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Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism
Enough Time to End the War on Terrorism is a masterly history of these chaotic, tragic and above all futile conflicts, ranging with his usual excoriating accuracy from Mali to Pakistan, from Iraq to Yemen by way of Syria and Libya. Millions are dead, disabled or languish desperately far from their homes as the direct result of our blunders, bewilderment and outright malicious stupidity. Thousands of our own soldiers have died or are disabled. Hundreds more of our citizens have died in the U.S. and Europe in what Horton calls the ‘backdraft’ of our disastrous actions. Ignore the self-serving memoirs or grandiose academic tomes; if you read only one book on the so-called ‘War on Terror,’ this must be that book.”Frank Ledwidge, author of Investment in Blood.
332 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 15, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 73 reviews
March 9, 2021
Mind..blowing. The non-stop stream of narratives, connections, names, cross-links across years and administrations, failed intentions and so on can only - and I mean only - make you think, really, really hard, about the state of the Middle-East and even the world.
I dare to say that unless you have read this book, your opinion on the War on Terrorism and US/Western presence in the Middle-East is by default ignorant.
I dare to say that unless you have read this book, your opinion on the War on Terrorism and US/Western presence in the Middle-East is by default ignorant.
March 18, 2021
It’s comprehensive and well-documented. Every American should read this book.
March 9, 2022
At some point we all need to disabuse ourselves of all the lies and deception. Stop playing along, face reality, and find a way to call out the psychopathic bullies and mass murderers who are in control of US foreign policy. Basic cognitive functionality tells me that The War on Terrorism is about engaging in all manners of illegal and sadistic activities in the Middle East. It is wrong. The Land of the Free cannot invade, bomb, occupy and harass country after country with disastrous results and call itself moral, ethical, humane, or democratic. We have a “problem.” The government within the government who controls our politicians is harming us, the citizens, terribly with their global criminal behavior, and they can’t seem to STOP- and stop they must. Being an Empire of false narratives, chaos, death and destruction is NOT a good look!
February 14, 2021
Everybody in America should read this book
January 26, 2021
The only correct take on America's wars. This is unassailable.
May 13, 2021
I remember discussing with a friend around 2013 where I argued that America played an important role: keeping order in the world, restraining dictators, and preventing chaos.
It only gradually started dawning on me how absurdly, dangerously naive I was. Since then, I was reading articles on some of the "controversial" fights the US Army engaged in or the monsters the US Govt supported financially or by other means.
Scott Horton's book does a tremendous job of giving the details of American interventions starting with Iraq War I in 1991 up until now (early 2021). It obliterates the argument of hawks that the US needs to pick and choose governments to support to prevent a greater evil.
The US government and the infamous military-industrial complex *is* that greater evil. It's hard to make a case for interventionism when one learns about US support to head-chopping, barbarian Islamist groups (including ISIS) in the Syrian war.
The first Bush famously started the first Iraq war (after his predecessors supported Saddam in his battle against Iran), of which we've had three already, and who knows how many are still left.
Obama started the drone wars in Pakistan and Yemen that led to many civilian deaths (including children), which swells the ranks of anti-American terrorist groups.
He also started a war against the ruling faction in Yemen to "placate the Saudis." As a result, Saudi troops have been committing atrocities against the civil population, and sanctions have brought about a vast humanitarian crisis the world is mainly ignorant about.
Obama is not the only villain, of course. As the saying goes, no matter who gets elected president, they always turn out to be John McCain – the best that can happen is that they don't start new wars and simply continue waging the ongoing ones.
As I did eight years ago, if you think that the US government is a force for good and a measure against escalating violence in the world, please read this book to come to your awakening. But, if you don't, I still recommend you read it to understand the full extent of how bad their influence is and how much suffering it has led to.
It only gradually started dawning on me how absurdly, dangerously naive I was. Since then, I was reading articles on some of the "controversial" fights the US Army engaged in or the monsters the US Govt supported financially or by other means.
Scott Horton's book does a tremendous job of giving the details of American interventions starting with Iraq War I in 1991 up until now (early 2021). It obliterates the argument of hawks that the US needs to pick and choose governments to support to prevent a greater evil.
The US government and the infamous military-industrial complex *is* that greater evil. It's hard to make a case for interventionism when one learns about US support to head-chopping, barbarian Islamist groups (including ISIS) in the Syrian war.
The first Bush famously started the first Iraq war (after his predecessors supported Saddam in his battle against Iran), of which we've had three already, and who knows how many are still left.
Obama started the drone wars in Pakistan and Yemen that led to many civilian deaths (including children), which swells the ranks of anti-American terrorist groups.
He also started a war against the ruling faction in Yemen to "placate the Saudis." As a result, Saudi troops have been committing atrocities against the civil population, and sanctions have brought about a vast humanitarian crisis the world is mainly ignorant about.
Obama is not the only villain, of course. As the saying goes, no matter who gets elected president, they always turn out to be John McCain – the best that can happen is that they don't start new wars and simply continue waging the ongoing ones.
As I did eight years ago, if you think that the US government is a force for good and a measure against escalating violence in the world, please read this book to come to your awakening. But, if you don't, I still recommend you read it to understand the full extent of how bad their influence is and how much suffering it has led to.
October 26, 2022
Scott is a Libertarian and as such holds to an isolationist, non-interventionist world view. This book is a strong argument for US intervention in the Middle East leading to our problems with terrorism before and after 9-11. As a military veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan I can say I held a completely different view about our intervention there. In fact, I supported wholeheartedly our invasion of Afghanistan and our ousting of Saddam Hussein from Iraq. With age, and perhaps wisdom, I have reversed my support of those wars. Horton’s book, while making extravagant claims of a defense industry driving all foreign wars, supports those claims with what I see as incontrovertible evidence of a powerful lobby and it’s influence over politics and foreign policy. At the heart of the book is Horton’s claims that the US has chosen to depart from it’s founding principles of liberty and freedom to instead embark on a policy of domination of the post WWII world order. This policy, of course is justified as necessary to secure freedom and security for the world and the US. However, as Horton demonstrates many of our interventions have indeed created our current enemies and have accelerated their movements.
This book makes very, very bold claims. It is not nuanced in that it seeks no middle ground. It makes the argument that the US has created many its own problems through an alliance Eisenhower warned of, the military industrial complex. It is a cynical work but I believe it to be reasonable.
This book makes very, very bold claims. It is not nuanced in that it seeks no middle ground. It makes the argument that the US has created many its own problems through an alliance Eisenhower warned of, the military industrial complex. It is a cynical work but I believe it to be reasonable.
April 13, 2021
Ever get confused when watching the news about who all these groups in the Middle East are and what we're doing in each of those countries? Scott Horton's book does as good as you can at explaining all the ins and outs of this decades long "war on terrorism." He is doing a thankless job attempting to hold the USAs decision makers accountable for their foreign policy decisions. We can only hope his fight against aggressive wars and their violent blowback effects takes root among the population at large very soon.
March 16, 2021
A barrage of damning factoids delivered with rage-fueled snark. Unfortunately, it is not delivered with receipts, so we're left to take Horton at his word. But--if even 10% of his claims are true, then every president from Bush1 to Trump and now Biden are all war criminals destroying the republic by feeding only the empire.
An informative and exhausting read, from which you might come away utterly paralyzed with fear and loathing.
An informative and exhausting read, from which you might come away utterly paralyzed with fear and loathing.
March 20, 2021
Scott Horton makes the simple claim that the U.S. needs to end the war on terrorism. He then also defines what the U.S. involvement in other countries (primarily the middle east/North Africa) over the past 2-3 decades has been and as he does so explains (not that it needs explanation) how this is bad. At times, the book seems to go too deep into the weeds, but Horton summarizes it all nicely and if you pay close attention, this is an excellent read.
March 16, 2021
I'm already understanding more of his podcast!
Learned a lot about how the war on terrorism has been fought, and had no idea how awful and muddled US policy has been!
Learned a lot about how the war on terrorism has been fought, and had no idea how awful and muddled US policy has been!
November 13, 2021
As much as we humans like to think of ourselves as rational creatures, we are frequently driven by narratives that seek to shape our understanding of the world around us. One narrative that has been popular with Americans since the end of World War II is that we believe in liberty and freedom, and we seek to share our liberty and freedom with other nations.
However, that narrative has been under severe strain, if not slain, by the consequences of American foreign policy since 9/11. In his masterpiece "Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism", libertarian podcaster Scott Horton explains step-by-step how the War on Terror, which began under George W Bush, has been nothing short of catastrophic for nations subjected to American military action and Americans alike.
Horton begins his patient analysis by explaining why Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda did 9/11, and the strategy behind it. He shows that OBL didn't hate us for our freedoms, but because of American support of the Saudi regime and Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon. Also, OBL wanted an attack on American soil so dramatic that the American psyche would be driven to an overreaction in Afghanistan and the rest of the Middle East.
And that's exactly what we did.
Twenty years after 9/11, it is more than abundantly clear that American involvement in the Middle East has been a near-complete disaster. As Horton wrote, "as many as two million Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis, Somalis, Libyans, Syrians and Yemenis have been killed in these wars. These countries have been destroyed. ... More than 37 million people have been internally and externally displaced by the wars, more than in any crisis since World War II." Meanwhile, the American government is broke, and is over $20 trillion in debt. Much of these results are a consequence of American foreign policy implemented since September 12, 2001.
Horton's singular accomplishment is explaining how we got from there to here in a complete and comprehensive manner. He leaves practically no US foreign war out. Yet he is able to weave these seemingly disparate wars into a narrative that is cogent and persuasive. Such a counter narrative is critical for us Americans who seek to stop the bloodshed caused by American foreign policy so we can turn to our problems at home, and let foreign lands heal in a manner those who live there see fit.
I recommend this book to anyone who seeks to understand how American got ourselves into this mess, so as to extract ourselves out of it and seek peace.
However, that narrative has been under severe strain, if not slain, by the consequences of American foreign policy since 9/11. In his masterpiece "Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism", libertarian podcaster Scott Horton explains step-by-step how the War on Terror, which began under George W Bush, has been nothing short of catastrophic for nations subjected to American military action and Americans alike.
Horton begins his patient analysis by explaining why Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda did 9/11, and the strategy behind it. He shows that OBL didn't hate us for our freedoms, but because of American support of the Saudi regime and Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon. Also, OBL wanted an attack on American soil so dramatic that the American psyche would be driven to an overreaction in Afghanistan and the rest of the Middle East.
And that's exactly what we did.
Twenty years after 9/11, it is more than abundantly clear that American involvement in the Middle East has been a near-complete disaster. As Horton wrote, "as many as two million Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis, Somalis, Libyans, Syrians and Yemenis have been killed in these wars. These countries have been destroyed. ... More than 37 million people have been internally and externally displaced by the wars, more than in any crisis since World War II." Meanwhile, the American government is broke, and is over $20 trillion in debt. Much of these results are a consequence of American foreign policy implemented since September 12, 2001.
Horton's singular accomplishment is explaining how we got from there to here in a complete and comprehensive manner. He leaves practically no US foreign war out. Yet he is able to weave these seemingly disparate wars into a narrative that is cogent and persuasive. Such a counter narrative is critical for us Americans who seek to stop the bloodshed caused by American foreign policy so we can turn to our problems at home, and let foreign lands heal in a manner those who live there see fit.
I recommend this book to anyone who seeks to understand how American got ourselves into this mess, so as to extract ourselves out of it and seek peace.
September 6, 2025
I listened to this on audiobook but I'll definitely need to revisit it again in the future. It was so dense and deeply researched with so much information that I think it'd be a better read rather than listen. I've just been starting to understand the folly of the US wars on terror- as if we aren't seen as terrorists ourselves to our enemies in the Middle East. The term terrorist has become so muddied and meaningless as we "fight" terror with our own brand of terror. This book critiques our failed attempts at foreign policy and is much needed. I was shocked to learn how much we go back and forth. Fighting terrorist groups then backing those very same groups in the next war, and so on. As the book so perfectly lays out in its case- Enough Already!
March 19, 2024
I am almost definitely going to have to re-read this book because of all the information that it contains. It’s worthy of another pass-through, and I would gladly spend my time to do that. Scott Horton is one of the most informed humans on the face of the planet.
August 3, 2021
Scott Horton begins his book, Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism with a quote of former president Bill Clinton, "Terror means killing and robbery and coercion by people who do not have state authority."
The words of Clinton should give us all pause. Is that how it works? Was Bill telling us the nature of state power? After all, if it is true, it kind of legitimizes the actions of state actors who were our enemies in World War II.
Enough Already is a few hundred pages that chronicle the actions of state actors who have been making a big splash on the world stage as they have continuously come up with the wrong answers. Actually, when we mention "state actors" we are almost exclusively speaking of the United States.
Scott Hortons book, short as it is, is a history of what is called the War on Terror. Not a historian, your reviewer feels it exhaustive and unless it can be surpassed, which would surprise me, it should be the text in at least an any undergraduate course that purports to be studying U.S. history in the current century, as well as what led up to it. One can only agree with Daniel Ellsberg that if you read only one book on the subject this year, Enough already should be it.
Enough Already has a lot of history that appeared in the news media, and there is a lot that is what the late Boston talk show guy Larry Glick called "the story behind the story." Most of it is accessible, but few want to put it all together. A lot of the media actors have good reason to want it to be forgotten.
Page 74 has a long and sorry list of war hawks who were aggressive at the keyboard and on news shows for the Iraq war. Among them were neocon stalwarts such as David Brooks, Bill Kristol and Max Boot. The ever-reasonable George Will was on board. Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity were present as was the late Rush Limbaugh to name a few.
Team left was not missing. The late superstar intellectual, Christopher Hitchens played his part, not without some controversy as to motive. He denied being neocon. There was Brookings sinecurista Michael O'Hanlon who is continuing his career of being wrong and still wants us to stay in the Graveyard of Empires. Cool guy blogger Matthew Yglesias was on the team.
PBS Newshour and National Public Radio anchors were there as were network guys Dan Rather, Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw.
Many more were eager to have their say. There was little taking of responsibility for error afterwards save for honorable exceptions like Peter Beinart and Andrew Sullivan.
Horton details the lies and fabrications that the administration used to get us into war. The book dredges up memories of the drumbeat, and the feeling that they wanted the war and knew they could have it with just some tweaking of the formula.
The Bush team was going to say or do anything to get us there. You remember anthrax? Enough Already brings back the heady days when the administration was ready to throw anything up against the wall to see if it would stick.
Colin Powell shamefully got to be point man as regards chemicals including anthrax and what he is most known for, Niger yellow cake. Between the weapons of mass destruction and all the other hysteria, we can see why Scott asks the rhetorical question "Has a less convincing case for starting a war ever been presented?"
We went to war and it was a great victory. Well, no. As Scott points out, there was a winner, and it was not us, but Iran. By dethroning the Sunnis "...the U.S. handed Baghdad to the closest Iraq allies of our government's main strategic rival, Iran." In soccer, this would be called an own goal.
A genie was out of the bottle. Jihadis arose in places they had never been and it seemed Al Qaeda franchises popped up everywhere in the world other than Vatican City.
So, the whole sorry mess would meander on and on as it still does, but the most disgraceful aspect of the ongoing debacle has to be Yemen. Not that it deviated from the usual back a group then betray them practice as we did Saddam and the Taliban until we didn't.
In Yemen, the hapless Saudi ground troops regularly get beaten by the Houthi warriors, but they use the age-old technique of starving their enemy. It is murder most foul and the United States backs the Saudis.
Yemen had been a hotspot for a while and Americans remember the USS Cole bombing. Obama would start a drone war in Yemen that was not a bad terrorist recruiting tool.
Through a convoluted series of events, we have come to be enemies with the Houthis who were enemies of Al Qaeda. As they say in relationships, it's complicated.
The problem with the Houthis is they are great fighters and our best buddies aren't. We did have a relationship with them for a time, but Horton points out, Obama stabbed them in the back and re-allied with Al Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula.
The Trump administration was little better and would continue the support of the Saudis. It is, as Horton notes, "The Worst Humanitarian Crisis in the World." As a last act of his presidency, Trump would add the Houthis to the State Department's international terrorist list." He did this over the objections of humanitarian organizations. Wouldn't hurt the Houthis, but it would make it impossible to deliver food to the starving. It is evil incarnate.
There is a lot to read and your reviewer likes to think of himself as having paid attention to the situation as it has unfolded over time, but there is so much he has missed that Enough Already is essential reading.
Having noted that, It is the final chapter, "A Choking Life," That is most important as It may not pull everything together, but it does show where it all falls apart.
The section Backdraft gives the lie to Fight 'em over there so we don't have to fight 'em here. Ya got your Times Square bombing, your San Bernardino massacre, your Pulse Nightclub to name only a few.
The section, A Police State, highlights how Edward Snowden exposed the NSA that keeps records on all of us. Scott is not cheerleading for Trump noting the CIA/FBI crusade against the man. There is so much state power that existed before the War on Terror, but the vast increase since the start of it is breathtaking. His reference to Chalmers Johnson, "We either give up our empire or live under it ourselves" Is difficult to disagree with.
The Support the Troops mantra cites the near 7,000 who have who have been killed in the War on Terrorism, as well as the contractors with them. You really want to support the troops, bring them home. Who says that? Why, the troops or former troops. Polls and groups like Veterans for Peace give the lie to the think tankers and others that we can only support the troops by compounding the sunk costs of lost servicemen and women.
In War is Bad for the Economy, Scott looks at the Cost of War Project. Catherine Lutz has the figures for the last 19 years: $6.4 trillion. There is even more. His conclusion: "What is lost is not just the opportunities for productive investment, but all the new wealth and further capital for investment that would have been created instead of blasted into oblivion. You could also include all the wasted engineering and organizational skills and sheer manpower on this misbegotten mission. Six or seven trillion dollars is the least of it."
The Marxist term, correlation of forces is the relation of the different players that make up The Imperial Court. There is our relationship with the Saudis and other oil states wherein we prop them up militarily and they spend money on arms and recycle petrodollars.
The Imperial Court includes a lot of courtiers such as the pressure groups and so-called think tanks recycling tax dollars from defense firms. There is also a lot of defense firm lobbying money sloshing around D.C.
The bureaucrats, military and civilian as well as senators and reps all collude with the press to keep the game going. Truth is irrelevant, remember the Russian Bounty hoax. It is a sad dance.
As is the pretense that we are Spreading Liberty.
Scott begins the final section Just Come Home with "So, the U.S. got us into this mess by backing a massive Islamist terrorist movement, then enraging it and turning it against the American people with Iraq War I and the decision to stay in Saudi Arabia to enforce the blockade and patrol the Iraqi "no-fly zones" in the 1990s."
We make a dumb mistake and correct with another dumb mistake and compound them ad nauseum.
And who won? Not us. Scott quotes a humorous piece by Jeff Huber that Osama beat us by luring us in to the swamp.
Yet, we are told we can't go because we would create power vacuums. We could leave and let Bashir Assad deal with jihadis, but we won't.
We have to stay to deny safe havens, but is not that a myth? Per Scott, "Terrorist attacks can be planned in an apartment or a walk in the park."
You still have your Max Boots, David Brooks and Bill Kristols touting empire and national greatness, but when an early imperialist such as Zbigniew Brzezinski recognizes that it has all come a cropper, as he did before he died, what's the point?
Scott Horton has well made the point; we have defeated ourselves which is the very reason to Just Come Home. It’s been more than enough already.
The words of Clinton should give us all pause. Is that how it works? Was Bill telling us the nature of state power? After all, if it is true, it kind of legitimizes the actions of state actors who were our enemies in World War II.
Enough Already is a few hundred pages that chronicle the actions of state actors who have been making a big splash on the world stage as they have continuously come up with the wrong answers. Actually, when we mention "state actors" we are almost exclusively speaking of the United States.
Scott Hortons book, short as it is, is a history of what is called the War on Terror. Not a historian, your reviewer feels it exhaustive and unless it can be surpassed, which would surprise me, it should be the text in at least an any undergraduate course that purports to be studying U.S. history in the current century, as well as what led up to it. One can only agree with Daniel Ellsberg that if you read only one book on the subject this year, Enough already should be it.
Enough Already has a lot of history that appeared in the news media, and there is a lot that is what the late Boston talk show guy Larry Glick called "the story behind the story." Most of it is accessible, but few want to put it all together. A lot of the media actors have good reason to want it to be forgotten.
Page 74 has a long and sorry list of war hawks who were aggressive at the keyboard and on news shows for the Iraq war. Among them were neocon stalwarts such as David Brooks, Bill Kristol and Max Boot. The ever-reasonable George Will was on board. Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity were present as was the late Rush Limbaugh to name a few.
Team left was not missing. The late superstar intellectual, Christopher Hitchens played his part, not without some controversy as to motive. He denied being neocon. There was Brookings sinecurista Michael O'Hanlon who is continuing his career of being wrong and still wants us to stay in the Graveyard of Empires. Cool guy blogger Matthew Yglesias was on the team.
PBS Newshour and National Public Radio anchors were there as were network guys Dan Rather, Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw.
Many more were eager to have their say. There was little taking of responsibility for error afterwards save for honorable exceptions like Peter Beinart and Andrew Sullivan.
Horton details the lies and fabrications that the administration used to get us into war. The book dredges up memories of the drumbeat, and the feeling that they wanted the war and knew they could have it with just some tweaking of the formula.
The Bush team was going to say or do anything to get us there. You remember anthrax? Enough Already brings back the heady days when the administration was ready to throw anything up against the wall to see if it would stick.
Colin Powell shamefully got to be point man as regards chemicals including anthrax and what he is most known for, Niger yellow cake. Between the weapons of mass destruction and all the other hysteria, we can see why Scott asks the rhetorical question "Has a less convincing case for starting a war ever been presented?"
We went to war and it was a great victory. Well, no. As Scott points out, there was a winner, and it was not us, but Iran. By dethroning the Sunnis "...the U.S. handed Baghdad to the closest Iraq allies of our government's main strategic rival, Iran." In soccer, this would be called an own goal.
A genie was out of the bottle. Jihadis arose in places they had never been and it seemed Al Qaeda franchises popped up everywhere in the world other than Vatican City.
So, the whole sorry mess would meander on and on as it still does, but the most disgraceful aspect of the ongoing debacle has to be Yemen. Not that it deviated from the usual back a group then betray them practice as we did Saddam and the Taliban until we didn't.
In Yemen, the hapless Saudi ground troops regularly get beaten by the Houthi warriors, but they use the age-old technique of starving their enemy. It is murder most foul and the United States backs the Saudis.
Yemen had been a hotspot for a while and Americans remember the USS Cole bombing. Obama would start a drone war in Yemen that was not a bad terrorist recruiting tool.
Through a convoluted series of events, we have come to be enemies with the Houthis who were enemies of Al Qaeda. As they say in relationships, it's complicated.
The problem with the Houthis is they are great fighters and our best buddies aren't. We did have a relationship with them for a time, but Horton points out, Obama stabbed them in the back and re-allied with Al Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula.
The Trump administration was little better and would continue the support of the Saudis. It is, as Horton notes, "The Worst Humanitarian Crisis in the World." As a last act of his presidency, Trump would add the Houthis to the State Department's international terrorist list." He did this over the objections of humanitarian organizations. Wouldn't hurt the Houthis, but it would make it impossible to deliver food to the starving. It is evil incarnate.
There is a lot to read and your reviewer likes to think of himself as having paid attention to the situation as it has unfolded over time, but there is so much he has missed that Enough Already is essential reading.
Having noted that, It is the final chapter, "A Choking Life," That is most important as It may not pull everything together, but it does show where it all falls apart.
The section Backdraft gives the lie to Fight 'em over there so we don't have to fight 'em here. Ya got your Times Square bombing, your San Bernardino massacre, your Pulse Nightclub to name only a few.
The section, A Police State, highlights how Edward Snowden exposed the NSA that keeps records on all of us. Scott is not cheerleading for Trump noting the CIA/FBI crusade against the man. There is so much state power that existed before the War on Terror, but the vast increase since the start of it is breathtaking. His reference to Chalmers Johnson, "We either give up our empire or live under it ourselves" Is difficult to disagree with.
The Support the Troops mantra cites the near 7,000 who have who have been killed in the War on Terrorism, as well as the contractors with them. You really want to support the troops, bring them home. Who says that? Why, the troops or former troops. Polls and groups like Veterans for Peace give the lie to the think tankers and others that we can only support the troops by compounding the sunk costs of lost servicemen and women.
In War is Bad for the Economy, Scott looks at the Cost of War Project. Catherine Lutz has the figures for the last 19 years: $6.4 trillion. There is even more. His conclusion: "What is lost is not just the opportunities for productive investment, but all the new wealth and further capital for investment that would have been created instead of blasted into oblivion. You could also include all the wasted engineering and organizational skills and sheer manpower on this misbegotten mission. Six or seven trillion dollars is the least of it."
The Marxist term, correlation of forces is the relation of the different players that make up The Imperial Court. There is our relationship with the Saudis and other oil states wherein we prop them up militarily and they spend money on arms and recycle petrodollars.
The Imperial Court includes a lot of courtiers such as the pressure groups and so-called think tanks recycling tax dollars from defense firms. There is also a lot of defense firm lobbying money sloshing around D.C.
The bureaucrats, military and civilian as well as senators and reps all collude with the press to keep the game going. Truth is irrelevant, remember the Russian Bounty hoax. It is a sad dance.
As is the pretense that we are Spreading Liberty.
Scott begins the final section Just Come Home with "So, the U.S. got us into this mess by backing a massive Islamist terrorist movement, then enraging it and turning it against the American people with Iraq War I and the decision to stay in Saudi Arabia to enforce the blockade and patrol the Iraqi "no-fly zones" in the 1990s."
We make a dumb mistake and correct with another dumb mistake and compound them ad nauseum.
And who won? Not us. Scott quotes a humorous piece by Jeff Huber that Osama beat us by luring us in to the swamp.
Yet, we are told we can't go because we would create power vacuums. We could leave and let Bashir Assad deal with jihadis, but we won't.
We have to stay to deny safe havens, but is not that a myth? Per Scott, "Terrorist attacks can be planned in an apartment or a walk in the park."
You still have your Max Boots, David Brooks and Bill Kristols touting empire and national greatness, but when an early imperialist such as Zbigniew Brzezinski recognizes that it has all come a cropper, as he did before he died, what's the point?
Scott Horton has well made the point; we have defeated ourselves which is the very reason to Just Come Home. It’s been more than enough already.
April 8, 2025
While many Americans believe war in the Middle East was catalyzed by the attacks of September 11th, 2001, the true origin of this story is the same as every other story concerning the American Empire: it began with the closure of the Second World War. America declared the dollar the reserve currency of the world, eventually beat the Soviets (while they beat themselves) in the Cold War, and established a global hegemony. In the Middle East, this has meant various partnerships with various leaderships over time, our most prominent being Israel, a country our own government helped to bring into existence in 1948. We have been sending money and weapons to Middle Eastern political groups ever since.
While the latter half of the 20th century is indeed important for laying the groundwork (we armed anti-Soviet Afghans in the 1980s, for example, and bombed Iraq an average of three to four times a week during Bill Clinton’s Presidency), this book focuses mainly on the years after September 11th. There is no doubt that it was President George W. Bush’s War on Terror that escalated our presence: at its height, the U.S. had more than 100,000 troops in Afghanistan and 160,000 in Iraq. So, why did we go to war? What exactly was our mission in the Middle East? Were we successful? How do we measure?
The obvious reason we went to war in Afghanistan was to get Osama bin Laden, the man who organized the 9/11 attacks against us. However, it turns out this wasn’t quite true: Delta forces and the CIA had bin Laden cornered in Tora Bora, an eastern province of Afghanistan, in December of 2001. Then-Marine General James Mattis (later the secretary of defense under President Donald Trump) was among the various military leaders who were all denied permission by Washington to take bin Laden out. Why would American politicians let him escape to Pakistan? Because they needed a target, a bad guy, to keep up American support for the war. Additionally, what was the reason given for sending troops to Iraq? Because, according to the Bush administration, Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. It turns out this was also a lie: the truth was that our government wanted him dead for other reasons, and likewise used him as a bad guy to gin up further support for military actions in the region. Once Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were killed, the U.S. needed a different reason to remain in the area, and the political talking point became squashing al Qaeda wherever they sprang up. This wasn’t true either, evidenced by the fact that the U.S. funded al Qaeda groups in Syria (and other countries) when they were fighting against regimes they wanted to topple.
These facts and stories have since been brought to light in the media— they are the known wars, the known fights, the known bombing campaigns. What our author reveals, to the reader’s horror, is that Afghanistan and Iraq barely scratch the surface of American meddling in the Middle East. Since 2001, America has dropped a bomb or placed a boot in every country in the region including Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Kuwait, Jordan, Yemen, Lebanon, Qatar, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Sudan, Niger, and Mali, and the list almost certainly goes on.
“The drone program is probably the most potent recruiting tool that foreign terrorist groups have,” former CIA officer John Kiriakou explains in the book: “I can tell you that I interrogated dozens of al Qaeda fighters in my CIA years, and to a man they all said that they had no beef with the United States, they had no personal problem with the United States, until we rocketed their villages with drones, and we killed their cousin or their parents or their brother and sister or whatever it was—and they were compelled to take up arms against the United States.” When the Bush administration started the war on terror, there were around 400 al Qaeda fighters hiding in rural Afghanistan. Now, there are thousands spread throughout the entire Middle East.
Not only has al Qaeda grown stronger, but the terrorist organization ISIS has come into existence as a result of U.S. military actions in the area. In 2014, led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, ISIS rolled from Syria into Iraq (with American weapons given to Syrian fighters to fight their government) and sacked every city west of Baghdad. Al-Baghdadi then declared himself ruler of the new Islamic Caliphate, a landmass encompassing provinces of eastern Syria and western Iraq, an area larger than Great Britain. He could never have gained this level of power without the assistance of the United States in the hands of George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
According to his secretary of defense Robert M. Gates, “President Obama said that his decision to start the war in Libya was ’51 to 49’ percent, with Secretary Clinton pushing him over the line.” Basically, he went to war with a foreign nation (killing thousands of innocent people) because his ‘friends’ told him to. Obama also authorized support for the Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen, a coalition that has “launched 18,000 strikes by the fall of 2018, ‘one-third of which have hit non-military targets,’ according to Frank McManus of the International Rescue Committee.” Hundreds of thousands have died, with millions still in dire need of help, a humanitarian crisis that rivals some of the largest in history. While George W. Bush started three new wars, Barack Obama started six. Trump may not have started any, but he also didn’t end any either.
With the advent and advancement of these wars and bombing campaigns, America now has more enemies around the globe than ever before. Democracy and freedom are shrinking from the face of the planet with no foreseeable end to the violence and authoritarianism. We have also greatly weakened ourselves, for war necessitates funding, funding requires taxing the populace, taxes mean debt, and debt is fundamentally antithetical to liberty (war is one of the main cause of the dollar’s inflation). As James Madison, the principal author of the Constitution, once wrote: “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
The real assault on our freedom began when Congress passed the Patriot Act right after the September 11th attacks, a bill authorizing the National Security Agency to illegally spy on American citizens. Bush also created CIA ‘ghost prisons’ and ‘black sites’ in countries like Poland, Romania, Morocco, and most famously Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where countless ‘terrorists’ have been tortured and held indefinitely. His government, led by Vice President Dick Cheney along with his lawyer and advisor David Addington, made it deliberate policy to “push against the Constitution’s constraints on the president’s powers until ‘some larger force makes us stop,’ as Addington told White House lawyer Jack Goldsmith.” Cheney and his lawyers introduced the ‘unitary executive’ theory of power which holds that in wartime, the ‘commander-in-chief’ clause of Article II grants the president ‘inherent’ and ‘plenary’ power which allows him to override any law, treaty or even other parts of the Constitution in order to wage war in any way he sees fit, even without an official declaration of war made by Congress. Ostensibly, Congress represents the will of the people, so this move by Bush and Cheney took power away from the people and gave it to the President. Again, this is antithetical to liberty.
As America (and the West) has become more and more involved in the scattered politics of the Middle East, we have become weak at home. Our returning soldiers are wrecked, our treasury is depleted, and the target on our backs is larger than ever. While our politicians continue to propagandize the populace with words about the fight for freedom and democracy, we have in actuality become the bad guy, the evil empire hellbent on global domination and absolute power. George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, once mentioned this in an interview, equating his Hollywood heroes with the rag-tag Vietnamese people fighting off the American empire on their own soil in the 60s and 70s (the first Star Wars film premiered in 1977). This story has played out in analogous fashion in the Middle East. Osama bin Laden once warned that “The U.S. government will lead the American people—and the West in general—into an unbearable hell and a choking life,” and he was absolutely right. He opened the door to hell, and our power hungry politicians and members of the military industrial complex walked right in, thanking him as they did. We have not yet received the bill, but the future of this country, and the Western world in general, will be a story of regular people paying the price for the war crimes of our political and elite class.
Enough already, it’s time to stop the War on Terror.
While the latter half of the 20th century is indeed important for laying the groundwork (we armed anti-Soviet Afghans in the 1980s, for example, and bombed Iraq an average of three to four times a week during Bill Clinton’s Presidency), this book focuses mainly on the years after September 11th. There is no doubt that it was President George W. Bush’s War on Terror that escalated our presence: at its height, the U.S. had more than 100,000 troops in Afghanistan and 160,000 in Iraq. So, why did we go to war? What exactly was our mission in the Middle East? Were we successful? How do we measure?
The obvious reason we went to war in Afghanistan was to get Osama bin Laden, the man who organized the 9/11 attacks against us. However, it turns out this wasn’t quite true: Delta forces and the CIA had bin Laden cornered in Tora Bora, an eastern province of Afghanistan, in December of 2001. Then-Marine General James Mattis (later the secretary of defense under President Donald Trump) was among the various military leaders who were all denied permission by Washington to take bin Laden out. Why would American politicians let him escape to Pakistan? Because they needed a target, a bad guy, to keep up American support for the war. Additionally, what was the reason given for sending troops to Iraq? Because, according to the Bush administration, Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. It turns out this was also a lie: the truth was that our government wanted him dead for other reasons, and likewise used him as a bad guy to gin up further support for military actions in the region. Once Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were killed, the U.S. needed a different reason to remain in the area, and the political talking point became squashing al Qaeda wherever they sprang up. This wasn’t true either, evidenced by the fact that the U.S. funded al Qaeda groups in Syria (and other countries) when they were fighting against regimes they wanted to topple.
These facts and stories have since been brought to light in the media— they are the known wars, the known fights, the known bombing campaigns. What our author reveals, to the reader’s horror, is that Afghanistan and Iraq barely scratch the surface of American meddling in the Middle East. Since 2001, America has dropped a bomb or placed a boot in every country in the region including Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Kuwait, Jordan, Yemen, Lebanon, Qatar, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Sudan, Niger, and Mali, and the list almost certainly goes on.
“The drone program is probably the most potent recruiting tool that foreign terrorist groups have,” former CIA officer John Kiriakou explains in the book: “I can tell you that I interrogated dozens of al Qaeda fighters in my CIA years, and to a man they all said that they had no beef with the United States, they had no personal problem with the United States, until we rocketed their villages with drones, and we killed their cousin or their parents or their brother and sister or whatever it was—and they were compelled to take up arms against the United States.” When the Bush administration started the war on terror, there were around 400 al Qaeda fighters hiding in rural Afghanistan. Now, there are thousands spread throughout the entire Middle East.
Not only has al Qaeda grown stronger, but the terrorist organization ISIS has come into existence as a result of U.S. military actions in the area. In 2014, led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, ISIS rolled from Syria into Iraq (with American weapons given to Syrian fighters to fight their government) and sacked every city west of Baghdad. Al-Baghdadi then declared himself ruler of the new Islamic Caliphate, a landmass encompassing provinces of eastern Syria and western Iraq, an area larger than Great Britain. He could never have gained this level of power without the assistance of the United States in the hands of George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
According to his secretary of defense Robert M. Gates, “President Obama said that his decision to start the war in Libya was ’51 to 49’ percent, with Secretary Clinton pushing him over the line.” Basically, he went to war with a foreign nation (killing thousands of innocent people) because his ‘friends’ told him to. Obama also authorized support for the Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen, a coalition that has “launched 18,000 strikes by the fall of 2018, ‘one-third of which have hit non-military targets,’ according to Frank McManus of the International Rescue Committee.” Hundreds of thousands have died, with millions still in dire need of help, a humanitarian crisis that rivals some of the largest in history. While George W. Bush started three new wars, Barack Obama started six. Trump may not have started any, but he also didn’t end any either.
With the advent and advancement of these wars and bombing campaigns, America now has more enemies around the globe than ever before. Democracy and freedom are shrinking from the face of the planet with no foreseeable end to the violence and authoritarianism. We have also greatly weakened ourselves, for war necessitates funding, funding requires taxing the populace, taxes mean debt, and debt is fundamentally antithetical to liberty (war is one of the main cause of the dollar’s inflation). As James Madison, the principal author of the Constitution, once wrote: “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
The real assault on our freedom began when Congress passed the Patriot Act right after the September 11th attacks, a bill authorizing the National Security Agency to illegally spy on American citizens. Bush also created CIA ‘ghost prisons’ and ‘black sites’ in countries like Poland, Romania, Morocco, and most famously Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where countless ‘terrorists’ have been tortured and held indefinitely. His government, led by Vice President Dick Cheney along with his lawyer and advisor David Addington, made it deliberate policy to “push against the Constitution’s constraints on the president’s powers until ‘some larger force makes us stop,’ as Addington told White House lawyer Jack Goldsmith.” Cheney and his lawyers introduced the ‘unitary executive’ theory of power which holds that in wartime, the ‘commander-in-chief’ clause of Article II grants the president ‘inherent’ and ‘plenary’ power which allows him to override any law, treaty or even other parts of the Constitution in order to wage war in any way he sees fit, even without an official declaration of war made by Congress. Ostensibly, Congress represents the will of the people, so this move by Bush and Cheney took power away from the people and gave it to the President. Again, this is antithetical to liberty.
As America (and the West) has become more and more involved in the scattered politics of the Middle East, we have become weak at home. Our returning soldiers are wrecked, our treasury is depleted, and the target on our backs is larger than ever. While our politicians continue to propagandize the populace with words about the fight for freedom and democracy, we have in actuality become the bad guy, the evil empire hellbent on global domination and absolute power. George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, once mentioned this in an interview, equating his Hollywood heroes with the rag-tag Vietnamese people fighting off the American empire on their own soil in the 60s and 70s (the first Star Wars film premiered in 1977). This story has played out in analogous fashion in the Middle East. Osama bin Laden once warned that “The U.S. government will lead the American people—and the West in general—into an unbearable hell and a choking life,” and he was absolutely right. He opened the door to hell, and our power hungry politicians and members of the military industrial complex walked right in, thanking him as they did. We have not yet received the bill, but the future of this country, and the Western world in general, will be a story of regular people paying the price for the war crimes of our political and elite class.
Enough already, it’s time to stop the War on Terror.
March 20, 2021
Horton provides a well documented and sobering look at the US government and military involvement in the Middle East. I appreciated his ability to write a compelling narrative while also providing relevant quotes and facts. It would be hard to read this book and not come away somewhat red pilled.
June 28, 2021
A ton of research went into this book, my only complaint is that I would have liked to see more sources cited. I googled a couple of statements in the book and found the related article to confirm what the author wrote, but having full citations would have helped. Most of what he is saying is not the main stream narrative. Such as the fact that Saddam was bending over backwards to surrender 8 months into the Iraq war started after 9/11. That was also after all the lies to begin the war in the first place.
When you think about the War on Terror and all the media coverage of the American invasion and attacks on foreign countries, this book makes you consider, who are the real terrorists?
Is it the country who funded, trained, and armed the groups who became Al Qaeda (against the Soviets) and ISIS (in Syria and Yemen)?
How about the country that puts sanctions on other countries when they want regime change, then bomb the hell out of them and in some cases will occupy the only fertile land in the country leading to more starvation?
What about the country that uses drones to carry out bombing raids on other countries and in the process kills thousands of innocent civilians, sometimes labelling them all as terrorist threats?
All of these atrocities are carried out by the USA and have not made the world safer. All it's done is cost over 6 trillion dollars and increased the number of Al Qaeda members from a couple hundred to several thousands in the world.
Violence spreads violence, hate spreads hate. Stop the wars, America.
When you think about the War on Terror and all the media coverage of the American invasion and attacks on foreign countries, this book makes you consider, who are the real terrorists?
Is it the country who funded, trained, and armed the groups who became Al Qaeda (against the Soviets) and ISIS (in Syria and Yemen)?
How about the country that puts sanctions on other countries when they want regime change, then bomb the hell out of them and in some cases will occupy the only fertile land in the country leading to more starvation?
What about the country that uses drones to carry out bombing raids on other countries and in the process kills thousands of innocent civilians, sometimes labelling them all as terrorist threats?
All of these atrocities are carried out by the USA and have not made the world safer. All it's done is cost over 6 trillion dollars and increased the number of Al Qaeda members from a couple hundred to several thousands in the world.
Violence spreads violence, hate spreads hate. Stop the wars, America.
May 4, 2021
This book fills a void that the antiwar movement desperately needed to be filled. It is a systematic destruction of the rationales for every last one of the terror wars, providing historical ammunition for opponents of the warfare state in a succinct, readable 300-page volume. The lack of footnotes is regrettable, both for the scholar and for the layman who has questions about the credibility of the author’s claims, but it should not deter anyone from picking it up. It is engaging from start to finish, perhaps worthy of reading for its entertainment value alone.
I have long regarded foreign policy as “the key to the whole libertarian business,” as Mr. Libertarian Murray Rothbard once put it, and yet I have often found myself struggling to get all the facts lined up. Unlike with the axioms of Austrian economics or libertarian ethics, defending the non-interventionist approach to foreign policy necessitates a deep, yet easily expressible and rhetorically effective, understanding of the complex historical background of the U.S. regime’s many wars. That is what this book provides. Enough Already fully illuminates the hypocrisy, stupidity, and downright evil of the military-industrial complex, making it a must-read for any libertarian, leftist, or paleoconservative who is seriously interested in opposing endless war.
I have long regarded foreign policy as “the key to the whole libertarian business,” as Mr. Libertarian Murray Rothbard once put it, and yet I have often found myself struggling to get all the facts lined up. Unlike with the axioms of Austrian economics or libertarian ethics, defending the non-interventionist approach to foreign policy necessitates a deep, yet easily expressible and rhetorically effective, understanding of the complex historical background of the U.S. regime’s many wars. That is what this book provides. Enough Already fully illuminates the hypocrisy, stupidity, and downright evil of the military-industrial complex, making it a must-read for any libertarian, leftist, or paleoconservative who is seriously interested in opposing endless war.
May 21, 2023
Horton makes an irrefutable point that the U.S. constant "war on terror" is creating terror for everyone, domestic and foreign. That said, this should have been 2-3 books instead of just one. Each foreign war is painted in broad strokes and it's too easy to get lost in which religious group is extremist and which is not, which is supported by which country. I will use this as a reference but it wasn't enough to really teach me about these ever-shifting alliances. That is part of the problem. The U.S. supports Al-Qaeda in some countries while fighting them in others. They are not honest with the American people about this. They lie about every single war and have now stopped using the term "success" in these forever wars, all the while enriching some and killing others.
And yet despite earning an F in every war since 9/11, the American people believe them about Ukraine. Horton addresses the Ukrainian extremism and this was written before the 2022 conflict. The U.S. gets an A+ in propaganda and an F in humanity. We must demand a brand new foreign policy that involves complete withdrawal from foreign wars. If we don't, we will lose our own freedoms and watch our economy collapse. Enough Already indeed.
And yet despite earning an F in every war since 9/11, the American people believe them about Ukraine. Horton addresses the Ukrainian extremism and this was written before the 2022 conflict. The U.S. gets an A+ in propaganda and an F in humanity. We must demand a brand new foreign policy that involves complete withdrawal from foreign wars. If we don't, we will lose our own freedoms and watch our economy collapse. Enough Already indeed.
April 25, 2021
I enjoyed this book. I had heard the author's opinion on various podcasts and wanted to gain a more thorough understanding of his positions.
I only have two criticisms: 1) Scott Horton writes as he speaks. It does make for a fluent read, but I found his narrative style to be a little erratic and his account of very complex situations hard to follow at times. I believe a better compromise could have be found between writing a sprawling tome and damning the topic with cursory treatment. Considering the scope of the subject, this book leans a tad too much on the latter side, in my opinion.
2) While many claims are backed by sources, too many are left standing alone. Footnotes could have greatly strengthened the author's case. A bibliography at the end would have been the cherry on top.
I only have two criticisms: 1) Scott Horton writes as he speaks. It does make for a fluent read, but I found his narrative style to be a little erratic and his account of very complex situations hard to follow at times. I believe a better compromise could have be found between writing a sprawling tome and damning the topic with cursory treatment. Considering the scope of the subject, this book leans a tad too much on the latter side, in my opinion.
2) While many claims are backed by sources, too many are left standing alone. Footnotes could have greatly strengthened the author's case. A bibliography at the end would have been the cherry on top.
September 18, 2021
“The US backed the Arab-Afghan mercenaries and terrorists and then fought them; backed Saddam Hussein and then fought him; backed the Taliban and then fought them; worked for Sadr, then fought him; fought al Qaeda in Iraq, backed them, and then fought them again; worked with Gaddafi, Assad and the Houthis against al Qaeda, and then fought all of them too — for al Qaeda. Does that sound right to you?”
February 1, 2022
An endless barrage of proofs that the US government "war on terror" is really just a series of killings to defend or extend US global hegemony, at the cost of countless lives on all sides of the convoluted and constantly shifting alliances.
Makes the final and damming case that the wars must be ended and US intervention must cease forever.
Makes the final and damming case that the wars must be ended and US intervention must cease forever.
March 9, 2024
Enlightening, organized, and informative about our governments foreign policy choices. Really strong case that the results of foreign intervention/regime change, are not worth the massive cost of life, money, and bred vengeance
November 19, 2021
The war on terror has consumed American resources and human lives for well over twenty years now, breaking numerous countries, deforming the United States at multiple levels, and perpetuating itself like a cancer. In Enough Already, a journalist who has specialized in understanding the Middle East and DC’s role there, armed with experience from thousands of interviews with authorities across the world and spurred by his passion for justice, offers a critical history of the conflict which urges Americans to stop being so complacent about the corruption at home and devastation abroad which DC’s policies have created. It is infuriating, tragic, and comprehensive as a single volume can be without exploding to Biblical lengths.
The war on terror did not begin on September 12th, 2001. al-Queda’s infamous and murderous attack upon New York City and the American people was inspired by longstanding meddling by DC. The United States became increasingly involved in the Middle East throughout the 20th century for geopolitical reasons, needing to stabilize access to its oil reserves and sea lanes for its allies, and to limit access from DC’s foes – including Germany, but especially the Soviet Union. This meant that the Empire of Liberty, beset with a sense of mission and power after World War 2, became increasingly involved in the business of people a world away – supporting dictators or even replacing leaders with a democratic backing to create a order most amenable to its own interests. This generated – unsurpisingly to anyone but DC’s experts — reaction. Bush’s asinine explanation of the terrorists’ motives (“They hate us for our freedoms”) ignored the perpetuator’s steady stream of releases decrying DC’s frequent mideast interventions, bombings, and placement of troops through the region. The latter decades of the 20th century were flecked with explosive anger targeted at American interests in the middle east, crowned by the “planes mission” that Osama bin Laden conceived to draw the United States further into the mideast so that it might drive itself to financial ruin and bankrupt any influence it had in the region. Well, “Tamat almuhima!” as they might say in Arabic — Mission Accomplished.
In the aftermath of September 11, George W. Bush committed the nation not to simply finding the persons responsible and then giving them their just desserts, but to fighting terrorism abroad – any time, any place, anywhere. This grandiose mission led to first invading Afghanistan when the ruling powers the Taliban would have been happy to surrender bin Laden in a way that would let them save face, and then invading Iraq for an array of farcial reasons, and still later sowing chaos in Somalia, Libya, and most notably, Syria. Rather than destroying al-Qaeda, the sudden expansion of American power in the region inflamed passions, particularly as DC picked favorites to rule Iraq and Afghanistan, persons and parties who were already at odds with other groups in the country. Al-Qaeda and sister groups’ membership ballooned, to the point that after American troops had officially “left” Iraq, they were forced to re-invade after an al-Qaeda offshoot labeling itself the Islamic State took over large portions of Iraq and Syria — an event entirely made possible by DC’s recklessness. So catastrophically did DC fail in its mission, so far did it stray from its own ideals, that in Syria it was actively helping fund groups linked to al-Qaeda. The war on terror has driven the war-state to bankruptcy – moral and fiscal.
After recounting the train of horrors visited upon people the world over by the overweening ambition of DC’s political types, all of whom have sworn to end or curtail the terror war only to continue and expand it, Horton ends with a chapter on how the war on terror has adversely affected Americans through the expanding security state. Perhaps we don’t care that DC and by connection the American people are complicit in hundreds of thousands of deaths — through wars created by DC-spurred chaos, through starvation caused by sanctions, through disease because of DC’s bombing of civilian infrastructure — but surely the insidious growth of the NSA and CIA’s online surveillance networks, treating us all like subjects in 1984, might stir us to action? The ongoing militarization of the police force — both the direct transferral of ex-servicemen into the law enforcement sector, with laxer engagement standards and the use of military-grade armor, weapons, and equipment by civilian law enforcement — has provoked some response, but in a distorted way. Instead of targeting militarization itself, public outcry is fixated on the red herring of racist cops.
For me, Horton is preaching to the choir. I’ve been angry about the war on terror for sixteen years now, growing to hate Bush and Obama because of their expansion of the polite state and their aggressiveness abroad. The war on terror helped form my political identity as a libertarian, and my copy of this book is autographed — a result of having funded Horton’s kickstarter. A lot of this sorry story I already knew, but the chaos in Libya, Somalia, and Mali has fallen under my radar until now. Horton does an admirable job of addressing decades of action and misery in just a few hundred pages, and — despite his passion for the subject, which listeners of his podcast are familiar with — he only rarely editorializes, instead letting the raw facts speak for themselves.
Related:
Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan, Scott Horton. Intended as part of this volume, but a re-write prompted Horton to release a separate book on Afghanistan and then a broader view of the terror-wars.
The Looming Tower: al-Queda and the Road to 9/11, Lawrence Wright
The Scott Horton Podcast, featuring thousands of interviews since 2003. Listen and you’ll never take a talking-head on the mainstream media seriously again.
The war on terror did not begin on September 12th, 2001. al-Queda’s infamous and murderous attack upon New York City and the American people was inspired by longstanding meddling by DC. The United States became increasingly involved in the Middle East throughout the 20th century for geopolitical reasons, needing to stabilize access to its oil reserves and sea lanes for its allies, and to limit access from DC’s foes – including Germany, but especially the Soviet Union. This meant that the Empire of Liberty, beset with a sense of mission and power after World War 2, became increasingly involved in the business of people a world away – supporting dictators or even replacing leaders with a democratic backing to create a order most amenable to its own interests. This generated – unsurpisingly to anyone but DC’s experts — reaction. Bush’s asinine explanation of the terrorists’ motives (“They hate us for our freedoms”) ignored the perpetuator’s steady stream of releases decrying DC’s frequent mideast interventions, bombings, and placement of troops through the region. The latter decades of the 20th century were flecked with explosive anger targeted at American interests in the middle east, crowned by the “planes mission” that Osama bin Laden conceived to draw the United States further into the mideast so that it might drive itself to financial ruin and bankrupt any influence it had in the region. Well, “Tamat almuhima!” as they might say in Arabic — Mission Accomplished.
In the aftermath of September 11, George W. Bush committed the nation not to simply finding the persons responsible and then giving them their just desserts, but to fighting terrorism abroad – any time, any place, anywhere. This grandiose mission led to first invading Afghanistan when the ruling powers the Taliban would have been happy to surrender bin Laden in a way that would let them save face, and then invading Iraq for an array of farcial reasons, and still later sowing chaos in Somalia, Libya, and most notably, Syria. Rather than destroying al-Qaeda, the sudden expansion of American power in the region inflamed passions, particularly as DC picked favorites to rule Iraq and Afghanistan, persons and parties who were already at odds with other groups in the country. Al-Qaeda and sister groups’ membership ballooned, to the point that after American troops had officially “left” Iraq, they were forced to re-invade after an al-Qaeda offshoot labeling itself the Islamic State took over large portions of Iraq and Syria — an event entirely made possible by DC’s recklessness. So catastrophically did DC fail in its mission, so far did it stray from its own ideals, that in Syria it was actively helping fund groups linked to al-Qaeda. The war on terror has driven the war-state to bankruptcy – moral and fiscal.
After recounting the train of horrors visited upon people the world over by the overweening ambition of DC’s political types, all of whom have sworn to end or curtail the terror war only to continue and expand it, Horton ends with a chapter on how the war on terror has adversely affected Americans through the expanding security state. Perhaps we don’t care that DC and by connection the American people are complicit in hundreds of thousands of deaths — through wars created by DC-spurred chaos, through starvation caused by sanctions, through disease because of DC’s bombing of civilian infrastructure — but surely the insidious growth of the NSA and CIA’s online surveillance networks, treating us all like subjects in 1984, might stir us to action? The ongoing militarization of the police force — both the direct transferral of ex-servicemen into the law enforcement sector, with laxer engagement standards and the use of military-grade armor, weapons, and equipment by civilian law enforcement — has provoked some response, but in a distorted way. Instead of targeting militarization itself, public outcry is fixated on the red herring of racist cops.
For me, Horton is preaching to the choir. I’ve been angry about the war on terror for sixteen years now, growing to hate Bush and Obama because of their expansion of the polite state and their aggressiveness abroad. The war on terror helped form my political identity as a libertarian, and my copy of this book is autographed — a result of having funded Horton’s kickstarter. A lot of this sorry story I already knew, but the chaos in Libya, Somalia, and Mali has fallen under my radar until now. Horton does an admirable job of addressing decades of action and misery in just a few hundred pages, and — despite his passion for the subject, which listeners of his podcast are familiar with — he only rarely editorializes, instead letting the raw facts speak for themselves.
Related:
Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan, Scott Horton. Intended as part of this volume, but a re-write prompted Horton to release a separate book on Afghanistan and then a broader view of the terror-wars.
The Looming Tower: al-Queda and the Road to 9/11, Lawrence Wright
The Scott Horton Podcast, featuring thousands of interviews since 2003. Listen and you’ll never take a talking-head on the mainstream media seriously again.
April 9, 2023
Full disclosure: I am no historian, and I only started taking an interest in foreign affairs/policy in the last year or so. That said, the sheer volume of receipts and evidence that Horton brings to his analysis will prove difficult to surmount for those advocating for a continuation of the war on terror. In fact I might even go so far as to say that his attempt to incorporate such an incontrovertible amount of evidence is the primary obstacle to his narrative's flow. But then again that could be a skill issue on my part, so... At least it will be hard for critics to accuse him of leaving out information for the sake of an overly slick and ideological narrative.
If I were to highlight any take-home themes, it would be the concept and manifestation of blowback in US foreign policy. To fully hash this out, it's necessary to go back a little ways in history to examine at what point events were set in motion, and Horton doesn't hesitate to go back as many decades before 2000 as are necessary to paint a complete picture. I'm happy that Horton upholds and bolsters the position taken by the late Harry Browne that 9/11 was in fact blowback, which controversially implies that the crimes on that day were not without provocation.
One of his other strengths is outlining the hypocrisies and nonsensical about faces in US foreign policy — often packaged in immensely satisfying sardonic wit. I'm sure that this will be a frustrating read for any remaining neoconservatives, but it will certainly make it difficult for good faith actors to hold onto those beliefs. Next up I have Hotter than the Sun, but I'm especially looking forward to Horton's book on the Russia-Ukraine war since that is a much more recent struggle. It's one thing to take a position with the advantage of hindsight, but it's wholly another to take a position while it is actively being propagandized against. On that front, Horton has the benefit of principle to help him avoid deception and his own raw intellect to collate vast swathes of information into a coherent whole. For those in doubt, I cannot recommend this highly enough.
If I were to highlight any take-home themes, it would be the concept and manifestation of blowback in US foreign policy. To fully hash this out, it's necessary to go back a little ways in history to examine at what point events were set in motion, and Horton doesn't hesitate to go back as many decades before 2000 as are necessary to paint a complete picture. I'm happy that Horton upholds and bolsters the position taken by the late Harry Browne that 9/11 was in fact blowback, which controversially implies that the crimes on that day were not without provocation.
One of his other strengths is outlining the hypocrisies and nonsensical about faces in US foreign policy — often packaged in immensely satisfying sardonic wit. I'm sure that this will be a frustrating read for any remaining neoconservatives, but it will certainly make it difficult for good faith actors to hold onto those beliefs. Next up I have Hotter than the Sun, but I'm especially looking forward to Horton's book on the Russia-Ukraine war since that is a much more recent struggle. It's one thing to take a position with the advantage of hindsight, but it's wholly another to take a position while it is actively being propagandized against. On that front, Horton has the benefit of principle to help him avoid deception and his own raw intellect to collate vast swathes of information into a coherent whole. For those in doubt, I cannot recommend this highly enough.
December 22, 2021
This is a must read for anyone who wants to understand the events that lead up to the war on terror. Going all the way back to the Carter administration we see how every step along the way what had been presented to us as unprovoked attacks on America were anything but....This continued meddling in other countries and taking both sides of conflicts that were none of our business to begin with have simply never been truly appreciate or contemplated in literature and journalism before this book. If you believe the war on terror is an unjustifiable quagmire we need to make a clean break from then this book is for you. It thoroughly explains the issues preventing that happening and the stark consequences of continuing to prosecute this war. If you believe the war on terror was justified and something we should indeed be engaging in, or you simply don't know enough about it to reach a firm conclusion on its costs and benefits, this book is for you too. I challenge anyone who continues to justify the war on terror as something that was necessary or continues to be necessary to read this book and come out on the other side still justifying the massives losses of life this war has caused and the vast treasure that we have had to invest to prosecute this 2 decade long war that has few if any possible tangible results, coupled with the fact not a single person who supports the war on terror can explain what victory looks like..... I do not see how anyone could read this book and see the war on terror as both entirely pointless and endless
February 14, 2024
"Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism" by Scott Horton is, without a doubt, the best history book and the most insightful contemporary history book I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Horton's work is nothing short of a masterpiece, providing an exhaustive and critical examination of the wars waged by Western governments under the guise of fighting terrorism. The depth of research and clarity of argument presented in this book is unparalleled, offering readers all the necessary context to understand these conflicts' complexities and the often misguided motivations behind them.
This book stands as a crucial document for anyone looking to grasp the real impacts of these wars, not just on the countries directly involved, but on global politics, societies, and the very fabric of international relations. The author's ability to dissect the no-good reasons behind these conflicts and present an argument for ending the perpetual state of war is both brave and necessary.
"Enough Already" is more than just a book; it's a call to action, a plea for rationality, and a beacon of hope for a future where such conflicts are a thing of the past. It's a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the true costs of war!
This book stands as a crucial document for anyone looking to grasp the real impacts of these wars, not just on the countries directly involved, but on global politics, societies, and the very fabric of international relations. The author's ability to dissect the no-good reasons behind these conflicts and present an argument for ending the perpetual state of war is both brave and necessary.
"Enough Already" is more than just a book; it's a call to action, a plea for rationality, and a beacon of hope for a future where such conflicts are a thing of the past. It's a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the true costs of war!
July 17, 2025
Here’s a wild take. We could have saved millions of lives money and infrastructure and potentially still can save millions of lives money and infrastructure if the West got out of the Middle East.
The west can’t win a war in the Muslim/ middle eastern world, leave and let the people there figure it out on their own with zero hands in it.
Here’s an interesting reality that this book shed light on, Osama bin Laden wanted to humiliate the US and show the world that they can’t win a war against him or the region he’s from.
What happened in Iraq after the US topple Saddam Hussein? Oh that’s right this Shia who are backed by Iran took over the country and now Iraq is an extension of Iran.
What happened in Afghanistan? The US took out the Taliban from power and put up a puppet regime that lasted only 20 years because of the US presence being there and the second the US left the country went back to the Taliban.
Maybe the US shouldn’t keep proving the ghost of bin Laden right by wasting our resources on forever wars that get the US nowhere…..
The west can’t win a war in the Muslim/ middle eastern world, leave and let the people there figure it out on their own with zero hands in it.
Here’s an interesting reality that this book shed light on, Osama bin Laden wanted to humiliate the US and show the world that they can’t win a war against him or the region he’s from.
What happened in Iraq after the US topple Saddam Hussein? Oh that’s right this Shia who are backed by Iran took over the country and now Iraq is an extension of Iran.
What happened in Afghanistan? The US took out the Taliban from power and put up a puppet regime that lasted only 20 years because of the US presence being there and the second the US left the country went back to the Taliban.
Maybe the US shouldn’t keep proving the ghost of bin Laden right by wasting our resources on forever wars that get the US nowhere…..
April 8, 2021
It’s an absolute masterpiece. No one has a better, more comprehensive knowledge of America’s foreign policy debacles of the last several decades, and no one conveys them with more passion or relatability than Scott Horton. This book is a one stop shop for everything you need to know about the war on terror - from the ill-fated Middle East meddling of Jimmy Carter through early Biden. If you’ve ever really wanted to know about foreign policy but haven’t known where to begin or have found it all too daunting, this is all you’ll need. When I started this book, I didn’t really know the difference between and Sunni and. Shiite. Fear not. That Mr. Horton fit this much depth and coverage (even going into Somolia, Yemen, Mali, etc.) into a 300 page volume is nothing short of incredible. I couldn’t recommend this book any higher. The bi-partisan foreign policy consensus in America will hopefully soon be a thing of the past. Enough already.
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