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Go Home America May Have Overreacted to September 11 … but...

FOREIGN POLICY SEPTEMBER 11, 2010

America May Have Overreacted to September 11 … but Americans Didn’t

BY REUEL MARC GERECHT

Did America overreact to September 11? In a recent column in Newsweek, Fareed Zakaria answered that with an emphatic and mournful “yes.” In Mr. Zakaria’s telling, we’ve squandered billions of dollars heedlessly feeding our national security bureaucracies, which hardly provide us, as the French nicely put it, a very good rapport qualité-prix. Worse, we’ve created an intrusive, abrasive, civil-rights-mauling security and intelligence apparatus that “now touches every aspect of American-life, even when seemingly unrelated to terrorism.” Mr. Zakaria uses the book Zeitoun, about a Syrian-American who finds herself bounced around by National Guardsmen and other counterterrorist dimwits in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, as an exemplar of American decency forfeited since September 11, via our never-ending war against Al Qaeda, an outfit that, as it turns out, really isn’t much of a threat at all.

I’m deeply sympathetic to the first half of Mr. Zakaria’s charge; the more serious bureaucratic and moral indictment, however, runs exactly counter to his. Concerning the wasted billions, the Department of Homeland Security, the rest of the agencies, departments, and bureaus that make up America’s national-security and intelligence complex, Mr. Zakaria is far too kind. The official American love affair with “bigger is better” was writ large by Congress and the White House after the nation watched jet-fueled bombs incinerate New York City’s most iconic skyscrapers and one side of the Pentagon.

Predictably, but unwisely, Democrats and Republicans demanded ludicrous amounts of funding for security and intelligence institutions whose functions they barely understood, and to counter a threat that had no resemblance to any the United States had confronted before. Armoring aircraft doors, tightening up airport security, and turning off the visa mill to Muslim men of an impressionable age was sufficient to discombobulate Al Qaeda’s penchant for aerial terrorism. The absolutely critical war in Afghanistan aside, many other things were required to play better defense and offense against Al Qaeda, other jihadist organizations, and Islamic radicalism in general. But none of these things required that much money or personnel.

Whatever the subject, “smaller-is-better” arguments seldom win the day in Washington. Americans may have once prided themselves on the ingenuity and freedom of their capitalist system, but bureaucratically Americans take second seat to no European. When confronting threats real or imagined (and Al Qaeda/bin Ladenism counts as one of the most lethal enemies we’ve ever encountered), Americans tend to go big, very big. (Here, there’s little real distance between Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich.) And when senior agency heads—“professionals” all—swear that they must have more case officers, analysts, field agents, police, technicians, translators, and any and all existing and even not-yet-existing counterterrorist technology and machinery … at least if we mean to postpone Armageddon … well, politicians just melt.

In my experience, senators and congressmen on select intelligence committees or staffers on the National Security Council rarely delve into the nitty-gritty of exactly how additional staff members accomplish anything of additional value. It is always good to recall that Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, one of the Central Intelligence Agency’s most articulate (if not always sober and fair) Cold War critics, who knew the organization was stuffed with ill-informed analysts and prevaricating senior operatives, never once, to my knowledge, reduced Langley’s appropriations.

Now for the good news: I just peeked outside and we are emphatically not becoming a police state. We were not doing so under President George W. Bush and we are not doing so under President Barack Obama, who has left untouched most of his predecessor’s intelligence and counterterrorist programs and tactics (with the notable exception that Mr. Obama has been killing a lot more holy warriors with drones and attempting to capture and interrogate far fewer of them).

No doubt: Innocent Muslims find themselves caught in the net, but the truly grievous miscarriages of justice appear to have been relatively rare, especially given the scope of the threat that Al Qaeda and other jihadist organizations present. My former colleague at the American Enterprise Institute, Gary Schmitt, and I spent two years—2006 to 2008—visiting European internal-security and domestic-intelligence services. AEI has recently published a collection of essays—Safety, Liberty, and Islamist Terrorism—by Gary and European contributors that compares and contrasts American and European approaches to counterterrorism.

The conclusion: Contrary to received wisdom, Americans have been, if anything, more tentative and cautious in their approach to the jihadist threat than many of our European allies, who routinely use surveillance, administrative detention, and prosecutorial methods much more intrusive than those employed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, our primary counterterrorist organization on the home front.

I’m quite certain that Mr. Zakaria might not approve of some of the things that France and Great Britain do (I don’t), but I doubt he’d depict either country as tilting over the edge of some dark abyss. In fact, even as France and Great Britain were gearing up their counterterrorist machinery after September 11 (the French didn’t have to do too much, as their own internal security organization, the DST, became well aware of what jihadists could do when terrorists tried to derail a high-speed train in 1995), their societies were becoming more open and liberal. Today, civil liberties are no more endangered among our two closest European allies, which also boast the two most effective Western counterterrorist systems, than they were before September 11.

So, too, in the United States. When I first flew into Washington after September 11 (I was then living abroad), a veiled Muslim woman searched my luggage. (A good call, given my mien and all the scribbled Middle Eastern and Central Asian visas in my passport.) Indeed, Mr. Zakaria’s rise to prominence after September 11 itself offers testimony to American openness, fairness, and good sense.

What becomes so striking about the United States after September 11—and the same may be said, perhaps a little less enthusiastically, of the Western Europeans—is how well-behaved Americans have been towards Muslim Americans. Cock-ups aside (and anyone who has worked in the internal-security or intelligence business knows that disheartening errors come with the turf in this very bureaucratic line of work), Americans have shown themselves to be models of tolerance, all the more given the insidiousness of the threat.

I suspect that even if Al Qaeda were to enthrall better-educated, more scientifically-skilled talent and wreak an even greater magnitude of havoc, our creedal emphasis on liberty, equality, and tolerance would keep Americans from enshrining collective guilt in official policy, or even in the popular imagination. Now, if only we could rid ourselves of the conviction that bigger is better and create a leaner counterterrorist bureaucracy. Then again, that would not be the American way.

Reuel Marc Gerecht is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a contributing editor at The Weekly Standard. 

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72 comments

"Al Qaeda/bin Ladenism counts as one of the most lethal enemies we’ve ever encountered". From that perspective, no amount of money and no encroachment on civil liberties is excessive. From another perspective one might ask whether our reaction has made us and the world appreciably safer from similar attacks, or whether a different reaction would have provided an appreciably better result. Mr. Gerecht seems to believe that our reaction should be judged, not on what we have accomplished, but on what we have avoided, namely that the US has not turned into a police state. Maybe Zakaria, Ted Koppel (see the WP), and other critics of our response have too high expectations for the US. Maybe Reagan's vision of America as the city upon a hill is too much to expect.

- rayward

September 11, 2010 at 8:40am

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After I was given "We are fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here." as a justification for occupying Iraq, I lost my confidence in people in authority on the issue of fighting terrorism.

- Nusholtz

September 11, 2010 at 9:40am

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Fareed Zekaria minimizing the Islamic danger to America not withstanding. Anyone who cared to look after 9/11 would have seen all over the Islamic world an explosion of celebration that the Crusaders had been wounded. Joyful Muslims in the streets distributed sweets to celebrate the 9/11 victory. That is what the background of the discussions on security for the US should be and not "We have been attacked by extremists who hijacked Islam, a religion of peace." Which it is far from being. Arabs to this day live and relive the crusades. They consider the US a Crusader forcing Crusader's idea's such as democracy on Muslims who have their own ways of doing things. Like it or not Arabs are still fighting the Crusades, repelling the infidels. Why am I the only one with the courage to see the truth and say it out loud?

- Poupic

September 11, 2010 at 9:44am

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Give yourself a medal Poupic, only you really get it, only you really cared to look after 9/11. God I wish I was you, I'm not worthy.

- WandreyCer

September 11, 2010 at 10:16am

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"Like it or not Arabs are still fighting the Crusades, repelling the infidels. Why am I the only one with the courage to see the truth and say it out loud?" Poupic, why do you think it takes "courage" to say that? Marty Peretz and many of his regular commenters have been saying or implying the same thing for at least a year on this site. One might respond that a few hundred people dancing in the streets here and there in the Middle East is not necessarily representative of the nearly billion Muslims in the world, or the millions of Muslim Americans.

- NR143296

September 11, 2010 at 10:39am

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Do you think anyone in Washington understands that this fatwa is a foundational document for all Islamists, e.g., Hamas and Taliban, and not just a memento from 1979 that only Al Qaeda still believes? Palestinian Abdullah Azzam was a highly educated Islamic scholar, who embraced jihad as religious duty after the 1967 war in Israel, and became mentor to Al Qaeda after writing this fatwa in Peshawar, Pakistan. The entire fatwa is at the URL at the end, but here is one sample of what Azzam wrote, supporting all that Poupic et al write. No other Islamic Sunni scholar has ever written a fatwa that negates Azzam, who gave religious endorsement to the writings of Sayyid Qutb. "DEFENCE OF THE MUSLIM LANDS The First Obligation After Iman by Sheikh Abdullah Azzam (Shaheed)" "...Conditions for Making Peace Treaties With the Kuffar... We say, it is permitted to make peace treaties, if in the treaty there is good for the Muslims, but under the condition that there is no clause within the treaty that nullifies or corrupts it. Such as: 1) It is not permitted to include a condition in the treaty that relinquishes even a hand span of Muslim land to the Kuffar. Because, the land of Islam belongs to no one, therefore none can make negotiations over it. Such a condition nullifies the treaty because the land belongs to Allah and to Islam. It is not permitted for anyone to misuse anything in a domain not his own. Or to barter the Son of Adam that does not belong to him. With reference to the Russians, it is not permitted to negotiate with them until they retreat from every hand span of Afghani territory. With the Jews in Palestine, likewise. ..." http://www.religioscope.com/info/doc/jihad/azzam_defence_6_chap4.htm

- K2K

September 11, 2010 at 11:28am

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Poupic obviously has not heard of freerepublic, townhall, and a million other right wing websites. Too funny. I think this article is suffering from bad timings, being that it has come amidst all the useless sturm and drang over the Islamic Community Center in lower Manhattan. Of course we have overreacted to 9/11. To give an example how, no less than David Gergen, the font of conventional wisdom, has justified opposition to the site on this ground: The Vatican withdrew support of a Carmelite convent at Auschwitz. That withdrawal I totally support, however Gergen did not see fit to mention there was not an Offtrack Betting site, strip clubs, gay bars, McDonalds, etc. all at Auschwitz, whereas these are all in lower Manhattan. And in my mind far more serious: How dare he compare 9/11 to Auschwitz. According to figures provided by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, the overall number of victims of Auschwitz in the years 1940-1945 is estimated at between 1,100,000 and 1,500,000 people. The majority of them, and above all the mass transports of Jews who arrived beginning in 1942, died in the gas chambers. 2,753 people died in Manhattan. Essentially, Auschwitz exterminated people at the rate of 9/11 every day for well over a year, and this was just at Auschwitz alone. Given the hysteria over the simple building of a Sufi Mosque (one of which was recently bombed by Al Qaeda in Pakistan, so nice touch blaming Sufi victims of the bombing as being the same as the victimizers). Yeah, I think we lost some perspective. 9/11 was not among the worst tragedies to ever befall the earth. No one anywhere should ever equate 9/11 with Auschwitz or the Holocaust. 9/11 was a wakeup call, it was a tragedy for the families and friends involved, but it was not close to a death blow. The worst thing about it is how it has turned so many Americans into self inflicted victims, wherein we have people in Tenn. angry that a Mosque is to be built blocks away from the crash site. Associating guilt to people who had zero to do with the event. I might as well blame Mormons for the Inquisition since they are both Christian.

- blackton

September 11, 2010 at 11:58am

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K2K, of course any of us can find religious figures or politicians who say inciteful things. This guy though ain't the Pope of Islam, his word is not law. This is from Tikun Olam-תקון עולם Mike Huckabee recently went to Israel his trip was sponsored by a settler wingnut outfit called the Jewish Reclamation Project, which is a front group for Ateret Hacohanim, a U.S. registered non-profit which raises an average of $2 million each year used to displace Arab residents of Jerusalem and replace them with pro-settler Jewish fanatics: His visit to Israel was hosted by The Jerusalem Reclamation Project and its Chairman, Dr. Joseph Frager. NY State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, will join also join the popular columnist and Fox News host. Ateret is also handsomely supported by U.S. bingo king and settler financier, Irving Moskowitz. Hikind is a former leader of the Jewish Defense League, who now represents some of the most rabidly pro-settler ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods in Brooklyn. His wife, Shoshana happens to also be Ateret Cohanim’s U.S. fundraiser (surprise, surprise). What I find extraordinary was that Huckabee is spending almost all his time visiting settlements. And not just any settlements, he went into the heart of the most extreme of the settler extremists meeting with the Gush Katif dissidents and Hebron settlers (who produced Baruch Goldstein, among other Jewish gifts to humanity). Keep in mind, these Gush Katifniks were diametrically opposed not to the policy of the U.S. government, but to policy of their own democratically elected ISRAELI government. And they didn’t express their opposition by petitioning or demonstrating, they expressed it through acts of violence and mayhem. This is who Mike Huckabee chooses to spend time with when he visits the Holy Land." It goes on in a similar vein, but surely you are aware that there are many end of times Christians who vigorously support Israeli control over Judea and Sumeria because it was in the Bible. Look, I think they are both wrong, obviously, and Israel has not acted as these fundamentalist Christians would want (rebuild the Temple, expel all Palestinians, throw Christ a homecoming party) and I know that our whack jobs are far outnumbered by their whackjobs, but I don't think you can only go by the belief that because there are so many Muslim whackjobs, we must treat them as all that way. And the funny thing is my High Schools mascot name was the Crusaders (I went to Catholic school and the banner was that of a literal Crusader), we were taught at school to be Crusaders for Christ. And I see absolutely nothing wrong with that. I will not disavow my religion or apologize for the Crusades (after all, I didn't do them). Of course, the modern day definition of Crusader for Christ is a lot different from the old one, but push come to shove in the end if need be we will kill you in defense of our religion and our freedom.

- blackton

September 11, 2010 at 12:20pm

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by the way, this is a direct quote from Huckabee: "It's inconceivable that we would ever understand how two sovereign governments would control the very same piece of real estate. We don't know how that would work," Huckabee said, elaborating on his opposition to the two-state solution. He compared the ban on Israeli settlements in Arab areas of East Jerusalem and the West Bank to segregation between black and white Americans in the deep South during his childhood. He called for "integration" between Israelis and Arabs. Read more: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1917389,00.html#ixzz0zI1e2Uh1 Obviously, this is just nuts. And he is the front runner for the Republicans in 2012.

- blackton

September 11, 2010 at 12:23pm

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blackton, I have also used the controversy over the Carmelite operation at Auschwitz in these discussions on the Park51 mosque, to offer a potentially illuminating example of a religious institution being removed from a location even though they were perfectly within their legal rights to be there. I was not comparing the Holocaust and 9/11, which I would find quite as monstrous a rhetorical maneuver as you would. I don't know why it's a problem on TNR, but every so often it seems necessary to explain the difference between comparing an element of two entities and two entities in their totality (if you make it clear that you are comparing an element of a larger complex, then you shouldn't be accused of comparing the totalities), and between comparison and endorsement (to compare two things is not to endorse both things).

- ironyroad

September 11, 2010 at 12:39pm

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I don't think the author of this pathetic little apology even read Zeitoun.

- waroberts

September 11, 2010 at 1:03pm

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irony, but the analogy falls so flat in so many ways, there are no OTB's at Auschwitz, no McDonalds, no strip joints. The sites are on an order of magnitude far, far different, that people shouldn't even want to equate the two in anyway. Why not compare the Blitz and any hypothetical banishment of all German cultural centers in London? We firebombed Dresden, killing tens of thousands of innocents knowing full well that the city was not one that was producing armaments in any large number, but to you think Americans take kindly if the residents of the town said nothing American should enter? As to the Convent it was at Oswiecim, where a camp was used to detain and kill Poles, and which has become a symbol of Polish martyrdom for the nation. It is also the site of an extermination camp where Nazi Germany killed, according to Yehuda Bauer of Hebrew University, about 1.35 million Jews, and which has become the most preeminent symbol of the Holocaust, the convent was just outside Block 11, the notorious torture prison in Auschwitz I, visible from within the camp. The Catholic church and the Polish people viewed the site as part of their own martyrdom. Many saw in it an attempt by the Catholic Church to de-Judaize the Holocaust especially since there is Catholic presences in many other Holocaust sites. Is there any evidence whatsoever that Imam Rauf is trying to do any such thing? Shall I list all the Catholic presences within a short distance of many of the other concentration camps? That was never a problem.

- blackton

September 11, 2010 at 1:11pm

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by the way, the Carmelite nuns moved into a building at Auschwitz, converting it into a convent, to, as they stated, offer prayers for the dead. The building housed Zyklon B containers during the war. So 4 blocks away, surrounded by OTB's, strip clubs, McDonald's is the same as within the exact same building that housed Zyklon B. Sorry, but there is no comparison.

- blackton

September 11, 2010 at 1:19pm

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"Al Qaeda/bin Ladenism counts as one of the most lethal enemies we’ve ever encountered." Really? You'd put it right up there with the 10,000 nukes pointed at the US by the Soviet Union, any one of which would have, if launched, killed orders of magnitude more than died on 9/11? With the Fascist powers in the late 30s and 40s which cost the West millions of casualties and threatened the foundation of liberal democracy? With the narco-powers that kill far more than 3000 Americans every year peddling hard drugs and the violence that comes in its wake and may prevent a major state (Mexico) from the better future they otherwise might achieve? As lethal as global warming? The WORST Al Qaeda and bin Laden could throw at the the US was 9/11 (either that, or you believe they led with their weak hand - something not born out by subsequent events). That threat was countered by the first efforts we made in Aghanistan, and some long overdue changes in airline security. Of course Islamist terrorism is a threat to the West, and were they to acquire a nuclear capability, they'd be a truly horrifying threat - on a bad day they might kill several hundred times what they accomplished on 9/11. But they would still fall FAR short of being an existential threat. Other than the narcos everything I listed was an existential threat, and justified (or justifies) a commensurate response. 9/11 wasn't even close. Had we reacted commensurately to 9/11, we'd have cleaned up airline safety, wiped out Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, stepped up our efforts to control the potential for loose nukes falling into the hands of terrorists, stepped up cooperation on suppression of terrorist elements in the West and failed states - all in as low key a manner as possible - and totally eschewed the "apocalypse is near" approach that justified Iraq, the boondogle that is TSA, the massive investment in our military, etc. So yes, American - and Americans, who have by and large supported the madness in our response - over-reacted. Massively. We moved house because we had a minor roof leak, at the cost of enormous expense and disruption.

- IowaBeauty

September 11, 2010 at 1:21pm

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This is very much what I cover in my book, Radical State: How Jihad Is Winning Over Democracy in the West (reviewed by Forbes at www.blogs.forbes.com/michaelnoer and available through Amazon or B&N, if anyone is interested). The problem has come from both left- and right-wing responses to the threat; but to pretend that the threat isn't there, as seems to be the latest trend, is both stupid and dangerous.

- Abigail1

September 11, 2010 at 1:22pm

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With all respect Irony (and I do respect your posts), you reacted similarly to my use of the LIttle Rock 9 to illustrate the invalidity of the proposition that the Park51 proponents are the cause of the conflict rather than those who oppose the project on religious grounds. In my view, it is like suggesting that the conflict that arose from the Little Rock 9's actions was their fault rather than the fault of the opposers. I was not suggesting an equivalence between current anti-Muslim bigoty in America and Jim Crow. I was comparing an element of the two situations, not the two situations in their totality. Dhurtado

- NR143296

September 11, 2010 at 2:58pm

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Dhurt, I take your point. It does indeed look as if I'm defending myself to blackton for doing the same thing that I attacked you for doing elsewhere. Perhaps in my defense I'd say two things here: 1) The symbolic force of the Little Rock Nine in a discussion in the U.S. is greater than the Auschwitz/Carmelite story, and to use it inevitably opens up a completely different discussion about civil rights, Jim Crow and other distinctly American histories. 2) I would grant you the LR9 example if you were prepared to add, "but I want to make it clear that I am not claiming that American Muslims are a long-opppressed minority on the level of African Americans." I didn't get the impression you were willing to offer that rider, but maybe you are now?

- ironyroad

September 11, 2010 at 3:35pm

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Sorry, that was a bit unclear at the end. What I am asking is whether you accept that your statement: "I was not suggesting an equivalence between current anti-Muslim bigoty in America and Jim Crow. I was comparing an element of the two situations, not the two situations in their totality" may also be read in the way I expressed it: ". . . but I want to make it clear that I am not claiming that American Muslims are a long-opppressed minority on the level of African Americans"

- ironyroad

September 11, 2010 at 3:38pm

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Irony- Yes, I do accept that my statement could be read as you expressed it. I guess I didn't think I needed that rider the first time around (although my recollection is that I did express the rider more than once in responding to the criticism of my use of that analogy), any more than you should have needed such a rider here. It didn't occur to me that such a claim could be inferred from what I said. But I'll try to be clearer in the future. Dhurtado

- NR143296

September 11, 2010 at 5:38pm

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Me too. Clearer, I mean. We may have a communication gap here, as I inferred something you didn't mean to imply. There may be something about the emotional volatility of the events we're discussing.

- ironyroad

September 11, 2010 at 5:47pm

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I don't quite understand the reason for Fareed Zakaria's ascendancy to the role of a public intellectual. In his latest book, much to my astonishment, he listed a number of examples which in his opinion are symptomatic of America' declining power in the world: "Look around. The world's tallest building is in Taipei, and will soon be in Dubai. Its largest publicly traded company is in Beijing. Its biggest refinery is being constructed in India. Its largest passenger airplane is built in Europe. The largest investment fund on the planet is in Abu Dhabi; the biggest movie industry is Bollywood, not Hollywood... The largest Ferris wheel is in Singapore. The largest casino is in Macao, which overtook Las Vegas in gambling revenues last year. America no longer dominates even its favorite sport, shopping. The Mall of America in Minnesota once boasted that it was the largest shopping mall in the world. Today it wouldn't make the top ten...." I cannot begin to figure out how the juvenile phallus envy of "mine is bigger than yours" can be cited, and trotted out as proof of an ascendancy or decline of any kind and taken as serious investigation by other pundits. It resembles the thinking in certain countries, let's say, in the Middle East. It's not the real thing. It's about appearances, not substance. If I were to try to assess America's health in the world I would probably compare the number of books written, the number of universities, the number of pharmaceutical researches producing ground-breaking medicines and techniques, the newest technologies, the new ideas emanating from the Humanities, the newest plays being performed, the newest trends in music, the newest laws guarding against discrimination, etc etc, I think you get my meaning. On top of that there was the scurrilous gesture of returning the ADL's award to Abe Foxman in protest against the ADL's expressed position about Imam Rauf's project. To me it seemed like the act of a man who was looking for an excuse to return an award; perhaps being honoured by the Jewish NGO was felt by Zakaria to be too onerous an embarrassment. I don't believe his apologia, especially as soon afterwards comes his disgraceful soliloquy in which we have been regaled by a tale of wonderous tolerance about how Hizzbolla, unlike its image in America and elsewhere, is actually not too far from being a model of ethics on par with Mother Theresa's, when it comes to Jews. A model for aMericans to follow. http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=3&x_outlet=14&x_article=1912 Zakaria's ruminations about an over reaction to Al-Qeida fits the pattern charted above. He seems to be in the business of making light of terrorist organizations, one way or another.

- noga1

September 11, 2010 at 5:56pm

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"Did America overreact to September 11? In a recent column in Newsweek, Fareed Zakaria answered that with an emphatic and mournful “yes.”" Zakarai would say that wouldn't he? The lies in the fact that there hasn't been another massive attack on US soil since 9/11. Does this mean that we needed to spend so much in order to avoid another attack? No. But it does mean that those who think that we overreacted like Zakaria are not people who wish us well.

- jdyer

September 11, 2010 at 6:05pm

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irony, one other thing, the Carmelite Convent was done in 1984 when General Jaruzelski was in charge of Poland, I hesitate to give him any legitimacy over what was "legal" there. I think the Catholic Church, with the Polish Government, was trying to claim a greater victimhood. Even if not, to reside in the building that stored Zyklon B is...well, I can't imagine what word to use. The more I read about it the more I am affronted by the Convent there, and I am Catholic, so it is not an Anti-Catholic thing. Even today there is a Cross that stands erected at the site. Look, I get some Catholics and Christians perished there, but lets also not forget the vast majority of those doing the killings (outside the odd atheist or agnostic) were Catholics and Christians. And not of any whack job strain, these were Catholics and Lutherans.

- blackton

September 11, 2010 at 6:33pm

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I'm getting confused. I don't know who's against me anymore, and that's bad for my paranoia.

- ironyroad

September 11, 2010 at 6:45pm

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I don't think anyone is against you, Irony (though I can only speak for myself of course). But having established that you don't equate the Ground Zero attack with the Holocaust (I never thought you did), your analogy might nevertheless be examined on other grounds. As I understand it, the offense that was taken with regard to the Carmelite convent was that the death camps were sacred ground, sacred because millions of persons had been murdered there because of their religious/ethnic identity. Granting that Ground Zero is not comparable to the Nazi death camps, still it is regarded as sacred because thousands of people were murdered there. And let's assume (though it is debatable) that they were murdered because of their religious/national identity. So far so good. But for the "sacred ground" analogy to hold up, then offense should equally be taken to any OTHER place of worship being established near Ground Zero, and, as others have pointed out, to the commercial establishements that have been placed both near Ground Zero and on the site itself. That not being the case, then a reasonable inference is that offense is being taken because of the religion with with Park51 is associated. That basis for objection is, in my view, not defensible.

- NR143296

September 11, 2010 at 8:38pm

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We seem to keep coming back to this: the constitutional legitiamcy of the Cordoba Project was and is not in doubt (other legal issues such as the problem of the Cod Ed relocation may come into play); however, the fact of constitutional legitimacy and the execution of actions under that aegis are different things. There is a constitutional right to keep and bear arms. Does this mean, however, that no regulation at all is permitted, that private property rights have no remit, that anyone is entitled to own and carry any type of armament anywhere? Even after recent Supreme Court decisions, there are still issues of public order and local authority that haven't been neutralized (much as the NRA would like to do that). Constitutional absolutism is a bad cultural idea, even if it's legally attractive at times. The Constitution is not a suicde pact, as someone once said. Likewise, the question that I'd put and is being put to the Cordoba people is, why there? If that siting is causing so much trouble, and is clearly not helping the mission of exchange and healing and interfaith communication that you've run up the flagpole, why not accept that and along with it the offer of another site? Why dig your heels in? As I said before, it's as if the Cordoba project is saying, we are are going to build here and we don't care what anyone else thinks and when we're all built and ready, we're going to friggin' well start exchanging and healing and communicating whether anyone likes it or not!

- ironyroad

September 11, 2010 at 9:30pm

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We could have not invaded Iraq. That would have been a better way to respond to 9/11.

- miceelf

September 11, 2010 at 11:29pm

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What Irony said. Also, if there had been an overreaction on this anniversary of 9/11 it’s on the part of those wooly headed mushy self declared “liberals” ( I don’t think they are real liberals whom I have always admired) who keep harping about the sensibilities of Islamic Americans. Both the New York Times and the Boston Globe had major stories about Muslims who died on 9/11. They almost made it seem that Muslims were the real target of the attacks. The fact that it was a bunch of committed and fanatical Muslims thugs who perpetrated the attack is rarely mentioned. This is pretty sickening and I am not surprised that so many non-Muslim Americans view the attempt to rewrite the history of 9/11 with the building of Mosques and Muslims Centers next to ground zero with disgust.

- jdyer

September 11, 2010 at 11:29pm

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Irony, I understand that. But I don't think it's too unreasonable to at least briefly interrogate some of the reasons why people are upset about the Park 51 project. many of the opponents, after very minimal inspection, appear to be basing their opposition to a: 1) conflation of all Islam with the 9/11 attackers; 2) conflation of all Islam with the most repressive strains in other countries ('grinch's "no mosques in the US until there are CHristian Churches in Saudi Arabia); and 3) other similarly bad faith arguments. There are some complaints that strike me as more reasonable, but they are framed in local ways, and the bulk of the national figures involved, to my mind, don't seem to be at all motivated by architectural preservation or a concern with the evenhandedness of New York's municipal affairs. Thus, many of the people who are "supporting" the Park 51 project are moreso reacting against the conflations and bad faith noted above than anything else. 1,2, and 3 are pretty much the prevailing climate in some corners of TNR, which tends to make this a proxy fight that is about a bigger issue. But I will point out that from the above perspective, building elsewhere could be a tacit admission that there;s some relationship between most Muslims and the qaeda fanatics. Another response to the "why not build it elsewhere" line- with the requisite provisios that you and duharto noted above. Back before I got married, I got a lot of "why can't you marry a nice girl from your own race" questions, and several people were very upset about the impending nuptials. I have no idea if an external observer would have weighed the intensity of the upset of the opponents more than the intensity of our love for each other, but it didn't mcuh matter to me. I was accused, among other things, of being insensitive. And the critics were correct- they WERE upset, and I probably COULD have found a "nice girl of my own race" to marry. But this was completely irrelevant to me. I stand by that response. I guess my point is that a very heavy portion of the opposition to Park 51 seems pretty illegitimate at best. I don't think we're obligated to respect others' sensitivities if they come from such places.

- miceelf

September 11, 2010 at 11:41pm

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miceelf " But I don't think it's too unreasonable to at least briefly interrogate some of the reasons why people are upset about the Park 51 project." What a dishonest poster. He can't even acknowledge that the Mosque will by ground zero. "Park 51 project" is such a sanitized name for what will be done there. It's like calling casualties of war "collateral damage."

- jdyer

September 12, 2010 at 12:08am

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Irony- I didn't say anything about the Constitution in my last post. I was simply addressing the legitimacy of the opposition to Park 51. Despite all of the pretexts that have been articulated for opposing Park 51, it seems to me that the real reason is the religious identity of the project. If so, the opposition is illegitimate, Constitution or no Constitution. The Constitution is implicated because opponents are pressuring the Park 51 backers to relinquish their First Amendment rights and they are doing so based on a reason (its religious identity) that goes to the core of what the First Amendment religion clauses are meant to protect. Look, I am a lawyer who is steeped in constitutional law. You are absolutely right that constitutional rights are not absolute. They sometimes come into conflict with on another, and there are sometimes "compelling reasons" for circumscribing or limiting the exercise of constitutional rights. In the context of speech rights, for example, speech can be restricted if it will have the immediate effect of inciting violence. And speech can be subjected to reasonable time, place or manner restrictions (e.g., you can't drive down the street with a megaphone at 3 am). But there is a presumption in favor of the Constitution. The burden is on those who would circumscribe the right, and the burden is a heavy one. So, here, the question is whether there is a sufficiently compelling reason to pressure Park 51 into relinquishing its constitutional rights. Stating that constitutional rights are not absolute is not a compelling reason. Ask yourself: Why are people even asking Park 51 "why there?" But for the fact that Park 51 is Islamic, no one would be asking that question. The "so much trouble" is not being caused by Park 51. It is being caused by those who oppose it, and they oppose based on religious prejudice or stereotypes. So should Park 51 nevertheless acquiesce in the prejudice because that would avoid conflict? Or should Park 51 stand up for its rights, even in the face of hostile opposition? I think that's their choice to make. But in the end, I think overcoming prejudice requires standing up to it, not giving in to it.

- NR143296

September 12, 2010 at 12:13am

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Well said, Mice. I think the interracial marriage example works better than my Little Rock 9 example. Less inflammatory, I suppose.

- NR143296

September 12, 2010 at 12:32am

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Yeah but mice, when someone asked you "why are you wanting to marry this girl if it's going to upset members of your family and circle of friends etc?" you could legitimately say, well because we love each other and want to get married, end of story. If you ask, say, Imam Rauf (as Soledad O'Brien did a few days ago) why do you want to build right there? the answer seems to be that if they didn't build right there it's a victory for extremists, it will offend Muslims, it's all about communication, and other reasons that seem to come up a little short of compelling. They have no answer even approaching the strength of your answer to your challengers. As there has been a mosque roughly the same distance from the WTC site for forty years and nobody has (as far as I know) attempted to close it down or otherwise persecute it, the idea that we are dealing with a general anti-Muslim tide in NYC seems a bit weak.

- ironyroad

September 12, 2010 at 12:37am

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"Look, I am a lawyer who is steeped in constitutional law." Ergo, Hurtado is right, he is always right, since lawyers are never wrong.

- jdyer

September 12, 2010 at 12:45am

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"I think the interracial marriage example works better than my Little Rock 9 example" Both examples are pathetically of the mark.

- jdyer

September 12, 2010 at 12:47am

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Irony- I understand. I guess the "not letting bullies win" seems m ore compelling to me than to you. As does the concern that it would reinforce the notions that the lead opponents are trying to promulgate. I guess I just find the "standing up to prejudice" argument noted by dhuharto more compelling than you do. That may say more about me and my foibles than anything else, but there it is. As to the fact that a mosque has been present for a long time and no one has said anything- well, I would hesitate before underestimating the stupidity of some of the lead figures of the opposition- Gingrich and Palin. I don't know that internal consistency was ever a strong suit. Also- irony, I appreciate your even tone throughout this discusion- nice to be able to discuss this without the usual accusations of holocaust denial that such discussions elicit elsewhere.

- miceelf

September 12, 2010 at 7:43am

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"I guess I just find the "standing up to prejudice" argument noted by dhuharto more compelling than you do. " This is a pretty sanctimonious way of putting the matter. Miceelf can't help being overwhelmed with concern for the persecution of Muslims that he sees in the protests against the mosque. He is that kind of guy. He "can sense the slightest human suffering." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16Xg-Gr9VuA&feature=related

- noga1

September 12, 2010 at 9:53am

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Noga, I made a rude remark to you a while back and later apologized for it. But you are really insisting on stepping up the personal attacks, usually based on a (deliberate? who knows) misreading; in this case, my argument wasn't about the"slightest human suffering" of Muslims, but about the motivations of the protestors. As I suspected at the time I apologized, there's really no point in engaging in you. I took the wrong tack in the past, and I was wrong, but there's really no point in further responding or acknowledging you. In this regard, icarusr was rightr.

- miceelf

September 12, 2010 at 10:10am

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"Miceelf can't help being overwhelmed with concern for the persecution of Muslims that he sees in the protests against the mosque. He is that kind of guy. He "can sense the slightest human suffering."" Only when it comes to Muslims; he is tone dead when it comes to antisemitic provocations by Muslims.

- jdyer

September 12, 2010 at 10:19am

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miceelf: So you can't take a little ribbing, can you? And by the way, "in this case, my argument wasn't about the"slightest human suffering" of Muslims, but about the motivations of the protestors. " is just reformulation, in complaint mode of exactly what I claimed about you: "Miceelf can't help being overwhelmed with concern for the persecution of Muslims that he sees in the protests against the mosque. " So I take it we are back to square one. You take back your apology for suggesting I was suffering from Asperger's syndrome as if it were some kind of crime or a source for shame. This plays in perfect pitch. The person who cannot see but anti-Muslim prejudice in the protests against the GZM gives himself leave to mouth abusive references about people who suffer from mental disorders. Some prejudices are good for adopting by way of "fighting" other perceived prejudices. I'd like to see your reaction if I were to ask you, as a contemptuous response to something you said and I disagreed with: What are you, a Muslim? Hypocrite.

- noga1

September 12, 2010 at 10:38am

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"On 9/11 Anniversary, Terror Threat Is More Homegrown" Carl Franzen "AOL News Surge Desk (Sept. 10) -- On the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the current threats facing the United States are less severe but increasingly homegrown, and, perhaps most worrisome of all, the U.S. government is still unprepared." http://www.aolnews.com/surge-desk/article/the-terror-threat-in-america-over-time-from-2001-to-2010/19629251 Give them a Mosque at "Park57" so they can mask their activities.

- jdyer

September 12, 2010 at 12:21pm

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I disagree jackson. We should prevent the Park57 mosque from being built so that they cannot mask their activities. And while we're at it, we should disestablish all mosques in the US so that the terrorists cannot mask their activities. Dhurtado

- NR143296

September 12, 2010 at 12:36pm

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noga, you can choose to continue to pretend I didn't apologise and didn't acknowledge that I was wrong. I stand by my apology. I said I was wrong in the post that you responded to, and you choose to frame that as me taking back my apology. Whatever. I was wrong then, and today, that choice was still the wrong one. It's impossible to have an honest or reasonable discussion with you. That much is clear. So, have fun.

- miceelf

September 12, 2010 at 12:54pm

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NR143296 "I disagree jackson. We should prevent the Park57 mosque from being built so that they cannot mask their activities." You meant to say "we should NOT prevent...." didn't you? This particular Mosque is different from the other ones since it carries a meaning the other ones don't. It is already an affront to the community and just as the city has the right to regulate commercial activities in different city areas (no porno shops on 42nd Street) it can regulate the building of Mosques. Here in the Boston area the Mormons wanted to build a huge complex and center but the residents of Belmont protested and forced them to scale down the scope of the project.

- jdyer

September 12, 2010 at 12:56pm

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miceelf "noga.... It's impossible to have an honest or reasonable discussion with you. That much is clear. So, have fun." It's impossible to have an honest discussion with someone as dishonest as miceelf. You pretense to niceness is just an act, isn't it?

- jdyer

September 12, 2010 at 1:00pm

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My comment above got cut off. miceelf "noga.... It's impossible to have an honest or reasonable discussion with you. That much is clear. So, have fun." It's impossible to have an honest discussion with someone as dishonest as miceelf. You pretense to niceness is just an act, isn't it? You are just an enabler of Islamic fanaticism. There is nothing they do that you won’t try to justify and if you can’t justify that you will ignore it.

- jdyer

September 12, 2010 at 1:01pm

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Mice, my even tone is just my style -- I don't think it has any inherent virtue, and anyway it slips quite often. Incidentally -- not sure if this is quite apropos, but as you went there -- I'm not Jewish, so my "security settings" for antisemitism and related habits are probably not as well tuned as is the case with others. That said, I pride myself on having a reasonably sharp eye for anything trending in the direction of Holocaust denial, Holocaust relativizing, or blame-the-victim rhetoric (even when it's dissimulating). JD, mice isn't an "enabler of Islamic fanaticism"! Come on. Just because some people disagree on the Park51 issue doesn't make them terrorist supporters. That's Fox News demagoguery.

- ironyroad

September 12, 2010 at 3:28pm

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I think that the reason so many views on the Mosque near ground zero are expressed in such vehement terms is that both sides are really arguing about something other than the construction of a Mosque. Many left wing Democrats see the Mosque as a counter to what they perceive to be “right wing” Republicanism, while the right sees it as a counter to “left wing socialism.” What we should be talking about is the nature of Islam and whether it can exist peacefully in a secular society. In other words can Islam acknowledge that the U.S. Constitution is the ultimate arbiter of laws in our society? Can they acknowledge that secular laws are above those of the Koran? Will they accept it peacefully?

- jdyer

September 12, 2010 at 3:32pm

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I'll be the first to agree that there is a vehement "diversity now and for ever" constituency in the U.S. that seems to see the presence of Muslims as a good in and of itself, despite the fact that many of them probably have ideas on sexuality etc a good deal closer to the Evangelicals than to, say, liberal academia. To that extent, it's something of a shadow-play for other conflicts in our society. I agree too that there is a problem with the absence of a clear "wall of separation" in Islamic thinking, but that was an issue with Catholicism in the 19th c. and remained one up to JFK's campaign in 1960. The American wars with Mexico and then later on in the Carribbean (and the Philippines) often had an anti-Catholic cultural tinge. These posters in places like Murfreesboro where Muslims are in the order of a 0.02% minority are ugly and offensive, and I'm not so stupid as to imagine they couldn't in some other time/place be saying "Jew" or "Romist" in the same tone. I also have to agree very strongly with the president when he pointed out at the presser that there are Muslim soldiers in American uniforms putting their lives on the line in Afghanistan and he's their commander-in-chief too.

- ironyroad

September 12, 2010 at 5:10pm

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miceelf at 12:54pm EDT " I stand by my apology. " miceelf at 10:10am EDT "As I suspected at the time I apologized, there's really no point in engaging in you. I took the wrong tack in the past, and I was wrong, but there's really no point in further responding or acknowledging you. In this regard, icarusr was rightr." Now I wonder who, reading the earlier statement is going to believe the later one. A apology made in such bad faith, what's it good for? Did you think that just because you apologized, after a manner, that I would stop criticizing your positions? Was that the purpose of your apology?

- noga1

September 12, 2010 at 5:15pm

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Irony if you and mice want to exchange love notes, that your affair. However, I don't see him as being nice. I also don't watch match TV (have no cable) and so don't know why you think me a Fox news watcher.

- jdyer

September 12, 2010 at 5:49pm

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malahat "Irony, "...I agree too that there is a problem with the absence of a clear "wall of separation" in Islamic thinking, but that was an issue with Catholicism in the 19th c. and remained one up to JFK's campaign in 1960..." I think two great differences are that there is no analog to jihad, or of Islamism." I was gong to answer this naive comparison also, malahat.

- jdyer

September 12, 2010 at 5:52pm

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My comparisons aren't naive, they are mature, elegant, and compelling. Like my only business suit. Which makes me wonder why everyone is so busy accusing me of naivety while trying to avoid the point (and the president's point) that there are Muslims in American uniform doing their duty in dangerous parts of the world, and gravestones in military cemeteries at Arlington and elsewhere with an Islamic symbol. As the Japanese-American regiment that fought in the Ardennes in WW2 had many soldiers with families in internment camps back home, it must be peculiar to be an American soldier while Americans who think they are so much more American than anyone else are marching against your place of worship back home in TN.

- ironyroad

September 12, 2010 at 6:32pm

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No, noga. I said at the time that i apologized that I thought that conversing with you was a waste of time for both of us but that did not at all excuse my behavior. THere were a myriad of more appropriate ways for me to deal with our communication failure, and I chose the wrong way. That was what I said then, and that was what I meant. I was wrong for what I did. You expressed some hope about the possibility of us conversing positively, a hope I briefly shared. I saw that as a separate question from the wrongness of my actions in that regard. I mentioned my previous wrong actions and apology only to make it clear that my decision going forward, to ignore you is no way meant to convey that my actions were at all justified or right. It was wrong. So, yes. I was wrong, and the apology was sincere and will stand until the end of time. That has no bearing on whether it's useful for us to converse. You insist on either misunderstanding or misrepresenting me, and it's tiresome and boring, and i suspect so for everyone else, as well as myself. Your responses bear no relation to what I say, even when you quote portions of what I say. I have no idea what the reason for that is, and it's none of my business. I was wrong to ask if you had aspberger's syndrome, morally and ethically. I was wrong to assume that going forward it would be possible to dialogue in any honest way with you, but that was a practical error, that in no way excuses my previous behavior. I am done with that. Feel free to make up whatever silly position you want to attribute to me. I won't be responding any more. I was wrong. I apologized. It is a waste of time to converse with you. All of this is true.

- miceelf

September 12, 2010 at 7:46pm

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As to the Catholic comparison, at the time of the founding of America, the actual head of the catholic church was overseeing the Roman Inquisition, in which people deemed to be heretics were occasionally executed, as well as undergoing forced conversions and confiscations of property. (the truly heinous activities occurred a little before the founding of course, but there were still executions going on into the 1800s. Along with the occasional kidnapping of Jewish children, who were to be raised as catholic, at the direct behest of the pope. As well, it was the official belief that the Pope represented the voice of god on earth. Muslims have no pope, and while many elevate the Quran above secular law, this is true of most fundamentalist christians as well, and is explicit in the case of Jehovah's witnesses, and mormons, to name two. At least with the fundamentalists (be they muslim, christian, or other), their pledged allegiance is to a text which they interpret in a variety of ways. It's not directly to a foreign political power that (again, at the time of the revolution) was advocating murder and forced conversions o fthose he deemed heretics. And yet, America made room for Catholics, and this was a good thing.

- miceelf

September 12, 2010 at 7:57pm

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"Which makes me wonder why everyone is so busy accusing me of naivety " I didn't.

- noga1

September 12, 2010 at 8:02pm

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miceelf "As to the Catholic comparison, at the time of the founding of America, the actual head of the catholic church was overseeing the Roman Inquisition, in which people deemed to be heretics were occasionally executed, as well as undergoing forced conversions and confiscations of property. (the truly heinous activities occurred a little before the founding of course, but there were still executions going on into the 1800s. Along with the occasional kidnapping of Jewish children, who were to be raised as catholic, at the direct behest of the pope." The comparison is actually a contrast since the Catholic Church is no longer in the business of burning witches and kidnapping children while many Muslim countries and institutions is still in the business of cutting off hands, stoning or hanging adulterers.

- jdyer

September 12, 2010 at 8:10pm

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irony, just to be clear I didn't mean to jump at you. Obviously the choice to build there was not the smartest action, it is bad for everyone, Muslims, and Non-Muslims. The critical difference between this Mosque and the Convent was the attempt by the Poles and Church to claim victim status on an equal par with Jews, ie. the Holocaust happened to us all. I don't think anyone imagines that is this guys intention. I think the only reason they bought it there was because the price was right, but I could be wrong, maybe they did have other intentions. One other thing, I have to say I give Trumpy a little credit for trying to buy the place out at 25% above the purchase price. The guy begged off saying it is worth more, well, if people could come together with him to up the price that would put enormous pressure on them to sell. They wouldn't lose anything financially, in fact they would gain, and they could build a few blocks away.

- blackton

September 12, 2010 at 8:10pm

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"I think the only reason they bought it there was because the price was right, but I could be wrong" Coincidences like this are more like small miracles. As I don't believe in miracles, I don't believe there was anything coincidental about the initiative, starting with the name, the budget and the planned opening on 11/9/11.

- noga1

September 12, 2010 at 8:22pm

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the point, of course, is that at the time of the founding, when the first amendment was being written, and explicitly extended to Catholics, the Catholic churc was engaging in all of those things.

- miceelf

September 12, 2010 at 8:27pm

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The founding fathers didn't say "oh, this first amendment thing? Catholics, we'll see how your pope behaves and then we'll decide whether it applies to you or not"

- miceelf

September 12, 2010 at 8:29pm

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Noga: "I didn't" Merci (you weren't included in the "everyone") malahat: "So what?" Is that a serious question? Because if Muslims are serving with the U.S. forces -- and especially if deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan -- then it seems ugly, prejudiced, and racist for the people for whom said soldiers are putting their asses on the line to be marching through Tennessee in order to deny a basic American right to their families and community.

- ironyroad

September 12, 2010 at 8:36pm

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"(you weren't included in the "everyone")" The story of my life.

- noga1

September 12, 2010 at 8:40pm

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c'mon Noga, you have beautiful kids right? They are the only ones you have to worry about including you in their lives, the rest is trifles.

- blackton

September 12, 2010 at 8:53pm

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I'm not sure at this stage what we are arguing about, malahat. I made, as you can see for yourself in the passage you copied -- two points, one of which was the historical comparison with Catholicism and the other the one -- in which I summarized Obama's press conference remark -- about Muslims in American uniform. One is more of a historical argument -- and can be challenged, obviously -- the other seems to me to be a basic moral argument. I think what I was doing was querying why some fellow posters skipped neatly over the latter to call me on the former.

- ironyroad

September 12, 2010 at 9:47pm

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miceelf “the point, of course, is that at the time of the founding, when the first amendment was being written, and explicitly extended to Catholics, the Catholic churc was engaging in all of those things.” The Constitution didn’t exclude Blacks from the first amendment either, and your point? Catholics had a hard time in this country till the 20th century. They weren’t treated as the equals of Protestants mostly because of its history of persecution. Put simply many non Catholics were afraid of them and they had to prove that they weren’t “part of the Catholic Church in order to be trusted.” The bigotry against Irish Catholics in places like Boston was in part due t their Catholicism and not because they were Irish. Irish Protestants didn’t suffer the same kind of discrimination.

- jdyer

September 12, 2010 at 10:12pm

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The difference is that the founders explicitly commented on whether Catholics were to have first amendment rights and believed that they should. That is not the same thing as disrimination they faced, indeed, many different americans faced a lot of discrimination. But given that some want to have this discussion as to whther the founders really intended to extend first amendment rights to Muslims, it's somewhat relevant that they did explicitly believe that such rights should extend, to muslims and to Catholics. And this was at a time when the concerns that Catholics would have "divided" loyalties were at least as legitimate as such concerns about Muslims are now.

- miceelf

September 12, 2010 at 11:18pm

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miceelf "The difference is that the founders explicitly commented on whether Catholics were to have first amendment rights and believed that they should." There was State Maryland with a Catholic majority. Of course they weren't going to deny them first amendment rights. This doesn't mean that they wanted those same rights for Chinese, or Japanese, or Mongolians. Neither did they want to deny them to these people; they weren't even being thought of when the Constitution was put in motion. The fact that they were extend to them over time doesn't say anything about what the writers of the Constitution thought about that. They also didn't think about Muslims because their number if there were any was infinitesimally small. A couple of decades later we were at war with the Muslim peoples of North Africa. Had they known that they would attack us again this time in the US itself, I have no doubt they would have made thought very differently about how to frame the constitutional debate.

- jdyer

September 13, 2010 at 12:11am

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FYI: Here are some of the character who are part of the Mosque building project: "Ground Zero Mosque Group Includes 9/11 Denier" http://www.investigativeproject.org/2172/ground-zero-mosque-group-includes-9-11-denier

- jdyer

September 13, 2010 at 4:53pm

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This article is extremely peculiar, in that the first part is hard-headedly realistic but the last part reads as though the author has been spending a lot of time on another planet. The correct title should read "America Definitely Overreacted to September 11...and So Have the American People." To review: 1. The official 9/11 report and countless other accounts have made it clear that the system in place at the time was more than sufficient to stop the 9/11 hijackings, not just in the months prior but even on the day of the event, if people had been doing their jobs. But it is a weakness of our "leaders" to concoct grand strategies and plans but to ignore the dirty, boring business of seeing that those plans are implemented. 2. In the aftermath, of course there had to be a commission, and of course the commission could not just recommend modest improvements in our defenses but rather had to come up with grandiose new ideas, most of which have not had any effect. It then became an act of treason to oppose these recommendations. 3. One outcome of the commission's work was creation of the Department of Homeland Security, which did nothing but place dozens of agencies having nothing to do with each other under the control of several more layers of bureaucracy, headed by a Secretary who could not possibly manage such a monstrosity no matter who he or she was. Michael Chertoff probably did as well as anyone could have, but the present Secretary, Janet Napolitano, has no visible qualifications and little real interest in the job, viewing it primarily as a chance for political advancement (e.g. short list for the Supreme Court). One of the low points of this entire experience came last Christmas Day, when only the bungling of an aspiring suicide bomber saved an airplane and the nation from another traumatic event, moving Ms. Napolitano to proclaim that "the system worked." 4. Another non-starter was creation of a position known as the Director of National Intelligence, one of the most powerless jobs ever designed and one that no one of any stature has been willing to fill, at least not for long. (Quick: who is the current DNI?) Establishment of this position, of course, did nothing to diminish the power and secrecy of the existing intelligence agencies or to elicit any marked increase in communication or coordination. 5. Osama bin Laden, wherever he is, must get a continuing chuckle out of the billions we have spent to outfit would-be policemen as transportation safety officers who make old ladies get out of their wheelchairs, order all of us to take off our shoes, belts, etc., and now get a free peek at everyone's private parts, all in the service of a hideously time-consuming system that countless news reporters and others have shown can be breached almost at will. Perhaps there is something other than luck at work, but it seems to be a miracle that no further terrorist hijackings have occurred-- and that apparently nothing lethal has passed through our virtually unprotected seaports. Someone wrote in response to the 9/11 report that America is always planning to stop what has already happened rather than trying to anticipate what might happen next. May God (or Allah or Providence) continue to protect us as they have so far. 6. I often wonder what other nations think of our continuing to wallow in the tragedy that occurred now nine years ago. In terms of concrete responses, since the heroic work to clean up the site at Ground Zero, almost nothing has been done to advance the money-driven plan to erect what promises to be a grotesque and totally un- needed structure in the place where the World Trade Center stood. In addition, there is going to be a visitors center, which with the usual American good taste will immediately be surrounded by pretzel and hot dog vendors and do a land-office business in T-shirts that say "Mom and Dad visited Ground Zero and all I got was this lousy shirt." Of course, the horror of that day and the loss of 2,500 lives cannot and should not be forgotten, but are we completely incapable of creating a tasteful and peaceful memorial that pays proper respect and then encourages us to move on? The current squabble over building a Muslim center two blocks away, and the hatred it has revealed, are exactly what we should not be doing to honor the dead of 9/11. 6. The fact is, in a real sense we are fortunate that the destruction of the World Trade Center is the worst thing to happen to us. To the people of Iraq, the armed invasion of America and other armies on the basis of false information, that has killed probably 50 times as many innocent civilians and leveled an entire country, probably more than equates to the trauma caused by the events of 9/11. The people of Israel and Palestine, who face close-up deadly terror nearly every day of their lives because of the intransi- gence of their leaders, would probably say the same. 7. Of course, the war in Iraq is the worst example of American overreaction to the events of 9/11, since it was based on "intelligence" that we should have known or did know was wrong, since Iraq posed no threat to the United States and was a check on Iranian aggression, and since we have destroyed an entire civillization for no purpose except to create an American-style "democracy" that will probably not last out the year. The invasion of Afghanistan had some initial credibility, but it was pursued without a clear plan, without anything like sufficient resources, and at least in part as more of a lead-in to attacking Iran--which, it must be remembered, had no al-Quaeda then and had nothing to do with what happened on 9/11. The war in Afghanistan was probably doomed from the beginning, has failed in its only valid purpose, and has become an unwinnable mess which because of Vietnam-like hubris we insist on achieving something we cannot. 8. Which brings me to the last two-thirds of Mr./Ms. Gerecht's article. A lot of people would disagree that America has not become a police state, and one of my greatest disappointments with Obama is that he has continued to defend extra- ordinary rendition, opposed the release of Guantanamo prisoners who are no longer charged with anything, and failed to close the Cuban base. Meanwhile, our fair country- men refuse to open their hearts, or at least their minds, to even the most obviously blameless Guantanamo captives or to allow anyone held there to be moved even to an American maximum-security prison. The President has made little effort to overcome this resistance, in part, no doubt, because he is suspected of being a co- conspirator. 9. It is simply not so that Americans have been "well-behaved" toward American Muslims, as the article astoundingly asserts. It really is not necessary to argue this point but only to recall the vehemence of opposition to the Muslim center in New York City and to new mosques here in Tennessee and around the country, along with assorted instances of Koran-burning and the like. As the Kristof article in the New York Times points out, in one poll 52% of Republicans said it was definitely or probably true that President Obama sympathizes with Islamic fundamentalists who want to impose their law around the world. Which assumes, as we all know, that the President is probably a Muslim and therefore not to be trusted. 10. So a Muslim woman wearing a veil searched the author's luggage when he first flew into Washington after 9/11--what does that prove? So Fareed Zakaria has risen to prominence after the 9/11 attacks--wasn't he well-known before those events and anyway, what were we supposed to do, shoot him? Is he even a Muslim?--I wouldn't know. But I suppose he supports Islamic world domination too and his articles are a not-so-subtle attempt to undermine American security. In any case, Zakaria's well-deserved prominence does not prove that Americans have been "models of tolerance," as even the writings on this website (one since retracted) have demonstrated. Heaven only can say what would happen here in fly-over country, and among people who ought to know better, if al-Quaeda ever succeeded in an another show of force.

- mlottman

September 14, 2010 at 8:15pm

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Janet Napolitano's comment was perfectly understandable except for those who sought not to understand it. She meant that as soon as the attack was thwarted, the appropriate measures were taken quickly to secure the suspect, raise the possibility of a multi-pronged attack, and so forth. The "system" does not include the aiport/airline security mechanisms at Schipol in Amsterdam, which is the responsibility of another country, not the United States. The "system" certainly does include the Dept of State whose embassy in Lagos failed to respond to the warnings from the perpetrator's father, but it is very difficult to lay that at the door of Homeland Security, who don't run America's embassies overseas.

- ironyroad

September 14, 2010 at 9:56pm

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ironyroad: You're right--Janet Napolitano is an authentic American hero. My point was not that she was personally at fault for the Christmas Day near-bombing, but that her first reaction was political: we did everything right. Trying to put a positive face on yet another "system" failure. And the larger point is that the DHS is responsible for everything and nothing, to the point where no one, even the great Janet Napolitano, can make it work.

- mlottman

September 15, 2010 at 10:52pm

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