America, September 12th, 2001
May. 2nd, 2011 11:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalI posted this to the Lois McMaster Bujold listserve the day after the September 11th attacks. Some of it was right, some of it was wrong. It seems appropriate today to repost it and examine the outcome.
Welcome to the day after.
America is still here. Hurt badly, beyond belief, but we are still
here.
And everything, and nothing, has changed.
There are armed troops at the intersections in Washington DC. Fighter
jets are circling Manhattan. There are no commericial airliners in the
entire US. The sound of barn doors being slammed shut well after the
horses have ran is deafening.
The Washington Post, optimistically, predicts "Hundreds Dead".
But America is still here.
This attack had no military objective. It was meant to strike at our
nation's collective morale. Destroying our happy national illusion that
It Can't Happen Here.
Well it has, and it's worse that any other single terror attack in the
world's history.
And you know what? America is still here.
We mourn our dead today. We will continue to mourn them well after
today. For years to come.
But we are not going to fear.
Things are going to change, certainly. I predict that heavily armed
military presences are going to become a common sight in our domestic
airports, much as they are in other civilized nations. The blame game
as to who's critical eyes were shut when the hints of this attack came
across their desks is going to on for years. New laws will be enacted.
Our precious American freedoms are once again going to contracted for
the sake of faceless Security.
But America will still be here.
And it may take a very long time, with high casualties for ourselves,
but those ultimately responsible will not be.
It may end with a hail of bullets, a missle attack, or perhaps with us
standing frustrated and impotent at a border, while our enemies jeer at
us.
But even if it must take a hundred years of waiting, America will
outlive them, and will still be here
And those who did this will be long dead and buried.
Looking back at what I wrote, I was both wrong and right. Catching those responsible did end in a hail of bullets, but I didn't seriously think it was going to take ten years.
Once we knew it was Bin Laden who was responsible, going into Afganistan was inevitable. I couldn't have imagined we'd still be there ten years later, or that the war mongering idiots in the White House would go into Iraq as well. Now Obama, supposedly the sensible alternative to the Bush years is bombing the crap out of Libya. Meanwhile the rest of the Middle East looks at us and wonders which nation we're going to invade next. And I wonder if we're still going to be at war by the time my daughter is of draft age.
The Patriot Act was all that I feared, named to shame anyone who dared say anything against its provisions, which were blatently designed to overturn the checks and balances against overwhleming Executive Branch authority. Some of them have been overturned, some of them are still with us. No one in the White House, Democrat or Republican, is ever going to say "Hey, we really don't need this power, take it back please."
Gitmo, the fact that it was created, the fact that it still exists, shames me as an American. It was created to specifically be a legal limbo, so the Bush administration wouldn't have to deal with legal niceties like trials, open justice and possibly facing the idea that they might be wrong. It's probably created more terrorists than it ever contained, just from formenting outrage among muslims and others who were incensed at the revelations there and at Abu Gharib.
There are no armed troops at airports, but we have Homeland Security, which is almost as bad. Please take off your shoes and prepare to be groped for the sake of speedy travel.
As for fear, I was wrong there too. We fear in America. We feared for eight long years because the Bush adminstration used the threat of terrorism as a cudgel to push their policies through and try to create a "permanent majority" in both houses of Congress. We live in fear now because of the ham handed politics we're still saddled with, built on the assumption that we are America so we are Right. All the time. Every time. And no other nation in the world is really important. And that has made us ememies, will always make us enemies, until we realize we are but one nation in a world of hundreds of nations, all of whom have people that matter.
One final prediction: Osama's death will not reduce the threat of attack on the US. It increases it tenfold, because the remaining leaders of Al Quaida's core group have to do something to prove they're still a signifigant force in their fight against the United States.
And whatever they do, it's going to be something we never saw coming. And afterward we're going to lose a little more freedom and gain a little more fear.
Welcome to the day after.
America is still here. Hurt badly, beyond belief, but we are still
here.
And everything, and nothing, has changed.
There are armed troops at the intersections in Washington DC. Fighter
jets are circling Manhattan. There are no commericial airliners in the
entire US. The sound of barn doors being slammed shut well after the
horses have ran is deafening.
The Washington Post, optimistically, predicts "Hundreds Dead".
But America is still here.
This attack had no military objective. It was meant to strike at our
nation's collective morale. Destroying our happy national illusion that
It Can't Happen Here.
Well it has, and it's worse that any other single terror attack in the
world's history.
And you know what? America is still here.
We mourn our dead today. We will continue to mourn them well after
today. For years to come.
But we are not going to fear.
Things are going to change, certainly. I predict that heavily armed
military presences are going to become a common sight in our domestic
airports, much as they are in other civilized nations. The blame game
as to who's critical eyes were shut when the hints of this attack came
across their desks is going to on for years. New laws will be enacted.
Our precious American freedoms are once again going to contracted for
the sake of faceless Security.
But America will still be here.
And it may take a very long time, with high casualties for ourselves,
but those ultimately responsible will not be.
It may end with a hail of bullets, a missle attack, or perhaps with us
standing frustrated and impotent at a border, while our enemies jeer at
us.
But even if it must take a hundred years of waiting, America will
outlive them, and will still be here
And those who did this will be long dead and buried.
Looking back at what I wrote, I was both wrong and right. Catching those responsible did end in a hail of bullets, but I didn't seriously think it was going to take ten years.
Once we knew it was Bin Laden who was responsible, going into Afganistan was inevitable. I couldn't have imagined we'd still be there ten years later, or that the war mongering idiots in the White House would go into Iraq as well. Now Obama, supposedly the sensible alternative to the Bush years is bombing the crap out of Libya. Meanwhile the rest of the Middle East looks at us and wonders which nation we're going to invade next. And I wonder if we're still going to be at war by the time my daughter is of draft age.
The Patriot Act was all that I feared, named to shame anyone who dared say anything against its provisions, which were blatently designed to overturn the checks and balances against overwhleming Executive Branch authority. Some of them have been overturned, some of them are still with us. No one in the White House, Democrat or Republican, is ever going to say "Hey, we really don't need this power, take it back please."
Gitmo, the fact that it was created, the fact that it still exists, shames me as an American. It was created to specifically be a legal limbo, so the Bush administration wouldn't have to deal with legal niceties like trials, open justice and possibly facing the idea that they might be wrong. It's probably created more terrorists than it ever contained, just from formenting outrage among muslims and others who were incensed at the revelations there and at Abu Gharib.
There are no armed troops at airports, but we have Homeland Security, which is almost as bad. Please take off your shoes and prepare to be groped for the sake of speedy travel.
As for fear, I was wrong there too. We fear in America. We feared for eight long years because the Bush adminstration used the threat of terrorism as a cudgel to push their policies through and try to create a "permanent majority" in both houses of Congress. We live in fear now because of the ham handed politics we're still saddled with, built on the assumption that we are America so we are Right. All the time. Every time. And no other nation in the world is really important. And that has made us ememies, will always make us enemies, until we realize we are but one nation in a world of hundreds of nations, all of whom have people that matter.
One final prediction: Osama's death will not reduce the threat of attack on the US. It increases it tenfold, because the remaining leaders of Al Quaida's core group have to do something to prove they're still a signifigant force in their fight against the United States.
And whatever they do, it's going to be something we never saw coming. And afterward we're going to lose a little more freedom and gain a little more fear.
