Calling it Quits to the War on Terror

The Pundits are already calling it quits to the War on Terror under Obama, can they really be serious?

An Opinion article in Friday’s New York Times mentioned favorably the possibility of Obama “turning the corner” on the war on terror.  Although the tone of the article was jesting there was probably more than a grain of truth to this jest; Americans are tired of the war on terror, they’re tired of hearing about their sons dying in far-off places they’ve never heard of and couldn’t find on a map without help, and they’re tired of seeing their national wealth siphoned away into the desert sand.  I understand all of these frustrations and agree with many of them, yet for all that I am surprised and a little disconcerted by this idea that a new president can come into office and simply “turn the corner” on the war on terror. 

Perhaps one reason the article’s author (and maybe most Americans) thinks about ending the war on terror is a conflation of the war on terror and the war in Iraq.  Although President Bush presented the war in Iraq as an important element of the war on terror no one who thought too hard was ever misled, the two are and always have been separate conflicts.  While the war on terror was precipitated in response to the most deadly attack on civilians in the history of the United States, the Iraq war was started for reasons no one (including President Bush or Dick Cheney) could ever honestly or clearly explain.  American forces never should have been sent to Iraq and they should be brought home as soon as can be reasonably arranged.

Does the end of the war in Iraq mean the end of the war on terror?  Hopefully not.  National security is important, not as a Republican or Democratic question, but as an issue for all Americans.  To the extent that the war on terror means maintaining vigilance at home and abroad, it should be continued.  The horrors of September 11^th were not a figment of George W. Bush’s imagination, neither is the possibility that they could happen again.  Even though Barack Obama may reframe the issues and rephrase the rhetoric surrounding the war on terror, there is nothing he can do to erase the necessity of high levels of security in the world today.  To think otherwise is either foolish or a joke in very bad taste.