As many people have said, you can't wage a war on terror. That's like waging a war on blitzkrieg, you simply cannot fight a war against an idea. Furthermore, the War on Terror was carried out very sloppily, it expanded the animosity the world feels toward the USA, and made the United States lose much of its credibility in the international spectrum. The war in Afghanistan is proving to leave the country in shambles full of corruption, heroin, and a strengthening Taliban. The actual way to fight Terrorism is to look at what the USA has done to the peoples of those regions to make them feel so much hatred for the West, and then you can act accordingly. On another note, Iraq. In 1956, the British and the French tried to sell a war based on a lie over the Suez Canal, and it turned out to be a failure only to be exposed later. In 2003, the USA and the UK tried to sell us that Saddam Hussein was making nuclear weapons (despite absolutely crippling sanctions that prevented any such production), and that he was supporting terrorism; ok, this one is ridiculous. Saddam Hussein was a secular leader who crushed many religious extremists, the very Ba'ath Party in Iraq was based on secularism so that Sunnis and Shias wouldn't clash... so the notion that he supported radical islamists is ludicrous. Everybody knows that the war in Iraq was an excuse to exploit its natural resources and bring the income into the hands of Western corporations. Don't get me mistaken, on a human rights note, Saddam Hussein was a horrible tyrant and Iraq is better off without him; the atrocities he committed were unforgiveable, but that wasn't what the US government really cared about seeing as how they supported his rise to power in the late 70s. However, the biggest victim of the War on Terror is the home front. The hysteria that followed the declaration of the War on Terror was a product of the obsession the media was making about all the supposed terrorist plots that were being foiled all across America. Even in tiny communities in remote areas of the US, there were 'foiled' terror plots. I've lived in Puerto Rico my whole life, but the media never tried to sell us that there were Al-Qaeda sponsored plots anywhere... what a coincidence, we also don't participate in federal elections! Therefore, the constant advertisement in terrorism in the US media was exaggerated and used as propaganda to support the war effort, and before you call me a conspiracy nut, I say that the plan the government executed is a completely logical plan that has been used since the dawn of government. This means that there are historical precedents for this type of propaganda such as the Red Scare and the rampant anti-Communist strides during the Cold War (no way in hell was Communism going to overtake the USA, and no way would the Communist Party muster enough support in the US, but the media still emphasized the everlasting threat of Communism), but the difference is that the technology available in the last decade allowed for an unprecedented massive propaganda campaign. Thanks to the War on Terror, civilians have lost their privacy to the security apparatus of the USA with the Patriot Act and other measures. Thanks to the War on Terror, billions of dollars were spent in aggressive campaigns that saw the prestige and credibility of the United States plummet before the international community. The threat of Islamic terrorism to the USA and the West is significant, and it is something that has to be combated because it affects the interests of our governments and the safety of our citizens. However, terrorism cannot be fought like that, it must be confronted with a serious reevaluation of foreign policy priorities and courses of action; oh, and less curtailing of personal freedoms too.