We were..

wrrrrrrrrrrrr....
wrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...
wrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

We're gonna do everything right from now on.. like we always did!

What's baffled me from the very beginning of all this GWOT nonsense is how even suspected terrorists - let alone actual terrorists - are supposed to be so dangerous that treating them by the rule of law (intended, of course, to protect us from state abuse by protecting everyone from state abuse) is supposed to somehow endanger the very existence of Western Civilization.

Can someone explain that to me?

I'm not callous about 9/11 - three thousand victims at once is a sobering death-toll, especially when you're talking about nineteen assailants armed with dinky little knives. But three thousand victims scarcely constitutes a credible threat to the existence of the United States, let alone "The West." Yeah, there's some (miniscule) risk of extremists getting their hands on a nuke and smuggling it in (which is, first of all, a lot harder than it sounds, and, secondly, a possibility that this Administration's security policies have done little if anything to effectively curtail - I've worked port security, and believe me, it's pathetic), but even at that, it's shocking to me how many Americans seem happy to accept - even enthusiastically support - the development of a police state rather then risk the very faint possibility of another serious attack - an attack which, in any event, would mostly kill city-dwellers (like me, and predominantly liberal, godless, defeatist, and elitist), and barely affect the suburban and rural-types who lean most heavily conservative and hawkish.

What the fuck are these Red-State Pansies so scared of? I mean, really.

Being proven wrong. Everything the Republicans have done in the last 6 years has been done in the name of fighting terrorism. If it turns out that maybe they're not doing such a hot job of catching terrorists they're going to look even stupider than they do now.

It's not the Global War On Terror anymore, remember?
It is now the (much more worryingly-titled) Long War..

I'm glad to hear this.

The
War
Against
Terror? (TM)

Catching terrorists insinuates that there's a finite number of them to catch, and this is why the war on terror is such a dumb idea. We can't catch all the terrorists, because every time we catch a terrorist 3 more pop up to avenge the guy who just got carpet bombed. This isn't a war in any conventional sense - the terrorists aren't fighting under the same country, same nation, or even the same ideals. There's a terrorist for every cause you can think of, from Islam to animal rights, scattered across every country in the world. And new ones are joining the ranks every day. You can't fight a war on terror. To borrow from David Cross, it's like fighting a war on jealousy. Fucking stupid.

That's what the Bush administration is afraid people are going to realize - that this whole thing is just an excuse to go to war, because no President in the history of this country has ever gone down badly for leading us in a war. It's the "get out of jail free" card for a President who would otherwise do very poorly. As soon as those planes hit NYC Bush's entire staff went, "... Jackpot."

That's a cute answer, but it's not plausible. They're afraid of the terrorists, all right - they're sincere about that. I remember back in '02 reading about some tiny town in flyover country (sorry, I really don't remember the exact place) that added a weekend security guard to its public library because the Threat Alert went up to "Yellow."

Seriously.

Millions of Americans are actually shit-scared of a bunch of god-crazy yahoos in a desert on the other of the planet who have a difficult time finding their asess with both hands and think the best thing they can do in life is blow themselves up.

Seriously. I'm not joking.

How the hell did this happen? How is it that a town whose I can't even remeber (and I'm an American Citizen) got to be so afraid that some puke-ignorant khat-chewing whackjob from Yemen might find and attack their one public library that they figured some retired postal worker looking for a little help with affording his prescriptions might actually make a difference to their safety?

Seriously. That's what I don't understand.

It's all about PR man. After September 11th the government did such a good job of convincing people that IT COULD HAPPEN TO THEM! that they actually bought it. It is incredibly unlikely that it will. You probably have a better chance of dying falling over in your bathroom.

But if all you hear 24/7/365 for years is that the terrorists are in your home... you're not going to think about replacing that bath mat now are you?

this gives me the most evil liberal idea about a cheesy sitcom where an all white catholic family hosts an exchange student whos clearly a terrorist... in that sort of hogans heros kind of way.

While I agree with the rest of your post, this isn't quite the given you seem to believe. The first attacks struck at symbols of national identity - the death toll was of almost secondary importance to the propaganda effect of crushing some of America's most cherished and identifying monuments. Put another way, if Britain were the source of al-Qaeda's ire, they'd likely have flown into Big Ben. If the terrorists were to strike again at a symbol of America - say, the St. Louis Arch, or Arlington National Cemetary - the reaction would be much less fear than anger. After all, they've done it before, so a repeat performance wouldn't be as much a surprise. The shock is already gone.

In contrast, if an al-Qaeda terrorist cell were to attack during a town hall meeting in a rural Iowa town? The terrorists appear to be everywhere, and willing and able to strike out at any level of American life. The fact that this would be easier by far than 9/11 is beside the point.

Again, I agree with everything else you said, but I don't think that suburbia or rural America's fears are wholly unfounded, just misplaced.

Huh, hadn't heard that. Whatever the hell they're calling it now, it's a lot more vague...

I guess the only fear I have regarding trying the people in Guantanamo will be the ability to gather evidence. It is a lot harder to find solid evidence in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan than it is in America, especially given the current state of chaos there. We are going to end up releasing a lot of people that probably should be imprisoned. But at least we will be able to free the truly innocent as well.

Indeed, oyaji. One of the main concerns for me when the war was (possibly?) rebranded into the Long War was that another of Orwell's quotes was being manifested:

It does not matter if the war is not real. For when it is, victory is not possible. The war is not meant to be won, but it is meant to be continuous.

I point out - since WWI, the USA has been at almost continuous war - WWI, the "Banana Wars" with the USMC acting as the diplomatic arm of the US Government that didn't end 'til 1934, WWII, Korea, the various conflicts of the Cold War...

I grant this would be true if terrorists were smart. I mean, as far as causing widespread panic and the swift erosion of civic order, the best thing al-Qaeda and Its Affiliates (tm) could do would be to attack small towns and suburban malls. That would seriously fuck shit up in what, being a flag-hating pervert in the Soviet of Seattle, I may refer to as Real America (tm).

However, the flaw in that is that no terrorist organization hostile to the United States has yet to demonstrate that quality of strategic intelligence. To that extent, until proven otherwise, Bush Country's fears pretty much remain empirically groundless. That may or may not be the case forever, as you point out.

But it is pretty well clear that the existential fear gripping Americans is, at present, a purely irrational one. There's no "probably" about having "a better chance of dying falling over in your bathroom," as Mr. Pirate put it - you do. I do. But I don't think it's just propaganda, either. Propaganda's got to have something to work on.

I had thought, originally, that in America it might have something to do with our experience in the Cold War, but I'm now coming to suspect that existential fear might, rather sadly, be something that most humans just have, wandering about their daily lives. And that it's something that's always there to be exploited by would-be tyrants who would enslave all mankind to make us safe from the Jews - I mean, objective class-enemies - I mean, Russkies - I mean, Carthagininians - I mean, well, you know what I mean.