War on Terrorism = 'War of Fear' According to NBC's Richard Engel

Appearing on Sunday's Meet the Press, NBC's chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel worried about the cost of combating terrorism and took the opportunity to bash the effort: "You talk about money the U.S. spent fighting this global war on terrorism. I think, which is a terrible misnomer, it's like a war on fear or something like that. And I think in many ways it has been a war of fear." [Audio available here]

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Engel made the comments on the heels of a panel discussion about efforts to reduce government spending, in which host David Gregory feared the U.S. could experience rioting similar to Greece if entitlement programs were cut back. Engel chimed in and lamented: "The United States spent at least a trillion dollars on this [war on terrorism] for the last decade. And we've become very good at killing bearded men in Waziristan. But there are trade-offs. We've – China owns a tremendous amount of our currency, and we've focused on other – ignored other national priorities."