Aftershock: The War on Terror

In May 2002, six months after the invasion of Afghanistan
but before the Iraq war, the London Review of Books held a debate: ‘The
War on Terrorism: Is There an Alternative?’ The panel comprised Tariq Ali,
Christopher Hitchens, Jacqueline Rose, Anatol Lieven and Onora O’Neill.

President Bush’s ultimatum set the tone: either you’re with
us or you’re with the terrorists. The Guardian described it as ‘a battle
for the soul of the left’. Hitchens argued for military action and said that ‘theocratic fascists must be crushed.’ Others on the panel questioned the premise of the War on Terror and where such a doctrine might lead.

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For the final episode, host Daniel Soar is joined by Patrick Cockburn, Laleh Khalili and Tom Stevenson for a live discussion on the War on Terror and its aftershocks.

They consider the powers and techniques established after 9/11 and now being deployed by the US – in Venezuela, Minneapolis and beyond. What is the legacy of America’s ‘forever wars’ in the Middle East, and does Donald Trump’s chaotic foreign policy really mark a break from what came before?

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‘Follow the money.’ That was George W. Bush’s directive to the US Treasury after 9/11. Choking off al-Qaida’s finances proved complicated — but what happened next went far beyond that. A small team of Treasury bureaucrats weaponised the global economic system itself, and built a financial nuclear bomb.

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Archive in this episode:

‘Indictment of Islamic Charity Leader’/C-Span

‘UN declares famine in southern Somalia’/AFP News Agency

‘September 11 Commission Report’/C-Span

‘Book Discussion: Treasury’s War with author Juan Zarate’/Center for Strategic & International Studies

‘Juan Zarate: Treasury’s War’/Politics and Prose

‘Horn of Africa Crisis: Somalia's Famine’/Fault Lines/Al Jazeera

‘Former Afghan president slams unjust U.S. plan for frozen assets, urges return’/CGTN

‘Trump: BRICS was setup to degenerate our dollar’/CNBC

‘Obama Lauds N.Korea Sanctions’/CBS News

The events of 9/11 exposed cracks in the US intelligence apparatus. In response, the National Security Agency built the most extensive surveillance system in history. What was sold as a counterterrorism measure was turned on American citizens and the line between security and privacy all but disappeared. The data captured fed the Pentagon's international kill list and the surveillance industrial complex was born.

 

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Archive in this episode:

‘Khaled El Masri at the National Press Club’/ACLU
‘The Johns Hopkins Foreign Affairs Symposium Presents: The Price of Privacy: Re-Evaluating the NSA’/John Hopkins University
‘911 Forced Change in US Intelligence, al-Qaida’/Voice of America
‘Pine Tree Foundation Endowed Lecture: Michael V. Hayden’/Free Library of Philadelphia
‘All the News Unfit to Print’/The Intercept Briefing/The Intercept
‘America's Surveillance State: Inside the NSA’/ENDEVR
‘NSA Whistleblower William Binney interviewed by Richard Grove’/Peace Revolution Podcast/Tragedy & Hope
‘Mike Rounds And John Ratcliffe Explain The Importance Of Renewing FISA Section 702’/Forbes Breaking News/Forbes

‘Making Sense of FISA Section 702’/Inside the FBI Podcast/FBI

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq created a dilemma for the Bush administration: what to do with the thousands of detainees captured during the War on Terror. John Yoo, a White House lawyer, came up with a new legal argument that allowed detainees to be held indefinitely without trial. Habeas corpus was suspended, the constitution upended and Guantánamo Bay became a judicial black hole.

 

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Archive in this episode
‘Video of Mahmoud Khalil’s Arrest’/ACLU
‘Bush defends administration detention, interrogation policies’/Associated
Press
‘Abu Ghraib hearing’/C-SPAN
‘Rumsfeld on detainees treatment, Amnesty criticism in UK.’/Associated Press
‘Trump: “we will load up Guantanamo Bay”’/ Associated Press
‘More detainees arrive from Afghanistan at US naval base’/Associated Press
‘A DAY IN GUANTANAMO BAY’/Naval Station Guantanamo Bay
‘Judge at Guantanamo throws out second case against prisoner’/Associated Press
‘9/11 TEN YEARS AFTER: TORIE CLARKE WITH JOHN WOO’/WMAL Newstalk
‘Conversations with History’/UC Berkeley Institute of International Studies
‘Navy Lawyer Discusses Hamdan, Guantanamo’/Talk of the Nation/NPR
‘Hardball’/MSNBC Live/MSNBC