From the Global Jihad to the ‘War on Terror:’ Views from the Global South
September/11 and the US-led War on Terror consolidated a new world order shaped by American political and military dominance. This week we look at how the roots of the current War on Terror began much earlier during the Cold War. We re-examine some of the proxy wars of this period and US counter-insurgency operations in places such as in Afghanistan, which led to what has been called the ‘CIA-Jihad’, and broader U.S.
Seminar Questions
How does Mandami’s analysis of U.S. support, including arming and training, for the Mujahideen and figures like Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan complicate the conventional accounts of the war on terror and the rise of groups like al Qaida?
Why did the U.S. support militant groups and endorse the use of political terror in Asia, Africa and Latin America in its proxy wars against the former Soviet Union? And what does this reveal about U.S. imperialism’s ability to tolerate ideological alternatives?
How does Hanieh explain the rise of ISIS? And how does he describe their ideology?
What does Capasso mean when he suggests that the fragmentation of Libya reveals how war functions as “a mode of imperial governance in which the post-colonial space enters the circuits of capital”?
