Terrorism can be described as any act of violence intended to cause death or serious bodily harm in order to intimidate the population or to compel a government and international agencies from doing something. For the United States, the most horrific terrorist attack to happen occurred on September 11th, 2001 when terrorists hijacked four planes and crashed them into the twin towers and the pentagon. It not only resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians, but it would change American policy for decades to come. In the aftermath of 9/11, the United States implemented a policy of a global war on terror (global war on terror) which would end up costing an unimaginable amount of money and hundreds of thousands of deaths. In this
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Under the Bush administration, the global war on terrorism was very broad and ever expanding, when Obama came into office his goal was to target and dismantle specific terrorist groups that threaten the citizens of the United States. Obama 's goal in dealing with terrorism is not to invade and kill all thought to be terrorists in order to stop a future attack, but by “taking out terrorist leaders in preemptive strikes when feasible, [and] using airstrikes and limited ground troops” (Kahan,2016). Through this policy, the United States could dismantle whole terrorist organizations and efforts with limited US involvement. He also says that Obama has taken a less aggressive tone on ISIS because they do not pose a serious external threat to the United States so the response will be measured accordingly, such as not putting American boots on the ground fighting ISIS. While this has caused some backlash from the media and congress, Obama thinks it the long run this will be more successful. Both Bush and Obama did agree with the fact that the global war on terror needed to end, but getting to the end was quite different. The article concluded by saying that “if we allow ourselves to succumb to the never ending threat of domestic terrorist attacks, fear itself could become our greatest enemy” because this fear would result in increased …show more content…
They are similar in the fact that Bush 's approach to the global war on terror was misguided and wasteful and that even though Obama tried to end the global war on terror by shifting from a large scale military intervention to a limited counter-terrorism effort would not be enough to end the war on terror. They also agree that the war on terror is not something that can be easily won, it will be very long and bloody conflict that a majority of Americans don’t want because they believe American resources can be put to better use and as Americans we don’t like seeing US soldiers being killed on foreign soil for a cause they don 't understand. They also agree that a full scale military approach to terrorism will not solve the problem without taking into factors such as regional dynamics and the religious sects of the region, as we saw in Iraq in 2004 and in the 80s with Reagan 's response to the war on
Under the Bush administration, the global war on terrorism was very broad and ever expanding, when Obama came into office his goal was to target and dismantle specific terrorist groups that threaten the citizens of the United States. Obama 's goal in dealing with terrorism is not to invade and kill all thought to be terrorists in order to stop a future attack, but by “taking out terrorist leaders in preemptive strikes when feasible, [and] using airstrikes and limited ground troops” (Kahan,2016). Through this policy, the United States could dismantle whole terrorist organizations and efforts with limited US involvement. He also says that Obama has taken a less aggressive tone on ISIS because they do not pose a serious external threat to the United States so the response will be measured accordingly, such as not putting American boots on the ground fighting ISIS. While this has caused some backlash from the media and congress, Obama thinks it the long run this will be more successful. Both Bush and Obama did agree with the fact that the global war on terror needed to end, but getting to the end was quite different. The article concluded by saying that “if we allow ourselves to succumb to the never ending threat of domestic terrorist attacks, fear itself could become our greatest enemy” because this fear would result in increased …show more content…
They are similar in the fact that Bush 's approach to the global war on terror was misguided and wasteful and that even though Obama tried to end the global war on terror by shifting from a large scale military intervention to a limited counter-terrorism effort would not be enough to end the war on terror. They also agree that the war on terror is not something that can be easily won, it will be very long and bloody conflict that a majority of Americans don’t want because they believe American resources can be put to better use and as Americans we don’t like seeing US soldiers being killed on foreign soil for a cause they don 't understand. They also agree that a full scale military approach to terrorism will not solve the problem without taking into factors such as regional dynamics and the religious sects of the region, as we saw in Iraq in 2004 and in the 80s with Reagan 's response to the war on