War Powers Act of 1973 Essay Example for Free

War Powers Act of 1973 Essay Who could forget that catastrophic day of September 11, 2001, when America, the most powerful nation in the world, trembled in the hands of so-called terrorists and their attacks? Nations were shocked, families wept, and a country was full of rage, waiting to retaliate. Following the attack, an operation called War on Terror was launched. â€Å"The War on Terror (also known as the War on Terrorism) is a campaign initiated by the United States government under President George W. Bush which includes various military, political, and legal actions ostensibly taken to curb the spread of terrorism, following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. The War on Terror was authorized by the United States Congress under the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists passed on September 18, 2001http://www. answers. com/ war%20on%20terror. † The phrase was first broadly use by the press, particularly western ones, to refer to the attempts of the Russian, European, and subsequently, the U. S governments to stop attacks by anarchists against international political leaders. Before, many of the anarchists described themselves as terrorists and the term itself has some positive connotation to their cause. This was shown â€Å"When Russian Marxist Steven Park shot and wounded a Russian police commander who was known to torture suspects on 24 January 1878, for example, he threw down his weapon without killing him, announcing, ‘I am a terrorist, not a killer’http://www. answers. com/war %20on %20terror. † The next time the phrase will be used publicly was at the late 1940’s where it was used to describe the efforts by the British colonial government to finally stop the wave of Jewish attacks in the British Mandate of Palestine. The British used the term war on terrorism to give them the power to crackdown anyone suspected of the act or even just perceived cooperating with the terrorists. Thus, the events led more attacks from the Jews and also from the Arabs, which made the British government to fled Palestine. Currently, the United States is still on war against terrorism and they are being backed up by their allies. During the â€Å"Operation Enduring Freedom† in Afghanistan, a multinational combined task force was formed, called the CTF 150, which was composed of France, Germany, Italy, Pakistan, New Zealand, Spain, Australia, Canada, United Kingdom and the United States. â€Å"The first wave of attacks were carried out solely by American and British forces. Since the initial invasion period, these forces were augmented by troops and aircraft from Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand and Norway amongst others. In 2006, there were about 33,000 troops in Afghanistan http://www. answers. com/ war%20on%20terror. † From the beginning, there have been a lot of criticisms regarding this â€Å"war† and these days the protests have been more vocal and even the Americans are getting restless if whether when will it be over. Families of soldiers whether American or from other nations are worried and are getting worried as the days pass that their loved ones are still serving something for them as a lost cause. Yet, there are a lot of things to do and as long as the insurgency has not yet been resolved, the war will persist. But, there is another insurgency that has been around for centuries, which still needed to be taken care of, and needed to be waged, that is, the war on- poverty. Poverty dates back to who knows when and how, maybe from the time when man started to create monetary values, started owning properties, and became more individualistic. There has been a lot of programs and campaigns all over the world, one of these is the so-called, War on Poverty. The War on Poverty is the name for legislation first introduced by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during his State of the Union address on January 8, 1964. This legislation was proposed by Johnson in response to the difficult economic conditions associated with a national poverty rate of around nineteen percent. The War on Poverty speech led the United States Congress to pass the Economic Opportunity Act, a law that established the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) to administrate the local application of federal funds targeted against poverty http://www. answers. com/topic/war-on-poverty. Every nation in the world has its own version of its war on poverty, for every nation has poverty as one of their major problems. Even highly developed countries like the U. S, the U. K and Japan have their own problems on poverty. A lot of causes can be attributed to poverty such as graft and corruption, geographical location, and of course war just to name the few. The causes are eminent but the effects are devastating, in an article of wikipedia. com on poverty they elaborate the effects of poverty as: The capacity of the state is further undermined by the problem that people living in poverty may be more vulnerable to extremist political persuasion, and may feel less loyalty to a state unable to deliver basic services. For these reasons conditions of poverty may increase the risk of political violence, terrorism, war and genocide, and may make those living in poverty vulnerable to human trafficking, internal displacement and exile as refugees. Countries suffering widespread poverty may experience loss of population, particularly in high-skilled professions, through emigration, which may further undermine their ability to improve their situation. http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Poverty But these effects are more likely to be the causes too and vice-versa, thus making a cycle, a â€Å"poverty cycle†. Now, some questions have been raised and one of them was- what is more important, the war on terror or the war on poverty? Before answering that question, let bus first put the situation in the context. The context of this study is European specifically, the context of the United Kingdom. The background on the two topics was given earlier in order to establish the common ground and to assert where things stand right now. The United Kingdom has been allies with the United States since time immemorial, and both of the countries embark in this so called war on terror. In fact, after the 9/11 attacks, the UK was one of the first to condemn the horrible acts and was also considered US’ biggest ally in the Operation Enduring Freedom. But, after more than five years, the UK has been thinking about whether to continue its support on the said war on terror. The term war on terror was dropped by the UK government through Sir Ken McDonald, the country’s chief prosecutor on December 27, 2007. He elaborated that â€Å"terrorist fanatics were not soldiers fighting a war but simply members of an aimless ‘death cult’. We resist the language of warfare, and I think the government has moved on this. It no longer uses this sort of language http://www. democraticunderground. com /discuss/duboard. php? az=view_alladdress=1023116863. In an on-line article, on timesofindia. indiatimes. com, which was entitled Britain Finally Drops ‘War on Terror,’ the article explicitly said, â€Å"In the clearest indication yet of the UKs public disengagement from the US war on terror, British ministers have finally dropped the term and decided henceforth to refer to jihadis as mere criminals rather than a homogenous ideology-ridden group of desperadoes http://timesofindia. indiatimes. com/Britain_finally_drops_ war_on_terror/articleshow/2708606. cms. † The UK clearly is making some distance with the stand of the United States, but I think it should not be the case. While a lot of criticisms have shaken the very foundation of the said war because of reported human right’s abuses done by some US soldiers, the whole idea of war on terror should not be dropped. If there are changes to be made, then so be it but it’s not appropriate to drop the whole thing. This war has been waged for a long time now and it will all be a waste if it will end without seeing the final outcome. Think of all the lives that were taken on September 11, don’t they deserve justice? The people who unwillingly and unknowingly sacrificed their lives on that day will all be put into the waste basket if they don’t get the justice that these terrorists’ owe them. We can’t let just anyone to put fear in our homes; we can’t let them hurt our children, thus, we should continue the advocacy to bring about security and later peace in our nation. With regards to poverty, the war on poverty has been there for a very long time, and a lot of measures have been done to solve the problem. Poverty will not end that easy, we have to consider thousands of years of history to fully understand the root of the problem. But, we have an immediate problem to be solved, which is terrorism. Another thing with the idea of the war on poverty is that the whole scheme tends to make the citizens dependent on the state by having programs like the unemployment aid, which gives unemployed people some money to cope with their living. Rather than giving them money, he/she should be encouraged to find a job, but with the aid, he/she is encouraged otherwise. Still, the immediate concern that brings more threat to our very existence should be put first on the list. We cannot solve poverty if fear rules us due to the terrorists’ attacks, and we will not solve poverty if all of us will be dead because of the same reason. References: Rashmee Roshan Lall, January 17, 2008. Britain finally drops war on terror, viewed March 16, 2008, http://timesofindia.indiatimes. com/Britain_finally_drops_ war_on_terror/articleshow/2708606. cms Britain Drops War on Terror Label, military. com, viewed March 16, 2008, http://www. democraticunderground. com/discuss/duboard. php? az=view_alladdress=1023116863. War on Terror, viewed March 13, 2008, http://www. answers. com/ war%20on%20terror War on Poverty, viewed March 13, 2008, http://www. answers. com/topic/war-on-poverty. Poverty, viewed March 13, 2008, http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Poverty