War on Terror : Worth it Or A Bust

As September begins, the world still reminisces, though rather unfondly about that icy cold morning in 2001 when two American Airlines and two United Airlines Aircrafts were hijacked by the Wahhabi Islamist group of Al-Qaeda.

Every single U.S. service member is out of Afghanistan, I can say that with absolute certainty," General Kenneth F. McKenzie, the head of the U.S. Central Command, said at a briefing. And just like that, it is finally over. Washington’s longest war, a conflict that spanned two decades, has come to an end. It would be an understatement to say that the US government did not expect this George W. Bush first used the term "war on terrorism" in a speech back in September of 2001.

So the question arises, was it worth it? I truly believe that the best way to determine failure or success is to write down a good old fashioned Pros and Cons list. Let’s Begin Pros 1. Increased national security in America

2. Laid a foundation for anti-terrorism norms and regulations

3. Laid down the fundamental principle of “We do not negotiate with terrorists”

4. Invoked Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, and hence coerced cooperation between allies

5. Clearly stated the enemies of the US Government and coined terms like “Axis of Evil”

Cons 1. Lead to the growth of paranoia and unnecessary Islamophobia

2. Prosecuted thousands of innocents

3. Poor strategic timing and geographical awareness lead to casualties as well as technical delays

4. Rudimentary flawed approach to terrorism, rather than focusing on killing the idea, the US was more focused on killing the terrorists, not realising that ideas spread faster than wildfires

5. Failed in its main agenda, to oust The Taliban from power, and hence yielded only temporary success.

In my humble opinion, the last point is the tie-breaker. While one cannot deny its importance in terms of laying down fundamental anti-terrorist principles, or emphasising the need of joint diplomacy against terrorism, the point remains, US invaded Afghanistan after they hid Osama Bin Laden and claimed he was a “guest” of The Taliban. The main objective of the invasion was to ensure that The Taliban would be removed from power and that Bin Laden would eventually be handed over, and while the latter was accomplished nearly a decade after the first expeditions, the former objective, as it is becoming evidently clear, was not accomplished. The hallmark or distinctive feature of an invasion as costly as the war on terror, perpetrated against a global idea like terrorism, and yielding in infinite undesirable consequences like Islamophobia, cannot be that it failed in fifty percent of its objectives, and thus, this makes the War on Terror a bust.