To the Editor:
Nicholas D. Kristof’s clarion call for reduced military spending will go unheeded unless American policy makers can overcome their reliance on the unworkable concept of a “war on terror.”
Its disastrous consequences include several ill-advised actual wars, indiscriminate trampling on civil liberties at home, and actually provoking a good deal of the terrorist activity toward which it is ostensibly directed.
The widespread taboo on questioning this ill-defined and harmful concept is the most glaring impediment to a sensible reordering of foreign policy priorities.
Edwin M. Schur
New York, Dec. 26, 2010
Note from KBJ: The term "war on terror" refers to our efforts to prevent Islamic terrorists from attacking us, as occurred on 9-11. I don't see anything unworkable about it; nor is it "ill-defined" or "harmful."
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 