“We’re rewriting the history of the Global War on Terror in real time, and that rewrite isn’t honest.” — Jeremy Boreing, “Tucker is Wrong. Our National History Isn’t A Lie,” June 2, 2026
“But the West is not in trouble because of the Global War on Terror. The West is in trouble because we’ve forgotten why we fought the Global War on Terror.” — Jeremy Boreing, “America Avenged 9/11.,” September 11, 2026
This year has been a year of several historic anniversaries—the 250th of the Declaration of Independence, the 150th of the telephone, the 100th year of Murray Rothbard, and 40 years of Mises University. It has also been 25 years since September 1, 2001 or 9/11.
What is striking on this particular anniversary is that, in the midst of the reflection, and in light of Trump’s recommitment to foreign interventionism, many are attempting to rehabilitate the moral reputation of the War on Terror. In fact, they boldly attempt to reoccupy the moral high ground by arguing a few simple points: 1) the planners and perpetrators of 9/11 and other such acts of terrorism against the US were evil; 2) the US was and is justified in avenging such actions; therefore, 3) the War on Terror was the justified, effective, and appropriate means to accomplish those ends and, though imperfect in execution, it was largely successful in achieving its intended objectives.
As is typical with fallacious argumentation, such arguments often contain a great deal of truth. The fallacy is found in the “therefore”—a non sequitur—and in whether the third proposition is actually true, and in the equivocation between two very different “Wars on Terror.” The first is an imaginary and idealized War on Terror, in which a just cause and morally legitimate intentions are allowed to define the policy itself and are presumed to produce the intended outcomes. The second is the War on Terror that actually took place in history over the last quarter century. The moral legitimacy of the former cannot simply be imputed to the latter.
Ironically, the quotations above—intended as moral indictments of naysayers—can justly cut against those engaged in the moral rehabilitation of the War on Terror. If its history is being rewritten, that rewriting should be confronted honestly; and if we have forgotten why the War on Terror was fought, then perhaps we should remember precisely what supposedly justified it in the first place—and compare those purposes with the wars and policies that actually followed.
A couple of striking examples help identify this idealization phenomenon. For one, Bill Maher said on September 11, 2026,
. . .since it’s the 25th anniversary of 9/11, and since, for 25 years we’ve been kept relatively safe from anything close to another 9/11, how about a hand for the Americans that made that happen [image of the emblems of FBI, CIA, and Homeland Security]? Because, it didn’t just happen. There was a war on terror, and we won. And yet, so much has changed since 9/11. For example, back then, we were against the terrorists. . . . (emphasis added)
As another example, Jeremy Boreing, in conjunction with PragerU, said (May 25, 2026),
When someone murders 3,000 of your citizens in a single morning, you go to war. You smash things. You avenge the dead. You assert your national will to deter future attacks. Afghanistan wasn’t a war of choice. Afghanistan was justice, the minimum justice for what had been done to us. And Afghanistan was political reality, too, because any American leader who didn’t pursue American justice after the mass murder of our people wouldn’t have been an American leader for long. The campaign in Afghanistan was swift and successful. The Taliban fell. Al-Qaeda’s infrastructure was destroyed. Bin Laden fled to Pakistan where he was eventually killed in Abbottabad by American special operators in May of 2011. But the decision to hold Afghanistan, to attempt to civilize it, that was a matter of political policy. Leaving Afghanistan after toppling the Taliban would have seen the country immediately revert to its former state as a haven for Al-Qaeda. (emphasis added)
Of course, what gets left out of this story of the “swift and successful” campaign in Afghanistan (that ultimately lasted twenty years)—even skipping past the foreign policy history of the past decades, especially the 1990s, and the known connection between foreign occupation and radical suicide terrorism—is that the policy focus of hiring warlords to fight the Taliban, the brewing distraction of other regime-change wars with countries that had nothing to do with perpetrating 9/11, and failure to provide requested support narrowly allowed bin Laden to escape (with the help of certain US-paid warlords) into Pakistan in late 2001.
The analysis also neglects to mention that it was bin Laden’s long-standing desire to provoke the US into fight a long, costly, pointless war against mujahideen in Afghanistan (inspired by the fall of the Soviet Union after the Soviet-Afghan War); that several Afghans questioned knew nothing about 9/11 when shown pictures (though any Muslim statements often get summarily dismissed as subterfuge without evidence); that a significant aspect of the strategy in fighting the Taliban involved supporting criminals, warlords, and child rapists who often used the support against their enemies to benefit themselves, consolidate power, and terrorize others; that more anti-American terrorists, including al-Qaeda and similar groups, increased (from ~400 in 2001 to about 20,000 in Syria alone in 2019); that suicide terrorism in Afghanistan increased following US occupation in 2001, despite having only one in 2001, despite no second 9/11 or equivalent on the American homeland; and the fact that the Taliban was ultimately replaced by the Taliban, plus abandoned US military hardware.
After the presentation of such facts, this is where the idealization and equivocation concerning the War on Terror become irresistible retreats for many. It may be conceded that mistakes were made and that the war was not waged perfectly, but then we are asked to virtually ignore these hard truths because of an idealized “War on Terror” that had just goals and successful outcomes. It was not this historic War on Terror that we supported, it was an idealized “War on Terror” that we imagined, and that “War on Terror” should be used to judge the historical War on Terror.
On September 11, 2026, Boreing stated,
The Global War on Terror was a virtuous war, in defense of American interests. It sought to avenge 3,000 of our fellow citizens who were murdered on our own soil, to pursue justice for them and their loved ones, to deter further attacks by the vultures who were circling and believed we could never recover from such a wound, and it sought to project our power into that part of the world where our enemies had plotted and schemed against us. It did so imperfectly. . . . But the West is not in trouble because of the Global War on Terror. The West is in trouble because we’ve forgotten why we fought the Global War on Terror.
There is a certain irony here in the fact that both sides accuse one another of not remembering rightly. We are told to “Never Forget” 9/11, or the stated causes of the War on Terror, but then we are simultaneously asked to forget key aspects of how those wars were waged so that others can assert an idealized “War on Terror” as reality.
While remembering why the war was fought, are we supposed to forget the waging of war or support of wars with countries that had nothing to do with 9/11—Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, and Iran? Are we supposed to forget the US foreign policies of the 1980s and 1990s? Are we supposed to forget the lies and exaggerations about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction? Are we supposed to forget the conflation of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden—who were enemies—and the suggestion that Saddam had a hand in 9/11 or would give WMD to terrorists? Are we supposed to forget the failure of our government and its intelligence apparatuses to protect us on 9/11 despite available evidence of threats? Are we supposed to forget that the presence of US troops in Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam was a boon to recruiting for Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and that the destabilization helped lead to the Islamic State? Are we supposed to forget that—contrary to fighting terrorism—the US government supported and armed radical, Islamic extremist, al-Qaeda-affiliated elements, especially in places like Libya and Syria, in the name of the War on Terror? Are we supposed to forget that the destabilization of Iraq, Libya, and Syria led to the rise of ISIS and the Islamic State? Are we supposed to forget the lie that Assad “gassed his own people” just as he was successfully pushing back ISIS and just as it looked like the US might withdraw? Are we supposed to forget the return of the slave trade in Libya following Obama’s illegal drone bombing and support for jihadis there? Are we supposed to forget the migrant crisis that was largely caused by the displacement and destabilization of these wars? Are we supposed to forget the replacement of the Taliban with the Taliban after 20 years of war? Are we supposed to forget that, after the overthrow of Assad in Syria, it was taken over by a former al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist? Are we supposed to forget the US’s support of the Saudis against Yemen which is a war for al-Qaeda?
For those who are aware of such facts and others, there are too many like these to forget and we should refuse to do so just so we and others can develop a romantic nostalgia over an idealized “War on Terror” that did not take place. We are expected to believe that—because of 9/11—that we should support a War on Terror that involves such counterproductive policies of supporting people who were part of radical terror groups that attacked the United States. Designations have come to mean their near-opposites when the War on Terror involves aiding and supporting the same types of terrorists who attacked the United States. It is truly a strange world when someone could justly oppose the War on Terror because it has involved supporting anti-American terrorists.
The Process: Names and Intentions
A critical realization that many seem unable to realize consistently is that things do not always match what their names suggest. This is called reasoning from the label or a nominalist/labeling fallacy, which entails assuming that because a person, institution, policy, or program bears a particular name or designation, it therefore possesses, performs, or produces the characteristics, functions, or outcomes implied by that designation. A name may express an intended purpose or an aspiration; it does not establish that the thing named actually possesses the characteristics or produces the results implied by the name. A policy’s name—like the War on Terror—is a claim about the policy, not proof of the claim.
Once learned, this is one of the most eye-opening realizations one can experience, especially regarding the state, the elites who comprise it, and its policies. Americans seem particularly vulnerable to this fallacy, and, to be fair, names ought to correspond to what they designate with accuracy and precision, otherwise it miscommunicates and misleads.
How this process often works is many well-meaning Americans—charmingly unaware of foreign policy history and issues because they understandably focus on their own lives and domestic issues, as we should be in a normal world—were rightly shocked and horrified by 9/11 and demanded action to address it, however, then they were given a narrative by the same government that had failed to protect them and whom they trusted to address terrorism: the new War on Terror would effectively address terrorism.
Returning to their daily lives in a post-9/11 world, and largely unaware of the specifics involved in the War on Terror, many Americans labored under an understandable, but unjustified, assumption: whatever was happening in the War on Terror, it must be effectively addressing terrorism; it’s in the name! Therefore, the War on Terror became synonymous in many American minds with fighting terrorism, avenging 9/11, and protecting us against future acts of terrorism like 9/11. Who could possibly oppose, or even criticize, such a thing except those who either side with terrorism or those who believe that there should be no defensive response to 9/11?
Frédéric Bastiat recognized a similar logic,
Socialism, like the old policy from which it emanates, confounds Government and society. And so, every time we object to a thing being done by Government, it concludes that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of education by the State—then we are against education altogether. We object to a State religion—then we would have no religion at all. We object to an equality which is brought about by the State then we are against equality, etc., etc. They might as well accuse us of wishing men not to eat, because we object to the cultivation of corn by the State. (emphasis added)
In a slightly different version of this insight, the name of a government policy declares a goal—the War on Terror—and the name and goal are conflated with what the policy actually does. The assumption becomes that, due to the name and validity of the goal, the policies carried out under its title must necessarily match the name. Thus, to criticize the policies is heard as a criticism of the name and the goal is announces: “You object to the War on Terror? You must support terrorism or don’t think it’s a problem!”
Add to this the enormous cost of the War on Terror in blood, treasure, and time—American and otherwise—and another temptation emerges: the sunk-cost fallacy. Once the sacrifices become sufficiently enormous and sufficiently personal, there is a powerful temptation to reason that they must have accomplished something worthy of them. The pain must have produced a corresponding gain. However, there is a fundamental difference between productive pain and counterproductive pain. The magnitude of a sacrifice tells us nothing by itself about the wisdom of the policy that required it. Indeed, if a policy was misguided, continuing it because enormous sacrifices have already been made merely compounds the tragedy.
This introduces another layer of moral resistance to criticism of the War on Terror. The designation “War on Terror” has already encouraged the identification of particular policies with avenging 9/11, fighting terrorism, and protecting Americans. Once enormous American sacrifices are added to that identification, criticism of the policies can easily be heard as criticism of those who sacrificed under them. However, their sacrifice cannot logically establish that the policy was wise, necessary, or effective.
When criticism arises that is difficult to ignore, many people can retreat to the name of the policy and its stated intentions. We are then expected to judge the War on Terror, not by its actual history, the policies pursued in its name, whether those policies achieved their stated objectives, or their consequences over time, but by an idealized version constructed from its name and intentions—as though the War on Terror that was intended was substantially the same as the War on Terror that actually occurred. After all that, we arrive at the alleged proof of success—there has not been another 9/11.
The ultimate problem is that the moral legitimacy of an end cannot be retroactively imputed to every policy undertaken in its name, nor can the success of an imaginary policy be imputed to the historical policies that actually occurred. While many Americans, especially political elites and commentators who supported it, might prefer an idealized War on Terror—the one that they can only bring themselves to call “imperfect” at worst—avoiding uncomfortable reality shields the state and its elites from accountability and makes us less safe and less free.
