In response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the Bush administration rushed to implement domestic and foreign policies that had dramatic consequences for the US and the world.
They pushed through far-reaching legislation which, when combined with Executive Orders and ‘national security’ memoranda, effectively gutted one-half of the rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights and erased 50 years of work advancing civil rights and liberties.
In addition, the steps they took to justify the invasions, occupations and nation-building gambits in Afghanistan and Iraq contributed to degrading the roles of the United Nations and Nato and contributed to dismantling the architectures of diplomacy, rights, and law that had been created by the international community in the aftermath of the Second World War.
The assault on rights and freedoms had been brewing before 9/11. Beginning in the Reagan era and continuing through the Clinton administration, there’d been ‘secret’ plans to round up, detain, and/or deport ‘aliens’ without due process. Because of domestic opposition, earlier administrations had been hesitant to publicly implement them. But with the nation reeling in shock in the aftermath of the terror attacks, it became possible for the Bush administration to openly give law enforcement agencies a grab bag of repressive tools they had been seeking. They did so knowing that domestic and/or partisan opposition would be muted because 9/11 had taken such a traumatic toll.
In the end, the Bush-endorsed legislation was easily passed in Congress, with only one Senator voting against the bill. And there was only modest opposition to the administration’s measures to use racial and ethnic profiling, deny due process to immigrants, conduct warrantless searches and surveillance, make use of entrapment techniques against vulnerable individuals, and implement a range of costly and invasive measures at airports – all of which have been shown to be wholly ineffective in protecting national security.
If the shock of the attacks had made the public more willing to accept new laws and programmes that sacrificed the rights of others, they also created a sense of dread about what might happen next. America had invaded, bombed, and fought wars in other countries around the world, but not since Pearl Harbour, more than a six decades earlier, had the American homeland been attacked. This resulted in feelings of vulnerability. People wanted to know: ‘Who are these people who committed these crimes?’ ‘Why did they do this to us?’ and ‘What should we do now to respond?’
The dust had not yet settled on the burning inferno when a group of neoconservatives who had been growing in influence within the Republican Party began campaigning for a US strike on Iraq. They had not yet fabricated the arguments they would later advance to justify the war. Their world view maintained that the US had been attacked because it was seen as weak and complacent. Therefore, they believed what was needed was a demonstration of American strength.
While then-President George W Bush did not initially share their world view, the shock of 9/11 catapulted the neoconservatives into a dominant force shaping his administration’s policies. In the months and years that followed, the Bush administration made decisions reflecting their influence. The repressive legislation and anti-Arab, anti-Muslim programmes were part of this, as were the wars and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. The costs and consequences of these two ill-conceived wars have been immense in lost lives, treasure, and respect.
In addition to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis who perished, 7,000 US military personnel died. While the Bush Pentagon tried to sell the war to Congress by saying it would cost just a few billion dollars, it is now estimated to have cost between 6 and 7 trillion dollars. And as a result of the US unilaterally steamrolling its way into the war, insulting allies who refused to join them, and faring so poorly in its execution of both conflicts, respect for the US plummeted worldwide.
These post-9/11 policies inflicted tremendous damage during the Bush years, but their consequences are still with us. Because they were never decisively laid to rest by subsequent administrations, they formed the foundation for the excesses of the Trump administration’s foreign and domestic policies that we face today.
Dr James J Zogby
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