The Death Of A Winner
Before 9/11 the United States was a beacon of freedom and what was right. “Your papers please” was a phrase that differentiated the US from the dictatorships of the communist east block. All that changed on 9/11. Radley Balko sums it all up:
We have also fundamentally altered who we are. A partial, off-the-top-of-my-head list of how we’ve changed since September 11 . . .
- We’ve sent terrorist suspects to “black sites” to be detained without trial and tortured.
- We’ve turned terrorist suspects over to other regimes, knowing that they’d be tortured.
- In those cases when our government later learned it got the wrong guy, federal officials not only refused to apologize or compensate him, they went to court to argue he should be barred from using our courts to seek justice, and that the details of his abduction, torture, and detainment should be kept secret.
- We’ve abducted and imprisoned dozens, perhaps hundreds of men in Guantanamo who turned out to have been innocent. Again, the government felt no obligation to do right by them.
- The government launched a multimillion dollar ad campaign implying that people who smoke marijuana are complicit in the murder of nearly 3,000 of their fellow citizens.
- The government illegally spied and eavesdropped on thousands of American citizens.
- Presidents from both of the two major political parties have claimed the power to detain suspected terrorists and hold them indefinitely without trial, based solely on the president’s designation of them as an “enemy combatant,” essentially making the president prosecutor, judge, and jury. (I’d also argue that the treatment of someone like Bradley Manning wouldn’t have been tolerated before September 11.)
- The current president has also claimed the power to execute U.S. citizens, off the battlefield, without a trial, and to prevent anyone from knowing about it after the fact.
- The Congress approved, the president signed, and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a broadly written law making it a crime to advocate for any organization the government deems sympathetic to terrorism. This includes challenging the “terrorist” designation in the first place.
- Flying in America now means enduring a humiliating and hassling ritual that does little if anything to actually make flying any safer. Every time the government fails to catch an attempt at terrorism, it punishes the public for its failure by adding to the ritual.
- American Muslims, a heartening story of success and assimilation, are now harassed and denigrated for merely trying to build houses of worship.
- Without a warrant, the government can search and seize indefinitely the laptops and other personal electronic devices of anyone entering the country.
- The Department of Homeland Security now gives terrorism-fighting grants for local police departments across the country to purchase military equipment, such as armored personnel carriers, which is then used against U.S. citizens, mostly to serve drug warrants.
Bin Laden set out to destroy the United States. I’m sure he took several victory laps before he died. The first was when the “Patriot Act ” was passed. Two more when we went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. The freedom which the US stood for is gone and the country is bankrupt. The imperial presidency was seamlessly passed from a Republican to a Democrat. Yes, Osama bin Laden may be dead but he died a winner.
Cross posted at Newshoggers
39 Responses to “The Death Of A Winner”
Great post Ron and you’re absolutely right but you’d better get ready to duck because I’m sure the neo-cons (TMV-o-cons?) will try to paint your pointing this out (not the changes made to our laws, values, and who we are) as an unpatriotic action.
Thanks for posting this Ron. Another unfortunate aspect: We now have a generation growing up in this warped version of the USA who will think these intrusions and loss of freedoms are normal for our country. I also worry that the spill over has infected the general attitude of authority figures on a local basis, such as police, who seem to have less concern for fair and respectful behavior toward citizens generally, i.e. taser usage, assett forfeiture, etc. None of this bodes well for a country that was founded on principles of individual freedom.
You’ll note that the comment by gcotharn did not address any of the 13 points made in Ron’s post. Why? Because all of Ron’s points are valid and cannot be disproved with segues.
Attack the messenger… Is more and more the only response righties have to the very real challenges to our basic values and liberties that we face today.
I wonder how Ron would look wearing an NVA anti-aircraft gun?
Blah, I guess that has been done before.
If I’m not mistaken Ron, like most of us “old-lefties” here at TMV is (unlike most the “old-righties” here at TMV) a veteran.
Was that your point ShannonLeee, or did I miss something?
Balko said: He Won. That was the point.
Yes, we have changed, OBL did a job on us.
I agree with all the posters except gcotharn.
In the name of securing ourselves, we gave up way too much. All of Ron’s points, with the exception of perhaps the laptops at the border, are valid (I think that has always been the case – entry into the country has always allowed for much greater search leniency, I believe).
I am old enough, as others are here, to remember being told what an oppressive society communist countries were, because of so many things we now allow and take for granted.
Unfortunately, the concept of ‘you should never let a good crisis go to waste’ long precedes Rahm.
GC, Sorry, I’m not clear. I mean he won a battle, not the war. Therefore I agree with you. What I now see are police and soldiers at Grand Central, Penn Station, LIR, etc. You can’t go into buildings without a security check and forget about airports with the shoes and xrays and bottles of water. Of course these are merely inconveniences, but it all adds up to a negative feeling as we go about our “changed’ lives. I now hesitate to go on vacations overseas with this cloud over everything. But, hey, you are still correct, we are still among the best countries.
gcotharn:”Why do you guys write as if U.S. flaws are unable to be rectified? Do you have zero faith in the self correcting mechanisms of the U.S. Constitution? Do you have zero faith in the American people? In the process?”
—
History, mostly. It’s practically impossible to give people back power that the government has taken. The supreme court has become our last resort, and it’s got a somewhat spotty history of limiting the government, and a much spottier one for reversing a previous decision.
> It’s practically impossible to give people back
> power that the government has taken.
It’s the Left that has wanted government to have and take power!
[bowing]
g, we were not “primed” to react as we did, we were lead into acting as we did. An excellent leader with peace and strength and true security as his or her goals would have handled things much, much differently, and the outcomes would have been much, much better. It was a monumental failure of leadership that lead us here. Well, that’s my thought, anyway. There are a few camps on that — was he an incompetent nincompoop or an evil genius? It depends on whether you think that our current position is a feature or a bug.
In any case, this idea you seem to have that it was all inevitable and we are what we were and this is just a logical outcome? Yeah, I guess if you believe we’re all on some cosmic wheel controlled by the unseen hand or something, that makes sense. In a world where actions have consequences, and our ship goes where the captain steers it, your conclusions make no sense.
Ron, rather than make a broad, general accusation, I’d redirect my attention to specifics, such as the challenge and ethical case that was made public news by Peter “Beware those Muslims” King (R-NY), that bin Laden’s whereabouts were obtained from “waterboarding” and some including King use that fact or claim as justification for “harsh interrogation.”
DLS:”It’s the Left that has wanted government to have and take power!”
—
Why yes, yes of course… and the right.
Most power grabs required a lot of bipartisan work and the cooperation of several branches.
“Balko and Beasley and SteveK and JSpencer are exactly wrong. You guys are not realists. You are poor analysts.” – gcotharn
I’ll do you the favor of a reply: You are exactly wrong. You are not a realist. You are a poor analyst. That said, I enjoyed reading other replies to your unique position.
Prof: Yes, yes, and the right, too. Some of them have been corrupted by the excessive power (and influence) in our federal government, in particular. (The 2006 and 2008 anti-GOP elections were in good part because of this.)
It’s the Left’s creation, as is judicial activism (and the use of the courts as a political weapon), and I blame the correct true party even if someday the leftist phenomenon temporarily shifts to the right.
Our only respite will be in more austere times, probably after 2020.
G. Cotharn wrote:
> If America is permanently “changed” b/c government
> has instituted molestation of air travelers, then America sucks,
> and America is not worth standing up for, and I am either moving > to the secret Colorado valley, or joining the Texas Secession
> movement.
Careful — the worst will assail you for the last item (even if they might have been enamored in earlier years or decades and felt themselves in solidarity with Quebecois secessionists).
What’s interesting is not only the fascination of secession (and of partition and conjunction of existing states staying in the Union, and of regional views of modern, superior reconstruction), but in the case of the Vermont secessionist movement, who expressed their support openly for it, including George “Containment” Kennan and leftist icon John Kenneth Galbraith, among them.
P.S.
http://vermontrepublic.org/the-texas-nationalist-movement-line-in-the-sand
OK, now be prepared to be assailed (or worse) by the worst.
No, we weren’t. What, precisely, about being in a democratic republic primed us for going toward any of the things listed in the post? You’ve provided no evidence for your statement, and I think it’s exactly wrong. Going *away* from our values as USians has lead to these things, and they are indeed fundamental changes that demonstrate a fundamental change in the people.
Ron, re my last (open) note to G.C.: You’re aware of this idea as well as of the concept of regions. (As for Texas, if Quebec can claim to do okay and give Denmark or the Netherlands as counter-examples when Quebec is called “too small,” well — is France or Germany a “shitty little country”? (What one French official said about Israel)
Roro wrote:
> An excellent leader with peace and strength
> and true security as his or her goals
Obama showed strength, which is necessary sometimes to achieve or to secure peace.
What’s “true security,” incidentally? Cradle-to-grave entitlements and if need be, entertainment (circuses along with the bread)?
Roro — P.S. I’m not accusing you of being like hero-at-the-time-to-many-in-the-world Neville Chamberlain, incidentally.
(bin Laden wasn’t Hitler, anyway, but more like an Al Capone)
I’m somewhere in the middle of the arguments.
Yes, bin Laden did occasion some specific instances of loss of freedoms, but I would pare the list down to only those that are now affecting regular folks. You can have all the blogosphere discussions about detentions of illegal combatants until the cows come home, you can worry yourself sick over some dude eavesdropping in your Sunday night call to your mother-in-law, but to call that changing the lives of Americans is hyperbole.
What I think 9/11 brought to the US was the irrefutable notion that the world is filled with new source of nasty characters in a singularly tragic form of wake-up call.
Nonetheless, NYC city schools had metal detectors back in the 80s, European airports were filled with Uzi packing cops since the IRA days, government buildings have outside patrol routines since McVeigh.
bin Laden accelerated the encroachment on rights, but he didn’t solely occasion it. he’s a winner to the extent of most everyone adorning the photography wall of Post Offices…..who curtailed the rights or lives of others.
Did he actually change my outlook on things prior to 2001? No, he didn’t….he just changed the time I have to leave for the airport.
We are humans, not cold steel robots.
Speak for yourself, Gco!
DLS — I’m talking about national security, which is entirely obvious from context, so no need to get ridiculous, k?
G — Your comment makes no sense whatsoever in context. No, we haven’t always had bad governance and poor leadership, and I dare say that we have *never* had it like we had it from Bush on and following 9/11, not when we really needed it, nor with the vast and likely long-lived, far-reaching consequences that came along with it. Maybe Hoover. Maybe.
But still, g, please tell me what about our system of governance means that this was inevitable given good leadership? We have, most certainly, changed. Not that that is always a bad thing, but in this case, it’s pretty universally bad.
DLS Said
…”(bin Laden wasn’t Hitler, anyway, but more like an Al Capone)”
Right on DLS!
The “change” that these folks decry was actually started by our own locally-grown criminal terrorist, Timothy McVeigh.
I actually have a great deal of faith in the process and in the American people and in the government that results. The mechanism that self-corrects is triggered by discussion and dissent with the way things are, which is what Ron is doing in his post.
I have faith that terrorists can be prosecuted in the US under the laws of the US, and that they can be imprisoned and punished here. I have faith that the law enforcement and intelligence agencies in the US can protect us and capture or kill the terrorists without us having to resort to conventional war. I have faith in the Uniform Code of Military Justice, that we don’t need to torture people to get information, leaving our military personnel themselves exposed to torture.
I have faith in our Constitution and the way we have used it for more than two hundred years, I have no need to change the way it is interpreted nor do I need to question the integrity of the judiciary when there is a ruling I disagree with.
I have faith that a free people can generate security without giving up their freedoms.
I have been told I am wrong on these and more for years now. I am not.
David Mtem: Yes, McVeigh, a far right terrorist, stealing the terrorism show and reviving terrorism from a former era featuring our most famous = terrorist group, the former show, the far-right KKK.
g, the article is clear that “all that changed after 9/11″ — it doesn’t say that Osama Bin Laden did all that changing. Looking at the list in the post, it’s really clear that the author is making the argument that the laws we put in place — and particularly the laws and constitutional principles that we decided to ignore — are what changed. The whole PR campaign of fear was the tool the leadership used to change us, and the attacks were the catalist or, some would argue, the excuse. And yes, that campaign, the slow erosion of our civil rights, our willingness to put “security” above freedom and the consitution — this is how we changed. I’m fairly certain that was the entire point of the article, which you evidently missed entirely.
As for your whiney straw-lefties, blah blah blah. There’s nothing even worth responding to when you just pull entirely silly things out of thin air and decide that that’s what the left is like. The left like ponies! The left have green spots on their bums! The left are commies! The left are big meanies! The left prefer arugula to chard.
Also: Bush as a leader didn’t “arise”, he was elected. My point, of course, is that who we elect actually matters, because when the sh*t hits the fan — and it always will, eventually — there needs to be someone in charge who will say more than “go shopping”. Which is why we should elect people who are not proven dunderbrains. Which is why the current top 10 Republican contenders scare the crap out of me.
At least Roro correctly said “elected,” not “appointed” [sic].
And he may not have arisen, true; the competition certainly fell in quality and desirability. (Even managing to lose the debates to Dubya! That in fact made the public believe Bush could win…)
Who would say “appointed”? I have no idea what you’re going for here, DLS.
I’m not crazy about this new system. I disagree with you on several points, but I agree on the 2:56 post.
roro – you will have to turn in your Democratic Party membership card if you are not careful!
ALL Democrats know that GB was “appointed” President by SCOTUS.
Well, he wasn’t “appointed”, he was just “helped out” a bit.
Not sure what the excuse was the second time around, but I know that most of the folks who thought GWB was their champion for all those years can’t seem to forget him fast enough now. That particular dynamic seems to be a favorite of the right.
The US doing exactly what he hoped he would do, is different than him “causing” that change. You are getting mixed up on their point — and mine — because you’re taking the statements too literally.
Oh, I see — appointed. Well, of course he wasn’t appointed. The manner in which he was elected, and in which the recount was called off, are highly suspect, and I don’t agree with any of what went on, but that doesn’t mean he was appointed.
It’s not as bad as it seems… once you get used to it.
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Not personal.We have taken away the freedoms Osama wanted destroyed.
when the iraq war started, the US would send one private contractor for every 150 servicemen. Today, private contractors outnumber soldiers.
Eisenhower warned against the military industrial complex. we have become victims of the contractor industrial complex. Our economics changed after WWII and it changed with BushCo’s Iraqi invasion.
Osama won because he made us what we swore to fight against.
The control of government has been passed over to a small elite of power brokers.
Cgotharn, you are totally delusional to believe that these changes implemented at osama’s command were from him.