by David Garner

Created on: September 16, 2008

Winning the War on Terror
Before we can reach any conclusions about the success or otherwise of the war on terror we should first of all consider the objectives of the US-led coalition. Any rhetoric from the US is typically charged with nationalistic overtones that speak of freedom, dignity and democracy. In a White House statement entitled strategy for winning the war on terror' George Bush suggested that the existence of elections demonstrated democracy in action. He spoke of freedoms which included religion, conscience, association and press as well as sovereignty and the solution of conflict through peaceful means. Effective democracies must also temper the rhetoric and actions of government where protection of the people and their human rights was necessary. It is easy to be drawn here into an argument about the legitimacy of the response of the coalition to contemporaneous acts of terrorism, and to do so would be inappropriate and indulgent.

The US administration has identified a number of catalysts for terrorist activity including political alienation and contemporary or historical grievances, as well as a subculture of conspiracy and dangerous ideologies which promote the indiscriminate massacre of innocents. The US firmly believes that democracy will address the fundamental causes of terrorism by providing those who currently live under a repressive regime the occasion to take a participatory role in a new order of emancipation and opportunity thus releasing themselves from generations of violent subjugation.
Democracy is seen as the antithesis of terrorist tyranny'. As in the Crusades the self-righteous, self-deluded interloper has even convinced himself that the ethnicity and belief-systems of his own inconsequential country have equal credence on the foreign soil beneath his boots.
As already stated the US would have us believe that the success of the war on terror can be gauged by the evidence of democracy in action. This argument is easily undermined, however, when you consider the large number of home-grown' terrorists who were involved in the attacks in the US. Despite growing up in a democracy they were still willing to indiscriminately murder their fellow citizens. To call a state democratic is no assurance that egalitarianism truly exists. Classlessness or social equality cannot be applied to every society certainly not in the timeframe envisaged by the coalition. It is impossible to erase religious or social beliefs in the blink of an eye. Christianity

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