Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- PART ONE Historical analysis
- 1 The ICRC during its early years
- 2 The ICRC during the Cold War
- 3 The ICRC after the Cold War
- 4 The ICRC and the US “war” against terrorism
- PART TWO Policy analysis
- PART THREE Conclusion
- Annexe A The ICRC and the Red Cross movement
- Annexe B The ICRC and selected private relief agencies
- Annexe C The ICRC: one of the Big Four relief agencies
- Annexe D The ICRC and selected advocacy groups
- Annexe E The ICRC organizational chart
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - The ICRC and the US “war” against terrorism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- PART ONE Historical analysis
- 1 The ICRC during its early years
- 2 The ICRC during the Cold War
- 3 The ICRC after the Cold War
- 4 The ICRC and the US “war” against terrorism
- PART TWO Policy analysis
- PART THREE Conclusion
- Annexe A The ICRC and the Red Cross movement
- Annexe B The ICRC and selected private relief agencies
- Annexe C The ICRC: one of the Big Four relief agencies
- Annexe D The ICRC and selected advocacy groups
- Annexe E The ICRC organizational chart
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
We're admired – we've won three Nobel Peace Prices – but we're not liked.
Urs Boegli, former head, Washington Office, ICRC, quoted in New York Times 20 February 2002, A10The Al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington of 11 September 2001, which killed almost 3,000 Americans, changed much in the United States and the world – and also changed a great deal for the ICRC. The attacks themselves were a frontal assault on established humanitarian principles, being a form of total war that disdained universally endorsed norms against attacking civilians. The attacks therefore led to another round in the long struggle to get unconventional forces to observe conventional humanitarian limits. The ICRC repeatedly condemned these and related attacks, as in Madrid in 2004 when almost 200 civilians were killed by bombs hidden in trains by Islamic radicals. But the organization was also to find itself engaged in persistent friction with the United States and its allies. Washington and its friends, like Britain, in their fervent zest to wage “war” against terrorism, sometimes also resorted to a type of total war that disdained traditional legal and humanitarian restraints. Even some initial supporters of the George W. Bush Administration's foreign policy recognized the dangers of seeing the American nation as an especially good people whose government, when attacked, should not be bound by complicating rules of law.
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- Information
- The HumanitariansThe International Committee of the Red Cross, pp. 129 - 154Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005