The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, succeeded far beyond anything Osama bin Laden could possibly have envisioned. This is not just because they resulted in nearly 3,000 deaths, nor only because they struck at the heart of American financial and military power. Those outcomes were only the bait; it would remain for the United States to spring the trap.
The goal of any organized terrorist attack is to goad a vastly more powerful enemy into an excessive response. And over the past nine years, the United States has blundered into the 9/11 snare with one overreaction after another. Bin Laden deserves to be the object of our hostility, national anguish and contempt, and he deserves to be taken seriously as a canny tactician. But much of what he has achieved we have done, and continue to do, to ourselves. Bin Laden does not deserve that we, even inadvertently, fulfill so many of his unimagined dreams.
It did not have to be this way. The Bush administration’s initial response was just about right. The calibrated combination of CIA operatives, special forces and air power broke the Taliban in Afghanistan and sent bin Laden and the remnants of al-Qaeda scurrying across the border into Pakistan. The American reaction was quick, powerful and effective — a clear warning to any organization contemplating another terrorist attack against the United States. This is the point at which President George W. Bush should have declared “mission accomplished,” with the caveat that unspecified U.S. agencies and branches of the military would continue the hunt for al-Qaeda’s leader. The world would have understood, and most Americans would probably have been satisfied.
But the insidious thing about terrorism is that there is no such thing as absolute security….
I suppose the fact that Iraq was busy violating the peace terms imposed on Iraq after Gulf War I and that Iraq admitted that Hussein wanted the West to think that he still had WMD had nothing to do with anything?
Given the shock of the 9/11 attacks, and fearing the unknown, we seemed to do the right thing initially: plan for the worst and hope for the best. Recall in the first few weeks after 9/11, the churches were full.
Slowly we discovered the terrorists were not 10 feet tall and able to hit at will. In everyday life, we returned to doing everyday things.
But at the Govt level it seems that the initial need to “do something” has never stopped. As Koppel notes in one sentance, we have built a huge shadowy security apparatus that is so large, yet, at the same time so nebulous it almost seems to be unknowable in its whole. Who believes that such a massive thing will be nimble and able to react with precision to a real threat?
For those who hammer Bush about going into Iraq: how many Kerry’s have let the world forget about their votes to invade, made either out of fear, good intentions, or for political point scoring? Their dialog and contributions have been nil. Harry Reid should be made to pay daily for his “the surge has failed” comment.
The leadership that was on display on 9/11 and 0/12 devolved into politics far faster than it should have.