Our nation responds more to fear than any other emotion or consideration. We also gravitate toward big visuals. 9/11 gave us both.
Now, we're in it up to our eyeballs. Iraq, which allegedly has something remote to do with the "war on terror," consumes huge portions of our attention, the admin's focus, our military resources & our budget. Politically, emphasis on terror is completely disproportional to the threat of it; it has already played a major factor in deciding 2 elections, and - if rhetoric is any indication - will play as big a part this time around. All the while, issues that affect millions sit on the backburner.
9/11 was one of a handful of major attacks on our soil in our entire history as a nation. If you have read about the lead-up to 9/11, you could reasonably guess that the attack, which took almost 10 years to plan and an incredible stroke of luck to pull off after it was dead in the water about 8 years in, was about all OBL had in the arsenal. You keep hearing that Bush has kept us safe, because there have been no attacks since, but we're not dealing with an organization that can easily & quickly strike at the U.S.
You also keep hearing - from McCain's camp - that Obama "doesn't understand the enemy we face," and that this is war, not law enforcement. We have elevated this ragged band of n'er-do-wells to such a high status; they have no ICBM's, very little in the way of technology and limited means for attacking in our hemisphere, and yet this is the 'war on terror' and we've made them out to be a force that requires incredible military & financial resources to contend with.
The truth is, the 9/11 attacks were something of a hail mary, lobbed up there with the hope that we'd respond basically as we have; committing huge resources to a conflict that has no relation to the attacks, and draining us financially (their stated goal, at least according to OBL), inspiring jihad among new recruits all the while.
We need a massive, collective re-thinking on this entire issue. We have completely lost focus, and lost perspective on it. Almost everything we're doing now is counter-productive, and much of it plays right into the hands of those we seem determined to defeat. Terror is a method, not an army; it's been around since the beginning of civilization. We're not going to "defeat" it. We can be vigilant about it, and try to address some of the causes, but it should not dominate our politics as it does.
Now, we're in it up to our eyeballs. Iraq, which allegedly has something remote to do with the "war on terror," consumes huge portions of our attention, the admin's focus, our military resources & our budget. Politically, emphasis on terror is completely disproportional to the threat of it; it has already played a major factor in deciding 2 elections, and - if rhetoric is any indication - will play as big a part this time around. All the while, issues that affect millions sit on the backburner.
9/11 was one of a handful of major attacks on our soil in our entire history as a nation. If you have read about the lead-up to 9/11, you could reasonably guess that the attack, which took almost 10 years to plan and an incredible stroke of luck to pull off after it was dead in the water about 8 years in, was about all OBL had in the arsenal. You keep hearing that Bush has kept us safe, because there have been no attacks since, but we're not dealing with an organization that can easily & quickly strike at the U.S.
You also keep hearing - from McCain's camp - that Obama "doesn't understand the enemy we face," and that this is war, not law enforcement. We have elevated this ragged band of n'er-do-wells to such a high status; they have no ICBM's, very little in the way of technology and limited means for attacking in our hemisphere, and yet this is the 'war on terror' and we've made them out to be a force that requires incredible military & financial resources to contend with.
The truth is, the 9/11 attacks were something of a hail mary, lobbed up there with the hope that we'd respond basically as we have; committing huge resources to a conflict that has no relation to the attacks, and draining us financially (their stated goal, at least according to OBL), inspiring jihad among new recruits all the while.
We need a massive, collective re-thinking on this entire issue. We have completely lost focus, and lost perspective on it. Almost everything we're doing now is counter-productive, and much of it plays right into the hands of those we seem determined to defeat. Terror is a method, not an army; it's been around since the beginning of civilization. We're not going to "defeat" it. We can be vigilant about it, and try to address some of the causes, but it should not dominate our politics as it does.