Fareed Zakaria: What America Has Lost-It’s clear we overreacted to 9/11.

[babylonsister]

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/09/04/zakaria-why-america-overreacted-to-9-11.html


What America Has Lost-It’s clear we overreacted to 9/11.


Nine years after 9/11, can anyone doubt that Al Qaeda is simply not that deadly a threat? Since that gruesome day in 2001, once governments everywhere began serious countermeasures, Osama bin Laden’s terror network has been unable to launch a single major attack on high-value targets in the United States and Europe. While it has inspired a few much smaller attacks by local jihadis, it has been unable to execute a single one itself. Today, Al Qaeda’s best hope is to find a troubled young man who has been radicalized over the Internet, and teach him to stuff his underwear with explosives.

I do not minimize Al Qaeda’s intentions, which are barbaric. I question its capabilities. In every recent conflict, the United States has been right about the evil intentions of its adversaries but massively exaggerated their strength. In the 1980s, we thought the Soviet Union was expanding its power and influence when it was on the verge of economic and political bankruptcy. In the 1990s, we were certain that Saddam Hussein had a nuclear arsenal. In fact, his factories could barely make soap.

The error this time is more damaging. September 11 was a shock to the American psyche and the American system. As a result, we overreacted. In a crucially important Washington Post reporting project, “Top Secret America,” Dana Priest and William Arkin spent two years gathering information on how 9/11 has really changed America.

snip//


In the past, the U.S. government has built up for wars, assumed emergency authority, and sometimes abused that power, yet always demobilized after the war. But this is a war without end. When do we declare victory? When do the emergency powers cease?

Conservatives are worried about the growing power of the state. Surely this usurpation is more worrisome than a few federal stimulus programs. When James Madison pondered this issue, he came to a simple conclusion: “Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germs of every other … In war, too, the discretionary power of the executive is extended?.?.?.?and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people.

“No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual war,” Madison concluded.

[RandomThoughts]

1. Since I previously posted I am at war.

What if the war began when your freedom was stolen.

Why would anyone not be at war while that is not restored?

When you take the resources that belong to people, for instance, financing for beer and travel, then say it is their fault.

The war is obvious, its length does not matter.

And they will pay.

[Fumesucker]

2. Hoocoodanoed?

That America would overreact to 9/11?

Certainly not the Very Serious Persons..

Should have asked the Dirty Fucking Hippies, I bet they would have got that one right..

Oh.. wait.. They did..

[Electric Monk]

4. PNAC nt

[BrklynLiberal]

3. This country was led, purposefully and with much forethought, into overreaction, by the repukes.

They saw 9/11 as nothing more than a political and economic opportunity, and were determined to make the most of it.

I hope that it will eventually come back to bite them on their saggy, pasty asses.

I have not seen too much of an indication of it happening as yet. They are still out-messaging, out-defining and out-manipulating the Dems.

[Sinistrous]

5. Succinct

statement of the ugly, grotesque, obscene truth.

Thank you.

[BrklynLiberal]

6. ...

:thumbsup: :hi:

[catzies]

12. Heh. +1

[Doctor_J]

14. oops. Sorry I didn't read yours before posting #13

you're exactly right.

[indepat]

7. It's so simple: just invent continual, perpetual war so freedom can be revoked, bit by bit. This is

not rocket science. :P

[TygrBright]

8. Another one from the Duh file. n/t

[babylonsister]

10. That doesn't mean someone shouldn't point it out on occasion. nt

[underpants]

9. I think we blew up the magic monkeybars

You know- you've seen them, the stock video footage... masked terrorists jump down in a hole, crawl through barbedwire, and then (this is key) they navigate the same type of monkeybars that even we dirty Americans had on playgrounds and suddenly *poof* the magic happens!! Suddenly these mortals are able to make explosives, coordinate attacks, and (most impressively) fly massive 747's into buildings at the exact perfect angle with only the training of a computerized flight simulator. Amazing powers in those magic monkeybars. I am glad we got rid of them.

[catzies]

11. "What do you mean WE, kimosabe?" Not all of us lost our minds, then or now

Maybe it's just because I'm on the other coast, but I've felt that way since oh, about 9/12/01.

[Doctor_J]

13. "Overreacted" is not quite right, IMO

we were deliberately deceived by the PNAC fascists, who probably LIHOP. Then they let hate radio, Big Media, and Cabal "News" lie, hide, distort, and slander not only Muslims, but anyone who said out loud that this would be a nation-destroying clusterfuck.

Whatever overreaction that took place was plotted, nurtured, and welcomed by the neocons.