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How Have the US Administrations Since 9/11 Discursively Legitimised Violent Counterterrorism and What Effects Has Its Practice Had in Yemen?

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How Have the US Administrations Since 9/11 Discursively Legitimised Violent Counterterrorism and What Effects Has Its Practice Had in Yemen? How have the US administrations since 9/11 discursively legitimised violent counterterrorism and what effects has its practice had in Yemen? MA Thesis Global Conflict in the Modern Era Théophile Hughes s1912429 Supervisor: Lukas Milevski Words: 13840 1 Table of Contents 1) Introduction ............................................................................................... 3 2) Literature review/Theoretical positioning .................................................. 4 2.1) Terrorism ............................................................................................. 4 2.2) Targeted Killings and Drone Warfare ................................................... 6 3) Methodology ............................................................................................. 9 4) Discursively legitimising violent counterterrorism after 9/11 ................... 13 4.1) The Bush Administration ................................................................... 14 4.1.1) Framing the 9/11 attacks ................................................................ 14 4.1.2) US(A) vs. “them” and the threat of terrorism .................................. 15 4.2) The Obama Administration ................................................................ 19 4.2.1) Terrorism and War .......................................................................... 20 4.2.2) American exceptionalism and Civilisation vs. Barbarism ................. 22 4.2.3) The threat of terrorism ................................................................... 24 4.3) The Trump Administration ................................................................. 26 4.3.1) Civilisation vs. Barbarism and American Exceptionalism ................. 26 4.3.2) The threat of terrorism and the need to act .................................... 27 5) US violent counterterrorism in practice: the case of Yemen ..................... 29 5.1) Context of US’ military involvement in Yemen: a brief overview ....... 30 5.1.1) Yemeni politics and the GWOT ........................................................ 30 5.1.2) The Saudi-led, US-supported war in Yemen .................................... 31 5.2) Violent US counterterrorism in Yemen since 9/11: objectives and means ....................................................................................................... 33 5.2.1) Objectives ....................................................................................... 33 5.2.2) Means ............................................................................................. 33 5.3) Effects of US military involvement in Yemen...................................... 39 5.3.1) US support for the Saudi-led war vs. US counterterrorism objectives .................................................................................................................. 39 5.3.2) Violent US counterterrorism in Yemen: a model for counterterrorism? ..................................................................................... 41 5.3.3) Broader implications ....................................................................... 46 6) Conclusion ............................................................................................... 51 7) Appendix ................................................................................................. 52 7.1) George W. Bush ................................................................................. 52 7.2) Barrack Obama .................................................................................. 53 7.3) Donald Trump .................................................................................... 54 8) Bibliography............................................................................................. 55 2 1) Introduction In the immediate aftermath of the events that took place on the 11th of September, 2001, the US administration led by George W. Bush declared the Global War on Terror (GWOT). In the name of fighting terrorism, the US has since launched two fully fledged wars, has declared using military force in 6 countries,1 has troops in combat in 14 countries2 and is currently actively involved in abetting the use of violence to “fight terror” in 80 countries.3 This essay critically engages with the legitimacy and efficacy of the use of violence to counter the incidence and prevalence of terrorism. Indeed, despite the US’ efforts, it has failed to achieve the main objectives of the GWOT, namely: making Americans safe from terrorism, preventing the incidence of terrorism, defeating specific terrorist organisations – such as Al Qaeda and the Taliban – and reducing the conditions that fuel terrorism.4 On the contrary, non-state terrorist organisations have grown as has the number of non-state terrorist attacks.5 Further, as the incidence and threat of terrorism has grown, that the US has sent over 2.5 million of its citizens into harm’s way to fight terrorism and that nearly 7000 have died as a result, the US has also failed to protect Americans from terrorism.6 Accordingly, this paper questions the extent to which the US’ use of violence has been effective at reducing terrorism. In order to do so, it compares and contrasts the language used by the US administrations since 9/11 to legitimise violent counterterrorism, with the effects of violent US counterterrorism in Yemen. The research question this paper seeks to answer is: how have the US administrations since 9/11 discursively legitimised violent counterterrorism and what effects has its practice had in Yemen? After outlining the relevant literature and the methodology, the essay analyses how the terrorism discourses of successive US administrations justify and naturalise the notion that the use of violence is a legitimate and 1 The White House, (2016), “Report on the Legal and Policy Frameworks Guiding the United States’ Use of Military Force and Related National Security Operations”, https://fas.org/man/eprint/frameworks.pdf 2 Savell, S. (2019), “This Map Shows Where in the World the U.S. Military Is Combatting Terrorism”, Smithsonian Magazine, January 2019 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/map-shows-places-world- where-us-military-operates-180970997/ 3 ibid. 4 Bush Administration, National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, February 2003, pp. 11-12 5 Institute for Economics & Peace (2018), “Global Terrorism Index 2018: Measuring the impact of terrorism”, http://visionofhumanity.org/app/uploads/2018/12/Global-Terrorism-Index-2018-1.pdf 6 Goepner, E. (2016), “Measuring the Effectiveness of America’s War on Terror”, Parameters, 46(1), pp. 107- 108 3 effective method to reduce terrorism. The following chapter contrasts this with the effects of violent US counterterrorism in Yemen. Finally, the paper discusses the broader implications of the Yemen case study with regards to the rift between the discursive legitimisations of violent counterterrorism and its effects in practice. The research concludes that, contrary to the official discourses, the US’ practice of violent counterterrorism has been strategically ineffective and morally condemnable. 2) Literature review/Theoretical positioning 2.1) Terrorism The literature on the topic of terrorism is extensive and diverse. It comprises thousands of publications, leading journals and contributors from many different subject- areas within the social sciences. Terrorism literature includes discussions on – among others – the definition of terrorism,7 the different types of terrorism,8 the causes of terrorism,9 the appropriate responses to terrorism10 and the scale and scope of the terrorist threat.11 These issues are highly contentious and remain hot topics of scholarly debate.12 Terrorism literature lacks an agreed definition on the concept of terrorism as well as a cohesive theory and methodology for studying and producing knowledge about terrorism.13 Further, terrorism studies have typically been characterised by an over-reliance 7 Schmid, A. (2010), “Frameworks for conceptualising terrorism”, Terrorism and Political Violence, 16(2), pp. 197-221 8 Rapoport, D. (2001), “The Fourth Wave: September 11 in the History of Terrorism”, Current History, 100(650), pp. 419-424 9 See for example: Crenshaw, M. (1981), “The Causes of Terrorism”, Comparative Politics, 13 (4), pp. 379-399 and Bjørgo, T. (2005), Root Causes of Terrorism: Myths, reality and ways forward, (Abingdon: Routledge) 10 Bjørgo, T. (2013), Strategies for Preventing Terrorism, (London: Palgrave MacMillan), Cronin, A. (2009), How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns, (Princeton: Princeton University Press); Hoffman, B. (2009), “A Counterterrorism Strategy for the Obama Administration”, Terrorism and Political Violence, 21(3), pp. 359-377 11 Mueller, J. (2005), “Simplicity and Spook: Terrorism and the Dynamics of Threat Exaggeration”, International Studies Perspectives, 6(2), pp. 208-234; Mueller, J. and Stewart, M. (2012), “The Terrorism Delusion: America’s Overwrought Response to September 11”, International Security, 37(1), pp. 81–110 12 Ranstorp, M. (2009), “Mapping terrorism studies after 9/11”, in Jackson, R.; Smyth, M. and Gunning, J. (eds), Critical Terrorism Studies: a new research agenda (Abingdon: Routledge), pp. 13-33; Gunning, J. (2007), “A Case for Critical Terrorism Studies”, Government and Opposition, 42(3), pp. 363-393; Jackson, R.; Toros, H.; Jarvis, L. and Heath-Kelly, C. (2017), “Introduction: 10 years of Critical Studies on Terrorism, Critical Studies on Terrorism”, Critical Studies
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