Criticism of the War on Terror addresses the issues, morals, ethics, efficiency, economics, and other questions surrounding the War on Terror and made against the phrase itself, calling it a misnomer. The notion of a "war" against "terrorism" has proven highly contentious, with critics charging that it has been exploited by participating governments to pursue long-standing policy / military objectives, reduce civil liberties, and infringe upon human rights. It is argued that the term war is not appropriate in this context (as in War on Drugs), since there is no identifiable enemy, and that it is unlikely international terrorism can be brought to an end by military means.
Other critics, such as Francis Fukuyama, note that "terrorism" is not an enemy, but a tactic; calling it a "war on terror", obscures differences between conflicts such as anti-occupation insurgents and international mujahideen. With a military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan and its associated collateral damage Shirley Williams maintains this increases resentment and terrorist threats against the west. There is also perceived U.S. hypocrisy, media induced hysteria, and that differences in foreign and security policy have reduced America's image in most of the world.
Read more about Criticism Of The War On Terror: Terminology, "War On Terror" Seen As Pretext, Methods, Decreasing International Support, Role of U.S. Media, British Objections, Pejorative Terms
Famous quotes containing the words criticism of, criticism, war and/or terror:
“However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but a spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you. When the play, it may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way. It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he was concerned.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is from the womb of art that criticism was born.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“No more shall the war cry sever,
Or the winding rivers be red:
They banish our anger forever
When they laurel the graves of our dead!
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the Judgment Day:—
Love and tears for the Blue;
Tears and love for the Gray.”
—Francis Miles Finch (1827–1907)
“Napoleon said of Massena, that he was not himself until the battle began to go against him; then, when the dead began to fall in ranks around him, awoke his powers of combination, and he put on terror and victory as a robe.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)