8. Use of Force

Israel in Lebanon 1982 This is an excellent example of the dilemmas of the use of force. To make a long story short, the PLO was operating out of southern Lebanon in he late 1970s and early 1980s (since the Lebanese civil war started in 1975). Israel decided to invade. First in 1978 and then a larger invasion in 1982 where Israeli forces moved all the way to Beirut, the capital. The idea was to push the PLO out of Lebanon. The PLO leadership were actually evacuated from Beirut to other parts of the Middle East. It could be seen by Israel as a success. The PLO was pushed out of Lebanon. But one of the results of this was also the creation of Hezbollah.

Sri Lankan Military Operations Another example, in the mid-2000s the Sri Lankan government gave up trying to negotiate with the LTTE. It had tries several times and in each case, the LTTE used the cease fire and negotiation period as a breathing period to reinforce itself, add strength , and launch terrorist attacks. The government finally decided to fight this as a war. It launched a massive attack on the parts of northeastern Sri Lankan that were LTT strongholds. The LTTE was destroyed; its leader was killed. But this was done through the use of a scorched earth policy. The attacks and bombings by the government produced roughly 300,000 refugees, who were eventually herded into internment camps where anyone who was ethnically Tamil was seen as a potential LTTE fighter. Many are still in these camps. Thousands of civilians were killed. The government responded to criticism by suspending democracy. The map indicates where the LTTE had operations in the mid-2000s and then where it was in January 2009.

This is a close up look at the last areas controlled by the LTTE This is a close up look at the last areas controlled by the LTTE. The red areas were declared by the Sri Lankan government as safe areas, places where ethnic Tamils who were not LTTE could go to as a way of getting away from the war. But the government really used this as a trick, assuming that the LTTE would move directly to those areas to hide among the non-combatants. They waited until they thought the LTTE was in those areas and then hit them hard. The blue arrows represent the attack routes. Civilians were wiped out.

Afghanistan 2001 Of course, a big part of US counterterrorism policy after 9/11 was an invasion of Afghanistan.

Iraq March 2003 And Iraq.

Drone Strikes A big part of US policy since 9/11 and especially under the Obama administration is the use of drones. The pros: The US can surgically attack facilities and even individuals almost anywhere in the world without risking any American pilots. If there is someone who the US thinks is a terrorist and it does not have the capability to capture that person, the US can assassinate him. The Obama administration has developed a set of specific procedures to decide whether these attacks will take place. There are legal reviews and ultimately President Obama has to make the final decision on these. See the next slide for an example. Strikes are often done in secret and the public finds lout only when the administration announces that some suspected terrorist is killed (Many argue that this is a con, not a pro) Given the option of launching large military strikes with bombers or cruise missiles (the way the US performed “surgical strikes” in the past) drones do kill far fewer people. The Cons: It’s very “clean” according to some people and that may be too clean. We kill people around the world; the public doesn’t know; congress may not know and therefore it is too easy to forget about it and not give it the proper scrutiny and oversight. We miss and kill civilians. We launch strikes against targets around the world, often without permission of the governments whose territory is the target of the strike. This has led to huge problems in US-Pakistani relations for instance. Public opinion of the US in Pakistan and Afghanistan has turned against the US, in part, due to the drone strikes and what is seen as a complete US disregard for Pakistani sovereignty. In the not too distant future, this kind of drone capability will be held by a few dozen nations, by transnational organized crime, by terrorists, and even individuals (after a trip to Radio Shack). The US has set a precedent for their use and we won’t have much grounds to complain about it when someone else launches a strike on US territory.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) Anwar al-Awlaki Killed by drone strike 9/30/11 Awlaki was targeted and killed by a drone strike,. He was the spiritual leader of AQAP and had connections with Major Nidal Hassan (Fort Hood attacks), Najibullah Zazi, and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to blow up a plane with a bomb in his underwear on Christmas 2009. The map shows AQAP’s location (Saudi Arabia and Yemen).