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filkertomFive years ago this morning, thousands of people were killed by terrorists, and our country, our world, began to be turned upside-down. We mourn those lost people, and those who have been lost after.
But.
Three questions must be asked -- okay, several thousand questions must be asked, but let's keep it down to these three:
But.
Three questions must be asked -- okay, several thousand questions must be asked, but let's keep it down to these three:
- Do you really feel safer today than you did five years ago?
- Do you really feel the actions taken by our government with the stated purpose of protecting us have worked?
- Do you really feel the actions taken by our government with the stated purpose of protecting us have been worth it?
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 09:26 am (UTC)No. Not only have those actions not reduced the likelihood of a terrorist action in the US, but have created a new hotbed of terrorism and worsened the world's perception of the US beyond anything I've ever known, thus increasing the likelihood of its enemies' success. (And possibly to its lowest level historically.)
And, with the exception of dismantling the Taliban (with the stated but clearly not actual purpose of capturing Osama Bin Laden), no. (And by all reports the Taliban is now in charge of a good chunk of Afghanistan, as well as some of the border country with Pakistan.) The number of Americans killed in the pointless Iraqi war has now approached or exceeded (I haven't checked lately) the number of total fatalities on 9/11 (which included foreign citizens); if we add even just fatalities on the side of the US-led coalition, that number leaps higher, and if we add in the Iraqi non-insurgent fatalities, that number leaps sky-high. For No. Good. Reason.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 09:32 am (UTC)Have the actions taken worked? I cannot say this question is fully answerable. The stated purpose of all these actions is to protect US Citizens from further terrorist attacks on our own soil. Since we haven't had any further attacks, one could certainly say it has - but that can be likened to the old saw "Why are you hopping and dancing around?" "I'm trying to keep away the alligators" "But this is Montana, there are no 'gators here!" "See, it's working!". I've heard of plots broken up by OTHER governments that supposedly involved intel provided to them by the US government, but the only way to answer this question affirmatively or negatively is to wait a)until there is a legal trial and conviction in the US of people involved in a non-9/11-involved terrorist plot or b) another terrorist attack takes place. Any bets as to which happens first?
The ultimate question you asked - has it been worth it? Given that the evidence we have indicates that these actions have done squat, I would most definitely have to say no.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 09:52 am (UTC)No, I felt safe because of the statistics. Even with the WTC, over the past ten years the average American has been fifty times more likely to be murdered by their fellow American (the non-terrorist ones) than be killed by a terrorist of any country. And they've been a hundred times more likely to commit suicide, and about six to seven thousand times more likely to die of heart attack, cancer, or any one of a number of common diseases.
Even if I lived in America - heck, even if I lived in New York - it would make more sense for me to be scared of McDonalds and second-hand cigarette smoke than terrorists.
Here's a question - in the five years SINCE 9/11, how many Americans have been killed on their own soil by foreign terrorists? And how many hundreds, if not thousands of other causes of death have killed more Americans in the same period?
Now ask why none of THOSE got more coverage than 9/11.
The chance of being killed by a terrorist is still - and always has been - incredibly small. You might as well have someone running the country into the ground by convincing people that any minute now, they're all going to be struck down by flying left-handed bagpipes.
It'd be great! We could pass all kinds of freedom-raping, constitutionally illegal laws under the name of Anti-Flying Left-Handed Bagpipe Acts. We could throw people we didn't like or who were the wrong color or in the wrong place at the wrong time into concentration camps under suspicion of being a bagpipe player, or knowing someone who might have known a bagpipe player. We could actively and continually break the law ourselves, both personally and as representatives of our offices, and say "You bagpipe-apologist!" if anyone ever questioned us.
And people would never do anything about it. Not because we'd rigged all the elections and voting machines anyway, but because they'd never bother to stop and realise that hey, there really aren't that many left-handed bagpipe-throwers around, despite all the media coverage.
Sounds like a plan. Who wants in? We'll get some silver-spoon failure at life to be our figurehead, and we can sit in the background and wield all the power. I'll take the Advisor for Kickbacks and Porkbarrelling position, and funnel billions into my own companies and those of my friends. All the other positions are up for grabs.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 10:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 10:25 am (UTC)No. I felt scared five years ago. I can't say that I didn't feel more or less safe. I'm not scared any more, though. I'm pissed off. And at the regime right here in this country, for using 3000 innocent victims as their excuse to trample civil liberties in this country, begin a war of aggression against an uninvolved country, and commit war crimes in the process. I don't know what country this is anymore, but it's not America.
No. Were I more of a conspiracy theorist, I would endorse the idea that the government has specifically taken actions to make us less protected so that the resultant fear can be used to control the populace. I don't specifically ascribe to that theory... but neither can I dismiss it out of hand.
No. The better question is, "Worth what?" None of their actions have prodiced a whit of enhanced security. Our ports are still uninspected. Our chemical plants and nuclear facilities are still unprotected. And our illegal presence in Iraq has created more terrorists than bin Laden ever dreamed of having (assuming he's even still alive).
Here's the great unanswered question: Dumbass claims that "the turrists hate us for our freedom"... and his answer is to make us less free. So by his own definition, that makes him a "turrist" too.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 10:35 am (UTC)You've got the right idea. I worded the questions partly to avoid jamming thunbs down on political hot buttons before we even got started, but mostly to remind people that the generalities and platitudes constantly thrown at us are completely insufficient to the debate. And getting past those generalities and platitudes does tend to lead us back to the same set of unanswered questions.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 11:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 03:33 pm (UTC)By God, you're right. Being in favor of education is now considered a position open to controversy. Because Rove's research showed that people without educations would be more likely to become conservative Republicans...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 04:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 11:06 am (UTC)Yesterday I made the most depressing purchase I've ever made... I picked up a luggage tag with the flag of a country whose citizen I can pass for. Because for the first time in a globe-travelling life, I will be going overseas... and am afraid to admit I'm American. And it's not because of what happened 5 years ago today. It's because of what *we've* done since.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 03:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 03:52 pm (UTC)That's hardly the entire story, of course, not by a long shot -- but that's an easy and short version, and our "government" not only doesn't do anything to dissuade people from it, they encourage it, both overseas and here.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 04:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 04:20 pm (UTC)I'm disgusted by the Bush League and everything they stand for, and I'm enough of a proud American patriot to get sick to my stomach at the idea that BushCo and The United States of America are one and the same. No gorram way are they one and the same.
America is amber waves of grain, liberty and justice for all, government by and for the people, the right of free speech, one person one vote. It's Louisiana gumbo, Cape Cod chowder, Omaha steaks, Brooklyn borscht, Santa Fe burritos, St. Louis barbecue, Oregon salmon and Michigan miners' pies. America is sunset over Hawaii, trout fishing in Carolina, autumn in Vermont, the Grand Canyon, Mount Rushmore, Niagra Falls, the Mighty Mississippi and the even mightier redwoods. America is Woody Guthrie, Walt Whitman, Thoreau, Twain, Aldo Leopold, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Rachel Carson. America is Jazz, Zydeco, Bluegrass, Dixieland, Miles Davis, Aaron Copland and Satchmo. And we're Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, and Kennedy.
WE are NOT King George the Turd.
Fucknuts, Tom. You might as well reduce 800 years and 5 continents of the British Empire to Duke Northumberland the Serf Twister and Grumpy Lord Bowlegs.
The Bush League is 100% not the United States. He's against everything good about America, and for everything Un-American. If he tried to shake hands with a real American, there would be an apocolyptic matter/anti-matter conflagration that would threaten to destroy the known Universe.
Got that? Bush =/= The United States.
This is why I want to see my fellow proud Americans shouting from the rooftops that this President does not act for us.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 05:03 pm (UTC)What I'm saying is, Chimpy and his crew have the keys. They're driving. They're doing an unspeakable job of it, they're destroying everything in their path, they're grinding down the engine... and everyone around the world watching us figures that if we, the hapless passengers, aren't taking the wheel, we must think it's a great joyride or something.
I'm not saying it's right. I'm saying that, as long as these evil fucktards keep acting with American resources in the name of America, they are America. It's up to us to stop them. And we haven't found the way to do that yet.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 05:15 pm (UTC)Now, your second paragraph here, I'm in total agreement with. I can't begin to count the number of times--dating back to the day after the 2000 election--that European friends have asked me to explain just what the bloody hell is going on over here. A lot of times, conversations start with "Oh, we know there's a difference between the American government and the American people"... which is doubly chilling to those old enough to remember the Cold War and that we used to say the exact same thing about the Soviet government and the Russian people.
But I still disagree that they are America. To take your analogy a little further, it's not that they have the keys, it's that they've car-jacked the country.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 05:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-12 04:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 06:36 pm (UTC)Yeah. And you, me, and the rest of real America are locked in the trunk, banging and yelling for help. Is it that hard to figure out why we're not taking the wheel?
Well, he's gotta pull over for gas in November. Maybe we can make our move then.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 04:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 11:37 am (UTC)I live in New York City. On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, I was driving to work, and on the 59th Street Bridge when the attacks occurred. I saw the second fireball with my own eyes. I got to work 3 hours later to find an e-mail from
Regarding air travel, I felt safer by noon on September 11, becuase I knew the era of hijacked airplanes was now over. The countermeasure that would prevent an airplane from ever being hijacked was other passengers. In less than 24 hour, the passenger and pilot perception of a hijacking was forever transformed from "an economic transaction that will inconvenience us for a day or two" to "a threat to everyone I have ever loved, and this is my big chance to be a hero!" That's been borne out over and over again.
Most of the security I have seen taken by our government with the stated purpose of protecting us has been "security theatre." It can only be said to have worked in that it has made the gullible among us feel safer. It has mitigated no risks.
Most of the rest has been the administration simply learning "protection from terrorism" as the new marketing lingo for what they wanted to do anyway.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 11:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 11:44 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 11:47 am (UTC)2. Hardly, if at all. It's debatable whether actions at the airports have truly made authorities any more watchful for threats, and those determined to thwart our measures will eventually get past them at least once. Putting thousands of troops into hostile situations without clear purpose is not helping our overall security. Taking those troops from state National Guards undermines the states, and the declining standards for soldiers will harm our national security for years to come. Katrina proved that folding FEMA into a larger bureaucracy (DHS) with that layer between it and the chief executive was unwise. Of course it must be noted that Osama is still at large, but more importantly, we don't seem to have broken the command structure of Al-Qaida (the true objective to neutralize such a terrorist organization) no matter how many "second-in-commands" we capture.
3. Looking at our busted federal budget and international standing, and degraded military -- nope.
No, No and No
Date: 2006-09-11 12:09 pm (UTC)I believe that the current government will be, once again, heavily leaning on the 9/11 crutch in the upcoming elections. Show us all more ugly images and we'll vote "right".
I do not subscribe to the view of the world that they peddle. One can never be completely safe unless one gives up all control over one's life and liberty, and even then it's questionable that it would be "complete" security.
I was born in the US and live here now, but I grew up in Europe. I talk to my relatives on the phone a lot. They ask me sometimes what our government is thinking. I tell them I'm not sure, but that I hope to find enough like-minded people to vote the way I do to hopefully change some things soon.
In the meantime, I hope to make my flights to California and back with less than 5 hours waiting at each airport ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 12:44 pm (UTC)Has the government's actions worked? Some what. Some holes have been found and filled. Some new proceedures have streamlined things, making them work better. These are good.
Much of the action have just been busy work.. doing something so people won't point and say "You're not doing anything". These are not so good.
And much has been done for totally brain dead, cause we always wanted to reasons, which is terrible. These are horrifying.
Has it been worth it? NO
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 01:24 pm (UTC)Yes.
I know I'll be an oddity for answering such but I do feel safer. 9/11/01 wouldn't have happened if two things were taking place back then. The first is better communication between government departments (FBI, FAA, CIA, etc...) and the second is having the current president taking terrorists as serious threats. I know our government is imperfect and mistakes will happen and terrorists will find loop-holes to get through the system. But the current state is much better than on 9/10/01 when the current President's policy was to sit on his ass and takes lots of vacations.
Do you really feel the actions taken by our government with the stated purpose of protecting us have worked?
Yes but...
Some actions taken are actions that protect us. The creation of the Department of Homeland Security, in theory, is a good idea. I'm not sure how much safer in actuality it is going to make us. Other actions such as a war that isn't a war in Iraq when there is no ties to Al Queda or WMD is not making us safer. In truth, it is making people hate us more and that includes no terrorist countries that we had good diplomatic ties with.
Do you really feel the actions taken by our government with the stated purpose of protecting us have been worth it?
No.
I want my lost civil rights back. While I, personally, don't give one shit about who listens to my phone conversations to my mom, I fully understand and support another American's right to have his phone calls private. I want my library records protected. I want that guy in Albany, New York to be able to get a fair trial. The fact that someone in this country can't defend himself because the defense attorneys can't access the information being used to keep him in jail, without bail, is classified as a risk to national security. This is from the same FBI agents who committed entrapment in the first place to put the guy behind bars.
I want this money going towards a war that shouldn't be taking place to pay off our national debt or be put towards giving our country a real education program. I want to see tax break incentives going towards companies that develop systems that don't depend on oil. Because so long as this country depends on oil, we support the terrorists we are supposed to be fighting.
And when it gets down to it... God Bless America. We really need all of the blessings we can get.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 01:57 pm (UTC)There is such a thing? As far as I can tell, they haven't even improved communications between NYPD and NYFD.
and the second is having the current president taking terrorists as serious threats.
He is? It's seemed more like he's taking terrorists as serious marketing stock. Maybe I'd think he's taking terrorists as serious threats if he'd managed to keep Pakistan from cutting a peace deal with Osama bin Ladin.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 03:41 pm (UTC)That's still his policy. Come to think of it, one of the few things that does make me feel safer is when I know he's down in Crawford, borrowing the saw from Jorge the ranch foreman to pose for another "I'm cutting brush" photo op before his power-nap.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 01:33 pm (UTC)Right now you could make a good case that the country doing the most to promote and encourage terrorism worldwide is the US. And as for destroying our freedom, the terrorists are well on their way to winning. Welcome to the 21st Century.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 01:50 pm (UTC)It seems that every generation this century has had a moment like that.
Black Tuesday, Pearl Harbor, the assassinations of JFK and Bobby Kennedy... Each one a day that tore further away from our innocence.
And we have this.
I don't feel safer. I've stated again and again, loudly and clearly, that the path our government has taken is not the path that will help us the most. But at this point, no matter how much I make myself heard and try to make my vote count to change the status quo, I'm not sure I care. This government is no longer "by the people, for the people." It's "by the dollar, for the dollar." And that is what's truly sad. That all of these people who have died in this travesty have been glossed over, trampled in the rush by bureaucrats and fatcat CEOs to make a bigger profit.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 01:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 02:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 03:27 pm (UTC)They screwed up everything. On purpose. Like they've done with everything else.
RIP, 9/11 victims
Date: 2006-09-11 04:00 pm (UTC)* Do you really feel safer today than you did five years ago?
* Do you really feel the actions taken by our government with the stated purpose of protecting us have worked?
* Do you really feel the actions taken by our government with the stated purpose of protecting us have been worth it?
Answer: No, no, and no to all three.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 04:13 pm (UTC)I can feel safe because I'm being held by my husband, but that doesn't mean anything about how safe I actually am.
But I do not think I am safer today than I was five years ago, and I do not think I am safer today than I thought I was five years ago.
Question the second and question the third: No, and no.
And those are cases where I think that what I feel has some concrete connection to the actual state of affairs.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 05:52 pm (UTC)Yes, I feel safer than I did five years ago -- I have seen proof of CSIS and the RCMP nipping terrorism in the bud, stopping horrific things before they could happen. We're more aware than we were in 2001, and the people whose job it is to protect us have learned what they're looking for, and seem to be good at finding it.
Watching the US government, however, I must say:
The opposite of Terror is Courage.
The opposite of Terror is not Paranoia.
Perhaps someone should hand Mr. Bush a thesaurus ....
It was sane and understandable to declare war after the WTC disaster. One declares war, however, on another country, not upon an intangible. Even to declare a series of wars, each with its own end, would have been preferrable to this "War On Terror" -- as others have said, how do we know when we've won?
You win a war on poverty by helping people build lives and livelihood; you win a war on hunger by feeding people. Similarly, I would think that you'd win a war on terror by teaching people to be brave and aware and careful, and by building good, firm friendships, both at home and abroad.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 07:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-11 09:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-12 12:32 am (UTC)The reaction was all knee jerk and cost billions of dollars, many more lives than lost that day, and embarassed the country.
I hope that people aren't successful in fiture attempts but I figure eventually someone will be.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-12 03:04 am (UTC)But when I walk down the street back home now, I can nod to those around me. My brothers. My sisters. We're still americans, no matter what we politisize over, and I've got their backs. Just like they've got mine.
Do I feel safer? Now, even after all we've done? Yes. I feel safer because I know that my fellow american is likely to stand by me should the going get tough. Before that, I didnt know if I could trust anyone. Although there are still many psycho's out there, I believe the good ones outweigh the bad. I may have less trust for my elected Heads, but I feel safer - knowing that when we get together as -Americans-, not repubs, or Demmies, or leftists or Rightwings, We're more powerful than anyone can possibly imagine.
As for our Government? I do not know. I may believe not, but I am not omniscent. I do not know exactly how we have effected the world - only how I percieve we have. I dont believe things have been done right. I believe they could have been done much better. I believe things still need to change in many different directions. I dont think everything's worked. I dont think EVERYTHING has utterly failed. So I dunno exactly how to answer those last two, really.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-12 03:12 am (UTC)