Ten Years Later.

[athelind]

This was not our era's Pearl Harbor.

This was our era's Reichstag Fire.

After reading the responses, and being asked privately, "Does that mean you're a 'truther'?", I feel the need to restate this more clearly:

The events of 11 September 2011 more closely resemble the Reichstag Fire than Pearl Harbor, most significantly in our response to them as a nation.

Certainly, it is not a one-to-one congruence -- but the "Pearl Harbor" comparison is bandied about far more often, with few objections, and the correspondence is no more exact.

The sticking point for most respondents seems to be the identity of the perpetrators of the Fire. That's a niggling detail, irrelevant to the thesis. I find the nature of our national response to be a matter of far greater importance, because we, lashing out in terror for a decade, have done far more damage to ourselves, to our freedoms, and to the world than the people in those planes ever could have.

The Most Significant Point of Similarity is not whether or not it was an "inside job", but in the fact that it allowed the ugly strain of authoritarianism that had been seeping into into our national political culture for years to finally consolidate its power and win the hearts and minds of the public.

If you want more discussion of "the nature of our national response", feel free to consult Mr. Hicks for his opinion thereon.

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Comments

[kymri.livejournal.com]

If you've gotten any messages from my GMail account in the last decade-ish (IE, since I've had it basically) you know my take on this.

I'm of the opinion that it was, in fact, an al Qaeda operation, and that it was neither perpetrated nor allowed by the Bush administration (except perhaps for some negligence or incompetence but while I bear that administration no love, I don't believe that Bush/Cheney would have allowed it KNOWINGLY to happen), but ultimately as you point out in several comments above:

It was in many ways very, very convenient for them, and allowed the implementation of further steps providing political benefits (Patriot Act, invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan) and economic benefits (KBR, Halliburton, Blackwater/Xe, and so forth).

You cannot say 'the terrorists have won' any more than you can say we have 'won the war on terror' because there's no finish line for victory in either case, really. However it's fair to say that the events of September 11, 2001 cause massive and (in the short to medium term) irreparable damage to the United States and the freedoms and civil liberties of it's citizens and those visiting it's territories (and even those further afield than that).

Suffice to say, 9/11 and our response was the watershed moment where I went from loving 'America' to loving the IDEA of America and what we can be and were rather than what we are at the moment. I hope to go back someday.