How Far is to Far?

With the recent Presidential election happening only a week ago and the news of U.S. Special Forces conducting raids into Pakistan the question needs to be asked, just how far can a country go in the pursuit of terrorists and terrorist organizations. The one golden rule in international relations is that a country must respect another country’s sovereignty but in the pursuit of terrorist organizations that have no territory or borders is it ok for forces to pursue terrorists by disregarding a county’s sovereignty. In the last month President Bush has sent U.S. Special Forces into Pakistan to kill or capture terrorists that hide along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. In this area there are no real markers that depict the line of the border.

In the recent election President-elect Obama has said that he will actively seek out Osama Bin Laden and bring him to justice. But how far can one country go in pursuing a terrorist. With President Bush sending U.S. Special Forces into Pakistan he is committing an act of war under international law. This begins a slippery slope that no country wants to begin down. If a country is allowed to enter five miles to apprehend a terrorist then one country will push it to ten or twenty miles. For the pursuit of terrorists there needs to be no boundaries in order to bring them to justice but there also needs to be an international coalition of countries that are working together to ensure that no one country is abusing power and that a country’s sovereignty is respected.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2008/09/03/AR2008090300523.html

A New Kind of War

September 11, 2001 was a defining moment in history. It showed that the wars of the future are not going to be fought between various countries but it will be fought by countries against small splinter terrorist organizations. Terrorism and the fight against terrorism is not a new idea. The idea of terrorism has been around for about forty years but the terrorism that the world sees today is a relatively new way to terrorize. Most terrorist groups in the past want to make a political statement and did not want casualties. Terrorist groups like the IRA and the Weather Underground would notify the authorities before they set off a bomb. But the terrorism the world sees today wants a mass number of casualties from every attack.

The Israeli Palestine conflict is the first example of terrorism as it is known today. During the Olympic Games in Munich, Germany a Palestine terrorist group took control of the Israeli Olympians sleeping quarters and killed several Israeli Olympians and took the rest hostage. Eventually all Palestine and Israelis were killed. Today the conflict is still ongoing and the Palestinians still use terrorist tactics to kill Israelis. It is a conflict that was the first to see the devastation that terrorist tactics have on a society. On a daily basis Israelis die because of suicide bombings.

The wars of the future are not going to be like the Cold War or World War II. It will be a war where the enemy lives in the population and one can not tell an enemy from a civilian. Forces will have to go door to door to flush the enemy out of hiding.