Originally Posted by Katczinsky

That's pretty simplistic (despite you even saying 'simple'). Its kind of hasty too. "Terrorism" is a pretty broad term to be used when saying we have declared war on all terrorism. Not all terrorist organizations despise the United States. In fact, our own governments have sponsered terrorist organizations that worked in our benifit in Central/South America as well as the middle east. We were at war with those who attacked us; which was Al-Qaeda. Iraq had nothing to do with the war on Al-Qaeda. But now that the US government has made asshats out of themselves by invading a country purely on offensive means under the false pretense of WMD's, we have a lot of the radicals in the region targeting us. Under these circumstances, the administration and their policies have inflamed the situation, as well as complicating it further. Our own government (minus Bush and his cronies) admit this; its not debatable; its fact that the Iraq War has significantly increased Al-Qaeda recruiting rates globally.

The idea of a "war on all terrorism" is kind of Orwellian in the sense of "War is Peace". Its an indefinite war. If we were to limit our liberties in the name of this war on terrorism, it would be an indefinite state of emergency. It isn't unbeatable due to any incompetences (although they play their part); it's unwinnable because its neither a war in the traditional sense, nor does it I think meet the definition of war. The more you feed into it, the more it grows. With every invasion of these so-called "terror supporting states", the more terrorists are recruited (and popular insurgencies on top of that). With every raid, with every assassination or government sponsered coup comes more enemies of the United States as a consequence. Its a complicated situation. Peace in terms of this type of conflict may only be brought by understanding. It isn't dramatic and heroic; but if you want to win this supposed "war on terror" you can't do it by these types of reckless military operations.