It is altogether appropriate to commemorate the fallen of 9/11 and the spectacular acts of courage that happened on that day. Whether the tsunami of sentiment that washed over the print and electronic media today was the best way kind of memorial is not so clear to me. I won't press the point. Let America have its day.
I will comment on the past decade. The destruction of the Twin Towers resulted in two wars, neither of which is over. The first was unavoidable. Al Qaeda was deeply entwined with the Taliban government of Afghanistan when it launched its attack against the United States. It would have been a sign of deplorable weakness and a miscarriage of justice not to do to that regime what we earlier did to the Japanese Empire and the Third Reich. The invasion of Iraq was another matter. I will leave it at this: it would never have happened without 9/11.
The national security apparatus that the Bush Administration developed and deployed after 9/11 has frequently been criticized as an overreaction and a threat to American liberties. Neither is true. By any reasonable historical comparisons, what we did after 9/11 was a measured response. No newspapers were shut down nor were any editors arrested. No books were banned nor was anyone thrown into the slammer for criticizing the government. A lot inconvenient security protocols were instituted and the National Security forces started monitoring international communications with a lot of attention. One may certainly criticize some of the security measures that Bush put in place, but I note that President Obama has seen fit to keep pretty much all of them.
Muslim Americans had good reason to be afraid after 9/11, but the anticipated wave of national hatred against Muslims was conspicuously missing in action. To be sure, there were conflicts and controversies. That is what happens in an ethnically and religiously diverse republic, especially during a crisis. American Muslims immigrants are still much safer here than they would be in any of their countries of origin.
We should be on guard against any oppression of any minority or any individual. It is dangerous, however, not to recognize how well we handled the shock of 9/11. Paradoxically, it gives us too much credit. The destruction of the World Trade Center was a traumatic event for Americans, but it did not involve existential fear. To hurt us, our enemies had to borrow our own airliners. What if Al Qaeda had managed or does manage to set off a really nasty weapon in Manhattan? I submit that our reaction might be much less gentle, less tempered by concerns for civil liberties and diversity, than anything we have seen over the last ten years.
The lesson of the last ten years is misleading in another way. Al Qaeda was able to strike at us because of the assets they enjoyed in Afghanistan and international banks. That provided us with a target. We responded by destroying those assets. As for Al Qaeda itself, we killed it—one cutthroat after another.
The event that should be really terrifying is not 9/11 but the Oklahoma City bombing. That two men could act out their fantasies by destroying a federal building with hundreds of people in it tells us more than 9/11 did about the vulnerability of modern civilization.
The unthinkable hasn't happened yet. If you really care about civil liberties and minority rights and all the other things we treasure in this free republic, you might want to think about that.
"What if Al Qaeda had managed or does manage to set off a really nasty weapon in Manhattan? I submit that our reaction might be much less gentle, less tempered by concerns for civil liberties and diversity, than anything we have seen over the last ten years."
Just some things I've been thinking about, because I think the interesting thing is that most recent terrorist incidents have been few, small and carried out by kooks or incompetents. The quality of your average terrorist recruit has gone down, along with the lack of funds.
Europe has dealt with considerably more terrorism over a much longer time frame than the US. They haven't given up much in civil liberties, though some have become more xenophobic. I'm sure there will be an upsurge in our garden variety xenophobes here. They'll switch to whatever nationality will grab them the most dollars from their direct mail campaigns. And little old ladies with mild Alzheimer's will give them some contributions, which will go into their bank accounts to buy trucks with confederate flags. Still, our gutless politicians will do something to show they are doing something. I'm more scared of the idiot politicians than the terrorists, actually.
Some more questions---Why does any terrorist bomb have to be set off by Al Qaeda in Manhattan to set off an American meltdown? What if some secessionist supporter of Rick Perry had managed or does manage to set off a really nasty weapon somewhere down South? Would we just say, "Hmmm, that was interesting?" Or what if the weapon is just mildly nasty, killing 17 gay men at a gay dance venue or 3 women and a physician at an abortion clinic?
Posted by: Donald Pay | Monday, September 12, 2011 at 02:51 PM