Is the war on Terrosim a lost cause Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Is the war on Terrosim a lost cause - Essay Example It is imperative, before coming to a valid conclusion, to take an appraisal of a few facts. When it comes to the loss of manpower and resources, the statistics pertaining to the War on terror are disheartening. Since 2 January 2009, nearly 4,219 US army personnel have lost life in Iraq (Huffpost World 1). As per the National Priorities Project, roughly speaking, till now, $ 585 Billion have been spent by America on this war (Huffpost World 1). The sunny side of the issue is that since 9/11, primarily attributed to the War on terror, no major terrorist strike has taken place in the United States. First and foremost, the War on terror is fundamentally a great success because it is being waged to support a just and moral cause. In his article published in ‘International Affairs’, Anthony Burke declares the War on terror to be a just war preferable to an ethical but impotent peace (Burke 330). It is true that America is an economic and capitalist success. Yet, it is also tru e that Americans do have the capacity to stand for and fight for the values and morals that they essentially uphold and believe in. There is no denying the fact that terrorism is a sinister evil that intends to destroy and demolish the very fundamentals of the contemporary civilized world. The people who attacked the American lives and property on 9/11 were evil people and what they did do deserves to be checked and attacked. So from a strictly moralistic perspective, any act and war initiated and carried on to annihilate terrorism is just and positive, irrespective of the mixed results and costs it comes with. This war needs to be evaluated on the basis of the extent to which it has diluted the jihadist networks. The War on terror is somewhat different from the conventional wars in the sense that considering the deceptively undefined and segregated nature of the pursued enemy, it is not bound to have clear losers and winners. The War on Terror is not primarily about winning, but ab out achieving the desirable tactical and strategic objectives, which it certainly has succeeded in achieving (Martin 15). The jihadist and terrorist elements affiliated to Al Qaeda have safe havens in Iraq, Afghanistan and other Middle East nations. If left to themselves, they do have the potential to regroup and plan and to execute terrorist attacks against the US and other nations from these safe havens. Isn’t the elimination of Osama Bin Laden, the poster boy of international terrorism, by US forces in Pakistan and the dilution of many top Al Qaeda terrorists by the American forces in varied parts of the world, a sign of great success (Partlow 2)? What the War of terror has done and is doing it to keep the jihadist elements flustered and harassed in their safe heavens, while significantly eliminating their cadre and top leadership. The continuation of the War on terror is also essential to protect and safeguard the finite oil resources of the world. Many say that America i s fighting this war to capture oil (The Debate 1). Even if this aspersion is true, what is wrong with it? Oil is the lifeblood of not only the American economy, but also of most of the other developed and developing economies. One could definitely imagine the havoc that will be let lose, if the international community allows the jihadist elements a complete sway over this region rich in oil wealth. It is also clear what these terrorist groups will do with the wealth amassed from

Hamlet essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 2

Hamlet - Essay Example The complexity of action as well as the impossibility of certainty is prominently highlighted when it comes to discussing the execution of revenge by Hamlet, the protagonist in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The lack of self-confidence and hindrance of inaction of the protagonist distinguishes the play remarkably apart from other revenge plays in English literature. Shakespeare portrays Hamlet as an able yet reluctant hero who is characteristically more prone to apprehension than to action. This is the case of his dilemma: of realizing the truth behind his father’s murder followed by the ghostly encounter, of acknowledging the plan of revenge and yet choosing to postpone this action. This thin demarcation between action and inaction is prominently expressed in the innermost thoughts of Hamlets, what is more appropriately known as Hamlet’s soliloquies or his self-conversation. Among the soliloquies of Hamlet in the play, the most debated one expressing the protagonist’s innermost projections is the â€Å"To be or not to be† soliloquy from Act III, Scene I of Hamlet. It most undoubtedly holds the central place of the entire discussion of action and inaction on the part of the protagonist for planning his ‘revenge’. Indeed the soliloquies speak of more action than does the protagonist himself. In Davies’ (2008) words, â€Å"Hamlet is rarely more dynamic or on the move as a character than in the action of his soliloquies, which remain the vehicles for an unfolding ‘drama of thought’ throughout Hamlet rather than expressions of a fixed kind of ‘dramatized thinking’. In soliloquy, we have the Hamlet who is ready ‘to drink hot blood’ in Act III, Scene II, and yet who refuses to kill Claudius in Act III, Scene III; who knows not why he lives ‘to say this thing’s to do’ in Act IV, Scene IV, but even at this most hopeless point, implicitly recognizes that