Why Is This Happening? Making Sense of The Long War

WHY$IS$THIS$HAPPENING?
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Making'Sense'of'the'Longest'War'in'My'Lifetime'
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Ronaldo Jose Morelos
2015
DEDICATION
To my darling girl, Isabella,

the love of my life.
INTRODUCTION
This work is about the process of making sense. It is also about the Long War.
What started out as the Manhattan Raid, and became the Global War of Terror,
has gone on for (at the time of writing) 15 years now. What has been the process
of meaning making that has defined this war? How does that process create, and
perpetuate, this Long War?
When I watched UA175 crash into the WTC South Tower on 11 September
2001, after several dozen repetitions from a number of different angles over
several hours, it occurred to me that this was something that I would be studying
for many years to come something that I would be compelled to study in as
much depth I could manage. I was right.
On Friday the 13th in November 2015, I woke up and noticed the date boldly
displayed on the screen of my smart phone, and I thought that something bad
was going to happen today. I was right. Before that day ended, a bloodbath
occurred at the Bataclan theatre in Paris, as well as other locations nearby. Eight
attackers armed with AK-47 rifles and explosive belts killed 130 people, with over
350 wounded, before seven attackers were themselves killed. The Islamic State
claimed responsibility for these attacks.
These events, among many, being the work of a group of individuals who have
adopted a particular definition of the situation, that leads them to enact certain
events, in these instances acts of violence, for particular purposes. These groups
and individuals, at very basic levels, are acting out of a sense of feeling (being or
otherwise) threatened by a particular enemy. They are acting, at these basic
levels, not solely because they hate us and all that we stand for as some might
prefer to believe, but in self-defence, or with the sense that they are acting to
defend themselves and their community. Certainly, there will be other motives,
from profit-seeking,
to conquest and domination, to a basic need to kill, to
spiritual gains; the possibilities are perhaps quite literally infinite. So why selfdefence, what is so important about it?
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The justification of self defence is the most morally palatable or acceptable

reasoning for acts of violence, and specifically use of lethal force, that we as
civilised peoples have access to. The need for persuasive justifications is critical
to the task of rallying individual and group efforts, towards the employment of
lethal force upon a group of others. The moral aspect is central, but so is the
legal component; because legality is critical to the sense of group cohesion and
identity, as well as to the sense of civilization, as much as morality can be. The
sense of threat, as justification, is critical and necessary for the purpose of
mobilisation.
These justifications are critical in considering the dynamics of long wars
protracted conflicts seemingly locked in continuous cycles of violence. Such
consideration is critical to understanding the processes by which such cycles of
violence are disrupted or ended. One critical question is how justifications can be
removed rendered ineffective so that mobilisation can be disrupted.
Conflicts can end in one of two ways, by exhaustion or by convention.
Exhaustion brings about defeat or retreat. Convention brings about agreement
and, ideally, resolution. Certainly, results can be a matter of choices and fortunes
although those ascribing outcomes only to divine will cannot be expected to
agree. There will certainly be situations where the possibility for good choices
will be thin, and the principle of least harm might have to apply and suffice, but
due consideration can greatly assist in the making of informed choices.
The 9/11 Effect
There seems to be an inordinate amount of books and articles, that I have read
in the past decade, that mentions 9/11 within the first thousand words. That says
something about what preoccupies me as an individual in my choices of
reading material but also about what drives the intellectual currents of this time.
On this last Friday the 13th the echoes of 9/11 reverberate with much force, and
we are all reminded that this Long War continues.
Several hours after the 9/11 attacks, it was early morning on the opposite side of
the planet in Melbourne, and I had yet to find out about that event. I was walking
to university, and as I walked around the corner of Johnstone and Brunswick
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Streets in Fitzroy, a minibus with Islamic high school girls on their way to school
pulled up at the traffic lights. I could see they were Islamic girls because their
grey veils covered their faces. Their veils not only covered their heads, they also
hid their faces, because the girls were hiding their faces. All the girls in that
minibus that morning, in the identical uniform grey school colour veils, were
hiding their faces intentionally. I thought this was odd, and I felt some heaviness
in the air as I kept walking the mostly empty early morning streets, but thought
no more of it. My definition of the situation was not yet complete. It was not until
two or three hours later, when I noticed the newspaper headlines America
Attacked at a supermarket checkout, that my definition of the situation was
brought into line. I went back to the university computer labs, and watched the
first clips of UA175 and the WTC tower. Several hours later, I was at home in
front of the TV, filling one VHS tape after another, watching and listening, trying
to make sense, gripped by the drama. Captured by the images. Haunted by
words that I could not forget, once heard we will make no distinction between
the terrorists who committed these acts and those that harbor them. Haunted by
the implications of these words.
There was the sheer violence and carnage of it all, but there was also the
knowledge that these events were enacted by individuals possessing full
knowledge that their acts entailed their own full demise. Apart from all else, these
were also acts of suicide. Resonant enough by itself, made even more profound
because they were acts of suicide that brought about the death of thousands of
others, all within less than a couple of hours. Like for so many, whoever did this,
now had my attention.
A few hours after the Friday the 13th attacks in Paris, I watched a security
commentator on TV news talking about them. He said that we are sitting on the
sidelines of history at important times. Indeed, it is history unfolding, but I am
also reminded that how these times are remembered and retold, is also subject
to the way in which this Long War plays out. Because this war, as with all wars,
is also a war of narratives. In this war, some stories will prevail, others will be
buried. Which ones prevail, and how long it takes, are matters of choice and
fortune, and of those who are left to tell the tale. From the sidelines of history,
there is immediacy, and some informed consideration. In the remembering,
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perhaps some deeper insights and lessons are possible. To understand why this
happens is, hopefully, to learn from it.
The Long War is not uncommon to human history. Protracted conflicts, cycles of
violence, have befallen other peoples at other times, in both the recent and
distant past. The Thirty Years War of the 17th century brought about, or at least
ended with, the Peace of Westphalia. The Hundred Years War of the 14th and
15th centuries shaped Western European identity and military culture that, in turn,
shapes much of the present day world. It does not make much sense to
associate extensive carnage with anything that might arguably resemble
benefits. But it begs hope to consider some lessons learnt from such long wars.
Because they are invariably so costly and so horrific, that lessons they leave us
hold such weight.
This work is about the events of this current Long War, the narratives that
precede and emanate from these events, and the processes of perception that
comprise the narratives and the events.
Three weeks after the Friday the 13th attacks in Paris, husband and wife Syed
Farook and Tashfeen Malik left their six-month old daughter with relatives, then
drove to a social services agency office in San Bernardino in California, each
armed with modified AR-15 assault rifles and semi-automatic pistols (with over
1600 rounds of ammunition) then shot and killed 14 people and wounded 26
others. Shortly afterwards, they were both shot and killed in a shootout with
police. Malik had earlier pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. So this is what
phenomena that can be literally described as mom-and-dad violent extremists
jihadism, writ large and manifest, looks like.
WORD COUNT:
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Pacifism in the Time of GWOT

Peace is not sought to promote war, but war is fought to win peace.
(Augustine, 418 AD)
When democratic states finally run out of regimes to change, what to next? Do
they then turn on each other, like siblings vying for the throne in a monarchy?
In the age of GWOT I sometimes feel helpless that I am unable to disentangle
myself from this maze of narratives that is my world. What indeed is there - apart
from crashing planes into big ugly buildings? And what about those virgins?
There is this nagging doubt. Is there really more to it than that? Well yes, as it
turns out.
Is it true, what they say? That it would be utterly immoral of me, if I were to
simply stand by, and simply watch an innocent get badly messed up by some
powerful bully trying to expand his backyard, or line up some resources that he
might crave? Would that be true? Do I really have the obligation, the
responsibility to do something, if I was at all able, to help protect those
innocents?
And what if I were a country? Or if I were speaking for my country any country?
My adopted creed? So I wonder, what would I do, as an individual and/or as a
country? What if this powerfully endowed bully just will not stop messing up
those innocents? What, try to talk to him? Threaten him? With what? What about
his army? He has a big one.
What if I was a pacifist? Do I have to throw myself in front of him, and take the
blows myself, until I am unable to do anything more myself? If I was a pacifist, I
could do that, and maintain my pacifist identity, what might be left of it, until I stop
breathing and blinking. Because that bully has a big army. Big enough.
If I had a phone, I could call the police. But they are not going to do anything.
Because that powerful bully is in another country. And I am only finding out about
what is going on because I watch it or read it on TV and computer screens, in
this my world.
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If I were a country, and I had a phone, I could also call someone, the equivalent
of the police, and maybe they could do something. Maybe. Because someone
has got to do something. Because it is getting really, really bad.
So is that wrong, if I were to just stand by, and do nothing. So then what would I
do? And what if I really was a pacifist?
There is this guy, Brandon Bryant from 2006 to 2011 he worked for the US Air
Force (USAF) 3rd Special Operations Squadron as a drone sensor operator. He
was one of those people who spent around 12 hours a day (or night) inside a
modified container, hermetically-sealed, room in New Mexico or Nevada, in front
of 14 computer monitors, operating the camera/laser component of an MQ-1B
Predator drone flying above some village or town ten thousand kilometres away,
in Pakistan, Yemen or Afghanistan.
He would spend substantial amounts of time getting to know people on the
ground, the habits, passions and interests (the pattern of life analysis) of these
infra-red lit silhouette figures on the other side of the planet, and if/when an order
comes through, he would light up a target building or vehicle or piece of ground,
with his laser designator, which guides a Hellfire missile, fired by the pilot sitting
next to him, in that air-conditioned modified container room, and they watch their
target being destroyed on the computer screens in front of them, accompanied
by approving commentary from fellow team members scattered around the
globe, sitting in similarly sealed air-conditioned rooms.
This bothered Bryant so much, that since 2012 he has been talking to pretty
much anyone who would listen, including CNN, BBC, NBC, Fox, RT and others,
about just how much he hated his job, and some of the horrible things he saw on
those computer monitors, and contributed to with his laser camera. When he left
the USAF he was awarded certification that his squadron had achieved 1,626
kills or EKIAs E for enemy. Bryant clearly cannot take credit for all that
number, nor does he wish to, but he is relatively certain that he was personally
responsible for at least 13 of those.
The Law schools at NYU and Stanford, conducted a study in Pakistan and
produced a report in 2012, entitled Living Under Drones and they found that for
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every one high-value target (HVT) killed by the US drone program in Pakistan
between 2004 and 2012, there were 50 others killed, who were not HVTs,
although some of these non-HVTs were adult males, and so would be counted
as militant casualties by US government reports.
That aside, it might be tempting to think that if one had to wage war, or conduct a
few targeted killings for the sake of national or global security, then one could do
far worse (i.e. more evil) than using drones. I mean, if you absolutely had to, you
have tried non-violent means, and that powerful bully keeps messing innocents
up. If there was no other choice, then 50-to-1 is surely better than 1000-to-1, is it
not? What if not killing was no longer an option?
It seems so much easier, and could potentially do much less harm than all-out
invasion or carpet-bombing. Bryant has been diagnosed with PTSD, but surely
there will be some drugs he can take, or therapy of some sort, or something.
That is just part of the price that one has to pay for war, is it not? It would be so
much simpler to be an absolute pacifist.
But that big powerful bully, well he has not stopped. He is really pissing me off,
more and more. Just as well I am a pacifist, at least last time I looked I was I
think I had better upgrade my first aid training, just in case. Yes, life in the age of
GWOT such is this funny world of mine and so here I remain, helpless but
responsible.
WORD COUNT:
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The Right, the Duty and the Responsibility:
New Norms and Persistent Failures

The armed conflict that we now call the Syrian Civil War began four and a half
years ago. The UN humanitarian chief briefed the Security Council on the Syrian
crisis on the 27th of August. According to him, since the conflict began, over one
quarter of a million people have been killed, and over one million people have
been injured.1
Not everyone would be in a position to do anything to put an end to this ongoing,
unrelenting carnage. In that briefing in New York, 15 people sitting around the
Security Council table that day were in a position, literally and figuratively, to be
able to do something to halt the carnage. It would be reasonable to think that to
be the case. Is it not?
One might wonder, if after 4 years they have done nothing, are they likely to do
anything now? To understand how it can be, that after so many lives lost and
ruined, the carnage continues, it is necessary to look back at the last 20 years of
the history of the Security Council. This history is a narrative of raised hopes, of
a world where states could join together to work towards protecting the most
vulnerable, from the most horrific acts we as humans are capable of. It is a story
of an international community accepting a responsibility to protect, then facing a
reality of entrenched self-interests and political maneuvers - a story of realpolitik.
The New Era
Alex Bellamy and Paul Williams (2011) tackle key issues emerging in the
operationalisation of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) mandate, particularly
with regard to internal dynamics of the UN Security Council (UNSC) and tensions
between operational imperatives inherent in the use of military force and
expectations around state sovereignty. Their findings indicate that the
international community struggles, and sometimes fails, to achieve consensus on
its right and duty to invoke military force to halt grievous violations of human
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1!United!Nations!News!Service,!UN!Humanitarian!Chief!Urges!Security!Council!Action!to!End!Immense!Suffering!of!Syrians,!
UN#News#Centre,!2015,!http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=51739#.VeKGGOl33dk.!
2!Alex%J.%Bellamy%and%Paul%D.%Williams,%The%New%Politics%of%Protection?%Cte%dIvoire,%Libya%and%the%Responsibility%to%Protect,!
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rights, by sovereign states of their civilian populations.2

The authors focus on two cases - the 2011 UN protection missions in Cte
d'Ivoire and Libya - to consider these challenges, outlining UNSC deliberations
and resolutions leading to UN-sanctioned interventions in response to the crises.
The authors begin with the problem, for the UNSC in the Libyan crisis, of
invoking the R2P mandate without the acquiescence or cooperation of the
government of a nation-state subject to intervention, the national authority there
failing to protect its citizens, and threatening to inflict genocide upon its civilian
population. Against this threat, the UNSC unprecedentedly invoked Resolution
1973 for Libya.3
Bellamy and Williams grapple with this complexity and find that the UNSC faces
formidable challenges in finding consensus on what actions to authorise,
however much members can agree upon the need to do something, urgently.
Council members, they suggest, can only justify such agreements based on the
performance and legitimacy of missions previously authorised.4
They address the new politics of protection emerging around the UNSC
process, observing key characteristics appearing firm commitment to civilian
protection, proven conditional willingness to authorise use of military force, heavy
reliance upon regional partners, and the challenge of having any passed
resolutions interpreted by the host of actors charged with implementation.5
The problem of interpretation, they suggest, has proven most troublesome.
UNSC R2P authorisations to employ all necessary means enabled operational
actors to consider regime change to be part of their arsenal.6 This caused,
unsurprisingly, concern amongst UNSC members, including two permanent
members Russia and China contributing to five abstentions in the vote for
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2!Alex%J.%Bellamy%and%Paul%D.%Williams,%The%New%Politics%of%Protection?%Cte%dIvoire,%Libya%and%the%Responsibility%to%Protect,!
International#Affairs!87,!no.!4!(2011):!825826.!
3!Ibid.,!825,!838839.!
4!Ibid.,!826.!
5!Ibid.!
6!Ibid.,!828,!835.!
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Resolution 1973, preventing consensus, and possibly undermining the legitimacy

of the UNSC authorisation.7
The problem of host state consent has been critical to UNSC debates on the
R2P mandate, as Bellamy and Williams argue. Whilst the R2P authorisations for
Cte d'Ivoire and Libya can be considered to be significant breakthroughs,
overcoming
constraints
that
previously
limited
scope
and
success
of
humanitarian intervention efforts, 8 there were strong reservations with the

mandates challenge to principles of state sovereignty.
China indicated that it considered host state consent a necessary prerequisite
for military intervention. When UNSC Resolution 1962 declared the 2010 election
result
in
Cte
d'Ivoire,
contradicting
the
local
electoral
authoritys
pronouncement, the concerns of members around host state cooperation were

further foregrounded. 9 Nevertheless, in these cases the idea that state
sovereignty inherently involves responsibility for the protection of civilian
populations dominated UNSC considerations on R2P implementation.10
The problems of regime change and neutrality/impartiality logically follow, as
the authors find. In both cases, there were changes of government, following the
UNSC-sanctioned protection missions that helped create conditions whereby
those changes could occur. Those missions involved the targeting, engagement
and destruction of military assets and capabilities of the then incumbent regimes,
whilst protecting or avoiding opposition forces.11
UNSC members raised strong concerns regarding the purpose and partisan
nature of the missions.12 The authors report responses from members critical of
how the missions were implemented, warning of how the role and motive of the
UN could be perceived as an intervention force.13
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!Ibid.,!844,!846,!848.!
!Ibid.,!825,!847.!
9!Ibid.,!828,!832833.!
10 !Ibid.,!833.!
11 !Ibid.,!836.!
12 !Ibid.,!835838.!
13 !Ibid.,!835836,!847848.!
7
8
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The authors also report on statements by the UN Secretary General on the use
of force by peacekeepers arguing that such actions were taken in self-defence
while protecting civilians,14 and on developments toward a doctrine for civilian
protection operations citing current peace and protection operations doctrinal
developments.15 Thus, the performance and legitimacy of UN-sanctioned R2P
missions and mandates are, as the authors submit,16 brought into the spotlight
on centre-stage.
Bellamy and Williams present a cogent analysis of the challenges confronting the
UNSC in implementing the R2P mandate, finding that consensus on the
invocation of military force, to protect civilians within sovereign states, cannot be
presupposed. Whilst agreement on the necessity for action was forthcoming,
consensus on what actions should be taken will unlikely be simply achieved.17
Assumptions around the use of military force and the principle of sovereignty will
likely face further challenges for some time to come.
The contestation, around the new politics of protection has only just begun.
These politics will be played out within the UN and UNSC, and amongst regional
actors in the international community. The shift in focus from intervention to
protection enables stronger justifications for overriding nation state sovereignty,
where R2P makes this necessary.
The authors suggest that it might be relatively easier to agree on the principle
that people should be protected 18 however questions of who should be
protected and when a state can be considered to manifestly fail in its
responsibility to protect19 will likely continue to resist consensus in the world of
realpolitik.
The 2011 NATO-led military intervention in Libya is the first instance where the
UN Security Council (UNSC) used the principle of the responsibility to protect
(R2P) to authorize a protection operation without sovereign host-state consent.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!Ibid.,!836.!
!Ibid.,!849850.!
16 !Ibid.,!826.!
17 !Ibid.,!825826.!
18 !Ibid.,!826.!
19 !Ibid.,!827.!
14
15
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Writing about its aftermath, in the wake of its perceived success, Aiden Hehir
(2013) cautiously notes a sense amongst some commentators that a new era
had arrived.20 This sense of novelty, or beginning, that came with the advent of
R2P, took different forms and had widespread purchase. Alex Bellamy and Paul
Williams (2011) plausibly suggest that the international community is challenged
with a new politics of protection that will largely be played out at the UNSC.21
More broadly, writing about the changing meaning of sovereignty brought about
by the interventions in Libya and elsewhere, Carrie Walling judiciously suggests
that such changes enable new opportunities for humanitarian intervention for
the UN.22
However, on closer examination, these authors find that the sense of novelty
masks a persistent continuity that belies the novelty itself the conflicts between
norms of human rights and norms of state sovereignty. 23 One important
expression of the norms of state sovereignty is the significance of host-state
consent in UNSC deliberations over possible humanitarian interventions.
Hehir argues that Resolution 1973, in authorizing the Libyan intervention, does
not constitute a new development of R2P with regard to host-state consent. The
UNSC has a long-standing capacity to authorize measures without or against
sovereign state consent, under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter. Hehir credibly finds
that neither the advent of R2P nor Resolution 1973 provided the UNSC with
power that it did not previously possess.24
Bellamy and Williams find that UNSC-mandated missions obtained sometimes
coerced and unreliable consent, prior to Libya in 2011, largely to ensure the
passage of resolutions through the Council, by meeting member requirements
for it. Where necessary and possible, the UNSC sought host-nation consent for
humanitarian interventions, because permanent members, particularly China,
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
20 !Aidan!Hehir,!The!Permanence!of!Inconsistency:!Libya,!the!Security!Council!and!the!Responsibility!to!Protect,!International#
Security!38,!no.!1!(2013):!137.!
21 !Alex!J.!Bellamy"and"Paul"D."Williams,"The"New"Politics"of"Protection?"Cte"dIvoire,"Libya"and"the"Responsibility"to"Protect,"
International#Affairs!87,!no.!4!(2011):!826.!
22 !Carrie!Booth!Walling,!Human!Rights!Norms,!State!Sovereignty,!and!Humanitarian!Intervention,!Human#Rights#Quarterly!
37,!no.!2!(2015):!387.!
23 !Ibid.!
24 !Hehir,!The!Permanence!of!Inconsistency:!Libya,!the!Security!Council!and!the!Responsibility!to!Protect,!144145.!
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considered them essential prerequisites for such missions.25

Walling gives extensive consideration to the tensions between human rights
norms and state sovereignty norms. She finds that, in the UNSC, humanitarian
intervention is only authorized when members are persuaded that the protection
of human rights is complementary to the protection of state sovereignty, in the
case considered. 26 She finds that this applies to all missions authorized,
involving functioning governments, prior to the Libyan intervention.
Where human rights norms were seen to be in conflict with state sovereignty
norms, the UNSC decisions consistently favoured the protection of state
sovereignty.27 Exceptions to this pattern were only found in cases where the
legitimate sovereign authority was either non-existent, or was itself the
perpetrator of human rights atrocities, to the extent that it was deemed
illegitimate. The latter reflects the UNSC determination on the Libyan
intervention, wherein sovereignty was effectively transferred to the people of
Libya, and those representing them.28
Following the Libyan intervention, optimism based on notions of a new era ran
the risk of masking the ongoing contestation and resistance to R2P principles
and humanitarian intervention. This opposition was strongest where there was
seen to be potential to undermine the norms of state sovereignty. All these
authors find that any optimism, for a future where human rights might reign
supreme, must be tempered by a reasonable understanding of the complex
dynamics at work within the UNSC.
Inconsistency and Hypocrisy
The concerns around the undermining of state sovereignty become particularly
salient when a humanitarian intervention mission involves the removal of a
recognized government. This has occurred, where a government is deemed to
become illegitimate as the perpetrator of human rights atrocities upon its own
civilian population, through regime change facilitated by the humanitarian
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!Bellamy'and'Williams,'The'New'Politics'of'Protection?'Cte'dIvoire,'Libya'and'the'Responsibility'to'Protect,'828.!
!Walling,!Human!Rights!Norms,!State!Sovereignty,!and!Humanitarian!Intervention,!389,!401,!408,!412.!
27 !Ibid.,!400,!408,!412.!
28 !Ibid.,!411.!
25
26
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intervention.
China has repeatedly expressed concerns that UNSC missions might be used to
bring about regime change under the guise of protecting civilians.29 The P5
member has argued that the principle of human rights over sovereignty could
thus become an instrument for promoting hegemonism under the pretext of
human rights.30 As another P5 member, Russia has warned that humanitarian
missions should not be compromised by attempts to resolve in parallel any
unrelated issues.31
In contrast, the UNSC has also been criticized for inadequate responses to
humanitarian crises. In 1998, armed conflict and human rights atrocities in
Kosovo drew the attention of the UNSC but did not result in authorization for
humanitarian intervention, only gaining limited rhetorical support for the resulting
NATO operation. Tensions between human rights norms and state sovereignty
norms, with threats of vetoes from China and Russia, were cited as justifications
for non-authorization.32 In 2011, pro-democracy protests in Bahrain prompted an
oppressive response from its government, supported militarily by the regime of
Saudi Arabia. This support is believed to have discouraged any UNSC
consideration of an R2P response, leading to charges of hypocrisy for its silence
and inaction.33
Since 2011, the UNSC has demonstrated persistent failure in responding to the
armed conflict and humanitarian crisis in Syria. The UNSC is widely considered
to have failed in its responsibility to protect the Syrian people.34 It is also widely
considered to have failed to hold the Syrian government, and its legitimacy as a
sovereign state, to account, for its responsibility to protect its own citizens. For
many observers, this calls into question the viability of the R2P mandate of the
UNSC.35
The question of the viability of R2P revolves around the charge that the UNSC
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!Bellamy'and'Williams,'The'New'Politics'of'Protection?'Cte'dIvoire,'Libya'and!the!Responsibility!to!Protect,!848.!
!Walling,!Human!Rights!Norms,!State!Sovereignty,!and!Humanitarian!Intervention,!404.!
31 !Bellamy'and'Williams,'The'New'Politics'of'Protection?'Cte'dIvoire,'Libya'and'the'Responsibility'to'Protect,'847.!
32 !Walling,!Human!Rights!Norms,!State!Sovereignty,!and!Humanitarian!Intervention,!402404.!
33 !Hehir,!The!Permanence!of!Inconsistency:!Libya,!the!Security!Council!and!the!Responsibility!to!Protect,!139.!
34 !Ibid.,!156157.!
35 !Walling,!Human!Rights!Norms,!State!Sovereignty,!and!Humanitarian!Intervention,!411.!
29
30
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demonstrates inability to operate beyond chronic inconsistency and tragic

hypocrisy.36 The UNSC particularly struggles with considerations of the relative
worth of human rights norms compared to sovereign state norms. Such struggles
come to the fore, most markedly, when the Council deliberates possible
humanitarian interventions. Then, the UNSC demonstrates that its members act,
primarily and foremost, not on the basis of humanitarian values, rights or duties,
but out of their own strategic interests, and in response to salient political
factors.37
RIGHT OR DUTY
This section considers the problem of international community commitment and
consensus around the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principles, and their
development, application, and progress towards becoming global political norms.
Specifically, it will consider some key obstacles to such progress, in the context
of the main international institution that is able to advance its application, the
United Nations Security Council (UNSC).
This section considers the view that the international community, as reflected in
UNSC deliberations, accepts the right and, sometimes, the duty to use military
force to stop grievous and extensive human rights (HR) violations. In particular,
instances of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against
humanity, committed by governments on its population, or when governments
fail to halt such violations, are relevant to UN-adopted R2P principles. 38
However, some UNSC members have been extremely cautious, for a number of
reasons, about enabling the most powerful actors in the international community
to use military force to end HR violations.
The behaviour of UNSC members makes clear that at the level of symbolic
gestures and determinations to take concerted action, concerns over states
rights to non-intervention are central to the debate. Delving further into these
challenges, there are related concerns, shared by some UNSC members, that
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!Hehir,!The!Permanence!of!Inconsistency:!Libya,!the!Security!Council!and!the!Responsibility!to!Protect,!139,!144.!
!Hehir,!The!Permanence!of!Inconsistency:!Libya,!the!Security!Council!and!the!Responsibility!to!Protect,!150e159.;!Walling,!
Human!Rights!Norms,!State!Sovereignty,!and!Humanitarian!Intervention,!387388.!
38 !UN!General!Assembly,!Implementing!the!Responsibility!to!Protect:!Report!of!the!SecretaryeGeneral!(New!York,!United!
Nations:!A/63/677,!January!12,!2009),!430.!
36
37
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are important to note. Key factors include acts of emerging and great power
rivalries or containment, calculations around potentials for success and potential
price of failure, and effects of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) particularly
the experience of Iraq.
In this section, the UNSC will serve as a proxy for international community
sentiment. The analysis will focus on 22 instances of veto power exercises at
UNSC draft resolution deliberations since 2001, and several key R2P
resolutions. This section considers the implications of voting behaviour and
statements, with regard to the question of levels of commitment to the use of
force to end HR violations, when no other means are available.
The Great Powers and BRICS
In December 2001, the ICISS Responsibility to Protect report was released,39
at around the same time that the Taliban regime in Afghanistan was removed,
and the interim Afghan government was installed. Concurrently, the UNSC
deliberated on draft resolution S/2001/1199 on the Middle East and the
Palestine question calling for the cessation of hostilities in the Gaza and West
Bank, one year into the Second Intifada. This was the second vetoed draft
resolution to come to the UNSC on this issue, since that round of hostilities
began.40
The US exercised its veto power at the Council to block draft S/2001/1199.
Between 2001 and 2011, the US would exercise its veto power to block draft
resolutions on the same issue 11 times. Alex Bellamy and Nicholas Wheeler
(2008) have observed that it is perhaps inevitable that states will always apply
principles of humanitarian intervention selectively, resulting in an inconsistency in
policy. 41 They convincingly argue that in the GWOT, the US had damaged
humanitarianism by selectively responding to humanitarian crises in strategically
important areas. In doing so, the US demonstrated that the humanitarian
impulse has been less important than political and strategic considerations by its
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!Gareth!Evans!and!Mohamed!Sahnoun,!The#Responsibility#to#Protect:#Report#of#the#International#Commission#on#Intervention#
and#State#Sovereignty!(Ottawa:!International!Development!Research!Centre,!2001).!
40 !UN!Security!Council,!Security!Council!S/2001/1199!(New!York,!December!14,!2001).!
41 !Alex!J.!Bellamy!and!Nicholas!J.!Wheeler,!Humanitarian!Intervention!in!World!Politics,!in!The#Globalization#of#World#Politics:#
An#Introduction#to#International#Relations,!ed.!John!Baylis,!Steve!Smith,!and!Patricia!Owens,!Fourth!Ed.!(Oxford!and!New!
York:!Oxford!University!Press,!2008),!527.!
39
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behaviour.42
Such behaviour feeds a perception in the international community that the US
will use its veto power consistently to protect Israel from any resolution that might
be disadvantageous to it. Whilst doing so, it actively pursues outcomes that
serve its geopolitical interests, e.g. resolutions against declared enemy rogue
state Libya and the Gaddafi regime in 2011. The perceived selectiveness has
heightened reservations about moves by the US, UK and France to promote
intervention in Syria.43
China and Russia formed alliances with emerging powers Brazil, India and South
Africa (BRICS) that became influential, in and out of the UNSC where these
countries held memberships, in various combinations between 2004 and 2012.44
The BRICS proved to be an effective counterweight to the voting blocs that
coalesced around the US, UK and France. The deliberations on Syria generated
substantial levels of BRICS activism in the Council, especially in 2011 when the
bloc was at full strength in the UNSC.45 The BRICS abstained on the vote on
Resolution 1973 on Libya. That was as accommodating as they would get. There
would be no free ride on Syria.
The principle of sovereign responsibility, that qualifies in R2P the assumed right
of non-intervention, has brought with it requirements for sovereign consent to
mitigate a sense of violation of rights of sovereignty. Where, for whatever reason,
sovereign consent cannot be granted, then regional consent can be granted by a
relevant regional organisation. Regional consent can persuade otherwise
reluctant UNSC members to support, or at least to not block draft resolutions.
This was the case in Darfur in 2006 and Libya in 2011.46
The rhetorical deployment of particular understandings of sovereignty has been
central to members justifications for opposing UNSC draft resolutions invoking
R2P principles. The strategy of states such as China and India appear to be to
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!Ibid.,!532,!538.!
!Hehir,!The!Permanence!of!Inconsistency:!Libya,!the!Security!Council!and!the!Responsibility!to!Protect,!155157.!
44 !United!Nations,!United!Nations!Security!Council:!Countries!Elected!Members!of!the!Security!Council,!2015,!
http://www.un.org/en/sc/members/elected.asp.!
45 !Monica!Hirst,!Emerging!Brazil:!The!Challenges!of!Liberal!Peace!and!Global!Governance,!Global#Society!29,!no.!3!(2015):!
364371.!
46 !Luke!Glanville,!Intervention!in!Libya:!From!Sovereign!Consent!to!Regional!Consent,!International#Studies#Perspectives!14,!
no.!3!(2012):!326327.!
42
43
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invoke sovereign values based upon European historical precedents i.e.

Westphalian sovereignty. In doing so, they set out to employ supposedly longstanding principles of sovereignty, in what might be seen to be an international
community dominated by Eurocentric liberal democratic values.47
The pervasive view of Westphalian sovereignty relied upon by such a strategy is
not validated by close historical readings of the Peace of Westphalia and its
repercussions, as Luke Glanville has cogently argued. Nonetheless, such a view
attributes conventional or traditional powers through supposed long-standing
principles, in place of divinely-endowed powers no longer effective in a
globalised and secularised international community, as claims for absolute
sovereign authority.48
Although China and India might use the idea of Westphalian sovereignty,
protecting its intrinsic value as a shield against external interference, both
countries demonstrate firm commitment to the UN program of peacekeeping
operations (PKO). In September 2015, 124 countries provide police and military
personnel (totaling around 100,000) to PKOs worldwide, China provides the
ninth largest contingent (over 3,000) and India the third largest (over 7,700)
contribution to UN operations.49
The Council, Success and Failure
The right and duty to use military force is considered, in the UNSC, on a caseby-case basis. The decision to take all necessary measures falls upon all
fifteen members of the UNSC, especially upon the five permanent (P5)
members, because of their power to veto proposed resolutions in Council
meetings.50 In key R2P determinations of the recent past, three P5 members
have shown themselves most willing to use their veto power - China, Russia and
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!Garima!Mohan,!India!and!the!Responsibility!to!Protect,!vol.!4!(Brisbane:!AsiaePacific!Centre!for!the!Responsibility!to!
Protect,!2014),!4.!
48 !Luke!Glanville,!The!Myth!of!Traditional!Sovereignty,!International#Studies#Quarterly!57,!no.!1!(2013):!79;!Luke!Glanville,!
Sovereignty#and#the#Responsibility#to#Protect:#A#New#History!(Chicago!and!London:!University!of!Chicago!Press,!2014),!6,!11
14,!35.!
49 !United!Nations,!UN!Missions!Summary:!Detailed!by!Country,!September!30,!2015,!
http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/contributors/2015/sep15_3.pdf;!United!Nations,!Ranking!of!Military!and!Police!
Contributions!to!UN!Operations,!September!30,!2015,!
http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/contributors/2015/sep15_2.pdf.!
50 !Cristina!Gabriela!Badescu,!Humanitarian#Intervention#and#the#Responsibility#to#Protect:#Security#and#Human#Rights!(London!
and!New!York:!Routledge,!2011),!5055.!
47
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the US.51
Since 2001, in UNSC matters generally, the veto has been exercised by the US
eleven times, by Russia eleven times, and by China six times, with regard to 22
draft resolutions. Since 1972, when China joined the UNSC, China has used the
veto nine times, Russia 20, France 14, UK 23, and the US 78 times, in 144 draft
resolutions.52
After the 2005 UN World Summit Outcome articulated and adopted the principles
of R2P, UNSC Resolution 1674 brought the issue to Council and was
unanimously passed in April 2006.
53
Resolution 1894 affirmed UNSC
commitment, explicitly articulating the principle that States bear the primary
responsibility to respect and ensure the human rights of their citizens and was
unanimously adopted.54
UNSC Resolution 1706 on Sudan and the Darfur Peace Agreement was passed
in August 2006; this was the first Resolution that invoked the language of R2P
principles.55 China and Russia abstained, together with Qatar. In its statement,
China expressed concern that its repeated requests to include the phrase with
the consent of the Government of National Unity in the draft had not been
accorded. China argued that this was a fixed and standardized phrase utilized
by the Council when deploying United Nations missions this marked its first
objection to R2P implementation of this kind.56
Since Resolution 1706, a number of other concerns have been repeatedly
raised, in subsequent deliberations over R2P draft resolutions, which indicate
reasons why P5 member states exercise their veto in certain cases.
The first of these instances came up on 4 October 2011 as the NATO-led military
campaign in Libya was approaching 200 days of activity, and about two weeks
before the capture and killing of Gaddafi. On that day, the UNSC considered
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!United!Nations,!Security!Council!e!Veto!List,!Dag#Hammarskjld#Library#Research#Guides,!2015,!
http://research.un.org/en/docs/sc/quick.!
52 !Ibid.!
53 !UN!Security!Council,!Resolution#1674#(2006)!(New!York,!United!Nations!Security!Council:!S/RES/1674,!2006).!
56 !UN!Security!Council,!Security#Council#5519th#Meeting!(New!York,!United!Nations!Security!Council:!S/PV.5519,!2006),!5.!
51
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draft resolution S/2011/612 on Syria, invoking R2P principles, calling on Bashar

al-Assad to cease the use of force against civilians amongst other demands.57
The draft was vetoed by China and Russia, along with four abstentions. The
Russian representative argued that the Syrian situation cannot be considered in
the Council separately from the Libyan experience given the manners in which
both crises were unfolding. Russia further argued that the radical opposition no
longer hides its extremist bent relying on terrorist tactics in the conflict. China
argued for the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of States and
advocated respect for the sovereignty of Syria and resolving the crisis there
through political dialogue between the parties in the conflict.58
The Russian objections to this draft were strongly driven by the intervention in
Libya. Its statement indicates its determination not to allow the kind of
intervention then taking place in Libya to result from another UNSC resolution. In
their view, the NATO-led intervention in Libya was an abuse of the UNSC
resolution that authorised it. At that time, Russia distanced itself from the Assad
regime in Syria, condemning the repression of protests by peaceful
demonstrators taking place. But it also made clear its intent, to not support any
action that would lead to attempts at violent regime change in Syria.59
The Chinese objections were based on calls for constructive assistance instead
of threats of sanctions aimed at exerting pressure on the Syrian regime. At that
time, the Chinese called for crisis resolution and the addressing of differences
through political dialogue for which respect of Syrian sovereignty was
considered essential.60
The most recently vetoed draft resolution on Syria came to the UNSC on 22 May
2014 (S/2014/348) proposing to refer the matter of the Syrian crisis to the
International Criminal Court (ICC). 61 The last UNSC referral to the ICC was
Resolution 1970 on Libya, 62 three weeks before Resolution 1973 authorised
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!UN!Security!Council,!Security!Council!S/2011/612!(New!York,!October!4,!2011).!
!UN!Security!Council,!Security#Council#6627th#Meeting!(New!York,!United!Nations!Security!Council:!S/PV.6627,!2011),!35.!
59 !Ibid.,!45.!
60 !Ibid.,!5.!
61 !UN!Security!Council,!Security!Council!S/2014/348!(New!York,!May!22,!2014).!
57
58
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military action there in 2011.63 The 2014 vote resulted in 13 in favour, with China
and Russia against, and no abstentions there were no other BRICS members
on the UNSC at the time. The Russian statement explicitly linked S/2014/348 to
Resolution 1970, noting that it had added fuel to the flames of conflict in 2011.
China used its statement to call for a ceasefire, further negotiations, steps
towards political settlement, and respect for sovereignty.64
On a more symbolic level, in July 2015 (S/2015/508) the UNSC considered a
draft resolution in commemoration of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, and the
conflict in Bosnia Herzegovina. The draft opened with the language of R2P as a
way of emphasising the International Court of Justice finding of the Srebrenica
massacre as genocide.65 Russia indicated that it would use its veto, and the draft
resolution was not put to a vote. Russia argued the draft resolution would
introduce certain concepts that have not been agreed at the international level,
including intrusive approaches to human rights that could lead to interference in
the internal affairs of States. China echoed the objection.66
The GWOT Effect
A key dynamic in considering the question here is the discernible effect of the
Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) upon UNSC deliberations on R2P resolutions.
This dynamic referred to here as the GWOT effect encapsulates a
combination of concerns raised widely after the US and UK led military
campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq after 2001.67 Such concerns have not been
diminished by the ongoing aftermath of these campaigns. This effect was
exacerbated by the NATO-led intervention in Libya, enabled by UNSC
Resolution 1973 in 2011, and its aftermath.68 These concerns revolve around the
ambitions and conduct of empire demonstrated primarily by the US in its
handling of these campaigns and their results.
In particular, the uses of humanitarian concerns to justify the military campaigns
have set problematic precedents for advocates of R2P at the UN. Bellamy and
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!UN!Security!Council,!Resolution#1973#(2011)!(New!York,!United!Nations!Security!Council:!S/RES/1973,!2011).!
!UN!Security!Council,!Security#Council#7180th#Meeting!(New!York,!United!Nations!Security!Council:!S/PV.7180,!2014),!1314.!
65 !UN!Security!Council,!Security!Council!S/2015/508!(New!York,!July!8,!2015).!
66 !UN!Security!Council,!Security#Council#7481st#Meeting!(New!York,!United!Nations!Security!Council:!S/PV.7481,!2015),!6.!
67 !Bellamy!and!Wheeler,!Humanitarian!Intervention!in!World!Politics,!531533.!
68 !UN!Security!Council,!Resolution#1973#(2011).!
63
64
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Wheeler have argued that use of humanitarian arguments by the [US/UK] and
Australia to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq posed a crucial challenge
to the legitimacy of humanitarian intervention since. Furthermore, as the primary
justification for the Iraq invasion (the WMD threat) proved unfounded, the
removal of Saddam Hussein for the benefit of the Iraqi people became the only
viable justification. As events unfolded, it became clear that those justifying the
use of force to remove Saddam Hussein relied increasingly on humanitarian
rationales.69
The GWOT effect works from within, impacting upon US motivation and capacity
to act; and from without, eliciting a stance of great power containment from
rivals. It heightened a sense of the potential for the norm to be abused by the
powerful to justify interfering in the affairs of the weak as Bellamy and Wheeler
argue. It damaged the reputations of the US and UK as norm carriers affecting
the extent to which they are able to persuade others to agree to action in
humanitarian crises in the future.70 The GWOT effect becomes most apparent in
the UNSC votes and statements, particularly in the exercise of veto powers, on
the Syrian crisis from 2011. Any moves that might lead to UN-sanctioned military
intervention or violent regime change in Syria will likely be blocked by China and
Russia, in order to contain aggression by the US, UK, France or NATO.
Member states are likely to worry, with the US experiences in Afghanistan and
Iraq providing glaring examples, about the costs of nation-building that invariably
and inevitably follow regime-change. Calculations around the potential for
success and the potential price of failure become more important features of any
consideration for use of military force, particularly where national interests are
not directly served. Thus, the 2011 Libyan intervention also becomes an
important part of the picture for those contemplating such decisions today.71
Concerns around various notions of sovereignty undoubtedly matter. But what
seems to be more salient, are concerns around retaining the states right to nonintervention. More than any possible concerns about defending the Westphalian
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!Bellamy!and!Wheeler,!Humanitarian!Intervention!in!World!Politics,!532.!
!Ibid.,!533.!
71 !Andrew!GarwoodeGowers,!China!and!the!Responsibility!to!Protect:!The!Implications!of!the!Libyan!Intervention,!Asian#
Journal#of#International#Law!2,!no.!2!(2012):!388390.!
69
70
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character of sovereignty, states appear to be concerned about non-interference

in internal matters, in their relations with other states. More importantly, concerns
around becoming a target of a regime-change campaign, in the style of the
Afghan Taliban, or Saddam Hussein, or Muammar Gaddafi would surely lead
state leaders to pause and wonder.
The use of the veto and accompanying members statements at the UNSC, in
the first decade of R2P implementations, indicate a high degree of caution. This
is particularly the case with regard to possible violations of state sovereignty and
to preservation of rights of non-intervention. Major power rivalries, great power
containment, and emerging power activism, also play important parts in UNSC
deliberations on R2P actions. The GWOT effect will likely continue to strongly
influence UNSC voting behaviour for China and Russia, particularly in relation to
the US/UK involvement in Iraq. The resonance of this experience felt through the
2011 Libya NATO intervention will also likely be highly influential at the UNSC.
This effect, particularly apparent in the voting behaviours and statements of the
BRICS from 2005 on, will likely influence other temporary members who do not
have a close alliance with the US or UK.
The Libyan intervention illustrates the preparedness of the international
community to accept its right and duty to use military force, to address situations
where R2P principles have had to be invoked. Furthermore, the intervention
demonstrates preparedness whether or not all other means have been
exhaustively employed. The possible preference for force as first resort has
certainly left some UNSC members with strong concerns. Thus the extent of this
right and duty becomes the salient question, and with that the extent of
responsibility to exercise due care in the aftermath of intervention. Perhaps, also
with that, a fuller understanding of what is involved in protection after
intervention.
WORD COUNT:
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The Fall of the Truth Teller Cult

Violent Extremism and the Crisis of Realism in International Relations
With the collapse of the USSR, space opened up on the world stage for new sets
of security problems to present themselves. Indeed they have done so, as
shared experience and knowledge of the world in 2015 bears out. Realism does
not have many useful things to say or offer, about these new security challenges.
More informative ways of explaining these challenges, such as insights from
constructivist perspectives, have found use and currency in the present
international environment.
On the 28th of September, Australias Foreign Minister Julie Bishop was at a
forum on counter-terrorism hosted by US State Secretary John Kerry in New
York. Speaking to news media, she expressed concern at the prospect of
hundreds of convicted jihadists being released, after serving jail terms, from
prisons in Asia, mainly from the Indonesian prison system. She spoke about the
threat this posed to regional security, and to Australians. Bishop spoke about
concerns that the prison systems enabled growth of violent extremism, as
convicted jihadists radicalised fellow inmates with no backgrounds in violent
jihadism. She had discussed with her Indonesian counterpart the problem of
rehabilitation and reintegration of jihadists being released, and those they have
radicalised.72
Various estimates place the numbers of convicted violent jihadists that have
gone through the Indonesian prison system since 2002 at around 600 to 900
individuals.73 As then General David Petraeus advised his troops in NATO ISAF
and US Forces Afghanistan in 2010, and the Senate Armed Services Committee
in 2011, we cannot just kill or capture our way out of some situations.74 His
situation then, as Alliance Commander, was Afghanistan. The problem emerging
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
72 !Stephanie!March,!Release!of!Terrorism!Convicts!Across!Asia!Could!Pose!Risk!to!Australia,!Julie!Bishop!Tells!New!York!
Meeting,!ABC#News,!2015,!http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015e09e28/bishopesayseterroristsereleasedefromeasianejailseposee
threat/6808574.!
73 !Carl!Ungerer,!Jihadists!in!Jail:!Radicalisation!and!the!Indonesian!Prison!Experience!(Australian!Strategic!Policy!Institute,!
May!2011),!11;!Iis!Gindarsah,!Indonesias#Struggle#Against#Terrorism,!Council#on#Foreign#Relations!(Council!on!Foreign!
Relations,!2014),!11,!http://www.cfr.org/councilofcouncils/global_memos/p32772;!Zora!A.!Sukabdi,!Terrorism!in!Indonesia:!
A!Review!on!Rehabilitation!and!Deradicalization,!Journal#of#Terrorism#Research!6,!no.!2!(May!2015):!36.!
74 !Jon!Boone,!Protecting!Afghan!Civilians!a!Priority,!Petraeus!Tells!Troops,!The#Guardian,!August!3,!2010,!
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/aug/02/davidepetraeuseprotecteafghanecivilians;!David!H.!Petraeus,!Statement!
Before!Senate!Armed!Services!Committee!e!15!March!2011!(Washington!DC:!US!Senate!Armed!Services!Committee,!2011),!8.!
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out of prisons in Asia, is certainly another situation, which is just as certainly, not
unrelated. It would be safe to say that these situations are in each others
pockets.
THE STATE OF REALITY
John Mearsheimer wrote in a 2014 piece, entitled America Unhinged, about the
then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, telling US
Congress in 2012 - I cant impress upon you that in my personal military
judgment, formed over thirty-eight years, we are living in the most dangerous
time in my lifetime, right now. Mearsheimer reported that in 2013, Senator
James Inhofe commented, I dont remember a time in my life where the world
has been more dangerous and the threats more diverse. Mearsheimer then
cited a 2009 Pew Research Center survey which found that 69 percent of the
Council on Foreign Relations members believed the world was more dangerous
than or at least as dangerous as it was during the Cold War [the US has]
no choice but to pursue an interventionist foreign policy a policy of global
domination to make the world safe for America. Mearsheimer suggested that
this view is influential, widespread - and wrong.75
Over the next 10 thousand words, he set out why. Within that, he acknowledged
that there is the obvious threat the United States has a terrorism problem. He
added:
But it is a minor threat. There is no question we fell victim to a
spectacular attack on September 11, but it did not cripple the United
States in any meaningful way and another attack of that magnitude is
highly unlikely in the foreseeable future. Indeed, there has not been a
single instance over the past twelve years of a terrorist organization
exploding a primitive bomb on American soil, much less striking a major
blow.76
One would have to assume that he did not count the 2013 Boston Marathon
bombing, because two people does not, an organization make. By this
calculus, mass shootings (e.g. Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood in 2009) are far too
commonplace in the US, to warrant a glance.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
75
76
!John!J.!Mearsheimer,!America!Unhinged,!The#National#Interest,!2014,!910.!
!Ibid.,!12.!
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In 2002, Colin Gray wrote it seems improbable that transnational actors such
as al-Qaeda will shape the (in)security environment for decades to come.
transnational terrorism is pretty small beer.77 As Operation Enduring Freedom
got under way, Gray argued to the surprise of some, but certainly not to we
classical realists, states, their territoriality and their sovereign prerogatives,
continue to rule in world politics.78
Central to the question considered here, Gray boldly asserted, that if anything,
September 11 and its immediate aftermath have provided compelling evidence
to encourage fresh recognition of the authority of the realist canon recent
events have seen realism vindicated, because it is difficult to identify an
alternative paradigm for world politics which is suitably rich in explanatory
power.79
Indeed, the explanations realism provides are immensely problematic. Such
explanations, as Gray argued, assume a structurally anarchic world wherein
necessarily self-helping states the principal players seek power and influence
in pursuit of their national interests.80
The question considered here, is how useful these explanations might be in
understanding how security is maintained, in contemporary international
relations. How useful is it to be limited in view to actions of states, when one is
considering behaviours of non-state actors?
Mearsheimer, in a 2002 interview as part of the Conversations with History
series at the Institute of International Studies at UC Berkeley commented on:
the question of what does a Realist theory of international politics have
to say about terrorists? The answer is not a whole heck of a lot. Realism
is really all about the relations among states, especially among great
powers. In fact, al Qaeda is not a state, its a non-state actor a
transnational actor. My theory and virtually all Realist theories dont have
much to say about transnational actors.81
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
77 !Colin!Gray,!World!Politics!as!Usual!after!September!11:!Realism!Vindicated,!in!Worlds#in#Collision:Terror#and#the#Future#of#
Global#Order,!ed.!Ken!Booth!and!Tim!Dunne!(New!York:!Palgrave!Macmillan,!2002),!231.!
78 !Ibid.!
79 !Ibid.,!228.!
80 !Ibid.,!226.!
81 !John!J.!Mearsheimer,!The!Problem!of!Terrorism,!ed.!Harry!Kreisler,!Conversations#with#History!(Berkeley!CA:!University!of!
California,!April!2002),!http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people2/Mearsheimer/mearsheimerecon5.html.!
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A key question appears to be: Is terrorism as minor a threat as small beer

as stalwarts of realism would have us believe? Could it be that Bishop, Petraeus,
Dempsey and Inhofe have been sexing up the threat again?
Louis Klarevas writes about fissures that grew and developed between
adherents of realism and liberalism, in the Bush administration from 2001 on,
starting well before 9/11, to define the entire tenure and legacy of that
administration. Klarevas argues that realism is a worldview ill-equipped to deal
with the challenges to security in the 21st century, as it greatly underestimates
the critical role played by non-state actors.82
He sets out an account of how the realist perspective, personified by people like
Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz
exercised dominance over the liberalism espoused by Richard Clarke, Colin
Powell and others, isolating such views to steer the US into its involvements in
Afghanistan and Iraq.
The state-centric bias of Bush realists dictated that state sponsors of terrorism
had to be the primary targets of any counterterrorism policy in the wake of
9/11.83 About four months before 9/11, Wolfowitz told Clarke:
You give bin Laden too much credit. He could not do all these things like
the 1993 attack on New York, not without a state sponsor. Just because
FBI and CIA have failed to find the linkages does not mean they dont
exist.84
Afghanistan and Iraq (including the Mission Accomplished moment) were the
only ways that Bush realists could respond to 9/11 and, had they had their way,
Iran and North Korea would have followed.
There is the possibility, worthy of some consideration, that advocates of the
realist perspective, see the problem of terrorism as minor or small because
they have no conceptual framework with which they can meaningfully engage
the problem. Instead, they retreat to the conceptual Alamo (guns ablaze at
rogue states) in which they invoke the aura of truth inherent in the term
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!Louis!Klarevas,!Political!Realism:!A!Culprit!for!the!9/11!Attacks,!Harvard#International#Review!26,!no.!3!(2004):!18.!
!Ibid.,!1822.!
84 !Ibid.,!23.!
82
83
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realism as protection, against lingering threats to security, national or otherwise.

The question is, should the rest of us join them on the dark side and trust Dick
to look after us? Fortunately, there were some who hesitated.
However, if we were to treat the problem of violent extremist jihadism seriously,
albeit in a minor or small way, then what would that treatment look like? If we
were to consider this problem with due weight, what efforts might such
consideration produce.
THE STATE OF MINOR WAR
Firstly, it is critical to approach the problem with more specificity. To consider the
central question here, it might be useful to focus on the problem that Bishop
identified at the start the security problem posed by hundreds of convicted
jihadists being released from Indonesian and regional prisons. The additional
security problem, of non-jihadi prisoners radicalized by convicted jihadists in
those prisons, would be relevant to this consideration.
In her interview, Bishop talked about, as she had on other occasions, the
significant number of Australians fighting with extremist jihadist groups, in Syria
and Iraq. She added that Australia is working to curb radicalisation and taking
legal measures to address the problem of Australians becoming foreign fighters
with jihadist groups.85
Central to these security problems, are deradicalisation and counterradicalisation processes being employed to address such problems, and the
process of radicalisation that creates the problems to begin with. Clearly, realist
explanations provide limited insight into such processes. By examining these
processes, some more useful explanations, of how security can be maintained in
the current environment, can be considered.86
A 2010 doctrinal paper, prepared for the US Army Asymmetric Warfare Group,
defined radicalisation as the process by which an individual, group, or mass of
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!March,!Release!of!Terrorism!Convicts!Across!Asia!Could!Pose!Risk!to!Australia,!Julie!Bishop!Tells!New!York!Meeting.!
!Chuck!Crossett!and!Jason!A.!Spitaletta,!Radicalization:!Relevant!Psychological!and!Sociological!Concepts!(Fort!Meade!MD:!
John!Hopkins!University,!2010);!Jessica!Stern,!Mind!Over!Martyr:!How!to!Deradicalize!Islamist!Extremists,!Foreign#Affairs!89,!
no.!1!(2010):!95108;!Selina!Adam!Khan,!Deradicalization!Programming!in!Pakistan,!Peace#Brief!(Washington!DC:!US!
Institute!of!Peace,!September!2015).!
85
86
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people undergo a transformation from participating in the political process via

legal means to the use or support of violence for political purposes87 as a
working definition, it is useful for the question considered here. Therefore,
deradicalisation refers to reversal of that process, and counter-radicalisation
refers to prevention or disruption of the process, in both senses largely relating to
renunciation of violence as means of participating in political processes. One
amongst many key risk factors, identified in the US Army radicalisation paper, is
the power of resonant narrative to motivate such processes.88
The notions of narratives and counter-narratives have gained significant
purchase in counter-terrorism discourse, providing ways of understanding how
security can be maintained, in the context of threats of terrorism.89 The way that
narrative, together with notions such as practice and identity, can be used,
particularly in constructivist approaches to contemporary international relations,
allows some consideration of how processes such as radicalisation explain and
address key security problems in the current environment.
In The Politics and Ethics of Identity, constructivist IR theorist Richard Ned
Lebow argues that:
Narratives tell people who they are, what they should aspire to be and
how they should relate to others.90
He uses the idea of practice defining it as widely shared repetitive behavior
that is culturally regulated, which when habitualised serve to (along with
narratives) uphold existing social, religious, political and economic orders as
well as threaten existing orders. The practice of violent jihadism requires its
practitioners to internalize key narratives, particularly master narratives that
define the group providing the sought-after sense of belonging and that groups
mission.91 The process of internalization connected to identity-formation is
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!Crossett!and!Spitaletta,!Radicalization:!Relevant!Psychological!and!Sociological!Concepts,!10.!
!Ibid.,!5.!
89 !Rodger!Shanahan,!Sectarian!Violence:!The!Threat!to!Australia!(Canberra,!2014),!414;!Jeffry!R.!Halverson,!Steven!R.!
Corman,!and!H.!L.!Goodall,!Master#Narratives#of#Islamist#Extremism!(New!York:!Palgrave!Macmillan,!2011);!Michael!Jacobson,!
Countering#Violent#Extremist#Narratives:#Learning#Counter`Narrative#Lessons#from#Cases#of#Terrorist#Dropouts,!ed.!Eelco!J.A.M.!
Kessels!(The!Hague:!National!Coordinator!for!Counterterrorism,!2010);!Center!for!Strategic!Counterterrorism!
Communications,!Al`Qaeda#Master#Narratives#and#Affiliate#Case#Studies:#Al`Qaeda#in#the#Arabian#Peninsula#and#Al`Qaeda#in#the#
Islamic#Mahgreb!(Open!Source!Center,!2011).!
90 !Richard!Ned!Lebow,!The#Politics#and#Ethics#of#Identity:#In#Search#of#Ourselves!(Cambridge!and!New!York:!Cambridge!
University!Press,!2012),!46.!
91 !Ibid.,!4650.!
87
88
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central to the dynamic of radicalisation, and its reversal or disruption.

In the present consideration, deradicalisation will be assumed to be more
applicable to the problem of violent jihadists being released from Indonesian
prisons. Although counter-radicalisation applies to jihadists recruited in prisons, it
would be useful to specifically consider challenges associated with the process
of reversal, for agents who have internalized violent jihadism to the point of
participation in jihadist operations. Therefore, the consideration from this point
will focus on challenges more specifically concerned with deradicalisation.
A 2011 report by the US Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications
(CSCC) sets out six central Al Qaeda master narratives, as key to radicalisation
processes for violent jihadists and their sympathisers. Three in particular would
be useful to consider in relation to deradicalisation.
The first is the War on Islam narrative infidels are encircling the Muslim world,
thus the need for defensive jihad. The second is the Violent Jihad narrative
justifying use of violence, based on the defensive nature of the jihad. The third
is the Blood of the Martyrs narrative espousing the need for self-sacrifice, in
defending the Muslim world and religion. The other three master narratives relate
to the enemy and the restoration of the Caliphate, arguably not as central to the
deradicalisation process.
If the immediate objective of a deradicalisation process is to be the renunciation
of violence, then master narratives underpinning the call for use of violence at
least one of the former three must be disrupted and replaced. The counternarrative and its delivery will need to be tailored to achieve purchase, according
to particularities (e.g. weaknesses) of the intended recipient.92
In Countering Violent Extremist Narratives, a 2010 report by the National
Coordinator for Counterterrorism in the Netherlands, there are four themes
identified. The report recommends that these be included in any counternarrative campaign. Of these, three would be particularly relevant to a
deradicalisation process.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
92 !Center!for!Strategic!Counterterrorism!Communications,!Al`Qaeda#Master#Narratives#and#Affiliate#Case#Studies:#Al`Qaeda#in#
the#Arabian#Peninsula#and#Al`Qaeda#in#the#Islamic#Mahgreb,!47.!
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First, is an undermine terrorist leadership theme, whereby the source or conduit

for the authorisation for use of violence might be compromised. Second, is a
civilian/muslim suffering, hypocrisy of the Islamist narrative theme, whereby the
validity of justification for use of violence can be challenged. Third, is a terrorists
as criminals, highlighting hypocrisy of terrorist narrative theme, whereby the
moral righteousness and certainty of the agent of violence can be undermined.
The fourth does not relate directly to the use of violence, but nevertheless is a
powerful theme, a life as a terrorist focus to undermine resolve at fundamental
levels of self-interest.
The report argues for careful choices of agents of delivery for counter-narratives
and recipients, different messengers will carry varying amounts of credibility. The
report recommends considering use of former terrorists and of family members,
as agents of counter-narrative delivery. Choices will invoke other layers of metanarrative, that can support (or undermine) a counter-narrative process.93
THE HOUSE OF REALITY
Turning to the particular problem of violent jihadists in the Indonesian prison
system, two reports by the International Crisis Group (ICG) are worth
considering. The first was produced in 2007, the second in 2012.94 The first
report lists 229 individuals who were in, or had been released from, Indonesian
prisons as convicted violent jihadists.95 Compare that to 2015 figure of around
600-900 individuals.96
The 2007 report looks at deradicalisation programs employed at various
Indonesian prisons. Some involve counselling aimed at modifying interpretations
of key religious texts whilst others involve distancing or disengagement from
specific jihadi groups and
support for rehabilitation and reintegration into
society.97
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
93 !Jacobson,!Countering#Violent#Extremist#Narratives:#Learning#Counter`Narrative#Lessons#from#Cases#of#Terrorist#Dropouts,!73
81.!
94 !International!Crisis!Group,!Deradicalisation!and!Indonesian!Prisons:!Asia!Report!No.!142!e!19!November!2007!(Brussels:!
International!Crisis!Group,!2007);!International!Crisis!Group,!How!Indonesian!Extremists!Regroup:!Asia!Report!No.!228!e!16!
July!2012!(Brussels:!International!Crisis!Group,!2012).!
95 !International!Crisis!Group,!Deradicalisation!and!Indonesian!Prisons:!Asia!Report!No.!142!e!19!November!2007,!1825.!
96 !Ungerer,!Jihadists!in!Jail:!Radicalisation!and!the!Indonesian!Prison!Experience;!Gindarsah,!Indonesias#Struggle#Against#
Terrorism;!Sukabdi,!Terrorism!in!Indonesia:!A!Review!on!Rehabilitation!and!Deradicalization.!
97 !International!Crisis!Group,!Deradicalisation!and!Indonesian!Prisons:!Asia!Report!No.!142!e!19!November!2007,!11.!
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Outside the prison system, outreach programs involve road shows with
popular Islamic scholars who reject violence and use of media/internet to
counter jihadist teachings as well as youth activity programs directed at young
men [vulnerable] to recruitment. Other community programs aim to strengthen
moderate Islamic institutions. Others aim to address social and economic
grievances
where
marginalisation
and
discrimination
have
fostered
extremism. 98 The second report, produced 5 years later, only offers the
observation that:
No one has tried to pull together an evaluation of these initiatives and
examine what has worked, what has not and why. Before another decade
of grant-making takes place, it would be useful to have such an
evaluation in place.99
Both reports raise a number of key themes, that might be useful to consider in
designing or evaluating any Indonesian deradicalisation program. One, for
example, is the notion of thoghut or thagut which means anti-Islamic or
idolatrous oppressor. It is used to refer to the police, particularly Christian or
Hindu officers, as the enemy (i.e. legitimate targets of violence).100 It would be
useful to consider how this notion might be targeted, using master narratives or
counter-narrative themes, how approaches might be employed, specifically in
relation to use of violence, and delivered by what sort of messenger. Such
challenges are well beyond the scope of the present consideration, but would
make for a highly informative study.
A 2015 psychology study involving 43 convicted jihadists in the Indonesian
prison system, asked prisoners to identify trigger factors that contributed to
behaviour modification, relating to renunciation of use of violence.
Of that group, 97% attributed shifts to changes in understanding of Islamic
principles of daar al harb (state of war) and daar as salam (state of peace);
91% reported shifts upon witnessing a family relation, close friend, or significant
other, being hunted and arrested by law enforcement officers; 67% reported that
being arrested brought about behaviour modification; 23% indicated that meeting
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!Ibid.!
!International!Crisis!Group,!How!Indonesian!Extremists!Regroup:!Asia!Report!No.!228!e!16!July!2012,!24.!
100 !International!Crisis!Group,!Deradicalisation!and!Indonesian!Prisons:!Asia!Report!No.!142!e!19!November!2007,!113;!
International!Crisis!Group,!How!Indonesian!Extremists!Regroup:!Asia!Report!No.!228!e!16!July!2012,!120.!
98
99
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bombing victims caused modification; 19% attributed shifts to interactions with

law enforcement officers, where rapport was established; and 16% indicated that
disappointment with leadership figures caused change.101 These indicators point
to interesting parallels with master narratives and counter-narrative themes
discussed earlier.
Morten Storm was, for a decade, a Danish Muslim convert. As a Salafi jihadist in
the Middle East, he became a close confidante of Anwar al-Awlaki, the US-born
imam who became a key advocate of violent jihadism before being killed by US
drones in Yemen in 2011. Storm was a hardline jihadist, until a period of doubt
arose in 2007, which led him to type the phrase contradictions in the Koran into
a Google search. This led him to commentaries that raised questions he had
long been suppressing. Over a period of several months, he reconsidered 9/11,
and the attacks in Bali, Madrid and London. He started seeing them as acts of
violence targeting ordinary people and he reconsidered the declaration of war
against all disbelievers as part of defensive jihad. He decided that he now
wanted no part of it even if it was Allahs plan. Finally, in a burst of anger, his
thoughts turned to his family:
Why should my family go to hellfire just because they are not
Muslims? I thought of my mother and grandparents. We had had
our issues but they were decent people who had no malice.102
At that point, he decided that he had to do something to stop the violent jihadists
in Denmark. Eventually he called the Danish Security and Intelligence Service,
and started working as an agent, against his jihadist brothers. The
transformations he describes are consistent with master narrative elements and
counter-narrative themes discussed earlier.103
As Bishop and Kerry discussed counter-terrorism on 28 September 2015,
Australias National Terrorism Public Alert System assessed the terrorist threat to
be at a High a terrorist attack is likely level.104 In the US, the alert level is
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!Sukabdi,!Terrorism!in!Indonesia:!A!Review!on!Rehabilitation!and!Deradicalization,!4145.!
!Morten!Storm,!Agent#Storm:#My#Life#Inside#Al#Qaeda!(London:!Penguin,!2014),!130134.!
103 !Ibid.,!134.!
104 !Australian!Government,!Australian!National!Security,!2015,!
http://www.nationalsecurity.gov.au/Securityandyourcommunity/Pages/NationalTerrorismPublicAlertSystem.aspx.!
101
102
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Elevated a significant risk of terrorist attacks assessed.
105
In the
Netherlands, the threat level is Substantial there is a real chance of an

attack106 and in the UK, threat from international terrorism is assessed as
Severe an attack is highly likely in the country.107
Five days later, 15-year-old Farhad Jabar Khalil Mohammad staged a shooting
at Parramatta NSW Police HQ, killing one civilian police employee before being
shot and killed by officers, in what is being described as another act of
terrorism.108
The state-centric or realist view of IR, as Mearsheimer notes, has not much to
say about such security threats, apart from obvious state-centered observations,
and the minor nature of such threats. For informative and useful explanations, it
is necessary to look to conceptual frameworks that address the ways in which
relevant perceptions, definitions and operations are constructed, at the levels of
individuals and groups.
Perhaps the state-centric view will have something more useful to offer, once
that other stalwart of violent jihadism, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)
attains widely accepted and utterly undeniable statehood status, although some
persuasive arguments posit that it has already done so.109
ISIS has demonstrated particularly heavy reliance upon the Restoring the
Caliphate master narrative, to the point of occupying the near-entirety of its
foreign policy agenda apart from sales of oil and antiquities on international
markets, as well as recruitment of foreign fighters. The credibility of that master
narrative is existentially critical to ISIS.
One might wonder what a realist high-priest such as Henry Kissinger would
advise, on the issue of foreign policy with the Caliphate, apart from
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!TerroreAlert.com,!National!Terrorism!Advisory!System,!2015,!http://www.terrorealert.com/.!
!National!Coordinator!for!Security!and!Counterterrorism,!Threat!Level!Remains!for!the!Netherlands!Substantial,!2015,!
http://english.nctv.nl/currenttopics/news/2015/threateleveleforetheenetherlandseremainsesubstantial.aspx?cp=92&cs=385.!
107 !UK!Security!Service!MI5,!Threat!Levels,!2015,!https://www.mi5.gov.uk/home/theethreats/terrorism/threatelevels.html.!
108 !ABC!News,!Parramatta!Shooting:!Police!Raid!Mosque!in!Shooting!Investigation,!ABC#News,!October!4,!2015,!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015e10e04/parramattaeshootingepoliceeraidemosqueeineshootingeinvestigation/6825882.!
109 !David!Kilcullen,!A!State!of!Fear:!What!ISIS!Is,!and!What!It!Is!Not,!ABC#Religion#and#Ethics,!May!22,!2015,!
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2015/05/22/4240686.htm.!
105
106
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recommending air strikes of limited duration as a punitive measure110 this

might prove, as their 9/11 reaction did for Bush realists, to be questionable
responses trying to compensate for ill-considered policy.
In 2004, Mearsheimer delivered an E.H. Carr Memorial Lecture at Aberystwyth,
exactly 68 years after Carr delivered his first lecture there to take up the
Woodrow Wilson Chair of International Politics. Mearsheimer recalls how Carr
sought then to challenge an intellectual community dominated by idealists who
largely ignored power politics and had become delusional as well as
dangerous in their unbridled optimism.111
In their state-centric silos, realists have ignored the reality of power struggles that
involve actors that cannot be defined as states, or major powers. To do so can
be, as argued here, just as delusional and dangerous. No return to any form of
idealism can be considered viable in the current environment, but ignoring the
necessity for concerted efforts against existent threats on the basis of a
dystopic notion of anarchy cannot be a viable option either.
Alexander Wendt offered useful insights into power politics in the reminder that
anarchy is what states make of it in 1992, as the Cold War ended:
in the realist view anarchy justifies disinterest in the institutional
transformation of identities and interests self-help and power politics do
not follow logically or causally from anarchy if today we find ourselves
in a self-help world, this is due to process, not structure.112
The trap of realism its conceptual quagmire is intrinsic to the exclusivity of
the real or truth claims it makes. It is the trap of believing your own PR, or
label. Language is clearly important, and the power of appeals to truth or reality,
once embedded, can be blinding to those captured by it. This is how cults tend to
work.
WORD COUNT:
3585
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
110 !Toby!Harnden,!Tim!Shipman,!and!Mark!Hookham,!Launch!Alleout!Blitz!on!Jihadists,!Says!Kissinger,!The#Sunday#Times,!
September!7,!2014,!http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/article1456033.ece.!
111 !John!J.!Mearsheimer,!E.H.!Carr!vs.!Idealism:!The!Battle!Rages!On,!International#Relations!19,!no.!2!(2005):!139141.!
112 !Alexander!Wendt,!Anarchy!Is!What!States!Make!of!It:!The!Social!Construction!of!Power!Politics,!International#
Organization!46,!no.!2!(1992):!394395.!
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The Children of Many Revolutions

From Al Qaeda to Islamic State
!
To say that violent extremist groups such as Al Qaeda (AQ) and the Islamic
State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have emerged largely due to power vacuums and
the prevalence of authoritarianism in Muslim countries, would be to overly
simplify the problem. It would also miss some far more important factors, that
can more usefully account for their emergence. Central to this, is the
convergence of a stream of ideology113 that traces back over 1400 years, with a
set of experiences emerging from a mid to late 20th century post-war Middle
Eastern environment, including experiences with armed conflict and/or
imprisonment with torture.
The motivations and circumstances that led to the formation of AQ and
subsequent formation of associated groups like ISIS cannot be articulated in a
few sentences. Human beings and, even more so, groups of people are certainly
much more complex than that. To begin to account for the emergence of violent
extremist groups like AQ and ISIS, within the context of an Islamic jihadist
tradition and milieu, it would be useful to look at a number of key periods, writers,
activists and groups that became influential from around the mid 20th century
onwards.
The first of these periods and writers would be the 1960s and the work of Sayyid
Qutb. In 1964, his most influential book Milestones was published in Egypt,
written whilst he was in an Egyptian prison for political conspiracy. The key
prescription espoused by Qutb here is the idea of jahiliyyah (ignorance of divine
law).114 This becomes the principle against which jihad in the militant extremist
sense of AQ and ISIS, will be waged.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
113 !David!R.!Springer,!James!L.!Regens,!and!David!N.!Edger,!Islamic#Radicalism#and#Global#Jihad!(Washington!DC:!Georgetown!
University!Press,!2009),!5.!Ideology!as!a!set!of!structured!cognitive!and!affective!attitudes!that!form!a!belief!system!for!an!
individual!or!group.!a!philosophical!foundation!or!mental!framework!for!interpreting!and!explaining!both!observable!and!
nonobservable!phenomena.!ethical!or!moral!guidance,!goals!and!means!to!attain!those!goals!also!are!subsumed!under!a!
belief!system.!provides!a!basis!for!determining!the!good,!longeterm!end!points,!and!proper!actions!to!attain!those!end!
points.!a!key!factor!in!making!the!jihadist!ideologys!appeal!so!pervasive,!creating!recruits!and!sympathizers!while!
simultaneously!fostering!doctrinal!strife!within!the!movement,!especially!over!tactics.!
114 !Sayyid!Qutb,!Milestones:#Maalim#Fi#Al`Tariq!(Indianapolis:!American!Trust,!1964),!6.!
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Thus, a government does not need to be authoritarian in any sense, in order to

become a legitimate target of jihad. The key criterion is its secular orientation, a
rejection of divine law as the ultimate source of earthly authority the notion that
government derives its mandate to rule from human rather than divine sanction.
Jahiliyyah was posited as a form of enslavement, that then becomes the basis
for the sense of humiliation that pervades modern jihadi calls to arms, across its
various manifestations. Secular modernity is thus equated with humiliating
enslavement, to which the only solution, in the jihadi mindset, is the overthrow or
subordination of all jahili influence, practices and organisations. Jihad against
jahiliyyah is posited as the foremost duty of Islam in this world to the exclusion
of all else, including life itself.115
The Child of 1967
The 1967 Arab-Israeli war is often cited as a watershed event for the Islamic
jihadist movement.116 The defeat of the Arab armies by Israel intensified the
sense of humiliation pointed to by Qutb in his writings.117 These defeats also
came a year after Qutb was executed by the Egyptian regime for allegedly
conspiring against the government in Cairo.118
After the 1967 war, a centre of gravity for jihadists emerged in Egypt, particularly
around the Cairo University Islamist groups that were gaining more solid
footholds. It was an environment that would produce some of the key jihadist
leaders of the 1980s and 1990s. Prominent among them was Ayman Al
Zawahiri; although having set up an underground jihadist cell in 1966, little is
known about him until he graduates with a medical degree from Cairo University
in 1974, he was certainly close to the main centres of jihadist activity at that time.
The time he spent in Egyptian prisons as a militant activist further intensified his
militancy and organizational depth.119
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!Ibid.,!107.!
!Yvonne!Haddad,!Islamists!and!the!Problem!of!Israel:!The!1967!Awakening,!Middle#East#Journal!46,!no.!2!(1992):!267.!
The!war!had!proved!the!bankruptcy!of!the!dominant!nationalist!and!socialist!agenda.!Islamism!offered!itself!as!an!alternative!
with!the!promise!of!an!assured!victory.!
117 !Fawaz!A.!Gerges,!The#Far#Enemy:#Why#Jihad#Went#Global!(New!York:!Cambridge!University!Press,!2005),!91.!
118 !Springer,!Regens,!and!Edger,!Islamic#Radicalism#and#Global#Jihad,!3637.!
119 !Youssef!H.!AbouleEnein,!Ayman!AleZawahiri:!The!Ideologue!of!Modern!Islamic!Militancy!(Alabama,!2004),!46,!
http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA446154.!
115
116
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Throughout the 1970s these activists, together with Palestinians, driven to

increasingly violent methods of protest against Israeli occupation, moved around
the Middle East, Europe and the US, gaining education, planning and conducting
operations, expanding their networks and capacity for violence, or being killed by
their opponents.
One such Palestinian was Abdullah Yusuf Azzam. He was born in the
Palestinian West Bank, he and his family were displaced by the 1967 war. He
went on to study Islamic law and philosophy at the University of Damascus and
then at Al Azhar University in Cairo. He wrote a fatwa in 1979 called Defence of
the Muslim Lands: The First Obligation after Imam calling for a defensive jihad,
he set up an organization called Maktab al-Khadamat or Services Bureau, and
later became a key figure amongst the Arab mujahideen in Afghanistan. He has
been described as the father of modern Islamic terrorism and became a key
inspiration to Usama Bin Laden (UBL).120
The Child of Many Wars
By the late 1970s, Iran was becoming another important centre of gravity,
leading up to the overthrow of the Shah, and the subsequent ascension of
Khomeini and the Islamic Republic. Under Khomeinis leadership, Iran became
an important enabler for the emerging generation of jihadists, providing highly
organized and sophisticated military training for growing numbers of jihadists,
drawn to the path by Qutbist ideology of violent militancy against the Cold War
empires. Training in such operations as airline hijackings, using actual
passenger aircraft, meant that the ideology of militancy was being complemented
by practical skills and organizational networks, that created a condition of
readiness and preparedness awaiting opportunities.121
The key opportunity for AQ and associated groups, came in the 1980s with the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. This became a rallying point for Islamic militants,
who saw an opportunity to engage in a defensive jihad against an imperial force.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
120 !Bruce!Riedel,!The!9/11!Attacks!Spiritual!Father!(Washington!DC:!Brookings!Institution,!September!2011),!
http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2011/09/11eriedel;!AbouleEnein,!Ayman!AleZawahiri:!The!Ideologue!of!
Modern!Islamic!Militancy,!5.!
121 !Amir!Taheri,!Holy#Terror:#Inside#the#World#of#Islamic#Terrorism!(Bethesda!MD:!Adler!and!Adler,!1987),!101109;!Yossef!
Bodansky,!Target#America:#Terrorism#in#the#US#Today!(New!York:!Shapolsky!Publishers,!1993),!723.!
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They were financially supported by Islamic charities in the Middle and Near East,
and by the US, intent on containing and bleeding the Soviets as much as
possible.122 The mujahideen of Afghanistan became a more skilled, and larger
multinational force of fighters, bound together by religion and ideology. By the
end of the 1980s, as the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, a spent force, the
mujahideen began to realize its power as a military force, as its fighters took the
jihad to other parts of the world, continued military campaigns in Afghanistan, or
rested in anticipation of future conflicts not far away.123
With Iraqs invasion of Kuwait, and the subsequent 1991 Gulf War, UBL felt, as
an important member of the Afghan mujahideen foreign fighter contingent,
empowered enough to make a claim for the right to defend Kuwait, offering 100
thousand fighters for a Saudi-led coalition, drawing on mujahideen networks from
the Afghanistan conflict. When the Saudi government turned UBL down in favour
of the US-led effort to liberate Kuwait, UBL felt personal offense, and decided to
target both the Saudi regime and the US in response.124 The stationing of US
forces in Saudi Arabia, during and after the first Gulf War, gave UBL justification
to declare war on the US and the Saudi regime.125
The 1967 war was an attack on the ummah, and jihadis saw that no Muslim
nation was able to defend them. They had to defend themselves, as Muslims.
They had to wage a defensive jihad. This impulse took many years to become
sufficiently stable, as organizational structures that were able to conduct
defensive jihad. 126 It became clear that the way to develop the capacity to
eventually engage the far enemy in a defensive jihad, was to inspire their
constituency, fellow Muslims, through highly visible and effective acts of violence
against the near enemy; authoritarian leaders made convenient targets. The
jihadis could demonstrate their capacity to deliver a public good, through
assassination of despised leaders, and thus garner support from their
constituency in the form of persons and wealth. They found that they could grow
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!Bernard!Lewis,!The#Crisis#of#Islam:#Holy#War#and#Unholy#Terror!(New!York:!Modern!Library,!2003),!9192.!
!John!L.!Esposito,!Unholy#War:#Terror#in#the#Name#of#Islam!(Oxford!and!New!York:!Oxford!University!Press,!2002),!921.!
124 !Thomas!H.!Kean!et!al.,!The#9/11#Commission#Report!(Washington!DC:!National!Commission!on!Terrorist!Attacks!Upon!the!
United!States,!2004),!5761.!
125 !Gerges,!The#Far#Enemy:#Why#Jihad#Went#Global,!145149.!
126 !Michael!Scheuer,!Imperial#Hubris:#Why#the#West#Is#Losing#the#War#on#Terror!(Washington!DC:!Potomac!Books,!2004),!129
130.!
122
123
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the movement, nourished with the blood of dictators, as well as unpopular or

despised public figures.127
Therefore, authoritarian regimes the near enemy were not the cause, but the
first steps towards the far enemy. The jihadists were less responding to a power
vacuum, than serving a remedy for strong but ineffective power figures. The
assassination of Anwar Sadat also served as a warning, to apostate leaders in
the ummah in the wake of wars, then peace, with Israel failure would surely
bring about grave consequences.
The
government
crackdown,
and
brutal
reprisals,
had
the
additional
consequence of deepening the commitment to defensive jihad, on individual

levels, as those who survived Egyptian prisons and torture, escalate the jihad, as
Zawahiri and others do. Such hard lessons bred deeper determination to inflict
greater harm upon the enemy, and greater expectations on recruits, to be
prepared to carry out more extreme acts of violence.128
This approach on focusing upon the near enemy would not apply to all jihadists.
The entry of AQ and UBL into the equation, brought with it a push to shift the
focus of attack upon the far enemy after the Soviet Union played this role in
Afghanistan, the new player came to be identified by UBL as the head of the
snake or the United States. For UBL, defeat or humiliation of the far enemy
would naturally lead to a weakening of the near enemy, the apostate regimes of
the region, making them ready like ripened fruit for a final concerted effort by
the transnational jihadist movement.129
The Drowning Child
Irrespective of the focus on either the near enemy or the far enemy, jihadist
leaders such as Azzam, Zawahiri and UBL saw themselves as inspiring
Muslims to wage defensive jihad.130 Azzam presents a case in his work Defence
of the Muslim Lands that is intended to inspire in this way. He frames the case,
as an analogy for Afghanistan in the early 1980s, as the fledgling mujahideen
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!Esposito,!Unholy#War:#Terror#in#the#Name#of#Islam,!chap.!4146.!
!Gerges,!The#Far#Enemy:#Why#Jihad#Went#Global,!9394.!
129 !Ibid.,!149.!
130 !Scheuer,!Imperial#Hubris:#Why#the#West#Is#Losing#the#War#on#Terror,!131132.!
127
128
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movement struggled to find its feet, in the face of the Soviet invasion.
The case is that of a group of people walking along the seashore, who see a
drowning child in the water, yelling save me! whilst struggling to stay afloat.
There are good swimmers amongst the group on the shore. One of them, a child,
wants to try to save the drowning child. The father of the child on the shore will
not let that child enter the water it is too dangerous.131
Azzam argues that there is an obligation on every member of the group on the
shore to try to save the drowning child. If one of them acts, then the obligation
falls from the rest. If no one acts, they are all failing in their individual obligation.
If the father tries to stop the child who tries to save the drowning child, then the
father must be disobeyed. Thus Azzam puts the case, intended to inspire the
obligation upon Muslims to wage defensive jihad.132
On the individual level, such inspiration can only catch alight once a number of
experiential elements come into play. One element involves the vicarious
experience, or witnessing, of the intense suffering of others with whom one
identifies with at fundamental levels. Another element involves being implicated
in the violence that causes that suffering in some way, often through a sense of
being unable to physically do something to stop the violence, a sense of
helplessness.133
In the context of AQ and ISIS, the armed conflicts and suffering centre around
the Arab-Israeli wars that started soon after World War 2, with images and
narratives from the 1967 war, and later from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, being
particularly critical to this context.
134
Another critical element involves
participation in a group that one strongly identifies with, which offers solutions to
the sense of helplessness emerging from the experience, direct or indirect, of
suffering.135
In this context, that participation occurs in mosques, universities, meeting rooms,
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!Abdullah!Azzam,!Defense#of#the#Muslim#Lands:#The#First#Obligation#After#Imam!(Peshawar:!Azzam!Publications,!1979),!ch.!3.!
!Ibid.!
133 !Haddad,!Islamists!and!the!Problem!of!Israel:!The!1967!Awakening,!274.!
134 !Esposito,!Unholy#War:#Terror#in#the#Name#of#Islam,!3941.!
131
132
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and more recently in mediated communication platforms, where the requisite

shared interests are expressed, around which necessary structured interactions
occur. From these interactions, with resulting decisions and plans, the core
activities of groups like AQ and ISIS take shape. The organizational culture that
emerges out of these interactions, decisions, plans and activities, affectively
grounded in the experience of suffering, determines the nature and degree of
violence that such groups exercise. This organizational culture can also be
thought of as the brand of the group, thus becoming central to its
perpetuation.136
The groups activities require sets of specific resources, chief of which being
money, in order to become actualized. Finally, on the individual level upon which
the actualization relies the agency of the act there must be a clearly defined
role with a clear narrative and objective, set and internalized, resourced and
ready to be enacted. 137 Upon enactment, the groups activities need to be
integrated into the meaning-making system, the ideology and narrative of the
group, so as to become part of its perpetuation.138
The Oldest Child
Ayman Al Zawahiri is likely to be the oldest serving surviving member of AQ. His
father was a pharmacology academic at Ain Shams University in Cairo, one
grandfather was an imam at the Al Azhar Mosque, his other grandfather was a
literature academic at Cairo University and Egyptian ambassador to Pakistan,
Saudi Arabia and Yemen.139
In 1966, his final year at high school, the government of Gamal Abdel Nasser
implemented a crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, arresting over 17000
people, including Sayyid Qutb who was, among other Brotherhood members,
subsequently executed. Around this time, Zawahiri set up a jihadist cell at his
high school with a small group of friends, to work towards the overthrow of the
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
136 !Daniel!L.!Byman!and!Jennifer!Williams,!Jihadisms!Global!Civil!War,!The#National#Interest!(Washington!DC:!Center!for!the!
National!Interest,!2015),!11.!
137 !Lebow,!The#Politics#and#Ethics#of#Identity:#In#Search#of#Ourselves,!4651.!
138 !Center!for!Strategic!Counterterrorism!Communications,!Al`Qaeda#Master#Narratives#and#Affiliate#Case#Studies:#Al`Qaeda#in#
the#Arabian#Peninsula#and#Al`Qaeda#in#the#Islamic#Mahgreb,!47.!
139 !AbouleEnein,!Ayman!AleZawahiri:!The!Ideologue!of!Modern!Islamic!Militancy,!1.!
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Egyptian government, and the installation of an Islamic one in its place.140 He

had just finished high school when the 1967 Arab-Israeli war broke out,
experiencing the Six-Day War, and Egypts defeat, as a teenager in Cairo.141
Zawahiri studied medicine at Cairo University, graduating in 1974. While at
university, he met a Palestinian doctoral student doing Islamic studies at Al
Azhar University, Abdullah Yusuf Azzam. The jihadist cell he formed in high
school merged with other cells to become Tanzeem al-Jihad or Egyptian Islamic
Jihad (EIJ) and Zawahiri would take control of the organization in 1975. 142
Zawahiri spent three years in prison, caught up in the crackdown following the
assassination of Sadat. He was forced, under torture, to betray his jihadi
comrades; this burden weighed heavily upon him.143
In The Causes of Violent Jihadism, Bernard Finel argues that there are three
broad schools of thought in the debate over the sources of violent jihadism and
these would be useful to consider here. The first involves economic stagnation,
population pressures, failures of political institutions, and disputes over the
interpretation of religious texts within Muslim societies. The second includes
foreign policies of the United States and other Western countries toward the
Arab and Muslim world as external factors. The third involves dynamics in the
Muslim world such as distrust of formal sources of news [shaping]
perceptions of the outside world that promote a siege mentality and violent
response as internal factors influencing external outlook.144
Finel offers a useful listing of factors that could arguably be seen to contribute to
the emergence of groups like AQ and ISIS. But to consider one school of thought
to be more accurate than the others seems overly limiting again for the purpose
of building as full a picture as possible of the extremely complex dynamics that
are at work in the problem considered here. The factors in isolation, or even in
discrete combinations, seem to fall short of providing an understandable set of
human experiences and motivations, beyond apprehensible attitudes and
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!Ibid.,!34.!
!Ibid.,!23.!
142 !Ibid.,!4.!
144 !Bernard!I.!Finel,!The#Causes#of#Violent#Jihadism!(Washington!DC:!American!Security!Project,!2007),!2.!
140
141
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observable phenomena.
In The Rise and Fall of Al Qaeda, Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou
argues that an imperative to find a way of countering the rise of Islamic
radicalism leads much analysis to fixate on locating the initiative on the states
side of the equation. This creates a misleading portrait of a reactive [AQ] only
moving about along gaps created by these states actions and inactions whilst it
is precisely the opposite that has so often proved true in retrospect.145
To attempt to understand violent extremism exclusively as a reality guided by
the centre146 would be to miss key elements of converging teleological and
eschatological currents, interacting with organizational dynamics, all deeply
rooted in historical traditions. The reliance upon repetition of a simplistic term
such as death cult serves no purpose other than to fill in media space in
between commercial breaks, whilst bolstering the cult message.147
Financial Crisis
The 9/11 plot, from planning to execution, is estimated to have cost around
$500,000 over 2 years. Before 2001, AQ is estimated to have had a total annual
operating budget of around $30 million, of which only a relatively small part was
spent on attacking designated targets. The bulk of expenses comprised of
salaries for jihadists, training camps, airfields, vehicles, arms, and the
development of training manuals amongst other things.148
The majority of the funding came from fund-raising efforts through a small
number of humanitarian charities and the mosque-based charitable giving
system zakat in the Gulf States, donations redirected in various ways so as
to mask or conceal the ultimate destination of the funds.149 UBL directed appeals
to the group of merchants and financiers who are as important as others in
propelling this battle toward its desired aim of destroying the head of the snake.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
145 !MohammadeMahmoud!Ould!Mohamedou,!The#Rise#and#Fall#of#Al#Qaeda:#Lessons#in#Post`September#11#Transnational#
Terrorism,!GCSP#Geneva#Papers:#Research#Series#Number#3!(Geneva:!Geneva!Centre!for!Security!Policy,!2011),!12.!
146 !Ibid.!
147 !ABC!Lateline,!Islamic!State:!Tony!Abbotts!Death!Cult!Tag!Feeds!Terror!Groups!Propaganda!Machine,!Expert!Warns!
(Australia:!ABC!News,!2015).!
148 !Kean!et!al.,!The#9/11#Commission#Report,!171172.!
149 !Ibid.,!169171.!
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He would tell them that spending their money in the cause of Allah is a religious
duty obliged of all Muslims. He warns them the money you will spend, even if
little, will stop a sweeping torrent that wants to destroy us all without mercy. He
adds jihad with wealth is more obligatory today upon wealthy Muslims than on
those who are not as wealthy as them in a message delivered 2 days after the
2002 Bali bombing.150
When Zawahiri and UBL joined forces in Afghanistan in the 1990s, the financial
state of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) was in poor condition. Thus EIJ became
entirely dependent upon UBL and AQ financially.151 The consequences for EIJ of
this dependence were profound.
Zawahiri led EIJ with a clear focus on attacks aimed at the overthrow of the
Egyptian government, the near enemy. UBL did not believe that this focus
provided much in the way of tactical benefits. He saw them as futile and
ineffective whilst their costs in terms of sinking Muslim public opinion meant
there was little sense in their continuation.152
UBL saw far more tactical benefits in attacking the far enemy, the United States
and its key allies. In joining UBL and AQ, Zawahiri had to shift his own focus, and
that of his fellow group members, away from the Egyptian regime. Not everyone
in EIJ agreed with this choice.153
In The Far Enemy, Fawaz Gerges argues that a cult of personality is the
decisive driver in the jihadist movement.154 This is most clearly manifest in the
decision-making processes that drive the activities of groups like AQ and ISIS.
Gerges delves into this idea in describing the process by which Zawahiri and
UBL merged their organisations and programs, and the way in which Zawahiri
effected the shift in focus for EIJ, from the near enemy to the far enemy, and
adopted the direction espoused by UBL, targeting the US and its key allies.155
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
150 !Scheuer,!Imperial#Hubris:#Why#the#West#Is#Losing#the#War#on#Terror,!132133.!Quoting!from!Statement!by!Shaykh!Usama!
Bin!Ladin,!May!God!Protect!Him,!and!aleQaida!Organization!!Al`Qalah!(website)!14!October!2002.!
151 !AbouleEnein,!Ayman!AleZawahiri:!The!Ideologue!of!Modern!Islamic!Militancy,!15.!
153 !Ibid.,!122144.!
154 !Ibid.,!126130.!
155 !Ibid.,!125131.!
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The cult of personality had been effective in elevating the AQ brand, through a
series of high-profile spectacular attacks, that captured global attention through
saturation level media coverage, largely due to the benefits that a personality
such as UBL was able to provide and project, through the 1990s and 2000s.156
These benefits included the organizational skills and resources that UBL would
bring, and the continued flow of funding that he was able to attract, through the
cult of personality that he developed. The skills he provided included a certain
degree of business acumen that served, by and large, to sustain and promote
the AQ brand, through its engagements with friendly, hostile and undecided
audience groups.157
The Child of AQ
Since the intense suppression of the UBL cult of personality took hold, effected
by the US efforts to hunt him down, and eventually kill him, the AQ brand has
been diminished. Zawahiri, like the rest of AQ, was entirely reliant upon UBLs
ability to attract funds. With Zawahiri installed as its replacement leader, the
resourcing of the brand, the group and its activities, have also been markedly
and dramatically diminished.158 As an operational force, other violent extremist
groups, most notably ISIS, have long superseded AQ.
It certainly appears that ISIS has learned some critical lessons from AQ, lessons
that it has been applying with energy and determination in its areas of
operations. These include the geographic physical locations of the Iraqi and
Syrian region, as well as the disseminated virtual locations enabled by mediated
communication platforms such as the internet and global news media.159
One of the lessons it has appeared to have learnt, has been its use of the cult of
personality, and its treatment of codified hierarchical command and control
structures, critical to the development and sustainment of a cohesive and
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!Byman!and!Williams,!Jihadisms!Global!Civil!War,!1011.!
!Ibid.,!11;!Vahid!Brown,!AleQaida!Central!and!Local!Affiliates,!in!Self#Inflicted#Wounds:#Debates#and#Divisions#Within#Al`
Qaida#and#Its#Periphery,!ed.!Assaf!Moghadam!and!Brian!Fishman!(West!Point!NY:!Combating!Terrorism!Center,!US!Military!
Academy,!2010),!9698.!
158 !Byman!and!Williams,!Jihadisms!Global!Civil!War,!11.!
159 !Erin!Marie!Saltman,!Charlie!Winter,!and!Maajid!Nawaz,!Islamic#State:#The#Changing#Face#of#Modern#Jihadism!(London:!
Quilliam!Foundation,!2014),!3042.!
156
157
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credible military and state apparatus.160 It seems natural that ISIS has learnt
these lessons well, given its immediate familial in a jihadist organizational
sense relationship with the AQ of UBL and Zawahiri. ISIS emerged from the Al
Qaeda of Iraq (AQI) of Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, as an offspring that was born
fighting the US and its allies the far enemy whilst also fighting the near
enemy the Shia government, and the Shia and Sunni populations of Iraq.161
This offspring seems to be entirely comfortable fighting both the near and far
enemy at the same time, although it seems to be directing its return fire upon the
near enemy with very clear purpose in mind the establishment of a
Caliphate.162
In this sense, it appears to be drawing other critical lessons from another jihadist
movement-turned-state, the Taliban of Afghanistan. In addition, ISIS organically
draws critical lessons from earlier recent conflicts, through the transference of
experienced military leaders, from both the Iraqi and Syrian state military forces.
Significant portions of its leadership tiers have gone through the US-run prison at
Camp Bucca in Iraq. Much discussion and preparation amongst its leadership,
would have taken place there. As well as former AQI members, many of its
leaders were Baathists. Many would have also gone through Abu Ghraib.163
These elements by themselves already make for a formidable military capacity
and robust political force. Add to this, the acquisition of significant amounts of
high-quality military equipment and materiel as well as decisive control of highrevenue generating resources, on top of significant liquid assets leaves much
to ponder and calculate.164 If that is not enough, then it is also critical to consider
that, whilst ISIS currently directs its return fire to the near enemy, it is also
inspiring so far on a small scale, but with seemingly little or no effort attacks
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
160 !Charles!C.!Caris!and!Samuel!Reynolds,!ISIS#Governance#in#Syria!(Washington!DC:!Institute!for!the!Study!of!War,!2014),!14
23,!www.understandingwar.org.!
161 !National!Counterterrorism!Center,!AleQaida!in!Iraq!(AQI),!Terrorist#Groups,!2014,!
http://www.nctc.gov/site/groups/aqi.html;!Octavia!Nasr,!How!Zarqawis!Terror!Network!Morphed!into!ISIS,!Al#Arabiya#
News,!2014,!http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middleeeast/2014/07/01/HoweAbueMusabealeZarqawieshapede
ISIS.html.!
162 !Caris!and!Reynolds,!ISIS#Governance#in#Syria,!45;!Audrey!Kurth!Cronin,!ISIS!Is!Not!a!Terrorist!Group!Why!
Counterterrorism!Wont!Stop!the!Latest!Jihadist!Threat,!Foreign#Affairs!94,!no.!2!(2015):!8789.!
163 !Richard!Barrett,!The!Islamic!State!(New!York:!The!Soufan!Group,!2014),!1829.!
164 !Zachary!Laub!and!Jonathan!Masters,!The#Islamic#State,!CFR#Backgrounders!(Council!on!Foreign!Relations,!2015),!
http://www.cfr.org/iraq/islamicestate/p14811.!
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(of the lone wolf or pair variety) upon the far enemy.165
It can be argued that ISIS has effectively already made the transition, from
violent extremist group to fledgling state. If it can secure its borders and its
airspace, then all it needs is a seat on the UN General Assembly, though it would
be fair to suspect that it would much rather blow up the UN building first. After all,
one of the first major acts of the fledgling AQI was the destruction of the UN
mission in Bagdad, in August 2003.166 If this child were drowning, then perhaps
some serious deliberation would be justifiable.
If after all this, there might still be some temptation to conclude that a liberal
democracy is the only way to ensure that authoritarianism does not take hold of
a society, to then establish fertile ground for violent extremism to emerge, then it
might be useful to consider another key period, in a country that is so central to
the question that has been pondered here Egypt in 2013. After setting up a
political party in 2012 to take part in the first credible (only the second with more
than one candidate) democratic presidential election in its history, the Muslim
Brotherhood, along with its candidate and elected president, Mohamed Morsi,
were overthrown in a military coup, arrested and declared terrorists, after less
than 1 year in government.167
It might be possible to conclude that, as a result of the sets of experiences
converging upon the historical streams considered here, a deep-seated strong
undercurrent of anti-Islamist thinking is salient in the international community at
present. This is the kind of thinking that could drive the kind of social change that
manifested in Egypt in 2013, with regard to the Muslim Brotherhood. No space to
dwell on that here, but worth considering the types of current such thinking could
sustain or perpetuate violent extremism tends to work in that way, in cycles.
These are powerful currents, which will take even more powerful resolve to
disrupt.
It makes no sense to try to disrupt a stream of violent extremism, with another
stream of violent extremism. It only serves to agitate and intensify the dynamic
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!Francesca!Trianni,!Inside!ISIS!and!AleQaedas!Battle!for!Brand!Supremacy,!TIME#Magazine,!February!2015.!
!UN!Security!Council,!Security#Council#Committee:#Pursuant#to#Resolutions#1267#and#1989#Concerning#Al`Qaida#Associated#
Individuals#and#Entities!(New!York:!United!Nations,!2014).!
167 !BBC!News,!Profile:!Egypts!Mohammed!Morsi,!BBC,!2015,!http://www.bbc.com/news/worldemiddleeeaste18371427.!
165
166
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further. What is it that compels us to do the things that make absolutely no

sense? Because we seem to do them a lot. Violent extremist groups, such as AQ
and ISIS emerge from a complex set of factors, that demand to be taken into
account, as fully and as deeply as possible. We neglect a single factor at our
peril. We have to know, as fully as possible, what it is that we are dealing with.
WORD!COUNT:!!!4191!
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Surveillance of a Death Foretold

What are the ethics of regime change and targeted killing achieved through clandestine operations?
This section introduces the key issues to be addressed in response to the

question above. The focus on regime change and targeted killing is intended to
allow for a wider range of issues to be considered, compared to that provided by
focusing on one or the other.
To begin with, three types of literature are reviewed. Firstly, members of the US
intelligence or military community who were directly involved in operations
considered provide insider accounts. Secondly, journalistic or historical
accounts provide some context. Thirdly, evaluative writings unpack the ethical
dilemmas in such operations and practices.
AMORAL AND REPUGNANT
In 1953, the CIA facilitated a coup d'tat in Iran through an operation called
TPAJAX.168 There are two key accounts of this operation that are important in
addressing the research question; two CIA officers who were central to the
operation wrote accounts of it that are publicly available. One is by the leader of
the CIA team, Kermit Roosevelt; the other is by the key planner of the operation,
Donald Wilber.
Roosevelt recounts the meeting with the US government (USG) predecessor
interagency Special Group. There he presents the plan proposal, for approval by
then Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his brother, then Director of
Central Intelligence (DCI) Allen Dulles. He speculates about the bloodshed that
might occurthe frightening consequences of failure, the complications that can
follow success. He recounts the motives of the key actors, the British wanted to
recover [its lost] oil concession whilst the US fixated on the obvious threat of
Russian takeover of Iran.169 Consistent with Cold War realism, regime change
is seen as, Alex Bellamy argues, the only way of guaranteeing that a particular
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
168 !For!example!e!Tim!Bird!and!Alex!Marshall,!Afghanistan:#How#the#West#Lost#Its#Way!(New!Haven!and!London:!Yale!University!
Press,!2011),!7378.!
169 !Kermit!Roosevelt,!Countercoup:#The#Struggle#for#the#Control#of#Iran!(New!York:!McGraw!Hill!Books,!1979),!23.!
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government will not assist the enemy.170

CIA contractor and historian Donald Wilber wrote, in an internal Agency report,
about the development and implementation of the project. Once the plan was
approved, the team were provided with $1,000,000 to spend in any way that
would bring about the regime change.171 Much of that budget would go towards
bribes, or purchasing cooperation, and an extensive propaganda campaign.172
The team that implemented the operation comprised primarily of 6 CIA officers
and 6 local agents (plus some support agents) in Tehran, with 2 British SIS (MI6)
officers in the region providing support.173 As Roosevelt expected, there was
bloodshed, with several hundred people killed in fighting on the day of the
overthrow.174
In the CIA journal, Studies in Intelligence, James Barry wrote in 1992 about the
ethics and management of covert political action.175 He believes that principles of
just war can be applied to regime change covert operations undertaken by the
CIA, by asking a series of specific questions based on just war criteria. He
suggests about 40 questions that could be applied to assess whether a planned
operation can be considered just.176
The term covert operation applies to TPAJAX contemporaneously but not
retrospectively; the covertness is intended to allow for a plausible denial from
the sponsor of the operation. I will argue that it is more appropriately
considered a clandestine operation reliant upon secrecy or concealment only
in the initial, planning and implementation stages, but allowing for limited
attribution upon mission completion. 177 This is the sense in which the other
operations considered here are clandestine, rather than purely covert in nature.
Such operations are authorised by US law broadly under the National Security
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!Alex!J.!Bellamy,!Fighting#Terror:#Ethical#Dilemmas!(London!and!New!York:!Zed!Books,!2008),!6.!
!Donald!N.!Wilber,!Clandestine!Service!History:!Overthrow!of!Premier!Mossadeq!of!Iran,!November!1952eAugust!1953!
(Washington!DC:!Central!Intelligence!Agency,!1969),!3.!
172 !Ibid.,!1837.!
173 !Ibid.,!521.!
174 !Steven!R.!Ward,!Immortal:#A#Military#History#of#Iran#and#Its#Armed#Forces!(Washington!DC:!Georgetown!University!Press,!
2009),!189.!
175 !James!A.!Barry,!Managing!Covert!Political!Action:!Guideposts!from!Just!War!Theory,!Studies#in#Intelligence!36,!no.!5!
(1992):!1929.!
176 !Ibid.,!27.!
177 !US!Joint!Chiefs!of!Staff,!Special#Operations:#Joint#Publication#3`05#(16#July#2014)!(Washington!DC:!US!Joint!Chiefs!of!Staff,!
2014),!GL!67.!
170
171
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Act 1947, and specifically under National Security Council (NSC) Directive 10/2
of 1948.178
In 2001, the CIA led the effort to remove the Taliban regime in Afghanistan,
deploying specially-formed paramilitary units known as Jawbreaker teams.179
The first CIA Counterterrorist Center (CTC) Jawbreaker team was the lead force
in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF).180 The justification for this operation was
primarily retribution for 9/11, but also the prevention of further attacks collective
self-defense.181
Judith Lichtenberg wrote in 2003 about the ethics of retaliation after 9/11, and
its double-edged rationale the deontological nature of revenge and the
consequentialist nature of deterring future attacks. 182 With approval from the
Senate and Congress in the form of an Authorization for Use of Military Force
(AUMF), George W. Bush ordered the CIA into Afghanistan to hunt, capture or
kill Usama Bin Laden (UBL).183 This AUMF clearly reflects the dual nature of
retaliation after 9/11.184
The first Jawbreaker team of 11 officers arrived in Afghanistan on September 26,
led by veteran CIA officer Gary Schroen.185 In his book on the operation, he
recounts his deployment meeting with then CTC Director Cofer Black, who
emphasized his mission objectives. Chief amongst them was to find and kill, not
capture, UBL. Black asserted that an imprisoned UBL would become a rallying
point for other terrorists so Black wanted UBLs head shipped back in a box
with dry ice for his attacks on the US.186
The mission also involved political action towards regime change, Schroen
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
178 !US!Congress,!National#Security#Act#of#1947!(United!States:!US!Congress,!1947);!US!National!Security!Council,!National#
Security#Council#Directive#on#Office#of#Special#Projects!(United!States,!1948).!
179 !Bird!and!Marshall,!Afghanistan:#How#the#West#Lost#Its#Way,!7378.!
180 !Gary!Berntsen!and!Ralph!Pezzullo,!Jawbreaker:#The#Attack#on#Al`Qaeda#`#A#Personal#Account#by#the#CIAs#Key#Field#
Commander!(New!York:!Crown!Publishers,!2005),!51.!
181 !US!Congress,!Authorization#for#Use#of#Military#Force!(United!States,!2001).!
182 !Judith!Lichtenberg,!The!Ethics!of!Retaliation,!in!War#After#September#11!(Oxford:!Rowman!&!Littlefield!Publishers,!2003),!
1112.!
183 !US!Congress,!Authorization#for#Use#of#Military#Force;!Bob!Woodward,!CIA!Told!to!Do!Whatever!Necessary!to!Kill!Bin!
Laden,!The#Washington#Post,!October!21,!2001,!http://www.pulitzer.org/archives/6612;!Nils!Melzer,!Targeted#Killing#in#
International#Law!(Oxford:!Oxford!University!Press,!2009),!40.!
184 !US!Congress,!Authorization#for#Use#of#Military#Force.!
185 !Gary!C.!Schroen,!First#In:#An#Insiders#Account#of#How#the#CIA#Spearheaded#the#War#on#Terror#in#Afghanistan!(New!York:!
Presidio!Press,!2005),!vii,!83.!
186 !Ibid.,!40.!
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brought $3,000,000 cash to obtain the cooperation of various warlords in

removing the Taliban regime, and the capacity to air-drop humanitarian aid to
obtain popular support. 187 Schroen had to prepare for US military action,
collecting targeting information for the initial bombing campaign, coordinating the
arrival of other CIA teams, and insertions of Special Forces teams who would
work with specific warlords.188
In November 2001, Schroen was joined and replaced by another veteran CIA
officer, Gary Berntsen, and his team of 10 officers, along with another 20 officers
conducting operations in other parts of Afghanistan. In his book of that part of
OEF, Berntsen recounts his deployment meeting with Black, the same direction
UBLs head in a box issued.189 Black adds that Berntsen will probably lose
at least one third of [his] men in the process, so he will need to be prepared for
that possibility.190
Bellamy, among others, argues that the targeting of non-combatants,
characteristic of 9/11 and associated attacks, justifies the extremism exemplified
by Black and others.191 Christopher Kutz argues that such positions represent
emergent new norms in the wake of 9/11 when everything changed as people
like Black and Cheney found it necessary to work the dark side of statecraft.192
David Perry finds that the targeted killings (TK) of OEF onwards have clear
precedents in Cold War operations such as the Phoenix program in 1960s-1970s
Vietnam, and programs from the 1950s onwards targeting various individual
state leaders. 193 Writing in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Michael Walzer
warns about the targeting process, and the technological hubris that can lead
to very bad outcomes when mistakes occur.194
In Iraq in 2006, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, then leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) was
killed after US F-16 jets dropped two 500-pound bombs on a house north of
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!Ibid.,!3840.!
!Ibid.,!129158.!
189 !Berntsen!and!Pezzullo,!Jawbreaker:#The#Attack#on#Al`Qaeda#`#A#Personal#Account#by#the#CIAs#Key#Field#Commander,!8384.!
190 !Ibid.,!84.!
191 !Bellamy,!Fighting#Terror:#Ethical#Dilemmas,!3639.!
192 !Christopher!Kutz,!How!Norms!Die:!Torture!and!Assassination!in!American!Security!Policy,!Ethics#and#International#Affairs!
28,!no.!4!(2014):!437444.!
193 !David!L.!Perry,!Partly#Cloudy:#Ethics#in#War,#Espionage,#Covert#Action,#and#Interrogation!(Lanham!MA:!Scarecrow!Press,!
2009),!183187.!
194 !Michael!Walzer,!Arguing#About#War!(New!Haven!and!London:!York!University!Press,!2004),!136137.!
187
188
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Baghdad.195 A Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) force led by then LTG
Stanley McChrystal hunted him.196 Reports later emerged that he was pulled out
of the rubble alive, and was beaten to death finished197 by a JSOC Delta
commando.198
In 2008 in Syria, reports emerged that an AQI operative named Abu Ghadiya
was killed in the Syrian village of Sukkariya by a JSOC force arriving in four
helicopters. Contradictory reports and footage from the site of the attack, and
Syrian reporting indicates that those killed were construction workers, known to
villagers. These indicate that no AQI operative or cell were present, no body or
proof, apart from verbal claims, has been offered by USG sources.199
In 2011 in Yemen, Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen and imam, born in New
Mexico, was killed by drone strike in Yemen. USG believed that Awlaki was not
simply preaching, but had crossed over to become an operational leader of AQ
in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) therefore a legitimate target for USG.200 In
2014 a US court publicly released a 2010 Justice Department memo setting out
the legal basis for the TK of Awlaki.201
In August 2015 in Syria, two UK citizens, Reyaad Khan and Ruhul Amin, fighting
with Islamic State, were killed by a British drone strike in Raqqa. Announcing the
TKs in UK Parliament, David Cameron set out the justification and legal basis for
the strike as self-defense, protecting Britain against imminent threat, last
resort,
properly
authorized,
necessary,
effective,
discriminate
and
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
195 !John!F.!Burns,!U.S.!Strike!Hits!Insurgent!at!Safehouse,!The#New#York#Times,!June!8,!2006;!Ellen!Knickmeyer!and!Jonathan!
Finer,!Insurgent!Leader!AleZarqawi!Killed!in!Iraq,!The#Washington#Post,!June!8,!2006;!CNN,!U.S.!Military:!AleZarqawi!Was!
Alive!After!Bombing,!CNN.com,!June!9,!2006,!edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/06/08/iraq.al.zarqawi.!
196 !Stanley!McChrystal,!General!McChrystal!On!Killing!Al!Zarqawi!(New!York:!Hudson!Union!Society,!2012),!
https://youtu.be/Xy9KAAFdgm4.!
197 !Marc!Ambinder!and!D.B.!Grady,!The#Command:#Deep#Inside#the#Presidents#Secret#Army!(New!Jersey:!John!Wiley!and!Sons,!
2012),!40.!
198 !Toby!Harnden,!Abu!Musab!AleZarqawi!!Beaten!to!Death!After!Airstrike!Missed!,!The#Australian,!November!24,!2014.!
199 !BBC!News,!Profile:!Abu!Ghadiya,!BBC,!October!28,!2008;!BBC!News,!Syria!Hits!Out!at!Terrorist!US,!BBC,!October!28,!
2008;!BBC!News,!Baghdad!Condemns!US!Syria!Raid,!BBC,!October!28,!2006;!Katherine!Zoepf,!Syrians!Blame!U.!S.!in!Deadly!
Blast!on!Iraq!Border,!The#New#York#Times,!October!27,!2008;!Eric!Schmitt!and!Thom!Shanker,!Officials!Say!U.S.!Killed!an!Iraqi!
in!Raid!in!Syria,!The#New#York#Times,!October!28,!2008;!Reese!Erlich!and!Peter!Coyote,!The!Murders!at!AleSukariya,!Vanity#
Fair,!October!2009.!
200 !Mark!Mazzetti,!Scott!Shane,!and!Charlie!Savage,!How!a!U.S.!Citizen!Came!to!Be!in!Americas!Cross!Hairs,!The#New#York#
Times,!March!9,!2013;!Alexander!MeleagroueHitchens,!As!American!as!Apple!Pie:!How!Anwar!AleAwlaki!Became!the!Face!of!
Western!Jihad!(London,!2011).!
201 !Charlie!Savage,!Court!Releases!Large!Parts!of!Memo!Approving!Killing!of!American!in!Yemen,!The#New#York#Times,!June!
23,!2014;!US!Department!of!Justice,!Memorandum!for!the!Attorney!General:!Applicability!of!Federal!Criminal!Laws!and!the!
Constitution!to!Contemplated!Lethal!Operations!Against!Shaykh!Anwar!AleAulaqi!(Washington!DC:!US!Department!of!Justice,!
2010).!
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proportionate.202
In 2012, speaking at the Wilson Center in Washington, then Obamas chief
adviser on Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, John Brennan defended
the US TK program as effective, legal, ethical and just.203 Brennan, appointed
DCI in 2013, was central to the TK program during the Obama administration, in
a period when the number of TKs dramatically increased whilst the number of
captures, even more dramatically, decreased.204
In 1954, then LTG James Doolittle produced a USG report on the covert
activities of the CIA, acknowledging the need for the US to accept the
fundamentally repugnant philosophy that such approaches necessitate.205 In
1992, Paul Ericson wrote in the CIAs Studies in Intelligence of the need for
ethical norms in the Agency to govern what he called an amoral business
nature.206
Christian Enemark considers the appropriateness of the just war tradition as an
ethical framework to govern and restrain the use of force in these forms of
lethal or coercive statecraft.207 Bradley Strawser argues for the need to define
moral boundaries to justified killing in warfare, especially as new technologies
and innovative approaches come into play.208 In response to these emergent
uses of force by states, the Red Cross (ICRC)209 and the UN Human Rights
Council210 have gone some way towards providing guidance on the restraints
and boundaries that should apply.
The use of lethal and coercive force by states through clandestine or covert
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
202 !Nicholas!Watt,!Patrick!Wintour,!and!Vikram!Dodd,!David!Cameron!Faces!Scrutiny!Over!Drone!Strikes!Against!Britons!in!
Syria,!The#Guardian,!September!8,!2015;!David!Cameron,!Prime!Ministers!Statement!e!Syria:!Refugees!and!Countere
Terrorism!(London,!September!7,!2015),!https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/syriaerefugeeseandecountereterrorisme
primeeministersestatement.!
203 !John!O.!Brennan!and!Jane!Harman,!The!Efficacy!and!Ethics!of!the!U.S.!Counterterrorism!Strategy,!Woodrow#Wilson#
International#Center#for#Scholars,!2012,!https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/theeefficacyeandeethicseusecounterterrorisme
strategy.!
204 !Greg!Miller,!John!Brennan!CIA!Hearing!Exposes!Skepticism!About!U.S.!Antiterrorism!Efforts,!The#Washington#Post,!
February!7,!2013,!https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/nationalesecurity/brennanedefendsedroneestrikee
policies/2013/02/07/f7384950e7145e11e2eac36e3d8d9dcaa2e2_story.html.!
205 !James!H.!Doolittle!et!al.,!Report#on#the#Covert#Activities#of#the#Central#Intelligence#Agency!(Washington!DC:!The!White!House,!
1954),!3.!
206 !Paul!G.!Ericson,!The!Need!for!Ethical!Norms,!Studies#in#Intelligence!36,!no.!5!(1992):!15.!
207 !Christian!Enemark,!Armed#Drones#and#the#Ethics#of#War!(London!and!New!York:!Routledge,!2014),!6.!
208 !Bradley!Jay!Strawser,!Killing#By#Remote#Control:#The#Ethics#of#Unmanned#Military,!ed.!Bradley!Jay!Strawser!(Oxford!and!New!
York:!Oxford!University!Press,!2013),!6.!
209 !Nils!Melzer,!Interpretive!Guidance!on!the!Notion!of!Direct!Participation!in!Hostilities!(Geneva,!2009).!
210 !Philip!Alston,!Report!of!the!Special!Rapporteur!on!Extrajudicial,!Summary!or!Arbitrary!Executions:!Study!on!Targeted!
Killings!(New!York,!2010).!
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operations involves acts of persuasion, manipulation and aggression in various

combinations, cloaked in obfuscation, deception and secrecy. The full human
costs of such acts, on those acted upon and those acting, are often incalculable
and unforeseeable. But it does cost.
TOWARDS AN ETHICAL FRAMEWORK
This section considers what concerns might be reflected in a framework for
ethical use of force applicable to clandestine or covert operations involving
regime change and targeted killing.
When Michael Walzer contemplated the problem of getting ones hands dirty in
the conduct of politics and statecraft, he considered it a by-product of the desire
and effort to succeed at the grave endeavours of leadership and protection of
ones nation. He asked rhetorically how can we get our hands dirty by doing
what we ought to do as he struggled with the problems inevitability. As he
wrestled with the reality of state leadership, and the expectations we place upon
leaders when conflicts are near, he arrived at the cold realisation that:
The men who act for us and in our name are often killers, or seem to
become killers too quickly and too easily. They can do no good
themselves unless they win the struggle, which they are unlikely to do unless
they are willing and able to use the necessary means.211
For Walzer, this reality is attributed to the sheer weight of official violence in
human history that all successful leaders of nations must learn to bear.212
HIDDEN DIRTY HANDS
In 1954, US President Dwight Eisenhower commissioned LTG James Doolittle to
chair a panel to undertake a comprehensive study of the covert activities of the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) with particular focus on operations conducted
between 1951 and 1954. Eisenhower wanted to ensure that the field of foreign
clandestine operations is adequately covered by all US institutional instruments
capable of contributing in such ways towards the conduct of [US] foreign policy
after the first proxy war of the Cold War, in Korea. Eisenhower considered CIA
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
211
212
!Michael!Walzer,!Political!Action:!The!Problem!of!Dirty!Hands,!Philosophy#and#Public#Affairs!2,!no.!2!(1973):!164.!
!Ibid.!
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covert operations essential to [US] national security in these days when

international Communism is aggressively pressing its world-wide subversive
program.213
In his introduction to the final report, delivered to Eisenhower two months later,
Doolittle echoed the Presidents concerns in an oft-quoted paragraph:
...we are facing an implacable enemy whose avowed objective is world
domination by whatever means and at whatever cost no rules in such a
game acceptable norms of human conduct do not apply to survive,
long-standing American concepts of "fair play" must be reconsidered. We
must develop effective espionage and counter espionage services learn to
subvert, sabotage and destroy our enemies by more clever, more
sophisticated and more effective methods than those used against us. It may
become necessary that the American people be made acquainted with,
understand and support this fundamentally repugnant philosophy.214
There are no reservations or pathos to the repugnance indicated, it is simply a
matter of fact, another factor to be considered by the perception management
machinery of the day. After all, there can be no doubt that the US is at war.
The legal authorisation that enabled the CIA to conduct covert operations on
foreign territories is known as the 1948 National Security Council (NSC) Directive
on Office of Special Projects. It begins by asserting that:
the vicious covert activities of the USSR, its satellite countries and
Communist groups to discredit and defeat the aims and activities of the
United States and other Western powers, has determined that, in the
interests of world peace and US national security, the overt foreign activities
of the US Government must be supplemented by covert operations.215
The 1948 Directive authorised the CIA to conduct a range of activities in foreign
territories. These included:
propaganda; economic warfare; preventive direct action, including sabotage,
anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures; subversion against
hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance movements,
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!Doolittle!et!al.,!Report#on#the#Covert#Activities#of#the#Central#Intelligence#Agency,!13.!
!Ibid.,!23.!
215 !US!National!Security!Council,!National#Security#Council#Directive#on#Office#of#Special#Projects,!713.!
213
214
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guerrillas and refugee liberation groups, and support of indigenous antiCommunist elements in threatened countries of the free world216
As the Cold War ended in 1992 Paul Ericson, writing at the CIA Center for the
Study of Intelligence, and arguing for ethical norms, observed that:
Espionage is essentially amoral. We regularly break the laws of other
governments, misrepresent ourselves to others, and use a variety of
methods to manipulate others into doing our bidding. Those who are
particularly skillful in doing so quickly move up the organizational ladder.217
Ericson recounted a comment from former Director of Central Intelligence (DCI)
William Webster:
In the [US], we obey the laws of the [US]. Abroad we uphold the national
security interests of the [US].218
The CIA culture, reflected in the 1948 Directive, that shaped and guided foreign
clandestine and covert operations, was postured towards war; if not engaged in
a type of war, inasmuch as the Cold War and associated proxy wars generated
war-like tensions and relations for US government (USG) administrations after
the Second World War.
This sustained war-like posture and culture will be critical in evaluating the ethics
of the operations considered here, particularly in the first case of Iran in 1953. To
consider the ethics of these operations, the just war criteria will be applied, with
useful questions more specific to covert operations,219 proposed by James Barry
(1992) in the CIA Studies in Intelligence journal.220
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!Ibid.!
!Ericson,!The!Need!for!Ethical!Norms,!16.!
218 !Ibid.,!15.!
219 !Just%Cause:!Exactly!what!are!the!objectives!of!the!operation?!Is!it!defensive!!to!repel!an!identifiable!threat!!or!is!it!
intended!to!redress!a!wrong,!to!punish!wrongdoing!or!to!reform!a!foreign!country?!Who!or!what!are!we!conducting!the!
operation!against?!Who!are!we!for?!What!specific!changes!in!the!behavior!or!policy!of!the!target!country,!group!or!individual!
do!we!seek?!Just%Intention:!What!will!be!the!likely!result!in!the!target!country!and!in!other!foreign!countries?!How!will!we!or!
the!international!community!be!better!off?!How!will!we!know!if!we!have!succeeded?!What!will!we!do!if!we!win?!If!we!lose?!
Proper%Authority:!Who!has!reviewed!the!proposal?!Are!there!dissents?!What!is!the!view!of!intelligence!analysts!on!the!
problem!being!considered?!Have!senior!government!officials!discussed!the!proposal!in!detail?!Has!the!Congress!been!advised!
of!all!significant!aspects!of!the!covert!activity?!If!notification!has!been!restricted,!what!is!the!justification?!Last%Resort:!What!
other!policies!have!been!tried?!Why!have!they!not!been!effective?!What!overt!policy!options!are!being!considered?!What!are!
their!strengths!and!weaknesses?!Why!is!covert!action!necessary?!Why!must!the!proposed!activity!be!secret?!Probability%of%
Success:!What!is!the!likelihood!that!the!action!will!succeed?!Are!there!differing!views!of!the!probability!of!success?!Is!the!view!
of!disinterested!observers!different!from!that!of!advocates!or!opponents?!Why?!What!is!the!evidence?!Proportionality:!What!
specific!methods!are!being!considered?!Does!the!proposal!envision!the!use!of!lethal!force,!sabotage,!economic!disruption!or!
false!information?!Why!are!these!methods!necessary?!Are!they!the!same!as!those!being!used!by!the!adversary,!or!are!they!
potentially!more!damaging!or!disruptive?!If!so,!what!is!the!justification?!Discrimination%and%Control:!What!steps!will!be!
taken!to!safeguard!the!innocent!against!death,!injury,!economic!hardship!or!psychological!damage?!What!will!be!done!to!
216
217
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The 1953 CIA Iran operation (TPAJAX) was designed to overthrow the
government of Mohammed Mossadeq, and replace him with Fazlullah Zahedi
with endorsement from the Shah Pahlavi. The original proposal for TPAJAX
came from British SIS in November 1952. Eisenhower was just elected US
President.221 The British government saw, in the former NATO commander, a
stronger Cold War figure who would take on the Russian threat with energy, and
saw an opportunity to emphasise the problem of Communist influence in Iran to
enlist US participation.222
Just Cause: The British motivation for the removal of Mossadeq was recovery of
an extremely lucrative oil concession, nationalised by Mossadeq in 1951.223 The
motivation for the US was a need to stem the obvious threat of Russian
takeover.224 Based on the 1948 Directive, the US could arguably claim selfdefence as cause, for conducting TPAJAX. However, the British motivation, to
redress an economic wrong, does not satisfy the criterion of just cause. As the
initiator of the operation and supporting partner of the USG effort, the British
motivation weakens an already questionable US claim for just cause.
Just Intention: The UK was driven by imperatives of post-war economic
recovery, and saw reversal of Iranian oil nationalisation policy as critical to British
economic survival. The US saw curtailment of growing Soviet influence in Iran as
critical to national security and regional stability.225
Proper Authorisation: The operation was properly authorised by an appropriate
USG interagency Special Group predecessor, approved by the US President and
UK Prime Minister.226
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
protect!political!institutions!and!processes!against!disproportionate!damage?!If!some!damage!is!inevitable,!what!steps!are!
being!taken!to!minimize!it?!What!controls!does!the!US!exercise!over!the!agents!to!be!employed?!What!steps!will!be!taken!if!
they!disregard!our!directions?!What!steps!will!be!taken!to!protect!the!agents,!and!what!are!our!obligations!to!them?!How!will!
the!operation!be!terminated!if!its!objectives!are!achieved?!How!will!it!be!terminated!if!it!fails?!(Barry!1992:!27)!
220 !Barry,!Managing!Covert!Political!Action:!Guideposts!from!Just!War!Theory,!27.!
221 !Wilber,!Clandestine!Service!History:!Overthrow!of!Premier!Mossadeq!of!Iran,!November!1952eAugust!1953,!1.!
222 !Torey!L.!McMurdo,!The!United!States,!Britain,!and!the!Hidden!Justification!of!Operation!TPAJAX,!Studies#in#Intelligence!56,!
no.!2!(2012):!2324.!
223 !Ibid.,!17.!
224 !Roosevelt,!Countercoup:#The#Struggle#for#the#Control#of#Iran,!3.!
225 !McMurdo,!The!United!States,!Britain,!and!the!Hidden!Justification!of!Operation!TPAJAX,!1623.!
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Probability of Success: This was not high, being heavily reliant upon obtaining
the cooperation of the (highly reluctant) Shah, needed to authorise the removal
of Mossadeq and appointment of Zahedi; this authorisation was needed to obtain
the support of enough military officers to overthrow military leaders supporting
Mossadeq. As the operation commenced, neither the compliance of the Shah
nor military assets within the Tehran officer class had been secured; the
operation as planned could not succeed without both.227
Last Resort: Economic and diplomatic negotiations were the preferred options
of the Truman administration. The UK developed plans for small-scale direct
military actions and economic sanctions; but the threat of increasing Communist
influence convinced the Eisenhower administration that political action such as
TPAJAX was the most viable option.228
Proportionality: The USG saw measures reportedly employed by the USSR as
justifying actions against international Communism, as the 1948 Directive
asserted, and the use of covert activities authorised therein to have been
appropriate for TPAJAX.
Discrimination and Control: The black propaganda elements of TPAJAX
involved staged actions and communications, to be attributed to Mossadeq
supporters, designed to turn public sentiment against Mossadeq. These included
at least one sham bombing of the house of a religious leader, designed to be
attributed to Communists supporting Mossadeq.229 Other actions involved use of
rioting mobs, some designed to be attributed to Communists, and others as
Shah supporters to storm and ransack media facilities/offices of Mossadeq
supporters. The potential for indiscriminate damage from deception and mob
activities was high, given the level of control that could be exercised by the small
number of CIA officers and agents involved in the operation.230
With regard to the criteria of just intention, last resort, probability of success,
proportionality and discrimination, TPAJAX arguably falls short of satisfying
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!Ibid.,!822,!Appendix!D.!
!McMurdo,!The!United!States,!Britain,!and!the!Hidden!Justification!of!Operation!TPAJAX,!1723.!
230 !Ibid.,!3637.!
227
228
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criteria for ethical use of force. By this account, TPAJAX should be considered
an unjust act.
The CIA acknowledgement of involvement in the 1953 Iran coup d'tat renders
redundant categorisation of TPAJAX as a covert operation, and the plausible
deniability that offered. It is now more appropriately considered as a clandestine
operation, a category most suitable in considering the next case the first stage
of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Afghanistan, designed to remove the
Taliban regime in 2001, involving CIA and Special Operations Forces (SOF)
elements.
Responding to 9/11, US Congress authorised use of force against an unusual
and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the US.
Thus Congress unanimously declared it necessary and appropriate that the US
exercise its rights to self-defense to protect [its] citizens both at home and
abroad and deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against it.
Accordingly, Congress authorised the President to:
use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations,
organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or
aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on [9/11] or harbored such
organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international
terrorism against the [US] by such nations, organizations or persons.231
The specific elements of OEF considered here are CIA/SOF activities intended
to remove the Taliban regime, and install an internationally sanctioned interim
government.
Just Cause: The justification for removal of the Taliban was based on demands
publicly issued by George W. Bush on 20 September 2001 calling on the Taliban
to deliver all of the leaders of Al Qaeda who hide in [their] land to the US, and
close every terrorist training camp in Afghanistan immediately.232 The Taliban
responded it was prepared to see a trial for Usama Bin Laden (UBL) but not
prepared to deliver UBL or the leaders of Al Qaeda to the US.233 Based on the
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!US!Congress,!Authorization#for#Use#of#Military#Force.!
!George!W.!Bush,!Transcript!of!President!Bushs!Address,!CNN.com!(Washington!DC,!September!20,!2001),!
http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/20/gen.bush.transcript.!
233 !The!Guardian,!Taliban!Defy!Bush!Ultimatum,!The#Guardian,!September!22,!2001.!
231
232
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Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) the US had justification for use of
necessary and appropriate force against the Taliban, in acts of self-defence
against those it determines to be responsible for the 9/11 attacks, and those
who harbored them. 234 On 26 September, the first CIA team arrived in
Afghanistan to commence operations.235
Just Intention: The US desire for retribution is critical to consider. Bush vowed
to hunt down and punish those responsible for 9/11. The principle of retribution
here, combining those responsible and those who harbor them becomes
highly problematic.236 With retribution comes expectation that the guilty are to be
punished, but also that only the guilty will be punished.237 The US intention to
prevent any future acts provides scope for targeting the Taliban. 238 But the
moral expediency implied in stated intentions for targeting the Taliban, arguably
renders claims for just intention questionable.
Proper Authorisation: The operation was properly authorised, by the AUMF
and the secret Presidential Finding directly authorising the CIA to commence
covert operations.
Last Resort: After 9/11, a range of diplomatic, political and military options were
considered, led and enacted by the US Department of State (USDS). Colin
Powell and USDS set initiatives in motion. A range of options for unilateral US
military actions were also discussed.239 Options for military actions would take
significantly more time to develop, while the CIA presented Bush with plans that
could be set in motion immediately. There was no expectation that the Taliban
would comply with US demands, all efforts were focused on building a coalition
to remove the Taliban.240 The only actions deemed worthy of effort, in relation to
the Taliban, were the issuance of demands (privately via Pakistan, publicly
through Bush) and allowance of an appropriate interval for response.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!Schroen,!First#In:#An#Insiders#Account#of#How#the#CIA#Spearheaded#the#War#on#Terror#in#Afghanistan,!vii,!83.!
236 !George!W.!Bush,!Full!Transcript!of!George!Bushs!Statement,!The#Guardian,!September!11,!2001,!
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/sep/11/september11.usa19;!George!W.!Bush,!Text!of!Bushs!Address,!CNN.com,!
September!11,!2001,!http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/11/bush.speech.text/.!
237 !Lichtenberg,!The!Ethics!of!Retaliation,!13.!
238 !US!Congress,!Authorization#for#Use#of#Military#Force.!
239 !Kean!et!al.,!The#9/11#Commission#Report,!330332.!
240 !Ibid.,!332333.!
234
235
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Probability of Success: A high degree of confidence in USG capacity to

remove the Taliban regime, was apparent. Much of the discussions ranged
around ways of using the opportunity, to engage both allies and rival great
powers, Russia and China, as well as to tackle problem states like Iraq, Iran,
and Libya. Focus was also placed on plans to tackle the broader problem of
terrorism, on ways to eliminate all terrorist networks globally. With the
resources at its disposal, together with a well-developed plan, the probability of
success was relatively high.241
Proportionality: The small number of CIA/SOF teams on the ground in
Afghanistan, for those initial OEF phases, had significant amounts of economic,
technological and military power at their disposal. Given the objective of
removing the Taliban regime, and destroying the substantial military force it
controlled, the force employed by the US was proportional to the challenge and
environment that it confronted.
Discrimination and Control: Use of local allies, such as the Northern Alliance,
enabled the CIA/SOF teams to identify key targets, units and areas, so that air
strikes a key element of military power employed could be targeted to
minimise civilian casualties. The US was able to exploit the networks and
command/control structures of these local allies for intelligence-gathering,
influencing and organisational purposes.
There are questions, around criteria of just intention and last resort, but such
questions cannot be said to definitively undermine claims for ethical use of force.
This part of OEF could arguably claim to satisfy criteria for just war, with some
reservations.
THE PUBLIC AUTHORITY JUSTIFICATION
The practice of targeted killing (TK) is one response the US has exercised as
part of its rights to self-defense in the international campaign that began with
the 9/11 attacks.242
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
241
242
!Ibid.,!330334.!
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During the Bush administration, targeted individuals were designated enemy

combatants as individuals who were part of or supporting the Taliban or alQaida forces, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the
US. 243 This definition came into use initially in Guantanamo Bay Combatant
Status Review Tribunal documents, placing such individuals and groups within
the scope of the 2001 AUMF.
With the Obama administration, the term enemy combatant was withdrawn
from official use. Designation of Taliban or al-Qaida forces, or associated
forces remained as the official term to describe the enemy, providing a link to
9/11 and the AUMF, whilst accommodating the shifting nature of the enemy.244
The next section considers three examples of High-Value Targeting (HVT)
operations, conducted by USG (CIA/JSOC) as clandestine actions. Completed
TK operations against Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (2006), Abu Ghadiya (2008) and
Anwar al-Awlaki (2011) will serve as cases by which to evaluate the ethics of
these types of operations. The HVT operations considered here come under the
category of personality strikes targets are identified, their roles in their groups
are defined as opposed to signature strikes targets are selected based on
pattern-of-life analysis, and not identified by name.
Just Cause: The targets of these operations had been identified as leaders or
facilitators of 9/11 associated forces al-Zarqawi was leader of Al Qaeda in
Iraq (AQI), Ghadiya was reportedly an AQI cell leader, al-Awlaki was reportedly a
leader and facilitator of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). These
individuals were believed to have planned and/or conducted attacks against the
US and its personnel, and posed imminent threats by their continued activities.
Their involvement with Al Qaeda (AQ) associated forces connected them to the
9/11 attacks, albeit tenuously, thus placing them within the scope of the AUMF.
The tensions inherent in the reliance upon 9/11 and the AUMF, given the
demonstrable disconnectedness with these targeted individuals, arguably
weakens claims for just cause.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
243 !US!Navy!Combatant!Status!Review!Tribunal,!Combatant!Status!Review!Board:!Summary!of!Evidence!for!Combatant!Status!
Review!Tribunal!(Guantanamo!Bay!Naval!Base,!September!15,!2004).!
244 !Paul!Ahern!and!Christopher!Hardee,!Guantanamo!Bay!Detainee!Litigation:!Respondents!Memorandum!Regarding!the!
Government's!Detention!Authority!Relative!to!Detainees!Held!at!Guantanamo!Bay!(Washington!DC:!US!District!Court!for!the!
District!of!Columbia,!March!13,!2009),!2.!
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Just Intention: HVT operations are intended to disproportionately degrade the

effectiveness of targeted groups.245 However, CIA assessments of the targeting
of AQI from 2004, including the TK of al-Zarqawi, found that initial inflicted losses
did little to slow AQIs momentum but possibly helped develop US-backed
Sunni forces that opposed it.246 The CIA saw value in a pruning approach that
targeted effective midlevel leaders an approach that would have supported
decisions to later target individuals such as Ghadiya and al-Awlaki.247
Proper Authorisation: These operations were properly authorised through the
2001 AUMF, Presidential and chain-of-command directives specific to each of
the missions.
Last Resort: The HVT operations were conducted as part of a kill/capture
program, but difficulties with Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and the extraordinary
rendition program, made the option of capturing less and less appealing. The
CIA came to the view that capturing leaders had a limited psychological impact
on a group if members believe that captured leaders will eventually return to the
group or if those leaders are able to maintain their influence while in
government custody thus consequently favouring lethal action.248
Probability of Success: The HVT program is highly effective. Once an
individual gets onto the USG Disposition Matrix, they would be but one really bad
Terror Tuesday away from getting a visiting JSOC team, 500-pound bomb, or
drone strike on the road to martyrdom. The ease with which it can all be done is
itself highly problematic.
Proportionality: The HVT program is extremely efficient. In addition to the
criteria offered by Barry, elaboration offered by Walzer (2004) is useful. Walzer
suggests that civilian deaths and injuries [not] disproportionate to the value of
the military victory that is being sought and the apparent seriousness of the
intention to avoid harming civilians are useful measures of proportionality.249
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
245 !CIA!Directorate!of!Intelligence,!Best!Practices!in!Counterinsurgency:!Making!HigheValue!Targeting!Operations!an!Effective!
Counterinsurgency!Tool!(Central!Intelligence!Agency,!2009),!1.!
246 !Ibid.,!5,!910.!
247 !Ibid.,!5.!
248 !Ibid.!
249 !Walzer,!Arguing#About#War,!137.!
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Central to the perceived value of the HVT program is capacity to minimise

collateral damage in attacking designated targets. The three examples used
three different methods of attack F-16 bombing (al-Zarqawi), JSOC team
(Ghadiya), and drone strike (al-Awlaki). Apart from primary targets, other
casualties were incurred, most (if not all) being counted as militant combatants.
Discrimination: The effectiveness and efficiency of the HVT program puts focus
on problems of target selection, as ethical and legal considerations. The alZarqawi attack can be considered successful. The Ghadiya attack is inconclusive
with regard to successful targeting. Some reports indicate that the individuals
and location attacked were not the ones the targeting force expected, and may
not have been AQI militants at all. The al-Awlaki attack raises important
concerns, about the USG killing a US citizen, on foreign territory. The legal
argument presented by the USG centers around a public authority justification
that argued the appropriateness of DoD/CIA conducting the TK of a US citizen,
who posed a continued and imminent threat to the US, within the scope of the
AUMF. The argument posits that the lethal force action was carried out against
someone who is within the core of individuals against whom Congress has
authorized the use of necessary and appropriate force therefore legal.250 The
argument is problematised by ethical considerations around the denial of
constitutional rights of a US citizen, to a fair trial, and to not be subjected to
summary execution, as this HVT operation arguably effected.
CONCLUSION
It is arguably possible to engage in clandestine or covert operations that effect
regime change and targeted killing, within frameworks for ethical use of force.
Widely accepted just war criteria, accommodating concerns specific to these
types of operations, such as those suggested by Barry, provide ways of thinking
about such operations, that can meaningfully consider legal, moral and ethical
concerns. The philosophy behind such actions may be no less repugnant, or the
business no less amoral. We should not expect any better, when we consider
acts of war.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
250 !US!Department!of!Justice,!Memorandum!for!the!Attorney!General:!Applicability!of!Federal!Criminal!Laws!and!the!
Constitution!to!Contemplated!Lethal!Operations!Against!Shaykh!Anwar!AleAulaqi,!21.!
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According to the New York Times, when Obama runs his nominations process
Terror Tuesday meetings for the kill list the Disposition Matrix
somewhere in his thinking plays the just war theories of Aquinas and
Augustine.251 Is this good or bad? Time will tell.
WORD COUNT
4879
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
251 !Jo!Becker!and!Scott!Shane,!Secret!Kill!List!Proves!a!Test!of!Obamas!Principles!and!Will,!New#York#Times,!May!29,!2012,!
www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamaseleadershipeinewareonealeqaeda.html;!Ian!Cobain,!Obamas!Secret!Kill!List!!
The!Disposition!Matrix,!The#Guardian,!July!15,!2013,!www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/14/obamaesecretekilleliste
dispositionematrix.!
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Why Is This Happening? Making Sense of The Long War

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WHY$IS$THIS$HAPPENING?

To my darling girl, Isabella,

to conquest and domination, to a basic need to kill, to

The justification of self defence is the most morally palatable or acceptable

Pacifism in the Time of GWOT

The Right, the Duty and the Responsibility:

New Norms and Persistent Failures

rights, by sovereign states of their civilian populations.2

Resolution 1973, preventing consensus, and possibly undermining the legitimacy

humanitarian intervention efforts, 8 there were strong reservations with the

pronouncement, the concerns of members around host state cooperation were

considered them essential prerequisites for such missions.25

demonstrates inability to operate beyond chronic inconsistency and tragic

invoke sovereign values based upon European historical precedents i.e.

Resolution 1894 affirmed UNSC

draft resolution S/2011/612 on Syria, invoking R2P principles, calling on Bashar

character of sovereignty, states appear to be concerned about non-interference

The Fall of the Truth Teller Cult

A key question appears to be: Is terrorism as minor a threat as small beer

realism as protection, against lingering threats to security, national or otherwise.

people undergo a transformation from participating in the political process via

central to the dynamic of radicalisation, and its reversal or disruption.

First, is an undermine terrorist leadership theme, whereby the source or conduit

support for rehabilitation and reintegration into

bombing victims caused modification; 19% attributed shifts to interactions with

Elevated a significant risk of terrorist attacks assessed.

Netherlands, the threat level is Substantial there is a real chance of an

recommending air strikes of limited duration as a punitive measure110 this

The Children of Many Revolutions

Thus, a government does not need to be authoritarian in any sense, in order to

Throughout the 1970s these activists, together with Palestinians, driven to

the movement, nourished with the blood of dictators, as well as unpopular or

consequence of deepening the commitment to defensive jihad, on individual

Another critical element involves

and more recently in mediated communication platforms, where the requisite

Egyptian government, and the installation of an Islamic one in its place.140 He

further. What is it that compels us to do the things that make absolutely no

Surveillance of a Death Foretold

This section introduces the key issues to be addressed in response to the

government will not assist the enemy.170

brought $3,000,000 cash to obtain the cooperation of various warlords in

operations involves acts of persuasion, manipulation and aggression in various

covert operations essential to [US] national security in these days when

Probability of Success: A high degree of confidence in USG capacity to

During the Bush administration, targeted individuals were designated enemy

Just Intention: HVT operations are intended to disproportionately degrade the

Central to the perceived value of the HVT program is capacity to minimise

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