Zakaria: Why America Overreacted to 9/11

It’s clear we overreacted to 9/11.

Nine years after 9/11, can anyone doubt that Al Qaeda is simply not that deadly a threat? Since that gruesome day in 2001, once governments everywhere began serious countermeasures, Osama bin Laden’s terror network has been unable to launch a single Full Story »

Posted by Joey Baker - via Memeorandum, Newsweek, Umbreen Bhatti (t), David Fox (f), Kaizar Campwala (f), Jeremy Caplan (f), avivao (f), Joey Baker (f), Fabrice Florin (f), Steven K Samra (f), Alex Williams (f)
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Posted by: Posted by Joey Baker - Sep 4, 2010 - 6:09 AM PDT
Content Type: Article
Edit Lock: This story can be edited
Edited by: David Agnew - Sep 6, 2010 - 3:35 PM PDT
Walter Cox
3.8
by Walter Cox - Sep. 13, 2010

Fareed Zakaria does a good job summarizing the case for reducing our obsession with Al Qaeda and the threat they pose to American security. The title is apt: "What America Has Lost." And it turns out that we have lost a great deal, especially personal freedoms such as the freedom to travel and freedom from undue government surveillance. How is it that we have come to accept that the U.S. government has the right to surveil our every e-mail, the title of every URL we visit, our phone conversations, our purchases and much, much more? When did we decide that we wanted to become a police state?

Makes me wish for a Republican president, because only a Republican will be able to roll back the intrusive measures adopted during our "War on Terror" without attracting the charge that he is "soft." If Obama is elected for a second term, the greatest service he could offer would be to address the nation and remind Americans that there is a price to be paid if we want to continue to be "the land of the free and the home of the brave." That price is the willingness to accept ... More »

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Randy Morrow
3.2
by Randy Morrow - Sep. 5, 2010

In the past, the U.S. government has built up for wars, assumed emergency authority, and sometimes abused that power, yet always demobilized after the war. But this is a ... More »

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David Agnew
3.2
by David Agnew - Sep. 6, 2010

…the rise of this national-security state has entailed a vast expansion in the government’s powers that now touches every aspect of American life, even when ... More »

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Joey Baker
4.0
by Joey Baker - Sep. 5, 2010

Passionate, and well argued.

Hindsight is 20-20, but now, nearly 9 years and a president later, might mark the first time it's okay to say 'time to stop.'

“No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual war,” Madison concluded. More »

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Preston Watts
2.0
by Preston Watts - Sep. 5, 2010

Clumsy attempt to tie unrelated events together. The references he uses are of no particular historical value.

US intelligence services started in 1789 with the Marshals Service and have seen more or less steady growth ever since. Whigs, Torries, Democratic Republicans, Democrats, Republicans, Federlists, War/ Defense Department among others have used and misused their services adding layer after layer. The myopic perspective of this piece tends to suggest this subject needs a journalist with a little better understanding of the historical size and scope of our intelligence community to ... More »

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