[jlgreco]

You were probably downvoted because a "War on Terror" is not necessary to minimize terrorism. Nor, as you point out, does minimizing necessitate destroying our rights and liberties.

"The War on..." is a phrase that signals to us that we should be on the lookout for crude solutions that do more harm than good. It is a crude phrase that perfectly embodies the simplistic attitude that inevitably backs whatever program the phrase is being used to describe.

Wherever there is a "War on..." there is almost certainly something that we could be doing smarter, rather than harder.