War On Terror Quotes

As he grew older, which was mostly in my absence, my firstborn son, Alexander, became ever more humorous and courageous. There came a time, as the confrontation with the enemies of our civilization became more acute, when he sent off various applications to enlist in the armed forces. I didn't want to be involved in this decision either way, especially since I was being regularly taunted for not having 'sent' any of my children to fight in the wars of resistance that I supported. (As if I could 'send' anybody, let alone a grown-up and tough and smart young man: what moral imbeciles the 'anti-war' people have become.) ~ Christopher Hitchens

The Bush administration tells us that the Iraq was was central to the Global War on Terror. Its critics call the Iraq War a distraction. The disagreement is a fundamental one. The Bush administration advocates a policy of preemption that calls for targeting terrorists and the regimes that support them, with the goal of eliminating threats before they are imminent. Their opponents disagree. The central question, then, is this: Would it have been possible to wage a serious Global War on Terror leaving the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein in power? To answer it, we must consider what we knew before September 11 and what we knew before the Iraq War. ~ Stephen F. Hayes

One side-effect of the so-called war on terror has been a crisis of liberalism. This is not only a question of alarmingly illiberal legislation, but a more general problem of how the liberal state deals with its anti-liberal enemies. ~ Terry Eagleton

This paradigm of the war on terror, connecting all kinds of armed resistance around the globe in one huge ideological framework, as a new ideology at a stage in history when most of the major ideologies are gone, does not reflect the facts on the ground. ~ Jonas Gahr Store

Ethanol reduces our dependence on foreign sources of oil and is an important weapon in the War on Terror. By investing in South Dakota's ethanol producers, we will strengthen our energy security and create new jobs. ~ John Thune

Private prisons have a special interest in tapping the burgeoning immigrant groups to fill beds and cells, especially in the post-9/11 period of the so-called "war on terror." The ~ Mark Lewis Taylor

It's a tough time my friends. We need to make sacrifices to ensure our troops have the tools they need in order to get the job done. This budget will help us win the War on Terror. ~ Dennis Hastert

I sent letters to the families of every service member who laid down his or her life in the war on terror. By the end of my presidency, I had written to almost five thousand families. ~ George W. Bush

This war on terror is bogus. ~ Michael Meacher

I think a lot of the national Democrats believe that, you know, Iraq is a distraction and not part of the War on Terror. They've said so. And I strongly disagree. ~ George W. Bush

The President reminded us that the war in Iraq is a central battlefield in the war on terror that began the morning of September the 11th. ~ Mike Pence

We cannot simply suspend or restrict civil liberties until the War on Terror is over, because the War on Terror is unlikely ever to be truly over. ~ Gerald Bard Tjoflat

Little Bush says we are at war, but we are not at war because to be
at war Congress has to vote for it. He says we are at war on terror,
but that is a metaphor, though I doubt if he knows what that means.
It's like having a war on dandruff, it's endless and pointless. ~ Gore Vidal

The 'pre-emption' versus 'prevention' debate may be a distinction without much difference. The important thing is to have it understood that the United States is absolutely serious. The jihadists have in the past bragged that America is too feeble and corrupt to fight. A lot is involved in disproving that delusion on their part. ~ Christopher Hitchens

Terror attacks are now 'man-caused disasters.' And the 'global war on terror' is no more. It is an 'overseas contingency operation.'
Nidal Hassan proudly tells a military court that he, a soldier of Allah, killed 13 American soldiers in the name of jihad. but the massacre remains officially classified as an act not of terrorism but of 'workplace violence. ~ Charles Krauthammer

And one thing we want during this war on terror is for people to feel like their life's moving on, that they're able to make a living and send their kids to college and put more money on the table. ~ George W. Bush

I am confident that in the end freedom and democracy will prevail over terror and tyranny. We will win this war on terror - and when we do Americans, the British, Iraqis, and people around the world will be more secure. ~ Doc Hastings

I believe that the freedom of speech should be protected, but so should a family's right to privacy as they grieve their loss. There is a time and a place for vigorous debate on the War on Terror, but during a family's last goodbye is not it. ~ Dave Reichert

After 911, the US Government engaged in mock investigations and shut down many small Islamic charities and organizations, giving the appearance of action in the so-called 'War on Terror.' Why did they harbor, support and resource Fethullah Gulen's $25 billion madrassa-and-mosque-establishment efforts throughout the Central Asian region and the Balkans? ~ Sibel Edmonds

Freedom of speech is one of the greatest American liberties, and I hope this pardon serves as a reminder of the precious freedoms we are fighting to preserve as we continue to wage the war on terror. ~ George Pataki

I absolutely refuse to associate myself with anyone who cannot discern the essential night-and-day difference between theocratic fascism and liberal secular democracy, even less do I want to engage with those who are incapable of recognizing the basic moral distinction between premeditated mass murder and unintentional killing. ~ Christopher Hitchens

Critics have stepped up their attacks on the President for authorizing the National Security Agency to listen to international communications of known al Qaeda members or affiliated terrorists during a time of war. The American people expect their leaders to stay a step ahead of the enemy, and the National Security Agency authorization is a critical tool in the War on Terror that saves lives and protects civil liberties at the same time. ~ Scott McClellan

From time to time our national history has been marred by forgetfulness of the Jeffersonian principle that restraint is at the heart of liberty. In 1789 the Federalists adopted Alien and Sedition Acts in a shabby political effort to isolate the Republic from the world and to punish political criticism as seditious libel. In 1865 the Radical Republicans sought to snare private conscience in a web of oaths and affirmations of loyalty. Spokesmen for the South did service for the Nation in resisting the petty tyranny of distrustful vengeance. In the 1920's the Attorney General of the United States degraded his office by hunting political radicals as if they were Salem witches. The Nation's only gain from his efforts were the classic dissents of Holmes and Brandeis.

In our own times, the old blunt instruments have again been put to work. The States have followed in the footsteps of the Federalists and have put Alien and Sedition Acts upon their statute books. An epidemic of loyalty oaths has spread across the Nation until no town or village seems to feel secure until its servants have purged themselves of all suspicion of non-conformity by swearing to their political cleanliness.

Those who love the twilight speak as if public education must be training in conformity, and government support of science be public aid of caution.

We have also seen a sharpening and refinement of abusive power. The legislative investigation, designed and often exercised ~ John F. Kennedy

This sharp increase in the strength and reach of jihadist organizations in Syria and Iraq has generally been unacknowledged until recently by politicians and media in the West. A primary reason for this is that Western governments and their security forces narrowly define the jihadist threat as those forces directly controlled by al-Qaeda central or "core" al-Qaeda. This enables them to present a much more cheerful picture of their successes in the so-called "war on terror" than the situation on the ground warrants. ~ Patrick Cockburn

That's the problem with this whole country. Fucking vast prosperity. No one has any real problems anymore. Ninety percent of the damn politicians in this town either think there's no war on terror, or if we'd just be nice to these zealots they'll leave us alone. Well, that ain't going to fucking happen. The Huns are circling, and we're sitting around arguing about gay rights and prayer and guns and global warming and all kinds of bullshit. These idiots will eventually wake up to the threat, but by then it might be too late. (Stan Hurley) ~ Vince Flynn

In fact if you look at Reagan's global war on terrorism it very quickly turned into a massive terrorist war: [by us] Central America, South Africa, the Middle East, all U.S.-backed terrorism. That's one of the reasons why it disappeared from history and why the standard line is that Bush 43 declared the war on terror. Actually he just repeated what Reagan had said 20 years earlier. ~ Noam Chomsky

The catch-all phrase "the war on terrorism", in all honesty, has no more meaning than if one wants to wage a war against "criminal gangsterism". Terrorism is a tactic. You can't have a war against a tactic. It's deliberately vague and non-definable in order to justify and permit perpetual war anywhere and under any circumstance. ~ Ron Paul

Hillary Clinton was the one pressing the hardest for bombing, and look at what happened. They not only destroyed the country, but Libya has become the center for jihad all over Africa and the Middle East. It's a total disaster in every respect, but it does not matter. Look at the so-called global war on terror. ~ Noam Chomsky

Fom the out set, the War on Terror was sharply different from other U.S. military actions in the strong support it received from American women. Normally, men back military action by 10 to 20 points more than women do. But, after 9/11, women felt more endangered by terror and backed action against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden as strongly as men did. ~ Dick Morris

The victims of right-wing violence are typically immigrants, Muslims, and people of color, while the targets of environmental and animal rights activism are among "the most powerful corporations on the planet" - hence the state's relative indifference to the one and obsession with the other.

The broader pattern helps to explain one partial exception to the left/right gap in official scrutiny - namely, the domestic aspects of the "War on Terror." Al Qaeda is clearly a reactionary organization. Like much of the American far right, it is theocratic, anti-Semitic, and patriarchal. Like Timothy McVeigh, the 9/11 hijackers attacked symbols of institutional power, killing a great many innocent people to further their cause. But while the state's bias favors the right over the left, the Islamists were the wrong kind of right-wing fanatic. These right-wing terrorists were foreigners, they were Muslim, and above all they were not white. And so, in retrospect and by comparison, the state's response to the Oklahoma City bombing seems relatively restrained - short-lived, focused, selectively targeting unlawful behavior for prosecution. The government's reaction to the September 11th attacks has been something else entirely - an open-ended war fought at home and abroad, using all variety of legal, illegal, and extra-legal military, police, and intelligence tactics, arbitrarily jailing large numbers of people and spying on entire communities of immigrants, Muslims, and Middle ~ Kristian Williams

You think you're going to impress an American jury with [your] words? In the eyes of the Americans, you're doomed. Just looking at you in an orange suit, chains, and being Muslim and Arabic is enough to convict you. ~ Mohamedou Ould Slahi

Our pre-9/11 gun laws allow our enemies in the War on Terror to arm themselves right here in our own country. ~ Carolyn McCarthy

Police often think of themselves as soldiers in a battle with the public rather than guardians of public safety. That they are provided with tanks and other military-grade weapons, that many are military veterans, and that militarized units like Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) proliferated during the 1980s War on Drugs and post-9/11 War on Terror only fuels this perception, as well as a belief that entire communities are disorderly, dangerous, suspicious, and ultimately criminal. When this happens, police are too quick to use force. ~ Alex S. Vitale

We simply cannot afford to allow our government to go unscrutinised, most of all in amid the bleak seeming imperatives of the 'war on terror'. ~ Nick Harkaway

So a truthful assessment of how America is doing in the war on terror as a result of President Bush's war on Iraq is that we have been set back by decades. ~ John Olver

We're fighting a war on terror because the enemy attacked us first, and hit us hard ... Al Qaeda's leadership has said they have the right to kill four million Americans, ... For nearly six years now, the United States has been able to defeat their attempts to attack us here at home. Nobody can guarantee that we won't be hit again ... ~ Dick Cheney

I still believe that the Democrats have it right about health care, education, the war in Iraq and, yes the war on terror. ~ Alan Colmes

The war on terror is a fight that we did not start, but it is one that we shall finish. ~ Nick Lampson

In the tradition of Black Hawk Down, Malcolm MacPherson vividly brings to life this harrowing story of courage, pathos, and war at its grittiest. For military history buffs, or those interested in the front lines of the war on terror, Roberts Ridge is a must read. ~ Jay Winik

Did you see, after this horrific tragedy in Boston, that [Barack] Obama cannot utter the word 'terrorist.' It's not politically correct. He even called the Fort Hood murderer 'workplace violence.' Because it's politically incorrect to talk about 'jihad,' or to talk about 'terrorist,' or to talk about 'the war on terror.' He won't say those words, because they're politically incorrect. ~ Rafael Cruz

Obama and the Democrats were so critical of what Bush did, the interrogations, the secret prisons, Guantanamo and all of that, and even the war on terror. Obama won't use the word. He's made war on the war on terror. ~ Charles Krauthammer

If progressive deep frames had been articulated and present in the public mind, the idea of a "war on terror" never would have made sense. If we viewed our strength as our diplomatic ability to forge international consensus and coalitions, and if we recognized that killing and maiming civilians through military action creates more terrorists and fosters more acts of terrorism, we wouldn't have looked to our military to solve the problem. Had progressive deep frames been prevalent at the time of 9/11, Americans would have taken "war on terror" as a powerful metaphor but not a literal guide to action, like the "war on poverty." They would have seen it as a major crime problem - like international organized crime - and sought to bring these criminals to justice by the means that work best, like tracing bank accounts, placing spies in their organizations, and so on. It ~ George Lakoff

There is no glory in the sacrificing of oneself in the name of imperialism by order of elitist politicians. But this is what our young service members are led to believe. ~ Aaron B. Powell

In other words, perhaps it is time to admit that the War on Terror is not just a stupid war. It is a war designed to make us stupid. How ~ Moustafa Bayoumi

Some lurid things have been said about me - that I am a racist, a hopeless alcoholic, a closet homosexual and so forth - that I leave to others to decide the truth of. I'd only point out, though, that if true these accusations must also have been true when I was still on the correct side, and that such shocking deformities didn't seem to count for so much then. Arguing with the Stalinist mentality for more than three decades now, and doing a bit of soapboxing and street-corner speaking on and off, has meant that it takes quite a lot to hurt my tender feelings, or bruise my milk-white skin. ~ Christopher Hitchens

We convince ourselves that even our shameless waste, our unchecked consumption and our appalling ignorance of anyplace in the world except our own little corner must continue
or they win! No, when you become smarter and less gluttonous, you win. We all win! ~ Bill Maher

Wall Street banks have used the same tactic that Bush used in the war on terror - fear - and they've basically said that if you don't do what we tell you, the sky will fall. If you don't do what we tell you, it will be the end of capitalism as we know it. The failure of Lehman Brothers lent some credence to those fears. ~ Joseph Stiglitz

You can overcome the things that are done to you, but you cannot escape the things that you have done.
Here is the truth: It matters, what you do at war. It matters more than you ever want to know. Because countries, like people, have collective consciences and memories and souls, and the violence we deliver in the name of our nation is pooled like sickly tar at the bottom of who we are. The soldiers who don't die for us come home again. They bring with them the killers they became on our national behalf, and sit with their polluted memories and broken emotions in our homes and schools and temples. We may wish it were not so, but action amounts to identity. We become what we do.You can tell yourself all the stories you want, but you can't leave your actions over there. You can't build a wall and expect to live on the other side of memory. All of the poison seeps back into our soil. ~ Megan K. Stack

We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attacks on the twin towers and the pentagon and the American struggle in Iraq. These events swung American public opinion in our favor ~ Benjamin Netanyahu

The United States finds itself with forces of reaction. Do I have to demonstrate this? The Taliban's annihilation of music and culture? The enslavement of women? ~ Christopher Hitchens

We should demand that (Customs and Border Protection) focus on the true priority that we face on the war on terror ... Stripping small amounts of prescription drugs from the hands of seniors ... that should not be a priority. ~ David Vitter

The militarization of the police leads us to think about Israel and the militarization of the police there - if only the images of the police and not of the demonstrators had been shown, one might have assumed that Ferguson was Gaza. I think that it is important to recognize the extent to which, in the aftermath of the advent of the war on terror, police departments all over the US have been equipped with the means to allegedly "fight terror. ~ Angela Y. Davis

The American war-writing tradition is a proud one and booming in this era of the Global War on Terror - at least in the nonfiction realm. Hundreds of memoirs and press accounts from Iraq and Afghanistan have been published since 9/11. ~ Matt Gallagher

As the war on terror continues, Americans must honor the brave men and women who gave their lives for the protection of this nation and the hope of peace. ~ Dan Lipinski

Ever since 9/11, I found myself interested in chronicling the war and the war on terror and the way that this giant machinery was affecting individuals. ~ Mark Boal

The fact that war is the word we use for almost everything - on terrorism, drugs, even poverty - has certainly helped to desensitize us to its invocation; if we wage wars on everything, how bad can they be? ~ Glenn Greenwald

Remaining vigilant toward this ever-present threat means constantly learning how better to protect ourselves. But primarily it reminds us that we must fight and win the war on terror, so that we do not have to fight it here in America. ~ Mark Kennedy

The war on terror, I believe, will be waged by effective intelligence and police work and cruise missiles. ~ Michael Mandelbaum

In this miasma of forgotten wars, torture and the war on terror, there are no easy answers, especially in the face of a very real terrorism. But I can live my questions. As a humanitarian, I can act from a feeling of shared vulnerability with the victims of preventable suffering. I have a responsibility to bear witness publicly to the plight of those I seek to assist and to insist on independent humanitarian action and respect for international humanitarian law. As a citizen, I can assume my responsibility for the public world - the world of politics - not as a spectator, but as a participant who engages and shapes it. The larger force that can push back against the wrong use of power can be the force of a citizen's politics that openly debates the right use of power and the reasoned pursuit of justice. Catherine Lu, a political philosopher and my friend, has described justice as a boundary over which we must not go, a bond of common humanity between us, a balance among people of equal worth and dignity. I fight not for a utopian ideal, but each day I make a choice, against nihilism and towards justice. ~ James Orbinski

The cable is evidence of a widespread US policy during the occupation of shooting first and asking questions later, as well as detaining anyone and everyone "suspected" of having any links to attacks on US forces. ~ Dahr Jamail

Terrorism': the word that means nothing, yet justifies everything. ~ Glenn Greenwald

The reality is that [Barack] Obama has some 15 countries in the current Libya coalition. President Bush put together close to 50 countries for the Afghan coalition, some 40 countries for the Iraqi coalition, more than 90 countries for the Proliferation Security Initiative and over 90 countries in the Global War on Terror. ~ Donald Rumsfeld

Victory is the most important aspect in Iraq, because victory in Iraq will help us have victory in the War on Terror. ~ Andrew Card

This was a matter of some small group of guerrillas in some distant caves, a primitive, fanatical, and desperate people who didn't have the resources to intimidate the United States. ~ Isabel Allende

The true credit for our safety and security goes to our men and women who are serving in places like Iraq and Afghanistan in the global war on terrorism. ~ Asa Hutchinson

The core distortion of the War on Terror under both Bush and Obama is the Orwellian practice of equating government accusations of terrorism with proof of guilt. One constantly hears U.S. government defenders referring to 'terrorists' when what they actually mean is: those accused by the government of terrorism. ~ Glenn Greenwald

We fear the past, present and future. We fear the unknown, we fear not having enough, losing what we have, not having what we want. We fear what will become of us and those that we care for. We fear what others think of us and what they don't think of us. We fear, fear, fear and therefore we are controllable through the manipulation of all that we fear. The present War on Terror is the War of Fear. No Fear, no control. ~ David Icke

Ludicrous concepts ... like the whole idea of a war on terrorism. You can wage war against another country, or on a national group within your own country, but you can't wage war on an abstract noun. How do you know when you've won? When you've got it removed from the Oxford English Dictionary? ~ Terry Jones

My submission to you is we're fighting the war on terror not overseas but in our own streets, and we'd be spending vast more fortunes to try to be a defensive country to protect ourselves rather than an offensive country to spread democracy wherever people yearn for it. ~ Johnny Isakson

According to various polls conducted, the single most important issue in last week's election was not the Iraq War, not the War on Terror, not even the economy. It was the cultural war. ~ John Doolittle

Before the war on drugs, the war on terror, or the war on cancer, there was the war on female sexual desire. It's a war that has been raging far longer than any other, and its victims number well into the billions by now. Like the others, it's a war that can never be won, as the declared enemy is a force of nature. We may as well declare war on the cycles of the moon. ~ Christopher Ryan

The war against terrorism is terrorism. ~ Woody Harrelson

We should stop worrying so much about the price of gasoline and start considering its cost. You really want to be patriotic? Don't change your car by putting a flag on it, change the car. ~ Bill Maher

The United States stands with our friends in Britain as they recover from today's shock of terrorism. These barbaric acts strengthen our resolve and remind us all of the danger of complacency during our continued war on terror. ~ Mark Foley

This is a victory against those who promote terrorism, against hypocrites who tout a supposed war on terror and in reality protect terrorists and jail young men who only acted to oppose terrorism in the United States. ~ Ricardo Alarcon

Here we are then, I was thinking, in a war to the finish between everything I love and everything I hate. Fine. We will win and they will lose. A pity that we let them pick the time and place of the challenge, but we can and we will make up for that. ~ Christopher Hitchens

Robert Kennedy's Justice Department, it is said, would arrest mobsters for spitting on the sidewalk," he said. The FBI would use "the same aggressive arrest and detention tactics in the war on terror. Let the terrorists among us be warned: If you overstay your visa - even by one day - we will arrest you. If you violate a local law, you will be put in jail and kept in custody as long as possible. We will use every available statute. We will seek every prosecutorial advantage. We will use all our weapons." The ~ Tim Weiner

When the enemy gets to your citadel, your prided epicenter, everything's in play. ~ Bill Maher

The hallmark of an authoritarian idiot is yelling TERRORIST-LOVER! at anyone questioning the definition of Terrorist. ~ Glenn Greenwald

All eyes, all attention at the federal level, are on al Qaeda and the war on terror. Fact is, al Qaeda wouldn't last a day in parts of Philadelphia. I've got gangsters with .45s that would run them out of town. ~ Michael Nutter

The bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror ... so today I vetoed it ~ George W. Bush

Surely our inaction with respect to Syria is a poor precedent if we're fighting a war on terror. ~ Bill Kristol

When I wrote my eighth thriller, 'Inside Out,' in 2009, the villains were a group of CIA and other government officials who colluded to destroy a series of tapes depicting Americans torturing war-on-terror prisoners. ~ Barry Eisler

New Rule: Just because a country elects a smart president doesn't make it a smart country. A couple of weeks ago, I was asked on CNN if I thought Sarah Palin could get elected president, and I said I hope not, but I wouldn't put anything past this stupid country. Well, the station was flooded with emails, and the twits hit the fan. And you could tell that these people were really mad, because they wrote entirely in CAPITAL LETTERS!!! Worst of all, Bill O'Reilly refuted my contention that this is a stupid country by calling me a pinhead, which (a) proves my point, and (b) is really funny coming from a doody-face like him.

Now, before I go about demonstration how, sadly, easy it is to prove the dumbness that's dragging us down, let me just say that ignorance has life-and-death consequences. On the eve of the Iraq War, seventy percent of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was personally involved in 9/11. Six years later, thirty-four percent still do. Or look at the health-care debate: At a recent town hall meeting in South Carolina, a man stood up and told his congressman to "keep your government hands off my Medicare," which is kind of like driving cross-country to protest highways.

This country is like a college chick after two Long Island iced teas: We can be talked into anything, like wars, and we can be talked out of anything, like health care. We should forget the town halls, and replace them with study halls.

Listen to some of these stats: ~ Bill Maher

Abroad, our most important policy is to support our troops and continue forward-thinking foreign policy in the war on terror - keeping our enemies on the run and hitting them before they hit us. ~ Christopher Bond

However, as our brave men and women continue to return from the battlefields of the War on Terror, Congress must respond by enacting policies that meet the evolving needs of the veterans community. ~ Randy Neugebauer

We have all the freedoms we want. But what we are missing is red ink: the language to articulate our non-freedom. The way we are taught to speak about freedom- war on terror and so on-falsifies freedom. ~ Slavoj Zizek

War is politics for everyone but the warrior. ~ Tiffany Madison

Here's a little thought experiment. Imagine that, on September 11, 2001, when the Twin Towers came down, the President of the United States was not George W. Bush, but Ann Coulter. What would have happened then? On September 12, President Coulter would have ordered the US military forces to drop 35 nuclear bombs throughout the Middle East, killing all of our actual and potential enemy combatants, and their wives and children. On September 13, the war would have been over and won, without a single American life lost. ~ Satoshi Kanazawa

I support this war on terror and the war on radical Islam. ~ Dana Rohrabacher

One of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror. ~ George W. Bush

George W. Bush's legacy will always be defined by the events of September
11, 2001, which provided him with something of a delayed mandate.
Without 9/11, there would have been no unconstitutional Patriot Act, no
Homeland Security Department, no decade-long occupation of Iraq and
Afghanistan, and no open-ended "war on terror." As such, it is important to
look closely at exactly what really happened on 9/11/2001. ~ Donald Jeffries

It seems amazing that the Navy SEALs managed to get inside the compound and shoot Osama so efficiently. I can only imagine they were told that the mission was to rescue a bearded British hostage and he must be brought out alive. ~ Frankie Boyle

The war on terror, if this is a war on terror, can only be won by a sincere regional and international cooperation. All have to believe they have something at stake and work together. In the absence of this it will become political and interest-oriented. ~ Hamid Karzai

When our children and grandchildren look back on this period, one question will overwhelm all the rest: Did we do everything in our power to fight and to win the war on terror? That's the fundamental question this generation faces. ~ George W. Bush

President Obama dropped the term 'war on terror', and rightly so. Terrorism is not an enemy but a type of warfare that may or may not be adopted by an enemy. Imagine if, after Pearl Harbor, an attack that relied on aircraft carriers, President Roosevelt had declared a global war on naval aviation. By focusing on terrorism instead of al Qaeda or radical Islam, Bush elevated a specific kind of assault to a position that shaped American global strategy, which left the United States strategically off-balance.
Obama may have clarified the nomenclature, but he left in place a significant portion of the imbalance, which is an obsession with the threat of terrorist attacks. As we consider presidential options in the coming decade, it appears imperative that we clear up just how much of a threat terrorism actually presents and what that threat means for U.S. policy. ~ George Friedman

To understand the future course of this war, one need only look at the history of the War on Drugs and the War on Terror. Like those two manufactured "wars", this one will be never-ending, freedom-destroying, counterproductive, and ultimately understood to have caused far more damage than the supposed threat it was aimed at ever could have. ~ Ramez Naam

War on terror is far less of a military operation and far more of an intelligence-gathering, law-enforcement operation. ~ John F. Kerry

Funny, for all surveillance, Osama bin Laden is still free-and we're not. Guess who's winning the war on terror? ~ Cory Doctorow

So our own actions sometimes have undermined our safety, in our efforts to fight terrorism. The only way this can work is if we are aligned with liberals, with moderate Muslim forces. But if our war on terrorism is seen - as it is seen by many Muslims - as a war on Islam itself, it's very hard for us to have Muslim alliances, because America and the West have become so toxic. ~ Yaroslav Trofimov