Noam Chomsky argues, in this speech delivered at Harvard University, that the American "war on terror" cannot be what its name claims: a targeted campaign against a definable enemy fought through legitimate means. He walks through the logistics of the term itself, pointing out that terror requires a state actor and a stated goal, neither of which the campaign supplies in any coherent way. Drawing on decades of writing about U.S. foreign policy, he places the post-9/11 war inside a longer pattern of American intervention, citing precedents he says make the current justifications predictable rather than surprising. There is no reenactment or interview footage here, just Chomsky at a podium building his case point by point for an audience that periodically laughs and applauds. The lecture is dense with names, dates, and prior conflicts used as evidence, and it rewards viewers already familiar with his broader critique of American power rather than those meeting his arguments for the first time.