Freedom, Anger and Global Power

Abstract

This chapter focuses upon what was to be called the ‘war on terror’ and the determination of the USA to establish a new global order in the wake of 9/11. It explores how the attack on the Twin Towers took place at a time when contemporary thinking about globalization and human rights were shifting. It also examines the sources of the difficulty that the USA had in recognizing and remembering the implications of its own global power and the ways in which it has often worked to marginalize and dispossess populations who have been left with feelings of hostility and injustice they feel have been historically denied. It then goes on to explore how relationships between the USA and Europe were redefined in the aftermath of 9/11 through the preparations of building a ‘coalition of the willing’ that would, after the war in Afghanistan against the Taliban, confront Saddam Hussein’s threat of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) by attacking Iraq.¹