I’m not sure we ever really learned the lessons of 9/11. Instead of the country rallying as it did in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, we began a civil war, where the executive branch was at odds with the State Department, the Military was at odds with the intelligence community, and a wave of hatred blew across the country like a tornado through Kansas. Muslims were not the target of the hatred to our credit, but every conceivable group found itself pitted against its mirror political image, and any civil discourse became impossible.
I think the reason, one reason, is that the terrorists fought us with small strategy, as opposed the the big power of the ex-USSR. We are vulnerable to what is small, both politically, and biologically–a simple common cold can lay us up for a week.
We did not recognize the basic post WWII alliance between the US and Europe was over and had been for some time. We did not understand that our institutions, such as the courts, and the government were caught completely unprepared. The growth of Iran in nearly ten years has shown us the inherent sloth of big government, while the terrorists adapt quickly.
Essentially, we had become a country locked into one way of thinking, and even thought the need for change was evident, change to what?
The reduction came to a matter of fighting or giving up, and we simply did not have the accidental training of the WWII generation that so easily led them into combat mode.
Right now foreign and domestic policy is weighted towards the autocratic, the abusers of human rights, the murderers of the world. Although the US government doesn’t out and out support the Taliban, they do support those who provide financial backing for the terrorists.
Both political parties have shown a lack of will in even trying to formulate a different path. Bin Laden did not just strike the World Trade Center, he struck at the fundamental weakness of the western worldview. Bin Laden expected chaos to follow, and it did. Even if he had the technology to do the same thing, he wouldn’t have dared provoke my father’s generation the way he has provoked the Baby Boomers.
The US is not without hope, but that hope does not lie with the government or our established institutions. I believe the hope sits in certain science labs and in the offices of some venture capitalists. That is, the first step is to change our energetic infrastructure.
The attempts to rework the political atmosphere of the Middle East, although well intentioned, hasn’t really worked to the point of effectiveness.
