RE “THE war on terror is over’’ (Op-ed, Sept. 10): Juliette Kayyem’s declaration that the war on terror is over is misleading. From what I can see, it is only the rhetoric that has changed, at the expense of any questioning of the wars.
In recent years, we’ve had troop surges in Afghanistan, token troop withdrawals from Iraq, and an escalation of drone attacks over Pakistan and Afghanistan far beyond those employed by George W. Bush. Now we’re hearing from some sources that we may be in Afghanistan for several years to come.
Kayyem fails to mention that those “narrowly targeted military strategies to combat specific threats’’ have allegedly resulted in the deaths of many Pakistani civilians with no investigations offered into such incidents.
The only thing that these drone strikes seem to be accomplishing is throwing more support among Pakistanis to the otherwise-hated Taliban.
On another front, I’d imagine that investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill would question Kayyem’s assertion of the closing of CIA “black sites,’’ or secret prisons in other countries. Scahill’s article in a recent issue of The Nation reports on secret CIA rendition sites in Somalia.
Is this Kayyem’s idea of a “more honest, less ideological, and more effective’’ fight against terrorism?
Dana Franchitto
Wellfleet
