…This, ultimately, is what drives me absolutely insane. We have had five (ETA – seven) years to find Osama bin Laden and his primary associates in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We have had five (ETA – seven) years to study what the British and Israelis do and come up with a consistent and reliable plan for airport security. We have had five (ETA – seven) years to make sure a nuclear device won’t sail in on a container vessel into Baltimore or Oakland. We have had five (ETA – seven) years to figure out how to cope with a world where a steady supply of cheap Middle Eastern oil is not a sure thing. And yet, we are constantly sold the notion that this is an extraordinary menace, an unparalleled crisis, that this is a war unlike any other and that wildly exceptional means are needed to combat it, that the threat of terrorism is something that should throw us into a state of, well, terror.
And in the end, it should be obvious: this government, this administration, (ETA – this WHOLE COUNTRY) is simply not serious about fighting “terror.” If we were serious, we would have settled down from the first flush of panic and set about doing something serious: isolating radical Islam and reaching out to the mainstream (especially to the Islamic world outside the Middle East), stomping out the last remnants of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and making sure we set up a working and friendly government in place of the Taliban, building a comprehensive program of air and port security for the United States, establishing plans for coping with another large-scale attack, and ensuring that other potential state actors know of the consequences for being associated with another attack – whether those actors be Iran and North Korea, or Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Sudan and Somalia. We would have planned for shared sacrifice, asked people to adjust their lifestyles to something more appropriate for wartime. We would have tried to fight the fear.
We have done none of these things. Instead, we’re bogged down in Iraq, the one leg of the “Axis of Evil” that definitely DIDN’T have a nuclear program. We’re so bogged down, in fact, that we’re ill-equipped to mount a response to Iran or North Korea if they decide to get nasty. We still do nothing about port security, to the point where a professor with a fishing boat in San Francisco Bay can whip up a more effective nuke-warning system than the Department of Homeland Security. A Category 5 hurricane with multiple days’ notice can almost completely destroy a major American city and we are unable to respond, either before or after. The Taliban are regaining control of the south of Afghanistan, the Iranians who held moments of silence for us on September 12 are no longer in control of the government, we’re pouring every liquid on the plane into a big bin in the concourse and putting shoes through X-ray machines that won’t actually show explosives, and we’re throwing around terms like “Islamic fascism” that make everyone who bows toward Mecca think we’re out to get them. We have taken the ball and run 180 degrees in the wrong direction across the board.
Not to crib too much from V for Vendetta, but it’s true: fear has become the ultimate tool of this government. Fear is enough to keep them in power, and fear is all they can offer. There’s not a plan, there’s not action, there’s only fear – fear that has to seem as raw and scary as it was on September 11, because if we’re not terrified of an immediate threat, we might look up and realize that we’re no safer now than we were five (ETA – SEVEN) years ago. This is why they keep jacking up the color-coded threat system. This is why we get the ominous mushroom-cloud-smoking-gun imagery. This is why we hear constant alarm about duct tape and liquid explosives and hype of a new threat every few weeks, especially when it seems like people might be on the verge of asking exactly what the hell the government is doing.
For them, it’s always September 12. It has to be. There always has to be an imminent threat, something that necessitates emergency powers, something to forestall questions and investigation and just demanding to know what the hell is going on here. It’s been five (ETA – SEVEN) years. FIVE (ETA – FUCKING SEVEN) YEARS. We shouldn’t still be reeling from the first punch. But nobody in charge has a plan other than to keep reeling, because perpetuating the notion that the sky could fall any second is so much easier than actually stopping it from falling.
Wake me up when September ends.
