By Tom Englelhardt
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| A Marine convoy in southern Afghanistan in 2008 (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder, File) |
Fourteen years later and do you even believe it? Did we actually live it?
Are we still living it? And how improbable is that?
Fourteen years of wars,
interventions, assassinations, torture, kidnappings, black sites, the growth of
the American national security state to monumental proportions, and the spread
of Islamic extremism across much of the Greater Middle East and Africa. Fourteen
years of astronomical expense, bombing campaigns galore, and a military-first
foreign policy of repeated defeats,
disappointments, and disasters. Fourteen years of a culture of fear in
America, of endless alarms and warnings, as well as dire predictions of terrorist
attacks. Fourteen years of the burial of American democracy (or rather its
recreation as a billionaire’s playground and a source of spectacle and
entertainment but not governance). Fourteen years of the spread of secrecy, the classification of
every document in sight, the fierce prosecution of
whistleblowers, and a faith-based urge to
keep Americans “secure” by leaving them in the dark about what their government
is doing. Fourteen years of the demobilization of
the citizenry. Fourteen years of the rise of the warrior corporation,
the transformation of war and intelligence gathering into profit-making
activities, and the flocking of countless private contractors to the Pentagon,
the NSA, the CIA, and too many other parts of
the national security state to keep track of. Fourteen years of our wars coming
home in the form of PTSD, the militarization of
the police, and the spread of war-zone technology like drones and stingrays to
the “homeland.” Fourteen years of that un-American word “homeland.” Fourteen
years of the expansion of surveillance of every kind and of the development of
a global surveillance system whose
reach—from foreign leaders to
tribal groups in the backlands of
the planet—would have stunned those running the totalitarian states of the
twentieth century. Fourteen years of the financial starvation of America’s infrastructure and still not a single mile of
high-speed rail built anywhere in the country. Fourteen years in which to
launch Afghan War 2.0, Iraq Wars 2.0 and 3.0, and Syria War 1.0. Fourteen
years, that is, of the improbable made probable.
Fourteen years later,
thanks a heap, Osama bin Laden. With a small number of
supporters, $400,000-$500,000, and 19 suicidal hijackers, most of
them Saudis, you pulled off a geopolitical magic trick of the first order.
Think of it as wizardry from
the theater of darkness. In the process, you did “change everything” or at
least enough of everything to matter. Or rather, you goaded us into doing what
you had neither the resources nor the ability to do. So let’s give credit where
it’s due. Psychologically speaking, the 9/11 attacks represented precision
targeting of a kind American leaders would only dream of in the years to
follow. I have no idea how, but you clearly understood us so much better than
we understood you or, for that matter, ourselves. You knew just which buttons
of ours to push so that we would essentially carry out the rest of your plan
for you. While you sat back and waited in Abbottabad, we followed the
blueprints for your dreams and desires as if you had planned it and, in the
process, made the world a significantly different (and significantly grimmer)
place.
Fourteen years later, we
don’t even grasp what we did.
Fourteen years later, the
improbability of it all still staggers the imagination, starting with those vast shards of
the World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan, the real-world equivalent of the Statue of Liberty sticking
out of the sand in the original Planet of the Apes.
With lower Manhattan still burning and the air acrid with destruction, they
seemed like evidence of a culture that had undergone its own apocalyptic moment
and come out the other side unrecognizably transformed. To believe the coverage of the
time, Americans had experienced Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima
combined. We were planet Earth’s ultimate victims and downtown New York was
“Ground Zero,” a phrase previously reserved for places where nuclear explosions
had occurred. We were instantly the world’s greatest victim and greatest survivor, and it was taken for
granted that the world’s most fulfilling sense of revenge would be ours. 9/11
came to be seen as an assault on everything innocent and good and triumphant
about us, the ultimate they-hate-our-freedoms moment and, Osama, it worked. You
spooked this country into 14 years of giving any dumb or horrifying act or idea
or law or intrusion into our lives or curtailment of our rights a
get-out-of-jail-free pass. You loosed not just your dogs of war, but ours,
which was exactly what you needed to bring chaos to the Muslim world.
Please continue this article here: http://www.thenation.com/article/14-years-after-911-the-war-on-terror-is-accomplishing-everything-bin-laden-hoped-it-would/
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