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The war on terror Essay

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Ever since the beginning of the terrorist attacks on American soil, the War on Terror has been involved in the lives of Americans and nations near us. The War on Terror’s background originated through conflicts between warring countries in the Middle East; U.S. involvement started when a terrorist guided plane crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 in New York City. The attack was suspected to be the work of the middle-eastern terrorist group Al-Qaeda. The U.S. military, under the leadership of then commander-in-chief George W. Bush, declared a “War on Terror” on the terrorist group and the fighting began. Over ten plus years human rights and civil liberties have been violated as thousands of innocent of civilians have …show more content…

According to the UN only 9,759 civilians have died in Afghanistan, but the Lansing medical journal reports that 654,965 civilian casualties occurred in Iraq from 2003 to 2006 so these reports should be taken with a grain of salt. On the pro-Saddam side of the war 76,778 Islamists fighters have died; these deaths were made of security forces, private contractors, Sons of Iraq, and most were made up of other supporters of the regime. According to the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Armed Forces have suffered 4,487 deaths and 32,223 were wounded in action as of May 2012.
As seen by these studies the people suffering are more so the families of the innocent civilians than those who fought in the conflicts, and a lot of them were not killed by soldiers. As shown by sites like WikiLeaks many civilian deaths are caused by mines or drones. These numbers show the amount of devastation caused by the War on terror and more than ten years later these numbers are still rising. Ultimately there are still over 50,000 troops in Afghanistan and there are still plans to remain there for a while. Another consequence of the war is that in a combination of regarding the safety of the homeland and getting an edge against possible threats, civil liberties have been violated and human rights have been abused. After the 9/11 attack on Twin Towers and the Pentagon the U.S. government has called for new forms of defense against possible attacks

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