Freedom Is Not Free

Terrorism -noun- the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.

Ideologically, yes, the military protects the freedom of its people when those freedoms are under attack or threat by a credible  aggressor, i.e. a threat that could limit or remove such freedoms entirely e.g. a coup d'état.  Credible threats to such freedoms would typically come from foreign nations or other large threats; not from small non-state actors, those are security threats.

The idea that terrorist acts precipitate change in American society is a false truth.  The Patriot Act was not a result of terrorism.  It had been drafted long before September 11th, 2001 (Paul, 2011).  Similar liberty-stripping acts and human rights violations can be found among other historic examples (Japanese internment of World War II, Jim Crow, etc.).  Public shock, outrage and paranoia secured the passage of the Patriot Act, along with the subsequent invasion of Iraq and the continued occupation of other countries abroad.

Essentially, terrorism itself does not effect change as it happens often enough without any legislation being passed whatsoever e.g. the Boston Marathon Bombing, the Oklahoma City Bombing, etc.  Bear in mind that, according to an FBI report, between1980 and 2005, 90% of terrorist activities which were conducted on US soil were by non-Muslims (WashingtonBlog, 2013). 

Notably, there are two basic ideas regarding terrorism: literal and doctrinal. Please find the literal meaning above.  Doctrinally, it means the same with the condition that, it does not matter what the US does to other groups, it matters what other groups do to the United States.  According to the literal meaning, US actions abroad qualify the state to be deemed a terror-state as it has committed a number of actions against civilian populations resulting in massive losses in order to intimidate for political ends.  If anything, US attacks on foreign nationals engender future attacks on Americans and their military (Lowery, 2011).

Accordingly, the idea that military attacks abroad prevent terrorist attacks in the future should be totally inadmissible within the realm of common sense.  It is an argument from the point of being infallible and should be considered egregious in a conversation. The consequent idea of paying for freedom through sacrifice is rhetorical and also holds no water.

References

Lowyer, G. (2011, March 2). U.s. bombing in vietnam drove civilians to viet cong. Cornell Chronicle. Retrieved from http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2011/03/study-finds-aerial-vietnam-war-bombing-ineffective

Paul, R. [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/12/ron-paul-“the-patriot-act-was-written-many-many-years-before-911-and-the-attacks-simply-provided-opportunity-for-some-people-to-do-what-they-wanted-to-do”.html

Oxford Dictionaries. Oxford University Press, n.d. Web. 05 November 2013.

WashingtonBlog. [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/05/muslims-only-carried-out-2-5-percent-of-terrorist-attacks-on-u-s-soil-between-1970-and-2012.html