimpse of a different way of organizing society. It means fostering a political culture that prioritizes the needs of working people over the demands of corporate donors.
On the other hand, there is a need for a more forceful and unapologetic progressive movement within electoral politics. This movement must be willing to challenge the Democratic establishment, to reject compromises that betray core values, and to articulate a vision of change that goes beyond incremental reforms. It must be willing to call out the hypocrisy of embracing far-right figures in the name of "unity" while marginalizing progressive voices.
Ultimately, the spectacle of Democrats embracing far-right endorsements should serve not as cause for despair, but as a clarion call for genuine, transformative change. It exposes the hollowness at the core of centrist politics and underscores the need for a political movement that truly represents the interests of the many rather than the elite few.
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The Trump-Harris Debate: Racist Lies Vs. Military Clichés
Much as “Who won?” seems to be the media focal point, my question is: Did anybody win? Did the whole country lose?
Sep 12, 2024
If nothing else, former U.S. President Donald Trump is forcing mainstream America out of its jail cell of clichés and political correctness—even though his apparent “vision” for America is primarily a dark comedy of lies.
Yeah, I watched the debate. Was the Trump character played by Rodney Dangerfield? Maybe Don Rickles? He could have been. The problem, however, is that there’s nothing funny about racism, which seemed to be the primary core of Trump’s blather.
Did Vice President Kamala Harris “win” the debate? Uh... this wasn’t a ping-pong game, much as “Who won?” seems to be the media focal point. My question is: Did anybody win? Did the whole country lose?
In her “victory,” what deeper truth did Harris advance?
One thing I must concede is that, in listening for 90 minutes to Trump’s arrogant irreverence toward the country’s centrist rituals and propriety, I must acknowledge at least this much: Our would-be dictator-in-chief is trying to push the country beyond the military-industrial status quo of the moment. His irreverence is so blatant he is driving neocon Republicans crazy, as exemplified by former veep Dick Cheney’s recent announcement that he plans to vote for Harris, declaring that Trump can “never be trusted with power again.”
Maybe, as the media notes, this was a big boost for Harris, but I find myself unable to separate Cheney from his legacy of hideous militarism: the Iraq war in particular, the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed, the “weapons of mass destruction” lies, Gitmo and Abu Ghraib and the torture of prisoners. Suddenly, in the media, those are now simply historical abstractions, hardly worth mentioning in detail. The American past is sealed shut and mythologized as the good old days.
What matters is a unified America, right? As Time Magazine reported: “Harris was asked about the Cheneys’ endorsement while on the campaign trail, visiting a spice shop in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She said she was ‘honored’ to have their endorsement, and that it represented the opportunity to ‘turn the page’ on partisan divisiveness.’”
She added that Americans are “exhausted about the division”—seeming to imply that the country was once solid and unified, fully in agreement on the nature of American values and such matters as who are enemies are. This seems to be one of the media talking points of the moment, which is ironic almost beyond belief. A nation born in a state of legalized slavery has never been a unified nation. What unity that does currently exist isn’t the result of Americans simply deciding to get along—or all agreeing on a specific, external enemy—but rather the result of decades and decades and decades of intense struggle, a la the civil rights movement, the women’s rights movement, the workers’ movements, etc., etc., and the ongoing creation of the country as it exists today.
Fascinatingly, in the wake of Cheney’s endorsement of Harris, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “He’s the King of Endless, Nonsensical Wars, wasting Lives and Trillions of Dollars, just like Comrade Kamala Harris. I am the Peace President, and only I will stop World War III!”
I note this not because I believe anything whatsoever that Trump says, but only to writhe in the irony that the main guy talking about peace (i.e., “peace”) on the national stage is a darkly comedic liar and narcissist whose primary talking point is racism.
During the debate, most of what Trump blathered was screw-loose nonsense, mixed, of course, with his special brand of racism, that is to say: the invasion of illegal aliens. This was the issue Trump rambled on about regardless of what he was asked to address, be it the economy, abortion, the January 6 riot, or whatever. To wit:
“Millions of people are pouring into the country—from prisons, jails, mental institutions, insane asylums. These are people she and Biden let into our country.”
“She’s a Marxist!... Twenty-one million people are pouring in. Many of these people are criminals.”
In Springfield, Ohio, Haitian immigrants are “eating dogs and cats—the pets of people that live there.”
Regarding Venezuela and other countries: “They’ve taken their criminals off the streets and given them to her (Harris). Crime is down all over the world—except here.”
Enough, enough! Trump’s audacious charisma apparently has given him some sort of media immunity. His lies—racist and otherwise—are simply too numerous to be questioned. But as I listen to him, screaming to myself, I also sense the nature of his appeal. He’s such a brat—so shameless in his attack on conventional wisdom, so blatant in his contempt for mainstream norms and certainties—that he has defied Cheney and the neocons and created his MAGA base: followers who have had it up to here with the rules of centrist dominance and political correctness.
The media consensus seems to be that Harris won the ping-pong game—I mean, the debate—because she spoke with clarity, factual accuracy, and sufficient contempt to continually put Trump in his place.
And yes, I get this, she won the ping-pong game. But in her “victory,” what deeper truth did Harris advance? What not-yet-existing country did she envision and present to the American people... and the world? I heard the clichés, especially the military clichés, but I didn’t see the vision.
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