History Quotes / TheWarOnTerror

->An uninvited awakening that served as a reminder of a fragile world. 9/11 changed everything. From fear, to fascination, and back again. [...] As one war ended, another began: This time, a War on Terror. And if you thought [[UsefulNotes/HistoryOfTheColdWar nuclear war was futile]], try fighting an abstract concept.
-->--'''[[WebVideo/AhoY Ahoy]]''', [[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=15dxuAbTC0A "Nuclear Fruit"]]

-->--'''[[WebVideo/AhoY Ahoy]], [[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=15dxuAbTC0A Nuclear Fruit]]'''

-->--'''Misic/ClintBlack''', "Iraq and Roll"

-->-- '''Bill Maher''', ''Politicially Incorrect'' demonstrating [[WeAreExperiencingTechnicalDifficulties how to lose your job after September 11th]].

-->--'''Clint Black''', "Iraq and Roll"

->I am beginning to feel some sympathy for those American officials who led the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq ten years ago and immediately began destroying existing political parties, standing armies, and traditional institutions of political consultation and authority. The deepest reason for this colossal blunder was not American hubris or naïveté, though there was plenty of that. It was that they had no way of thinking about alternatives to immediate—and in the end, sham—democratization. Where should they have turned? Whose books should they have read? What model should they have relied on? All they knew was the prime directive: [[WeAllLiveInAmerica draft new constitutions, establish parliaments and presidential offices, then call elections.]]

->The days of [[PostNineElevenTerrorismMovie straight-faced, ripped-from-the-headlines, right-wing wish-fulfillment, 'Giving Johnny Terrorist-What For In The Dusty Ruins of Suicide Bomber University']] are waning. Maybe because the house of cards that is stability in the middle east just refuses to stay up no matter how many times [[UnwantedAssistance we set fire to it.]] Or perhaps there's a growing sense that our personal safety is less in danger from jabbering extremists inspired by 72 virgins, and more from [[SpreeKiller frustrated white loners]] inspired by only ''one'' virgin -- namely himself.

-> “You have the watches. But we have the time."

->''"We, as a country, need to take a hard look at what we’ve done in Afghanistan — which is likely to be destabilized for decades to come. So what can we do about that? Not much now. No amount of brute force or perseverance is going to clear up the clusterfuck that we helped fuck into existence. And I realize that’s a quintessentially un-American idea — to acknowledge that we can’t always control something we want to control or achieve something we want to achieve. But the truth is, ''we can't''. I know that feels futile. But assuming we can go into another country and fix everything by simply imposing our will is largely what led us to where we are right now. We have spent decades claiming that we’re trying to solve the world’s problems — [[{{Realpolitik}} albeit almost exclusively when it helped solve our own]] — and the result has been, in the words of this professional pearl-clutcher[[note]]Fox News host Laura Ingraham[[/note]], that we’ve turned one country after another upside down. '''So we should maybe stop doing that'''. [[MustMakeAmends But in the meantime, the least we could do is help alleviate the humanitarian crisis ahead]]. Because no matter what happens in Afghanistan from here on out, there is no universe where America bears [[IronicEcho zero responsibility]]."''
-->-- '''Creator/JohnOliver''', ''Series/LastWeekTonightWithJohnOliver'', on the 2021 American military withdrawal from Afghanistan.

->When we started the show in the early nineties, there was still what I would call a lingering mistrust of authority and government, which came as a result of Watergate and other events--Iran-Contra, the Church Committee hearings, things of that nature, that gave an interesting context to the spirit of the show. After 9/11, everything changed. That’s curiously [[SocietyMarchesOn when the show went off the air]], when basically we wanted authority figures to protect us; we wanted a strong government and wanted to place our trust in them. In the ensuing years, that’s not only changed back, but I would say our mistrust has been amplified — and for many good reasons.

->War is a crusade. President George W. Bush is not shy about warning other nations that they stand with the United States in the war against terrorism or [[GunboatDiplomacy they will be counted in the nations that defy us]]. This too is a ''jihad''. Yet we Americans find ourselves in the dangerous position of going to war not against a state but against a phantom. The ''jihad'' we have embarked upon is targeting an elusive and protean enemy. The battle we have begun is neverending. But it may be too late to wind back the heady rhetoric. We have embarked on a campaign as quixotic as the one mounted to destroy us.

->The days of straight-faced, ripped-from-the-headlines, right-wing wish-fulfillment, 'Giving Johnny Terrorist-What For In The Dusty Ruins of Suicide Bomber University' are waning. Maybe because the house of cards that is stability in the middle east just refuses to stay up no matter how many times [[UnwantedAssistance we set fire to it.]] Or perhaps there's a growing sense that our personal safety is less in danger from jabbering extremists inspired by 72 virgins, and more from [[CrazySurvivalist frustrated white loners]] inspired by only ''one'' virgin -- namely himself.
-->--'''''WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation''''' on ''VideoGame/EnemyFront'' and ''VideoGame/ValiantHearts''

-->--'''Tom Brokaw''' on the World Trade Center attacks

-->-- '''Attributed to a captured Taliban fighter.'''

-->-- '''Dick Cheney''', Vice President.

-->--'''Creator/ChristopherHitchens'''

-->-- '''Bill Maher''', ''Politicially Incorrect'' demonstrating [[WeAreExperiencingTechnicalDifficulties how to lose your job]] [[TooSoon after September 11th]].

-->--'''''WebVideo/HistoryOfTheEntireWorldIGuess

-->--'''Byers''', ''Series/TheLoneGunmen'' (''The Pilot'')....in '''[[HarsherInHindsight 2001]]'''

-->--'''''WebVideo/HistoryOfTheWorldIGuess

->''"[[UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump Trump]] did not appear out of nowhere. [[GoneHorriblyRight He is the logical and most grotesque expression]] of [[InherentInTheSystem a variety of trends we have allowed to fester]]: [[ForeverWar endless war]], [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem a virtually omnipotent presidency]], [[BigBrotherIsWatchingYou unlimited war powers from spying]] to due process-free imprisonment to [[ColdBloodedTorture torture]] to assassinations, repeated civil liberties erosions in the name of illusory guarantees of security, and [[PropagandaMachine the sustained demonization]] [[TheScapegoat of Muslims as scary, primitive, uniquely violent Others]]."''
->-- '''Glenn Greenwald''', "[[https://theintercept.com/2017/01/28/trumps-muslim-ban-is-culmination-of-war-on-terror-mentality-but-still-uniquely-shameful/ Trump’s Muslim Ban Is Culmination of War on Terror Mentality but Still Uniquely Shameful]]"