The Long War Movie Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

The Long War - Movie Review Example However, there may never have been any need for such surveillance in the first place if the US had never underestimated al-Qaeda and other terrorist organisations. The line of thought of the United States is that since there were not many al-Qaeda members, they constituted little or no threats, so shouldn’t be monitored so much. This held until al-Qaeda, through the September 11 attack, proved what they were capable of. There were many options that could have been explored by the United States but they explored hard power more than they explored soft power. The application of coercion has not led to a reduction in the number of terrorist organisations and their members; it has, on the other hand increased their number. Rather than continually use coercion, Mark Sageman, one of the panellists, thinks the US could have relied more on negotiation, law enforcement and some political mechanisms. It must also be mentioned that the US seems not to be well informed to know that the Ta liban is very much different from al-Qaeda. Sometimes, rather than wage war on al-Qaeda, war is waged on the Taliban. Actually, in the opinion of Lawrence Wright of the Centre for Law and Security, al-Qaeda is not the enemy, Taliban is. The US indirectly encourages the merging of the two.