( - promoted by Fong)
DailyKos:What happened to the United States on 9/11 was no simple thing. It was an enormous tragedy that played out over several states and touched millions of lives. The impact was deep, immediate, and painful. It was an acute infection of horror.
What happened in the wake of 9/11 was something altogether different. In the end, it's what came after that is the biggest cause of prolonged suffering.
As awful as 9/11 was, it was not a threat to our survival as a nation, not a threat to our ability to project American power around the world, not a threat to our economy, not a threat to our freedoms. However, our response to 9/11 endangered all those things. It still does. Like an immune system eating itself from the feet up, we've surrendered thousands of lives, expended trillions of dollars both at home and abroad, abandoned friends, embraced enemies, and tolerated previously intolerable insults to privacy. Having recently joined the ranks of "business travelers" I can agree with this wholeheartedly.
But instead of fixing TSA* or addressing the abuses of our liberties put into place by Karl Rove and George Bush and willingly implemented by numbskulls like Michael Chertoff and Tom Ridge we waste time fighting about The President's birth certificate and other mind-numbing trivialities that generate viewers and page hits.
The answer is yes, Osama bin Laden did exactly what he wanted to the United States and its citizens with the attacks on 9/11. Republicans enabled his win almost every step of the way. Democrats sat impotent and mute as all this happened, and every flight we get on our belts and iPhones and shoes and change and underwear must be checked. And some poor, innocent schlub gets frisked by 4 TSA agents to top off the humiliation with a giant violation of the 4th Amendment, which you'll never hear civil rights activists and government reformers like Jonny Caldara or Mike "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job" Brown complain about (surprise!).
Thanks alot, guys, for making OBL's dream come true before his very eyes.
* - Didn't even know the TSA certified a union. I guess this counts as a tiny win for citizens and a big FU to Senator Jim Demint.
|
