The lesson of 9/11: War on Terror is the health of the state
20 years later, George W. Bush is still selling wars on terror. He hasn’t learned a thing — but have you?
You think of 9/11 as the day the world stopped spinning. Never again would you feel safe.
America’s ruling class views 9/11 as the crisis they couldn’t let go to waste. Not 20 years ago, and not today.
George W. Bush was president during 9/11.
On his watch America would fight a forever war in Afghanistan and a war of choice in Iraq.
A government that fails to stop a massive, highly coordinated terror attack, and uses that failure to expand its own power? Thank Dubya for that.
A war machine bumbling enough to “fight” opponents it never defeats? There was a president for that. And that man was George W. Bush.
Today, 20 years later, Bush showed he hasn’t changed and he hasn’t learned. He did the same thing he did as president — argue that “terror” represents an existential threat that demands a wartime approach. That this is America’s “continuing duty.”
From the New York Times’s report on Bush’s speech:
See what he did there? Bush didn’t just start the Forever War in Afghanistan, he supports the Forever War on Terror, whether the targets be foreign or domestic.
If America hadn’t been fighting a “war on terror” for 20 years and a war on covid the last 1.5, we might’ve seen earlier what’s so obvious right now.
The people who’ve caused most of America’s problems wear red blue ties and flag pins to work.
The terrorists won on 9/11, and our flag-pinned politicians made sure of it. They gave into the human temptation to offer big answers to big problems.
This is how you end up warring for 20 years with an Afghan militia you don’t defeat. The big brains in government, making plans. Beware.
Competence and character were always too much to ask of our ruling class. We didn’t know that on 9/11, but the terrorists did. And they were right.
Now what?