Term:war on terror
From dKosopedia
The term war on terror means nothing. Terror is an abstract noun.
The term is used to mean different things in different countries as politically convenient. For instance, in Canada, it is used to describe the Toronto bomb plot and Canadian military intervention in Afghanistan but is not used to describe the US-led Iraq war. This demonstrates the difficulty of achieving an objective definition even between close allies.
The related term:terrorism is often represented as having a specific meaning but on examination almost all cases of it are linked to a national and ethnic cause, not an abstract ideology.
The term:Islamist, term:Islamism, term:Islamofascism, term:Islamonazism and term:Jihadism also refer to adjectives or broad abstract nouns but more obviously so. They do not refer to the tactics but rather the avowed ideology of those performing the acts. In US mass media, these terms always refer to extreme versions of these ideologies said to require or invoke so-called terror. See also term:hatred of freedom and term:illegal combatant.
The so-called war can obviously never end, because terror, or fear, really never ends. There will always be someone scary in the world. Are you thus to war forever ? To use this term at all is to accept perpetual war, or at least, leader whims about when it ends.
See reframe:terrorism to address the material issues.