What is the objective of the War on Terror?

Question

A war has an objective - the surrender of a monarch, the takeover of an area of land, some specific goal. When that goal is achieved, the war is over.

What is the objective of the war on terror? There will always be more terrorists. New ones are being born every minute. We cannot eliminate them even with genocide (as someone else will become disgruntled about something else). So how will we know when the war on terror is over? Or have we placed the US in a perpetual state of war?

Answer 1

You won't get many answers that aren't just repostings of standard rhetoric. The problem is... apart from "eliminating terrorism," the "war on terror" has no objective, except to bomb Middle Eastern countries into submission.

They'll tell you that we're "bringing democracy" to the world. But bombing cultures into submission is not democracy. Making them live under our governmental model under threat of death is NOT a democratic principle.

Answer 2

The "War on Terror" is not much different than the "War on Poverty" or the "War on Drugs"..........these wars are based on a standard of morales that the religious culture of our country feel the necessity to impose on the rest of the world. There was a single legitimate mission that our troops should have concerned themselves with...finding and bringing to justice those responsible for the carnage on 9/11. Our military resources should have been focused on that and only that.....had they been responsibly deployed to do this in the numbers that they are currently at, I believe that Osama and his fortitude of followers would have been dealt with by this time. Instead, this Administration chose to manipulate the information presented to the UN and to our own Congress to justify going into a country which had nothing to do with 9/11. If there was a single objective to the war in Iraq, it would be to remove Saddam from power because of his inhumane treatment of the Shiite majority and the Kurdish population in that country. Saddam has been arrested, jailed, tried by a jury of his peers, sentenced to death, and put to death by the laws according to that country. They have held elections and have placed a democratic government in power to lead them. The continous presence of the United States in that country has only fueled the antagonist.....and all we have done is replaced the ruling party with a party that had been in sufferage under Saddam. Those 'insurgents' that we hear about are no more than Shiite or Sunni rebels fighting for their country to be their country.....sorta like the Southern Confederates and the Northern Yankees when our country was young. Different opinions of what they want or what is best for the country as a whole. We worked our differences out...let's let them work theirs out on their own without our influence. For those who are concerned about the "terrorist" coming to America to bring the fight here to our own soil....please, please don't be so naive. Should we take the money we are spending on the war and use our military to protect our own borders (including the Navy to patrol the coastlines, the Air Force to patrol our air space, and the Marines and Army to patrol the land borders) we could certainly keep anyone out that we didn't want, couldn't we??

Answer 3

This country has a habit of declaring war on things. The War on Poverty, The War on Street Crime, The War on Drugs, The War on Terror. The goal of all of these things is the eradication of that which was declared war on. The War on Poverty started during the Depression, and we still have poverty. The War on Terror is an attempt to do away with the form of religious hatred that leads to terrorism. It is an attempt to put an end to these groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, and the IRA who operate outside of recognized national governments.

Answer 4

Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the United States Constitution, sometimes referred to as the War Powers Clause, vests in the Congress the exclusive power to declare war.
I don't recall the Congress ever declaring war on terror.

Answer 5

I threw my hands up in the air on that one once Bush ordered the invasion. It was never clear what the objective was beyond WMD's and "get Saddam". There were no terrorists in Iraq before the war and we leftists knew there were no WMD's in Iraq before the war. Now it's anyone's guess as to why we are there. It's obviously not going well what ever we are doing there because more and more soldiers are getting killed and more attacks are happening in and now around Baghdad.
What is the objective? No one really knows now do they? I'm wondering if Bush even knows.

Answer 6

a thank you to end the conflict is this: seem at Korea seem at Vietnam. 2 mess ups. we ought to continuously chop up Iraq in 3, one section for Suni's yet another for Kurd's, and ultimately for Shi'ites. Then If nessecary spilt this into 3 self reliant international places. place protection tension bases in each and each region or u . s . a . to steer away from imperialism. set up a protection tension for the rustic against terror, make useful it could look after the terrorist's then bypass away as quickly as we are able to.

Answer 7

that's the point... "A war on terror" can never be over.. that's why this one was created..... The purpose of this so-called justified war is a ploy to create one world government...(the times are a changing...) and they are changing quickly..

people wake up!!

Answer 8

The objective is to elect and re-elect Republicans.

Answer 9

Allow me to point out to you that Radical Islamic Terrorist have declared war on us many years ago and have repeated their desire to kill us where ever they can get us.

All WE did was decide to finally do something about it.

Answer 10

to smoke them out of their foxholes and fill em full of lead......we didn't realize they have guns too