Are We Winning The War On Terror?

(CBS)  The pictures of airplanes flying into buildings, fires burning, huge structures collapsing have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness and a quiet, unyielding anger.

The night when President Bush addressed the nation, we learned we were at war — the war on terrorism. So easy to name, so hard to win, a truth time has taught us to understand, comments CBS Sunday Morning contributor Martha Teichner.

The president has had successes to report: his super high-tech new counter-terrorism center where our intelligence agencies actually talk to one another, the capture of Saddam Hussein and a bunch of major al Qaeda figures. Terror plots have been foiled, including the big one announced in Britain last month involving U.S.-bound airliners, and of course, no new attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11.

But are we winning? Has the Bush administration picked its battles wisely. The nation's top foreign policy experts, 120 of them, Republicans and Democrats, have their doubts.

"America's foreign policy community has never been in so much agreement about the performance of an administration overseas — 84 percent of the respondents think that we're losing the war on terror," Mike Boyer, editor of the Terrorism Index, says.

The Terrorism Index was just published by Foreign Policy magazine and shows conservatives and liberals on the same page — serious movers and shakers across the political spectrum.

"These are former secretaries of state, former national security advisors, former CIA directors. These are really the people that have run the national security apparatus over the last 50 years," Boyer says.

The numbers show that with the exception of Afghanistan, the experts think the Bush administration's actions have actually had a negative impact on the war against terror. Eighty-seven percent say the Iraq war has hurt us, 81 percent say Guantanamo Bay prison has.

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[clestes-2009]

No, we are not winning the war on terror and we never will until some very fundamental changes are made in USA foreign policy. We must stop this approach to other countries, be they Muslim, Christian or Budda or whatever, with the idea that democracy is the way to govn, and by the way, we'll help you along. Just let us build bases here and put about 5000 troops to support your fledgling democracy.

No other country in the world has military bases in other countries. Why not? because they resent it and feel like we are an invader or occupyer.

We must stop the unilateral approach to dealing with other world powers. In fact the ENTIRE foreign policy dept must be overhauled. The Bush presidency has been a disaster in foreign policy goof ups. One after another. No other president in history has wasted such good will from other world leader as Bush has. And it has left dangerously isolated, and without a friend in the UN. Get the ineffective Bolton out of there would be a good first step, get rid of Rice, would be another good step. Neither of the are qualified for their jobs and haven't accomplished a single positive thing.

[stevyz1]

well there is no clear definition of victory so how can we really decide? in order to claim victory we need to know a/who the enemy is(we dont)
and what the definition of victory is..

[bigsista]

We are losing the war on terror. I doubt if we will ever win. As soon as one group is overtaken, another comes in to take its place. Just review the 60+ year timeline of conflict between Israel and Palestine. Our conflicts consist of a series of battles; no one really wins the war.

Rhetoric declaring that "democracy" will destroy terrorism is just the fantasy of an overzealous politician. Democracy is best embraced when a country's own people enact it into its culture. Our own history demonstrated that it took many years to defeat occupational British forces back in the 1700s. How "big brother" of the US to assume that citizens of a country will accept the tenets of democracy overnight. I guess the U.S. knew this when it invaded Iraq for supposed WMDs (which BTW we all knew didn't exist in the first place -- I guess the powers that be think we're a bunch of ignoramuses). Yes, I believe the conspiracy theorists -- that the US went for the oil instead.

My biggest fear is that terror fanatics will get their hands on nuclear weapons as easily as they have gotten their hands on other sophisticated weapons -- and that my dears would be the end of us all!

[newsjeff-2009]

I agree with the other person on this website, that made a comment on stopping illegal drugs from being shipped in to this country. Americans have enough disgrace dealing with foreign-made products coming into America costing Americans jobs,our government now talks about wanting to set up college recruitment offices in other countries to get foreign,immigrant students for colleges in America. I can deal with these things, but when people from Mexico and other countries want to smuggle or ship drugs,weapons,or stuff to make illegal drugs in this country to peddle to our children,or gun down people in crime-ridden neighborhoods that is were we need to "draw the line". Americans also deserve to sleep at night without worrying if dangerous terrorists are being allowed to cross borders and enter our country at will. Border security should be a priority.

[roguecowboy-2009]

Operation Bojinka was very similar to the plot that the British claim to have uncovered:

Starting on January 21, 1995 and ending on January 22, 1995, they would set the bombs on 11 United States-bound airliners that had stopovers all around East Asia and Southeast Asia%u2026 The bombs would have been timed before the operatives stepped off the planes. The aircraft would have blown up over the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea almost simultaneously. If this plan worked, several thousand would have perished, and air travel would have been shut down worldwide for days, if not weeks. The U.S. government estimated the prospective death toll to be about 4,000 if the plot had been executed. [Link]

Instead of banning Liquids on planes after 911, the Bush Administration (DHS) started searching for an ELOQUENT SOLUTION! (No Pun Intended.) They have spent over $3 BILLION on
bomb detection technology and a liquid bomb detection device is still at least a year away. Of course they could have purchased the Japanese system but no our DHS is to vain to use someone elses product. This smells like the ANTI-RPG system the DoD could have had months ago but they
wanted to stay in bed with Ratheon.
I guess Bush and the DHS were just waiting for terrorists to take down more planes and then spend years figuring out if it was a liquid explosive. Then they would ban liquids.

WHO ARE YOU GOING TO TRUST? Why wasn't liquids and gels banned on Sept 12, 2001?

[roguecowboy-2009]

President Bush proclaimed that "LIQUID EXPLOSIVES" were a "NEW THREAT"! WRONG!

In 1987, KAL Flight 858 was destroyed using the explosives C-4 and PLX, the latter of which is a liquid:

PLX, or Picatinny Liquid Explosive, is a liquid binary explosive, a mixture of 95% nitromethane and 5% ethylene diamine. It is a slightly yellowish liquid. It was developed at Picatinny Arsenal during World War II for cleaning of minefields. It was to be mixed just before use. PLX was one of the explosives used to down Korean Air Flight 858. [Link]
More recent was the bomb that killed one passenger on board PAL Flight 434 in 1994 [Thanks Sage]:

On December 11, 1994, Flight 434 was on its second leg from Cebu to Tokyo when a bomb exploded, killing one passenger. Authorities later discovered that a passenger on the aircraft%u2019s preceding leg was Ramzi Yousef, who United States authorities have branded a master Al-Qaida bomber and terrorist.

[roguecowboy-2009]

WASHINGTON - As the British terror plot was unfolding, the Bush administration quietly tried to take away $6 million that was supposed to be spent this year developing new explosives detection technology.

Congressional leaders rejected the diversion of funds, the latest in a series of Homeland Security Department steps that have left lawmakers and some of the department%u2019s own experts questioning the commitment to create better antiterror technologies.

The Department of Homeland Security failed to spend $200 million in research and development money from past years, forcing lawmakers to rescind the money this summer. The administration also was slow to start testing a new liquid explosives detector that the Japanese government provided to the United States earlier this year.

Japan has been using the liquid explosive detectors in its Narita International Airport in Tokyo and demonstrated the technology to US officials at a conference in January 2006, the Japanese Embassy in Washington said.

Homeland Security is spending $732 million this year on various explosives deterrents. It has tested several commercial liquid explosive detectors over the past few years but has not deployed them.

[roguecowboy-2009]

The British Airline plot is another example of the Bush Admin being asleep at the switch.
Try as they might the Bush Administration FAILED MISERABLY by not discovering the London
Airplane Bomb Plot. Where was the multi-billion dollar a year FBI, CIA and DOD Intelligence? IRAQ?
If the plot had been hatched in the US would it have gone undetected? Based on news reports YES!
Thank God for British HUMAN INTELLIGENCE!
Yet we hear the Bush Administration brag about their role. Only after the British discovered the plot did the US have any role.

[roguecowboy-2009]

The Bush administration was so focused on Iraq that Hezbollah (the second largest terrorist
organization in the world out to kill Americans) continued to grow at will even though they killed 241 US Troops in 1983. The Bush Admin obviously had no clue as to the size of Hezbollah, the types and qty of Missiles/Rockets, their guerrilla tactics training, the Anti-Tank Missiles from France, Russia and the US. Where was our multi-billion dollar CIA, NSA, FBI, Secret Intelligence Agency and DoD Intelligence? IRAQ?
What happened with our democracy policy in Palestine that resulted in a terrorist organization ( HAMAS)
to take control of the government via a DEMOCRATIC ELECTION?

[azman80]

Are we winning the war on terror? In a lot of ways yes. A lot of ways no. We have disrupted the way they talk, walk, spend, and terrorize, but we havent stopped them. All we are doing now is giving them a way to get around our tactics to stopping and killing them. We are putting them in such isolation of living a normal life, that they have nothing else in this world to look forward to except martydom. If there was some real incentive for them to give up their violence, like living a normal life with families and jobs, and cool electronics like we have here at home, maybe they would stop terrorizing the rest of the world. To win the war against terror, we need to find out what is making them do what they do, and fight it with politics. I'm not saying to give in to them, heck no, but we have a lot of smart folks here in the U.S, lets use some real good psychology against them. Having the strong arm is always a great thing too. Its funny, besides oil and Israel, what other business do we really have in the middle east? You would think that we have land over there or something.

How about countries like Columbia, Mexico, etc... that are bringing in cocaine and heroin here to the states. Things like this are terrorizing families and kids with sickness, jail, murder, assult, robberies,etc... Why are we not at a full scale war with them for terrorizing our streets and families? Or are terrorist only people with bombs and beards?