ABSTRACT
The September 11, 2001, attack has been seen as a watershed in modern times akin to Pearl Harbor or Hiroshima. The event directly led to a war against Afghanistan whose Taliban government had sheltered Al-Qaeda. Indirectly, it has led to a major shift in US security policy which is now premised on launching pre-emptive attacks on targets well before they reach the potential of becoming active threats. Washington has since deployed troops in many countries to carry out special operations against alleged terrorists. The United States, has deemed that all its potential enemies are part of an ‘Axis of Evil’, and in 2003 it launched a war on what it said was the most dangerous among them – Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq. The US action had no sanction in international law; it rested primarily on a new doctrine of pre-emption formulated by elements of the Bush Administration in the wake of the WTC event.
