Bruce D. Larkin University of California at Santa Cruz

TA Ben Lozano MWF 2.00-3.10

Winter 2006 [Provisional Syllabus] Thimann 1

Politics 72

Politics of the ‘War on Terrorism’

Syllabus

This course will introduce the ‘War on Terrorism’ following the 9.11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, with a focus on the politics stemming from those events. We take the ‘War on Terrorism’ to include both (a) measures taken by the White House (and Executive Branch agencies) and Congress in the name of ‘counter-terrorism’ and (b) the actual use of military force by the United States and other countries, for example in Afghanistan and Iraq. The course will be taught through and around the texts—presidential speeches, Acts of Congress, newspaper analyses, germane Treaties, reports of actions by public officials—displaying political claims and moves.

Description

From September 2001 the United States committed to a ‘War on Terrorism’. What are its political sources? Objectives? Effects on internal politics, external alliances, and civil liberties? Military implications? Costs? How is political discourse deployed? How can it be assessed?

Schedule

The first class will meet on Friday, 6 January 2006, and the last class on Wednesday, 15 March. There is no class on Monday, 16 January, or Monday, 20 February. The final exam will take place as shown in the Schedule of Classes. It is necessary to take and pass the final exam in order to pass the course. The final exam will be given only once; there will be no exceptions.

Plan

This course was first offered, and last offered, in Fall 2002. Three full years and more have passed. As it happens, many of the key questions in late 2002 remain high on the political agenda: how can open societies best protect against violent attacks? were White House claims about Iraq reliable? was war against Iraq sound policy? do people designated as ‘enemy combatants’ have rights in US courts? should the Guantanamo detainees be held? can US citizens be held without charges and trials? can we give a convincing account why the attack of 9.11 was not detected and prevented? do the FBI and Federal prosecutors, and their counterparts in other countries, require greater powers (‘Patriot Act’, for example) to prevent ‘terrorist attacks’? how can countries cooperate to better prevent attacks? what is Al Qaeda, and have US actions weakened or strengthened it? is the very idea of a ‘War on Terrorism’ meaningful, a guide to sound policy? and what are the costs—and opportunity costs—of steps taken under the rubric of the ‘War on Terrorism’?

As taught in Fall 2002, this course emphasized the sources and initial responses to these questions. For example, we looked carefully at the White House language in declaring the category ‘enemy combatant’, and the legal framework it created as it envisaged trials and—it appears—executions. Today we can read those texts and then examine what has become of the ‘enemy combatant’ and anticipated trials. The theme throughout the course will follow this line: ‘what were the issues and arguments then?’ and ‘where are we today, and why’?

Required Reading

Four books are required. Three are marked â —required—for specific topics. For example, the 9.11 Report should be read before the class which meets 18 January:

â The 9/11 Commission Report (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004).

â Bamford, James. A Pretext for War (New York: Doubleday, 2004).

â Hersh, Seymour M. Chain of Command (New York: HarperCollins, 2004).

The fourth is a collection of articles, many of which are á propos more than one of our topics. Please leaf through the book and acquaint yourself with the articles, and design a plan for reading the book during the quarter. It is required.

â Hoge, James F., Jr. and Gideon Rose [eds], Understanding the War on Terror (New York: Foreign Affairs/Council on Foreign Relations, distributed by W. W. Norton, 2005)

In addition, some of the texts read in Fall 2002 are required. They are marked â, and others are recommended, marked + . Readings from Fall 2002 are in two on-line Readers. Reader I is material which is in the public realm. Articles in Reader II are for ‘classroom use’ only. None of the required texts is in Reader II. If items are required, the whole text of the item is required, unless otherwise indicated. For example, only specified sections of the USA PATRIOT Act (2001) are required. You may choose to print out Reader I or some articles in Reader I, or transfer Reader I to a laptop, so that you can follow the discussion of them in class. Please compare the topic schedule for Winter 2006 with that for Fall 2002 so that you can identify the corresponding required texts.

Topics

1 Preliminaries. [6 & 9 January: Classes 1-2] The 1993 World Trade Center attack. Attacks on US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, and on the USS Cole. Clinton Administration measures. The election of 2000 and the early anti-terrorism actions of the GW Bush Administration. Was the US ‘unprepared’?

2 Precursors. [11 & 13 January: Classes 3-4] The great Civil Wars and revolutions. Nationalism. Anarchism. The anti-colonial movement. The Russian and Chinese Revolutions. ‘National liberation movements.’ The Israeli-Palestinian issue. The 1990s of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Was ‘Islamic extremism’ inevitable? Were the American Revolutionaries ‘terrorists’?

3 The Attack of 9.11. [18, 20 & 23 January: Classes 5-7] The GW Bush Administration response. Launching of the ‘war on terrorism’. UN Security Council endorsement. Origins of a ‘coalition’ [distinguished from the Gulf War coalition]. Could the Administration have responded differently?

4 Vulnerability and Enemies. [25, 27 & 30 January: Classes 8-10] Are all polities inherently vulnerable? Are democracies especially so? And what of societies reliant on complex technological infrastructure? Can sources of attack can be foreseen? Why was 9.11 not foreseen? What are the chief vulnerabilities to which US society is exposed? What constitute ‘adequate’ measures to preclude attack? Is it always true that a few can cause great harm, if they choose to do so?

Enemies. If you were trying to identify and rout people with plans to commit terrorist acts against the United States or US citizens abroad, how would you do it? Is organizational membership a good criterion? Funding an organization? Speaking well of an organization? Having friend and associates in an organization? And what of whole countries: how should we understand the concept of “a country which harbors terrorists’? And do Iran, Iraq and North Korea constitute an ‘axis of evil’ which threatens the United States?

5 Iraq. [1, 3 & 6 February: Classes 11-13]. How did the governments of the United States and Britain obtain Congressional and Parliamentary agreement to war? Did GW Bush and ‘Dick’ Cheney, and Tony Blair, tell the truth to their publics? How did Bush and Cheney build the fiction that Iraq was a participant in the 9.11 attacks? The White House claimed that Iraq had, and would have, ‘weapons of mass destruction’, but none were found. What explanations of this discrepancy have been offered? and how can they be evaluated?

6 The Congress. [8, 10 and 13 February: Classes 14-16] Undertaking ‘war’ silenced Democratic critics in Congress. In February 2002 the Administration proposed a budget with massively enlarged spending for the military. Does calling the response a ‘war on terrorism’ deny the elected Congress an effective voice? How, and on what issues, are the Administration and the Democrats bargaining with each other? Would it be different if Senator Jeffords had not left the Republican Party? And now, with results of the mid-term election in hand, how has the election changed this relationship?

7 Civil Liberties I. The Prisoners and the Courts. [15 & 17 February: Classes 17-18] What is the Constitutional basis for military tribunals? Are the Administration’s actions consistent with US obligations under the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War (III) of 1949? Are captured Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters ‘prisoners of war’ or ‘unlawful combattants’ or ‘detainees’? Why were some of those captured moved to Guantanamo Bay? What of the prosecution of John Walker Lindt?

8 Civil Liberties II. Domestic Surveillance and Control. [22, 24 & 27 February: Classes 19-21] The USA PATRIOT Act. Definition of ‘terrorism’. Expanded authority for electronic wiretap. Denial of confidentiality of lawyer-client conversations. Detention without indictment or trial. Refusal to release names of those in detention. Focused interrogations. Profiling. Focus on specific groups: Muslims, foreigners, persons of Middle Easterrn descent, students. Visa controls. Controls on airline passengers. Use of technology (computers, databases, networking) to consolidate and use information about individuals. Proposed national identity card.

9 Weapons of Mass Destruction. [1 & 3 March: Classes 22-23] The attack of 9.11 did not employ a ‘weapon of mass destruction’. Could attackers have used chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons? Could they have launched missiles, armed with such weapons, against the United States? Does 9.11 confirm the need for National Missile Defense, as the Bush Administration insists, or does it show that realistic threats actually lie elsewhere? And what is the significance of the anthrax attacks?

+ Military and the Policy of Preventive Intervention. [6 March: Class 24] The new model of warfare: technology, special ops, reliance on local forces. Bases. Paul Wolfowitz on preventive intervention. Policy of self-reliance. US nuclear policy: forces not to be constrained by treaties.

10 The Israel-Palestine Imbroglio. [8 March: Class 25] Can the United States win coalition assistance from states with largely Muslim populations if it does not commit meaningfully to a Palestinian state? A Palestinian state [a] in the next few months, and [b] unqualifiedly coextensive with the West Bank and Gaza? Can one draw a meaningful distinction between “resistance to occupation” and “terrorism”? Is Israeli approval a necessary precondition to any outcome? Is the status of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict significant for recruitment to the most violent of the Islamist organizations, such as Al Qaeda? or would they find recruits regardless how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was resolved? Is there a relationship between US policies concerning Israel and US domestic electoral calculations?

11 Foreign Relations. [10 & 13 March: Classes 26-27] Allies: Britain, Canada, Australia. Bases. Pakistan. Politics of deference to Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, China, Russia, Israel. Hubert Vedrine criticism of the US as ‘unilateralist’. Effects on the United Nations. Foreign views of the GW Bush Administration policies resisting and rejecting muiltilateral constraints: Kyoto Protocol, ABM Treaty, CTBT, START process, &c. Will the US response to 9.11 lead to a loose global coalition against US unilateralism?

12 The Key Political Questions in 2006. [15 March: Class 28] The GW Bush Presidency. Electoral future? ‘Approval rating’? What does the indictment of I. Lewis Libby mean? ‘Homeland security’: does creation of the Department of Homeland Security have real consequences? The ‘intelligence community’: has there been a ‘real’ intelligence reorganization? And the Iraq War: what was its purpose? why was the United States unprepared for resistance? is there a path out? Is the United States more secure, or less secure, than it was on the eve of 9.11?

Reading List

Required are an extensive Reader, contents of which will be posted at the beginning of the class, and two books. The [preliminary] Reader index is attached at the end of this Syllabus.

Required Books

Halliday, Fred, Two Hours That Shook the World : September 11, 2001: Causes and Consequences (Saqi Books).

Heymann, Philip B., Terrorism and America: A Commonsense Strategy for a Democratic Society (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1998).

Optional Recommended Books

Hoge, James F., Jr. and Gideon Rose [eds], How Did This Happen? Terrorism and the New War (New York: Public Affairs, 2001).

Rashid, Ahmed, Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002).

Papers Final Examination

Each student will write four five-page papers during the term. There will be a two-hour final examination on Monday, 2 December, 1-3 pm.

Politics 72

Politics of the ‘War on Terrorism’

Reader Index

Topics [By Week]

• Barton Gellman, “A Strategy’s Cautious Evolution: Before Sept. 11, the Bush Anti-Terror Effort Was Mostly Ambition,” Washington Post, 20 January 2002.

URL changes. Document is ©.

W Interpol account of the 1993 World Trade Center attack.

http://www.interpol.int/Public/Publications/ICPR/ICPR469_3.asp

F Summary article on Ramzi Yusef: http://www.mahk.com/sc750.htm

The New York Times, 9 June 2002, reviewing key issues before Congressional inquiry [also listed later in the course]: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/09/national/09MISS.html?pagewanted=all&position=bottom

• Alien and Sedition Acts [1798] and related state resolutions:[1]

Alien Act: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/statutes/alien.htm

Sedition Act: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/statutes/sedact.htm

Virginia Resolution: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/virres.htm

Kentucky Resolution [Draft, October]: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/jeffken.htm

Kentucky Resolutin [3 December 1798]: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/kenres.htm

M American Revolution

Suppressing Rebellion: http://www.founding.com/library/lbody.cfm?id=97&parent=17

Declaration of Independence: http://memory.loc.gov/const/declar.html

W Sacco & Vanzetti. Two brief summaries:

Google Web Directory: http://directory.google.com/Top/Society/Crime/Trials/Sacco_and_Vanzetti/

d’Attilio: http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/sacvan.html

Richard Newby: http://dept.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/newby-sacvan.html

F McCarthyism

This is ©, no cacheing: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAmccarthyism.htm

Chris Lewis, Univ of Colorado: http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/2010/mccarthy.htm

• â The 9/11 Commission Report (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004).

• â Bruce Larkin: “Why This is Not a War, And Why It Is Important to Understand that This is Not a War”. 17 October 2001.

http://www.learnworld.com/DRAFTS/DRAFT.2001.10.17.NotAWar.html

http://www.learnworld.com/DRAFTS/DRAFT.2001.10.17.NotAWar.pdf

• A timeline, with British emphasis, of events for several months after 9.11. Follow the links from this page into 2002.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/0,1361,555865,00.html

M â White House FAQ re 9.11. Identifies attack as an “act of war” on 9.11.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/response/faq-what.html

W GW Bush:

11 September 2001: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010911-16.html

â 15 September 2001: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010915.html

17 September 2001. Islam is peace: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010917-11.html

â 20 September 2001 [Joint Session of Congress]: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html

29 September 2001: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010929.html

F Foreign responses [also see timeline, above]:

UNSC Res 1368 [2001.09.12]: http://www.un.org/Docs/scres/2001/res1368e.pdf

UNSC Res 1373 [2001.09.28]: http://www.un.org/Docs/scres/2001/res1373e.pdf

UNSC Res 1377 [2001.11.12]: http://www.un.org/Docs/scres/2001/res1377e.pdf

Tony Blair [2001.10.04] in House of Commons, and Tory response [Column 671]: http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/cgi-bin/htm_hl?DB=ukparl&STEMMER=en&WORDS=qaeda+&COLOUR=Red&STYLE=&URL=/pa/cm200102/cmhansrd/vo011004/debtext/11004-01.htm#11004-01_spmin0

4 Vulnerability. [25, 27 & 30 January: Classes 8-10] Are all polities inherently vulnerable? Are democracies especially so? And what of societies reliant on complex technological infrastructure? Can sources of attack can be foreseen? Why was 9.11 not foreseen? What are the chief vulnerabilities to which US society is exposed? What constitute ‘adequate’ measures to preclude attack? Is it always true that a few can cause great harm, if they choose to do so?

+ Enemies. If you were trying to identify and rout people with plans to commit terrorist acts against the United States or US citizens abroad, how would you do it? Is organizational membership a good criterion? Funding an organization? Speaking well of an organization? Having friend and associates in an organization? And what of whole countries: how should we understand the concept of “a country which harbors terrorists’? And do Iran, Iraq and North Korea constitute an ‘axis of evil’ which threatens the United States?

• A US Department of State report: Patterns of Global Terrorism 2001. [May 2002]. This is a slick, long report, an illustrated push for the Administration’s position on terrorism.

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/10319.pdf

M Could the attacks have been foreseen? Intercepted? This is an NPR timeline [May 2002] of intelligence information which might have been interpreted to suggest an attack:

+ http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/may/timeline/index.html

â Condaleeza Rice says it could not have been foreseen:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/05/20020516-13.html

W Federal indictment of Zacarias Moussaoui::

http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/moussaouiindictment.htm

F Focus on young men from Muslim countries:

AP 21 November 2001 on Portland, Oregon refusal:

[original removed from CNN site]

OPB 21 November 2001: http://www2.opb.org/nwnews/trans01/ppbinterviews.asp

OPB 30 November 2001: http://www2.opb.org/nwnews/trans01/refash.asp

5 Iraq. [1, 3 & 6 February: Classes 11-13]. How did the governments of the United States and Britain obtain Congressional and Parliamentary agreement to war? Did GW Bush and ‘Dick’ Cheney, and Tony Blair, tell the truth to their publics? How did Bush and Cheney build the fiction that Al Qaeda was a participant in the 9.11 attacks? The White House claimed that Iraq had, and would have, ‘weapons of mass destruction’, but none were found. What explanations of this discrepancy have been offered? and how can they be evaluated?

• â Bamford, James. A Pretext for War (New York: Doubleday, 2004).

• The New York Times, 9 June 2002, reviewing key issues before Congressional inquiry.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/09/national/09MISS.html?pagewanted=all&position=bottom

M Helen Dewar, Washington Post, 5 May 2002. “For Daschle, a Grueling First Year: GOP Attacks, Dissent in Democratic Caucus Test Senate Leader”:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A32149-2002May4

W Arms Control Today, October 2001. Wade Boese, “Democrats Withdraw Missile Defense Restrictions”, Carl Levin on defense priorities, and a critique of Levin:

http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2001_10/misdefoct01.asp

â Carl Levin: http://levin.senate.gov/releases/200201col2.htm

â Center for Security Policy. “The ‘Next War’: Will Carl Levin be Allowed to Leave America Vulnerable to Missile Attack?”: http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/index.jsp?topic=defbudget&section=papers&code=02-D_24

F Bipartisanship:

Thomas E. Mann, Brookings, Christian Science Monitor, 29 November 2001, “For a Bipartisan War President”: http://www.brook.edu/views/op-ed/mann/20011129.htm

Fred Barnes, The Weekly Standard, 4 March 2002. “George W. Bush’s Partisan Strategy of Non-Partisanship”: http://www.dscc.org/2002/New_Folder/DSCC%2003-04-02.htm

Martin Frost [Chairman, House Democratic Caucus], critique of alleged Republican use of the ‘war’ as a campaign theme: http://dcaucusweb.house.gov/home/documentViewer.asp?ID=185

7 Civil Liberties I. The Prisoners and the Courts. . [15 & 17 February: Classes 17-18] What is the Constitutional basis for military tribunals? Are the Administration’s actions consistent with US obligations under the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War (III) of 1949? Are captured Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters ‘prisoners of war’ or ‘unlawful combattants’ or ‘detainees’? Why were some of those captured moved to Guantanamo Bay? What of the prosecution of John Walker Lindt?

• â Hersh, Seymour M. Chain of Command (New York: HarperCollins, 2004).

+ Human Rights Watch, “Background Paper on Geneva Convention and Persons Held by US Forces, 29 January 2002: http://hrw.org/backgrounder/usa/pow-bck.htm

â Geneva Convention (III) 1949. Convention (III) relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949. http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/7c4d08d9b287a42141256739003e636b/6fef854a3517b75ac125641e004a9e68?OpenDocument

M Links from the University of Chicago Law School site:[2]

The site: http://www.law.uchicago.edu/tribunals/index.html

â GW Bush 13 November 2001 order on military tribunals: http://www.law.uchicago.edu/tribunals/exec_order.html

Senate Judiciary Committee Hearings on the proposed tribunals, 6 December 2001: http://www.law.uchicago.edu/tribunals/doj_hearinghtml.htm

A 1996 symposium on military tribunals:

(I) Crona and Richardson: http://www.law.uchicago.edu/tribunals/crona_rich.html

(II) Filler: http://www.law.uchicago.edu/tribunals/filler.html

(III) Everett: http://www.law.uchicago.edu/tribunals/everett.html

W The 21 March 2002 revised rules for military tribunals:

â http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Mar2002/d20020321ord.pdf

F Other comments:

Cato Institute on 21 March 2002 rules: http://www.cato.org/new/03-02/03-21-02r.html