Stoopid Stuff

What's it Going to Take?

The images are permanently etched in our collective conscience. The heartbreakingly clear blue sky. The city in the summer. The orange fireball, the confusion, the fear. The second impact, so much more ominously terrifying than the first. The collapse. The stunned, dusty survivors, the frantic search for victims, the final count both amazingly small and overwhelmingly huge.

Where were you on 9/11? A moment in our history that will go down with The Maine, Pearl Harbor, the Kennedy assassination. It was an event that simultaneously demonstrated our best natures and our shared psychoses. As Americans, we wanted to share our grief and help our fellow citizens hurt by this monstrous attack, but all of that was somewhat obscured by our desire, or perhaps more accurately our desperate need to hit back. Hard.

So here we are today, looking back on six years where much of our lives, our politics and the way we view the rest of the world is shaped by the events of that summer day. Our government's response was to launch military invasions and subsequent occupations of two different Muslim nations. To turn their backs on our legacy from Nuremberg, on our steadfast belief in human rights, in our commitment to our constitution and the kind of liberal democracy it defines. Put simply, they killed 3000 of ours. We have killed close to a million of them, and still so many Americans do not yet feel they can call it even.

Of course, the stupidity of a military response to an asymmetrical attack is almost too massive to describe in useful terms, and virtually every action America has taken as a result of the 9/11 attacks has been counterproductive at best, and outright helpful to those who would attack us at worst.

They say 9/11 changed everything. I'm not sure that's true. But it is certainly true that six years after the attacks, virtually everything has changed. But much of that is a result of America's ham-handed, blundering responses to the attacks, rather than the attacks themselves. America is hated and feared in the world as she has never been before. Sure, American interference in the sovereignty and internal affairs of other nations throughout history is well documented, but illegal aggressive invasions, military occupations, indefinite detentions without due process, torture as an instrument of policy and a bullying, coercive form of diplomacy by the nation once called "the shining city on the hill" is unprecedented. A few small, cowardly little men of little imagination and even less courage happened to be in charge that day, and it is they that took us down this ruinous course. But it is us, of course that allowed it to happen. If you are still here, and have not yet been named an "enemy combatant", there is blood on your hands also.

There was a kind of balance in the Middle East and Gulf region, achieved after years of political juggling, proxy fighting, wars, near wars and cold wars. Every force was balanced, offset by an opposing force. The American-Israeli alliance was actually an exception to that, in that Israel was allowed to play a role all out of proportion to her actual political, economic and military role in the region. But while Israel was allowed to run roughshod over her neighbors, offending and angering the nearby nations, there was just enough restraint to keep it from getting out of hand most of the time, and things were kept roughly in parity. The lynchpins to this regional balance were Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran and Iraq. Secular, highly militarized Iraq served to deter both Shiite Iran and intensely theocratic Sunni Saudi. It was messy, and sometimes violent, but it was, by and large, working.

Then the US invaded Iraq, toppled Saddam and deposed his government. When the US found it had nothing to put in it's place, Sistani brought pressure to bear for national elections, and the Shi'a majority took power. The result was not just chaos and bloodshed, but chaos and bloodshed that served as a proxy for the region. The balance was smashed, and every nation now must reexamine it's influences and alliances. The Shiite Iran/Iraq alliance on the gulf is now the major power, and Egypt, Turkey, Saudi and even Israel must now consider where they are in a hierarchy of belligerent powers. And they have the US to thank for this condition.

So now we have a Global War on Terror, a Department of Homeland Security, and a surveillance state that is only one attack away from being a police state. al Quaeda attacked us, but in our fear, our anger and our need to lash out we took over for them. bin Laden is sitting in his house in Warziristan, laughing. Because all he has to do is produce media now. Americans have taken the job of destroying America, and they are doing it much more effectively than he could ever have hoped for.

Look. This is very simple. al Quaeda can kill American citizens, and can destroy buildings and Landmarks. We know we can survive all that without suffering any real impact. But in our reaction to this amorphous, assymetric threat it is us, our Leaders and Lawmakers and Pundits, who will bring about the end of America. al Quaeda only had to get the process started. Six years on, we've taken on the job and are accomplishing it with that vaunted American effectiveness. And for what it's worth, I don't see a way to reverse the trend...

posted by mikey @ 11:59 AM