THE WAR ON TERROR is not top of mind for the Biden administration. The president recently wrapped a trip to India for the G20 summit and pledged infrastructure development for trade expansion. Then he flew to Vietnam to elevate diplomatic ties with Hanoi in a move that is 100 percent totally not about containing China. But before Biden left, he made time to retain emergency powers George W. Bush granted to himself and his presidential successors 22 years ago. Happy 9/11.
On September 7, ahead of the potential expiration (lmao, sob) of the national emergency Bush declared three days after the 2001 attacks, Biden announced:
The terrorist threat that led to the declaration on September 14, 2001, of a national emergency continues. For this reason, I have determined that it is necessary to continue in effect after September 14, 2023, the national emergency with respect to the terrorist threat.
In reality, the 2001-era terrorist threat does not exist anymore. But the point of the War on Terror is that that threat is not needed for its enormous expansion in executive authorities to persist. And if the consequences of that expansion include the emergence of new terrorist threats, all the more reason to retain the expanded authorities.
A specific power Biden reauthorized is Executive Order 13224. EO 13224 is hardly the most violent of the many post-9/11 U.S. endeavors, but it grants the president, via the State and especially Treasury departments, power to block the financial assets of designated terrorist organizations and individuals (all of whom are foreign, meaning domestic white-supremacist and far-right networks are untouched). It opens entities that transact business with listed individuals, groups or companies they control to criminal liability. In concert with the PATRIOT Act, this order expanded a pathway to prosecuting people for what's known legally as “material support for terrorism,” something often several steps removed from any identified act of violence. It's accordingly a very useful tool to coerce people into becoming informants.
Beyond EO 13224, the other wellsprings of the post-9/11 security state are entrenched, as are many of their operations, to say nothing of enduring post-9/11 institutions like the Department of Homeland Security. The Afghanistan War is formally over, but the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force, which permits the president to order military action anywhere in the world in response to what he decrees as the emanations of 9/11, remains on the books. The 2003-2011 Iraq occupation has ended, as has the 2014-2017 war against ISIS, but the U.S. maintains about 2500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria indefinitely, ostensibly as a backstop against a reemergence of ISIS.