Fewer Rights, More Insecurity

Three young idle curiosity observed with reporters deployed around the beautiful blue – domed mosque in search of Afghans that take “the pulse of the street.” Recently that the Marines have taken the city. “Do you know why you bombard Americans?” Asked a reporter to one of the boys.”No , ” he replies. “Do you know what 11-S?”, Returns to the fray. “Do not”. “Do you know where New York?” “No”.

Afghanistan was the first milestone on the way the new world order born, painfully, with the attacks of September 11, 2001. The reaction of the administration George Bush to attack ordered by Osama bin Laden from the Afghan mountains had two faces. Externally, it launched the “war on terror”; Internally, the Patriot Act changed the relationship between American citizens and their government. Soon, in the wake of Washington, they were redefining the rules of the international board with a fetish word that justifies everything, all – encompassing, all – masquerades: security.

No Rights, More Insecurity

“The world post 9/11 is characterized by the speech that you give in your freedoms to achieve more security. Outside the borders of the laws of war are skipped and international humanitarian law is violated, and within the limits skipped or the rule of law is dangerously bordering”, argues Jesus Nunez Villaverde, a co-director of the Institute of Studies on Conflict and Humanitarian action.

The paradox is that a world in which erode, are circumvented or violated civil rights and human rights is different, by definition, more insecure.” In addition, it puts us at the same level as the terrorists” – apunta Núñez – because for them there is no international law or rule of law or laws of war “. “In the new concept of security has changed the presumption of innocence by the presumption of truth: all that power says is true and it is you who must prove that you are innocent if your rights are violated”, explains David Bondia, president of the Institute of Human Rights of Catalonia. From Edward Snowden to Guantanamo, the drone bombings to ‘gag law’, from the dismemberment of the Middle East to the woman in Nice where two gendarmes stripped of clothes on the beach, the world post-9/11 is defined by less freedom equation (less fees) and more insecurity.

In Paris, on 16 November 2015: “France is at war,” solemnly announced François Hollande after jihadist attacks in Paris that left over a hundred dead. It ‘s been 14 years since 9/11, the author of the attack is not Al Qaeda but the Islamic State, but the speech Hollande is resembling Bush: internal security measures and bombings against the fiefs of terrorists in a distant country Middle East or Central Asia. Not far from the only Islamist attack that has been in the world since 9/11.

In Europe, in Asia, in Africa, of course in the Middle East, the amalgam of franchises and lone wolves of Al Qaeda first and the Islamic State then have spread terror and killed hundreds of people. “If we have learned in these 15 years is that there is no military solution to the problem of terrorism,” said Nunez, adding:

“This does not mean that the response to the threat is not a military component necessary, but may not be the only component or the principal, as unfortunately happens. ”

The Middle East in Flames

On the back of the “war on terror”, the US and its allies in the Azores invaded Iraq and created social and political conditions that led to the first appearance of the insurgency and after the Islamic State. Fire destroyed the country and the Middle East. “The Iraq war formalizes the doctrine of preventive war outside the UN umbrella,” recalls Bondia. Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo became symbols of the line that Washington had crossed his “fight against terror”. “Rules of international law were violated. To use armed force before self-defense or the UN Security Council authorization was necessary. Thus, a much more dangerous world was created”, says Bondia.

Today we are less free and safe,” Nunez says, adding: “international terrorism is a real threat but it is not an existential threat. An existential threat is the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and climate change. From 9/11 has been oversizing that threat have been wrong in a purely military response and so it goes.”

Minutes before the speech Hollande in Washington Barack Obama explains why once again refuses to send troops to Syria in the fight against the Islamic State. “Suppose we were to send 50,000 troops to Syria. What happens if there is a terrorist attack generated from Yemen? Do we send more troops there? Or maybe Libya?” Asks Obama before Hollande announced military action. US remains the great and unique power thanks to its military, economic, technological and cultural dominance, but the very nature of the “war on terror” (a diffuse enemy, some unattainable goals, a battlefield endless) made Washington, and the rest of the world discovered the limits of American power in this endless struggle . Afghanistan and Iraq show that the US can not lead it everything everywhere, as later seen in conflicts such as Libya and Syria. And in this space other actors emerged as Russia , which took advantage of the cracks (in Georgia, in Ukraine, Crimea, now in Syria) to return to the international scene as a principal actor.

The Light of Europe

And in parallel, in these 15 years the light of Europe has blurred. On September 2, 2015 the body of 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi appears on a beach in Turkey. The shameful reaction to the refugee crisis, rising xenophobia embodied in Islamophobia, tailing the ‘Bush doctrine’ to confront the threat of terrorism, the discourse of fear, inability to build a Muslim European identity are the icing two major crises (economic and institutional) that have seriously damaged the European project. Without the values that gave birth, the EU is a ship adrift in that place uncertain, dark and dangerous the world is post-9/11.