Many Times Worse

“The real power in America is held by a fast-emerging new Oligarchy of pimps and preachers who see no need for Democracy or fairness or even trees, except maybe the ones in their own yards, and they don’t mind admitting it. They worship money and power and death. Their ideal solution to all the nation’s problems would be another 100 Year War.” Hunter S. Thompson, Kingdom of Fear, 2003

Like most people, I remember where I was and what I was doing on September 11, 2001, the day the world changed and America became a different country. I was dropping my son at kindergarten at Roosevelt Elementary School on Laguna Street, on an absolutely gorgeous day, nothing but clear blue-sky overhead, sunshine, the weather my hometown is renowned for. My daughter was eight days old. Minutes after I deposited my son in his classroom my wife called and told me that an airplane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City. I drove home and, like millions of Americans, spent the next few hours glued to the television.

Later that day – and I remember this clearly because I wrote it down – I wondered if what was now being described as a terrorist attack by Islamic extremists would cause the United States to re-think and reconsider its policies in the Middle East.

Stupid me -- stupid, stupid, stupid.

There was, of course, no reflection whatsoever; the US was the victim of a horrific act of terror and would react in kind, anywhere in the world it deemed necessary. The language coming from the mouth of our illegitimate president was retributive. The world’s preeminent military power, the world’s sole superpower, was about to unleash the Global War on Terror. Our righteousness was just and justified. We would bring the evildoers to justice, chase them through the badlands, smoke them out and bring them down, dead or alive. The gloves were coming off. We would fight terror with terror and damn the consequences.

Little was made at the time of the national origin of the hijackers, Saudis nearly to a man, our close and dear friends and masters of one of the Middle East’s divine oil patches. Osama bin Laden, himself a Saudi, was our man, our new archenemy, and bin Laden was somewhere in Afghanistan, directing jihad against America with a satellite phone and a network of devoted, bloodthirsty acolytes. Our political leaders told us that bin Laden’s people were everywhere and called us to vigilance and faith in the American Way. W. Bush and Uncle Dick Cheney said we were attacked because the terrorists hated our freedom. The narrative lines were cast, fixed on by media mouthpieces and propagandists and politicians, and in very short order the horror of the terrorist attack was flipped on its head and became a once-in-a-century opportunity to redefine the world. Every neocon fantasy cooked up in think tanks during the preceding decade was pulled out and dusted off and shined up and carried into the public realm by Uncle Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz and Condi Rice.

The US invaded Afghanistan, quickly vanquished the Taliban (though the Taliban would just as quickly recover) and cornered, then lost, Osama bin Laden in the Tora Bora Mountains. The war was on in earnest now, and on its heels Bush and Co., aided and abetted by pusillanimous Democrats, brought us the Patriot Act and the creepy Department of Homeland Security, extraordinary rendition, “enhanced interrogation techniques,” indefinite detention, and the prison at Guantanamo. International law became something other nations had to obey. America reserved to itself the right to act unilaterally, to ignore borders and airspace.

Without much debate America adopted a permanent war footing, much of it outsourced to private contractors who made big profits with limited accountability. The brave men and women of the US military could do no wrong, and every man or woman in uniform was a hero, endlessly feted by the political class.

I remember when W. Bush made his case for the invasion of Iraq. It made no sense to me whatsoever, the premise and reasoning sounded like bullshit, and judging by the number of people who marched in the streets in cities around the world, most citizens agreed. W. Bush flipped the world the middle finger and ordered the invasion. It would become an unmitigated disaster for the people of Iraq, for the US, and for the region. Within a decade the US would be involved in armed conflicts in Libya, Yemen, and Syria. The thousands of refugees streaming into Europe from the Middle East today are a consequence of our meddling.

9/11 was a hideous crime. The response of the US to that crime made it many times worse.