The American people in the US-Led Afghanistan and Iraq War Essay

The American people in the US-Led Afghanistan and Iraq War - Essay Example in Smith 125). More than its military might, the real power of the US lies in its high moral ground in defending civil liberties and the rule of law at home and abroad. With this consistent posturing, the US government gets high support from the American public and the international community, cementing its appearance of invincibility and making its citizens feel secure against any external threat. However, this long-held belief was eroded when Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda unprecedentedly attacked the symbols of US power in New York City, Washington D.C. and Shanksville, Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001. This shocked the world and inflicted harm against the US far beyond its number of casualties and destroyed properties, as it had created deep fear of insecurity among Americans, exposing the vulnerability of the world’s super power. In reprisal, the Bush administration immediately launched its international war against terror not simply to expunge terrorism but most imp ortantly to pacify and bring back the myth of US invincibility to the American public that for many decades had made them feel secure and superior. Unfortunately, the result had been the opposite. In its war against terror, the US has unwittingly stripped off itself of its real hegemonic motives and exposed its total disregard to civil liberties, inevitably reversing the American public and international support into condemnation. Bush’s full military offensive against terrorism had been a backlash, not only against his administration but against America. II War Justification and Motives The 9/11terrorist attack on the US soil served the Bush administration in two important ways that would later unmask the US government to its own people and to the world. First, it served as warning that the American public is no longer safe in their own land, which created in them deep fear of insecurity to the point of paranoia. This called for a review on US foreign policy sharpening the v iew that US hegemony might have been creating and fuelling anti-US sentiments giving terrorists reason to attack America – a view that although not new was not given much thought before, much more by the American public. Second, this had become an opportunity to send America to war, as the fragile state of the American public was carefully manipulated to conveniently justify a war that Bush and his cowboys found decisive in insuring the strategic positioning and in imposing the US hegemonic interest in the Middle East. Never before had there been an attack attempted against the US on its own soil that was as bold and sophisticated as the bombing of the World Trade Center and Pentagon. This did not simply shock the world but had created in the American public the deep fear of insecurity, seeing that international terrorism had grown into a potent enemy capable of harming even the most formidable nation in the world. Meaning, nothing is seemingly safe against international terr orism and that America was no longer a safe place to live in. This thought sent a chilling effect on Americans, especially those living conveniently in their homes. Opportunely, too, the Al-Qaeda had been so easily transformed into a new enemy of the world replacing the collapsed communist Soviet Union. Thus the neo-conservatives in the Bush administration had created a convincing myth to push for their long desired war in the Middle East without much opposition. (Shah 6) The magnitude of the casualty and the sophistication of the tactic employed by Al-Qaeda in 9/11 attack had really shaken not only