The attacks of September 11, 2001 were a turning point, says political scientist and author Ronald Ofteringer. Because the following wars would have undermined the international order.
Istanbul. 25 years ago it was as if time stood still. On September 11, 2001, two planes flew into towers of the World Trade Center in New York and exploded, another hijacked passenger plane hit the Pentagon near Washington, and a fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. Almost 3,000 people died.
For the first time since the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the United States was attacked on its own territory. The Islamist network al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attacks.
This was a geopolitical turning point for the entire world. The then US President George W. Bush made the “War on Terror” the focus of US foreign policy. But instead of the peace and freedom that Bush promised back then, there were more and more armed conflicts.
Ronald Ofteringer, who has worked for major humanitarian organizations, has seen firsthand many of the wars that grew out of the war on terror. In an interview with the Handelsblatt he talks about the consequences, which still seem difficult to solve today.
Mr. Ofteringer, how did you experience September 11, 2001?
At that time I had started working in humanitarian aid and was on my first long holiday in a year - in the Alpujarras mountains in Andalusia. In the afternoon I came to a café where there was a television hanging in the corner. You could watch live as the first and then the second plane flew into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. It was absolutely shocking. After having studied the region for a long time and following other attacks, I already suspected which group was behind it.
Vita Ronald Ofteringer
Ronald Ofteringer studied Islamic studies, ethnology and politics. He then worked for humanitarian organizations in conflict areas, including the International Committee of the Red Cross. His missions took him to Israel and Palestine, Yemen, Iraq, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Mali and Niger. Today the 65-year-old works as a consultant for aid organizations.
Ofteringer has written a book about the wars waged by the United States after the attacks of September 11, 2001. In the book “The World in Ruins: On the Failure of the Anti-Terror Wars and Their Consequences,” he describes the emergence of al-Qaeda and how its network later spread across numerous countries. He traces the wars of the past 25 years and explains how they have undermined human rights and international humanitarian law.
You then worked in many crisis and war zones, in the Middle East and West Africa. What did you experience?
Existing conflicts took on a new dimension through the war on terror. New conflicts have also emerged. Two months after 9/11, I worked in Israel and Palestine for about two years, that was during the second Intifada, 2000 to 2005. The conflict there also intensified. In retaliation for the suicide attacks in several cities, the Israeli armed forces bombed the administrative headquarters of the Palestinian Authority. After that I worked in Yemen. The effects were noticeable there too - there were many Yemenis among the prisoners in Guantanamo who initially had little contact with their families.
Guantánamo is a US military prison in Cuba. US President Bush set it up in 2002 to hold suspected people from the war on terrorism. It was criticized around the world, including because of allegations of torture. And in other ways, the USA did not achieve the successes with its war that it had hoped for.
After US troops invaded Afghanistan, the premise of the war on terror undermined attempts at nation-building. It was only after the US invasion in 2003 that Iraq became a theater of conflict with jihadist groups. The two conflicts saw the use of new forms of warfare, such as night raids by special forces based on high-tech surveillance and aerial reconnaissance, which resulted in civilian deaths and humiliated families and local communities.
How was this different from previous disputes?
Acts of terrorism that were previously a matter of internal security were responded to with a global declaration of war. The US Congress had given the president a general authority to combat al-Qaeda and allied organizations, the “Authorization for Use of Military Force”. This legitimized military operations in many conflict areas without congressional approval. This is still in force today.
Warring states have attempted to co-opt humanitarian aid and make it part of the war effort.
Should the “war on terror” have been waged differently?
From the outset, these wars were accompanied by serious violations of human rights and international law. These were not exceptional situations, but rather a defining part of warfare. Prisoners were held in hidden places of detention and tortured. The Guantánamo prison camp was deliberately established outside American territory and therefore outside American jurisdiction. As has been widely documented, prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan were mistreated and degraded.
What other problems arose in the following years?
The administration of Bush's successor Barack Obama has expanded the war on terror to other conflicts and, for example, massively intensified drone operations. Human rights organizations have proven that many civilians died. The legend of “clean high-tech war” is simply not true. The war on terror, especially the treatment of prisoners, has contributed to undermining the credibility of international law and the liberal world order.
What did this mean for the work of humanitarian organizations?
At the beginning of the war in Afghanistan and then in Iraq, the belligerent states tried to co-opt humanitarian aid and make it part of the war effort. This had a significant impact on the armed groups' perception of humanitarian work.
Which ones were they?
Humanitarian organizations and their staff have been targeted. Doctors Without Borders (MSF), for example, withdrew from Afghanistan in 2004 after serious attacks and the loss of employees. Other organizations had to reduce their activities, limiting the population's access to humanitarian assistance.
How did humanitarian organizations respond to this?
Security measures have been strengthened. There was a return to humanitarian principles such as neutrality, impartial work and independence. Efforts have been intensified to maintain dialogue with all parties to the conflict - despite the international community's claims that this or that group is terrorist and must be excluded. That was difficult and took years. But it has also led to successes: MSF returned to Afghanistan in 2006. Neutral, impartial humanitarian work became possible again in these conflict areas. However, the sanctions against organizations classified as terrorists had an impact on humanitarian work.
Violations and transgressions of an opponent's rules do not legitimize their own rule violations.
You mentioned polarization. One of the conflicts that is also strongly polarizing Germany are the attacks by the radical Islamic Hamas on October 7, 2023 and Israel's war in Gaza. What consequences does this have for humanitarian work?
Lawyers have classified the October 7 attacks as war crimes and crimes against humanity. However, how the Israeli army and government responded has parallels to the US response to 9/11. The reaction was disproportionate and rules of international humanitarian law were violated.
What do you mean by that specifically?
Of course, a state has the duty and responsibility to defend its citizens against such types of attacks. However, there is no negative reciprocity in international humanitarian law. This means that an opponent's violations and transgressions of the rules do not legitimize one's own rule violations and transgressions. The intensity of the warfare as well as administrative hurdles have made access for humanitarian organizations difficult. As documented by the UN, hundreds of UN staff and medical personnel have been killed, injured or arrested.
But there were also successes. The terrorist organization Islamic State (IS) murdered Yazidis en masse, and Yazidis became victims of sexual violence and enslaved. IS also carried out serious attacks in Europe. This organization, like al-Qaeda, has been defeated today.
The civilian population has paid a high price for this. The al-Qaeda network is less organized today than it was before 9/11. The Islamic State's territorial caliphate in Iraq and Syria has been militarily defeated. But there are many unresolved problems, such as the remaining prisoners, the stigmatized families and internally displaced people. A new dimension has been added to the legacy of previous conflicts in Iraq. The consequences have not yet been dealt with to this day. And the networks of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State continue to exist; if anything, they have adapted and expanded. Groups from their environment, which are often anchored locally, are now involved in conflicts from West Africa to the Horn of Africa, for example in the Sahel and Somalia, and also in various countries in the Middle East. In addition, there are still attempts to carry out attacks in Western Europe and the USA.
So IS recruitment in Europe continues to work?
The attacks are often amateurish and do not always succeed. But when attacks occur, they have a disproportionate impact. After every attack there is a migration debate, although these things have to be separated. There are fewer refugees coming to Germany today, but among the few who do come there are a relatively large number of people who come from very traumatizing situations and need psychological care. An exit from the spiral of conflict and narratives of retaliation is necessary.
The inconsistency of selectively applying the law and applying double standards must end.
They say that human rights and international humanitarian law have been increasingly undermined in the wars. What would have to happen to help them gain more recognition again?
First of all, everything that emerged within the framework of international law, the international order that emerged after the Second World War, and the Charter of the United Nations would have to be given more validity again by applying them indiscriminately.
Please explain this more specifically.
States that invoke human rights and international law and accuse other governments of violating them have claimed, as part of the war on terror, that they are no longer bound by this right. This duplicity, this inconsistency, of selectively applying the law, of applying double standards, must stop. Institutions such as the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court must be strengthened and protected from sanctions. There must be really serious and sustained efforts to end and resolve the conflicts like in Israel and Palestine, in Somalia, in Sudan. This also includes entering into dialogue with some of the jihadist groups that are now parties to the conflict.
Unfortunately, that sounds pretty hopeless.
The current trend is towards new wars, blatant violations of rights, and the rule of the strongest. But there are also states that are committed to strengthening the law and institutions, and above all civil society organizations and lawyers who are opposing this authoritarian trend. They have helped end some practices of the war on terror, including bringing cases before the European Court of Human Rights against the abduction and ill-treatment of prisoners after 9/11. Efforts are being made to restore the law. How it ends is not clear. But you shouldn't lose hope either.
