John Quincy Adams, America’s sixth president, was of the view that his country should not go abroad “in search of monsters to destroy.” Unfortunately, going abroad in search of “monsters”, real or perceived, and killing them at will has been the central pillar of America’s security policy under the war on terror launched in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

It was two days after the attacks the US Congress gave President George W. Bush sweeping authority to use “all necessary and appropriate force” against those “responsible” for 9/11. Al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban were the immediate targets. But soon, the authority granted by this bill was extended to include terrorists, real or suspected, in other parts of the world.

Thus military operations have been conducted in at least eight countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and Niger. In Afghanistan and Iraq, this took the form of direct invasion leading to the regime change. This war for which America created a vast security bureaucracy changed the culture of US military.

The most profound change was in US policy toward outside world, for this was a war without geographical or temporal boundaries. Though it began in 2001 under the Republican Bush administration, it transmuted itself under his Democratic successor Barack Obama. Of course, Obama reduced the large engagements, but was not averse to using Special Operations forces, CIA paramilitary forces, and the drone program.

According to some reports, US Special Operations forces are currently deployed in more than 100 countries, roughly 60 percent of the nations on the planet. Whatever may be the differences in policies between Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump, they are all united in prosecuting this war as brutally and aggressively as they can. Trump, for example, has promised to “bomb the hell” out of terrorists and “defeat them fast.” Last month Somalis saw how serious he was when US forces carried out their 21st confirmed air strike in their country this year.

The costs to the US of post-9/11 wars will total more than $5.6 trillion by the end of fiscal year 2018, a new Costs of War report finds.

This is nothing when compared to the irreparable damage done to America’s image as a country dedicated to the rule of law, human rights and international conventions governing prisoners of war. Scandals like Guantanamo Bay where terrorists, real or suspected, and innocents are confined indefinitely without charge and Abu Ghraib where naked Iraqi prisoners were piled on top of each other and others were hooded and wired with electrodes are only the most publicized manifestation of this wanton disregard for law.

Was all this worth the money spent and the reputation ruined? Is the world a safer place than was the case before 9/11? It is true that the US has avoided a repeat of the 9/11 because of the attention paid to the homeland security. It is certainly possible that a few of those in plots that have been foiled would have been able to get their acts together and actually do something in the absence of the security measures taken by the US.

Bush used to say that US military were going to fight in foreign countries so the terrorists would not come to San Francisco or other US cities. But terrorists did go to London, Madrid, Paris, Mumbai and other cities. And we should remember that some of the worst terrorist attacks after 2001 took place in Iraq and Afghanistan, the countries that became ungovernable after the US invasion.

Even according to US intelligence, the number of terror groups and their associated fighters has substantially increased since 9/11, and the increase appears to be in response to US military operations rather than despite them. All this shows that the strategy followed by the US to fight terrorism has been both ineffective and counterproductive.