THE BUSH DOCTRINE

Bush’s speech announced a new foreign policy principle, which quickly became known as the Bush Doctrine. The United States would launch a war on terrorism. Unlike previous wars, this one had a vaguely defined enemy—terrorist groups around the world that might threaten the United States or its allies—and no predictable timetable for victory. The American administration would make no distinction between terrorists and the governments that harbored them, and it would recognize no middle ground in the new war: “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” Bush demanded that Afghanistan, ruled by a group of Islamic fundamentalists called the Taliban, surrender Osama bin Laden, who had established a base in the country. When the Taliban refused, the United States on October 7, 2001, launched air strikes against its strongholds.

Bush gave the war in Afghanistan the name “Enduring Freedom.” By the end of the year, the combination of American bombing and ground combat by the Northern Alliance (Afghans who had been fighting the Taliban for years) had driven the regime from power. A new government, friendly to and dependent on the United States, took its place. It repealed Taliban laws denying women the right to attend school and banning movies, music, and other expressions of Western culture but found it difficult to establish full control over the country. Fewer than 100 Americans died in the war, while Afghan military and civilian casualties numbered in the thousands. But bin Laden had not been found, and many Taliban supporters continued to pose a threat to the new government’s stability. Indeed, by early 2007, the Taliban had reasserted their power in some parts of Afghanistan, and no end was in sight to the deployment of American troops there.

Supporters of the Bush administration who turned out in Washington, D.C., late in 2001 to confront demonstrators opposed to the war in Afghanistan.

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