On September 11th 2001 a group of mostly Saudi Arabian terrorists attacked the United States killing nearly 3000 people. This was a monstrous act. Never for a moment believe I think otherwise.
In response we launched an attack of Afghanistan looking for a man known to operate out of Pakistan. Doing so crippled our own intelligence gathering apparatus in the region delaying his capture by years. It also killed over 70,000 innocent civilians, killed nearly 2500 American service members, cost over 2 trillion dollars, created a power vacuum that gave rise to ISIS, and provided cover allowing the United States to justify a falsely pre-emptive attack on another nation that had catastrophic costs all it's own.
In response to the attack we stripped US citizens of privacy on a staggering scale and allowed white nationalist authoritarianism to take control of nearly a third of our people.
For one moment two decades ago we had the chance to show the world true leadership, to be measured in our response to the unforgivable, to seek justice, to be better. We failed.
Never forget.
arroezze:
And I thought I was a cynic.